Debuting Chr. Hansen’s “new” human health business
07 Oct 2021 | Chr. Hansen
Last week, Linda Neckmar was appointed Chr. Hansen’s senior vice president of human health. At Vitafoods Europe 2021, she discusses how the business has been shaped by a chain of acquisitions and a broadened portfolio. Women’s health is a key area of focus, while the company is also looking at expanding more into non-traditional channels like e-commerce.
This is Catherine Durrell reporting from Vita Foods Europe 2021.
I'm joined with Linda Neckmore at the Christian Hansen stand.
So could you tell us a little bit more about the human health direction and what's coming in store for this section?
Hello Katherine.
Thanks for interviewing me here at Vita Foods.
First and for all, it's great to be back into the industry again and to be out and meet up here.
And this year at Vita Foods, Christian Hansen Human Health is out for the first time and presenting our new human health.
And what do we mean with our new human health?
During the last year we've really been busy doing merchant acquisitions and shaping our future in human health.
So we've done 3 large acquisitions during the year, which is.
Austrian company in the women's health and also Labs, an American manufacturing company, and in the human milk ride business and with these three acquisitions, I think you can tell what our future looks like in the human health area.
We have broadened our portfolio.
We now have one of the largest portfolios in the industry with a clear focus in the women's strategy where we have strong And we also see that throughout the industry that the women's health area is growing quickly and we will also use our new more broader portfolio to go into new health areas and into different channels and categories of the industry.
So I feel we have a very bright future going forward.
Great.
Could you share a little bit more about what some of these channels might be?
Yes, I think we learned during the lockdown period that we have during the latest 18 months that The traditional channels that we have been working with in the brick and mortars and the pharmacy channels have been the ones struggling the most, while we see much stronger growth as an industry in the more online sector and direct to consumers, and I think we will see much more of that going forward as.
So that will be an important growth factor for us in the probiotic.
Interesting.
And what other sort of COVID-related factors do you anticipate for the next year or two?
I think we've learned both as consumers and also as an industry that preventive health methods are here to stay.
We've also learned as human beings that immunity is key for For our health, and we've also managed to educate quite a bit of consumers that probiotics is not only for gut health but also for immunity and other types of indications, and I think that's here to stay.
Great, thank you very much.
Thank you, Catherine.
