Vitafoods Europe 2024: Nektium unveils “unique” stress-relieving botanical ingredient
27 May 2024 | Nektium
Nektium launched Vanizem at Vitafoods Europe 2024, with a unique effect on stress relief, uplifting mood and improving sleep in three days. Mai Nygaard, independent industry adviser and strategic marketing director at Nektium, explains the latest science behind the new ingredient. It inhibits a specific enzyme within the endocannabinoid system, which is critical in regulating mental wellness. In addition, Nektium showcased its flagship ingredients, Rhodiolife and Zynamite.
This is Yolanda van Gaal from Nutrition Insights.
I'm at Vita Foods Europe 2024 with my ***, who is a strategic marketing director at Nectium.
Thank you for joining us today.
Can you tell us what is your focus this year at Vitafoods?
Nexium is very Excited this year to actually have a new product launch, something very innovative.
So we are launching banise.
Bisem is a new ingredient based on a spice, West African spice, Afromomum it's called, also known as guinea pepper.
And it has a very unique effect on stress relief, lifting mood, and also improving sleep.
So these are all very relevant benefits for consumers, busy consumers today.
In addition to Bisam, which we are presenting also samples of here, we are also showcasing the other flagship branded ingredients of Nexium.
First and foremost, Rodeo Life.
Rodeo Life is a powerful adaptogen.
So it's like a general ingredient that works against stresses in your life, so that can be both body and mind kind of stress.
And in addition to that, we have a very unique mango leaf extract known as cynamite, which has been quite a lot in the media lately.
It's really an ingredient that works as a mental energy and also for cognition, so it gives.
You extra energy and also focus, and that can work either if you are a sports person, but also if you are like a person who needs some would say an extra boost and not maybe drink so much coffee in your everyday busy life.
What's new about cynamite, there's a lot of science, and we've been building on that in the last couple of years as.
But what is really new is that the team made a proprietary in-house version that is soluble.
So it's like fully water soluble and stable, so you can use it in for example beverages.
So when you are in the crossover between sports nutrition and cognitive health, there's a big demand for energy type of drinks, but healthier, smarter energy drinks, and that's where cyanamide S comes in.
So our main focus is the Vanisam launch that we are very excited about, but also to showcase our other main ingredients.
Very interesting, thank you.
About Vanni, I know that you've also recently announced some research that has been done on its mechanism of action.
What can you tell us about that?
Yes, so obviously with everything that Nexium is doing, it's really science based, so that's what takes Nexium apart from many of the other botanical suppliers is that a lot of effort goes into not only doing clinical studies but also for the branded ingredients to understand the mechanism of action.
The mechanism of action for Vanis is actually on what is called the endocannabinoid system.
You might have heard of CBD, which is not as popular in Europe as it is in the US, but that also works on the endocannabinoid system.
What makes that an interesting system to work on is that it really regulates your stress levels, but also your calm, your sleep.
So it's really a mechanism in the body that is important for your mental.
Being.
So vanis is different from CBD in the way that it works on a specific inhibiting a specific enzyme which is known as FAAH to be a bit technical.
And when you can inhibit that enzyme in the endocannabinoid pathway, you actually increase the amount of a neurotransmitter that then improves the overall feeling of calm but also happy and -being.
So that's quite unique.
And the other thing is that this is a quite fast acting pathway where most other ingredients for stress relief and mood lifting, they take several weeks before they take effect.
But in our case, the Vanism working on this mechanism of action actually shows results even after 1 day and statistically really significant result after 3 days.
The last thing about the mechanism of action that's important as is that some of the other ingredients, both herbs, but also the for example, CBD can have a little bit of a sedative effect, and you don't necessarily want that in your everyday life, but we did some studies that also shows that the way that it works on the receptors, receptors, it doesn't do the the sedative effect, so you can maintain your energy and your.
Vigor and vitality at the same time it's powerful in terms of reducing anxiety, lifting mood, and also improving sleep.
So that's a really interesting combination.
Impressive.
And just talking a bit briefly, a bit more broadly about the industry itself, where do you see that heading and what kind of trends do you expect?
So I think the fact that Nexium is so science-based is also because we believe that the consumers are becoming much more.
Active in maintaining their health, so that's an important trend, but they are also more critical.
They would like to trust the ingredients and the products, the supplements, and the science-backed ingredients are really important and in a way that's also the branded ingredients, right, because otherwise you don't know if it's the same grade or quality and so on.
So the way that Nexium is meeting the proactive consumer needs is by developing unique, efficient, but also.
Documented ingredients that have clinical studies and also understanding of the benefits in the target audience.
On top of that, it's also increasingly important to look after the planet, be sustainable, and also have transparency in how you really source your ingredients, also in terms of ethical sourcing and understanding all the steps in the supply chain.
So Nexium is also investing a lot.
Not only do they have, we have.
The in-house production, but they are also investing a lot in checking the bioactives.
For example, in vanis, the bioactives are called vanilloids, and we will check the batches for the percentage of active bioactives so that we can guarantee the stability and the efficacy of our ingredients and eventually, of course, for the consumers to know that when they take the recommended dose, that is really doing what we promised that it would.
So that's some of the key things that we focus on.
Awesome.
And what would you say is the main target audience that Nexium is focusing on at the moment?
Yeah, so we do have a relatively broad portfolio, but one of the strengths, also talking a little bit about the ingredients we have today is definitely the cognitive and mental health area, but also moving towards sports nutrition, for example, sports nutrition because the.
Is the energy.
It also has in a different grade, very strong performance in terms of sports performance, so that's kind of power output that you can train harder and longer, but also actually muscle recovery and also for the rodeo life, the adaptogen, in addition to the mood and cognitive benefits, there's also a benefit in beating fatigue and energizing, which is very helpful, for example, for endurance sports.
So mental health and sports are two of the area where Nexium has a really strong portfolio.
We are also increasingly looking into healthy aging.
The Vanis clinical study that was showing you know reduction in anxiety, less tension, improved sleep, and lift of mood, which are all kind of related to mental wellness and wellbeing.
We chose to study.
A middle aged group, so the clinical study, the group was 40 to 50 years old, and we are also doing this because we think that a lot of those benefits are important, for example, for women in perimenopause and menopause phase, where you often see more stress and anxiety and especially sleep problems coming up.
So that's also an element is to make sure that we have relevant data targeting women's health but also healthy aging.
