SupplySide Global 2025: HTBA’s nature-derived ingredients support holistic health & active performance
05 Nov 2025 | HealthTech BioActives (HTBA)
HTBA showcased its latest innovations in functional health and taste modulation. The company highlighted its nature-derived ingredients, which contribute to holistic daily and active performance. These solutions include MecobalActive, a pioneering active, pure, and highly effective form of vitamin B12 shown to support cognitive focus, physical power, and endurance. Bernardo Gonzaga, division manager at the company, tells us more.
This is Elizabeth Green reporting for Nutrition Insight and Food ingredients first.
I'm here in Las Vegas at the Supply Side Global Trade Show.
I'm here at the HTA stand with Bernando Gonzaga, who is the global division manager for functional health solutions at the company.
Welcome, Bernando.
Thank you so much for joining me.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for having me.
What can you tell us about what you're presenting here at Supply Side Global and how it, how your presence here.
The show is important to the company.
Yes, so here HTBA, what we're doing this year is we're kind of featuring our vitamin B12 active forms, right, in particular our product Miccoal Active, right?
Miccoal Active has been in the market now for several years.
There's been a lot of work that's gone into this product in particular.
We actually just recently did a clinical study that we're in the process.
We just submitted and it will be published very soon.
We're very excited about that one.
We're also just did a brand.
Website for Macoal Active and if you haven't seen it, please visit it www.mcoalactive.com.
In addition to that, of course, we're also a manufacturer of flavonoids, mainly from citrus fruits, but we can certainly do it from other sources.
We're also featuring those here as.
Nice.
So we know that you are sort of expert in nature derived ingredients.
Now what role do you see these ingredients playing in supporting holistic mind-body performance in today's market?
Yeah, so what we see is, of course, vitamin B12, for instance, is, is very familiar.
Everybody knows what it is, right?
Likewise, if you talk about flavonoids, maybe it's a little bit more unfamiliar, but there's a reason why when we were growing up, mommy and daddy used to say, please eat your vegetables, eat your fruits, because they have, they're loaded with flavonoids, right?
They have a lot of good properties inside of them, and that's what we do.
What we're doing is we're actually looking at nature to try to gather, some.
New solutions to introduce to the marketplace because flavonoids, if you're familiar with what they do, they actually have very powerful antioxidant effects and depending on which ones you source and which ones you utilize, they can cover an assortment of health benefits right where vitamin B12, vitamin B12 has long been thought to be that type of.
Ingredient that you only take to prevent deficiency in, right, but what we're finding out from the new clinical study that we did is actually you can take it and you can actually see some immediate health benefits from it.
So we're very excited about that in particular.
Nice.
OK, can you explain the science behind the Mecobial Active and its potential to enhance cognitive focus, physical power, and endurance?
Yes, so Mecob Active, so first, mecoal Active, I need to mention.
Is actually a bioidentical form of vitamin B12.
So what does that mean?
Most people don't know, but the most common form of vitamin B12 that you see out there in the industry is actually a synthetic molecule.
In other words, it doesn't exist in nature.
It doesn't exist in the human body.
So when you.
Assume it your body actually has to go through several steps before it can actually become an active form and your body can utilize it.
What Macoal Active does is we actually offer it to you in its active, as it's called active form, right?
So your body takes it, it recognizes it, it can use it immediately.
So what does it do?
Vitamin B12 does a lot of things, right?
In particular, it's very, it's synonymous with nervous system health and brain health, right?
So from the new studies that we recently just worked on, we're seeing that this is a product that can.
Increase cognitive function, help reduce fatigue, and also increase performance in a healthy population.
If you look at a lot of the science that's existed out there, it's usually been in usually a disease population, but what we've shown is, hey, this product can be effective for everyday individuals such as yourself and myself.
Nice.
OK, I was gonna ask how does this.
Form of vitamin B12 differentiate itself, but you've answered that question.
Our next question is what makes up to taste platform stand out in the taste modulation space, and how might it help manufacturers balance cleaner labels with improved taste, texture, and consumer satisfaction?
