As reported last year by NutraIngredients-USA​, HBC has spent about a decade honing its proprietary processes and building the clinical substantiation for its ingredient portfolio, which includes ProGo (bioactive peptides); OmeGo (salmon oil); and CalGo (collagenic hydroxyapatite calcium).

All of the ingredients are produced by upcycling the cast-offs from their parent company’s salmon business: Hofseth International is a major player in the global salmon business and the largest exporter of Norwegian salmon to the US.

The company also recently confirmed the NDI status of ProGo from the US Food and Drug Administration, having already achieved this for its CalGo and OmeGo ingredients.

“It feels like the stars are starting to align,” ​James Berger, Chief Commercial Officer at Hofseth BioCare ASA, ​told NutraIngredients-USA. “There are a lot of things happening and this feels like an inflection point for us.”

Unique ingredients

In addition to the ingredients’ upcycled and sustainability credentials, the science around their health benefits appears to be opening up unique product positions for brands. ProGo, for example, does not contain iron, but has been shown to support healthy ferritin and hemoglobin levels by upregulating a gene called FTH1. The ingredient also upregulates HMOX1, a gene that encodes heme oxygenase (HO), an enzyme system important for cardiovascular and gastrointestinal health.

“We are the only non-iron containing ingredient available on the market today that can use ‘iron supplementation’ claims such as ‘improves energy, haemoglobin levels and red blood cell production’,” ​said Berger. “ProGo is an innovative solution that is dependent on understanding the mode of action of our collagen peptides, which is not something that any other producer can use.”