Brand owners tend to treat “contract manufacturing” as a single thing with a single price. In practice there are three distinct partnership models in the nutraceutical and functional food industry, and they differ on the questions that matter most: who…
Almost every brand sourcing botanical ingredients from Asia will, at some point, receive two quotations for the same specification at prices that differ by 30% — from organisations that both describe themselves as manufacturers. The price gap is usually not…
Powdered beverages are one of the least forgiving formats in the industry. Everything that can go wrong happens in a sachet: a hygroscopic ingredient cakes, a colour migrates, a flavour fades, a powder that dissolved perfectly on the bench refuses…
Aloe vera is one of the most recognised botanicals in the world and one of the most carefully regulated. The reason is aloin — a compound concentrated in the plant’s outer rind — and the fact that several markets have…
Beta-carotene is one of the most widely used ingredients in the industry and one of the most confusing to buy. It is simultaneously a colourant, a nutrient and a raw material with three genuinely different commercial production routes — and…
Ginseng is the most commercially mature botanical in the supplement category and one of the most difficult to buy well. The name covers several distinct species, several plant parts, two processing routes that produce genuinely different chemistry, and a standardisation…
Coenzyme Q10 has been a staple of the supplement aisle for decades, which makes it easy to treat as a solved formulation problem. It is not. CoQ10 is a large, strongly lipophilic molecule that is practically insoluble in water, exists…
For exporters targeting Southeast Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, or the natural and kosher-sensitive retail channels of North America, religious certification is not a marketing badge. It is a market-access requirement, and in a growing number of cases it…
Lutein and zeaxanthin are the two carotenoids most often specified together, and the two most often confused on a specification sheet. Both come from the same commercial source — marigold (Tagetes erecta) — and the two can appear in a…
Curcumin has an unusual commercial profile. It is one of the most intensively researched botanical compounds in the world, one of the most recognised by consumers, and one of the most difficult to deliver in a form the body actually…