What can you tell us about that?
So obviously one of the things that we're seeing and trends in the industry are functional foods.
Right, functional foods has been taken off and has been growing a lot over the past several years now and what that means is when you use a lot of these ingredients we could talk about proteins, for instance, plant proteins continue to grow every year, right?
Sometimes they need a little bit of finesse and a little bit of of of help to make, improve the overall taste experience.
That's where Optitaste comes in.
It's actually a tailor-made solution.
So what we do, we work in collaboration with these companies that say listen, we have this product, it's a fantastic product we're very excited about introducing it, but we want to make it taste better we want to make it consumer friendly we want people to to stick with it and take it for the long haul so what we do is we discuss, we evaluate and we make it and make some tweaks to make sure that hey we're.
Providing the most the best tasting product out there on the market because of course taste is experience you need to make it taste great at the end of the day it could be as as healthy and as beneficial as as possible, but if it doesn't taste it's very difficult to get consumers to kind of stick to it for the long haul, right?
Definitely and we touched on it as , but these trends.
For health consciousness, you know, we're really seeing them take off at the minute.
What do you observe in the North American market specifically for health consciousness?
So for health consciousness, listen, especially after what we experienced during the COVID time, right, people were isolated.
People were kind of cut off.
They didn't go out as often, right?
People want to be happy when it's all said and done.
That's really what everybody's looking for, right?
So they figured out ways to do that.
One of it is obviously socializing, but another one is to be held active, right?
So what we're seeing is now sports nutrition, for instance, has evolved more into active.
Nutrition right because it's not it it it it's not what it used to be where it was just your elite athlete or your bodybuilders that are now taking supplements it's everyday people, individuals, moms and dads that are taking these products, right?
So what we're seeing is of course active nutrition is a category that's growing.
Of course not everyone is young forever.
Longevity is a big deal, right?
So healthy aging, right?
How do we, how do we get ahead of it?
The secret is starting early, right?
So if we can provide our solutions, we can explain it to the consumers and help them to understand, hey, this is why you need to take Mkoolla and this is why you should take your flavonoids.
You can address these matters before they become.
Issues right down the road.
Nice.
OK, we've touched on a lot of the functionality, the sort of clean ingredients and things like that, but how does the company focus on sustainability and how does this impact the development of your functional health ingredients?
So HTBA is a European company, right?
We're a Spanish company.
We're very proud of that, right?
And as a European company for us, it's, it's it's foundational for us to be very.
Sustainable, right, so that means what impact do we have when we're manufacturing these amazing solutions to the environment.
So what we do is we take extra steps to make sure that we're not only providing the purest product out there in the market but also the cleanest because for us it's about what else can we do in addition to that we can focus on the technology side, right, but the technology also has to do with the manufacturing piece, right?
How do you manufacture responsibility?
So HTBA, we, we do our part to be able to contribute in a positive way to the.
Environment.
Fantastic, thank you.
And finally then, Bernardo, there's a tasting bar not on the stand at the innovation zone, is that correct?
Correct, yes.
What concepts are at the tasting zone?
What can you tell us about how your presence is there?
So this year we've done something a little different.
This year we actually are doing chewing gum featured with our macobal active ingredients, right?
So again, we talked about functional foods.
Functional foods you're seeing them in so many different forms, right?
Bars, protein shakes, confectionery, now gums, right?
So we wanted to explore, and kind of embrace this trend.
So what we did is we kind of got this out of the box thinking and said let's go ahead and provide our solution in a gum format, OK?
It also incorporates our Atiate solution in there, so we hope people will come try it out.
Let us know what you think, but we think it's an outstanding product and of course you'll get obviously the health benefit from it as as you're walking the show.
It gives you plenty of energy, will make you feel real sharp and focused, so that's very exciting for us.
It's something new we haven't done before.
Nice.
So you're really combining taste, performance, and innovation.
That is correct.
We are bringing all three together.
Yes, nice.
Thank you so much, Bernardo.
It's great to speak to you.
Likewise, thank you so much.
