With a wealth of industry resources, Bengaluru-based Nutrify Today has launched Nutrify Today Academy, aimed at upgrading working executives in the nutraceuticals business in order to stay up with the industry’s growth. An industry that aims to make India a $100 billion market by 2030 has a huge task ahead of it. In conversation with Amit Srivastava, Chief Catalyst, Nutrify Today, Bengaluru, FFooDS Spectrum delves deeper into this subject.
What role will this academy play to promote the nutraceutical market in India?
Nutraceutical industry is acutely starved of trained nutraceutical professionals. Lot of time and money goes into training. It is this intense need gap that made industry leaders come together to develop the courses that are badly needed. Hence, Nutrify Today Academy was born. It is the world’s first academy designed by the nutraceutical industry, for the nutraceutical industry. For India to march towards $100 billion by 2030, there is an acute need for 170,000 executives in nutraceuticals. This gap can be filled by speciality academies. Nutrify Today Academy is a thought leader institution and hence it is closely working with industry leaders in identifying key subjects that need attention. The academy will have a direct impact on new product development, empowering dietetics, marketing standards, ANI business and more.
What will the courses be like?
Nutrify Today Academy is headquartered in Bangalore. The classes and courses are all virtual. The Academy’s faculty will consist of senior industry professionals and senior academicians, thus providing an inside view of the industry. It will include Dr Balkumar Marthi, the former R&D head of Unilever, Brijesh Kapil, former Procter & Gamble India board member, Naaznin Hussein, former president of the Indian Dietetics Association and key opinion leader, Sheldon Baker, Baker Dillon Group chief executive officer and nutraceutical brand marketing leader from the US, as well as other industry professionals who will play a key role in Academy development.
The current courses include:
- New product development and commercialisation: This course will upgrade F&D professionals in setting protocols and streamlining process of idea to commercialisation. This will lead to sustained innovation and differentiated products.
- Nutraceuticals for dieticians and nutritionists: This is a capacity building exercise to build the market by empowering nutritionists and dieticians’ role in the nutraceutical industry. Through this course the students will be able to practice consulting to patients with authority, they should be able to evolve to be an adjunct strategist in hospital set up and be an ideator in new products for different health conditions.
- OTC marketing: This is a super speciality course that helps companies conduct sustainable OTC marketing and not resort to random e-market place lure. The course will enable students to be able to understand different levers of nutraceuticals business and marketing. The certified professional will be able to design perfect market research, identify need gaps, design strategy and create marketing and sales channel matrix to get the highest yield.
- Regulatory systems: This is an essential course for anyone who wants to be in the nutraceutical industry.
- ANI: This is an intense business course on Active Nutraceuticals Ingredients (ANI) business. This course will take students through different levers of doing ANI business. Right from understanding of medicinal plants mapping, to extraction techniques, to key applications to business channels in B2B. The certified professional will be able to work in any ANI company and manage business with ease as this professional will be an expert in the entire supply chain.
- Applied probiotics in food tech and pharma: This is a futuristic course and certified personnel will be able to design probiotics, postbiotics and prebiotics matrix for health outcomes. The certified personnels will be best suited for business and job opportunities in the probiotics industry.
Post finishing the course, how will working executives be benefitted?
The executives will be able to deliver the projects faster at their workplace, their employability index will go up at least 5 points higher, ability to handle complex tasks in the nutraceutical industry, opportunity to get employed at Nutrify Today high end international projects, etc.
What will be the registration fee?
Average course fee is Rs 48,000 ($646), which can be paid online or through online channels or through EMI schemes.
How do you plan to enhance the workforce in the nutraceutical industry? What is the current scenario?
Workforce enhancement can happen by way of training maximum professionals at the Nutrify Today Academy, creating research institutions and industry connect where Academy is the bridge. This bridge will enable shared knowledge and effective utilisation of resources. Currently there are 37,000 insufficiently trained professionals in the nutraceutical industry in India. This strength contributes to $8 billion in India.
Please elaborate more on how can India accomplish a $100 billion market in the nutraceutical sector by 2030?
By 2030, India’s economy is expected to be worth $10 trillion. There are also opportunities to enable and empower industries with the inherent ability to contribute to the economy. Nutraceuticals are one such industry, with a potential contribution of $100 billion by 2030.
The global nutraceutical market is currently worth $400 billion. Around 60 per cent of this is in the United States, with India accounting for the remaining 2 per cent. India, with a current contribution of $8 billion, has the immediate capacity to increase to $40 billion by 2024 if basic policy and support changes are made like:
Business Empowerment
- Internationalisation initiatives: UNPA-India Initiative
- Empowering Shefexil and its industry promotion programme
- Solve Biodiversity confusions
- Policy shaping for HSN codes.
- Policy shaping for Industry specific PLI schemes
- Creation of Industry specific Investment tools
- Incorporating under National Medicinal Plants
- Identify top 10 products to focus on; for global leadership which includes, science, clinical trials, consistent exposure to target market in leadership positions.
- Promote India as global nutraceutical CDMO hub
- Empowering prescriber and recommendation base of professionals: Elevating nutraceuticals as prescription by dieticians or medical doctors. Keep supplements as a category of consumer domain
Regulatory and Human Resource capacity building
- Rewrite/Edit Indian Ayurveda Pharmacopoeia
- Set up FSSAI nutraceutical policies
- Academia collaboration
- Build Academia capacity
What are your expectations from the government to strengthen the nutraceutical sector in India?
- Create Department of Nutraceuticals and dietary supplements under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Have Joint Secretary level and a director drive this department. This will have a direct impact on PLI, HSN codes, CDMO business etc.
- Streamline Biodiversity Act
- Create market expansion catalyst by empowering dieticians and nutritionists to prescribe Nutraceuticals, FSDU and FSMP.
- Create market access harmonisation with friendly countries, especially USA.
Sanjiv Das