Thursday, 11 April 2019 09:43

Biotech firm again wins top award

Written by 
IDP Flaxseed Oil product from Quantec. IDP Flaxseed Oil product from Quantec.

Hamilton dairy biotech company Quantec has won the top award at the annual Natural Health Products NZ awards for the second year running.

The company, based at Waikato Innovation Park, won the Supreme Award and the Cawthron Institute Innovation Award at the awards night recently in Hamilton.

The awards recognise the success of NZ companies developing, manufacturing and exporting natural products, functional foods, complementary medicines, cosmeceuticals and nutraceuticals. 

Quantec chief executive Raewyn McPhillips says the company “has experienced steady growth over the past nine years, with pronounced growth over the past 12 months in particular”. The award reflects hard work and the vision of the founders and board.

“We grow and succeed because we are determined to push boundaries and continually improve our science and consumer interactions. This means we don’t always take a well-worn path, and we’ve become used to continually finding solutions and adapting as we go.  Earning the respect of our industry peers in this way assures us we are on the right trajectory,” says McPhillips.

Quantec innovation director Rod Claycomb said the innovation award recognised a challenging product development for the gut health and immune health sector in China. 

“We worked with our key customer in China to identify a nutraceutical product concept never done before: the combination of an omega-3 oil with an aqueous milk protein powder. 

“We drew on the expertise of seven other NZ companies also working in the natural products industry. Six months after our launch in China last year we’ve started our second manufacturing run.”

Set up in 2009, Quantec extracts high-value bioactives from natural ingredients to make ingredient formulations for use in human and animal products.

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