Botanicals giant refines fruit & veg extracts range for food supplements
While it has offered some fruit and vegetable extracts, mostly for use in food applications, its ‘fruits&greens’ range that includes tangerine, pineapple and spinach is produced to higher standards to meet demands of nutraceutical clients, business manager Alexis Manfre told us.
“Now we are guaranteeing nutra standards around contaminants and microbial quality,” said Manfre, who noted while it always ensured high-level QC, systematic ID testing using TLC (thin layer chromatography) and/or HPLC (high performance liquid chromatography) was not a pre-requisite in the food arena.
“We have had a lot of requests from our nutraceutical clients who are adapting products to meet the trend for clean label for example. There have been trust issues in places like the US around labelling and ingredients for example.”
Innova Market Data has found 50% of European and American shoppers consider ‘natural or all natural’ to be important when food shopping.
The extracts’ health benefits are being marketed via approved claims in different jurisdictions based on their vitamin and mineral content.
Manfre said end-products featuring the extracts, which are slightly more expensive than their food-based counterparts, were on-market in the US and Italy, and work was underway to expand the offerings.
“Other extracts can offer other vitamins and minerals and we are working on that right now.”
Sources in the range include orange, lemon, raspberry, strawberry, redbeet, carrot, tomato and celeriac. Powder sachets, gummies and shakes are proposed matrixes by Naturex’s SpringLab.
The range comes in two forms: with or without a ‘dried on carrier’.
It will be put on public display for the first time at the Supply Side West trade show in Las Vegas next month.
