2010 Wellness Foods Readers' Choice Awards: Shining Nutraceutical Stars

Despite the tough economic times of the past year – and maybe because of them – makers of healthful food and beverage products gave high marks to their ingredient suppliers in our seventh annual Wellness Foods Readers' Choice Awards.

"All of the companies that I entered are outstanding in product, price and overall excellent customer service," wrote one of our respondents. "I cannot say enough good things about them."

We sent e-mail surveys to a subset of our circulation list between Thanksgiving of 2009 and New Year's. We got 227 responses back. This year, for the first time, we also took votes on our web site -- after culling ineligible ballots, that added a few dozen more votes.

No supplier names were suggested; the form is an unaided recall survey. Voters represent all categories of the food and beverage industry.

As in the past, positive comments far outnumbered the negative ones. "Overall, customer service in the food industry with ingredients goes above and beyond what they are expected," wrote a product developer at a small company. Another offered: "Most companies are very helpful. They are always willing to give the extra push to make your project go through."

The winners in 21 categories of ingredients for the broader food & beverage industry were in the March issue of Food Processing magazine and on FoodProcessing.com at 2010 Readers' Choice Awards: Suppliers That Hit the Trifecta.

Following are the winners in 11 categories of nutraceutical ingredients. We list the first-, second- and third-place winners in each category, as long as they get a minimum of 5 percent of the votes cast in that category. Differences of less than 3 percent are considered statistically insignificant. Congratulations to these quality suppliers. And our thanks to all the food & beverage processors who responded to our survey.

Antioxidants
1. Danisco 11%
DSM 11%
Kalsec 11%

Calcium
1. Purac 14%

Fiber
1. SunOpta 14%
2. ADM 11%
Cargill 11%

Inulin, Oligosaccharides
1. Beneo-Orafti 27%
2. Cargill 24%

Lutein, Lycopene, Zeaxanthin
1. DSM 29%
2. BASF 13%

Omega Oils
1. Martek 23%   
2. Denomega 8%

Probiotics
1. Ganeden Biotech 16%
2. Chr. Hansen 11%
* Danisco 9%

Resistant Starch
1. National Starch 42%

Soy (protein, isoflavones, etc.)
1. Solae 37%
2. ADM 30%
3. Cargill 11%

Vitamins
1. Fortitech 21%
2. DSM 13%
* Watson 12%

Whey Protein & Caseinates
1. Glanbia Nutritionals 18%
2. Davisco 12%
Fonterra 12%