Polyphenols specialist Artemis rebrands core line, branches out into purple tea

Artemis has a 20-year history of specializing in dark berry nutraceutical ingredients for the food, beverage and dietary supplement industries.  The company bills itself as the number-one supplier of elderberry nutraceutical ingredients in the US and a leading source of aronia, cranberry, black currant, tart cherry, bilberry, and purple corn nutraceuticals. A common thread of all of these ingredients is that they are high in anthocyanins and other flavonoid compounds known for their antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.

Leslie Gallo, VP of operations at Artemis, which is based in Fort Wayne, IN, said the rebranding under the name Berryceuticals was timed to coincide with the Expo West trade show in early March.

Purple tea launch​

“Getting the new brand out there was step one,” Gallo​ told NutraIngredients-USA. “We will also be launched a purple tea product that is a high antioxidant tea.”​

The purple tea is a cultivar of Camellia sinensis​ developed by a grower in Kenya, Gallo said.  Growers in the area were finding it hard to earn a decent living with garden varieties of tea on the highly competitive international market. The purple variety, with its high level of dark-purple polyphenols in the leaf, offered a unique product that could command a higher price, she said.

“They developed a high antioxidant purple tea that not only had a nice anthocyanin profile but it was high in antioxidants. And the growers can make a fair living at it,”​ Gallo said.

“We are looking to develop this to several levels of extracts, for beverages and dietary supplements,”​ she said.

Gallo said Artemis is also making a significant push on another core product: its elderberry extracts that are produced via a propriety filtration process the company calls Holistic Membrane Extraction. The technology was developed by an Italian extraction partner, Gallo said.

“We are relaunching elderberry as a year-round ingredient.  We have seen it get pigeonholed as just a cold and flu season ingredient.  We are trying to get people to accept this an an anytime immune booster, for people who travel, for peopel who have kids in school or even for school teachers in contact with children all the time,”​ she said.

Move toward multi-ingredient formulas​

Another big push for the company is the development of a line of proprietary formulas for customers. Gallo said single ingredients are all fine and good, but customers increasingly are demanding more help in differentiating their products on the shelf. Even if you believe your, say, cranberry extract is better than someone else’s, it’s hard to get consumers to pay attention long enough at the point of sale to understand that difference.

“Single ingredients still play a big role in our business. But we are developing a line of branded ingredient blends that will be targeted toward different health indications, like immunity, brain health, antioxidant activity and anti aging. Customers are looking for unique ingredients and that’s why I think we see a trend where it’s more than just that single berry ingredient or that single compound,”​ she said.

“Customers might come to us and say they want to launch a brain health drink. What do we have that will work?  That’s why we have put a lot of time and energy into those formulations and have done some clinical work to prove the different ingredients do what we want them to do in and to figure out the right dosing for our blends,” ​she said.

Artemis International will be showing its line of ingredients at Booth 351 at the Natural Products Expo West trade show in Anaheim, CA in early March.