Stability protection

The problem

Stability failures are expensive because they are discovered late. The blend passes release testing, ships, and then the assay at month nine sits below the label claim — or the colour has shifted visibly, or the oil has gone rancid and the consumer tastes it. By then the batch is in the market.

Four stressors do most of the damage: oxygen, light, heat and moisture. Most sensitive actives are vulnerable to more than one, and the interaction between them is usually worse than either alone.

Why the conventional ingredient fails

Carotenoids such as astaxanthin, lutein and lycopene carry extended conjugated double-bond systems — the same structure that produces their colour makes them readily oxidised and photolabile. CoQ10 is light- and heat-sensitive. NADH is among the least stable actives in commercial supplement use: oxygen-sensitive, moisture-sensitive and acid-labile at once. Adding a free antioxidant to the blend helps at the margin, but it does not put a physical barrier between the active and the atmosphere.

How NexaGens addresses it

Two platforms apply.

Protective microencapsulation surrounds the active in a food-grade matrix that acts as a physical oxygen and light barrier, and can carry an antioxidant system within the matrix itself where that is appropriate.

Stability-protected pellets apply an opaque or antioxidant-containing barrier to a pellet core, for multiparticulate blends and capsule filling. These are protected immediate release — the barrier is there for stability, with no intentional release delay.

Relevant products

What to specify, and how to test it

A stability claim without a comparator is not a claim. Insist on all of these:

• A comparator. Protected versus unprotected active, same stress conditions, same analytical method. Without it, a stability curve means nothing.
• Stated stress conditions — temperature, relative humidity, light exposure (lux hours) and headspace oxygen. “Accelerated” alone is not a condition.
• Accelerated and real-time data. Accelerated data alone predicts poorly for carotenoids.
• Assay method named, with its own stability-indicating validation.
• For oils: peroxide value, anisidine value and TOTOX, measured over time rather than at release only.
• Surface active or surface oil — unprotected material on the particle surface degrades first and dominates the early curve.

For every NexaGens product on this page, stability documentation forms part of the ingredient documentation pack, and each production batch is supplied with a batch-specific certificate of analysis.

Next steps

See the stability-protected pellets · See the microencapsulated range · Ask what stability data exists today