From initial consumer insights to finished products, specialty chemicals supplier Cognis takes a systematic and holistic approach to innovation. The company’s Nutrition & Health strategic business unit utilizes all its specialist knowledge and expertise to create nutrition products that make people feel good, and help manufacturers to strengthen their brands. With its “Newtrition – Eat.Feel.Live.” concept, Cognis has developed its own wellness-based model for aligning products and solutions with market trends. Cognis’ weight management ingredient Tonalin® CLA is a prime example of this strategy in action.

Any successful innovation starts with consumers – their needs, wants and expectations of the products they buy. That’s why innovation is about much more than just discovering new molecules. It is about identifying and anticipating market needs, then meeting them with targeted solutions that offer real benefits for the user, and the prospect of commercial success for customers.

The key trends of today: wellness and sustainability

These days, people’s desire for improved quality of life goes hand in hand with an increased environmental awareness. On the one hand, well-being, responsibility, and peace of mind are all values that are shaping consumer behavior, while on the other, increasingly stringent regulations are also forcing manufacturers to offer more sustainable products. With its well-established strategy of serving the markets driven by this wellness and sustainability megatrend, specialty chemicals supplier Cognis is extremely attuned to the lifestyle demands of modern consumers. As a result, sustainability and innovation at Cognis are inseparably linked, and its expertise in natural-source specialty chemicals is enabling customers to offer ever greener and better products. To strengthen this commitment to sustainability, the company adopted the internationally recognized 24 Principles of Green Chemistry and Green Engineering as a framework for all its product and process development activities.

The overall strategy: an open approach to innovation

Cognis has an innovation strategy that is built around four key principles: consumer insights, a holistic approach, generating value, and leading green technology. Sharing ideas and expertise as widely as possible allows promising innovations to be generated and developed faster and more effectively. All areas of the company – from R&D to production, and from sales and marketing to supply chain management – are actively involved in turning these ideas into innovations and bringing them rapidly to market. And this open approach to innovation even extends beyond the company, as cooperation with external partners also plays a big part.

Under Cognis’ market-focused approach, the innovation process typically starts with an analysis of market trends and user needs. For example, in 2009 a survey was carried out to discover what kinds of foods and supplements consumers would prefer for maintaining brain health. Based on the findings of this survey, Cognis is currently in the process of establishing a new brain health platform and developing innovative, marketable brain health products for use in functional foods and dietary supplements.

Cognis also works closely with many of its customers in targeted joint development projects, and leverages the opportunities offered by working with suppliers, universities and scientific research institutes all over the world. For example, an exclusive partnership with InterMed Discovery GmbH gives Cognis access to one of the world’s largest databases of natural products and IMD’s Bioprofiling® technology platform, providing the basis for a constant stream of innovative active ingredients for food applications. Cognis also looks for small and mid-size companies that have great ideas, but lack the means to bring these to market. With its scientific, formulation, regulatory, sales and marketing expertise, Cognis can provide the resources necessary to commercialize these ideas successfully, by acquiring either the intellectual property rights or the whole company. This open innovation approach allows Cognis and its customers to stay one step ahead of technological and business developments.

A framework for product development and marketing: “Newtrition – Eat.Feel.Live.”

To provide a framework for generating new ideas for nutrition ingredients aligned with market demands, Cognis Nutrition & Health has developed the “Newtrition – Eat.Feel.Live.” strategy. By helping consumers to feel good, these products strengthen and differentiate the brands of the Cognis customers who use them. The strategy is based on improving service to manufacturers by understanding what consumers want – an approach that can be summarized as “Think B2C, act B2B”. Every Cognis nutritional ingredient is designed taking up to four dimensions of wellness into consideration – emotional perception, taste sensation, effect and convenience – thereby turning customers’ products into a well-being experience for the consumer.

An important market: weight management

The “Newtrition – Eat.Feel.Live.” strategy involves Cognis focusing on six areas of health: heart health, body composition, cognitive performance, immunity, and beauty from inside. As has been widely reported in recent years, overweight is now a major issue in many parts of the world, and so there is a global and growing market for body fat reduction and body composition management products. Consumers are seeking effective and lasting ways to control their weight in line with their healthy lifestyle aspirations, and this is driving growth and innovation in the functional food and food supplement markets.

