Vitafoods 2023: IFF Health’s ingredients offer beauty-from-within benefits and menopausal symptoms relief

16 May 2023 --- Supplements and sports nutrition launches with women’s health claims have been rising steeply since 2017, according to Innova Market Insights. Additionally, the company highlights that beauty from within supplements and ingredients grew 60% from 2017 to 2021 and products with skin health claims tripled in the same time frame.

Year-over-year, there was an average annual growth of 19% in supplement launches tracked with “menopause” in product descriptions and claims globally from 2018 to 2022.

Moreover, in 2022, the top positioning of global supplement launches tracked with “menopause” in the product descriptions and claims were women’s health. The fastest-growing sub-category of global supplements launches tracked with “menopause” was hair, skin and nails at 73%.

At Vitafoods Europe in Geneva, Switzerland, NutritionInsight spoke with Maider Gutierrez, health category leader at International Flavors & Fragrances (IFF) Health, about the company’s solutions to these growing demands.

Could you tell us a little bit about the products IFF Health is featuring at Vitafoods this year?
Gutierrez: I will be happy to. I think we have a lot of interesting things this year and we can start with talking about our menopause concepts. We have been working very hard on menopause. Last year we partnered with GenM, an organization based in the UK that is uniting brands to increase awareness around menopause.

Following that partnership, we have learned a lot about the consumer and what needs to be done. We have selected the main menopause symptoms that are affecting women and we are presenting six different concepts, which are basically an inspiration for our customers to step into this market.

These concepts carry the menopause-friendly logo recently launched by GenM, which means that the products can really be seen by the consumers as something answering their needs. 

There are three different ways of working with these concepts. Number one, we have ready-to-use formats – our customers can just launch them as they are. Number two, they can be customized and we can introduce other ingredients, change the dosages and we can really customize the products for our customers. And number three, as an inspiration – we can bring a lot of new concepts into the market.

We need to remember that there are 48 different menopausal symptoms and one product will not act for all those menopausal symptoms. Also, menopause, perimenopause and postmenopause can last between 10 and 15 years, so what can work for a woman today will not work tomorrow for the same woman.

So we need to give them choices. We need to give them products, and this is the beginning for us. To really inspire our customers to bring those products into the market. 

Can you tell us a little bit about what makes these solutions unique, what differentiates them from other offerings on the market and what trends they speak to?
Gutierrez: I think they’re unique because they really combine different ingredients that target different symptoms. Some of them contain our Howaru probiotics or our Care4U botanical ingredients. Something unique that we can bring to the table is combining all of these different ingredients.

Furthermore, we didn’t just create this and bring it here today. We run different focus groups internally with menopausal women within IFF to verify and see if these concepts answer their needs. Are these really concepts that a menopausal woman will be interested in? 

And I would say they are. That’s also one of the reasons they carry the menopause-friendly logo, because they have been co-created with peri- and menopausal women. 

Can you tell us a little bit about the applications and formats that these products could be available in?
Gutierrez: The main focus has been capsules. Some of them could work in the stick packs as well, but we still think that this consumer is not there to be an experiment. It is a consumer that is having some symptoms and that wants to be healthy. 

I don’t think they will be critical in terms of application and format as long as we give them choices in terms of ingredients and symptoms those ingredients can cover. 

Finally, can you tell us a little bit about IFF Health’s skin care concepts?
Gutierrez: We are bringing a new combination product of clinically tested ingredients for skin health and beauty and that is, for us, a first step into this area. We are bringing strong ingredients that we put together in this keratin concept. We are including a Howaru probiotic that has been clinically tested for skin health and keratin 4 – a natural keratin product for hair, skin and nails – all together. But again, we also offer the possibility of offering the separate ingredients. 

We are covering two of the main trends that we see in the market, which is women’s health with menopause care and skin health. We will have a lot more new things coming in the next few months.

By William Bradford Nichols