Ensuring products are backed by robust research is crucial for nutraceutical brands to gain consumer trust – but equally important is how they communicate those credentials, says Professor Mohammed Gulrez Zariwala, director of the University of Westminster’s Centre for Nutraceuticals.
Zariwala, who is also a professor in translational physiology at the London-based university, will be speaking on the subject at NutrEvent 2024, which takes place this week in Lille.
He told Vitafoods Insights: “There is unfortunately a lot of scepticism relating to nutraceuticals, and I think the best way to create trust is to have a credible, unbiased source – such as a university-based research centre – communicating the message.”
The Centre for Nutraceuticals acts as a focal point between the nutraceutical industry and academia “to promote robust, research-backed innovation”. As a non-profit organisation, its main goal “is not commercial gain but to promote robust scientific practices in the industry and enhance the credibility of nutraceuticals”, Zariwala explained.
He said: “We have a unique model, with our research model being vertically integrated – screening and identifying new phytochemicals that have nutraceutical potential, increasing their stability and potency using novel formulation strategies, exploring their biological effects in animal-free models and, finally, conducting high-quality human clinical studies to validate ingredient/product efficacy.
“This gives industry partners access to all stages of the product development lifecycle research in one package to help develop true science-backed ingredients and products from the bottom up… We are one of the very few research organisations that operates in this manner and have developed several innovative and commercially successful products in this way.”
Alongside the centre’s industry-focused work, its researchers work on exploratory academic projects, while it is also active in disseminating information on nutraceuticals to nutritionists and clinicians as well as consumers.
Asked why the translation of research into innovation and product development was so important for the nutraceutical industry, Zariwala highlighted “longstanding issues” in the space, particularly around “exaggerated product claims” and “relatively slow genuine innovation”.
He added: “Innovation in product development is important not just to improve products for the consumers, but also because it gives companies a competitive edge to help differentiate their products commercially in a crowded market.
“For example, liposomes have been used as delivery system for decades, but they have been applied in the nutraceuticals and supplements area only relatively recently. Some of the companies that first came up with liposomal delivery systems-based products have enjoyed success with market-leading products.
“Likewise, there has been little innovation in delivery formats, but the companies that have developed science-based solutions – for example, 3D personalised gummies – have really stood out as market leaders in their categories.
“A lot of these novel technologies already exist in universities and the research domain, but the flow of knowledge between academia and industry is painfully slow and has a time lag of years, if not decades – so there is a compelling reason for the industry to be more open to adopting and applying innovative practices.”
Asked what he thought nutraceutical companies’ most common mistake was when it came to communicating the science behind their supplements, Zariwala identified key issues including “making exaggerated and embellished claims” and “falling into the trap of the ‘numbers game’”.
He said: “In the first case, companies often shout about their ‘science-backed’ credentials of some products – but if you look behind the catchy buzzwords, there is often very little primary research done by them.
“Consumers are increasingly sensitive to issues relating to the quality, safety, and efficacy, and seem to understand that it takes more than a single one-off consumer or clinical study for them to trust a brand’s scientific credentials.
“On the second point, you often see companies talking about their product being several hundred times better absorbed – and this creates a kind of race, with companies going into even higher number and percentage claims.
“In most cases this just leads to a scenario where the consumer is confused among the jargon of marketing, and the key messages relating to product efficiency are missed.”
Asked what strategies brands can use to earn consumer trust, Zariwala recommended working with “reputed organisations that are independent and unbiased”, such as universities, as research conducted there is “regarded as the gold standard”, and thus carries higher levels of trust.
“Companies need to have a long-term investment in science, as the best way to establish trust is to have products that work and are proven to work, and this can only evolve based on a strong and sustained foundation of science, with input into product formulation all the way into validation and developmental research,” he said.
“Alongside this, it is equally important to communicate the scientific information about your products in the right way… [As] consumers become more savvy about key concepts such as bioavailability and efficacy, an approach that presents your product claims in an open and honest way would generate sustained trust.
“A good way to communicate the right message about your brand and reinforce its science-based credentials would be to create platforms such as blogs, podcast discussions, and seminars to create conversations to clarify key terms, rather than just use marketing hype-based messaging.”
Asked about plans for the future, Zariwala said the recent large-scale refurbishment and expansion of the centre’s facilities had “increased our capabilities in terms of equipment, so there are lots of exciting plans for the next couple of years”.
He said that it was expanding its focus in clinical trials from nutraceutical ingredient validation to include finished products.
“With companies increasingly using multi-ingredient formulas for their products, I have often talked about the need for doing supplement-level research to validate the claims rather than relying on the background claims of ingredients alone,” he explained.
“We have had a lot of interest for trials from companies with different finished product categories, so it’s good to see this shift.”
Other plans include the expansion of its student nutrition conference to include nutritionists and practitioners, while a global consortium on nutraceutical research and innovation is touted for the longer term.
Zariwala will be taking part in a panel discussion at NutrEvent 2024 entitled “How to communicate the science behind supplements and generate consumer trust and acceptance”.
