Americans just aren’t eating enough fruits and vegetables, which may explain why they’ve become more interested in supplementing with green foods.

It’s not news that sound nutritional habits are the key to great health, and it’s also not news that many Americans find that goal hard to achieve. With the nutritional power offered by green foods, suppliers of these ingredients are finding the marketplace very favorable.

“The state of the market for green foods is still extremely strong and it continues to grow,” said Jeff Wuagneux, president and CEO of New York-based RFI Ingredients. “In fact, whether you shop online or in the supplement section of a store, green foods are their own category with their own space on the shelf.” 

One area that has seen particularly explosive growth is powdered greens drinks, he added. “Ten years ago, there were very few powdered ‘greens’ drinks on the market. Today, there are hundreds—if not thousands—of brands of green food drinks.” 

Why might this be? “Consumption of fruits and vegetables is actually down in the past decade, even as the media and government tell us we should be eating more fruits and vegetables,” Wuagneux speculated. “This paradox may explain the interest by consumers in green-food products, which in turn is driving manufacturer interest.” 

Bob Capelli, vice president of sales, marketing and materials management with Hawaii-based Nutrex Hawaii Inc., a subsidiary of Hawaii-based Cyanotech, agreed that the green foods category is “buzzing.” “We’re happy to say that Hawaiian Spirulina from Nutrex Hawaii is leading the charge. Growth has been phenomenal recently, and our Spirulina now accounts for approximately 50 percent of all spirulina sales in the natural channel, according to SPINS.

“There is a growing knowledge among retailers and consumers that marine-based green food ingredients such as spirulina and chlorella pack a tremendous bang for your nutritional buck,” he added.

Trends 

While green products are some of the oldest nutritional supplements—for instance, wheatgrass has been a nutritional product since the 1940s, chlorella was considered a food source because of its high nutritive value since the early 1950s and spirulina has been around since the 1970s as a food source, noted Wuagneux—the category has been constantly shifting and evolving.

“In the past, green foods like cereal Grasses (oat, wheat, alfalfa, barley) and algae (chlorella, spirulina) were sold as single-ingredient products. Although you still can find chlorella and spirulina sold separately, most products today are blends of many ingredients,” he added.

Some trends have stemmed from new sources that are the result of unique processing, such as RFI’s FermaPro line. Another trend is the use of plant proteins, such as chia and hemp. “While not necessarily green in color, they are used a lot in green foods to provide protein and fiber content,” Wuagneux said.

Previously, most green-food products were high-dose powdered beverage mixes, which made claims of containing high-nutrient greens (vegetables, algae, cereal grasses) and fruits to help get the nutrients not provided by a poor diet, said Wuagneux. “Many claim an ORAC value, which links antioxidant potency of fruit or vegetables servings to the antioxidant potency of the product. Basically, most of these products are marketed to supplement the diet with phytochemicals one isn’t getting from the diet.” 

But in recent years, green foods have evolved and manufacturers are using greens foods beyond the standard “get your green vegetables” end use. “Green foods are now sold not only in the ‘green foods’ section of the store, but also in condition-specific sections because they do support many conditions (immune, detoxification, vegetarian source of protein, antioxidant, etc.),” he added. “With all the products on the market, there is a need to distinguish yourself in this competitive marketplace.” 

As for a blended formulation, Nutrex Hawaii’s Capelli argued that more doesn’t necessarily equate with better.He pointed out that “smarter” brands are starting to realize that a few well chosen ingredients in a green foods formula are better than having “fairy dust” levels of everything but the kitchen sink.

“Consumers used to be wowed by seeing 30 or 40 ingredients on the label of a green foods product. But the smart professionals working in the aisles of natural foods stores understand (and consequently, consumers are being led in this direction) that if you have 30 ingredients in a formula, getting the clinical benefits of any one ingredient would be almost impossible,” he said.

“Now, if a brand sponsored clinical research on their own kitchen-sink formula and could show that it helped boost immunity, supported cardiovascular health, controlled anemia or any of the other validated benefits of spirulina, that would be the clincher. But to my knowledge, I don’t believe any of the kitchen-sink products have been doing their own independent research.” 

According to Wuagneux, other new trends for uses of greens foods include:

• Alkalizing products: RFI is custom formulating new green food alkalizing blends.Such products help optimize the pH of the body, according to the company.“When your body’s pH level is off even slightly towards what is called acidosis (above pH 7.44), this leads to host of health problems due to loss of enzyme function (enzymes only function at defined pH) and the harsh corrosive nature of the increasing levels of acids,” Wuagneux explained. “Acidification is manifested as pain or burning in joints, GI (gastrointestinal) tract, nerves, urinary tract and in areas where we sweat most. There are also health problems associated with the loss of minerals used to neutralize the increased acid levels, which can negatively affect the teeth, bones, hair, fingernails, skin and gums.” 

