13 Jul 2010 --- IFP, Inc. (Innovative Food Processors) and InterHealth Nutraceuticals Inc. have announced a joint collaboration to co-develop and co-market a series of powdered beverage products to customers. The first product concept to be introduced under the collaboration is a joint health formulation called Triple Berry Tempo. This new powder mix, which is delivered in easy to use, single serve stick packets, highlights UC-II, a joint health ingredient by InterHealth, and will be shown at IFT2010 this July.

Triple Berry Tempo water beverage mix is part of an ongoing initiative between IFP and InterHealth to research, develop, and manufacture forward looking finished beverage product concepts for the dynamic functional powdered beverage consumer market. These “ready-to-commercialize” concepts showcase innovative ingredients as well as processing and packaging technology to generate targeted ideas and jumpstart new product development initiatives within the beverage industry. With this approach, IFP and InterHealth are able to pool resources to create a more technologically advanced and healthful product.

“We’re interested in aligning ourselves with our clients’ strategic initiatives,” explained Peter Holocher, New Business Development Director for IFP Inc., “Our goal is to help identify unmet needs early in the process and then to search for relevant ingredients and application solutions that deliver a well-positioned product that is timely and on the mark.”

The InterHealth /IFP collaboration is meant to create a complete turnkey process for new functional powder beverage products. InterHealth has a 20-year history of providing research-based, patented, safe and innovative ingredients that are clinically proven to be beneficial to the consumer’s health and superior to current alternatives in the market. IFP picks up the process with leading-edge functional powder product development and formulation, processing and manufacturing of powder products including marketing and versatile packaging solutions.

“Our ingredients have had long term success in products such as Fuze by Coca Cola Company and So Be Lean by Pepsi Co,” says Jay Martin VP of Sales and Marketing for InterHealth, “With the publication of our UC-II clinical study showing greater than 2x superiority to glucosamine/chondroitin at only 40 mg per day, we can help open the door for mainstream joint health beverage products.”

The partnership between InterHealth and IFP expands the full commercialization process from start to finish, from concept creation through product packaging. The result is a streamlined process for a “faster to market” advantage. “Our powder beverage product design and development team uses innovative agglomeration and encapsulation techniques and is equipped to handle all R&D, quality assurance, regulatory, packaging and logistics issues,” said Ephi Eyal, CEO and President of IFP. As part of this collaboration, both IFP and InterHealth sales personnel will be presenting the developed products to their customers in joint presentations.

Triple Berry Tempo water beverage mix is the result of this open innovative system. It offers consumers a low-calorie beverage powder that has unique joint health benefits. Triple Berry Tempo is the first powdered, shelf-stable, stick packet beverage with all natural flavors and colors that contains UC-II and is ready for commercialization.

“The collaboration between IFP and InterHealth has great synergies and complement each other by providing turnkey products to customers that will reduce their development costs and time to market,” says Paul Dijkstra, CEO of InterHealth. “While this is our first product together, we look forward to working on several more.”