Fonterra launches nutrition science brand to the global multi-billion dollar wellbeing market

The new brand taps Fonterra's deep expertise in medical and wellbeing nutrition. Photo / File

Dairy exporter Fonterra's strategy to be a serious player in the multi-billion dollar global nutrition science and innovation market has moved another step with the launch of a new wellbeing nutrition brand.

Named Nutiani and launched this week, the brand will offer Fonterra's business customers product solutions through a combination of products, concepts and services that tap the big co-operative's intellectual property and science research banks, and its reputation for high-quality, high-value ingredients, like lactoferrin, probiotics and lipids.

Fonterra chief innovation and brand officer Komal Mistry-Mehta said the market opportunity for the new brand was significant, with the global markets for physical, mental and inner wellbeing nutrition worth US$66 billion (S108b) and growing at 6 per cent a year, while the medical nutrition market was valued at US$50b ($82b) and growing by 5 per cent annually.

The new business-to-business brand, backed by market-ready concepts and services such as market and technical support, consumer insights from Fonterra's market research and testing, and formulation expertise, will offer customers targeted solutions for their wellbeing and medical nutrition products, said Mistry-Mehta.

Its launch would also open opportunities for Fonterra for strategic partnerships to access new markets and consumers. Fonterra is New Zealand's biggest business and the world's sixth largest dairy company by revenue.

Products developed under the new brand targeted health and wellbeing areas such as mobility, mental wellbeing, immunity, stress management and muscle health.

The brand targets Fonterra customers which manufacture specialist products. It is not a consumer brand available to shoppers.

"Our health and wellbeing customers are facing growing pressure to accelerate their innovation pipeline to response to... dynamic consumer demands, yet they face common challenges during new product development and are looking for partners to fill their capability gaps," said Mistry-Mehta.

"Nutiani answers this need by providing a suite of solutions which help customers tackle the pain points associated with each step of the innovation journey - from identifying the opportunity to validating the final product."

Target markets will be North America, North Asia, South East Asia and China.