Berry boost: Singapore fashion, beauty firm ventures into wellness with Watsons-stocked antioxidant drink
Launched under the brand Unique Time, the berries-packed antioxidant pouch beverage named ‘Rejuvenate’ is retailing in Watsons as well as e-commerce platforms Lazada, Qoo10, and the brand’s website.
This is the first health food by the firm SGCE International Group, a Singapore-based company which also runs beauty and fashion portfolios.
Containing seven antioxidant-rich fruits, namely aroniaberry, elderberry, sea buckthorn berry, pomegranate, blueberry, cranberry, and muscadine grapes, ‘Rejuvenate’ claims to provide a host of benefits, such as improving immunity, minimising signs of ageing, and acting as an energy booster.
Development of the formulation took about six months, according to Dr Alain Khaiat, the company’s appointed consultant who is involved in the product development process.
The idea is to create an antioxidant, anti-inflammatory health food that is made from natural foods and does not contain synthetic vitamin C.
“For the ingredients used, we did not want to add [synthetic] vitamin C, it is available everywhere and not unique enough. [And so], we looked for berries with high antioxidant content,” he told NutraIngredients-Asia.
Moreover, vitamin C has low stability when applied in the liquid and beverage form, which is not suitable for the product’s designed format.
On the other hand, the product is found to yield a high Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity (ORAC) at 5166.72.
The ORAC measures the scavenging capacity of antioxidants against peroxyl radical. In other words, it measures the antioxidant activity of all antioxidants present in a mixture.
While the product is made in the US, Dr Khaiat added that the ingredients were sourced from different parts of the world.
For instance, the aroniaberry is sourced from Poland, cranberry and muscadia grapes from the US, pomegranate from Israel, elderberry from Austria, sea buckthorn from China, and blueberry from Canada.
More market launches
The 32ml drink pouch is also sold in about 20,000 beauty salons in China’s third and fourth tier cities since last October by SGCE’s China office.
There are plans to introduce the product into other South East Asian countries next.
“We started off with the exterior beauty business, whether it is the skincare or body shaping lingerie.
“To complement what we want to achieve, which is overall wellness in individuals, we believe we need to have products for both exterior use and oral consumption, ”said managing director Tony Tham, adding that the firm would be developing more natural and convenient health foods.
The upcoming product launch includes a probiotic product expected to retail in China this December.
