On the way home from the last appointment with VitaFood 2021 in Geneva, we couldn’t help but notice how the universe of functional foods is vast, interesting, promising and rapidly evolving. Developing candies, chips, protein bars, chocolates and cookies enriched with health-enhancing ingredients is quickly becoming the new frontier of LifeScience sector.

For instance, the market for active candies – enriched with vitamins, collagen, hyaluronic acid and other over-the-counter functional ingredients – has already taken off in the US and in the East, but promises to do quite the same in Europe as well.

Awareness about the benefits of such enriched foods is spreading among consumers as well. In the US, for example, from 2018 to 2021 the sales of functional candies in supermarkets has more than tripled. And in China, during a survey carried out in 2020, about 35% of Chinese consumers were well aware of the edible potential of hyaluronans as a food supplement.

Thanks to the gut-brain-skin axis, food-grade sodium hyaluronate is well-renowned to provide numerous benefits to our body. Among those, it is able to moisturise our skin from the inside-out, keep our joints healthy and restore endogenous HA building blocks through degradation, absorption and re-synthesis of oral intakes.

As stakeholders in the Health & Wellness sector, we can’t wait to witness, support and do our part in these new future developments of LifeScience technologies.