To help maintain a healthy lifestyle, growing numbers of consumers are going au naturale. According to the Food Marketing Institute, 59 percent of consumers look to purchase products labeled as “natural.” These products range from preservative-free foods to clean-label clothes to fruit- and vegetable-based beauty products. Natural is one of the top 10 health and wellness claims, according to the Nielsen Co., growing by more than 10 percent in 2008 to $22.3 billion and continuing to expand even as the economy stumbled.
This natural movement includes dietary supplements as well. Two out of five shoppers surveyed in a 2007 study by the Natural Marketing Institute (NMI) agree they desire dietary supplements derived from natural sources. The majority of those said they would be willing to pay a premium of 20 percent or more. They like herbs and other non-animal products. They are big on antioxidants and phytochemicals found in fruits and vegetables, such as lutein, lycopene and carotene.
Simplicity is key to the choice of capsule for natural products. Capsules do not require the binders, fillers, lubricants, disintegrants or surfactants often needed to form tablets. Often what a capsule doesn’t contain becomes the more important label claim—gluten-free, soy-free, allergen-free, binder free, GMO-free and preservative-free. And liquid-filled capsules can even tout “plasticizer-free” over softgels.
Supplement marketers can further enhance the healthy lifestyle appeal of their encapsulated products by choosing to incorporate natural features in their capsules. Vegetarian capsules are made of plant-based cellulosic raw material and are preservative-free, starch-free and gluten-free. Another option is a 100-percent natural pullulan polymer made of a water-soluble polysaccharide through a fermentation process. Gelatin capsules, always considered natural, are now available from fish-sourced raw materials as well.
Because capsules can be preservative-free, starch-free, gluten-free and without chemical modification, they are used by many manufacturers to encapsulate organic fillings. If the filling is 100-percent organic, manufacturers can state on labels that its product is then 100-percent organic in a plant-based or a gelatin capsule.
In addition, capsules can now be fashioned with an expanded palette of natural colorants. As examples, pinks and reds can be created from the reddish colors carmine, derived from the cochineal extract and paprika, obtained from Capsicum pepper. Blues stem from the blue-green pigment extracted from the algae Spirulina. The green pigment chlorophyll can be sourced from alfalfa and mulberry leaves. Browns come from the hues of caramel or heat-treated sugar. The orange-yellow compound riboflavin can make carrot colors. Yellow curcumin and turmeric strengthen the color mix that now represents a strong and vibrant offering in an all-natural color line.
To help make products stand out even more, shines and color enhancements that attract the consumer’s eye, but use natural sources can be added regardless of whether color is used. Titanium dioxide (TiO2), a naturally mined mineral, can create opacity. Candurin®, made of light-reflecting pigment composed of natural mica and TiO2, fashions a pearlescent effect.
Using natural colors and effects, natural plant-based and gelatin capsules offer real and perceived benefits that can help differentiate products and attract the growing natural consumer base.
Missy Lowery is marketing manager for Capsugel, a division of Pfizer, Americas Region. She spent half of her career in advertising working on consumer packaged goods and services, as a vice president, account manager at Ogilvy & Mather and Grey Advertising, among other agencies. She moved to the client side to work in marketing and product management at IOLAB, a Johnson & Johnson Co.; Chiron Vision; Bausch & Lomb Surgical; and Amgen, before joining Capsugel.