How dsm-firmenich Is Linking Gut Health, Healthy Longevity, and Better-Tasting Supplements

InIn this video interview from SupplySide Global, dsm-firmenich’s Julia Duchastel, associate director of marketing, and Kathleen McNamara, senior technical manager, discuss how the company is bringing together healthy longevity, gut health, and taste. Duchastel highlights the company’s Healthy Longevity 2.0: The Gut Effect tour, which explores how the gut can act as the body’s control center for healthy aging through its links to immunity, brain function, and metabolic health. She also points to the VitaAge concept, which combines omega-3, vitamin D, and exercise and is part of the DO-HEALTH trial, and to postbiotic and vitamin B2 solutions designed for the gut. Looking toward 2027, she expects healthy longevity to remain a trend, focused on the gut.

McNamara explains how dsm-firmenich’s taste technologies address off notes in vitamins, minerals, and botanicals, including metallic and bitterness blocking and sugar modulation that boosts sweetness, with programs tailored to pharma and omega-3 products.

Transcript

Erin McEvoy: What is dsm-firmenich showcasing at SupplySide Global this year, and what’s new?

Julia Duchastel: The most exciting thing, I think, is our Healthy Longevity 2.0: The Gut Effect, and this is a curated tour about the impact the gut can have on healthy living, and I would love to tell you more about that shortly as well. But also one thing that we are really keen to highlight this year at SupplySide Global is our VitaAge concept, and this is a combination of omega-3 and vitamin D, along with exercise, and it is part of the DO-HEALTH trial. This trial demonstrated a reduction in biological aging of up to 3 to 4 months over a 3-year period when you used life’sOmega-3 plus vitamin D and moderate exercise in combination. So this is phenomenal because not only was it our life’sOmega 60 plus our Quali-D vitamin D that was used in the trial, but it is one of the few healthy longevity products or combinations and ingredients that have shown actual clinical evidence at helping to reduce those biological problems.

McEvoy: Could you tell us a little more about The Longevity Shift 2.0: The Gut Effect tour?

Duchastel: The main show here for us today at SupplySide Global, is indeed our Longevity 2.0 effect, and really focusing on the gut effect. And this is very exciting because really it’s about changing the point of view where gut dysbiosis is one of the 12 hallmarks of healthy aging, but a lot of people don’t realize the gut can actually be the control center of your body, and so having a healthy gut really helps ensure healthy aging through the interconnectedness with your immunity, with your brain, your metabolic health. It really is kind of the control center, and we’ve got some great solutions and great concepts that we’re sharing with those who come and book a tour with us.

McEvoy: Which trends do you think will matter most in 2027?

Duchastel: Some of the trends that we do see coming in 2027 do surround a lot around healthy longevity, so we do see a lot in this area. Hence, why we focused our booth on healthy longevity, but not your classic longevity, specifically targeting the gut, where there’s some nice solutions with our Humiome Post LB postbiotic, and we also have our Humiome B2, which is the first biotic vitamin, which is coated with our advanced powder technology, to really go all the way to the colon and deliver the B2 where it’s needed within the gut.

McEvoy: Could you tell us about dsm-firmenich’s taste modulation capabilities?

Kathleen McNamara: Absolutely, it’s really exciting, at dsm-firmenich, we have extensive technologies that go beyond just creating tonality. And what we do is we like to focus on off tastes and off aromas when it comes to any of the supplement products you use: vitamins, minerals, efficacious botanicals. They all come with off notes that can be displeasing to the consumer, so we like to focus on metallic blocking. We like to focus on bitterness blocking. We like to focus on potentiation of really positive notes like sweetness, and so we have technologies that are what we refer to as modulation. We have sugar modulation where we can work with end products that are reduced sugar, and we can potentiate sweetness that way.

We have products for our pharma consumers or customers, and that’s really focused on bitterness blocking. And we have a specialized program called the Receptor-Based Discovery program, where we’re targeting specific things like bitterness, and so when we target bitterness, we’re targeting five specific APIs, and we have ModulaSENSE, which is our brand for modulation, and its Modular Sense pharma, and that’s specific for bitterness. We also have ModulaSENSE targeted for DHA products, like for instance, our life’sOmega, which would be ModulaSENSE marine, and that really is targeting any of the off notes that can be associated with a product like that.

The other thing that we do is we have tonalities, very, very extensive, over 150 years of experience in creating tonalities and very sustainable ways, but also we follow the trends and we take a look at the emotion connection between flavor, taste, and people’s well-being, and that’s what we like to do. We like to work together in collaboration with the dsm ingredients and our flavor from firmenich and bring it all together as a connection of wellness and well-being.