Anagenix, the nutraceutical ingredient manufacturer, is proof of what can be achieved when research and industry work together.
When Anagenix was founded in 2013, the company’s vision was ambitious: to develop scientifically validated health ingredients from New Zealand fruit that could compete on the world stage. Turning that vision into reality required more than great ideas—it required research expertise, commercial support and the right partners.
That began with the BPA.
Anagenix’s first BPA-supported project focused on developing a gut health ingredient from kiwifruit.
While the health benefits of kiwifruit were well recognised, producing a stable, commercially viable freeze-dried powder presented a significant technical challenge.
At the time, commercial freeze-drying expertise in New Zealand was limited, and Anagenix was attempting to bridge the gap between laboratory research and large-scale manufacturing.
“The first funding round was incredibly important,” says Anagenix. “It enabled us to start our kiwifruit project, investigate how to make a better product, and understand how to translate our research into commercial manufacturing.”
For Anagenix, the BPA was the ideal partner because it shared the company’s commitment to advancing New Zealand’s primary industries through innovation. The support provided not only funding but also the confidence to tackle complex scientific problems that would ultimately underpin the company’s future success.
The success of the kiwifruit programme quickly led to a second BPA-supported project, this time exploring the health potential of feijoa. By then, Anagenix had become convinced that New Zealand fruit represented an untapped opportunity for developing premium nutraceutical ingredients with global appeal.
Lessons learned from the kiwifruit project—including how freeze-drying could create stable, appealing whole-fruit powders—provided a strong foundation for the next stage of research.
The science delivered an unexpected breakthrough. Researchers discovered that feijoa could reduce age-related pro-inflammatory cytokines, revealing a previously unrecognised mechanism that could support healthy ageing. More importantly, the work demonstrated that Anagenix was creating ingredients with unique health benefits that were not available elsewhere in the world.
A key strength of the BPA has been its ability to connect businesses with New Zealand’s leading research organisations, and those relationships have become central to Anagenix’s growth.
Over the past decade, the company has worked closely with Callaghan Innovation and Plant & Food Research, now part of the Bioeconomy Science Institute Maiangi Taiao. Those collaborations have extended far beyond the original BPA projects and continue to support new product development today.
Together, the partners have undertaken in vivo testing, compositional analysis, synbiotic research, clinical trials and advanced analytical work that Anagenix says simply would not have been possible on its own. Access to specialised expertise in freeze-drying, polyphenol analysis and product validation has enabled the company to build a scientific evidence base that differentiates its ingredients in international markets.
The BPA’s collaborative model has allowed Anagenix to transform promising fruit science into commercially successful products backed by robust research.
“New Zealand may be a small country, but when science and industry collaborate, we can achieve global success. Through the support of the BPA and our research partners, we’ve created products backed by science that don’t exist anywhere else in the world. We are stronger together.”
Today, many of the company’s flagship ingredients trace their origins directly back to those early BPA-supported projects. Both Actazin®, the company’s green kiwifruit ingredient, and Livaux®, its gold kiwifruit ingredient, were supported with BPA funded research.
Since then, Anagenix has grown into a global supplier of premium whole-fruit ingredients. The company has completed 11 clinical studies and 22 in vivo and in vitro studies across its product portfolio, established its own freeze-drying facility and secured patents for three products in more than 22 countries.
Regulatory milestones, including approvals from Food Standards Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ) and Health Canada for bowel regularity claims relating to Actazin®, have further strengthened the company’s international position.
Commercial success has followed scientific success. Anagenix now supplies nutraceutical, functional food, sports nutrition and pet health companies around the world, with the United States and Europe emerging as its largest export markets. The company attributes that growth to a combination of rigorous science, manufacturing capability, regulatory approvals and partnerships with more than 25 distributors worldwide.
Independent scientific validation has become one of Anagenix’s strongest competitive advantages. Every ingredient is verified through third-party testing, while collaborations with New Zealand research institutes provide customers with confidence that the science has been independently assessed.
Looking back, Anagenix believes the BPA’s greatest contribution has been enabling the company to explore opportunities that commercial constraints might otherwise have prevented.
“The BPA has helped us investigate ideas that have both commercial and sustainability benefits, while reducing the risks of innovation through well-structured research programmes,” says Anagenix.
That philosophy continues to shape Anagenix’s innovation strategy. Today, the company is investigating ways to better utilise horticultural waste streams while advancing research into microbiome science, whole-fruit bioavailability and new applications for natural ingredients.
Looking ahead, Anagenix wants to be recognised globally as the leading provider of clean-label, scientifically backed whole-fruit solutions for gut health, immunity, metabolic and cognitive health.
Reflecting on more than a decade of collaboration, the company sees its partnership with the BPA as proof of what can be achieved when research and industry work together.
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