Forging links with companies who value innovation as much as we do

Intro

Bioriginal is a global leader in delivering natural nutritional ingredients and supplements to the human and pet nutrition industries. We interviewed Armand van de Putte, Senior Vice President, and Laura Maduro, Marketing Professional, to tell us about Bioriginal’s response to trends and legislations.

Bioriginal’s aim is to enable a healthy lifestyle through better nutrition. They produce and source superior quality ingredients such as plant and marine omega oils, plant proteins, nutraceuticals, coconut oils & mcts. As a company, Bioriginal wants to profile themselves in the industry as a player that delivers high quality for a high service level. They are innovative in the field of quality development. At their location in Den Bommel they blend different oils at unique scales, where the focus is on the fatty acid profiles of the end product. This is performed on a small to medium size scale, due to which Bioriginal gained a well-established place in the market.

What are the current developments in the market that you want to respond?

More than just a few! We focus on shortage of raw materials, traceability, new techniques, growing consciousness of consumers towards healthy ingredients, client specific offers instead of one size fits all, organic supply, legislation and sustainability.

How do you play into these developments with your organization?

As a company we value staying up to date with all trends and developments. We do this by following seminars, reading trade journals, newsletters and by being part of trade organizations. Additionally, our headquarter in Canada has collaborations with the University of Saskatchewan. Since North America is ahead of Europe when it comes to trends, we at Bioriginal are up to date with the trends before they reach Europe.

Our business allows us to upcycle side streams from the fishfarming industry. We process them into high value fishing oil for the human and animal feed industry.

Besides that, we have a large offer in organic and plantbased products and are able to help our clients make the jump from fish to plantbased products.

What does that require from you and your organization?

It requires a lot of attention from our company to stay up to date with changes. Both from Brussels and from the certification area, there are a lot of things to keep in check.

It demands from Bioriginal to continuously search for a balance between what is obligated and what is a choice. As a company, you need a mindset that is able and willing to switch fast. We need to dare answering our customers’ demands if they match with our ambitions – even when the volumes aren’t that big yet. Something that is not profitable yet, can become a source of profit in three years. An example of that is our algae oil.

Playing into the market developments is either not or hardly possible. It asks us to make choices, because developing a product that is sustainable as well as affordable, innovative etc, is almost impossible.

Lastly, we need to keep investing time and money into research. 

What is the role of innovation therein?

Due to the size of our company, we rely on collaborations in the field of innovation, in order to create a synergetic effect for each other. We neither have the largest budgets nor distribution channels. Our strength lies in forging collaborations within the chain, where customer demand plays a big role in the initiation phase. The innovation expertise, we are equipped with ourselves.

Innovation lies in more than the product itself, it’s also in the technologies (for instance: nitrogen generator). Especially in the field of sustainability, innovations plays a large role. For example, by using more economical techniques or new techniques that offer opportunities. This way, we are able to differentiate ourselves on the market and stay interesting for our clients who themselves want to play into the demands of the consumer.

How does IFFI contribute to your goals?

IFFI is a source of inspiration and information. We are especially interested in learning about product pricing and product development and IFFI delivers that information.

The networking aspect of IFFI offers us a chance to discover what other companies are up to. At the same time, it gives us the opportunity to forge links with companies who value innovation as much as we do.