Outlook 2016: R&D focus on ingredients

What will be your company's priorities, R&D focus in 2016?

Kalsec: “Our focus for 2016 is to provide customers with functional cleaner label ingredients such as our Durabrite^® high stability colors and Herbalox^® XT, our low flavor, low aroma antioxidant, and our full line of specialty pepper extracts and authentic ethnic spice flavor systems.  These products can offer innovative new concepts to make our customers’ products look better, taste better and last longer with naturally sourced ingredients,” said Kathleen Koh, Managing Director, Asia Pacific of Kalsec^®, Asia Pacific.

“We will continue to expand our natural color, antioxidant, advanced hop products and spice & herb flavor extract product lines. This will even include the delivery systems for our oleoresins that provide the convenience of water dispersion but with more consumer-friendly ingredients.”  

Monteloeder: “We will mainly focus on the promotion of MetabolAid, our clinically proven ingredient for treatment and prevention of metabolic syndrome. Monteloeder is currently participating in stage 2 of an EU-funded program called H2020 which is intended to promote innovation in companies based in the EU territories (http://ec.europa.eu/programmes/horizon2020/). We already secured €50,000 financing from stage 1, ranking first in our group,” said Ignacio Cartagena, Vice President of Sales & Marketing. “If successful in stage 2 we would be granted €2,000,000 of which €600,000 will be intended to match-fund 3 pilot launches of a supplement or food product containing MetabolAid® in Europe, the USA and Asia – up to a maximum of €200,000 in each region. The €200,000 per company/product would help with the cost of developing, commercializing and marketing the consumer products. A large part of the remaining amount would be used for funding further clinical studies.”

The company is working on the topical version of Nutroxsun™, an oral UV protector which is based on the twin cosmetic (combination of topical and oral product) concept for sun protection. It is expected to be ready by the second half of 2016.

Tate & Lyle: “Our mission, our passion is working together with food makers, and helping them to make food extraordinary. We saw that consumers wanted simple, clean-labelling and we leveraged our expertise in ingredient innovation and invested resources in scientific advancement for texture to come up with CLARIA® Functional Clean-Label Starches,” Harry Boot, SVP & General Manager, SFI, Asia Pacific said. “Claria™ functional clean-label starches now help food manufacturers to meet the growing consumer demand for simpler ingredient lists, to formulate with the functionality similar to a modified food starch and meet consumers’ sensory expectations for taste and color in a wide range of applications.”

DuPont: “Products containing ‘natural’ ingredients with added health benefits will continue to lead market trends. Ingredients and solutions that are able to provide better cost and/or value savings and at the same time help improve functionalities and shelf life will continue to remain popular,” said DuPont Nutrition & Health Regional President, ASPAC, Kobus de Klerk. “We foresee more consumers requesting for products with clean labels, foods that are safe, nutritious, taste great and affordable. We ensure that our team of innovative solvers help our customers address these emerging trends with our in-depth knowledge of food and nutrition and strong nutrition science. We are also committed to working in close collaboration with our customers and sharing our deep consumer insights that will help position their brands better in the marketplace."

The company is also eager for the opening of its new DuPont Singapore ASEAN Headquarters in July 2016. "This expansion will bring us even closer to our customers and allows us to focus on delivering new innovations tailored to meet the unique needs of the ASEAN marketplace. The ASEAN is a dynamic food consumption market that keeps evolving toward industrialization. And our aim is to offer our customers our expertise of taking global science into local products," said Mr de Klerk.

FMC: “FMC will strive to offer the highest quality ingredients through sourcing the best raw materials available, improving production technologies and continuously innovating,” said Baldur Hjaltason, Strategic & Key Account Manager, Epax Omega-3, FMC Health and Nutrition. “At FMC, we pride ourselves on our ability to predict consumer trends and translate those demands into new product offerings for our customers, providing consumers with the products they want before they know they want them. In the ASEAN market specifically, we will rely on our multiple regional lab facilities and our Asian-based Food Experience Institute to analyze regions on a case-by-case basis in order to develop a deep understanding of the market drivers while working closely with our customers to ensure that we’re shepherding them to the most effective solutions that enable their sustained success.”