New growth opportunities for omega 3 ingredients
28 Sep 2018 | GOED
New growth opportunities exist for omega 3 ingredients in Asian markets. “South East Asia is strong and Asia, in general, is somewhere where we see a lot more growth when compared to the more mature US and EU markets. So we are definitely looking at this geographic region for the potential that it has. It is coming from a small base and varies from market to market and also application. Infant formula, for example, is growing particularly well in some emerging markets as more disposable income becomes available and women are more open to buying infant formula than ever before,” says Ellen Schutt at the omega 3 trade group, GOED.
This is Rob Warriors at Vital Foods Asia in Singapore, and I'm here with Ellen Schul from GED, the Global Organization for EPA and DHA Omega 3, and Ellen is the executive director there.
Ellen, what are, where do you see kind of growth for omega 3 ingredients?
Where do you see new opportunities?
I have to say that we are in the area where there are new opportunities.
Being in Southeast Asia is a market that is really very quickly growing, and Asia in general is where we see a lot more growth compared.
To the US and Europe, which are more mature markets, so we're definitely looking at this whole geographic region for the potential that it has.
How much potential does it have?
It's coming from quite a relatively small base, but I guess there's there's big growth opportunities.
It's coming from a small base and it varies from market to market and also from from end product application to application.
Infant formula, for example, is really growing quickly in some of the emerging markets just as there's more disposable.
Income available and women are more open to buying infant formula than ever before.
How about the science behind omega 3 ingredients?
What can we expect to see coming forward in the near future?
So omega 3s are so lucky that we have more than 30,000 published papers on omega 3s on EPA and DHA, which is, which is more than any other nutrient.
And right now there's, there's two big studies that we're waiting for that are going to be published over the next several months.
One is called Reduceit, and that's looking at a high dose of an EPA-only product for a heart health indication, and we're expecting that to be positive.
And the second study is called Vital, which is looking at omega 3s and vitamin D for a variety of outcomes.
And the vital study is interesting because it's a very large population, but we're a little concerned that the dosage isn't high enough to be able to actually see the benefit that they're looking for.
So, so we remain.
Cautiously optimistic about the outcome of both of these.
The likelihood is it will be a neutral result, which may be commented on quite negatively.
Exactly, exactly.
That's what we worry about.
If it's not statistically significant, we expect to see a benefit, but if it's not a statistically significant benefit, then we're worried that the media is going to say don't bother taking omega 3s.
Where are some of the researchers looking to like beyond these types of large scale studies?
Are there some kind of emerging Areas maybe with health potential for omega 3.
There's so many, there's so many areas.
Yeah, so we, we spent a lot of time talking about omega 3 benefits for heart health, brain health, eye health, and prenatal health.
Those are the four areas where there is the most science for omega 3s, but there's so many other areas that are being looked at both from a pharma in the pharmaceutical pipeline and just in terms of science around.
Around downstream omega 3 derivatives like resolvents and protectin.
So while we have 30,000 studies, we feel like the body of evidence is still very young and there's still a lot more to be discovered here at the show.
You're here together with a wide selection of ingredients suppliers within the space that come from many, many different sources.
So a lot of work looking at.
At different sources, it goes far beyond fish.
It does go far beyond fish, and we were commenting because we're here with, I think 8 of our member companies exhibiting and 4 of them are algae companies.
And so for a long time there really wasn't that scope of algae being available on the market and now we're seeing a lot of interest in algae.
There's also other smaller areas still within the marine category whether it's hoki oil or.
Oil.
So there's really something for everybody when you look at the different ways you can get your EPA and DHA.
We expect within algae.
I expect a big, big rise from that regard.
I think so, yes, just because it's a far more, maybe more sustainable source.
And it's also for people who don't like fish or are vegetarian or are allergic.
It's giving them another option.
OK, thank you very much.