Wuagneux noted that acidification also leads to overall fatigue, sensitivity to cold, and a weakened immune system.“Acidosis is a major health con-Cern for the vast majority of Western nations because of lifestyle and diet choices. Industrialized diets include acidic or acidifying elements such as meat, coffee, tea, alcohol and sugars, and not enough alkaline foods.Countering acidification is as simply as reducing the acids the body is taking in and increasing the alkaline foods or alkaline supplements.”

• Meal replacements: RFI has also developed a number of meal replacements that resemble green drinks more than the old-fashioned, dairy-based products. Instead of whey or soy, these newer meal replacements contain green food ingredients like vegetable powders and cereal grasses as well, and use plant-based proteins such as chia, hemp or sacha inchi, because they provide both protein and fiber.

Fresh Greens 

RFI Ingredients recently added a line of fermented greens, FermaPro.“Fermentation makes many complex foods more digestible by breaking them down into readily digestible amino acids and simpler sugars, and also improving the bioavailability of minerals present in foods,” Wuagneux said. “In simple terms, fermenting foods can be considered a form of ‘pre-digestion.’ An example is the use of cereal grasses. While ruminant animals such as cows and horses have a separate gut compartment filled with lactic acid microorganisms to digest the cellulose, humans cannot digest cellulose. Fermenting cereal grasses with lactic acid microorganisms may help break down cereal grasses and make them more digestible.” 

Other benefits of lactic acid fermentation include the production of antioxidants and omega-3 fatty acids, which are essential for immune function, Wuagneux explained. Fermentation of grains also neutralizes phytic acid, a compound found in grains that block absorption of minerals. Fermentation also can produce new compounds that are more bioavailable (such as fermented ginseng) or have higher potency.

Proceeding With Caution 

Working with greens can pose some challenges such as heavy metal contamination and efficacy, but it depends upon the green food, said Wuagneux.“For instance, chlorella can lose nutrients during the process of breaking the cell wall.” RFI’s Sourcestainable Organic Chlorella is produced using a proprietary milling process in which the temperature and light are controlled to eliminate any chance for potential nutrient loss.

“Efficacy is not only associated with making sure nutrients are not lost during processing, like in the case of chlorella processing, but also with controlling the cultivation of the greens,” he added. RFI’s ‘From Field to Formula’ slogan illustrates the company’s vertically integrated business model, which includes an extensive global network of exclusive growers and manufacturers of both conventional and organic natural raw materials.

Another issue with cultivation is that certain products, such as cereal grasses, do not have year-round growing seasons. RFI has worldwide seasonal farming (Northern and Southern Hemisphere) so that there always is fresh product available, said Wuagneux. “Another challenge often seen with green products is high heavy metals. We strive to produce a finished product that has the lowest lead levels attainable from nature. Our strict GMP quality control program—from selecting fields for growing, to processing, milling and packaging—allows us to supply the best cereal grasses to our customers with the lowest heavy metal levels possible.” 

But the biggest difficulty is making greens products taste good, according to Wuagneux.“With an in-house applications laboratory and our staff of food scientists, RFI has an enormous amount of experience in providing our customers with formulas that taste good and have efficacy.” 

Nutrex Hawaii limits challenges by concentrating on growing only two ingredients: Hawaiian Spirulina Pacifica in the green foods area, and BioAstin Hawaiian Astaxanthin in the joint health/skin health/eye and brain health areas. “We don’t try to be the best at many things; our corporate strategy is to be the very best in quality in a limited number of products, and build a successful retail brand from these ingredients,” said Capelli. “Both microalgae species we produce have unique production challenges—for example, it’s easy to produce spirulina, but to produce a consistent, super high- quality spirulina with high levels of nutrients and low levels of heavy metals is almost impossible. And yet, under the direction of our founder, Dr. Gerry Cysewski, we’ve been able to do this for 30 years and are recognized around the world as the clear quality leader.” 

While Nutrex Hawaii has not introduced a new product in the green foods category recently, the company’s new CEO and new general manager of retail have long histories of innovative product development in the supplement arena, according to Capelli.“We’re not ready to make an announcement yet, but we’ve been devoting a lot of energy into R&D, so you can expect some great new introductions from Nutrex Hawaii in the near future.”

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Nutrex Hawaii, (800) 453-1187 

RFI Ingredients, (845) 358-8600