Biotin (also known as vitamin B7 or vitamin H) is a water-soluble vitamin which helps the body convert food into energy. It helps keep the skin, hair, eyes, liver, and nervous system healthy and is a crucial nutrient during pregnancy.
The vitamin can be naturally found in a number of foods, including egg yolk, organ meats, nuts, soybeans and other legumes, whole grains and cereals, cauliflower, bananas, and mushrooms but food-processing techniques can render biotin ineffective.
Due to its relatively low cost and abundance of availability in cosmetic products, biotin has become the new trend for consumers wishing to have longer, healthier hair and nails.
Today, the majority of Biotin is synthetic, manufactured by chemical synthesis with crude oil as the main source of raw material. Transitioning from a synthetic to a natural fermentation process provides a sustainable value, as fermentation processes have been shown to provide a significant reduction in CO2 emission, chemical waste, air pollution and water usage both historically for vitamin production and specifically for a commercially scaled Biotin process.
Now, Copenhagen based natural vitamins company Biosyntia has revealed a new 'high-quality' Biotin ingredient, BIO-B7, from a sustainable fermentation process.
The ingredient can be used in cosmetics, supplements and animal feed.
Cecilie Oest-Jacobsen, launch manager at Biosyntia, said: “Using our BIO-B7, formulators and brand owners can uniquely claim their products contain fermented Biotin, which is natural and produced from renewable sources – and at the same time our product has a very high purity and full traceability. It provides our customers a new value proposition in the market as well as peace of mind.”
Biosyntia is currently developing the first production batch and are in dialogues with customers and partners to launch the first products containing the ingredient.