New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra has launched a new B2B wellbeing solutions brand to tap into the lucrative global nutrition market.
Nutiani - a name derived from the word 'nutrition' - will target both the medical and everyday nutrition sectors. It will offer products such as lipids, probiotics and lactoferrin, as well as concepts and services to enable Fonterra’s business customers to tailor their products according to consumer trends and needs.
“Our health and wellbeing customers are facing growing pressure to accelerate their innovation pipeline to respond to these dynamic consumer demands, yet they face common challenges during new product development and are looking for partners to fill their capability gaps,” commented Fonterra’s chief innovation and brand officer, Komal Mistry-Mehta. “Nutiani answers this need by providing a suite of solutions which help customers tackle the pain points associated with each step of the innovation journey – from identifying the opportunity to validating the final product.”
DairyReporter understands that Nutiani will focus on dairy-free solutions and ingredients in addition to dairy. It will sit alongside Fonterra’s existing dairy ingredients company, NZMP, though some of NZMP’s speciality ingredients will be re-branded and offered under the new brand, e.g. Nutiani Probiotics, Nutiani Phospholipids and Nutiani Lactoferrin. Current dairy-free offerings include Fonterra’s probiotic strains HN001 and HN019, with new products set to launch in 2023.
Market ambitions
The launch of Nutiani is the second ingredients-related venture recently announced by the co-op, which also partnered with DSM to establish a start-up company that will ‘accelerate the development of fermentation-derived proteins with dairy-like properties’.
The two entities are entirely separate, however, although both are linked to Fonterra’s long-term ambitions in the nutrition science and innovation space.
With the launch of Nutiani, the co-op wants to tap into the increasingly lucrative global wellbeing nutrition market, which the New Zealand dairy giant says is worth $US66bn and growing at 6% annually. The co-op's own research has also shown that 96% of consumers take steps to look after their wellbeing, including through a balanced and healthy diet.
In terms of market scope, Fonterra positions Nutiani as a global brand, but will likely focus more closely on the co-op's biggest markets - North America, North Asia and China – to put the brand on a firm footing for future growth.
“Our presence in those markets is not new,” a Fonterra spokesperson told us. “We’ve been operating our functional nutrition business units for the past four years and we’re bringing all our knowledge, expertise and presence in those markets into the Nutiani brand. With this approach, we’re confident to grow our brand and business in this very competitive market.”