IM Direct Launches Deep Ocean Minerals™ from Partner CK Nutraceuticals

Consumer demand is ever evolving and it has become essential for us to co-evolve. We’ve recently touched on topics such as hydration and anti-aging, both front runners of consumer demand in our industry, and that’s why we’re excited to announce the launch of Deep Ocean Minerals™ from CK Nutraceuticals, an IM Direct Partner.

 

 

 

What is Deep Ocean Minerals™?

A mineral-derived raw material innovation, Deep Ocean Minerals™ (DOM) is precisely as it sounds. A standardized science-based natural mineral concentrate manufactured from geographically protected ocean water that is harvested at a minimum of 600 meters below sea level. A patented and environmentally friendly extraction system is used to draw from the site allowing direct access to the deep ocean water which is free of any contaminants or impurities while keeping surrounding sea life safe.

 

Why Ocean Water?

These clinically studied mineral concentrates from deep ocean water promise to deliver the purest combination of synergistic minerals and trace elements optimal for overall health. A Nutraingredients-USA article on DOM helps to discuss the ocean water idea further, “the deep ocean mineral concept is anchored in paleobiology, which suggests that life on earth originates from the deep oceans (deeper than 0.5 km) and that our transition from sea to land led to compromised nutritive complexity. Photosynthetic organisms living at the surface may deplete certain biogenic components from the water, but these can still be found in the deep ocean water where the sunlight cannot reach.” So, what does this mean for us? That the consumption of these nutrients aids in replenishing the human body to full physical capacity.

How Deep Ocean Minerals™ Works

Deep Ocean Minerals™ mimic the body’s natural mineral composition of chloride, sodium, magnesium, calcium, and potassium. In one study scientists reported that consumption of DOM before, during, and after exhaustive cycling was associated with increased cerebral hemoglobin levels in both young and middle-aged men, compared with placebo. However, the response was documented as more significant in the middle-aged men. This shows great promise in “developing supplements to increase the cerebral hemodynamic response against a physical challenge and during post-exercise recovery for middle-aged men.” Another study concluded that deep ocean mineral water “was more effective in inducing recovery of aerobic capacity and leg muscle power compared with plain water following prolonged dehydrating aerobic running exercise.” Overall, the consumption of this ingredient innovation has shown benefits to:

  1. Maintain Equilibrium Balance– Because the mineral composition is similar to our body’s when in equilibrium, DOM helps in maintaining optimum cellular fluid levels to keep our pH in check.
  2. Boosts Endurance– Clinical studies support improvements to sports performance and muscle recovery.
  3. Improved Vitality– A variety of scientific studies and research demonstrates the benefits of magnesium as well as how optimal hydration can impact overall vitality and aging.

 

 

In general, we all tend to overlook the fundamental and core components that contribute to what we are really trying to achieve – youthful skin, flexibility, better endurance, desired weight loss. To be operating optimally, we need to work on achieving a balanced system stemming from proper hydration that entails a balance of electrolytes, minerals and other essential elements like DOM provides.

Deep Ocean Minerals™ Macro-Mineral Profile

 

 

 

 

 

Ingredient Applications

With delivery forms in both liquid and powder, Deep Ocean Minerals™ is guaranteed to offer multiple direct applications including softgels, tablets, capsules, stick packs, gummies, beverage powders, meal replacement powders, greens powders, sports formulations, RTD beverages, functional foods and more. With this new category emerging in sports, and health and wellness nutrition, now is the time to invest.

For more information on Deep Ocean Minerals™ and our IM Direct partner, you can contact one of our ingredient experts by emailing us at info@infieldmarket.appliedpath.com or calling us at 888.285.6120.

 

COMING SOON!

SaffSerene™ is a standardized saffron extract from stigmas containing 2% safranal, crocin, and picrocrocin. It promotes healthy psychological function, supporting emotional health and mood balance as demonstrated in multiple published studies.* SaffSerene™ is derived from non-GMO saffron flowers from Turkey and Morocco. The saffron extract contains 2% safranal, crocin, and picrocrocin as main actives. Clinical studies have shown a low 15 mg 2x daily dose of SaffSerene™ to be effective in promoting healthy psychological function, safely and effectively.*

Formulate your own hydration – Hydration is key to virtually every bodily function, and unfortunately, we are all suffering from various levels of dehydration, but we may not realize it. We aren’t consuming enough water or electrolytes ensuring, at minimum, mild dehydration. It’s easy enough to get a glass of water and getting a glass of electrolytes should be just as easy. You can formulate your own hydration with our certified organic hydration blends including:

The New Way to Source Raw Materials

The process of choosing a raw material supplier isn’t hard, but it’s not simple either. It’s a process that has been in place in the industry from the get-go and, to be honest, takes a great deal of time and effort. The challenges of selling quality ingredients have become even more complicated due to an increasingly crowded space, making it even more difficult to maintain visibility and relationships between companies and individuals within the supply chain. While our industry has been much slower to make changes in buying and selling processes, a shift is finally happening, a much-needed shift toward e-commerce.

