Unibar’s holistic approach to eye health with carotenoid ingredients and bioavailability

Live from SupplySide Global 2025, Nutritional Outlook Associate Editor Erin McEvoy interviews Sevanti Mehta, President of Unibar, and Doug Lynch, CEO of MarketWell Nutrition. In this conversation, Mehta and Lynch discuss the ingredient CapsiClear, Unibar's holistic approach to vision support, and the importance of bioavailability and conscientious farming practices.

Transcript

Erin McEvoy: What are the benefits of the CapsiClear ingredient and EyeVedic Holistic Vision Support for eye health?

Sevanti Mehta: The history is a carotenoid is good for eye health. And originally, lycopene came in the market. Lutein came in the market, but they were only helping in one small segment of eye industry, macular degeneration. And with our new molecule, it's all holistic approach we have done, which is attacking eye pressure, glaucoma, regenerating tears, and dry eyes, and attacking the whole full spectrum. Capsanthin being a double bonded carotenoid, which is more stronger. Lutein and everything, is single bonded, and we are double bonded, so we are more powerful carotenoid.

And personally, I had this eye problem, and I've had more than 12 operation in my eyes. And for me, I was looking for a solution, because lutein – we have a patent on lutein also, a product called UniGold – but looking for a whole holistic solution. And this is more bioavailable and more powerful ingredient.

Doug Lynch: The IP of this is very, very strong. We have a number of active ingredients that we created that are using Ayurvedic knowledge, but for eye health, and that's why we call it EyeVedic.

McEvoy: What is the significance of bioavailability and why is it crucial for health benefits?

Mehta: Basically, this is, that's what I said, highly bioavailable, proven, but biggest problem was stability, and that took me, to attack on to stabilize this molecule, took a two years of stabilizing it, and now we have also made a big progress on making more bioavailable with a different oil where this is a more fat soluble product.

Lynch: In many cases, eye health is a is a serious concern for healthy aging, for people that that want to make sure that they keep their visibility, their ability to see, their visual cues. And what we know is that there's data that actually says people are as concerned about losing their sight as they are with their mobility. So this is very much a longevity area for the company. The interesting thing about that is that as you get older, your ability to take large capsules and the like gets a little more challenging, right? So the higher the bioavailability, the better the efficacy, and the smaller the dose potential, because it's not great if somebody has to take six to 10 capsules a day to get a benefit.

McEvoy: What are advantages and challenges of developing ingredients from botanical sources?

Lynch: There’s always a concern and a botanical ingredient for potential cross species contamination. Sometimes it's not even intended, but you've got plants that are living side by side next to each other, that contamination could take place even inadvertently. So full traceability is a critical feature of Unibar’s products. In addition to that, concerns on pesticides continue to be an issue when you get a new farm and you're focused on supplying enough yield to supply a product and scale. The easiest way to do those types of things is to use pesticides to increase growth. But of course, that's not a route that most companies, any company, really wants to go down. So we even use AI technology to scan the best areas to grow the crops. We use that AI technology to make sure that we look at weather patterns which are going to be the weather patterns that are most likely to grow those crops. The process of getting a farm takes five, six years to get in motion. So a lot of investment. So using the best AI technology, drone technology, we're able to make sure that we have the right soil to have the best yield, fully traceable back to the seeds.