Developed in collaboration with Dutch health product start-up CollaVegan and its German manufacturing partner Alphacaps GmbH, this addition to the VeCollal portfolio takes its product applications portfolio beyond powders, gels and liquids.
With the protein bar market surging to $4.88 billion in 2023 and projected to exceed $7 billion by 2030, the vegan segment has emerged as the fastest-growing sector, according to Market Research Future’s Global Protein Bars Market Overview.
“This marks the first time a clinically-validated vegan alternative to animal-derived collagen has been utilized in a functional bar,” Tony Van Campen,
founder and CEO of VeCollal, told NutraIngredients. “This Vegan High Protein Beauty Bar not only meets consumer demands for flavor, indulgence, and functional benefits but also opens doors to a new era of functional food applications.”
He added that collaborating with industry experts allowed the team to overcome challenges in formulating a collagen fortified bar with effective doses of active ingredients, authorized health claims and an enjoyable taste and texture.
The product combines 5g of VeCollal—clinically proven to reduce wrinkles by 32.9% in eight weeks—alongside pea, sunflower and rice protein to provide 14 g of protein in a sub-200 calorie bar in a white chocolate and raspberry flavor.
“By harnessing the power of complementary plant-based ingredients and clinically-validated formulations, we’re proud to offer a guilt-free indulgence that not only satisfies taste buds but also enhances beauty from within,” Van Campen added.
Mimicking human collagen
Launched in collaboration with AminoLabs in the first quarter of 2022 in a powder format, VeCollal—short for Vegan Collagen Alternative—has been available for use in capsules, liquids, functional food, powders and face creams.
The launch responds to growing consumer awareness and concern for the environmental impacts of animal products.
“And yet there’s no real vegan or sustainable alternative for collagen on the market yet,” Van Campen told NutraIngredients at the time of the launch. “Animals and humans naturally make their own collagen by breaking down dietary protein into amino acids and constructing collagen that has a very specific ratio of amino acids. Therefore, until now, getting these specific amino acids in the right ratios would mean consuming collagen that can only be found in animal sources.”
He explained that while several brands have taken some of these amino acids and mixed them with superfoods and called it vegan collagen, “there’s very little science behind those products”.
To fill this gap in the market, Van Campen approached Dr. Josué Vázquez, a well-respected biomaterials specialist who specialises in tissue engineering, precision medicine and data science.
“We asked him how can you create collagen from vegan sources, and he informed us you can make ‘a biomimetic’ that copies the profile of human collagen as closely as possible,” Van Campen said. “In fact, bovine and fish collagen are actually not identical to human collagen at all in terms of their amino acid composition, with some of the necessary amino acids missing completely.”
Dr. Vázquez went about defining and mimicking the amino acid profile of human type 1 collagen and created a formula with three nutrients known to stimulate the body’s natural collagen production—ginseng, vitamin C and asiaticoside. Aminolabs’s R&D team then built on this formulation to develop the final product VeCollal.
