The two beverages are the grape peel essence for metabolic and cognitive functions and the orange peel essence for digestive and immunity benefits.
Last year, we reported that Nutrixin launched Apple Peel Essence in Singapore, which has since sold between 300 to 400 bottles monthly on average.
Dr Wai Mun Loke, founder of Innovfood, the parent company of Nutrixin, told NutraIngredients-Asia the relaunch was to strengthen the brand’s association to nutraceuticals rather than fruit juice.
“Last year, we launch the apple peel essence in an attractive and artistic packaging, but it gave the wrong impression to consumers who associated our brand to apple juice. Our product is more than apple juice, it is a nutraceutical containing fives times the polyphenol and 100 times more quercetin found in apples.
“The goodness of our product was not translated in the packaging.”
With this relaunch, the firm changed its packaging to better translate the essence of its products to consumers, and also launched two new SKUs, orange peel essence and grape peel essence. It also increased the volume size from 150mL to 300mL.
Immunity, cognitive and digestive
The apple peel essence is the same formulation as launched last year.
Loke said he chose to focus on polyphenols because there have been considerable research in this area for the past 20 years, but this has not always been translated into product development.
Nutrixin adds a range of apple, orange, and grape polyphenols that have been clinically tested in both human and animal studies.
For instance, the apple peel essence contains 212mg of polyphenols and 150mg of quercetin per 100mL of beverage.
Mendonça RD et al (2019) published in Nutrition, Metabolism and Cardiovascular Diseases that an intake of apple flavonoids was inversely associated with the risk of cardiovascular events in a 10-year follow-up prospective cohort of 17,065 Spanish middle-age adult university graduates. Quercetin has also been shown to reduce circulating pro-inflammatory cytokines, and oxidative damage.
The grape peel essence contains 200mg of grape polyphenols and 22.5mg of resveratrol per 100mL of beverage.
In a randomised, placebo-controlled, double-blind trial involving 215 older adults, intake of grape and blueberry polyphenol extract (258mg flavonoids daily) over six months improved age-related episodic memory decline, as published by Bensalem J et al (2018) in The Journals of Gerontology.
Resveratrol was also studied for its cognitive functions where supplementation between 200mg to 1000mg per day was found to enhance memory in older adults and improve psychomotor functions.
For the orange peel essence, it contains 585mg of orange polyphenols (hesperidin, naringin) and 7.5g of galactooligosaccharide per 100mL of beverage.
Galactooligosaccharide is a prebiotic and dietary fibre shown to improve intestinal barrier function and insulin sensitivity in obese individuals.
Orange polyphenols such as hesperidin and naringin have been studied for their antioxidant, anti-inflmmation, and hypotensive properties. For instance, hesperidin reduced diastolic blood pressure in moderately overweight men, according to Hirai S et al (2007) in Life Sciences.
Retail and market expansion
The beverages are sold on Nutrixin’s website at SG$9 (US$6.60). Loke told us he was planning to sell on e-commerce platform Lazada as well as physical retail channels such as Watson and Guardian.
The firm sources its ingredients globally from countries such as China, Indonesia but formulation, production, bottling and testing are done in Singapore.
According to Loke, the beverages are ambient without any preservatives. He explained that it undergoes a retort process to produce a shelf stable drink with a shelf-life of two years.
Having it in a shelf stable format also allows the firm to export overseas.
Loke had intended to enter Hong Kong and Taiwan last year with the bigger and more developed nutraceutical markets there, but the pandemic and subsequent riots in Hong Kong pushed back his plans.
Loke said once the pandemic and riot situation stabilised, he would enter those markets.
At the moment, he is focused on the Singapore market and increasing its presence here with the three functional beverages.
The company is working on a drink and gel product, currently in the R&D stage. These will not be part of the peel essence series.