A BBC investigation in the UK has questioned quality control in the botanicals sector, especially those sold as food supplements. The industry has called for greater enforcement.
Cosucra will look to form new partnerships with suppliers of ‘complimentary ingredients’ and companies that can help to deliver better taste and functionality to its ingredients, as it looks to almost double turnover in the next five years.
A greater understanding of how nutrition and immunity are intrinsically linked, and how different biomarkers reflect states of illness and good health is vital to nutrition and public health research.
The EU’s ban on prebiotics and probiotics as marketing tools has cost the market €500m and will cost a further €1bn by 2020 according to Euromonitor International data – and that’s just drinking yoghurt. Other formats have also been hit.
While there are several challenges involved in the nano-delivery of vitamins and nutrients in functional foods, such systems have ‘considerable potential’ within the food industry, says an expert in oral delivery systems.
Finnish food-agriculture giant Raisio has launched its cholesterol-lowering, plant stanol-based Benecol brand in China in a powder form via mostly medical channels in its big coastal cities.
Consumption of a green tea extract has been suggested to reduce rates of cancer in certain indiviuals while reducing levels of the cancer biomarker prostate-specific antigen (PSA), say researchers.
The Italian health food market is booming – 80% of Italians consume food supplements or functional foods – but regulation threatens a sector comprised of 1800 firms, a congress has been told.
Market analyst Euromonitor International dissects recent NutraIngredients Awards winners to provide category perspective from sustainable omega-3 to healthy ageing in this guest article.
Better Lactobacilli genetic screening, biomarker development, better pregnancy support and better engagement with health professionals were just a few of many actions proposed to improved women’s health at a recent Amsterdam congress focused on the female...
While body builders have long said that vitamin E helps build strong muscles, the mechanism by which it may bring such benefits has been unknown – until now.
Products such as probiotic pizza, probiotic snack bars, high-fibre chicken or fish-oil fortified yoghurt may seem bizarre, says market expert Julian Mellentin in this guest article, but since 1990 thousands of products like this have been launched – and...
Nutrigenomics – the idea of optimising nutrition via individualised and/or pooled genetic data – is one that has long promised to revolutionise how we eat – not to mention keeping us healthy and out of hospitals. Are converging technologies about to deliver...
April 8, 14:00 CET: Experts debate hot issues in NutraIngredients omega-3 forum
Are omega-3 fisheries really under threat? How many functional foods have cracked omega-3 blockbuster status? How is the sector recovering from the ‘Brasky effect’? How are developing markets developing? How is the latest research influencing regulation?...
Big Food needs to care more; start-ups can’t feed a planet housing 9bn people in 2050; and genuine disruptive technologies are spawning and spinning faster than flapping butterfly wings…So, er, stay calm and keep making (hopefully healthy) food.
High dietary intakes of calcium in combination with hormone treatment may be a more effective way of boosting bone formation than the nutrient or hormone alone, according to research in mice.
Gut microbiome engineering can reduce stunting and other infant health issues and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is funding research into the nascent area.
New research describing the stable co-encapsulation of omega-3 rich oil with probiotic bacteria could be a boon for manufacturers looking to incorporate the functional ingredients in to foods and supplements, say researchers.
Allicin extracted from garlic may help fight antibiotic-resistant bacteria that cause lung infections in people with cystic fibrosis, according to researchers from the University of Edinburgh.
Two pending European Courts of Justice (ECJ) cases and the prospect of a unified pan-EU list of safe botanicals hold the potential to break the current deadlock around botanicals, according to experts.
Yakult and leading academics expressed frustration at what they see as unfair and opaque scientific requirements around probiotic health claims in the European Union – but how much is industry to blame and could social media be a data-sharing saviour?
Malaysian pharma-nutra firm InQpharm is taking positives from its white kidney bean extract, weight management health claim rejection at the hands of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).
Green tea and apple compound epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) may trigger a process which sees oral cancer cells killed while healthy cells are left untouched, according to US researchers.
The mainstream press has latched onto a mouse study that shows a bile-controlling, gut restricted pharma intervention can mimic food intake and therefore potentially be an obesity beater. But could it pass clinical inspection? One weight loss researcher...
