Uriach on delivering award-winning botanical solutions for global populations

The Spanish botanical healthcare product manufacturer owns brands including Aquilea, Fisiocrem, Laborest, Aerored, Fave de Fuca, Utabon, Biodramina and Halibut, and has received three NutraIngredients ‘Botanical Product of the Year’ awards in the last four years.  

"We are trying to solve major conditions through various pathologies; the key is that it is always through a natural approach,” Alba Domínguez Pedrós, global innovation director at Uriach, told NutraIngredients, adding that the company's natural solutions are aimed at proactive, expert and empowered consumer. 

Aquilea ​ 

Aquilea, Uriach’s umbrella brand, covers multiple health categories, focusing on solutions for a range of issues that affect global populations, including sleep support.

“The sleep market is a huge one, mostly because it affects people globally—insomnia issues stemming from stress have increased massively from Covid, so we started with a product to address that,” said Ana Fortuny Solà, senior portfolio coordinator of product development at Uriach.

For sleep support, Uriach offers Aquilea Sueño, a bilayer tablet designed that contains melatonin to help users fall asleep in the first layer and valerian, passionflower and California poppy extracts in the second layer. 

Its second award-winning product Aquilea Colesterol is designed to support healthy cholesterol levels and contains a blend of botanical ingredients such as plant sterols, Tansiia (salvia milthiorriza​ extract), red yeast rice extract (monacolin K​), policosanol, coriander extract, olive extract and vitamin E. 

“It was important to design a product for an issue that affects nearly half the population in Europe, by addressing cardiovascular problems through cholesterol management,” said Fortuny Solà. 

The formula acts in three ways, she explained: reducing cholesterol levels, decreasing the absorption of exogenous cholesterol and protecting against oxidative damage.

Fuca Regularidad​

Award winner Fuca Regularidad is a product for people who suffer from irregular bowel transit, who are unable to achieve regular intestinal activity through a healthy lifestyle alone.

It is also a bilayer tablet, designed to support both intestinal regularity and protection of the intestinal mucosa layer. The formula includes Frangula alnus​ (alder buckthorn) to stimulate the nerves of the intestine; Ascophyllum nodosum​ (brown algae) to maintain intestinal regularity; biotin for cell repair, contributing to the maintenance of mucous membranes; and Altea ​(marshmallow plant), the mucilages of which form a layer that adheres to the intestine and protects the mucosa from possible lesions.

Environmentally sustainable origins  ​

"This is a company that values and believes in the power of nature, enhanced by science as the best way to improve human health and well-being, this is our purpose,” Domínguez Pedrós noted. “What we want to do is to have a positive impact on both peoples' lives and the planet.”

Sustainability is not often the most financially viable choice for a company, but it is of great importance, particularly during the product definition phase, she explained. 

“When we begin creating the formulation proposal, we start with the origin of the plant," Fortuny Solà noted. "We don't have a manufacturing plant, so we need to ensure the quality standards with the partners selected to work with are to our standard.”

She explaining that the origin of the plant is of the utmost importance as Uriach avoids using invasive species to maintain environmental homeostasis.

The NI awards ​

“One thing that we are very proud of is our quality standards, and one of the ways we can communicate that is through winning the NutraIngredients awards, which proves that our products are of a certain quality,” Fortuny Solà said.

“The NutraIngredients awards are one of the most international in the industry that you can achieve, representing innovation in the sector. The awards from NutraIngredients signify a seal of quality for the products that we are producing and developing.”