FDBusiness.com

It is not enough, nowadays, for foods just to taste good and look attractive; they are also expected to fit in with a modern, creative lifestyle. The nutrient specialist SternVitamin takes up current trends and develops vitamin and mineral premixes for innovative end products. The company is focusing on concepts for specific target groups; these include “love booster” drinks, “beauty” sweets and drinks for athletes.

Gummy Bears For Beauty

Fortification of foods and beverages has become an effective marketing tool. SternVitamin supports industry with new sales-promoting concepts for lifestyle products. Examples include gummy bears with antioxidant ingredients and “beauty” vitamins with anti-aging effects. Dr Sabine Hildebrandt, Head of Research & Development at SternVitamin, comments: “For the beauty sweets we use ingredients like the vitamins C and E, that protect the body’s cells against oxidative stress. Further nutrients are coenzyme Q10, selenium, and the beauty vitamin biotin.”

Energy Drinks For Love

Other interesting ideas for products are “love booster” drinks containing vegetable substances like damiana extract powder. The premix from theSternVit BVseries is available in two variants: for women and men. The mixture for women contains the plant extracts ginseng and damiana and also L-arginine, magnesium, and the vitamins B6, B12 and C. Besides damiana and guarana extract, the “stimulator” for men contains the vitamins B1, B6, B12 and C. “Plant extracts like damiana and ginseng make trend products particularly attractive and increase their value-added potential. When combined with our basic compounds for energy drinks they make it possible to create totally new product lines,” Dr Hildebrandt says.

Guarana has been known for its stimulating effect for a long time. In Asia, where it originates, ginseng is regarded as a universal remedy. The root is a classic tonic to combat fatigue and exhaustion. Damiana, on the other hand, is still scarcely known in many countries. The plant’s natural habitat extends from the USA to Argentina. Mexican doctors and the native inhabitants use damiana as a medicinal plant to relieve spastic conditions of the respiratory organs, nervous tension, depression and sexual dysfunction. 

Amino Acids – More Power For Sport

SternVitamin offers premixes for amino acid drinks directed towards specific consumer groups; although intended primarily for endurance athletes, they also help with dieting. One idea is for a drink with eight essential amino acids, vitamin B6 to assist protein metabolism and the electrolytes sodium, potassium and magnesium, which are lost through perspiration. “Another possibility is a special drink with more specific effects on muscle formation and for endurance sports,” says Annette Büter, an applications technologist at SternVitamin. “This drink contains branched-chain amino acids – BCAAs. Unlike other amino acids, these are metabolized mainly in the muscles rather than in the liver, which means that they reach the place where they are needed faster and more completely. They also help prevent physical and mental fatigue.”

Selected amino acids can be combined with vitamins, minerals, trace elements and plant extracts, just as the customer wishes. For this purpose the company offers a wide choice of different components for tailor-made premixes.

“As a rule, every customer gets a tailor-made product,” Annette Büter explains. “We take a close look at the product parameters and the production process. In that way we can assess any losses of efficacy that may result from the manufacturing process or storage of the end products and compensate for them with suitable overdosing.”

For making up the premixes SternVitamin uses the latest technologies such as fluid-bed drying. For example, the new fluid-bed processor makes it possible to convert powders that do not dissolve well into agglomerates with a porous structure which dissolve much more readily in water. Other processes that can be carried out on this plant are drying, granulation and coating.