“As we expand our functional ingredients offering, Benicaros’ versatility and health benefits make it a perfect fit for our portfolio,” said Nate Yates, vice president & general manager of sugar reduction and fiber fortification at Ingredion. “This highly differentiated prebiotic carrot fiber addresses the limitations of traditional prebiotic fibers that require high daily intake, have tolerance issues and formulation challenges.”
Headquartered in the Chicago suburbs, Ingredion turns grains, fruits, vegetables and other plant-based materials into ingredient solutions across food, beverage, animal nutrition, brewing and industrial markets in more than 120 countries and reported annual net sales of approximately $7.2 billion in 2025.
The Benicaros acquisition is an asset deal that includes full ownership of all intellectual property, trademarks, human clinical trials and know-how related to manufacturing the product.
The rise and roll out of Benicaros
Developed by NutriLeads from upcycled carrot pomace sourced from Germany, Benicaros launched into the U.S. market as an immune health ingredient in 2021.
It is positioned as “precision prebiotic” that selectively influences beneficial gut microbes while also interacting with the immune system and differentiates itself from traditional prebiotics like inulin or FOS due to its specific rhamnogalacturonan-I (RG-I) polysaccharide structure delivered through the company’s proprietary RG-1 platform and is backed by multiple clinical trials.
“I have been active in this field for more than 25 years and have never seen another ingredient with such distinctive data supporting its effectiveness,” Dr. Ruud Albers, co-founder and form chief science officer, said following the U.S. launch. “Our main clinical trial demonstrates unique and very consistent effects of BeniCaros. There are many immune health ingredient options out there, but very few that work like BeniCaros and even fewer that work with the same efficacy to support immune function.”
In April 2022, Nutrileads received a letter of no objection regarding its generally recognized as safe (GRAS) status from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for Benicaros. It covered use in range of food and beverage products including non-alcoholic beverages and beverage bases, breakfast cereals, dairy product analogs, grain products and pastas, baby foods, milk products, processed fruit and vegetable juices, snack foods and soups.
Shortly thereafter, Benicaros debuted in a Daily Immunity blend within Bayer’s Stem & Root product line and has since been adopted into dozens of supplements worldwide, including the LOAM Prebiotic Fiber Formula, WeCarrot daily capsules, Gastro-Fiber by Standard Process, Nature’s Bounty Superfoods, EcoBloom by Body Ecology, Amare GBX Burn, Vitals Ultimate Fibre Blend and Well Travelled’s Immune Activator, as well as a selection of functional beverages.
The ingredient has also secured regulatory approvals across the Asia-Pacific region, from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) as a novel food and most recently from Brazil’s Health Regulatory Agency (ANVISA) for inclusion in dietary supplements at dosages of up to 300 mg per day. These approvals are supported by local distribution agreements.
Benefits at low dosage
Researched benefits of BeniCaros include training innate immune cells for faster responses to future challenges, reducing the severity and duration of symptoms following a controlled common cold virus challenge and supporting the recovery of nasal airway cells after a viral exposure.
Evidence to date also shows that the ingredient consistently increases beneficial Bifidobacterium species in individuals with differing baseline gut microbiomes, where variability across individual microbiomes makes it difficult to demonstrate the efficacy of functional ingredients.
In addition, the research indicates that a daily serving as low as 300 mg increases the body’s production of beneficial short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) and indole-3-propionic acid (IPA), which are linked to better metabolic and gut health, while generating less gas than inulin.
“The benefits list of Benicaros is quite long, and the fact that it comes from upcycling carrot juice production, supporting sustainability and a circular economy, is all the more exciting,” Ingredion’s Yates added.
Nutrileads and Benicaros received the NutraIngredients award for ingredient of the year in the microbiome modulation category in 2024 and was selected as the research project of the year in 2022 for its identification of a new natural immune ingredient with clinically proven health benefits.
