The collaboration will give fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) brands the ability to fortify food and drink products with vitamin D by encapsulating it within Xampla’s microscopic, digestible microcapsules engineered from plant proteins. It will then be distributed to FMCG brands by Lehmann.
Xampla already partners with companies including Britvic and Chinese dairy company Yili, but viewed the Lehmann partnership as another way of delivering on the growing multi-billion dollar personalised nutrition market.
“Personalised nutrition is growing quickly,” Xampla head of business development Stanley Mitchell told FoodNavigator. “This partnership is about identifying new and active cargos and we continue to do a lot of the R&D work with partners that have specific needs.
“We hope to bring microcapsules to a broader market through partnerships because we think they’re addressing a consumer health need.”
How much is the global personalised nutrition market worth?
The personalised nutrition market had reached between $15bn and $17bn last year, with projected growth of up to nearly $40bn over seven years, various estimates suggested.
Lehmann Ingredients’ director Charlie Lehmann said: “Products that support a healthy lifestyle are a significant trend in the industry, with over half (57%) of consumers preferring to get their vitamins from food and drink rather than tablets.”
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Along with exploiting personalised nutrition’s global growth, there was a general need to include better nutritional ingredients in food and drink products, especially vitamin D where widespread deficiencies had been identified globally, said Mitchell.
“It’s about recognising how we can deliver them [vitamins] more effectively. A product is going to look exciting when it comes to market with benefits,” said Mitchell, specifying the potential for rising consumer excitement around products where health claims would not usually be seen.
Making vitamins stable in food and drink
Health claims might not be seen in some food or drinks because they can’t be stabilised, he explained. However, Xampla’s microcapsules counter this, making vitamins “not just stable in products and on the shelf, but through the stomach acid until it gets to where it needs to be absorbed”, he said.
Asia-Pacific markets were a particular focus for Xampla, where “there’s a lot more demand for these types of products”.
While Mitchell wouldn’t go as far as saying Europe was the leader within this space, “there is a lot of food tech development in Europe, where R&D continues to do really well”, he said.
“But good tech, wherever it comes from, will find a home in industries across the world.”