Synergy Buys Vanlab
Synergy Flavours, part of the Carbery Group, has acquired US flavour house Vanlab Corporation (Rochester, New York). The acquisition strengthens the company's overall product mix across sweet and savoury flavours, giving Synergy a broad range of vanilla products, and further extending the company's US customer base beyond its existing Illinois operations. Synergy is a supplier of flavours for bakery, dairy, beverage, confectionery and nutraceutical products in the UK, Europe and Russia. It is currently producing natural, nature-identical, organic and 'suitable for organic' vanilla flavourings at its processing facility in High Wycombe.

New Technical Website
Cargill has launched a new resource for technical and market specialists in the food industry. The website, www.cargilltexturizing.com, provides technical insight and application knowledge tailored to the needs of food specialists worldwide. Cargill Texturizing Solutions offers a wide range of texturising ingredients and functional systems including cultures and enzymes, hydrocolloids, lecithins, soy proteins, and starches. The fully searchable website has been designed to share Cargill's expertise, and to help answer a wide variety of technical and application-specific questions.

Marketing Director Tapped
InterHealth Nutraceuticals has hired Fiona Taylor as its new marketing director. Taylor has more than 15 years of experience both in marketing and in research and development, including several years managing the launch of new product lines. Most recently she worked for DMV International, where she led international project teams working on immune-health products. Taylor also worked as a senior scientist for Proctor & Gamble, where she directed the consumer-support efforts of the first major project launch of a newly acquired brand.

Glutamine Production Upped
Production of Ajinomoto glutamine is now on stream following the construction of a new facility in Limeira, Brazil. In Japan, where the market was pioneered, products with amino acids have helped the sports-drinks sector gain a 10 per cent share of the beverage market. Amino Vital, a sports drink with amino acids, has recently been launched in the United States, and demand looks set to extend to Europe, where the sports-nutrition industry is growing rapidly. The Brazil factory is one of the world's largest amino-acid production facilities, and will also produce the branched-chain amino acids valine, leucine and isoleucine.

New R&D/QA Director
Dr Hans Westerbeek, PhD, recently has become R&D/QA director at DMV International, the industrial-products group of Campina. Campina is an international dairy co-operation with 6,800 employees worldwide, and Westerbeek formerly was with its consumer goods division. Westerbeek spent 13 years in various management positions at DMV International before assuming his current position as director.

Finlays Moves Sales Office
Finlays, the world's largest producer of soluble tea extracts, has relocated its sales and technical offices to Florham Park, New Jersey, from Morristown, New Jersey. The new office will provide a better environment for increased customer service and a higher level of technical assistance to customers, the company says. Tea-extract sales will continue to be handled by Gary Vorsheim, Andrew McKay and Laura Malkin.

Austevoll Acquires EPAX
Austevoll Seafood ASA has acquired 100 per cent of the shares in EPAX AS from Ferd Private Equity Fund. EPAX AS is a world-leading supplier of concentrated, marine-derived omega-3 formulas developed to target specific health conditions, and Austevoll Seafood ASA is a leading company in the pelagic fish, meal and oil industry, with processing facilities in Norway, Chile and Peru, and an annual income of approximately $375 million. EPAX AS is headquartered in Aalesund with a global sales office in Lysaker/Oslo, Norway.

Univestin Receives New Patent
Unigen Pharmaceuticals has received notification of approval of a US patent for 'Free-B-Ring Flavonoids, derived from Chinese Skullcap,' in supporting its novel Univestin joint-health ingredient. Univestin is a proprietary blend of two individual ingredients: flavans extracted from Acacia catechu and free-b-ring flavonoids from Scutellaria baicalensis. The new patent will cover this class of natural products from all potential genera and parts of high plants that include Scutellaria genera for treating osteoarthritis.

White-Paper Kit Available
Kyowa Hakko has released a white-paper kit to initially include six ingredient white papers. The first kit, focusing on Citicoline, is now available, with other ingredient white papers to be distributed throughout 2007. Kyowa Hakko developed the white-paper kit in conjunction with Kyowa's newly formed product-development research centre in Tsukuba, Japan. The technical reports and references will provide an overview of the latest science on amino acids and related compounds. To obtain a copy, send complete contact information to Karen Todd, marketing director, at [email protected].

New Manufacturing VP
Ed Olson has joined Sabinsa as senior vice president of manufacturing. Previously, Olson was in sales at Cornerstone Research & Development, and was the sales vice president for Alpine Health Industries, as well as national sales manager for Alpha-Pak. Olson also ran his own company, Olson Nutritional Services, where he provided dietary-supplements companies with assistance in product supply and development, labelling, and marketing.

