Vitafoods Europe 2024: DolCas Biotech highlights product applications for functional ingredients
29 May 2024 | DolCas Biotech
Dr. Shavon Jackson-Michel, DolCas Biotech’s medical and scientific affairs director, discusses the innovations the ingredient firm featured at Vitafoods Europe this year. These include its Curcugen branded turmeric extract that can be used in chocolates, gummies and beverages, as well as Morikol peptide fish collagen for healthy skin. She further outlines the market trends these products respond to and the scientific research behind their functionality.
This is Yolanda von Gal from Nutrition Insight.
I'm here at Vita Foods with Dulcas Biotech and Dr.
Siobhan Jackson Michel, who is director of medical and scientific affairs.
Yolanda.
Thank you for joining us today.
And let me first ask you, what innovations are you featuring in Bfoods this year?
OK, so this year, one of our most exciting innovations is our chocolate, dark chocolate, 65% chocolate infused with kurkey jam.
Is our branded turmeric extract.
It's a 50% concentrated material.
It has a spectrum of other natural native ingredients to turmeric, including essential oils, polysaccharides.
It's also water dispersable, which makes it really convenient and unique for formulation into functional foods like chocolates, beverages, gummies, etc.
Curcogen is an ingredient that we've had, you know.
For about 4 years, and it's something that we are looking for, awesome partners to help us with, bringing to the commercial market.
Besides our Kirkagen chocolate, we also have Kurcajin gummies.
Like our chocolate in 2 gummies, you can get the full, clinically researched dose of 500 mg per day.
We also have Moriol gummies.
Moricol is our trippeptide fish collagen which is also pretty unique because you can get a Very low dose, 1 g clinical dose for skincare and just 2 gummies per day.
It is derived from fish, but it's not fishy.
The gummies are really tasty and they really have no smell or anything else and don't need heavy flavoring.
Very easy to flavor, and we're featuring an orange creamsicle variety here at Vita Foods.
Nice, sounds great.
And can you tell us what market or interesting developments do you?
That these products respond to.
I think the industry is changing in terms of the consumer looking for more functional ingredients, ingredients that are convenient, things that they can sort of indulge in, have sort of a good for you and good to you kind of value, and so I believe that these ingredients, because of their functionality, allow them to be.
I don't know if this is a coined term already, but neutral food crossovers, right, so that they are still answering the traditional format delivery of capsules and tablets and you know all the things that we're used to, but they're moving into the sector where they are useful in foods, beverages, shots, dispersable products that can just be taken into the mouth from a sachet or anything like that.
It's just really answering the market as it continues to evolve from traditional deliveries into more fun and you know I would say interesting delivery formats.
And what research has been done on the health benefits of these products and what were the findings?
Sure, so we have 5 clinical studies on our Kurcagen brand.
These clinical studies, they range from bioavailability.
So we've been able to show that.
Our curcogen, the technology is using all of the things that are naturally present in turmeric, right, so we don't have any bioenhancers.
We're not using piperine.
We're not using anything else to enhance the absorption of these active molecules except what's naturally found in turmeric.
And so our bioavailability showed that we have a 39 times enhancement of free curcumin, which is the curcumin that arrives in the plasma and is useful to the cells right away.
We also have a 52 times enhancement of total curcuminoids, which I like to call like the reserve form of curcuminoids that's active when the body needs it.
We have a 31 times enhancement of tetrahydrocurcumin, which is a metabolite of curcumin.
It's also called THC, and this is useful as an antioxidant, and it doesn't have any absorption issues.
For that same curcugen, we've also shown that we are able to increase sports recovery.
So in a clinical study we were able to show that over 3 days after taking urcogen a single time and then performing a very, I would say rigorous exercise regimen that our athletes were able to show a reduction in recovery time, inflammatory markers, and they were able to sort of have better range of motion quicker.
We also have a study that talks about mood.
It talks about gut health, and that's at 500 mg and.
Finally we have a joint study.
And on our Mool ingredient we have two studies that support that for beauty, showing reduction in wrinkles, increased increase in moisture, elasticity to the skin at only 1 g per day, which compares to a lot of the brands in the industry, 5 1020 g per day.
And then we have a study in joints, and in that study we also are showing sort of an anti-aging benefit where joint function is improved, particularly in the knee.
And this is in adults 30 to 65 years old, and we were able to show that they had better range of motion, less cracking, and also less fluid buildup in the knee.
And can you tell us anything about future plans for product development or expansion into new markets for the company?
Sure, so we as a group, Docus Biotech is sort of our ingredient brand and ingredient division, but as a group we also Have generic ingredients, so powders and extracts that is continuing to develop.
We also have contract manufacturing sort of under our umbrella as , and so that contract manufacturing is more so on the finished product side.
We are also continuing to develop with our expansion into India and other markets.
In India we have contract manufacturing of raw materials and We also have a new office opening in India.
We have a recent office that opened last year in Europe, and then we have some expansion into Asia in this year as.
So you know we are a global company, I would say.
Exciting.
So with all that happening, what would you say will be your main focus over the next few years?
OK, so our next focus, I would say is really true integration of all of our brands and divisions.
So we are looking to actually.
Develop more, branded ingredients, really from concept all the way through.
And so, we are looking to do more of that R&D and product development in India of, extracts, that can then go on to be clinically researched and studied.
Also looking into new IP and, you know, innovation in terms of those ingredients and their, delivery formatting, as as manufacturing.
We're also Doing turnkey concepts where we're taking some of those branded ingredients, some of our generic ingredients, and really trying to help companies to develop go to market strategies, right?
So where we're, you know, kind of bringing all of that formulation, expertise together and then helping them go right to market with our contract manufacturing.
So we really want to be, or, or I would say more easily become that vertically integrated company where you're coming from concept all the way into market.
Awesome.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much, Yolanda.
