Welcome to Univar Solutions Innovation Day 2023. We're excited to have you here as we explore product innovations, ingredient trends, our portfolio of specialty ingredient suppliers, and the opportunities available to both our customers and suppliers through our network of global Solution Centers. My name is Nick Powell, I'm President of our $4 billion Ingredients and Specialties portfolio here at Univar Solutions. I'm joining you today from our newest flagship Solution Center in Essen, Germany. If you are one of the thousands of people who joined us live or on demand for last year's events, you will know that our Innovation Day shines a spotlight on the industries, innovations, people, and technology that truly make Univar Solutions unique as a distributor. If this is your first Innovation Day, welcome. We're glad you're here and have an exciting lineup in store for you. As part of our effort to redefine chemical and ingredient distribution, we've focused on six key areas of differentiation: industry focus, sustainability, technical acumen, digitalization, marketing, and of course, reliability. Each of these areas will be on full display as you navigate the Innovation Day presentations and demonstrations across our eight industries within life sciences and industrial solutions. Today, you'll learn about the sustainable formulations and innovations that have sped products to market and allowed companies to navigate changes in consumer trends and regulatory requirements more seamlessly. Thanks to our depth and breadth of products, technical acumen, and trend and regulatory insights, customers and suppliers can accelerate innovation and time to market. You'll hear directly from our impressive technical teams comprised of PhD scientists, chemists, food scientists, renowned chefs, and application development specialists that collaborate across our global network of Solution Centers. Additionally, examples of how digitalization is shaping the way we do business, including enabling online transactions and the use of artificial intelligence, will illustrate how we help bring efficiencies and accelerate innovation. Furthermore, our approach to marketing, which highlights our world-class supplier portfolio while marrying the depth and breadth of internal knowledge and experience, helps solve customer challenges and meet market demands. Lastly, the reliability that comes in partnering with one of the largest chemical and ingredient distributors in the world, thanks to our impressive fleet of trucks and rail, supply chain planning and redundancy, and commitment to best-in-class service and support. You'll hear more about these from my colleagues, you'll see the themes woven through the industry, innovation, and service stories highlighted within today's event. You can now also download our white paper, The Future of Chemical and Ingredient Distribution, for a more in-depth exploration of these six business drivers and the differentiators that make Univar Solutions a true leader in our industry. You can find that online at univar solutions.com/futureofdistribution. Now, back to the Innovation Day. Innovation is at the heart of everything we do, working hand in hand with our customers and suppliers around the world. Whether formulating the next facial moisturizer, sustainable coating, dairy-free cheese, or anything in between, Univar Solutions is far more than your specialty ingredient supplier. We're a true partner in the advancement and achievement of your business goals. From our flagship Solution Centers in Houston, Essen, São Paulo, Chicago, Paris, Shanghai, and Mexico City, you'll hear directly from our global team of technical, regulatory, and trend experts that work every day on developing the next great solution to our customers and suppliers' challenges. I hope you take the time to listen to as many topics as are relevant to your needs. If you would like to learn more or have a technical challenge we can help you with, be sure to reach out to our ingredients and specialty experts here at Univar Solutions. Once again, welcome to Innovation Day 2023. I'm excited to now leave you in the wonderful and capable hands of our amazing innovators. Hi, I'm Dr. Andrew Mint, Senior Director of Global Solution Centers here at Univar Solutions. If you joined us for Innovation Day last year, welcome back. If this is your first time, I'm excited for you to get a peek inside our state-of-the-art network of Solution Centers, our hubs of innovation that service every industry and geography we serve. Every day, I get to work with some of the best and brightest minds in chemistry and ingredients who tackle every customer and supplier challenge as if it were their own. Whether you're looking to meet changing consumer trends, adapt to new regulatory requirements, or achieve new ESG goals, our team is here to offer the product development, testing, and ingredient sourcing you need to speed up your time to market and maintain a competitive advantage. Here are just a few examples of the practical, impactful, and responsive solutions we work on every day. First, it's no secret that consumers are increasingly health conscious, giving rise to the mindful nutritionists. In our test kitchens, professional chefs work tirelessly in partnership with customers and suppliers to create winning recipes that hit all the marks when it comes to nutritional profile, dietary restrictions, taste, texture, and mouthfeel. Then there's beauty and personal care, one of the savviest and most educated consumer groups. The beauty connoisseur is looking for specific benefits and active ingredients that could, for example, moisturize their skin, reduce their wrinkles, and give healthier and shinier hair. We cannot only formulate and source the ingredients needed to develop these high-demand products but also test and verify the product effectiveness as well. Lastly, take CASE our coatings, adhesives, sealants, and elastomers business. We're developing next-generation paints and coatings that can better withstand the elements: heat, cold, wind, rain, meaning fewer coats and less frequent applications, which is better for budgets and better for the environment. Developing sustainable coatings, low-VOC paints, and innovating to meet tomorrow's challenges today is what we do best here at Univar Solutions. Put simply, we're in the business of innovation. The practical solutions we develop and the problems we solve help bring your products to market faster and with greater confidence, knowing that the team at Univar Solutions acts as an extension of your research, development, testing, and innovation. The needs of today, whether it's transition to more Sustainable and Natural Products or staying ahead of rapidly changing consumer trends, demand solutions that push the technical boundaries. We work with you. In fact, collaboration is at the heart of what we do. It's not enough to understand just the materials or their production. It's at the intersection of the trend and technical where we add the most value. This sweet spot is where ingredients meet innovation. It separates us from other chemical ingredient distributors. It doesn't stop at adaptation and collaboration. We take it one step further into globalization. Through our digital capabilities, from an online network of formulations, methodologies, and test results to AI-assisted innovations, our hub-and-spoke network of Solution Centers makes innovations in Essen instantly available to help solve challenges in China. Our chefs in Chicago brainstorm in real time with chefs in the U.K., working together to create a winning recipe for customers looking for the next non-dairy innovation. Our teams bring the knowledge unique to their geographies and industries to solve complex global challenges, all for your benefit and the benefit of our planet. Whether you're looking to expand into a new product category, improve an existing formula, or find the latest inspiration, look no further than Univar Solutions, a distribution partner that serves you from research and development to on-time delivery with the ability to scale and support when, where, and how you need it. Hi, I'm Liam McCarroll, Global Director of Sustainability for Univar Solutions. For us, sustainability isn't a catchphrase or a buzzword. It's at the core of everything we do, central to our business strategy, growth, and purpose. Our ambitions are clear. They're publicly shared, and they demonstrate our ambition to drive positive change within and beyond our operations. Whether it's searching for the next great sustainable ingredient, identifying new options to support circular resource use, or engaging our customers and suppliers on creating more efficient supply chains, we are the partner to help find solutions that protect our planet and grow your business. Our commitment to a forward-thinking and holistic sustainability journey supports our efforts to help keep communities healthy, fed, clean, and safe. It's this purpose statement that underpins everything we do, which allows sustainability to permeate our operations and decision-making. As a global leader, our size and scale, paired with deep technical expertise, world-class private fleet and logistics services, expansive chemical and ingredient portfolio, and access to cutting-edge technology, add up to a very simple truth: we are far more than a distributor. We know that you want a partner that not only operates sustainably, offers sustainable products, ingredients, and services, but also one who can help you achieve your own sustainability goals. That's because doing the right thing through more sustainable business is not about following trends, but is fundamentally better business. By meeting the sustainability expectations of our customers and suppliers, we're playing an important role across the value chain. As one of the largest providers of chemical and ingredient solutions, innovation, and distribution services, our approach to sustainability creates value for our stakeholders, for society, and the environment. We demonstrate leadership in sustainability in these three key areas: by taking a holistic approach to ESG, by prioritizing sustainable innovation, and by bringing more clarity to the market. We continue to see that some of the organizations approach ESG as a bolt-on. We recognized early on that protecting the planet, respecting and serving people, and cultivating an accountability culture are inextricably intertwined and must be part of who we are in order to be effective. This approach has helped us reach many of our own sustainability milestones. Over the last five years, we've held ourselves accountable, and we have met or exceeded every single one of our goals through to 2021. In fact, we recently raised the bar for ourselves even higher with even more ambitious ESG goals through to 2025 and beyond. In the last several years, sustainability has surged to the top of the list of innovation drivers for chemical and ingredient distributors and has opened up many new avenues for growth. This growth is coming in three major areas: the deployment of environmentally conscious protocols and technologies, the re-engineering of processes to promote circularity and operational efficiency, and the development of greener products. To remain the industry leader, we know that we must excel in all of these areas, from introducing our first electrically powered class A delivery vehicles, increasing on-site renewable generation, and strengthening our industry-leading safety performance where building innovation solutions into our operations while delivering on our sustainability commitments. In addition to more aggressive ESG goals and a focus on operational sustainability, we've put strong focus on product and ingredient innovation. Whether it's due to changing regulations or the need to meet consumer demands for clean-label products, this value-added innovation seamlessly brings together our specialty and ingredients expertise, deep industry knowledge, and our technical capabilities. It includes everything from formulating, prototyping, blending, testing, and analysis that helps customers across a wide variety of industries meet growing consumer demand and comply with changing regulations around the world. Finally, when it comes to bringing clarity to the market, we took it upon ourselves to play a pivotal role in the education and understanding of this rapidly evolving space. We recently began piloting a standardized global framework for the categorization and characterizing of sustainable attributes of ingredients and products. We are working very closely with our supplier partners and customers to make sure each characteristic clearly defines sustainability at the product level and that this filter is valuable to our customers. Through this, we're helping break down the complexity that can come with multiple product characteristics, and in doing so, delivering sustainable transparency and simplicity as a means for our customers to identify and choose more sustainable solutions. That's just the beginning. We invite you to join us on a journey towards a more sustainable future, one that takes place today, tomorrow, and together. Hi, I'm Kelly Gilroy, Vice President of Sustainable and Natural Products at Univar Solutions. I'm so excited to talk about our Sustainable and Natural products portfolio, sustainable formulations, and sustainable services. It's a topic I'm passionate about and one I'm proud to lead at Univar Solutions. Here, we know how important it is to help our customers achieve their goals. When it comes to the bottom line, ESG, innovation, or any other critical business space, you can rest assured knowing we'll be right there alongside you. For years, we've known that the future is inextricably linked to sustainability, and that's why we recently launched our Sustainable and Natural Products portfolio. With the support of our world-class suppliers, we've identified and defined six characteristics that address sustainable and natural at the product level. This helps you find the chemicals and ingredients you need to make your finished products more sustainable. Whether you're looking for bio-based feedstocks, information about a product's carbon footprint, a safer substitute, a circular material, or a product with third-party social or environmental benefits, we make finding, integrating, and receiving these ingredients easier than ever. Both consumer and industrial demand for more Sustainable and Natural Products continues to rapidly accelerate. We want to help you bring the newest, most innovative, and more sustainable product to market faster and with more confidence. Once you've found the perfect Sustainable and Natural Product, our team of PhD scientists and chemists, application development specialists, we even have a professional chef, we're here to help you accelerate the development of your more sustainable formulations. We use state-of-the-art equipment, testing methods, and our global collaboration across our Solution Centers. Whether you're trying to reach the savvy beauty connoisseur searching for the latest skincare product, the health-conscious parent looking for permission to indulge with a lower-sugar, lower-fat dessert, could be the leading hotel chain looking for a way to reduce water usage in your endless laundry needs, or the latest lubricant technology to help maintain your electric vehicle. Our team of dedicated industry experts is here to help you create a more sustainable formulation to help solve business challenges and meet demand. Beyond Sustainable and Natural Products and formulations, we also proudly offer an array of sustainable services. We can help you manage waste, lower carbon emissions through optimized delivery, reduce the environmental impact of your packaging, and many other consultative services to help you navigate your own sustainability journey. This robust approach to sustainability makes us a truly valued partner to customers and to our suppliers. Leveraging our deep knowledge at the ingredients, product, and industry level, we provide unmatched service and support to our global customers, underpinned by our reliability and marketing efforts