The Tried and True

In the simplest terms possible, the traditional method of sourcing viable suppliers is done in person, the good old-fashioned face-to-face method. Assuming you have your expectations and business requirements laid out to help clarify what you need from your suppliers, the process should go something like this:

  1. Pinpoint potential suppliers – Look at exhibitors who attend industry trade shows, and sort through colleagues, existing but non-competing suppliers and industry directories.
  2. Cross-reference – Cross-reference your list of potential suppliers with your list of expectations and business requirements and reduce your list to only serious contenders. For example, maybe one supplier’s minimum order quantities are too high for your needs, or maybe another supplier’s production facilities are located abroad, making it difficult to get materials to you within a certain time frame.
  3. Vet each supplier that’s a match – You want a supplier who is going to help your business move forward in the long run, not just a company that is going to sell you something once and be done. Look at each company’s leadership, reputation, current clientele, financial health, etc.
  4. Request a quote – Reach out to each contender and ask them for a quote. Be sure to pay attention to their processes and procedures and how you well you work with your person of contact.
  5. Evaluate the finalists – Once you know, all the minor details ask for product samples and consider traveling to meet with your top candidates.
  6. Finally, make your selection – At this point, you should have ALL the information you need to determine if you are ready to move forward with a potential supplier.

While this is just an overview, it’s easy to see how much time, hard work, and money goes into researching, pitching, and traveling to make and maintain relationships in the industry.

Evolving from the Traditional Methods

This industry that we’re in is exciting, competitive and crowded, but it hasn’t come up to speed with e-commerce the way other industries have throughout the years.

Buyers of raw materials face problems that range from pricing to getting materials on time due to market pressures to having to buy more than they want because of sales, and then they end up sitting on a lot of extra materials that aren’t getting used. This is not only hurting these companies and their bottom lines, but there is a huge gap and a lack of visibility concerning reallocating this excess product, which is a HUGE waste factor. This happens mainly because the focus is on moving a business forward and not about what’s sitting in a warehouse. Unfortunately, that’s just the nature of the beast, and it’s time to evolve from these methodologies.

The New Way – Supply Chain Efficiency Solutions + an Answer to Reducing Ingredient Waste in Manufacturing

Over the years, consumers have become so much more accustomed to making purchases online that, today, it’s a way of life. Within the industry, there has always been talk about building an online market experience for years, but no one has worked on a system or taken the time to invest in a solution until now. Here at Infield Market, we’ve invested, and we’ve launched that solution. We are working hard to improve supply chain efficiency and to help solve for ingredient waste in manufacturing, so to help describe this new way there is no better model to look at than the Infield Market Model.

The Open Forum

The vision for Infield was to cultivate a new dynamic between companies building a shared business culture and working to bridge the trust gap, and in the process, get the excess raw materials visible and available. Think of Infield Market like an Airbnb for excess product. It’s an open forum platform that shows you on a map and in a marketplace-type set up what’s out there and what’s available in real time. Simply put, a company with a leftover ingredient can log on to the platform and list what it has to sell and how much of it is on hand and can input all the ingredient specifications – including supply chain traceability information – at what price it’s available for and publish that information to the marketplace right away. Our marketplace has been a proven success in expanding these opportunities; for example, we have listed over 300+ tons of products, and on top of that, we have moved 65 tons of excess materials. This is just the tip of the iceberg, but in a world where global annual food waste is $38 billion, any forward progress is a step in the right direction.

iM Direct Sales & Marketing

Another part to our platform, and perhaps the more immediately impactful piece, is the iM Direct Sales & Marketing program. iM Direct’s unique platform brings customers closer to the manufacturers offering regularly stocked ingredients and raw materials. Our very first partner started with us in March 2018, and to date, we have booked $2.45 million in sales. Anyone can sell a product, but we are making that happen in a more efficient way in the form of a digital vehicle. And as a partner, we are doing it for you with a much smaller investment for manufacturers than typical distribution channels or with a sales rep.

What makes Infield even more of an interesting business model is that you have seasoned sales rep expertise – the processes, the engagement, the relationships, and the follow-ups – and one that is integrated with a marketing pull. While Infield is working as a real-time marketplace and a business-to-business sales team extension there are funnels and marketing tactics in place educating, engaging, and pulling in new prospects. In partnership with Infield Market, we offer the opportunity to use our seasoned sales and marketing expertise as an extension of your team if need be. In partnership with Infield Market, we offer help securing new and existing sales initiatives, generating new sales opportunities for your existing teams, and we work to increase the overall results for your business.

So, Bottom Line

This sounds too good to be true, right? However, it isn’t. We’ve been doing all of this here at Infield Market from day one. We have proven these strategies and methodologies to our current partners and companies who are already on board with us. Of course, engaging individuals is a bit of a long-term, slower-play type of deal (hey, Rome wasn’t built in a day,) but we’re working to educate the masses, sparking the discussions, and driving them back to us because of the raw materials and the projects going on. Our endgame is big picture and, and we’re just getting started.