New technologies are vital to the future growth of the food and nutrition industry, but their future success depends on much more than the science behind them.
The Swedish Medical Products Agency (MPA) says nearly 70% of ‘sexual potency’ food supplements it tested contained unlisted pharmaceutical ingredients.
A company developing a pharmaceutical chewing gum containing cannabinoids extracted from marijuana has announced plans to build a manufacturing facility in the Netherlands.
Probiota 2015 will return to Amsterdam next February, where global prebiotic, probiotic and microbiota focused industries and researchers will come together to bridge the gap between cutting edge science and business strategy.
BASF has sold its Norwegian, “natural fish oils, medium-concentrated omega-3s, and customised bottled fish oil” plant to Pennsylvania firm Marine Ingredients for an undisclosed sum as the German ingredients and chemicals giant switches its focus to high-end...
Faced with mounting difficulties in their drug businesses, many pharmaceutical manufacturers are looking at getting into functional foods and beverages, notes food marketing expert, Julian Mellentin in this guest article.
A Dutch healthy foods and supplements association has proposed a traditional claims regulation or amendment to EU health claim laws it says would ‘elegantly’ solve the ongoing and stalled imbroglio about how traditional food use data can back claims.
Personalised dietary advice based on a person's genetic makeup improves eating habits compared to current ‘one-size-fits-all’ dietary recommendations, say researchers.
Academic: "Anybody who thinks the world’s malnutrition problems are going to be solved without industry is dreaming."
By Shane Starling from the 3rd World Congress of Public Health Nutrition in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria
Emerging research linking vitamin E deficiency with increased risk of Alzheimer’s, miscarriages and fatty liver disease can contribute to an ongoing debate around recommended intakes, a nutrition congress was told yesterday.
Regulators in Italy’s €1.2bn food supplements market are cracking the harshest whips against health claims abusers in the EU – a firm was recently fined €250,000 – but will the wounds be deep enough to change the market?
Last week NutraIngredients published a guest article by author Bert Schwitters about the EU nutrition and health claims regulation (NHCR) that discussed the status of botanicals and associated claims in the European Union. Schwitters was not happy with...
Europeans are highly concerned about sharing genetic data for personalised nutrition projects, or nutrigenomics, a 9000-person, nine nation study has found.
France’s nutrivigilence work – launched in 2010 to ensure safety in food supplements and some foodstuffs – has improved the quality of the food supply, the country’s food safety agency has said.
Since 2008 the severity of the EU’s health claim laws has seen many firms seek other routes to back claims – the EU’s medical devices legal avenue being one of them. Amsterdam-based Maikel Hendriks, the CEO of Medical Brands, examines the controversial,...
The closure of the upcoming fishing season in Peru will have a generally positive effect on the suppliers of other niche omega-3 marine ingredients, sources say. But it is more complex than a mere commodity relationship in which scarcity in one source...
I am one of many scientists around the world whose work involves studying an ecosystem of diverse species. Some are already known to us, others have never been catalogued before.
Manufacturers in the sports nutrition space have the skills and knowledge needed to move in to the much larger and lucrative healthy ageing market, according to the chief technology officer at Lucozade Ribena Suntory.
Next Tuesday NutraIngredients is proud to host our first healthy ageing forum, an hour long online discussion about a booming sector with leading experts.
By RJ Whitehead & Shane Starling from HI-Japan in Tokyo
Japan has always led the world in functional food experimentation even if the results of most of that have remained within the confines of the 127.3m-strong nation with the world's oldest average lifespan - 84.6 years.
The pending health claims for caffeine and bowel-function botanical hydroxyanthracene are the "hot potatoes" being dealt with by EFSA and the European Commission, according to the head of the Commission's unit for nutrition, food composition...
"We aren’t going to wake up one day and everything will be crystal clear; there’s going to be some trial and error going through it.”
By RJ Whitehead & Shane Starling at Health Ingredients-Japan in Tokyo
Japan will implement a new health claims system that is set to supersede its strict FOSHU regime in April 2015 – just six months away – but what form will it take and will it meet its deadline?
