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Stevia producer GLG Life Tech (GLG; Vancouver) has signed a memorandum of understanding with Grupo Azucarero Mexico (GAM; Las Lomas, Mexico), Mexico...s largest sugar producer, to distribute and market stevia products in Mexico, according to a GLG press release published earlier this month. GAM owns and operates four sugar mills and three processing plants across Mexico, a country where stevia products have already entered the market. PepsiCo introduced its stevia-based Gatorade G2 beverage in Mexico, last year.

Food For Health Ireland (FHI; Cork, Ireland) announced, last week, that it has begun utilizing metabolomics in its research of milk metabolites. Based at University College Dublin, FHI is a government agency that aligns scientific and commercial dairy interests to explore the health potential of 'commercially viable bioactives in milk.' 'Metabolomics allows us to examine how milk compounds can alter [metabolism],' said Lorraine Brennan, PhD, project leader for FHI at University College Dublin.

Chemicals company BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany) has reached an agreement to purchase ingredient supplier Cognis (Monheim, Germany) for an enterprise value transaction of €3.1 billion. The acquisition is subject to clearance by merger-control authorities and is expected to close by November of this year, BASF announced.

A blend of probiotics could improve symptoms of Atopic Dermatitis (AD) in children, according to a new study presented this month at the 'Probiotics: From Bench to Market' conference, sponsored by the New York Academy of Sciences.

Global bakery products leader Grupo Bimbo (Bimbo; Mexico City) has announced a call for entries for its Pan-American Nutrition Award 2010.The Pan-American Nutrition Award will recognizes leading research papers produced by both established professionals and young scientists across four regions: the United States of America, Mexico, Central America, and South America. Entries will be considered from more than 20 focuses, including:-Cereals, grains and their role in nutrition.-Nutrition at life stages.-Processes to prevent nutritional deficiencies.

Tea exporters should focus on developing sales growth at home, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO; Rome), which published a global tea industry report online, this week. FAO states that major tea exporters, such as China, Kenya, Sri Lanka, and India could increase local consumption of tea by better marketing tea for its health benefits to those consumers.

Jarrow Formulas has donated more than 10,000 containers of protein powder to Feeding America, the nation...s leading domestic hunger-relief charity, and the AIDS Project Los Angeles Necessities of Life Program, designed to improve the lives of people affected by HIV disease. The nutritional supplement brand donated 4826 bottles of Whey Protein and 5046 containers of Muscle Optimeal, a meal-replacement formula.

In the United States, global probiotic beverage leader Yakult U.S.A. (Torrance, CA) only distributes its product in six U.S. states'”but major growth could be on the way. This June, Yakult U.S.A. announced plans to build its first U.S. factory in Fountain Valley, California. The factory, expected to be up and running by 2012, will have the capacity to produce as many as 760,000 bottles of Yakult, daily.

Pharmachem Laboratories Inc. (Kearny, NJ) has pledged $1 million to Vitamin Angels (Santa Barbara, CA), a non-profit organization dedicated to reducing nutrient deficiencies in children across the globe. Over five years, Pharmachem will donate $200,000 annually to the organization.

The Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN; Washington, DC) will host an impressive line-up of top scientific experts who will discuss the future of dietary supplement research at the association...s popular one-day symposium, The Workshop: A Day of Science, in September. Registration for the event is now open. Eileen Kennedy, DSc, dean, Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition, Science, and Policy, will open the symposium with a keynote address titled, Overfed and Undernutrified: A Global Perspective on the Role of Dietary Supplements in Dietary Guidance.

The Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN; Washington, DC) has announced the agenda for its upcoming, annual symposium, The Workshop: A Day of Science. The Workshop, held in conjunction with The Conference, will take place on September 29, 2010 at the Hyatt Regency Lost Pines Resort & Spa in Austin, Texas.

Maternal vitamin D supplementation appears to have a link to the growth of newborn children, according to a study published in July...s British Journal of Nutrition.

Krill oil manufacturer Aker Biomarine (Oslo, Norway) announced last week that it has been granted permission to use the Marine Stewardship Council...s (MSC; London) sustainability label for the company...s Antarctic krill. Aker Biomarine produces krill oil and ingredients under the brands Superba and Qrill, and the MSC 'ecolabel' implies that the company only uses sustainable fisheries.

