Stardust Komms

UpCircle seals €480,000 crowdfunding: We’re a ‘disruptor brand’ showing how upcycling in beauty can scale, says co-founder

Anna Brightman, co-founder of UpCircle, said the potential to expand into other repurposed ingredients was vast.
“When it comes to by-product ingredients, there is an endless supply,” Brightman told CosmeticsDesign-Europe. “We always like to remind ourselves that one-third of all food in the UK is wasted, yet nearly one-third of people have a skin care routine. That’s one huge opportunity to save the planet through skin care.”
Since 2016, UpCircle had already ‘saved’ 400 tonnes of its pioneer upcycled ingredient coffee, she said, and that was set to build further. “Based on our current rates of growth, it is estimated that this will rise to 1,000 tonnes in the next five years.”
Being in the circular beauty business did on occasion present supply chain challenges, Brightman said, noting the temporary, or in some cases permanent,
closure of coffee shops during COVID-19 lockdowns causing difficulties.
“Every repurposed ingredient that we work with has been taken from another industry,” she said. “This means that it needs to be processed in one way or another in order that it’s appropriate for use in skin care. More often than not, we’re the first beauty brand to be working with these ingredients at scale – so we’ve had to figure out our supply chain, manufacturing and general operational hurdles ourselves.
“Being a disruptor brand means that the path that you forge will always be bumpy,” she said.

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‘Galvanise’ business: British Beauty Week to celebrate ‘power of beauty’ post-COVID

The British beauty sector will parade its status as an economic powerhouse and potent transformer of lives at next month’s British Beauty Week, as the industry and world slowly moves past the COVID-19 pandemic once and for all.

More broadly, British Beauty Week aimed to,“raise awareness of the industry, galvanise the business and creators across the sector and celebrate the power of beauty,” British Beauty Council CEO Millie Kendall O.B.E told CosmeticsDesign-Europe.

“The industry has historically faced a lot of bias,” "We have been thought of as the industry that’s mainly about fluffy stuff girls like. Not taken seriously, economically and socially. Our impact on communities and our innovation and forward thinking business leaders have not been a focus for brand Great Britain. 

A lot of focus is on music , fashion and film, which rightfully deserve global acknowledgment, but our industry has led the way in so many ways from Yardley, to Body Shop, Vidal Sassoon, John Frieda, Charlotte Tilbury, Pat McGrath."

“…But we have surpassed the first hurdle of being recognised as an economic superpower. Now we need to remind the public why they were so desperate to get a haircut after COVID or have their roots done or wear a lipstick again once we took the face masks off," she said.

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UK FSA: EFSA’s safety concerns will not provoke CBD product removals

EFSA’s decision this week to stop the clock on 150 CBD (cannabidiol) Novel Food applications and publish a litany of ‘data gaps’ does not threaten thousands of onmarket CBD products in the UK, its Food Standards Agency (FSA) has told NutraIngredients.

The agency has itself held similar safety concerns for more than two years that have not been deemed significant enough to shift the safety needle against some 5,980 FSA-registered CBD offerings transitionally permitted on British brick and click shelves while it engages in its own assessments of around 900
industry-submitted safety dossiers.

“The information available does not provide sufficient evidence of a safety risk to determine that an immediate product removal is appropriate, based on the legal balance that must be made,” FSA Senior Communications Manager, Lisa Nelson, told NutraIngredients.

“So while we do not have evidence of harm relating to CBD products, there is also no evidence to show they are safe. The independent Committee on Toxicity has reviewed the existing CBD evidence and from that we have developed consumer advice on consuming CBD.”

That advice continues to be that healthy adults should consume a maximum of 70mg of CBD per day and vulnerable groups like pregnant and breastfeeding women and those on medications should not take it all.

Nelson added: “If we find credible evidence to say that CBD isolates or synthetic products in general, or specific products containing CBD, risk harm to the public, they will be removed from sale.”

The European Industrial Hemp Association (EIHA), which has submitted dossiers to the FSA representing more than 100 of its full-spectrum and isolate CBD-manufacturing members, supported EFSA’s work and publication.

“EFSA did this to help applicants improve their chances,” EIHA Managing Director, Lorenza Romanese, told us.

“So we support that. There are no surprises here really whether it is for isolates or full-spectrum CBD – the gaps have been known for a long time."

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Can DSM Firmenich merger deliver on its synergistic promise?

A slide from DSM Firmenich’s presentation next week…

DSM and Firmenich’s mooted 2023 ‘Merger of Equals’ will
create a nutrition, food ingredients and fragrances
behemoth with 277 years of collective business
experience and a combined annual revenue pushing
towards €12 billion (£10.2bn).

The deal rivals that of the 2021 €20bn+ (£17bn+) merger between International Flavors & Fragrances (IFF)
and DuPont’s Nutrition and Biosciences division.

The Dutch and Swiss firms have spoken much of the synergies they predict will save at least €175 million
(£149m), while not cutting too many of 28,000 jobs and keeping annual R&D spends higher than most
rivals at 9.3% of revenue – about €700m (£145m).

By comparison, Givaudan spends 8.4% of its revenues on R&D, IFF/DuPont 6.1% and Symrise 5.9%.

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The gut-brain axis: Psychobiotic opportunity in 25 countries

Deep dive into probiotics and brain health. Published March 2022.

The Gut-Brain Axis (GBX) is a research concept that has moved into the mainstream consciousness via mostly probiotic supplement makers that offer to alter the microbiota via probiotic supplementation which benefits brain health in some way. The scientific base is small but developing clinically, growing fast and boosted by the broader surge in microbiome study across a range of nutritional interventions that include probiotics.
Lumina reveals the evolution of ‘psychobiotics’ in 25 e-commerce markets from the brands winning the most loyal consumer engagement (and how), to the most innovative markets to business-ready scans of the e-tail environment, science, suppliers, regulations that shape the markets.

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