 

Why Collagen is Gaining Traction in the Health and Wellness Industry

Are all of our dreams coming true? Is there a powerhouse ingredient that aids in keeping us younger, more agile, looking better, and all around healthier as we move into our later years in life? All accounts point to YES, and to collagen. 

The average adult is made up of 60% water, and it’s essential for life so why are we just now recognizing that collagen is the most abundant protein in the body that’s found in bones and connective tissues? Look at it this way 20% of body mass is protein, and 30% of protein is collagen. Collagen is vital in connecting muscles to bone, where massive tensile strength is required to withstand enormous forces so that it can be stretched without tearing. In fact, type I collagen fibrils are so strong they are stronger than steel gram for gram. (Uhh shouldn’t we all feel like Superman?) Think of collagen as the cement that holds us together – to give you a little idea. 

Most people are familiar with collagen in the cosmetic sense as an ingredient in skin-care products, but the health and wellness industry is moving more and more toward beauty from within. In Asia, consumers have been partaking in collagen enriched food and beverage for over a decade. In America, it’s finally on the verge of going mainstream and has gained traction in not only beauty, but joint, bone, muscle support, sports, and digestive health markets too. 

To understand why it’s become a sweetheart of sorts in the industry lets take a couple of steps back dive in a little deeper.

What is this Ingredient of Steel? 

In short, collagen is a protein and is derived from animal parts, typically bovine/beef or fish/marine. It comes from the connective tissues which are the very thing it helps rebuild when consumed. (Yeah, we don’t like to think about gnawing on animal bones either.) 

For a while, it was a backseat driver because it was ranked as nutritionally “incomplete” since it lacks the amino acid tryptophan. So how exactly does it work? Unlike other nutrients collagen enters the systems as a peptide fragment rather than a full-length protein and when the cellular receptors that are prepared to detect complete protein instead intercept these shorter fragments, they say “hey, wait a minute our body’s collagen is being broken down we need to ramp up production and make some more!” So in other words, collagen isn’t providing the building blocks for production, but rather an incentive for the body to make more. Who knew something so sneaky and ingenious would work so well? 

The Almighty Collagen

In the opening paragraphs we gave a little insight into how vital collagen is for the body, but let’s get down to the nitty-gritty, what is it really good for? 

Well, to start, there are 16 types of collagen, but 80-90 percent of collagen in the body consists of types I, II, and III. So while the common goal of the structures they form is to fortify the body’s connective tissues each one of these babies have some unique qualities that set them apart. 

Type I collagen: 

  • This is the most abundant and most robust of the three found in the human body 
  • Type I is located in tendons (those connective tissues we talked about above), and this is also the guy that is stronger than steel – makes us superheroes remember?
  • Type one is key in wound healing and,
  • Important in bone formation

Type II collagen: 

  • This is the primary collagen found in cartilage 
  • Is essential for the immune system and digestive health

Type III collagen: 

  • Found in connective tissues such as the skin, lung, intestines, and vascular system 
  • Gives skin resilience and firmness
  • Forms our blood vessels and cardiovascular tissues

Consumers Madly Consuming 

So why are these consumers going cuckoo for collagen? Because recent scientific evidence confirms that better results are achieved when collagen is ingested orally rather than applied topically creating a host of new opportunities for the food, beverage and supplement manufacturers. 

Consumer want: 

  • Anti-aging effects 
  • To improve skin elasticity
  • To reduce cellulite
  • To heal inflammatory conditions on the skin and within the body
  •  To improve digestion and treat conditions such as a leaky gut
  •  To improve wound healing, and wear and tear on joints
  • And, to keep their pet’s healthy too!

Pets Can Benefit Too 

Yes, you read that right collagen isn’t just for humans. Our pets depend on us to provide for them, and that includes nutrition to keep our most loyal four-footed friends happy and healthy as they age too. Two species that suffer from joint issues the most are dogs and horses. Its hard to watch our pets go from jumping and running to limping and napping and that’s why collagen supplementation is a practical solution to assist in lessening or even repairing the pain and damage that our pets endure as they age. Collagen doesn’t only help with joints but has been shown to improve skin, fur, and nail health as well as the maintenance of strong, healthy muscles. 

As an odorless, tasteless powder that quickly dissolves, remains stable in solution, tolerates a range of processing temperatures, storage conditions, and formulation environments, collagen ingredients are incorporated into endless different forms – meat bars, coffee creamers, dessert bars, beverages, shots, jellies, confections and more. Health and wellness influencers are even developing their own DIY collagen gummies and chews. 

It’s not hard to see why collagen and all it’s popular edible and drinkable applications are here to stay so if you were looking for a sign of whether to jump on the collagen train this is it. The time is now because there is a bright future ahead for the collagen market and it’s just getting started.