Putting innovation into practice: Tonalin® CLA

A prime example of Cognis’ innovation strategy in action is Tonalin® CLA, an ingredient that can help to reduce body fat and preserve lean body mass, providing several health and wellness benefits. The Tonalin® success story began in 2002, when Cognis became aware of Natural ASA, an interesting start-up company in Norway doing R&D on conjugated linoleic acid (CLA). In February 2003, Cognis exclusively licensed ASA’s intellectual property (IP), technology, marketing rights and the Tonalin® trademark. Using this as a starting point, Cognis then developed its own IP relating to specifications, production processes and applications. Drawing on over 40 years of experience in lipid technology, Cognis was able to scale up production of the ingredient from small batches in the laboratory to a commercial manufacturing process. Cognis now transforms linoleic acid derived from natural safflower oil into CLA using a patented process that guarantees superior quality and ensures a high content of the essential bioactive substance. The entire process is compliant with current Good Manufacturing Practices (Food GMP) guidelines. A proprietary deodorization technology gives Tonalin® its superior sensory profile by removing all traces of odor and flavor. As a result, food manufacturers can buy the refined ingredient in a ready-to-use state being sure that adding Tonalin® won’t affect their food products’ taste. Today, Tonalin® is the market, quality, and innovation leader, and a recognized premium brand.

Benefits of Tonalin® CLA: proven efficacy

With 18 clinical studies published in peer review journals, Tonalin® is the most researched and tested CLA on the market. Clinical studies have demonstrated that CLA can help to reduce body fat by up to 20 percent (depending on the level of physical activity practiced by the subject) while maintaining or even increasing lean body mass, and preventing a yo-yo effect. It can also help to prevent age-related muscle loss. With these proven body-shaping effects, Tonalin® is ideal for products with claims like “Beauty from within”.

Tonalin® CLA has already been in use as a dietary supplement for a decade. Cognis also has over six years’ experience of helping customers to launch successful functional food products containing CLA, more than any other company. Tonalin® CLA is currently used in numerous dietary supplements and food products worldwide. Spanish dairy company CAPSA (Corporación Alimentaria Peasanta) was the first manufacturer in the Western world to launch food products with added CLA in 2004 under its brandname NaturLínea con Tonalin.

The product range includes skimmed milk, yogurts and yogurt drinks. In 2008, Cognis started marketing Tonalin® CLA in the US as a food ingredient, after it was granted FDA GRAS (generally recognized as safe) status for applications including milk and flavored milk products, yogurt products, fruit juice products, soy milk beverages, meal replacement beverages and bars. Cognis is also the first company to achieve novel food approval for a CLA product in China. As a result, Tonalin CLA can now be used in a wider range of functional foods and beverages in the Chinese market. And finally, Cognis is currently in the process of obtaining novel food approval for Tonalin CLA in Europe. This is expected to be granted later this year – and when it is, it will revolutionize the market.

Conclusion

Innovation involves much more than inventing new products. It also means looking for new application areas and having a clear understanding of regulations. To successfully meet the demands of sophisticated modern consumers, food manufacturers will need the scientific and regulatory expertise to create products with enhanced functionality, taste, texture and appearance. With over ten years’ experience in functional food products, and market-leading expertise in ingredients, formulations, applications and regulatory compliance, Cognis can provide food manufacturers with these resources. It works with companies around the globe to develop customized solutions that are effective, convenient, great-tasting – and include an added feel-good factor.

Johannes Crotogino
Head of Innovation & New ingredients, Cognis GmbH

Dr. Arne Ptock
Global Product Line Manager, Tonalin, Cognis GmbH

The Autumn 2010 issue of Nutraceuticals Now is now available.

Excerpts of featured articles are available on this website:

DSM: Commitment to customer peace of mind
DKSH: Barley Balance Beta-Glucan
Neptune: What you should know about Krill oil
Azelis: Speciality chemicals distributor
Danisco: Bringing health to everyday life
Davos: The fight against cancer

Nutraceuticals are food or components of food which provide health benefits beyond basic nutrition including the prevention and treatment of diseases. There has been an increase in life expectancy of individuals and this trend is likely to continue globally. In parallel to this modern day life styles are associated with growing levels of stress, poor eating habits, lack of exercise and these have contributed to an increase in chronic disorders such as obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, digestive disorders etc.