Echinacea Info Available
The American Herbal Pharmacopoeia in California has released its quality-control standard and therapeutic compendium for Echinacea purpurea Aerial Parts (Echinacea purpurea (L.) Moench). The information will assist manufacturers in preparing for good manufacturing practices. Echinacea purpurea has traditionally been used to help prevent colds, flu and other infections. The monograph establishes national standards for assuring authenticity, purity and quality control of the botanical.

PL Thomas to Rep Polinat
Polifenoles Naturales, 'Polinat', of the Canary Islands, Spain, has acquired National Bioscience of New York. National Bioscience was headed by the recently deceased Dr Zakir Ramazanov, a respected pioneer, scientist and leader in the nutraceuticals industry. Polifenoles Naturales and National Bioscience are sister companies; Polinat has long been responsible for commercialisation and production of many of Ramazanov's innovations and developments. PL Thomas, of New Jersey, has become the exclusive representative of Polinat's line of products in North America, and will also service all of National Bioscience's accounts.

Caravan Finalises Purchase
ADM has completed the sale of the Arkady and distilled monoglycerides businesses to Caravan Ingredients, owned by CSM, a Dutch-based company. The Arkady and monoglycerides businesses formerly operated under ADM's Specialty Food Ingredients division. This sale includes the product lines — such as bakery enhancers, mixes, enrichments and distilled monoglycerides — in addition to existing customer base, brands, trademarks and other intellectual property associated with this business.

B12 Quantifying Method
Scientists working at Reading Scientific Services Ltd (RSSL) now have a method for quantifying vitamin B12 that is sensitive and accurate down to 0.02mcg/100ml. This is a major step forward in vitamins analysis, and the method is validated and UKAS accredited, RSSL reports. RSSL won't be releasing any details of the methodology, except to say the final analysis is performed on Biacore instrumentation, which has also enabled RSSL to provide accurate and sensitive tests for other B vitamins such as biotin and folic acid. For information, contact [email protected].

Naturex Buys Italian Firm
Naturex has purchased Milan-based Hammer Pharma, a company that has specialised in the R&D and production of plant extracts for more than 50 years. Hammer Pharma employs some 50 staff members and generated revenues of $10.1 million in 2006 with an EBITDA of almost $1.2 million. The cost of this acquisition is $13 million. Naturex will finance $7.8 million of this transaction in cash and the other $5.2 million through company debt.

SourceOne Hires Sales Director
Leslie Van der Meulen is the new director of sales at SourceOne Global Partners. Van der Meulen began a sales and marketing career almost 10 years ago at Nutrition Company (INC) in The Netherlands, worldwide supplier of branded ingredients such as Dr Masquelier's French Maritime Pine Bark Extract. As managing director at INC, Van der Meulen led the global expansion of branded science-based ingredients and the finished-product lines of Masquelier's Original OPCs.

New Policy Expert at EAS
European Advisory Services (EAS), a Brussels-based specialist in European and international regulation on food and nutritional products, has appointed Margit Rosier as manager of food and nutrition policy to focus her expertise in nutrition across the EU and internationally. Rosier's extensive experience in clinical nutrition and food policy will provide substantial technical and scientific support across the company as it expands its services in response to client demand, the company says.

Sunfiber GRAS Status Expanded
Taiyo International has expanded the GRAS status of its partially hydrolyzed guar gum (PHGG), marketed as Sunfiber, through an independent panel of scientific experts, the company reports. The expansion gives food and beverage manufacturers the freedom to add the ingredient to a broader variety of consumer-friendly foods at a usage level limited only by cGMP. Sunfiber PHGG was previously deemed GRAS by an expert panel of independent and qualified scientific professionals for use in a list of specified foods at limited usage levels, but the 'general food use' approval opens doors for unlimited food formulation opportunities.

New FSTA Thesaurus
The eighth edition of the FSTA Thesaurus is now available. It contains 10,246 terms, including 700 new terms that reflect developments in food science, food technology and nutrition that have taken place since the seventh edition was published in 2004. FSTA, Food Science and Technology Abstracts database, is the world's leading database of information on food science, food technology and nutrition, according to the publisher, IFIS Publishing. The database comprises records prepared from journals, patents, books, reports, conference proceedings, standards, legislation and theses originating from a total of 90 countries and 40 languages.