Convenient nutrition offers ‘co-opportunity’ for industry, says BASF VP

05-Dec-2013 - Last updated on 05-Dec-2013 at 18:50 GMT

Samy Jandali, VP of BASF Nutrition & Health, North America

Related tags Nutrition Omega-3 fatty acid Fish oil

Creative delivery forms offer significant opportunities for industry to increase compliance with dietary supplements, says BASF’s Samy Jandali.

Speaking with NutraIngredients-USA at the recent SupplySide West show in Las Vegas, Jandali said: “Look at the data from CRN, two thirds of US adults are using dietary supplements, and they’re confident with the safety and efficacy.

“However, 30% of consumers say they don’t always comply. That’s an opportunity.”

This lack of compliance is due to the delivery forms not being convenient, he said. “We need to have creative delivery forms to increase compliance.”

BASF’s Newtrition platform is focused on ‘customer-centric innovation’ or ‘co-opportunities’, he said. “Co-opportunity is not a buzzword.”

‘Verbund powerhouse’

Jandali talked at length about the recent Frost & Sullivan smart prevention study, commissioned by the Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN). In the US, 75% of health care dollars go to the treatment of chronic disease, with only 3% spent on prevention, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

“That’s unacceptable,” said Jandali. “We have the means to deal with the effects of chronic disease.”

The F&S report was a “very valuable piece of work whereby we learned about the potential costs savings linked to ingredients supplied by BASF”, he said.

Of particular interest were the omega-3 findings, with omega-3 supplements potentially offering significant healthcare cost savings. Specifically, according to the F&S report, CHD currently costs the US $77.9bn, and with omega-3s offering a relative risk reduction of 6.9%, the cumulative health care cost savings from 2013 to 2020 could be more than $3.88 billion.

“Omega-3 is big,” he said, “and we have a unique portfolio with both pharma and human nutrition delivery forms available to different groups.”

The company is very confident in its ‘broad’ omega-3 portfolio after several years of acquisitions (Cognis, Equatec, and Pronova), he added. “For the first time we have combined our pharma and human nutrition expertise to produce our ‘Verbund powerhouse’.” [Verbund is German for combined/integrated]

Innovations

On the potential of other acquisitions in the omega-3 space, Jandali said that you can never rule anything out, and omega-3s are a very attractive market. “There is compelling science for omega-3s supporting the demand. We are uniquely positioned with our existing portfolio.”

The company showcased a number of prototypes for omega-3 delivery forms at SSW, including a lemon-flavored omega-3 oil, which has received recognition from the International Taste & Quality Institute (ITQI) with the ‘Superior Taste Award 2013, and high concentration ‘Mighty Gels’, which used the PronovaPure 500:200 TG omega oil in a smaller softgel than regular fish oil soft gels.

With 30% of people having problems swallowing tablets or capsules, the smaller capsules and higher grade fish oil is “co-opportunity for people with swallowing problems and for those who want to avoid fishy burps”.

Recent headlines relating to a controversial study about omega-3 and prostate cancer have been a concern for some in the industry, but Jandali and BASF remain bullish over the potential of the sector. “There is such a vast amount of positive studies for omega-3s and cardiovascular health. I am not concerned about the future and growth of omega-3s at all.”