Dietary supplement manufacturer Wellington Foods Inc. (Long Beach, CA) is pleased to announce that it has received Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) certification from the Natural Products Association (NPA; Washington, DC). In the independent, third-party audit, NPA gave the company an 'A' compliance rating in its certification for the dietary supplement industry. The company formulates, manufactures, and packages dietary supplements in both liquid and power forms. For more information on the company, click here.

To assist the dietary supplement industry with Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) procedures, Blaze Science Industries (Lawndale, CA) and Tampa Bay Analytical Research Laboratories (Largo, FL) will be offering a one-day workshop in July in St. Pete Beach, Florida, according to Verdure Sciences (Noblesville, IN), a sponsor of the event.

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA; Parma, Italy) published its negative opinion on a health-claims application for beta-glucans on May 26. But the details of Leiber GmbH...s (Bramsche, Germany) Article 13.5 application may be of greater concern.

The USDA Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion released a draft report for its 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, last week'”a report that will ultimately form the basis for 2010...s Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Within the report...s language, dietary supplements receive mixed approval.

As of today, June 25, all dietary supplement manufacturers are now required by law to follow good manufacturing practices (GMPs). Since the GMP final rule was first inked in 2007, the entire dietary supplement industry has had 36 months to prepare itself for the changes. Now, even companies with fewer than 20 employees are required to be comply with the regulation.

In the case of Monsanto v. Geertson Seed Farms'”the first-ever Supreme Court case to be held on genetically modified (GM) crops'”the Supreme Court has ruled 7 to 1 in favor of lifting an injunction (established previously by a lower court) on planting GM alfalfa. Furthermore, planting and selling of said alfalfa is still prohibited until an environmental review is conducted and considered.

UAS Laboratories (Eden Prairie, MN) has announced that its DDS brand probiotics are now kosher-certified by OK Kosher (Brooklyn, NY). The company...s DDS line of probiotics, including DDS Acidophilus and DDS Junior, is available in 37 countries around the world. OK Kosher currently certifies over 300,000 products from over 1500 companies.

Ever since the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA; Parma, Italy) published its second batch of general health claims in February, much of the industry had been waiting for last week...s stakeholders meeting, where EFSA intended to clarify its procedures and offer advice on claims substantiation.  

At least 20 million people in the United States have cataracts, clouding that develops in the eye...s lens. In the June issue of the Archives of Ophthalmology, researchers suggest that eating foods rich in a variety of vitamins and minerals may help postpone the development of nuclear cataracts, which forms in the center of the eye...s lens.

In the May issue of Clinical Ophthalmology, researchers comparing the effects of dietary supplement Mirtogenol and medicated Latanoprost eye drops found that the supplement works almost as effectively as the drug to lower intraocular pressure (IOP)'”albeit over a longer period of time.

UAS Laboratories announced that its proprietary DDS probiotic line'”including DDS-Plus, Probioplus DDS, DDS Acidophilus, and DDS Junior'”have been kosher-certified by OK Kosher. The company eventually plans to apply kosher certification to all of its private-label probiotics and probiotic raw materials, blends, bulk capsules, tablets, and powders.

NBTY, Inc. (NYSE: NTY), a leading global manufacturer and marketer of nutritional supplements, today announced the execution of a definitive merger agreement under which The Carlyle Group will acquire NBTY in a transaction valued at $3.8 billion.

Dietary Supplement Maker to Pay $5.5 Million to Settle FTC False Advertising Charges; FTC Challenges Claims that Supplements Cause Weight Loss and Treat or Prevent Colds, Flu, Allergies, and Hay Fever As part of its ongoing efforts to stop bogus health claims, the Federal Trade Commission is requiring a major marketer of dietary supplements to pay $5.5 million to settle charges that it falsely advertised that its supplements could help consumers lose weight and treat or prevent colds and other illnesses.

The Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS), a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH; Bethesda, MD), recently announced the publication of its Encyclopedia of Dietary Supplements, 2nd Edition. This new edition contains new chapters on several botanicals, including aloe vera, bilberry, bitter orange, black cohosh, kava, and saw palmetto. American Herbal Products Association chief science officer Steven Dentali, PhD, and COO Devon Powell contributed as co-authors of the aloe vera chapter.

The Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN; Washington, DC) has submitted its comments regarding what it says are inaccurate statements about multivitamins in the recently released 2010 Dietary Guidelines Advisory (DGAC) Committee Report'”a report that will help shape the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. CRN took issue with a number of 'unqualified' comments about multivitamins, citing the report...s 'inaccuracies in its interpretation of the scientific evidence.' In particular, such statements in the report were criticized: