The omega-3 industry may be facing renewed pressure around fish oil supply, but Andrew Hebard, founder and CEO of Natures Crops, sees a bigger challenge.
Speaking with NutraIngredients following the Regenerate Symposium in Halifax, Hebard discussed why simply “reshuffling the supply deck” will not close the nutrition gap, where plant-based omega-3s fit alongside marine sources and why he believes the industry needs to broaden both the sources and applications it considers part of the omega-3 market.
NutraIngredients: What prompted Natures Crops to organize the Regenerate Symposium, and what conversations within the omega-3 industry did you feel weren’t happening or weren’t happening enough?
Andrew Hebard: It’s really about trying to enlarge our community and bringing so many different disciplines and skill sets and expertise to the table to share ideas and to tackle a challenge that I don’t think is really being addressed at the moment around omega-3 nutrition.
At the moment, omega-3 and fish oil are in the news because there’s a supply crisis and that’s causing price concerns and supply concerns.
But all we’re doing is reshuffling the supply deck.
I’m a farmer and I’m forever thinking about resiliency and quality of food and that sort of thing.
A successful outcome for us is that people share this with other people. If it just stays within the 140 people who were here today, that wasn’t a success.
NI: Why, in your opinion, has the industry struggled to close that gap despite the 50 years of research? Consumer awareness and product development also play a role. Why do you think the industry is struggling to close that gap?
Hebard: I think the omega-3 industry is founded on fish oil. It’s a fact.
The whole supply chain- the harvesting, the processing, the distribution, the science is based on fish oil.
Food companies don’t dispute that omega-3s are essential and they’re good for you. They say, I’m not messing with that. That’s a risk to my brand because it’s very difficult to formulate fish or algal oil into a plant-based milk or even a cow-based milk, or anything that has any concern over taste, sensory, and shelf life.
Brands are built on people buying their product again because they say it tastes good.
You’ve got the fact that the supply industry has been built around fish. The other one is that the food manufacturing industry has been built around non-fish.
NI: Where do you see plant-derived oils fitting into the broader omega-3 market rather than simply competing with fish oil?
Hebard: I think if there’s a recognition, which there is, but a growing recognition that plant-based omega-3s are actually complementary to fish oil, and we look at a broad spectrum omega nutrition, then I think they play an ideal role in taking the pressure off fish resources.
I think part of it will come through complementarity and framing it as part of the whole.
I think it’s inevitable, but it’s unfortunate that plant-based is being elevated not for its strengths, but because of fish oil’s weaknesses.
That will help the plant-based movement, but it shouldn’t be the reason. It should be another contributing factor.
Let’s not treat omega-3s as a cure. Let’s treat them as a basic element of our fundamental nutrition.
We should get them from different sources.
NI: What are supplement brands and formulators asking for from omega-3 ingredient suppliers today that they weren’t asking for five or ten years ago?
Hebard: Traceability and sustainability have always been front of mind, but they have been greenwashed a little bit, so it’s been more about box-checking.
Now they’re auditing your supply chain.
Show me, show me the evidence, and this idea of resiliency is really coming to the fore: how resilient is it, how vulnerable are we to climate change or to even things that are beyond- climate’s obviously beyond our control, but things that are man-made, like subsidies or tariffs or are you vulnerable to that?
The cost of running out, though, is like I’ve got to reformulate, I’ve got to relabel, I’ve got to repackage, I’ve got to do new stability trials.
So I think brands are wanting to say, let’s really think about the resiliency of our supply chain.
The days of having 20 different suppliers we could call upon and just trade one off against the other for the cheapest ingredient are gone.
I think there is real agency and value in having relationships with farmers.
NI: Where do you see the biggest untapped opportunity for omega-3 innovation? Is that in the science and the formulation, the delivery formats, consumer positioning or in another area?
Hebard: I think it’s probably all of the above, but I think food and beverage is untapped.
I think the advent and ubiquity of GLP-1 nutrition is making people think about nutrient density.
I think food and beverage, and if you’re familiar with the plant-based milk category, is huge.
But that requires innovation around delivery systems.
I’m a big fan of food and beverage.
NI: If the omega-3 industry is still talking about a significant nutrition gap five years from now, what will the industry have gotten wrong?
Hebard: I think it will have focused too heavily on preserving today’s market rather than growing for tomorrow’s market.
The dominant players have great market share, and they want to maintain it, so they’re having to think about reshuffling the EPA and DHA source deck.
And there’s every reason why they should continue doing that.
But I think the tent has to get bigger, and it has to bring in new players.
And particularly in food and bev companies that say actually there’s an opportunity here.
It’s gonna need more events like this; it’s going to need a bigger tent.
I don’t think people can unhear what they’ve heard or unsee what they’ve seen, which I think is a good thing.
