New Business Platforms for Plant Based Ingredients
01 Dec 2016 | Naturex
This is Rob Wires at the HIE in Frankfurt and I'm here with Olivier Rigau, who is the CEO of Natrex.
Olivia, can you tell me a bit about some of the trends that are happening in the industry right now where you see opportunities for Natrex?
So first, we, we see a lot of opportunities, you know, in fruit and veg derivatives.
So, This is one of our four key strategic categories, and there is a very high demand primarily in the US today to move to raw foods, raw products, unpasteurized, low processed, to keep really all the nutrients in the, in the product.
So this is one of the big heavy trends we see.
Next to the traditional shifts from artificial synthetic to of course, natural ingredients.
OK, what are you doing in order to address this trend then?
So basically, what we are doing in terms of sourcing is really making sure we have a strict control and mastering of the supply chain.
Both fruit and vegetables, but also in our plants, we've developed new technologies to make sure that we have a very low temperature processes and very low temperature drying, making sure that in the finished products, we still keep, first of all, the taste, but also The nutrient profile, so this is one of the examples, practical examples we are doing to address that trend in fruit and veg.
OK.
Anything you can say about what's in your development pipeline right now?
What, what are some of the things we can expect in 2017 from Natrex?
So, there are a couple of things in, in, again, phytoactives, which is also an important part of our business.
We decided to invest, massively into more science, so as part of our strategic plan, we've decided to move our R&D spendings from 3% of revenue up to 5% and primarily to Through clinical studies.
So actually we have really increased the number of clinical studies we are running in parallel.
So we have about 12 running right now.
So with in mind some of the first launches by the end of 2017 and early 2018.
Can you be a bit more specific in terms of the extracts that You're looking into, so it is, again, a variety of extracts, again, one of the things we, we are good at in Natur is going to source new plants and trying to get new active components.
So I, I couldn't disclose right now because this is preparatory and I don't want to disclose prior to launch, but some of the big axes we are.
Immunity, but also sports nutrition and having in mind also that what could work for muscle mass buildup could also be, I think, a very strong value proposition for sarcopenia, for instance.
So obviously a big trend towards using plant extracts and the inherent benefits of Of plants, botanicals, you're very confident about the outlook for the market and where you see opportunities going forward.
Yes, I think in phytoactive is also similar to fruit and veg, you know, we are not focusing only on pure extracts.
We have an approach that we've really been able to scale up.
And demonstrate towards full spectrum product.
So the, the example we've developed for cranberry, you know, is a good one, because we don't go for necessarily the high level of proanhocanidine anymore, but we're offering full spectrum, derivatives and we've been able also to demonstrate that the efficacy is much higher than the pure active component.
So one of the biggest launch, we will have in the next month is about Aronia, you know.
Arua is also known as a chokeberry, and we will apply exactly the same recipe for success as the one that we've experienced on cranberry.
As a reminder, you know, this, this is position for cardiovascular disease, so, so we are really hopeful.
Our next Aronia launches in a month to come.
Natur increasingly sees itself as a kind of consolidator within the industry.
Can we expect a few more acquisitions and so forth, expansion plans in that regard in the months ahead?
Yes, so as part of the Bright 2020, we said at that time we would do a poll in 2015.
But we've been back in 2016 in exploring opportunities.
I can say that right now we have a very healthy type of acquisition lined up.
Obviously, you know, in this type of discussion, it's very difficult to speculate on one day might come, but we are very active behind the scene on Building a pipeline Exploiting the pipeline, so hopefully there is.
In a month to come.
Lots to follow.
OK, thanks very much.
Welcome.
