Focusing on immunity for prevention
07 Apr 2020 | Lehvoss
At Nutraceuticals Europe, held in Madrid, Spain, Ettore Giacobbe of Lehvoss, discussed how people are living increasingly busy lives. Unhealthy diets mean that microbiomes may suffer, providing an opportunity for probiotics to right the balance. Another major topic is immune health, with long-standing ingredients such as vitamin C getting a new lease on life as COVID-19 continues to spread.
This is Catherine Durrell at Nutraceutical Europe.
I'm here with Etore Giacobe from Lavos.
Could you, start by telling us a little more about what you're presenting here today?
Yes, Levels is traditionally is, a distributor of raw materials, and they've recently acquired Glosum brands.
To have an insight in the nutritional market with branded ingredients and clinically proven ingredients, so what are we showing here is all those partners that we have been working in the last 10-15 years to build a reputation in Europe, showing ingredients with proven efficacy and clinical dosages.
So on the wall behind me you will see some of the brands that we distribute and what we are doing here is adding value to these ingredients, showing also some application and finished products.
Right, and, so what sort of.
What sort of topics are you looking at specifically and what are some of the major trends that you're seeing?
Obviously we, we look at the trends and trying to tackle them with ingredients that we already distribute, but we've noticed that brain health is a big topic at the moment, and we have some ingredients to cover that and then new tropics as.
So we have some natural ingredients that can work for the brain health like baobamonieri extract, ashcawanda, and plant-based B vitamins.
We're going to show this the next vital food as.
Then we, we see something for the sleep aids and joint health.
On the joint health we have a few ingredients like OptMSM.
Longvida curcumin and vegetarian glucosamine that we we blend in different formats to target this this coughing as.
Another topic that we are covering is probiotics and then we are working the pre and postbiotic effects related with the brewer's yeast and the fermentation process.
This can help, for the immune health and gut health.
So why do you think immune health and gut health are such hot topics right now?
Because.
People, , people live a very busy environment and stressful life.
They don't have the right diet and tend to skip some, some meals and then they don't have a very healthy, microbiome.
And so, the probiotic can definitely help to balance it off and the, there is more attention towards the.
The, the immune health people tend to reinforce the immune health, and the vitamin C is a trend that has been in the market for such a long time that now needs to be covered on a different perspective, and we have a specific ingredients Epicor that can help to do that, right?
And in terms of immune health, do you expect that there will be any increased interest or change in the current climate of coronavirus and everything?
There is definitely a a different interest and especially with the coronavirus, although this is more related to a pharmaceutical aspect and people are looking for a solution.
To recover from the virus, what we target is more a prevention, aspect, so we, we want to offer ingredients that can help to have a healthy lifestyle that don't change your habits but can actually strengthen your immune response to such a virus, obviously you cannot prevent what can be a new virus and, but you, you can reinforce your answer to the seasonal cold and flu or the allergies that you generally have.
Right.
And, in general, what sort of R&D challenges do you face and how do you overcome them?
The R&D that we face are more related to the application side of our ingredients.
So we, we, we, we offer as often ingredients as powder or liquid form, and our customers are looking for new delivery method that goes away from the traditional pharmaceutical approach of capsule and tablets.
They're looking for chewable or cross functional ingredients that can be used into food or functional foods.
And our challenges is to provide alternative solutions such as micro encapsulation or phytosome or I'll say granulation that can reduce the smell or the the taste of certain ingredients like fish oil and with this tech with certain technologies and certain partners we are able to achieve new delivery methods such as chewable tablets, sachet and soluble powders where before maybe this was unthinkable.
Is it a specific type of consumer who has this fatigue and is looking for something different, or is it?
Yes, there is a part that is the trendy market.
Think about collagen.
People don't want to take a spoon of collagen and solubilized into water.
They want something on the go, so they look like a stick park or something already liquid, ready to drink.
So there's a big trendy part, but there is a functional side of it.
The elderly and children cannot easily swallow capsule and tablets.
They're looking for something that's easier.
To take, mm, think about the gummies, they are growing exponentially in the market because they take something that is also not just, curative but it's also joyful, so you experience a different type of consumption.
Mm, great, thank you very much.
