Plandaí inks deal for distribution of Phyotofare extracts in India
Under the deal, India company Bal Pharma, a manufacturer and exporter of pharmaceutical finished formulation/bulk drugs and distributor of nutraceuticals ingredients, will use the Plandaí’s Phytofare line of highly bioavailable plant extracts in its finished formulation products while also distributing Phytofare as an active ingredient in its own right throughout India.
“Bal Pharma should quickly be able to generate substantial market penetration for Plandaí. Our agreement with such a highly-regarded Indian company further validates the fifteen years of research that has gone into bringing Phytofare® to market and the solid science behind our phyto-available products,” said Callum Cottrell-Duffield, vice president of sales for Plandaí. Earlier this year the company concluded a deal to put its ingredients into products on shelves in South Africa.
Tea plantation roots
Plandaí, which has a corporate office in Logan, UT but sources its raw material and does its processing in South Africa, began as an effort to rehabilitate a derelict tea plantation the country. The tea estate had gone to seed, literally, with the bushes allowed to grow into small trees and the processing facilities wrecked. After a number of years and a hefty infusion of cash, the company reported the rehabilitation process to be complete.
Plandaí has built its business model around a propriety CRS processing and extraction system for live plant materials that alters the isomeric properties of phytonutrients in live plant material and rearranges them in a ratio such that they are significantly better absorbed. In the case of the tea from the plantation, the leaves are processed within hours of picking.
According to Plandaí, in human tissue antioxidants are normally found in both cis and trans isomer compounds in a 50/50 ratio.
However, flavonoids in green tea might have a 95:5 cis:trans structure, while lycopene in tomatoes usually has a 95:5 trans-to-cis ratio. In both cases, the bioactive components are therefore very poorly absorbed.
Plandaí’s process changes trans-isomers into the cis form (e.g.. for lycopene) or vice versa (changes cis-isomers into the trans form, e.g.. for green tea catechins and citrus limonoids and bioflavanoids), such that the end product is far more bioavailable, representing a step change in the industry, the company has said.
Plandaí has applied its proprietary hydrodynamic extraction process to citrus fruits and plans to test it on cannabis as well.
