Nutrition Industry Executive (NIE) magazine’s annual NIE New Ingredients Awards places emphasis on the quality of scientific research, as well as the marketability of new nutritional ingredients launched for use in the U.S. The judging panel’s years of remarkable experience and expertise in the natural products industry are what has made the awards an industry standard of excellence.
Meet the Judges:
New to the judging panel is Jeff Hilton, co-founder of BrandHive, a leading global healthy-lifestyle branding agency. For 25 years (1996-2019), BrandHive provided high level strategic planning and branding expertise to consumer packaged goods and value-based ingredient companies in the U.S. and across the globe. The agency’s blue chip client base included game-changing brands, such as Solgar, Schiff, Megafood, EPAX, Dupont and Kyowa Hakko. Hilton has 40-plus years of advanced business and marketing expertise in the dietary supplement, functional food and beverage, and health and beauty categories. His tenured career also includes senior leadership positions with Nature’s Way as vice president of marketing, and Nutraceutical Corporation as president of their KAL supplement brand. He has been recognized by Advertising Age magazine as one of the nation’s Top 100 Marketers.
Dr. Nicole Avena is an associate professor of neuroscience at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, and a Visiting Professor of Health Psychology at Princeton University. She has done groundbreaking work developing models to characterize food addition and the dangers of excess sugar intake. In addition to over 100 peer-reviewed scholarly publications, Avena has written several popular books, her latest book, Sugarless, covers the latest science on sugar addiction and how to overcome it.
Dr. Jacqueline Jacques is a naturopathic doctor with more than 20 years of leadership experience in the medical nutrition and wellness industries. She has spent most of her career in the natural products industry as a founder, formulator, speaker, writer, executive and trusted advisor.
She spent nine years in leadership roles at Thorne HealthTech. Prior to Thorne, she was co-founder of Bariatric Advantage, which made a successful exit to Metagenics in 2010. Additionally, she currently serves or has served on the boards/advisory boards for People Science, Endourage, Equilibria, Alkemist Labs, the Institute for Natural Medicine, Thaena, Nutraland USA, the Obesity Action Coalition, Promax Nutrition, Bodywise International, and the California Naturopathic Doctors Association.
She received her doctorate in naturopathic medicine from the National University of Natural Medicine and is a Fellow of the Obesity Society and holds a certificate in finance and accounting from the Kelly School of Business at Indiana University. She also holds a specialty certification in Cannabis Science and Medicine from the University of Vermont. She additionally is the member of several professional organizations including the American Herbal Products Association, the Society of Cannabis Clinicians, The Obesity Society, Women in Bio, and Women in Nutraceuticals.
Dr. Yair Steve Henig is the founder of Henig Consulting, advising various companies in the space of food and nutrition. He is also the chief scientific officer of Caligenix and chief scientific officer emeritus of Herbalife. Henig is a board member of Biova, a company that manufactures and sells ingredients derived from egg membrane. In the last four decades, Henig was the chief technical and scientific officer of four major global companies and has a proven track record in building high performance organizations that generated numerous new products and technology platforms enabling innovation and major cost savings. He has built basic research programs to enhance the value of the companies’ products and foster alliances with ingredients and packaging suppliers. Henig has also designed numerous new processes and commercialization techniques to facilitate new product development.
Cheryl Myers is an integrative health nurse, author and an expert on natural medicine. She is a nationally recognized speaker who has been interviewed by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Prevention magazine. Her many articles have been published in such diverse journals as Aesthetic Surgery Journal and Nutrition in Complementary Care, and her research on botanicals has been presented at the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the North American Menopause Society. Myers if the head of scientific affairs and education for EuroPharma, Inc.
Gene Bruno, MS, MHS, professor emeritus of nutraceutical science, is a nutritionist, herbalist, writer and educator. For more than 40 years he has educated and trained natural product retailer and health care professionals, has researched and formulated natural products for dozens of dietary supplement companies, and has written articles on nutrition, herbal medicine, nutraceuticals and integrative health issues for trade, consumer magazines and peer-reviewed publications.
Janet Poveromo is the editor-in-chief of Nutrition Industry Executive and
Vitamin Retailer magazines and has been reporting on the natural products industry for 18 years. Prior to that, she covered municipal government and community news for the Star-Ledger, New Jersey’s largest newspaper. She has a bachelor’s degree from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.
Now in its sixth year, the NIE New Ingredients Awards contest is designed to help the industry discover promising new nutritional ingredients that are backed with high-quality research and offer market impact with important advancements for the health of the consumers that depend on natural products.
For more information, visit https://niemagazine.com/nieawards/.
