NIU’s Global Round-up: Chia oil levels in Europe, novel probiotics from Mexico, and more

29-Apr-2019 - Last updated on 29-Apr-2019 at 14:17 GMT

It’s a global industry and there’s a lot happening. We know it’s not always easy keeping up with everything that’s happening around the world that could impact the US dietary supplements industry. The answer? Our weekly round-up of key news from across the globe.

LATAM

Mexican palm wine may provide ‘new species with probiotic potential’

Researchers in Mexico are continuing to explore potential new probiotic strains isolated from palm wine, also known as Tuba.

According to a study published in Frontiers in Microbiology, Tuba from the Guerrero region contains an abundance of different bacterial strains, some of which may produce antioxidant compounds such as carotenoids.

“In this work, we reported for the first time the bacterial diversity and potential functional analysis through the fermentation process of the Tuba,” wrote scientists from the Universidad Autónoma de Guerrero and the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) report that

“Additionally, the isolation of bacteria from these samples may provide us with new species with probiotic potential.”

Dr José Utrilla Carreri, associate professor at UNAM’s Center for Genomic Sciences and corresponding author for the study, told NutraIngredients-LATAM that the research team is continuing its work in this area and is “isolating and doing characterization of strains from Tuba”.

At this stage they do not have any industrial/commercial partners, he added.

Asia

China: Glanbia to focus on lifestyle nutrition on back of sports nutrition success

Glanbia Nutritionals focus on providing protein products for both the sports nutrition and general lifestyle segments in China, the company’s VP of commercial (APAC) told NutraIngredients-Asia.

Over the past three years the company has been working with a sports accessories retail chain which has about 300 stores in China in developing sports nutrition products, such as protein beverages, nutritional bars, and isotonic drinks, David Townsend told our Asia edition recently at Food Ingredients China 2019.

“We are well known in whey protein and sports nutrition, less known in lifestyle nutrition and this is what we are working towards to in China and the broader APAC as consumers change their lifestyle habits and there are a lot of people getting into sports,” said Townsend.

Judy Jiang, director of business development, added that athletic female consumers in China would also be focus.

“Especially for females between 20 and 45 years old and above, they see exercising and bodybuilding as part of their daily lifestyles. We see that as there is a change in lifestyles, there are more types of consumer groups emerging in the sports nutrition category and this is why we are focusing more on female sports nutrition market,” she said.

Europe

EFSA sets safe level for chia oil in supplements

Chia seeds and oil © Getty Images pashapixel — © Getty Images / pashapixel

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has set a two grams per day (g/day) maximum level for chia oil from Salvia hispanica for use in food supplements.

The recent ruling also rejected concerns over contaminant formation.

“The Panel notes that no other hazard causing safety concerns has been identified on the basis of the available information on composition, stability, history of consumption, toxicological and human data regarding whole and ground chia seeds,” EFSA conclude.

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