Over the last few years, the most notable development for Cargill Health & Food Technologies (HFT), Minneapolis, MN, has been the uptake of its CoroWise brand of phytosterols among major food, beverage and supplement companies like Minute Maid, Hain Celestial, General Mills and GNC. But ingredients come and go, which is why Steve Snyder, vice president, Sales & Marketing, would prefer that the market view Cargill's HFT division for its dedication to platforms like heart health, women's health, joint health and energy. To be clear, he stated, "We offer a portfolio of health benefits, which are supported by a variety of ingredients. Along with that we offer technical, scientific, marketing and consumer insight."

Central to HFT's recent successes is its co-branding initiatives. If co-branding is likely to be part and parcel of doing business in the health and wellness category in the future, HFT is way ahead of the game. In addition to branding, Mr. Snyder believes collaboration is necessary to educate and build awareness among consumers and healthcare practitioners about a particular ingredient and health category. "When you think about how functional foods and supplements go mainstream, the ability to bring consumers to the appropriate level of understanding is only possible by collaborating with key branded companies," he said.

Mr. Snyder also pointed to another advantage inherent in the branding process. "There is a lot of noise in the supplement industry about benefits that may not be proven. This results in confusion between what is science and what is someone's creative writing," he said. "This issue is best resolved by maintaining a high level of credibility and using the brand to do what it does best, which is simplify the buying process." He went on to say that brands automatically take consumers to the product of credibility very quickly. In other words, he said, if you buy a BMW there is a certain level of performance that is expected. As a result, consumers do not have to carry out the due diligence on the performance aspect of that product because the brand already took care of that.

The technology development at HFT has also been crucial to its success. Ingredients that were once impossible to include in certain formulations are now able to seamlessly penetrate mainstream foods and beverages. In fact, it was a patented form of plant sterols that made CoroWise's inclusion in Yoplait Healthy Heart a reality.

So what does it take to bring all of these elements together? In one word: investment. "Investing to add value is the only way to compete," Mr. Snyder said, adding, "And that investment should come in the areas of science, manufacturing, personnel, marketing and promotions. Most of the time companies have to make those painful investments in order to see the rewards."

HFT hopes that the successes it experienced with CoroWise will repeat itself with the other ingredients in its robust pipeline. One of the most recent launches is a barley beta-glucan ingredient, a product that will be entirely new to the food and beverage world, according to Mr. Snyder. It has application in beverages, bakery, food bars and nutritional chews. In addition to its raft of health benefits, it also has technical advantages in that it is low viscosity, high concentration (higher than what is on the market today) and good tasting.

The new beta-glucan concentrate was recently subjected to a clinical trial, the results of which were presented at this year's Experimental Biology meeting held in April. The double-blind study, conducted on 155 subjects with LDL cholesterol between 130-190 mg/dL, was designed to determine the effects of extracted barley beta-glucan on cardiovascular disease (CVD) biomarkers. Researchers tested two doses-a low (LMW) and high (HMW) molecular weight beta-glucan. Treatment was delivered in ready-to-eat cereal and juice consumed twice daily for six weeks. Fasted and postprandial blood samples were collected pre- and post- intervention for CVD biomarker determination. The researchers concluded that adding extracted barley beta-glucan to the diet can significantly improve multiple CVD risk factors in individuals with the metabolic syndrome.

In other developments, last August Cargill HFT entered the arachidonic acid (ARA) business when it inked a joint venture agreement with Wuhan Alking Bioengineering Co. Ltd. Discussing the implications of this agreement, Mr. Snyder said, "This speaks to the true global nature of our business, in addition to our willingness to move into highly technical ingredient areas." He added, "In addition to the omega 6 fatty acids category, we are pretty confident that we will also have a presence in omega 3's in the near future."