Taiyo launches new synbiotic, women's health formulations based on Sunfiber ingredient

09-Mar-2020 - Last updated on 09-Mar-2020 at 16:24 GMT

Taiyo's Sunfiber ingredient is a partially hydrolyzed guar gum made from raw material grown in India. Taiyo photo.

Japanese ingredient supplier Taiyo continues to expand the product forms of its prebiotic Sunfiber ingredient by pairing it with a probiotic as well as launching a new dual action women’s health product.

The new product launches would have been highlighted at the Natural Products Expo West trade show, which was postponed a week ago by organizers because of a wave of COVID-19-related cancellations.

Solid suit of science

Taiyo has been developing its partially hydrolyzed guar gum prebiotic fiber ingredient, marketed as Sunfiber, for many years. The company has a particularly comprehensive suite of scientific studies backing the ingredient, including recent studies that show the ingredient’s ability to support regular bowel habits as well as its positive effect on appetite control.

This sold underpinning of peer reviewed science is a major reason why partially hydrolyzed guar gum made the first list of approved soluble fiber ingredients that met FDA’s criteria for substances that matched the definition of a dietary fiber claim when the agency chose to review this category of ingredients in 2016. Many prebiotic, soluble fiber ingredients that did not make the initial list have since been added after submitting petitions, but Taiyo did not have to jump through that particular hoop. This means formulators using Sunfiber can make a fiber content claim on their labels should they choose to do so.

New pairing eliminates need for excipients in probiotic delivery

Among the latest product developments is an ingredient Taiyo is calling Sunfiber GI. In each serving the new ingredient pairs the prebiotic, which is a mild-tasting, quickly dissolving powder, with 8 billion CFU of Bifidobacterium lactis BL04. Taiyo’s technical sales director Derek Timm, PhD, said the pairing is a elegant solution to the question of how best to stabilize a probiotic to preserve shelf life and maintain free dispersal qualities, as well as keep the combination free flowing for manufacturing purposes. The approach offers functional benefits and can help support a clean label positioning, he said.

“The two constituents are co-agglomerated together. The probiotic CFUs essentially become part of the particle with the Sunfiber. What’s really nice about doing this is we can have a uniformity of the probiotic and prebiotic, and you have eliminated the need for other carriers that prebiotics often come with like maltodextrin,” Timm told NutraIngredients-USA.

Timm said the pairing can be seen as a synbiotic, though he said that, even after a number of years of market history of the use of the term, he’s unsure how many consumers understand what it means. So it’s not an aspect of the ingredient that the company has pushed hard in its marketing.

“We know that Sunfiber is bifidogenic in the dosage in which it's used. So it absolutely would have a synbiotic effect in this case,” he said.

While many probiotics are delivered in capsules, Timm said the 3 to 6 gram dose of Sunfiber makes the new product most suitable for sachets to be mixed into beverages and consumed immediately.

New combo product addresses gut health, UTI concerns

The other new product development from Taiyo revolves around its Regular Girl consumer facing brand. The new product, called Regular Girl Wellness, pairs Sunfiber with SunCran organic Cranberry Juice Powder from Canadian supplier Fruit d’Or.

“Gut bacteria are a common source of urinary tract issues, which makes it extra important to have a good gut microbiome. This exclusive dual action formula uniquely promotes urinary tract and GI health,” Timm said. “I don’t think anyone has addressed urinary tract health this way before.”