Solabia/BioActor’s Brainberry wins Ingredient Idol 2023

Best new ingredient in the nootropics category at SupplySide West has fast effects on focus, reaction time and eye-hand coordination.

Todd Runestad, Content Director, SupplySideSJ.com

November 8, 2023

2 Min View

At a Glance

  • Ingredient Idol at SupplySide West 2023 recognizes best new ingredient.
  • Brainberry, from Solabia-BioActor, wins best nootropic ingredient.
  • Watch the exclusive interview with the winner, above.

Ingredient Idol rewards the most innovative, top-shelf dietary ingredients recently introduced into the nutrition and supplements market today. Consummated at SupplySide West in Las Vegas on Oct. 26, this year’s juried competition featured three health conditions with three finalists in each category—active nutrition, microbiome, nootropics. Live at the show, a panel of sharp, smart and informed industry judges heard elevator pitches from ingredient supplier brands, peppered them with follow-up questions, and decided the winner.

For the nootropics category, the three finalists were:

  • Solabia-BioActor’s Brainberry

  • Microphyt’s GamePhyt

  • Nutraland USA’s Miricell

The winner was Solabia-BioActor’s Brainberry. Here are the three categories upon which the ingredient was judged. Watch the video, above, to see an exclusive interview with the winner.

Innovation

Starting from a completely new raw material, Aronia melanocarpa, and linking it to cognition, Brainberry is the first ingredient to make this connection, and there is a good reason why: Aronia berries are naturally high (3x higher than blueberry) in their anthocyanin content. Anthocyanins are generally known for improving cognitive parameters. This is how Brainberry originated, by detecting this gap in the market. Now, following proprietary consumer studies, gathering consumer feedback and proprietary clinical studies, Brainberry has become a strong ingredient for any cognitive formula. The commercial dose is only 65 mg (equivalent to 19 mg anthocyanins), so it will fit into any formulation.

Market potential

Commercially introduced in the U.S. market in late 2021, Brainberry has already been adopted by big U.S. brands, most notably C4 Energy, which is using it in their different beverage formats (Ultimate range) and their C4 x WWE special powder. This is an early indication of Brainberry’s attractiveness to the U.S. market: low dose, natural ingredient, high efficacy and diverse application potential. Solabia-BioActor has already seen great success in other markets like Europe, Taiwan and Korea. With its clean extraction method, Brainberry also fits in with the clean label trend, without additives or other compounds.

Another trend that Brainberry is able to fit into is energy beverages. As a nootropic, with its ability to disperse and vibrant purple color, Brainberry is a cost-effective, clinically studied ingredient for any energy drink brand.

Additionally, it would fit well into other formulas targeting long-term brain fitness, pre-workouts or gaming formulas. There are three more clinical studies ongoing at this moment in time, and the publications will see daylight throughout 2024 and early 2025. A patent has already been granted in the U.S. market, protecting the composition and dosage of the ingredient and serving as official recognition of its ability to boost brain fitness and performance.

Scientific merit

Studies found improvement in hand-eye coordination and focus at a low daily dose of 19 mg natural anthocyanins. One study using 90 mg Brainberry found beneficial effects on psychomotor speed—the time it takes a person to process new information, make sense of it and respond physically. Another study on amateur gamers, both female and male, found significant improvement in relevant measures for gaming performance such as hand-eye coordination, focus, reaction time and energy. Positive results were seen after one day and continued through the supplementation span of seven days. A study on 35 professional Greek basketball players, again studying effects after both one and seven days, found that Brainberry led to players experiencing enhanced cognitive performance linked to focus, reaction time and hand-eye coordination.

About the Author

Todd Runestad

Content Director, SupplySideSJ.com, SupplySide Supplement Journal

Todd Runestad has been writing on nutrition science news since 1997. He is content director for SupplySide Supplement Journal and its digital magazines. Other incarnations: content director for Natural Products Insider (now rebranded to SupplySide Supplement Journal), supplements editor for NewHope.com, Delicious Living!, and Natural Foods Merchandiser. Former editor-in-chief of Functional Ingredients magazine and still covers raw material innovations and ingredient science.

Connect with me here on LinkedIn.

Specialty

Todd writes about nutrition science news such as this story on mitochondrial nutrients, innovative ingredients such as this story about 12 trendy new ingredient launches from SupplySide West 2023, and is a judge for the NEXTY awards honoring innovation, integrity and inspiration in natural products including his specialty — dietary supplements. He extensively covered the rise and rise and rise and fall of cannabis hemp CBD. He helps produce in-person events at SupplySide West and SupplySide East trade shows and conferences, including the wildly popular Ingredient Idol game show, as well as Natural Products Expo West and Natural Products Expo East and the NBJ Summit. He was a board member for the Hemp Industries Association.

Education / Past Lives

In previous lives Todd was on the other side of nature from natural products — natural history — as managing editor at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. He's sojourned to Burning Man and Mount Everest. He graduated many moons ago from the State University of New York College at Oneonta.

Quotes

"There is not a colds-and-flu season. There is a vitamin D-deficiency season."

"There is no such thing as inclement weather. Only improper attire."

Link answers question, "When taking magnesium, should you also take vitamin D3 2,000 IU?"

"Cannabis is nature's most nearly perfect plant."

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