“We have to learn to use real herbs again”: Nutraceutical supplier Natur Drogeriet discusses herb’s health benefits
23 May 2023 | Natur Drogeriet
Reporting live from the Private Label Manufacturers Association (PLMA) trade show in Amsterdam, Netherlands taking place from May 23 to 24, we speak with the CEO of Denmark-based Natur Drogeriet about the company's “herbal philosophy” and where he sees the industry heading in the future.
My name is Yolandaal.
I'm reporting for Nutrition Insight at the PLMA in Amsterdam.
Mayor of the company.
We're with the company's CEO Jan.
Thank you for joining us.
Hi, thank you for coming.
What are you presenting at the show this year?
We're presenting a couple of new products.
We have kiss me and we have liver Complex, which is a vegetarian product.
We combine different nutritions in the products.
And we think that the products that we sell in Denmark in our own brand is very interesting for other, other countries too.
We would very much like to help people with different kinds of problems.
We were talking earlier about your herbal philosophy as a company.
It would be great to learn a bit more about that.
We use the herbal, we use the herbs as they are dried forms, but in capsules, we sell a lot of herbal teas.
We think that it's a problem that more and more are using extracts from herbs because you have to take something out of the whole herb, and the herbs is food.
It's food made for people, so we have to use the real herbs again and learn to use them again in our daily food.
And can you tell us a little bit about the range of products that you're, I know there are many, many different.
But how you are selecting the ones or what is the inspiration for the products now we have all kinds of herbs, so that's our main course of our business and that's what we're selling mainly in Denmark, Norway, Sweden.
But we have 160, I guess different food supplements registered in Denmark by the governments, and we have everything.
So we have the clean.
The clean herbs like this one, red clover for women in menopause, and we have the new ones with where we combine different nutritions.
This one we have amino acids license in this one combined with vitamins, minerals and and the herbs again.
So always the herbs as as the basic.
And you also told me earlier about some of the legislations in Europe and how that affects your business in terms of no food or health botanical claims.
Yes, exactly.
We have a problem that EA did work the vitamins and the minerals.
They're done with those.
We have a lot of good claims that we can help people with, but we really need to have the possibility to say have some claims.
The herbs because people don't have a chance to find what they need in nature.
I find it a little problematic that the people, the companies that extract the herbs with different nutritions from the herbs, it's like medicine, so I'm afraid that this is going to be a novel food.
I'm glad that it will be because I believe that.
That we as people, as human beings, we should eat the herbs as they are, use them as herbal cheese, use them in our food on a daily basis.
So we help people very much to find out where are these herbs, why are they living in our nature, how can we use them in our daily food, and where are you sourcing herbs from at the moment?
All over the world right now, not Russia, but But everywhere and I think that's a problem too because it would be best if we have the local food for local people, but now you can eat strawberries in Denmark all year.
That's not normal.
So we have to do this too.
The herbs have , they, they, we could drive them and they can be transported.
They knocked down and, and it's not a problem.
So to have them anywhere, anytime.
But I know when I talk to my Chinese friends, business partners, that some of the herbs that we use in Denmark, in a, in a European body, don't have the same effect when they use.
In China, so we have to know what can we say, where can we use the different things that we are working with.
And where do you think the industry, the nutrition industry is going at that point I think it's going the wrong way in our industry, but I think I think that we are trying to To please the doctors more and more to go have extracts and something that we can measure in the same way that you can measure medicine, and I think it's a big mistake that we're moving the health industry away from the natural ingredients, the natural nutritions.