Obesity is directly related to an accelerated onset of diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The World Health Organisation (WHO) predicts that there will be more than 1.5 billion obese people globally by 2015. The UK has the highest percentage of obese adults (62.2%), followed by Germany and Spain where over 50% of the population is overweight. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) which includes myocardial infarction (heart attack), hypertension (high blood pressure), hypercholesterolaemia (high cholesterol) and cerebrovascular disease (stroke) is the number one cause of death in developed countries. Many factors pre-dispose to CVD including poor diet. The European population is aging fast and will challenge the resources of health care providers. The WHO estimates that about 16.6 million people around the globe die of CVD each year and the prediction is that this may rise to 11.1 million by 2020. As far as digestive health is concerned it is estimated that currently 1.0 million people in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and UK are suffering from Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Another issue linked to this is the growing prevalence of food allergies.

This is also placing a huge financial burden on health care providers and many governments are urging the public to take care of their individual health and improve their life style especially by changing their diet.

Nutraceuticals should be able to contribute to the prevention of the chronic diseases mentioned above and there are many players emerging in this area and they all contribute to the health and wellness market. All these organisations have to address three key issues of technology (1) establishment of scientific assessment standard for prevention of diseases (2) establishment of assessment system for disease prevention by human trials and (3) establishment of seamless system to transfer stage from basic research to industrialisation. Consumers are seeking novel food products which can enhance their health and factors currently influencing the growth of the nutraceutical sector include regulatory issues, consumer opinions, and the need for more conclusive research into new and novel ingredients.

The issue of regulation is an important one for all concerned. Within the European Union there are two categories of claims on foods: nutrition claims and health claims. The nutrition claims deal with content claims and comparative claims whilst the health claims deal with functional claims based on generally accepted scientific data and on newly developed scientific data. It’s likely that regulatory issues have put financial pressures on some nutraceutical companies and this may have led to a slowing down of the introduction of novel products. However, the regulatory issues also provide a new window for marketing and promoting nutraceuticals especially those directed at chronic diseases associated with age. The companies need to comply with the legislation and have a unique opportunity to work with government agencies and health providing organisations such that the nutraceuticals can be effectively marketed and directed at those who will benefit the most. To achieve this the companies need to significantly invest in research and development, advertising and promotional activities and effectively communicate the benefits of nutraceuticals to the consumers staying within the legislative boundaries and this will be linked to ethical marketing which the consumers are also seeking. In times of hard economic realities nutraceuticals have a role to play in maintaining health of the general population thus contributing to the savings in health care costs. This is the key to success in the European and worldwide nutraceuticals market.

Professor Khalid Rahman
Professor of Physiological Biochemistry Liverpool John Moores University.

Quality is undoubtedly the most important factor for manufacturers looking to source ingredients for the functional foods and nutraceuticals markets. For suppliers to prosper in this competitive industry, they must be able to clarify and substantiate their quality promise to ensure customer satisfaction and peace of mind. In light of this, DSM Nutritional Products models its approach around the customer, basing its commitment to quality around four priorities: quality, reliability, traceability and sustainability. Together they form the company’s Quality for Life seal. Here, Anthony Hehir, Global Marketing Manager at DSM Nutritional Products, discusses the four pillars, and why they are vital for a successful and profitable business.

This article is available in full in the Autumn 2010 issue of Nutraceuticals Now

Despite the enormous amount of research during the past many decades, cancer remains the leading cause of death in developed countries. The global mortality rate for cancer is expected to increase steadily in the years to come. Research findings have shown that less than 10% of all cancer cases can be attributed to genetic defects of hereditary origin. Majority of cancers develop after a lifetime of exposure to carcinogens found in food, water and air, or through cellular changes associated with ageing, as well as exposure to certain viruses, such as HPV. Certain cancers can be prevented through dietary changes and immunization. Among the phytonutrients found in dietary foods, tocotrienols have been studied extensively, to determine their bioactivity against cancer.

This article is available in full in the Autumn 2010 issue of Nutraceuticals Now