Low GI branding boost: Singapore start-up Alchemy Foodtech to kick start a series of campaigns

Its proprietary glycaemic index-lowering solution, 5ibrePlus, recently won a start-up award at the THAIFEX-World of Food Asia trade show.

Earlier in January, it also opened a food tech laboratory, Cooklab@Alchemy to help end-product manufacturer apply the solution into their products.

While the interest in low GI products is “very high”​ in Asia,, the firm believes the consumer market’s understanding of GI still remains at a low level.

As such, the firm is introducing a series of online and offline campaigns to educate consumers the benefits of low GI foods, CEO and co-founder, Alan Phua, told FoodNavigator-Asia.​

“The concept of GI is still new but everyone knows the problem about diabetes, so for us, we also position our product from a blood glucose control benefit rather than banging on the low GI idea, because most people will not understand what is GI since GI is actually a technical measurement.​

“We want to become a platform enabler. Other than just supplying ingredients, we are also going to take on the role of marketing the ingredient itself…​ so that our food manufacturers would immediately benefit from the branding assets that we create,” ​Phua said.

At the show, he said that the interest was mainly coming from Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, India, and even Bangladesh.

He added that the company’s solution was finding favour with customers since it did not require a change in the sensory properties while reducing the GI at the same time.

“For example in the case of bread, other solutions available will be going into wholegrain and nuts, incorporating fats and fibre, and by doing all these, you will change the sensory aspects of things.​

“These could be accepted by some, but not by most people. For example in the case of brown rice, it is mainly an issue of taste preference, and also the fact that a lot of the whole grain varieties don't work very well with our Asian dishes, such as chicken rice and sushi.”​

Pilot launches​

The firm will be conducting pilot launches with end-product manufacturers between Q3 and Q4 this year.

It announced in January that it had already signed LOIs​ with over 20 local and international companies, including Gardenia Bread, Lim Kee Pau, and Tan Seng Kee (Kang Kang Noodles).

Since then, the firm had been working to ensure that it is able to supply the right volume of the ingredient to its customers. 

“The follow-up was that we needed to sort out our internal operations to make sure we can supply the right volumes to our customers. We are looking at between Q3 to Q4 for our pilot launches with our customers.​

“For a few of them, they are reaching the closing stage of the development project, meaning we try to incorporate our ingredients into their products and for a few of them, we are at the final stages of doing some testing,”​ Phua revealed.