that allow your business to operate and grow successfully. We're just getting started. Let us be a part of your journey to a more sustainable future. Reach out today, and let's talk about how Univar Solutions can help you achieve your sustainability and business growth goals. Hello, I'm Steve Martinez, Vice President of Digital Solutions at Univar Solutions. We understand that digital transformation is critical to the future of our industry, and at Univar Solutions, we're leading the way. E-commerce, artificial intelligence, and smart supply chain aren't just buzzwords for us. They're key components of our strategy to create exceptional customer experiences and drive operational excellence. We put the customer at the center of everything that we do, and our commitment to making it effortless for them to do business with us has driven us to continuously advance and evolve every part of our business. By leveraging the latest digital technologies and innovative solutions, we aim to deliver the highest quality products and services, improve operational efficiencies, and foster long-term partnerships with our supplier and producer partners. At Univar Solutions, our approach to digital transformation begins with the customer journey. Customer needs and preferences have shifted dramatically over the past few years. I think it's fair to say that we've all grown more accustomed to starting our research and buying journeys online. We aspire to help customers find solutions in their moment of need and without delay. It's a powerful aspiration that changed our paradigm for how we present information. As a result, we've removed barriers and interruptions in the online experience, providing information to our customers in three clicks or less. This helps customers quickly and easily identify what they need. Our digital Solution Centers, industry and supplier experiences, and full product catalog help customers find the right solution for the job no matter where they are in the research phase. This approach applies to the entire buying journey. Our digital channels are designed to help customers end-to-end, enabling them to find and buy in minutes rather than days. We're also committed to self-service capabilities to support the post-purchase journey. We're now providing real-time order tracking and electronic proof of delivery, which increase customer satisfaction and reduce disputes. We've made it easy for customers to find supporting documentation, review and pay invoices online, and even set up automatic payments to streamline their sourcing operations. These customer-centric capabilities provide unmatched transparency and create trust through the delivery process. When combined with our industry-leading network and artificial intelligence, we can now predict customer order patterns, position our inventory to meet spikes in demand, and identify new trends with unmatched agility. Our transformation has improved operational efficiency, increased collaboration, accelerated speed, and enhanced our agility to respond to changing market demands. We've changed the paradigm that chemicals can't be sold online safely, and you can't do so without disrupting pricing in the market. By running small experiments, failing fast and learning faster, and staying committed to the customer, we've become the most digitally advanced and valued partner to our customers and our suppliers. Join us in the digital revolution, and let's streamline and grow your business together. Hello, I'm Rob Whitney. I think I have an awesome job here at Univar Solutions. You see, I wake up every day thinking about how to bring together world-class suppliers with thousands of customers across the globe. I believe our approach is truly unique. You see, for most chemical and ingredient distributors, marketing has historically been a playbook of strictly business B2B sales appeals, often a simple cut-and-paste approach where success is measured by doing the activity, not by generating results. That's not what we do here at Univar Solutions. We believe marketing is one of the six key business drivers that separates traditional distributors from your next-generation distribution partner. Here, we're throwing out the old paradigms of B2B and B2C marketing. Instead, we take a human-centric approach that brings our customers and suppliers together in meaningful ways. We believe in a strategy that makes it easier for people to do business with us and leaves them with a memorable and engaging experience. By focusing on people and not just the name on a letterhead, we can create deeper relationships that pay off in the long run. It's no longer enough for marketers in distribution to just serve as a bullhorn for suppliers in the marketplace. At Univar Solutions, we focus on growing our suppliers' brands, and together, we can create a platform for growth. A laser focus on helping our customers find the right material for their next great product benefits everyone. We do this by staying ahead of market trends and anticipating what customers will need in the future at every stage of their product development cycle and their purchasing process. That's why when you work with Univar Solutions, you not only have access to our world-class Solution Centers, industry experts, digital and sustainability leadership, and unmatched roster of customers, you also have a team of marketers that understand when, where, and how to reach the influencers and decision-makers that impact your business. Positioning the right product to the right customer at the right time in an engaging manner is key. I believe our ability to blend digital precision with that human touch and industry expertise allows us to speak the unique language of the customers our suppliers most eagerly want to reach. By adopting that human-centric approach, we deploy a targeted mix of multi-channel experiences that leverage traditional, digital, and e-commerce tactics. We engage our customers at multiple points in the sales and marketing funnel, something that's absolutely critical in today's fast-paced, short attention span environment. That's not all. As marketing technology and AI become more sophisticated, we're using data-driven insights to help uncover new relationships, market new opportunities, inform new product development, and identify regulatory impacts to our suppliers and customers. For example, today, we use a number of digital tools to monitor first and third-party data around pricing and adjust prices proactively to meet the market's expectations. We mine databases to learn if a client contact is changing jobs and predict if a particular account needs extra attention. We identify upticks in demand and upsell opportunities due to new trends, supply disruptions, or shifts in the economy. We can create models that identify customers and prospects that would benefit from a supplier's new product line they're bringing to market. When you combine our unique approach with our digital backbone, customers get an unmatched experience, and suppliers gain a world-class growth partner in Univar Solutions. Building a marketing capability that is equal parts creative, data-driven, and relevant to our industry is an absolutely exciting challenge. In my view, this sets Univar Solutions apart in the distribution market. I'd love to talk to you about how Univar Solutions is so much more than a traditional distributor. We're your true partner in product development and testing, marketing, ESG goal attainment, and so much more. If you're looking to increase visibility, grow your sales, or just need help cutting through the clutter in today's ever-changing marketplace, let's talk. Our team of marketing experts across all of our disciplines and markets are ready to help bring your products the attention they deserve. Hi, I'm Jim Holcomb, President of North America Chemical Distribution here at Univar Solutions. I've spent many decades in this industry and can say with confidence that Univar Solutions is leading the future of distribution. A lot of people and companies throw around the word reliability as if it is just a casual part of what they can offer, but not here. We are in the business of reliability, so much so that it's become our calling card. How do we differentiate when it comes to helping secure and supply your operations? First, there's our footprint. Univar Solutions is within 60 mi of 80% of the United States' industrial production. We have the storage network, packaging, and blending capabilities, as well as private transportation, meaning that when the chips are down and the need is high, there is only one call to make. Our ability to safely deliver when and where you need is the cornerstone of our business. There's our approach to supply chain management and diversity. Nobody likes surprises. We know what our customers want more than anything is safe, on time, and reliable delivery. Univar Solutions offers an unmatched combination of deep infrastructure and logistical expertise with global and national reach complemented by local support. This allows us to really own the last mile of distribution. We do that by leveraging trucks, rail, barges, and ships in the most efficient and effective way possible. For customers, that means allowing your business to maintain operations and profitability. Now, that's a win-win. Finally, we know it's critical to build and maintain diversified supply chains to get ahead of constantly changing customer expectations in a dynamic market. We have consistently responded to external stressors such as natural disasters, pandemics, or a ship stuck in the Suez Canal. Only distributors with a robust logistics infrastructure, including transportation and warehousing, can ensure uninterrupted product availability and reliability. An asset-based approach is a true advantage for a distribution partner. At Univar Solutions, we do this through a multimodal approach. It encompasses truckload, less-than-truckload, bulk, and rail shipping. We also strengthen our resiliency and reliability through investment in digital technologies. Digital tools enable us to address the new requirements of customers, from faster delivery to flexible reactions to changing demand. It can also add transparency into the ingredients of a good delivery. A few examples include vehicle telematics, which can provide real-time location of tracking of fleets and optimized routing to reduce fuel costs and emissions in the future. Track-and-trace technologies will also allow us to better predict inventory by knowing exactly where loads are. Dashcams and in-cab driver assistance offer driver coaching and help prevent incidents before they happen. Customized mobile forms will keep information and help sync between customers, drivers, and the back office. Inside of our warehouses, the Internet of Things, and automation optimize processes and workflows to achieve full product traceability. Across our 600 distribution facilities in 31 countries and leveraging our private fleet of 3,700 tractors, trailers, and tankers, our 2,500 railcars, and 90 million gal of bulk storage, we know that Univar Solutions is redefining distribution. Join us on this journey to the future of distribution. Trust me, you won't want to be left behind. Hello, my name is Silke Langer. I'm the Team Lead of Univar Solutions' state-of-the-art innovation laboratory in Essen in Germany. Today, I have the great pleasure to introduce you to our Essen Solutions Center, in particular the areas of coatings, paints, and varnishes. Since March 2022, Univar Solutions has opened a new laboratory at the German headquarters. A 700 square meter laboratory was integrated into an existing building. I was able to supervise a project from the beginning, being involved in the requirements and the selection of the right equipment supported by the individual industries which we support, including beauty and personal care, household and industrial cleaning, and coatings, adhesives, sealants, and elastomers. While we can have a great facility with stunning equipment, what makes the difference is our people. In our Solutions Center, we have a great team of eight technical experts having a PhD in chemistry, a bachelor's degree in cosmetics or chemistry. What do we do at the Solutions Center in Essen? We help our customers and sales colleagues with formulation developments or with the selection of the right raw materials. Our experts give tips and tricks on formulation developments or provide information on product performance with our application testing. Essen is one of our large multi-industry laboratories, which means we can serve questions in the field of beauty and personal care and HIC and coatings. Univar Solutions has three multi-industry centers globally, which can help to develop new formulations and do performance tests. Essen is our European center. In the U.S., our largest laboratory is located in Houston, and in Latin America, we can be found in São Paulo. Today, we have the great pleasure to introduce you to our technical capabilities in coatings and paints and varnishes with a demo from Emma Busse, our Application Development Specialist for CASE. Thank you. Let's hear from Emma. My name is Emma, I am an Application Specialist for CASE industry. My passion is for green chemistry, having studied it in university and now supporting CASE customers across EMEA. The multilingual team here in Essen provides services and support that help drive innovation and development across many countries. I am joined today by Mohamad Srour, today we are excited to share with you about the technical capabilities we have here in the Essen Solution Center. Mohamad, can you introduce yourself? Thank you, Emma. My name is Mohamad Srour, and I am the Account Manager for CASE Rubber and Plastic Business Unit at Univar Solutions in Germany and Austria. From my career and PhD study, I have experience in surface and polymer chemistry. I visited our Solutions Center in Essen on the day I joined Univar Solutions in May 2022, a while after its opening, and I was amazed by its equipment and our professional staff there. During my technical training in October, I realized how important our Solutions Centers are. They help us to demonstrate and evaluate the performance of components in different formulations. Today, I am representing our sales team in the region to highlight the trend in our region and to explain our customers' requirements. This should give our customers a better understanding of what solutions and which services we are offering at the Univar Solutions Center. You have spoken about the trends just before. Can you tell me more about what the trends in the DACH region are at the moment? To be honest, the trends in our coatings market continue to focus on sustainability and eco-friendly solutions. However, we can see some hype in the market. For instance, the industrial coatings market started to focus on protective coatings for this flourishing oil and gas sector. In the meanwhile, the decorative coatings market started to focus on low-cost solutions in order to counter the effect of the crisis on the construction market. Okay. Can you tell me how we as Univar Solutions are helping the customers? As you know, sustainability and being environmentally friendly are key priorities for Univar Solutions as a company from top down. We work with our partners to provide solutions which not only solve our customers' problems, but also improve the performance in terms of reducing environmental impact and being sustainable. Our Solutions Center in Essen would play a crucial role in the future. Yeah, I think it's really nice to know that there is such a focus on sustainability at the moment. It's important for the customer to know that the Essen Solution Center with the Middlesbrough Lab in the U.K. is here to help them solve this new challenge linked with sustainability. I would like to say here one point: that it has been really useful being able to come to the Essen Solution Center to see the capabilities of our lab and what testing and formulation work and how they can help us to support our customers. Yeah, it's been good having you here. We also hope that in time, we will be able to receive more customers and suppliers to show the Solutions Center and to discuss the challenges they may face. The key part of the manufacturing process, especially for a pigmented system, is grinding. You want to have a process which is really similar to what you can find in the industry. Yes, being able to test in an applicable manner is critical. There is no point in being able to do something in the laboratory and then not being able to scale it up to an industrial level. The brand-new experiment you have in the lab should allow us to produce the material in a suitable manner and to look for any issue in the manufacturing process, such as foaming, shocking, or coagulation. Yeah, exactly. As you have been able to see while we were talking, I have used a DISPERMAT to make a pigment mix where powdered pigments are dispersed into liquid form. Other powders, such as talc, clays, calcium carbonates, and other fillers, can be mixed in at this stage along with various pigments. These are mixed on the DISPERMAT till they are dispersed to a suitable level. Yes, indeed. This step is critical. As we can see, you are evaluating the fineness of grinding to avoid having any relatively large particles still in the paint. You are evaluating the pH as well because some resins and thickeners are pH-sensitive. It's important that the pigment and paste-grind mixture are at a suitable pH. Okay, once this is done, what are for you the other challenges in the paint manufacturing process? For me, the first one would be foam because it's apparent through the manufacture and use of the coating. When mixing materials at high shear, it's almost impossible not to include some foam. The problem is that if this foam stays in the final paint, it can create some defects later on. How could you deal with this issue? You would add defoamers at different points during the manufacturing process. These can be from many different chemistries, such as silicone, mineral oil, or polymeric. This product will be added at a relatively low level and will cause the foam bubbles to burst out. However, this can be tricky because if you add too much defoamer or the wrong one, it can on itself create some defects. In your opinion, what other additives are really important in paint? Thank you, Emma. Rheology and rheological additives, such as cellulose, ethers, alkali soluble emulsion, and urethane thickeners, are very important as they can affect properties such as in-can instability, film build, application properties, and ZAC resistance. On the screen right now, you can see with the steering that the pigment paste is of low viscosity and appears very liquid. This can cause a lot of issues in the coating and in the application process because you have not added thickener. The paint will be too low viscous to apply correctly on the substrate, and the pigment and fillers may settle to the bottom of the paint till. However, if you add too much of it, the paint will overthicken, and it will be difficult to apply, and paint wetting and leveling will be reduced, resulting in poorer performance in the long run. The correct quantity of carefully selected thickeners is a big point in paint development. Yes, that is true. It's important as well to note that in different stages of the coating lifespan, different rheology may be required. A coating may need not to flow too much at all while in the container and then needs to be able to flow well during application by brush or roller, and then again, it needs not to suck when it is applied. We can see here the addition of the thickener and the change in the final aspect of the coating. This is going to affect the end aesthetic appeal of the coating for the better. Talking about aesthetics, another important part of the coating process is the use of dispersants. This is an area in which we are able to offer plant-based materials such as alkyl polyglucoside, sorbitan oleate, which can be used in place of standard dispersants. One of the key performance properties of dispersant is simply the ability to disperse the pigments. One way to evaluate that is to apply films and measure the color comparatively to see how effective each dispersant is. To compare the performance, you would use a color computer to measure the color of the coated panels? We also have a spectrophotometer. We are able to measure the color on the L*a*b* scale. Basically, the L* value is either how black or white the paint is. a* value stands for green or red, and the b* value is for how yellow or blue your paint is. We can see here how you have evaluated the data of each paint. Depending on which pigment is used, you would expect an increase in the different values. To put it in a simple manner, if you were using a white pigment, you would expect a high level of L*, or if you are using a red, you would look for a more positive a* value. This test is also important because if you want to be able to use alternative suppliers or different grades of pigments or even fillers, you need to be able to make sure that you see a similar performance or an advantage using a certain grade over one other. If I understand you well, you have tested two pigment mixes, one with alkyl polyglucoside sorbitan oleate product and one with industry-standard non-plant-based product used at an equivalent level applied to wood panels. Am I right? Yeah, exactly. These have then been measured for L*a*b* color. You would take measurements and compare the results. In the comparison undertaken, similar, if not superior, results are noted using the alkyl polyglucoside sorbitan oleate when compared to the industry standards. This is a very useful conversion. What other comparative tests can be undertaken in the Univar Solutions Center at Essen? One of the things you would look to test after the paint is applied and dry is something like scrub and abrasion type resistance. Scrub, in particular, is very important because it's common for walls in the home to get dirt of various types, for instance, young children drawing on the wall. You want to be able to clean the wall without removing the paint. One of our new pieces of equipment is our scrub and abrasion tester. For this testing, we are going to use a scrub head like the one you could have at home with a certain weight on. You can adjust the weight, the speed of the machine, and the type of head to get a variety of different datasets. We have here some pre-applied panels using acrylic resin with different glass transition temperatures to compare. This test would be like a simulation to the process of cleaning of walls, which we have at home. It shows us what resins and additives give the best resistance to this product. Exactly. It is able to move back and forward to simulate as if you were scrubbing the wall. As you can see, the higher glass transition temperature system shows far better performance. The higher the glass transition temperature, the more durable in terms of being able to clean and wipe at home. If everything else is the same in the system, it would be. There are other factors which can affect scrub resistance, such as the type of powders used in the formulation and additives such as MAR and abrasion additives. They also can improve the scrub resistance performance. What other tests are we able to perform here in Essen Solutions Centers? Another important test is adhesion. We are able to measure this by both crosscut and pull-off adhesion. You can see a demonstration of this now. For the crosscut adhesion, the equipment is used to cut a grid into the surface of a cured panel. Adhesive tape is then applied to the surface and pulled off, pulling away any loose section of the grid. Good adhesion is when no material is removed, and bad adhesion is when it's all removed from the surface. What about the pull-off adhesion? Yeah, for the pull-off adhesion, you attach a dolly with epoxy adhesive to the surface and allow it to cure, maybe around 24 hours. You use the device to pull the dolly off the surface and see it remove the coating with it. This gives a quantitative result as the force required to remove the dolly can be recorded. Hopefully, between these two methods, we are able to suitably measure adhesion across a variety of applications. Yes, exactly. It's been really great to have you here in the lab to discuss all of the new equipment that's been made and the equipment that we now have here in the Essen Solution Center. We could have spoken about the mandrel bender or the drying time recorder, which is an important asset as it allows us to know if the paint is going to dry properly without any defects when applied to external surface, for instance. Yeah, it's really important because the main purpose of the Solutions Center is to support our customers and partners and help them focus on solving their problem and improving the performance of their end products. I have really enjoyed the time here and would recommend our business partner to take the opportunity and start your next project with our Solutions Center in Essen. Once more, thank you very much, Emma. Thank you, Mohamad. Hello and welcome, everybody. Really hope that you enjoyed the video there put on by our team from the Essen Solution Center. We hope that you've enjoyed the whole day so far, and we hope you're going to continue watching many more videos. If you do have any questions, please make sure that you put those into the chat box on the screen, and we'll be more than happy to get round to answering those questions as soon as we possibly can do. I'm delighted to be joined by the stars of the show today, who was on the video. They're joining us now for a little discussion around that video. We've got Emma, we've got Silke, and we've got Mohamad as well. All delighted to meet you all again and see you all again. Firstly, Emma, I'm just going to put a question out to you there. It's a question regarding the lab. Is the DISPERMAT suitable for dispersing all pigment types? I would say yes, but for certain pigment types, a higher degree of dispersion is required. This requires the use of, for example, different heads of the DISPERMAT or also some grinding media that can help for the grinding and the dispersing of the pigments. Okay, perfect. Thank you. Mohamad, just regarding being green and sustainable, titanium dioxide, which is used in coatings, is quite energy-intensive. Are there solutions to reduce the TiO2 level while still maintaining performance level? Alongside more standard approaches such as using high-end fillers to extend the titanium dioxide there are also opaque polymers, which when added to a coating formula can lead to reduce the titanium dioxide levels with similar color and opacity performance. Okay, great. Thank you, Mohamad. The next question. You've seen a lot of our capabilities of the Essen Solutions Center lab today. We've hoped you've really enjoyed getting an insight in what we can do there, all the different capabilities that we have. It's really exciting. I was just wondering, Silke, are there any exciting developments coming from the Essen Solutions Center that you could share with us today? Sure. We continue to develop new exciting formulations with a focus on sustainability. Additionally, we increase our capabilities in the formulation developments and the testing of formulation, as you have seen in our video. We are a solution provider to help our customers to select the right ingredients with the best performance. No, yeah, it's great. I think, yeah, just what you could see today through the video, it was great seeing everything that we can do there and seeing Emma at work and Mohamad as well. It was brilliant for that. Yeah, it's great to know there's some more exciting developments coming up as well. Yes. Emma, for the bio-based dispersant that was mentioned, what other tests could you do to check performance versus non-standard sustainable dispersants? Are there any that you could bring to light, speak about today? Yeah. First of all, I think this is a really important point. The first step would be the application. Here, we need to test the flow, the leveling, the eventual brush marks because you don't want brush marks on your paint once it's dry. By applying, this would also help us to see if we have any foam issues or defects. The other important point is the stability. What we do in the lab is we put a small amount in a container, just like this one, for instance, and then we put it either at room temperature or in the oven around 50 degrees. Then we will check for any separation or color change or anything. Yeah, this would be some additional tests in addition to the measure of the green and the color acquisition that we have spoken about before in the video. Great. These are all things you can do at the Essen lab as well? Yes. Perfect. That's brilliant. I have another question to you, Emma. A coating made with a high TG polymer may have scrub resistance, but could it also be more brittle? Do you have the equipment there at the Solutions Center labs to measure the flexibility of the coating? Yes. We have spoken about this really quickly at the end of the videos. We have a mandrel bender, which is a conic mandrel bender. What you would do is apply your coating on an aluminum panel, then you would just bend it. Depending on the angle, you can see if the polymer and the binder or the coating has broken into some pieces and is more or less brittle. This can help us to measure this parameter. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you for that answer, Emma. As you can tell from today, just speaking through the video and listening to our team's questions and answers here, they are really the experts of our Solutions Center and our CASE team as well. A big thank you for your time today to everybody here. Also, I'd just like to say a big thank you once again to everybody who's listened in today. For me, it's been really interesting for me to find out more about the Solutions Center. I've really enjoyed it. I hope that everybody else has done as well. As mentioned, if you do have any questions, please send those questions through to us. We'd be more than happy to get those answers back to you as soon as we possibly can do. In the meantime, just want to say I hope you enjoy the rest of our day that we've put on for you today. Really get involved in as many of our sessions as you can do, ask any questions, and our team of experts across the globe will be more than happy to help. That just leaves me to say thank you to the guys on the call. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Matt. Thank you very much. We'll speak to you all soon in the future. Thank you very much. Hello and welcome. My name is Arnita Wofford. I am the Global Marketing and Technical Director here at Univar Solutions. Thanks for joining us at today's session during the 2023 edition of Innovation Day. You may be wondering what exactly is the metaverse and how in the world it relates to beauty, or even how can you translate this into your product offering and sort of navigate this new burgeoning space? Well, you're in luck. For the next 30 minutes, we're going to discuss exactly what the metaverse is and how brands can capitalize and utilize Web 3.0. It can help you increase inclusivity as well as transparency in beauty. Beauty blazes a trail. Typically, we're often early to adopt not only new ideas, but new technology. If you're in a different industry and you're just looking at this because you want some inspiration, I think we'll really help open up that space for you today. We hope to educate, to inspire, and that you'll walk away with not only some ideas, but some ingredient options that will help you kickstart your next innovation. With that, I'd like to introduce Rebecca Robinson, our Senior Marketing Manager based in North America. With that, I'll turn it over to Rebecca. Thanks so much, Arnita. Welcome, everyone, and welcome to the presentation. Today, we're going to talk a little bit about the metaverse, go into our campaign, the introduction, specific segments, talk about some key learnings, conclusion, followed by a Q&A. Let's ground us in what the metaverse is and how it really came to be. There's a gentleman by the name of Matthew Ball who is a pioneering theorist and venture capitalist who came up with this book called The Metaverse. What he talked about is the metaverse is this persistent and interconnected network of 3D virtual worlds that will eventually serve as the gateway to most online experiences and also underpin much of the physical world. It sounds pretty broad, and you read it and you're like, "Really? But actually, yes." The metaverse is coming to play in a really big way. Similarly to what we thought about in the 1990s, the early 2000s, when we heard about the World Wide Web and what that means, the metaverse is really taking that online platform and bridging the mix between online and physical presence together. It's pretty incredible. We'll learn a little bit more. We'll talk about a timeline of when this first started and what we started to see as consumers. In 1992, there was a book called Snow Crash written by Neal Stephenson. He talked about there was this collective virtual space that was both compatible and convergent with reality. If you take a look at 2006-2017, it's all about gaming: Roblox, Fortnite. It's all the younger generation, millennials, a little bit of Gen Z playing these games, but it's all virtual reality. You take a look at 2018, there was a movie called Ready Player One. Steven Spielberg put together this movie, again, ahead of its time, but looking at convergence in this physical and virtual world. 2020, I don't need to remind all of you: pandemic, COVID, what's happening here. Everybody's online now. 2021, we actually see Facebook change its name to Meta. Since that time, there's been a ton of different developments, especially in the last year and a half. We'll go through a few of those different examples that we've seen come to play that we think are really making a difference within what we're calling the metaverse. The metaverse overall, it is suspected to be forecasted to be a $1 trillion yearly opportunity. This is quoted by JPMorgan Chase. Again, let's revisit that number: a $1 trillion yearly opportunity. Obviously, you see brands, you see banks, you see so many different industries wanting to be part of this. How can they play in this space? Currently, $54 billion are spent on virtual goods. This is a fun example, but a truthful example. There's a mall called Mitsukoshi in Japan, and it has about eight to 10 stores inside. You can go visit this mall on your browser, and it all deals in cryptocurrency. You can go and pick out some clothes for your avatar. You can talk with different avatars there. You can visit with your friends. Normally, on a Friday night when I was a teenager, I would go to the physical mall and go and hang out with my friends, go to stores, hang out, chat. What we're seeing is the younger generation is actually still going to the mall, but it's virtual. You can meet with friends all over the world and say, "Hey, at 8:00 P.M. Central Time, we're going to the Mitsukoshi Mall. Meet us there." JPMorgan, a bank, decided that they wanted to be part of this Mitsukoshi Mall as well. Typically, banking is very conservative. It was kind of surprising that JPMorgan took a play and said, "We want to be part of the metaverse." They called their new online bank Onyx. They said, "Well, if people are already buying clothes for their avatars, if they're buying homes in virtual reality, at some point, they're going to need a virtual mortgage, and they're going to need some virtual bank accounts. We want to be part of this, and we want to be in the forefront of what people are talking about and what they're doing, hence the Onyx Lounge. The Sandbox is a platform that deals, again, in cryptocurrency. All of these platforms within the metaverse are dealing with Bitcoin, Ethereum, NFTs, blockchain, all different sorts of things. The Sandbox is an area where you can play, create, and own the future. You can actually create avatars in here, buy wearables, acquire real estate. There's over, I believe it's 90,000 land parcels in here. You can rent them out to other avatars. You can sell. It's basically like you're in your own real estate world, but it's virtual, and it's all dealing in cryptocurrency. South by Southwest, most people know this as a convergence of tech, film, and music industries coming together. There was a woman by the name, an artist by the name of Maliha Abidi at South by Southwest. She came up with 10,000 different NFTs all related to women coming together, empowering one another in different diverse backgrounds. You can actually purchase one of these 10,000 NFTs. The artwork is called No One Left Behind. adidas is always on the forefront of everything cool, whether it be their branding, whether it being some of their videos, a product. adidas created their NFTs, and this is in conjunction with G Money, Punks, and Bored Ape Yacht Club. Essentially, what it is they came up with all of these really cool clothing apps that you can put on your avatar. You can purchase this for your avatar through cryptocurrency. The exciting thing about this is that you can also purchase this for your physical self. It's kind of one of a kind. It's not fast fashion. It's tailored specifically to you. Get your clothing for your avatar as well as purchase your own product for your physical self in real life. Let's let our imagination run wild in the beautyverse and talk about beauty, why we're all here, and why we're excited about hearing what we have in store for you. If we take a look at the evolution of the beauty industries, we've narrowed this down to five specific platforms that we want to talk about as it relates to our products and beauty and personal care. The first topic is supply chain traceability. It's so important to understand where your product comes from. We see more and more of this go on as time goes by where consumers want to understand where they get their ingredients from. The second category, product authenticity. There are so many issues for years in regards to fake products coming out. This is really important as we look at some of the brands, some of the important brands that we see like Huda Beauty, which is more of a status symbol. If you have this product, you can afford this product. It's beautiful, but there are so many fake products being developed for that. Really understanding and making sure that you have authenticity for that specific product. Loyalty rewards. Loyalty rewards have been around for a while, but they continue to evolve and get better and better. Sephora has their Beauty Insider program where they have it for both yourself physically as well as what you wanted to do for your avatar. NFTs branded with art. We are going to talk a little bit later about Clinique coming up with the first NFT with artwork that you can own and how it benefits you as a beauty consumer. Finally, AI and blockchain technology. This continues to evolve if we take a look at even ChatGPT and taking a look at that. If you ask, "Hey, what kind of beauty brand can I create?" or "What's a great name for a new skincare brand?" you can come up with any of these ideas and ask these specific AIs, and they come up with really cool things. I would challenge you to go ahead and try that. Let's get started and take a look at some of our campaigns. We're really thrilled to introduce the new sensations, the future of beauty. Always new days, call it what you want. Keep pace, new craze when you want to jump. We play all day, standing at the front. We stay, can't wait. Can you give me some? Hey, we go, can't stop the beat again. We know, break out the scene again. See, our soul can't stop the heat again. Oh, so come and get some. Hey, we go, can't stop the beat again. We know, break out the scene again. See, our soul can't stop the heat again. Oh, so come and get some. Hey, we go, can't stop the beat again. We know, break out the scene again. See, our soul can't stop the heat again. Oh, so come and get some. Hey, we go, can't stop the beat again. We know, break out the scene again. Hopefully, that got you a little excited about our campaign and what we are offering. If you take a look at some of the products, you can see here, this is the branding. We have pink, purple, green, really fun colors. It's all fantastic products, whether it be hair care, skincare, body care, and sun care, color cosmetics as well. The first category we'll take a look at is hair care. If you want to take a look at the global market overview, this is taken from Mintel. Essentially, what it shows is based on the size of the bubble, the size of the market in terms of retail dollars and spend. Then you can see on the bottom axis, you can see the compound annual growth rate forecasted. Obviously, India stands out huge. It's a larger bubble, and it has CAGR growth of over 12% over the next five years for hair care specifically. The same thing with China. China, there's a huge opportunity. Whereas Japan, it's a decent-sized market. It's a huge amount in spending, but only about 1% compound annual growth rate. This is a brand that's new, that's innovative. It comes from the U.S. called Hally. This is a brand that celebrates positivity and inclusivity with a focus on Gen Z. It has these three different semi-permanent hair colors and nourished with something called the Color Cloud that can light hair up two shades. It's in the digital world as well as physical world. You can buy this, but you can also put this on your avatar. This is partnered specifically with Roblox. Gaming, obviously, everyone knows is very popular with female teens and tweens, with 89% of girls in this age group doing any type of gaming. Digital concepts can help drive this connectivity between metaverse and real-life product usage, which we're seeing in a lot of different brands that are coming into this space. There's a Brazilian brand called Just4 You, focused on personalization by digital interaction only. Essentially, there's three different products that you can keep. It's a subscription-based model. Based on your hair type, you're able to purchase this from the site, but then you're also able to use this on your avatar online. This is one of my favorites. It's a brand called Louise & Fred. It's actually a salon based out of Germany. It was built in 2015. It's meant to be this really cool, futuristic-type salon. It gained a lot of coverage in high-profile magazines. When COVID hit, they had to figure out how to make it so that people, obviously, people weren't going to the salon anymore. How could they make it applicable so people could still buy products? They put everything online, they put out this really cool branding site for Louise & Fred within the metaverse. You could go and see what your hair would look like, how you can use that on your avatar, but also how you can purchase the products. You can go into their salon as well as put it on for your avatar. We have three products specific to hair care formulations. The first one is Good Hair Don't Care Extreme Conditioner. The second is a 3D hair styler. Our third is a high-tech micellar shampoo. We'll go into slight detail for each of these. At any point in time, if you're interested in getting any of the formulations, paper formulations, or any ideas about how you can create these, feel free to reach out to our technical teams. The first one is the Good Hair Don't Care. You can see on the right side, it's super foamy. It's beautiful. It's actually a leave-in conditioner that foams on application. It's fun to play with, but it looks beautiful on the hair. You use it when your hair is a little bit damp, and it enhances the moisture and the shine. The next one is a 3D Clear Hair Styler. This is actually for those little baby hairs that I tend to get a ton of in the front of my hair. It's a bio-based vegan hair styling spray. It keeps everything in place with a lot of additional benefits. The third one that we're talking about for hair care is our high-tech micellar shampoo. This has really fantastic cleansing benefits. You can see the foaming properties on the pink loofah to the right. It has great nourishing actives with panthenol and a rice extract. That takes place for our hair products. Now we'll go into our color cosmetics. Again, you'll see it's the same format that we had for hair care, but now looking at color cosmetics. Whereas hair care, you saw India had a huge compound annual growth rate, you can see here it still is about 8% compound annual growth rate, but much smaller market overall. You can see here China is dominating the landscape. U.S. obviously has money to spend, but it's only about 3% compound annual growth rate. As you can see, South Korea and U.K. are more so ones to watch in this space. This is something fun that we just pulled from TikTok, looking at the brands and the rankings here. You can see overall, the first one is P.Louise from the U.K. The second is essence. The third is florence by mills. The fourth is ColourPop. The thing that I love about all of these is if you take a look at them, there are a lot of similarities here, right? You see these beautiful pastels, really fun palettes. It just encourages you to play and want to take part of these. Now you're kind of seeing this when we put this presentation together, it was a few weeks ago. Now you're seeing in all of the runways and fashion, pastels are really huge. The other day, I just saw an ad in Harper's BAZAAR for pastel tights: pink, green, yellow tights. Similarly to this same kind of color palette, which makes people feel good and feel happy. You can see here, we're giving some examples about new and hot trends that are in the marketplace today. The first one is this transparent eyeliner. It's named by May Tahmina Akhtar. It uses light concealer to create a shadowy effect for a beautiful look for your eyes. You see this next one. It's called the Eyebrow Tattoo, coined by Sarah Cheung. You're using a lip pencil as a lip contour. You peel it off once it's done, make sure it's dried, you clean the excess off. It really looks beautiful. Originally, when she starts doing it, I'm like, "I don't know how it's going to look," but she looks beautiful. Sarah Cheung was the one who coined that. A big thing, too, is when you're doing TikToks, a lot of people are coining these specific terms with their names. It's really important if you are doing these types of trends online, on TikTok, or any other social platform, you make sure that you give credit where it's due. Beauty and gaming, M·A·C, part of the Estée Lauder group, is always doing things that are exciting, that are new, that are different, that are just pushing the limits. This is an example of M·A·C coming up with five different lipsticks that also represent the Honor of Kings, which is a game that people play online. Basically, they come up with this really beautiful platform you can see on the right-hand side. You can match the avatar colors to the specific lip products that you purchase in store. Nails. Nails are huge. Nails are having a really big heyday where you can take a look at what you want online, you can go into the store and actually do that same type of treatment to your nails. Nails, it's really fun to experiment, to play with. We're seeing all sorts of humans looking at nails, whether you're male, female, depending on what you want to be called. It's fun. It's fast. It's easy. You can give so many different options for your nails. Okay. This one is Brazil's first metaverse-inspired makeup line. You can see here, I'll show you a quick video. Essentially, what it is, it's this woman by the name of Bianca who came up with her own line in Brazil. It's meant to be very futuristic, very metaverse-esque, where you can put any of this makeup, you can purchase it online for your avatar. You can see here, she physically created her own products, and she sells them online as well. If you want to look like Bianca, check out her line, Boca Rosa Beauty. Here, we have our Eyeglow HP Eyeshadow, which is this gorgeous gold color that you just can put on your eyes and look like a superstar. You can see here on the right-hand side, it's creamy. It has great color to it. You can make your eyes be bright, gold, and really stand out. The last section that we're going to be talking about is our face and body care. Here, if you take a look at facial care overall, you can see that there are a ton of players and a ton of people that are a ton of different countries that are playing in this market. Obviously, China dominates in a huge way. Also, if you take a look at the top, Japan and South Korea have a ton of spending money. Their compound annual growth rate is about 1%-2.5% overall. This is for body care specifically. It's a little bit more similar than we've seen in the other ones. You can see China here overall, the same as what we had for facial care. You also have Brazil coming up in a really big way, U.S., Germany, and the U.K. Cosball is an example of the world's first personalized daily skincare. This is using AI. It's a South Korean brand that scans your face and asks about your specific skin type. This is also a subscription-based model, and it's powered by blockchain. We talked earlier about Clinique doing their first NFT. The NFT that they offered was allowing you to take part in it, purchase an NFT. If you purchased this and you were one of the lucky ones to win the NFT, they actually give you products for 10 years. It's limited edition, first runs. It's a really cool way. When we talked earlier about NFT as well as loyalty, this is a great opportunity to be a loyal customer of Clinique, have something unique, and be the first of. Of course, where would we be without influencers and talking about the metaverse? This is an artist by the name of ines alpha who created these really beautiful covers. This one was actually featured on Rolling Stone. It was about an author who does romance novels. It's something that's really fun, exciting, different. Influencers are really paving the way for a lot of things that are associated with the metaverse. An LED face mask. LED face masks have been around for some time. The reason why we're bringing this up is because we really are seeing a lot of opportunities with these LED face masks by the way of AI and being able to learn your specific skin type, diagnose certain conditions, whether you have sensitive skin, whether you have dry skin, whatever it may be. These are an opportunity to help develop and enhance these face masks to help position you for the best skin possible. We have two products for our skincare formulations. The first one is Catch the Virtual Sun SPF 25 and Universal Nourishing Skin Fix. The first one is SPF 25. It's for both mineral and organic sunscreens. Obviously, this is for your physical self. We wanted to put a little play on words and talk about catching the virtual sun. The second one is the Universal Nourishing Skin Fix. You can see the beautiful pink color. That's with the vitamin B12. It helps to protect your skin microbiome. That covers our presentation today. Some of the key insights that we wanted to relay to you, just to summarize, is really considering online retail as the norm and also have these physical brand manifestations. A lot of brands have these pop-up shops where you can go in for a couple of weeks and take advantage of some of the new products, some of the limited editions. Be sure to both have an online presence as well as a physical presence. Mixed reality products combining physical that are augmented on the screen represent current opportunities. Co-branding opportunities. We saw the example of M·A·C and Honor of Kings before talking about how you can both play in a physical as well as virtual space. Virtual, you're participating in the Honor of Kings online, and you're purchasing these products for your avatar. Then you can also go to the M·A·C store and purchase these lipsticks and match your avatar. Consider avatar beauty as a new category. Avatar beauty is coming up in a really big way. There's a lot of these different types of apps that you can currently download and create new profile pictures based on what you're looking to do. Whether it's a watercolor avatar, whether it's a profile shot, whether it's a superhero avatar, there's so many different ways that you can play and upload your personal pictures and get these avatar shots, which are coming up in a really cool way to showcase different types of beautiful versions of yourself. We feel the metaverse is really going to empower the individual creative and give them a historic digital identity and creative fingerprint. Anything is possible in the metaverse, and it's up to you to create that destiny. If you take a look at the kit, we're just summarizing overall. There's nine products in each kit. It was a lot of fun to create it, a lot of fun coming up with the concepts. What we do is we come up with the concepts from marketing, from R&D, from our technical, from our product management, sales. It's a collaborative approach to talking about what we see in the market, where we see both the macro and micro trends, how these come together, and then putting these in a kit that we can actually send off to our customers to help them be inspired. We hope that we've inspired you today through this presentation. Feel free to message us with any questions that you may have. Obviously, our Global Director is Arnita Wofford, who spoke to you earlier. I'm Rebecca Robinson. I'm North America marketer. Feel free to reach out to either of us. Again, thank you so much for your time. We appreciate it, and we hope to hear from you. Thank you. Thanks, Rebecca, for that. We've walked you through new sensations, the new sensations of the metaverse. Hopefully, your cognitive wheels are turning. This is just one example, as Rebecca mentioned, of how our marketing, technical, formulation, and product management teams work all together to explore new ways to innovate. We launch a strategic ingredient marketing campaign, so SIM to those of you who've been working with Univar Solutions for some time. We launch these campaigns every year. You may remember the most recent one, Forever Impressions, from spring 2022, where we looked at nostalgic beauty and how the past can really help you reshape the future of your products. Or even our latest campaign that was launched in March of 2023, No Boundaries, where we are exploring the next phase of inclusive beauty and genderless formulation. Whatever projects may be on the horizon, our Solution Centers can really help you innovate, and they can help you on your product development journey. Thank you for joining us today. Don't hesitate, as Rebecca said, to reach out for more support. Hello and welcome to our Q&A session. Rebecca, I think we have a few prepared questions for today. Yes. I think the first question that probably the audience would want to know is, how do we come up with the new SIM kits every year? How did you come up with the metaverse concept overall? Okay. From a metaverse standpoint, it was what's new, what's happening. We have a look at all the different trends that are potential fits for our company and what's really happening in the ingredient space. Between product launches from our core suppliers as well as just this tantalizing theme of metaverse, I said, why can't we have some sort of immersive metaverse SIM campaign? I think that would be great. Ideally, I would have loved to have taken it further and created an entire metaverse platform where we could have launched the products in the platform. Staying realistic, it was more about how do we breach this versioning beauty space with what we can bring to the customer space right now with the ingredients and matching that all together. The metaverse topic seemed to be a new experience, a new frontier for beauty. I thought it was the time to make sure that we could have our customers on the forefront, the cutting edge of beauty, and inform them as soon as possible. I think one of the cool things, too, about our company is that we were really on the forefront from a B2B perspective of bringing something from the metaverse to life. Even I remember when we launched it to the sales team, at first, everyone was trying to wrap their head around it and understand what it was. We get messages all the time from our team saying, "Hey, did you see this metaverse just popped up in beauty? Did you see this one? Did you see this one?" Really, it was exciting to see Univar Solutions be at the forefront of that, which was really cool to see. Absolutely. Okay. I guess another question would be, in terms of coming up with these concepts for formulations, textures, from a formulating point of view, being that you're the director of both marketing and technical, how do you feel that we determine those types of things for the formulations? What would be your answer to the audience for those? Formulating is a group effort, right? Marketing may put together a concept, but the lab really brings that to life. They also have to ultimately feel that it's a realistic request. I think for starting with formulations, we do a lot of background research. We take a look at what's on the shelves today and what's missing. We have some really creative marketing people like Rebecca. We also have some very creative formulators. We think about and all jokes aside, we're also beauty consumers, right? We're looking at what's on the shelf, but what could we improve upon? What's missing? Where's the white space? We take all of those ideas. We brainstorm together in groups over several weeks. We come back. We talk to our global lab teams. We talk to our global marketing team. We pitch ideas to the leadership team, to the product management team. Once everyone's sort of had a say, we've exchanged, we can now talk to the lab and say, "Realistically, what can you make? What can you put together based on our ingredient portfolio but also in the timelines that are being requested?" That's how we come up with the concepts. That's sort of our process of brainstorming to delivery. The textures, the lab team never ceases to amaze me. Every year, they come up with just more and more, just fabulous textures of products. Things that I would love to buy. Anytime that there is an idea where we can say, "Oh, I really loved this texture from this benchmark. But could you make it fluffier, creamier? Could you change the color? Could you also make it an SPF 50?" Whatever the requests may be, they somehow manage to meld those together. I think that's the talent that we have in-house. I think to that point, too, if I can add, from all the different Solution Centers, it's really a global effort. Everyone has a voice on the team coming from our labs in Mexico to Germany to Brazil to France to the U.S. Everyone has a voice about what these products can be. Everyone has a different perspective. Someone in France may have a really cool idea about something that they've seen on the shelf from one of the indie brands that are local to their market. Someone from São Paulo might do the same. It's really beautiful how the teams come together from the different Solution Centers to bring forth these great ideas. Indeed. That brings to the third and final question, which is, Rebecca, what are your thoughts on how the metaverse will continue to impact beauty and evolve? Well, once we started, I mean, I think once we all started researching about the metaverse and what this is and how this could impact us from a beauty perspective and also our lives in general, it's really incredulous. It's definitely one of these talking points where the more you learn, the more you go down this rabbit hole of information. I think from a perspective of beauty, you see now they're making chief metaverse officers, which, I mean, mind-blowing, right. You would never expect to have something like this. Really understanding the capabilities that you can have from an online perspective but also from a physical perspective. We talked about this a little bit in the presentation. Really understanding and making sure that each brand has a play in these two specific areas to make sure that they're capturing their audience, that they're showcasing what they have, bringing the loyalty there so that you are going to be interested in all of these products, what they have to offer. In a lot of ways, social media is opening up the world to allow you to see how they're creating the products, kind of going back to those five pillars that we talked about earlier from a supply chain perspective, transparency, authenticity, looking at those AI perspectives. You see a lot of brands doing it in a really cool way. I mean, Gucci Beauty is doing it. They started really with fashion but going into beauty. You look at Dior Beauty. Charlotte Tilbury has a really cool metaverse online. A lot of the brands are doing what's that? NYX as well. NYX also has launched something new. Yes. 100%. I feel like brands are really coming together and trying to put forth something really interesting and exciting, not to only play into what they're currently doing but the prospect of future customers, even looking as far as Gen Alpha. The Brazilian team were talking to us the other day about how Gen Alpha is already getting involved in color cosmetics and playing with that. Here's an opportunity for even the younger generation to make sure that they're looking at these really cool products. I mean, Arnita, probably your daughter, she's going to get into beauty at a very young age. It'd be interesting to see her perspective as she grows up as to if she's playing, if she's more interested in the avatar and dressing up the avatar or herself. Indeed, indeed. Space to watch. I think just to wrap up, maybe one thing I want to add is it's not a necessity for brands to enter this space. I do think it has to match with your brand ethos. If you do feel like it's something that you're interested in, that you're willing to explore, maybe now is not the time to go all in if it's not part of your ethos. For sure, a space to watch and then see how you can incorporate that because the customers are there. They're coming, whether it's millennials, Gen Alpha, Gen Z, as Rebecca mentioned, or even baby boomers, quite frankly. Everyone's online. Don't have some sort of prefixed notion that it's not for me or it's not for my core set of customers because tomorrow could be tomorrow's customer is anyone at this point. Web 3.0 will open the door for something new. I hope that you guys all got something from this presentation, from this Q&A. Again, if you have any additional questions, Rebecca and I are available. Thank you so much. Thank you. Welcome to Univar Solutions' Innovation Day session from our CASE lab at the Houston Solutions Center. My name's Joshua Ackerman, and I serve as the Global Marketing Manager for our coatings, adhesives, sealants, elastomers, and rubber and plastic additives group. I'm proud to introduce you to several key members of our formulating and development team here in North America who will be showcasing some of the challenges one can face when formulating sustainable coatings. We at Univar Solutions take sustainability very seriously and are proud to be leaders in the development of the concepts and processes encompassed within the initiatives. The various CASE markets, especially coatings, serve markets that are incredibly innovative and have the potential to deliver major benefits to the world and the goals around sustainability. From high-performance coatings to improved longevity and reduced deterioration of substrates to architectural paints that don't detriment the environment or the applicants and last longer, this industry has a lot to offer. We've surveyed our customers and discussed challenges seen in sustainability metrics for some time. And one of the main issues is uncertainty in navigating what makes a final product sustainable and how can they take advantage of these claims. This is one of the reasons we now offer the Essential Guide to Sustainable Coatings, which is available to download. This guide helps customers better understand how to offer up sustainable products and improve profits, which is a key aspect of acting sustainably. Today, you'll see in the demonstrations and conversation between our technical leads some of the challenges our customers may encounter when trying to go sustainable with their end products. We hope to showcase the various ways our labs can offer you consultative assistance, whether you're a customer or supplier. We're opening the door to continuing the dialogue on what sustainability means today and what it will mean tomorrow. Hello. My name is Steve Hollman. I'm the Application Development Manager for CASE Business, Univar Solutions, North America. My name's Ralph Barthel. I'm the Technical Services Manager for CASE at the Houston Solutions Center. Hey, Ralph. It's great to see you and be here in the Houston Solutions Center, CASE Lab, Analytical Services Lab that we have here. We're here, Ralph, to talk about an evolving topic in our industry, which is this concept of sustainability in coatings. There is certainly a lot that we can offer across the board. There is one subject that is a little bit near and dear to my heart as Univar Solutions has been a member of an organization called the Roof Coating Manufacturers Association now for decades, very active member in that association. That is the concept, Ralph, of these white reflective roof coatings that are used in building maintenance applications. The sustainable concept that we're talking about here is not only applying a white reflective roof coating that will reflect UV light and emit the heat that gets absorbed into that coating. Any light that does get absorbed and energy gets emitted back out into the atmosphere. It's an important driver moving forward in terms of keeping that building space cooler, less energy demand. Plus, on top of that, Ralph, it reduces the amount of landfill waste if you have to tear that roof off. Instead of tearing it off, coat it with a white reflective roof coating and extend the life of that building. We've done quite a lot of work in that space for a number of customers around testing in this area. Any insight that you can give us there? Yeah. Ollie and I have been doing a bunch of testing on exactly that product. Ollie's done work with Instron to do tensile elongation, tear resistance, peel strength, water permeability, water swelling, all of those tests to prove that they meet the ASTM D6083 requirements. Ralph, there is one key test method that is an ASTM test method called D6083 that includes a lot of different types of performance testing. One of the key attributes around this particular ASTM test method is the flexibility, tensile properties of these types of coatings. Exactly. We do. We just came up with a template to make that process a little bit quicker and more repeatable where we glue down the Elastomeric Roof Coating fabric with the coating so that we can do the peel testing repeatably to get good results, at least so the results aren't affected by our handling of the substrate. Ollie casts free films to make the elongation and tear samples. Those are the three big tests that we run on the Instron to confirm the performance of these coatings against the specification. Ralph, there are other challenges that come with formulating Elastomeric Roof Coatings other than the low-temperature flex properties, including some regulatory trends that are affecting these types of coatings. Concepts like formulating zinc oxide-free type coatings or removing the APEO-type surfactants that are used in these coatings, our lab can help with that as well. Definitely. We've done some work doing exactly that to remove the APE-free surfactants out of the systems. As our suppliers make new polymers with less offensive catalysts, we use those materials to make them more sustainable, more friendly for the user. Ralph, we do have customers that we sell in this space that apply these coatings. As you can see in the video content that we have here, a customer of ours that applies an asphaltic-type waterproofing barrier that gets embedded with a fabric material. You can see the workers in the video applying that. Then once that is dry, it gets coated with the white Elastomeric Roof Coating, which is the sustainable concept that we're talking about. We have a number of different capabilities in our CASE lab to handle different chemistries around this reflective roof coating space because there are different chemistries involved here, Ralph. There's water-based acrylics. There are solvent-based thermoplastic rubber-type materials. There are polyurethanes and polyurethane-type chemistries. All of these types of chemistries are called out in a relatively recently published sustainable line card that we have. Yeah. The line card actually helps us a lot in the lab as well so we know what's out there to use for that exact purpose. Ralph, listen. I'm going to throw you a curveball here. This is a relatively recent trend that is kind of tangent to these reflective roof coatings. That is to address the urban heat island effect, the concept of applying a slightly reflective asphalt type of coating on all of our roads. That's coming your way. We have a few customers that have asked about that. We're going to be looking for your lab to help out with that as well. That's what we're here for. We're here to look for the new projects. We could test those very similar to what we do with the roof coating. I don't think that'll be a problem. As part of the sustainable landscape, we look to help customers formulate in a high-solid space, which means you're shipping more of the active coating or paint and less of the carrier, either being water or solvent. Can you give us an example of where you've done some work there? Yes. We have two new coatings, a white and a yellow traffic line stripe, where we played with different neutralizing agents to make them dry better and faster. We have a new test apparatus to test tire pickup because the one thing you don't want to have is, as they're applying the stripes on the road, somebody come right behind them and take it off with their tires as they drive down. That was a new piece of apparatus that we got so that we could test it in the lab. Ralph, to get the stability needed in these high-solids coatings, especially around pigment stability, you've got application equipment to address that formulating concern. Right. The most important thing with any pigmented coating is to have those pigments dispersed properly. You can see that, as the material is being mixed, it forms a nice donut-shape appearance around the agitator shaft. It'll start slowly evolving around. You know you had a good dispersion formulation when you see that. In this space, Ralph, we are working on another concept that is just evolving right now, which is to develop some water-based coatings in the industrial coating space that are considered to be good, better, and best. Some of that revolves around high-solids formulating as well. Right. We're looking at that for a direct-to-metal application to see a wide variety, as you said, a good, better, best scenario where we can look at performance, price, corrosion resistance so that we have a space available for the customer, however they want, where they want to go. Do they want to pay for their performance? Do they want to have an economical coating? We'll have the options for them. These formulations, Ralph, that you and your lab are putting together around good, better, best also build in some other sustainable concepts that we'll discuss as well, things like formulating with APEO-free surfactants and low VOC content. Correct. Yeah. We definitely want to have as low VOC as we can because, again, it's just going to be evaporating into the air. You don't want that. When we evaluate the surfactants, we want to look at things like viscosity, stability, color acceptance, gloss to make sure that, when you swap out those surfactants with APE-free, you don't have any other issues. Ralph, in this space of high-solids coatings, especially around traffic paint, I've seen firsthand examples of how important it is for these types of paints to dry very quickly. Yeah. I've seen supplier literature where they've actually done that and show the cars following behind the application equipment so that it dries faster. We in the lab just have the little wheely thing on the incline board. That's all we have to do. Ralph, in the spirit of throwing you a curveball, I'm going to throw you another one here and looking at my notes. There is actually a relatively new development that we are seeing, which is taking that fast-dry traffic paint, high-solids concept, and cross-linking it with water-based acrylic epoxy hybrid. Again, that's going to be more work that we're going to be looking at. Sounds interesting. At your lab to work on. Always looking for the new things. Another part of sustainability is this whole concept of VOCs. It's been around for decades. It's been around since I've been working with the company for the past 36 years. How were we looking to address the issue of VOCs in our lab? Well, we try to formulate the coatings with as low a VOC as possible. We've recently got some materials that'll allow us to pull out the higher VOC coalescing solvents and replace them with VOC-compliant coalescing solvents that we get the same nice, tight, dry film as seen on the minimum film-forming temperature apparatus and gives the same performance but now much lower VOC. You're addressing this from a separate additive-type perspective. What I'm seeing as well, Ralph, is the reduction of the glass transition temperature of these different polymers that are used to make these films. When that happens, you get other problems that crop up around things like black, around just the general softness of these films. Are we addressing that in any way as well? Anytime they bring a new polymer to us, we have to characterize how they behave and what we have to do to make sure we use it in the most economical way we can. Anytime those changes happen, we have to stay ahead of them. There's additional problems that come in. This might even come back to your good, better, best-type formulating concept around industrial coatings is, as you look to reformulate these things and take out components that add other benefits like open time and free straw-type resistance, those properties are going to be affected as well. Right. Just like we said with the coalescing solvents, there are new additives that address those exact properties. Sometimes the polymer comes with free straw stability. Now, as they're making these modifications, they don't come with free straw stability. We have to add that with different ingredients. We have one that'll allow us to address free straw stability. Kind of on the other side to that is open time where, if it's going to dry too fast, we have an additive that'll allow that open time or the working time to stay open long enough for the application to be finished. In the lab here, the CASE Solution Center, we can run all of these different tests like the minimum film-formation temperature, dry time test, viscosity, free straw testing in your lab. All of those apparatus we have, yes. For the minimum film-forming temperature test, that apparatus is key so that we know what temperature the applicator has to be above so that he gets a nice, tight film as he applies it. Either the polymer has to have that or we have to add additives to lower that temperature so that they don't have any issues. For viscosity, we have a variety of viscometers that we can use to measure that property and measure stability by taking a sample, measuring the viscosity, putting it in an oven or a refrigerator, and then bringing it back out and checking it again to make sure the viscosity stays stable with time. What if you freeze the sample in the refrigerator? You want to do that because that's going to happen. It's going to freeze solid. What you want to make sure is that, once it does thaw out, the properties return. With these additives, sometimes you have to wait longer than you would anticipate. Once they're totally thawed, they're back to where they were before they were thawed. They're still a good, stable product. You'll test all the performance attributes of that coating after it freezes and thaws out. Correct. Over multiple cycles, I might think, as well. Yeah. I think typical is at least three or five. For the dry time, we have two apparatus that we can measure. It's a stylus that travels at a certain rate over the drying film. It leaves a pattern that's easily read. There's four different stages of drying that you can measure with these instruments. One's circular. It kind of moves like a clock. Another one is linear. It just moves in a straight line. You adjust the time that it takes to do the revolution. In the world of sustainability, often enough, concepts are driven, Ralph, around regulatory concerns. There is the continuing concern around the use of the APEO-type surfactant chemistry in all sorts of applications. The large applications are cleaners. You know that a lot of these chemistries get used in the coating space that we work in. There's regulations that are coming over from Europe. There are regulations or customers that are demanding. I ran into recently one of the very large automotive manufacturers here in the U.S. asking for APEO surfactant-free formulations. This is a concept that cuts across not only the purposeful surfactants that get put in but also the surfactants that are used as stabilizers for many of the raw materials. Customers need to look at this holistically. This is definitely a trend that we are seeing in our coatings application space as well. You've been doing some work around that. Right. Yeah. I mean, the APEO-free materials can come in the surfactants themselves, in the binders, in the thickeners. We have to be careful of all of the places that they could be included. As soon as we find an alternative to those materials, that's what we do. We systematically go through, swap them out, and then make sure that viscosity stays the same, the color acceptance stays the same, gloss. Any property that we would measure, we want to make sure that, before and after, they are the same. Yeah. Because you don't necessarily realize these are usually additives that are put in at a very small level. They're important. They affect a lot of different properties, but primarily properties that relate to wetting the substrate that the coating is being applied on, wetting the pigments and fillers that are used in the coatings, and acting as a simple dispersant as well. Right. You'll see that in a drawdown if it doesn't wet white or if it doesn't disperse the pigment well. You'll see it in viscosity and gloss. They'll be just different. That's a challenge when you switch from an APEO surfactant chemistry over to something that's APEO-free and becomes now something that, regulatory-wise, is easy to formulate with. Right. It's always a balance because it's not just going to be take one out and put it in. You're going to have to balance all of the other ingredients to get back to the appearance that you want. That's something we do all the time in the lab. That's great to hear around the work that you're doing to replace the APEO-type surfactant chemistry because we continue to hear from customers a need to do this for the customers that they're supplying because that demand is coming. It's coming very quickly. Right. We are trying to stay ahead of that with these ingredients so that we can react whenever those customers come back and ask us for modifications. Ralph, I've seen some testing done in the industry and from some of our suppliers around this concept of replacing surfactant chemistries, some of the properties that you mentioned that are really very important around viscosity stability because surfactant plays an important part there, gloss development and gloss enhancement, especially around color, right, because coatings deliver that aesthetic that we're looking for, which is the color. You don't want to change that. Also foam. Surfactants are used. The large application is in cleaning where customers look for that foam because it gives an impression of cleaning. In our world, foam is bad. Ralph, even very specifically in our analytical lab that we have here at the Houston Solutions Center, we've got the capability to measure very specific foam development. Correct. They have a nice apparatus that they can use to measure foam height and foam decay time. In the lab, we can do simple vial shakes and compare them side by side just to do a quick optimization. The NO guys can give us a good number to confirm what we've screened. Ralph, it's always great to come down here to the Houston Solutions Center. The work that you're doing in the lab here around sustainable coatings is getting noticed out in the field with our customers. Appreciate the time that you spend here today. Good. We always look for the curveballs you keep throwing to us to keep us on our toes. We enjoy doing it. Keep it coming. Good. Steve, Ralph, that was a great segment. Really appreciated seeing all the work that's being done there in the lab in Houston as well as the feedback from the customers, Steve. It sounds like the initiatives that we find to be very important within the coating space regarding sustainability are actually gaining traction in the marketplace, which is great to hear. It's clear from the responses, we do have some questions about how people can implement. If you're okay with it, let's roll right into it. Yes. Let's do it. The first question, I think this is pretty understandable, is the lab certified? Ralph, can you take that? Sure. No, we are not a certified lab. We're a research and development facility. We follow best practices. We will have good data to present, especially good comparative data. We're not certified. Okay. That makes sense. Let's see. The second question, I think this one is for I'm going to take this one. Can you argue your way into any raw material being called sustainable? I think that's a completely valid question, something that we've gotten before because, when it comes to especially sustainable formulations where that end product is seen as delivering high sustainability, there's going to be some raw materials that aren't necessarily certified or seen as terribly sustainable. It's incumbent upon us, as the distributor working with our suppliers, I think, to, for lack of a better term, keep our noses clean and really be honest and truthful and rigorous about what we include in our sustainable line card or claims when it comes to that end product and why it's sustainable and what alternatives there are for the raw material. If there's an alternative for a raw material in a sustainable formulation that is safe as water or safely biological or green, then it would be incumbent upon us to remove that less safe or not as green bio-environmentally friendly product, I'd say. Can we? Yes. The goal is no. We do not want to be party to greenwashing, neither do our suppliers. We will keep ourselves honest. We look for feedback from our customers to help with that too. All right. Next question. Does your lab have the ability to measure VOC beyond method 24? You want to take that one, Ralph? Sure. Yeah. The analytical lab can do an ASTM method D6886. That'll measure VOC by GC. Excellent. Follow-up just for me. Are those the two main methods that you would use in that type of arena? Yes, they are. I believe they are working on a Headspace GC mass spec to take it even a step further. That is not. It is currently under evaluation. Oh, okay. Good to know. Next question. How do I learn more about the specific Univar CASE and analytical lab resources? How about you, Steve? Can you answer that one? Yeah, Josh. I guess the easy button answer there is to get with your Univar Solutions account manager. They can work with their technical support resources, which is what we call our Application Development Specialists, the field technical support people. We do have a list, a promotional piece of literature that does list the capabilities of both the CASE lab as well as the analytical services lab. I would even take it one step further, Josh and everybody, that if anybody wanted to take maybe a virtual tour or if you were ever in the Houston area, you're certainly welcome to stop by. We'll set it up, get you all set up to come into the facility here and take any kind of tour that you might want to do. Excellent. Yeah. We always like visitors. Absolutely. Let's see. Next question. Where do I get the starting point formulations available from the coatings lab? I guess either of you guys, how do the customers access those formulations and starting points? Listen, Ralph, I'll jump in here as well. Again, I recognize it's a fairly easy answer here to say, "Go to your Univar Solutions account manager and the field technical resources that we have." Everybody, the information that we have is very, very good formulating guides. What we like to do when we engage with customers or our suppliers is build a business case. We're going to want to have those conversations before we release a lot of detailed information. Josh, I would say that that's the answer that I would give. A lot of resources. We're going to want to, for everybody's buy-in, to build a nice business case to get that content out to the customers and suppliers that we work with. Yeah. I mean, if I can add, from a lot of our campaigns on our websites, we do provide some starting point guidance as far as certain end products. We recently did polyurethane's campaign and, most recently, sustainable coatings. We do give some formulation starting guidance but not full formulations there because everybody's end use is very tailored in these markets, I would say. It's hard to give one formulation that anybody could actually start from. We try and bend toward guidance rather than full-formulated. Is that accurate? Yeah. Ralph, I'd be willing to suggest that there's a lot of formulation tweaking that's going on. Correct, Ralph? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Especially when suppliers change, you need to modify those materials to keep it most current. Yes. Yep. All right. I think we got time for one more question. What sets the Univar Solutions Solution Center apart from the competitors? Ralph, my personality is I'll jump right in ahead of anybody else here. I would say everybody, just really the capabilities that we have in the coatings lab, I've seen customers come through and really be interested in specific testing. Everybody, as we mentioned before, will invite customers into the Solution Center, even to the extent, Josh, where we actually sign some contracts with customers where they have standing lab time in our resource for them to come in and work in our lab on the equipment that they may not have available. I'll tell you, Josh, that combined with the analytical services lab, which is right next door, often enough, when we bring projects into our lab that are beyond formulating, where we're looking to maybe do a deconstruct or some type of separate analytical analysis, to have that analytical lab resources literally the next door down really supports the CASE lab that we have here. Guys, listen, and this is going to sound fairly common as well. We have listen, our formulations, we're going to build these formulations around our world-class suppliers and the products that they have. All of that kind of rolled up together, I think, is going to separate us from many of our competitors. Yeah. You can look at us as an extension of the R&D capabilities of our suppliers where they might not have the I'm sure they have the ability. They might have the bandwidth to spend time on intermediate and smaller customers that we might be able to support. As a distributor, we have the ability to look at, arguably, a broader portfolio to understand the merits of so many different raw materials available and evaluate benchmarks from HIC or beauty and personal care that could have efficacy into the CASE markets. Yep, Josh. When somebody comes to us with, for example, right, the easy button is a low VOC formulation. We're going to start with a low VOC resin. We're going to use the low VOC dispersants and rheology modifiers. We're going to use the low VOC amine additives that we have available. Right, when a customer comes to us looking for the ultimate low VOC or the ultimate corrosion protection or, right, any other category or thing that a customer might be looking for, we've got a big basket of solutions to choose from to put into that formulation. Excellent. It can be just anything that solves a problem for them. If they have an issue handling a material, maybe we can come up with a better way for them to handle it. That's a good point. We can also work with our co-pack and our packaging group as well from downpacking or labeling issues in so many different facets. Excellent. Well, again, thank you, gentlemen, for your time today, for the excellent work that you and Ali are doing in the lab, Ralph, and you, Steve, with the customers and your ADS team out there in the field. We really look forward to the next innovations that you all help develop. We hope you have a great rest of your day. Thank you for all those watching. Happy innovating. Hello. I'm Neha Sahu, application specialist for Univar Solutions. Today, I have with me two wonderful ladies, Margo Peltoz, Junior Application Specialist for Univar Solutions, and Irene Prijono, Junior Application Specialist for Univar Solutions. Today, we will be talking about a bio range of emollients in our portfolio, BioEstolides. BioEstolides are multifunctional, eco-friendly esters that are derived from castor. What's more special about it is that it has a negative carbon footprint during its manufacturing process. Let's start with talking about what can we do with it. It's versatile and multifunctional. These two ladies over here have worked extensively to have these wonderful formulations for us. Let's start with Irene. Irene, how's your experience working with BioEstolides? Working with BioEstolide is actually really easy. I have no problems with the solubility. First of all, I have a Death Blow Pear Serum, which actually needs five minutes to be formulated in the lab. That's great. You're talking about the Smooth and Silky Hair Serum. Correct? Exactly. Tell us, how did you make it more sustainable? When we are developing the formulations, we are thinking about the product that has been in the market for a while. We see it contains lots of synthetic ingredients. We want to enhance that. We want to respond to the market in the way that we develop more sustainable and natural formulation. Therefore, we have Smooth and Silky Hair Serum. Can you tell us how you develop it in the lab? It's very simple, as I mentioned before. All you need to do is mix the ingredients, which are BioEstolide 30, Laxville Val, argan oil, olive oil, vitamin E, and lastly, tea tree oil. In five minutes of mixing, you will get your hair serum ready. Indeed, it seems very easy. Very nice. Can you maybe show us the sensory of the hair serum? Sure. We have this clean hair. Then we will go into drop some of the product, some of the hair serum on this. We will rub it in. Then after a while, you can see an enhancement of the hair shine and also ease of combing. Oh, that's great. We can do qualitative and quantitative testings. Let's talk about measurements and qualitative testing for the product. Yes. Our Essen Solution Center is equipped with TA.XTplusC. With that instrument, we can measure the compatibility of hair. First of all, we are going to need to prepare the hair stresses. For one product, we are going to use six stresses. We will measure the same stress 3x. Before measuring, we need to wash it first with our own protocol. Then we will let it dry. We can also do a wet measurement. With the instrument, it will go down the hair. It can measure in real time the force it needed to go through the hair. From there, we can get the information such as average combing load or ACL and peak comb load or PCL. With this measurement, we can compare the after treatment and before treatment data as well as dry and wet measurements. It is so nice to know about the capabilities of the Essen Solution Center. Let's hear from our colleagues in Houston. Welcome to our Beauty and Personal Care Lab at the Houston Solution Center. I'm the Technical Manager, Claudia Barba. I'm Senior Chemist, Bianca Coria. For this kit demonstration, we will analyze the shine and the heat protection provided by the silky serum containing BioEstolides. To measure shine, we will use the SAMBA Hair Equipment. This is a unique device to analyze hair shine, also called hair luster or hair gloss. This is extensively used in the cosmetic industry to substantiate claims and evaluate products' efficacy. This allows that the composition of the image seen by a conventional camera or your eye into two images, specular and diffuse. The specular image is formed only by the light reflected by the hair surfaces, from side reflection and back side reflection. The image contains the shine and chroma information. The diffuse image is formed only by the scattered light coming from the inside of the hair. The image also contains the color information. Hair stresses are placed on the cylindrical support. The hair is aligned and combed. The cylinder hair support enables us to measure at the desired angle without moving any part of the device. When hair stresses are set up, the polarized camera will take different pictures of the stresses. For this silky serum, we were able to evaluate the hair shine and luster. We will now test the capacity of the silky serum to protect hair when using heating devices. For this experiment, we will prepare hair as we do it at home. Hair stresses will be washed, air blow dried, and finally flat ironed. Flat ironed devices can reach temperatures of 450 degrees Fahrenheit. When we finish preparing all the hair stresses, we will give them to our colleagues on the analytical team to evaluate heat protection. Hello. I'm Will McKee, Senior Chemist in the analytical lab at the Houston Solution Center. We work with every global industry and work collaboratively across disciplines to find the best solutions for our customers' formulation needs. For this heat protection test, hair will be tested using an innovative method via differential scanning calorimetry, which we use to detect the denaturation temperature of the hair. Final results of a silky hair serum formulation showed that BioEstolides did provide the desired level of heat protection. Another formulation that we have is the nourishing lip oil. Margo, tell us what inspired you to make this formulation. Nowadays, when we look into the market, we mostly find lip balm or lipstick with caring effect. We wanted to bring a new format, a new texture to the market. We decided to develop a lip oil. The main purpose of this lip oil is to moisturize and repair the lips at the same time, but also without bringing a greasy afterfeel on the lips. That's why I chose the BioEstolides range, mostly the BioEstolide 1300, that will help solubilizing the pigment because we also want to bring a pigment in the formula so it's more appealing. The BioEstolide 30 will also be incorporated in the formulation so it can reduce the greasiness of it. That's wonderful. You're combining two different viscosities so that you have an optimum viscosity of the formulation. That's great. Can you tell us more about how you formulate it in the lab? Do you have any difficulties and tricks? Just tell us how to make it, of course. First of all, the main ingredient that I said is the BioEstolide 1300. It will be the first step to incorporate the pigment in the BioEstolide 1300 to solubilize the pigment. Once everything is homogeneous, then you can add the other emollients with the BioEstolide 30. In this emollient, you also have a butter and a wax. You have to be careful and heat enough the formulation so they can melt. After that, you begin to cool down the formulation. You can add the other ingredients that are heat sensitive. The heating process is quite important for this formula, then? Yeah. It's very important. The butter and the wax have to be perfectly melted. The cooling down phase is also very important as we don't want recrystallization. It needs to be slowly cooled down. Tell us a little bit about the sensory and how does it look like. Once you apply, as you can see on the forehead or on the lips, you can see that it's very easy to spread and that the BioEstolides add a glossy and a shiny effect. Yeah. I can see it's really shiny and glossy. Yeah. It looks very pretty. Apart from this, what other tests can we do? Of course, we can do the usual stability test. We can also, in the Essen Solution Center, we have a SUNTEST, a UV tester, the SUNTEST XLS+. With this test, you have a UV lamp. Also in Essen, we have different glass panels, filters. It means we can check the stability of a sample, like colored sample or non-colored sample, through different glass, so through daylight, outdoor daylight, but also in a store warehouse, for example, and also through glass windows with different thickness. We have different glass panels in Essen. On this sun tester, we can also choose and select different parameters as the irradiance control, so the wavelengths, also the duration of the test, the temperature at the lamp. We can do a pretty full test here in Essen. This is so interesting because here, you can actually simulate the shelf life of the product right after it's made into its packaging. Also when it's out into the market, when it's sitting on a store shelf or in a warehouse, you can actually simulate those environments and see how it affects your product. That's very, very interesting. With this, now we move to our colleagues to Houston. Sunscreens. Very important during summers. Somehow, all of us struggle to find the right one. Here we have a sunscreen formulation. Margol will tell us more about it. Yes. We wanted to develop a daily sunscreen as UV exposure can affect a lot our body and our skin. It's very important to apply sunscreen daily. What we wanted with this sunscreen is a non-greasy afterfeel and a light afterfeel so people could apply it every day and apply their makeup afterwards so it can be buildable. Can you please walk us through about how you formulate that and also which BioEstolide ranges do you use? Yes. First of all, we have a water phase with humectant and also a stabilizing agent. We have to homogenize this phase and heat it to 80 degrees. We also have an oil phase with the emollient, inorganic, and organic filters, and also BioEstolide. Here, we chose the BioEstolide 30 because we use organic filters. The BioEstolide 30 can disperse easily the organic filters. It also has a light afterfeel and a non-greasy sensor. This oil phase is also heated up to 80 degrees. We also have a non-ionic emulsifying system that will enable the emulsification. Once both phases are at 80 degrees, then we emulsify and homogenize the two phases together. We can, after, add the inorganic UV filter and again homogenize. Once everything is cooled down, the preservative and all the other ingredients can be added and the pH can be adjusted. Oh, that's nice. Can we also use BioEstolide 1300 in the formulation? Did you try using BioEstolide in such a formulation? BioEstolide 1300 has a higher viscosity and is richer. We could think that it could change the sensory and have a greasier or richer afterfeel. Because we add a very few quantities and a small%, then it doesn't change that much the sensory. Indeed, BioEstolide 1300 was added in the formula. Mostly for stable properties, stability property, it helps stabilizing the inorganic UV filters as it can disperse it easily. It doesn't change that much the sensory. We still keep a light and non-greasy afterfeel. I see that we have a sample here. Can you please show us how do you apply it on your skin? Yeah. You can see here, the pickup is very pleasant. You can see that it's spreadable and that it's easy to spread. It gets absorbed very fast in the skin. It leaves a soft and velvety feel at the end. Yeah. It's really nice. I can see that you don't have greasiness or any oiliness on your skin. Besides that, SPF is a very important factor while making a sunscreen. To assess the value of the SPF, we do a collaboration with our labs in Houston. Let's find out more. Finally, we will test the sun protection factor or SPF from a sunscreen. For this test, we will use a sunscreen analyzer, which is an UV spectrophotometer, designed and optimized for the determination of SPF value on a variety of sunscreen, reducing in this way, for our customers, the need and cost for in vivo testing. This equipment will be covering both UVB and UVA spectral regions. The system automatically scans from 290 to 400 nanometers. Liquids, creams, and gels are applied in small dots to the HelioPlate with a pipette. We spread the sample. The substrate is placed on the equipment. This equipment selects nine positions when scanning the sample. The stage moves the sample on the holder into the beam of light, takes the measurements, moves to the next position, and continues until all the measurements have been completed. Results and curves are calculated as the average of the nine scans. Recently, we have adapted the method to a powder texture where samples are weighed and spread with a small mesh. We spread all the powder over a solvent to bond it to the HelioPlate. Let's hear more from the team at our Essen Solution Center. Anhydrous formulations or waterless formulations are such a trend. When it comes to skin protection, anhydrous formulations can tend to be slightly oily or heavy or greasy because it's completely 100% made of oils or emollients. To negate this, we bring you another formulation, baby rash type of cream. Irene, talk us through it. Yes. When we see the market about baby cream, there are less and less innovations lately. Most of the formulations there are water and oil formulations, which gives actually a very good protection. The afterfeeling and during the application sensory is not nice. It tends to be tacky, greasy, and also doesn't spread that easily. We come up with a new formulation. We call it protective baby diaper rash cream. It's an anhydrous formulation with no water. We use lots of BioEstolide 1300, which is the perfect answer for a natural and sustainable formulation. Can you tell us why it is the perfect answer for it? BioEstolide 1300 has the highest viscosity of all the BioEstolide ranges and also the highest molecular weight. With that, it has a very good film-filming property, which is perfect to protect the baby's skin and also respect the skin. I think that for this diaper rash cream, you would have used a lot of powders. Did you face any difficulties in the process? Actually, not really. While formulating, we will heat up the powders, the waxes, alongside with the BioEstolide 1300. After that, we will cool it down a little bit. We will add zinc oxide. After adding zinc oxide, you can see that it will begin to disperse well thanks to BioEstolide 1300. We will optimize that with the homogenization process for a few minutes. There you have it, your baby cream. I'm wondering, how does it look like on the skin? Could you show us? Yeah. Sure. Here's the baby cream. When you pick it up, it melts directly to your skin. It's really easy to be picked up. Then when you apply it on your skin, it spreads very easily. It gives you this very nice, pleasant sensory. Then it absorbs really well. It's non-greasy. That's such a wonderful formulation. I really don't see a white cast. Generally, you'll find with zinc oxide formulations. With this, we can say that BioEstolide is such a versatile and multifunctional emollient. You can use it in so various applications such as skincare, hair care, body care, as well as baby care. I hope you've had a wonderful time learning about our BioEstolide range. If you have questions or queries, please don't hesitate to contact us or your nearest Univar Solutions sales representative. Hello, everyone. Welcome to our Q&A session. My name is Rebecca Robinson. I'm the senior marketing manager for beauty and personal care. I'm pleased to be with two of my amazing colleagues. I'm here with Claudia Barba and Neha Sahu. We're going to answer some of your burning questions for today's Q&A. Ladies, first question for you. How do you come up with the concept of using BioEstolides in your formulas? Basically, we've had an oncoming trend in Europe where people are going more towards sustainable ingredients. They also want more claims, such as vegan and BioEstolides portfolio fit exactly into these claims. Came up a concept where we had a lot of customers asking if we had more formulas to share with them with these ranges. Depending on the different areas of Europe, we kind of customized and kind of curated this whole kit around the ask. Okay. Great. For North America, it's also a trend concerning these types of emollients, which are pretty nice and with a wide range of viscosities. In North America, it's more about, in this moment, about hair care products. We were working in collaboration with Neha in order to do all the characterization, especially for the hair products. Great. Why do you enjoy working with these ingredients so much? What makes them so great? The whole range in general is very versatile. BioEstolides, we use it in all of our labs, whether it be in the U.S., here in EMEA, or in the LATAM. Each region has their own characteristic and specific qualities to look for. I think for us, the main focus was suncare. We have a lot of focus on suncare. BioEstolides are a great medium to kind of help disperse mineral pigments as well as the inorganic pigments. They are very, very easy to use, versatile, nice textures. You can play from very fluid to very thick textures. It was very nice seeing that this range can actually give you everything in terms of textures. From our side in the Houston Solution Center, we have some nice equipment that we try to use to help the Essen Solution Center in order to do all the characterizations. It was more also using these nice ingredients, but also try to help and to support all the properties and claims that we can do for these types of products. What I really enjoyed working with Neha and also with the Essen Solution Center, it was also learning a lot about our clients worldwide. This is more for our European clients. Of course, we were supporting these claims with our old equipment that we have in the lab. Wonderful. What about the sensory profile? BioEstolides, they have various grades. Starting, if we talk about BioEstolide 30, it's very light. It gives you a dry sensation, a dry feeling. If you compare it to the BioEstolide 1300, they are very rich and gives you a very luxurious feel. You can have as light as possible to as rich as possible. This helps in terms of maintaining an emollient cascade into the formulation where you start feeling that it's light enough, but the moisturization carries throughout. You can mix and match. You can have all the range, so very light to very rich, so depending on which grade you choose from the BioEstolide. In the lab in North America, we have been using the light viscosity product, where it's very nice to use it for hair serums or hair products, very shiny and very easy to use. It's not very oily. It's very versatile and very good for hair products. Last question, ladies, how does BioEstolide compare to and contribute to the baby care segment? Actually, I think BioEstolide fits very nicely into the baby care segment, especially when we talk about, say, diaper rash formulations or, say, very heavy kind of products where you have a lot of powder material into it. Usually, what we see is very greasy products. Because of the grade of the BioEstolide that we've used, it's easily spreadable. It's not tacky. It's not very oily. It provides a very nice, even film onto the skin when applied. I think for a baby care application, this fits right into where you want to have protection as well as a little bit of sensory so that everything is nice, smooth, it's not sticky. It doesn't really you don't feel very icky while using it. It's a very nice, versatile product. I mean, the sensorial attributes that it gives actually wants you to keep it using again and again. I'd like to try some of that out for my two-year-old. Actually, I guess that we can extend this application not only for baby care, but also for sunscreen or all types of skincare lotions or creams because some of the products are very light and very as Neha mentioned, very film-forming. It's very nice to include it in some of the skincare products. Excellent. Overall, super versatile, nice feel, texture, one of those products that you just want to use in probably every prototype that you make, right? Exactly. They are very shine, versatile, a pretty nice range of viscosities, and very nice, well done for the heat protections test for hair style and hair products. They are very nice and versatile. Wonderful. Well, ladies, thank you so much for your time today. We appreciate the presentation. We really enjoyed listening to the answers to some of your top questions. If anyone in the audience has any questions, please feel free to reach out to your beauty and care specialist. Thank you so much for your time. Have a wonderful rest of the day. Take care, everyone. Bye. Hi. My name is Brandon Beyer. I'm a Global Manager in Application Development with HIC and Univar Solutions. Today, we're going to take some time to talk about cleaning solutions around the world. We're going to visit our Solution Centers in Latin America, North America, and Europe. We're going to take time to discuss important trends and innovations in cleaning. What's most important and innovative today? Now, let's hear from our technical team at the Essen Solution Center. Hi. My name is Katarzyna Romek-Cheviron. I'm an Application Specialist dedicated to Household and Industrial Cleaning. This is our flagship Essen Solution Center based in Germany. Welcome. Today, I would like to discuss with you dishwashing habits across different countries, nations, as well as times. When you think about the medieval age, what comes to your mind first? Well, possibly a pond, a river, maybe a bucket. Given the very poor hygiene, maybe just even scrubbing the plates dry. When you think about your household, what kind of different styles come to your mind? We can distinguish fivev of them. Some of the people are filling the sinks with the hot water. They're using different types of dish soap, wash their dishes, rinse them off with the running water, and put them away. This is not the only way of doing so. The other type is just washing using the running tap water. Another one is not rinsing it at all. It goes and goes. Once again, depending on the country, continent, and the culture, your dishwashing style will differ. This is not even the beginning. When we think about what kind of sponge or maybe even fancy scrubber you can use for your dishwashing, this also matters and changes the way of using your dish soap. What is your preferred style? Welcome to our pilot plant area. This machine allows us to scale up all the formulations up to 10 L. It can be used by all the industries such as HIC, BPC, CASE, as well as pharma. It consists of two vessels. One of them, you can see with the anchors and the main emulsifier. The second one, that is our melter that allows us to also introduce the solids such as waxes used in beauty and personal care. Both of these vessels are connected within the pipe that allows us to simulate as close as possible our formulations to these from the bench. Let me show you how it works. Thanks to the vacuum pump, we can also create detergents because we are able to pressurize the chambers and allow our machine to decrease the foaming while producing a new one. Through this window, you are able to see how the inside of your formulation looks like and how does it spend. This is our washroom where all the testing on a full scale happens. We have in our disposition two washing machines as well as a dishwasher according to the industry standards. We are able to also use our dryers for the load that we're using for the testing. Here, you can see the swatches of different stains as well as our samples. Which is the most interesting part, a little bit of baby clothes that we are using for the cellulase testing. This is an abrasion tester, also called a scrub test, that can be used not only for household and industrial cleaning, but also for our CASE unit. We are able to regulate the speed of our testing as well as put some weight into the sponges. