From Colorants to Nutraceuticals: How Artemis International Became a Best-of-Industry Supplier

Editor's Note: this article has been updated on December 23, 2025 with a partial transcript of the interview.

Nutraceutical provider Artemis International was awarded Nutritional Outlook's 2025 Best of the Industry Award for Industry Supplier. Celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, the company is committed to product authenticity and collaborative innovation, emphasizing a research-first approach to its ingredients and prioritizing customer trust.

In this interview, Leslie Gallo, president of Artemis International, and Melanie Bush, vice president of science and research, share the company’s evolution from natural colorants to pioneering science-backed nutraceuticals. They also highlight its reputation for quality, sustainability, and adaptability in a changing market, underscored by an ongoing commitment to advancing botanical health solutions.

Transcript

Sebastian Krawiec: Hello everyone. I am Sebastian Kraweic, managing editor of Nutritional Outlook. I am joined today by Leslie Gallo, who is the president of Artemis International, and Melanie Bush, who is the vice president of science and research at Artemis International, which is being recognized as Nutritional Outlook’s, Best of the Industry, Industry Supplier for 2025. Thank you both so much for taking the time to chat with me and congratulations.

Melanie Bush: Thank you. Great to be here.

Leslie Gallo: Thank you, Sebastian, quite an honor to receive that accolade.

Sebastian Krawiec: Well, it's a pleasure to honor you guys. You guys do great work. And I'm looking forward to having this conversation and digging into what makes you guys so special. So it is my understanding that Artemis International started off by supplying dark berry ingredients, mostly for the purpose of providing natural color to food and beverage products. When did it become apparent that these dark berries offered potential health benefits, and what was that transition like to supplying nutraceutical ingredients?

Leslie Gallo: Well, actually, right out of the gate we had gotten an inkling of the of the health benefits back when our founder Jan Mills, in the 90s, first discovered what was then chokeberry, and now more well known as aronia berry. Back in the 90s, she was in Poland on a business trip and met with some chokeberry growers, and she was pregnant at the time. And they handed her an aronia juice and said, “Here, this is good for the baby.” Didn't really quite explain what that was, but just that it was good for the baby. So she was being a trusting soul, she drank it and discovered, this is a really interesting flavor, very interesting color, very deep color. And came back to the States with a sense of, what is aronia all about? And met with some advisors, folks that she knew here in the States, in the food and beverage and universities, and said, there's this berry that I met up with in Poland, and tell me more about it. And realized that the anthocyanin compounds in the aronia berry were valuable colorants, and that was a time when everything was starting to move from the red dye number two and yellows and such into more natural colors. And so, a good fit would be all right, let's look at these anthocyanins as colorants. And that's how Artemis started in the color business, and was this fateful trip unrelated to color or berries at all, and brought that to Artemis.