ONC buys into new omega-3 technology
The undisclosed deal will see the Canadian fish oil leader take exclusive rights to GAT’s wowCAPS technology that has proved particularly suitable to dairy formulations, although ONC’s own PowderLoc encapsulation technology has had success there too.
ONC will also take control of GAT’s existing customers in the fish oil space, with there being potential for the two to work together on research and development and formulation.
Broadening offerings
ONC vice president of marketing, Linwood Riddick, told NutraIngredients.-USA.com that the deal was all about, “providing our customers with another technology to help them with omega-3 fortification.”
“This is a broadening of our offering as the technology is substantially different to PowderLoc so there will be certain applications suited to one or the other. We purchased this technology because we believe that GAT has the best.”
Particular applications had not yet been targeted, he said, but food would the focus, not dietary supplements, although, ”nothing is out of the question”.
Pricing details hadn’t been arrived at, nor the manner in which the wowCAPS would be marketed alongside PowderLoc.
Riddick said the fact GAT had a customer base that reached into Latin America, Australia, Europe and North America had added value to the deal.
GAT’s research and development manager in technical applications, Rebecca Albrecht, said GAT’s only activity in fish oils would be restricted to collaboration with ONC but its flax and algae omega-3 businesses remained unchanged.
ONC’s marketing and distribution reach were key drivers in the deal, she said, as well as the fact that its former fish oil supplier defaulted.
“We are a small technical company and they are the omega-3 leader,” she said. “They will be able to take our clients further than we could alone.”
In dairy applications, GAT’s microencapsulation method has permitted a nine-month shelf life in a product in Australia. The company says it is able to achieve this because it adds the ingredient to the milk formula which it says is also an advantage because production lines do not have to be modified to bring the ingredient onboard.
Other methods, such as that employed by Spanish dairy and ingredients supplier, Puleva Biotech, replace milk fats with omega-3 fatty acids.
