Everyday consumers wanting to eat better food are now able to benefit from the smarts that go into high-performance athletes’ diet, thanks to the vision of Hamilton company Radix Nutrition.
Co-founded by CEO Mike Rudling, the low-profile nutrition company is poised to push strongly into mainstream food retail outlets after building up a solid following among consumers and athletes wanting quality food, without having to become dieticians to better understand how to get hold of it.
Rudling spent his earlier years as a competitive member of a European cycling team, regularly burning off 6000 calories a day in the gruelling, unrelenting competition. But even here he quickly saw that behind the scenes the nutritional organisation for competitors was near chaos.
“You see even now, on the likes of Tour de France teams, one nutritionist trying to control the diet of 20 athletes.
“The idea a single nutritionist can control hundreds of nutrient compounds for that many athletes is simply impossible to do from scratch each day, and certainly would not work for everyday people on the street either.”
Rudling was prompted to take his voracious appetite built up by cycling and combine it with an equally voracious appetite for reading research papers on high performance and nutrition, to create Radix.
“I was really wanting to create food for people that was there, ready to go, as easily consumed as poor quality, highly processed food, but with far greater nutritional value.”
He noted while big food corporations often fail in delivering nutritive food products, their marketing and packaging are slick and smooth, something Radix has worked hard to replicate with its single serve pouches and easy to follow directions.
“It is just unfortunate that the science of high quality nutrition has been a long way ahead of what has been put in front of consumers.”
In establishing Radix, Rudling engaged the help and input of Fonterra’s research and development staff, pulling in the company’s deep expertise in high quality milk proteins, amino acids and phospholipids.
With the Fonterra sourced protein components Radix is able to claim to be the first company in the world to push its products’ micronutrient content to over 100, without having to fortify with added compounds.
“If you are working with high quality natural ingredients to start with, you should not have to fortify them.
“We wanted a range of protein powders that were more effective than any made before, and Fonterra’s research arm was the place to go to source them.”
Fonterra has been instrumental in working with the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations in establishing a digestible indispensable amino acid score (DIAA). It is now a global standard related to protein quality which ranks dairy sourced proteins and whey protein isolates highest against other plant sourced proteins like peas and soy.
“With Fonterra source protein powders, Radix is the first company to launch a whey protein optimised for bioavailability, with a market leading DIAAS score of 1.61. 47% higher than pure Whey Protein Isolate.”
The “grass fed” aspect of Fonterra’s supplied proteins is known, but Rudling said more work is being done to determine the level of additional quality and digestibility this brings to the products.
“We suspect it is, however, linked to a better lipids and amino acid profile.”
Expansion for the firm within NZ has come through both online sales and through speciality retail, but the company is now poised to push into Australia, Europe, the United States and United Kingdom.
“We have been down the high-performance sport route to prove our products, and our broader aim is put that state of art nutrition into every day people’s diets.”
Longer term, Rudling remains convinced there are more layers to peel from the milk molecule that can improve human health, both in the gut and in the mind.
Aware of Fonterra’s work around phospholipids and their link to improved mental performance, he is looking forward to further new product developments in that area.
“While we have our own small team in house, we continue to work closely with Fonterra’s research and development team. They are extremely good at it, and have helped us enter the market well prepared.”
