The platforms, called NOL (Nutraveris On Line) Data Solutions and NOL Compliance, contain a mountain of data on ingredients and the regulations pertaining to them in the many jurisdictions it covers.
Complicated market calls for automated solution
Cedric Bourges, managing partner of Nutraveris, said while the overarching goal of the EU, and of EFSA (European Food Safety Authority) has been to harmonize regulations across the union, that effort falls short in practice. It can make for a fiendishly difficult exercise to make sure a product is ready to go in multiple jurisdictions.
“Indeed one could think the regulation is the same in all European member states, which is the objective of regulatory bodies. However, this is far from the case as labeling rules, e.g. mandatory wording such as 'Food supplements with vitamin E and…' or the list of ingredients and nutrition table, weight, etc., are the only commonalities shared across EU. On the other hand, allowable ingredients, maximum limits, specific label warnings, even claims are not allowed the same way in Belgium and Italy for example,” Bourges told NutraIngredients-USA.
Bourges said NOL Data Solutions contains information on more than 3,000 ingredients, 40,000 scientific, peer-reviewed articles and 35,000 finished products in key EU markets. The addition of the artificial intelligence function will greatly accelerate the manipulation of that data, he said, which could both cut costs and improve speed to market.
In the past, Bourges said, an expert would need to collate the data, a process that could take a number of hours over a period of at least a week. Now, once the consulting firm has a client’s proposed specifications in hand, compliant labels can be generated in seconds.
“This saves clients a huge amount of time in product launches, which can be focused elsewhere. And since the formula is stored, the maintenance is made also in few seconds at each new market evolution. In addition, if you wish to change country or to modify the formula, the compliance and labeling will also be delivered in few seconds,” he said.
Comprehensiveness in addition to speed
In addition to being simply faster, Bourges said the new platform is also far more comprehensive. The AI platform can integrate the input from multiple different aspects of formulation and compliance at one go, rather than different experts needed to weigh in on the process.
“This is quicker, of course, but also broader, since a senior expert will generally be very experienced in one specific domain, where our AI platforms are dealing with many mandatory information sets. For example, regulatory issues are generally mastered by lawyers, science by PhDs, market data by business and marketing personnel. NOL Data Solutions and Compliance give a full view of the market, science, regulatory and help to better answer all challenges and opportunities,” he said.
New Jersey-based consulting firm Avant Nutrition, led by CEO Lynda Doyle, is cooperating in connecting the new Nutraveris platforms with US clients.
