Oslo, Norway-based Aker BioMarine has teamed up with ORIVO, a Norwegian Norwegian feed ingredients laboratory, to create a new krill oil brand aimed at the Chinese market.
The brand, NY-O3, is being marketed as “fully transparent about the origin and traceability of the product ingredients,” according to an ORIVO press release. The company said it will provide consumers certification that 100 percent of the NY-03 product is derived from krill caught in Antarctic waters.
“We’re taking consumer trust and safety to the highest level available today,” it said. “NY-03 is now the very first supplement brand entering China to guarantee consumers true transparency through an independent third-party authenticity certification. The certification is based on the world´s first and only lab-based technology that scientifically validates the origin and species of omega-3 oils.”
ORIVO Chief Technology Officer Erik Fuglseth said the company’s technology is able to verify both the species and geographic origin of a product derived from seafood.
“The testing technology is based on proven NMR analysis combined with a strong database of known reference samples and powerful analysis algorithms,” Fuglseth said. “For decades hospitals around the world have used MRI to understand the complexity of the human body's inner structure. Together with leading Nordic R&D institutes, we have utilized this knowledge and developed a tool for testing and origin verification of omega-3 supplements.”
Aker BioMarine Executive Vice President of Human Health and Nutrition Tim de Haas said NY-O3 is the first brand in the Chinese vitamin and dietary supplement market with ORIVO’s origin certification.
“There is no question that brands and consumers are interested in knowing where their ingredients are coming from, and third-party certifications are becoming increasingly important in the dietary supplements industry,” de Haas said. “Krill oil brands around the world have full confidence when sourcing from Aker BioMarine. Since we own and control our entire supply chain, everything happens under our watch, giving our partners a unique insight into how we operate. This trust and transparency, combined with the certification from ORIVO, can guarantee consumers that their krill oil supplement consists of exactly what is promised – a 100 percent pure, safe source of valuable nutrients from pristine Antarctic waters.”
The companies have worked together to develop a “mystery shopping” process to determine whether the product is being counterfeited – an increasingly troublesome problem in China, NY-O3 representative Yannice Xu said.
“ORIVO is purchasing products as normal consumers in the marketplace. This gives our clients two important guarantees: It verifies that samples sent from our production partners are authentic, and in addition, this routine will over time discover if there are possible copy products present in the marketplace,” Xu said. “This is obviously of tremendous value for our customers who now can be certain they are getting the highest quality krill oil available every time they buy a box of NY-O3.”
Photo courtesy of ORIVO
