Group Innovations
As a business we recognise that great ideas can come from anywhere! To nurture and support those ideas we have a dedicated resource in our Group Innovations Team who are committed to continually delivering innovation and diversity in the range of products and formats that we can offer.
This interdisciplinary team is made up of industry-specific experts, including registered nutritionists, formulation scientists, technologists, researchers and marketing professionals with experience across a wide range of sectors. The team works collaboratively with other departments throughout the group to drive a culture of innovation. This means that we are uniquely placed to offer commercially viable, market-leading products for our customers worldwide.
We are constantly analysing global trends to identify new opportunities for product development. Working with academia, we stay ahead of emerging nutrition issues and research to deliver credible and evidence based products which also fulfil all regulatory requirements. This is combined with in-group research and testing capabilities, which allow us to provide a detailed insight in to new raw materials and formulations. Significant investment has also been made in flavour development meaning that we are able to offer a vast range of great tasting flavours across a range of chewable, effervescent, liquid and dextrose products.
Innovation is inherent in everything that we do. We’re not limited to just product innovation, we also strive to provide pioneering packaging solutions, novel formats and creative marketing support for the effective implementation of our products. With our state-of-the-art facilities and technical expertise we can deliver ahead of the market, aiming to set the trends not follow them.
Research & Development
One of our core strengths lies within our research and development capabilities. We invest heavily in research to improve the quality and efficacy of the products that we produce. Leading the way in this area means that our current development work is already showing the potential for patents to be granted.
Along with continuous development of our food supplement ranges, we are also actively researching ‘nutraceutical’ and nutri-cosmetic products with specific relevance to bone health, healthier ageing, weight-loss, health & beauty, heart & circulatory health and cognitive support.
We have our own on-site research and development laboratory which further enables us to create innovative new products. We benefit from having closer technical control over the products that we create, putting us in a position to respond quickly – whether it is minor product enhancements or complete reformulations. The new products that we develop are created as a result of our reaction to emerging trends and through our focus on research and development and the insight that we gain from this.
We are able to utilise lab-scale equipment to produce trial batches in small quantities for testing and analysis. We undertake characteristic analysis of both raw materials and finished product using state-of-the-art equipment such as high-performance liquid chromatography and looking at particle size measurement, dissolution properties, friability and hardness.
As part of our on going formulation developments we work to best practice to ensure that the most efficient processing techniques are used. We are working collaboratively with scientific academic partners and institutions to further improve the techniques that we use, including implementing granulation processing techniques, working with ingredients in micro-encapsulated form and testing new tablet compressible ingredients.
The Group Innovations Team partner a number of universities and research centres to ensure that we have a solid scientific base for all of our development work. The research undertaken as part of this is highly evidence based with data collected through various methods including focus groups, clinical trials, statistical data analysis and bio-chemical assays. This gives us a unique perspective on future trends and the ability to translate these in to exciting new products.
Research and development will remain as one of the cornerstones of the group with continual investment in to a broad range of research and development projects.