African extracts employ nanotech processing

Related tags Medicinal plants

Fledgling South African ingredients firm, AfriNatural Corporation, is using a patented encapsulation process it says will improve the salability of its offerings in the North American market.

The company, which counts aloe vera, hoodia gordonii and rooibos extracts among 100s of African plant extracts in its portfolio, said the process offered benefits such as reduced “grittiness” in end products, whilst having little effect on bottom line costs.

The patented process, DynaCell-D, is owned by Green Cell Technologies, and uses nanotechnology to disturb the material and “harvest the desired molecules” using non-chemical cold extraction.

Hoodia will be the first ingredient to undergo the process at commercial quantities.

AfriNatural president, Michael Sophinos, said the process, met GMP standards, had the potential to deliver substantial benefits in the area of extract purity, while offering water solubility and increasing yield per gram.

He said a desired molecule from the sceletium plant called mesembrine could be extracted at rates of seven percent, compared to 0.59 percent with traditional methods. Also known as kanna and kauwgoed, sceletium is said to be used as a mood enhancer and relaxant.

“This process allows you to better isolate constituents,” he said. “It also delivers them in finer packages that are more desired by potential clients in the functional foods and food supplements areas.”

Making it in America

AfriNatural set up operations in Atlanta, Georgia, late last year, as a subsidiary of its South African parent, itself born only a year ago, and is in negotiations with leading dietary supplements players, with “products due on shelves this year.”

Functional foods and drinks were also being explored with talks advancing with a prominent North American beverage company.

However Sophinos admitted there was much work to do in the way of scientific backing for many of the company’s offerings, some of which had only limited traditional use backing, and some very little at all.

But several of the more prominent ingredients met US Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Organic Program (NOP) standards including hoodia, sceletium, rooibos, sutherlandia frutescens, pelargonium sidiodes, rosehip, honeybush and harpagophytum.

He said the company was working with commercial and research partners on developing science behind some of these ingredients and others including Schinus molle (Pepper tree), Artemisia afra (African Wormwood), Schinus terebinthifolius (Brazilian pepper), Terminalia sericia (Silver Cluster Leaf)and Warburgia salutaris (Pepper Bark Tree).

Some of its ingredients were sourced from western Africa and Madagascar.