Nutraceuticals Now

Cognis: Innovating for modern nutrition – turning expertise into food products

Thursday, 2 December, 2010

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.

Cognis follows an open approach
to innovation that always
starts with the consumer

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.”

The four aspects of wellness
that underpin the
“Newtrition - Eat.Feel.Live.” strategy

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”.

The NaturLinea range is the first
range of food products in Europe
to use CLA as an active ingredient

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.

Tonalin® CLA can be easily
incorporated e.g. in milk and
flavored milk products,
yogurt and yogurt drinks,
fruit juice products,
soy milk beverages,
meal replacement beverages
and bars and coffee specialties

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

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