Chaired by NutraIngredients’ science and tech editor Will Chu, the line-up commenced with a one-on-one interview with esports and gaming expert, Koen Schobbers.
Schobbers, the vice-chairman of the athletes’ commission overseen by the Global Esports Federation, chatted to NutraIngredeints about focussing on athlete rights, inclusion, health and safety amongst other topics.
One of the interview’s focal points was the shift by eathletes to fine tune diet and nutrition, with some going as far as employing personal trainers, team chefs and performance coaches to improve performance.
esports pioneer
A founding member of the athletes’ commission of the International Esports Federation (IESF) back in early 2016, Schobbers also commented on the sector’s evolution and the role nutrition has played in its success.
The session then moved onto Gencor Pacific’s product development executive, Mariko Hill, who gives a presentation looking at ways brands can differentiate using ‘acute’ and ‘chronic’ concepts.
These ideas will be complimented by recently published literature that supports existing scientific evidence providing scope for brands to innovate with branded ingredients in unique delivery formats.
Figures obtained from market insights and analytics firm NewZoo estimate global esports revenues to have reached around €925m ($1.1bn) in 2019, a year-on-year growth of 26.7%.
Esports revenues are still on an upward projection and are expected to reach €1.5bn ($1.8bn) by 2022 with food and nutrition firms capitalising with new lines of products that use select ingredients to boost focus, concentration and other attributes key to optimal gaming performance.
vaneeghen and Lonza
Erik Bakkers, innovation & marketing director at vaneeghen and Joris Dewit, director, business development & project management at Lonza then took to the stage to describe these ingredients along with concepts for recovery, energy and brain performance.
The presentation, chaired by Stephane Vouche, marketing manager at Lonza, also took a look at the current crop of novel, science-based ingredients that are proving suitable in various application forms to support the NPD process.
Tony Gay, head of technical sales and NPD, nutrition at Prinova represented the day’s final speaker with his presentation entitled, “Pivoting from sports to eSports nutrition.”
He talked about the origins of nootropic ingredients initially as a mainstay of pre-workout type products.
However, as he pointed out, the industry is now seeing this category moving into the mainstream within energy beverages and converging with the ever-growing pastime of esports.
To round off his presentation, Gay also revealed various nootropic formulations for a wide range of applications.
On-Demand service
Proceedings then culminated with a panel discussion with the day’s presenters given the opportunity to debate the topic, taking a deeper dive into their areas of interest.
Brain Performance (focus on esports) was the final episode of the Sports and Active Nutrition Broadcast Series and is now available to watch for free on our On-Demand service, where last week’s Gut Microbiome session and the Performance & Recovery session on 30 September, are also available to view for our regstrants.
Head on over to the event’s main website for more information on what this three-day event has covered so far.
The Sports & Active Nutrition Summit Europe will return as a face to face event at the Amsterdam Marriott in the Netherlands from 6th – 8 October 2021. Be sure to register to receive updates, speaker announcements and session details.