If you can read this—be grateful. However, eye health is not in vogue according to global new food and beverage product launch activity tracked from 2014 to 2015 by Innova Market Insights. New product launch activity for eye health positioned supplements products also is limited, representing only 5% of total supplements product launches tracked in 2015.
Eye health positioned food and beverage product launches in 2015 were dominated by the Baby Food category, representing more than 60% of activity, followed by Juice & Juice Drinks (5%), Milk & Milk Drinks (5%) and Fruit-Based Snacks (2%).
Top ingredients offering eye health benefits include vitamin A, vitamin E, vitamin B9, zinc, beta carotene, lutein and omega 3. Lutein and zeaxanthin feature strongly as ingredients within the eye health supplements market, although usually in combination with other beneficial components, such as antioxidant vitamins A, C and E, B vitamins such as B6 and B12, blueberry extracts as a source of anthocyanins, omega 3 fatty acids and minerals such as zinc and selenium.
Recent new products (2015) include Happy Family Love My Veggies, a four-item line of foods for tots from Nurture Inc., New York, N.Y; and a fresh Organic Carrot Juice from Biotta AG, Tägerwilen, Switzerland. Two of the Love My Veggies varieties offer more than 100% of the daily value of vitamin A. Biotta says one 8oz serving of Biotta Carrot Juice provides 270% of the recommended daily allowance of vitamin A
New supplements include those Simplesa Nutrition, Coral Springs, Fla., and the global eye health company, Bausch + Lomb, Bridgewater, N.J.
Fall 2015 brought Simplesa’s OptiPlus supplement, a pill taken three times daily for eye and vision health. Its ingredients quercetin, retinol, taurine, N-acetyl-L-cysteine and reduced glutathione, sodium R-lipoate, lipoic acid, grapeseed, bilberry, blackcurrant and schisandra berry extracts, lutein, zeaxanthin, astaxanthin, zinc and calcium folinate.
Last year also saw Bausch + Lomb introduce Ocuvite Eye Health Gummies with antioxidant vitamins C and E and zinc as well as lutein and zeaxanthin. The company came back in mid-2016 with PreserVision AREDS 2 Formula + Multivitamin, billed as a “convenient 2-in-1 formula [that] helps make it simpler for consumers to take their supplements by reducing the number of pills taken each day.
2017 Ingredients for Health Guide Categories:
Diabetes & Blood Glucose Control
Eye Health
Originally appeared in the December, 2016 issue of Prepared Foods as Foods for Eye Health.
