Jubilant and Barentz Partner up to Cater to South Asia as India Turns to Food Fortification

21 Jun 2017 --- Jubilant Life Sciences, an integrated global pharmaceutical and life sciences company, today announced a strategic partnership with ingredients distributor Barentz International. The two companies have signed a commercial agreement to work together within the food & nutrition market in India and its neighboring countries. The collaboration aims to deliver solutions in food nutrition and fortification.

“Through this partnership in India, we will focus on supporting food fortification programs. Recently, the Indian authorities, notably the FFSAI [Food Safety and Standards Authority of India], have emphasized food fortification programs to level up the nutrition profile of general foods in India,” Marc Duchene, Barentz Managing Director for Asia Pacific, tells NutritionInsight.

“Historically, Barentz has been strong in Europe, but over the past five years, we have invested a lot to support our growth in Asia Pacific. Within our network, we have dedicated production activities for the development and production of nutrient premixes for food fortification purposes; this is under the brand Vitablend,” Duchene notes.

“There is an increased awareness for nutrient-rich diets, and we see a growing demand for ingredients and additives for food & nutrition. Barentz has a diverse range of products within this portfolio and a rich history of over six decades. The strategic partnership between the two brands represents our common belief in offering high-quality products to our customers. We are positive about leveraging our existing customer relationships and established infrastructure to benefit from this partnership to its full potential,” says Pramod Yadav, Co-CEO of the Life Science Ingredients business of Jubilant Life Sciences, headquartered in India.

“India is a new, large market for Barentz that offers immense growth opportunities,” says Hidde van der Wal, CEO of Barentz International, headquartered in The Netherlands.

Barentz offers a full portfolio of single specialty ingredients for food & beverages, as well as custom nutritional and functional blends, produced at Barentz's state-of-the-art production facilities Vitablend in Singapore. Jubilant is the world’s second largest producer of vitamin B3 (niacinamide and niacin). The companies announced that together they hope to make a significant impact in the area of micronutrient deficiency through solutions in food nutrition and fortification.

“Micronutrient deficiency is widely prevalent in Asia, and food fortification of staple food is an important measure to improve the health of the population. Barentz is the ideal partner to progress in this area, especially when it comes to products for high care applications such as infant formula and clinical nutrition. Through this relationship, we plan to offer high quality, nutrient premixes and blends to our customers,” Yadav adds.

“With the expertise we have within the group, provided by Barentz, and well as the reach in the market provided by Jubilant, we will come closer to manufacturing customers, developing food in India to support them on the fortification aspects,” Duchene notes.

“Food fortification is a key element of what we are going to push in India [through the Jubilant network], but of course we have a range of other ingredients we will develop for the market there,” Duchene notes, adding that these include specialty flavor powders for powder drinks and savory blends.

“We already started to work on projects with the Jubilant team over the past months, so the team is in place. Now it’s a question of officializing the partnership so the teams will be able to communicate with customers about the ingredients we can bring to India,” Duchene notes. “With the food industry, there will always be a phase of technical development, but we expect to have the first launch into the market with our customers before the end of the year.”

“Thanks to Jubilant's structure, we will be able to reach Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh,” Duchene says.

by Lucy Gunn