Asia Sherman

The definition of dietary supplement ingredients was top of the agenda at this year’s International Conference on the Science of Botanicals (ICSB) in Oxford, MS, with speakers exploring origin, production method and constitution of products delivered by an industry pushing innovation.

NutraIngredients is pleased to announce Holobiome, Clostrabio and Kioga as the next Probiota Pioneers. These innovative, early-stage start-ups will showcase their novel approaches to microbiome science, product development and health at the upcoming Probiota Americas, taking place June 8 to 10, 2026 at Westin Bayshore in Vancouver.

Despite ongoing geopolitical, regulatory and supply chain volatility, business operators from leading dietary supplement companies discussed the resilience, disciplined growth, trusted partnerships and thoughtful technology adoption needed to navigate what disruption may lie ahead.

Over 180 members of the Natural Products Association gathered on Capitol Hill last week for a day of meetings with legislators to champion consumer access to natural products—the organization’s fighting mission for the last 90 years. On this year’s agenda: fending off the Mandatory Product Listing bill, modernizing the drug preclusion clause, expanding access to dietary supplements through health savings accounts (HSA) and Flexible Savings Accounts (FSA), and clarifying Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authority in the face of mountain state regulatory action.

A Bangalore High Court has temporarily stayed the Indian government’s restriction on the use of ashwagandha leaves issued last month that generated pushback from industry stakeholders who questioned the motivations for the blanket ban.

Ahead of his Probiota Pioneers presentation at the upcoming Probiota Americas in Vancouver, Justin Whiteley, CEO and co-founder at Kioga, discusses the founding and growth of Kioga and the company’s conviction that the next wave of nutrition innovation will come from a deeper understanding how the immune system shapes human health, particularly brain health.

ClostraBio has translated decades of research into delivering a next-gen probiotic that targets the hundreds of millions of people living with food allergies and sensitivities. Spun out of the University of Chicago, the startup is based on research linking a healthy, butyrate-rich microbiome to food tolerance, and a dysbiotic, low-butyrate microbiome to food allergies. Bioinformatic analysis of food-allergic versus non-allergic microbiomes identified that a single species, Anaerostipes caccae, was enriched in non-allergic individuals and both produced butyrate and showed a strong positive association with intestinal barrier integrity and food tolerance.

At the first East Coast gathering of the SoCal Dietary Supplement Consortium, U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials and industry leaders framed supplement regulation around modernization, risk-based enforcement and practical collaboration.

Holobiome emerged from a growing recognition that the gut microbiome is both profoundly influential and deeply understudied—and that more tools were needed to unlock its vast complexity.

Unilever has announced plans to develop a new global innovation center in New Haven, CT, opening by spring 2029. The multinational consumer goods company says that the $270-million investment reflects its belief in science-led growth and the increasingly central role of the United States in driving innovation across its business.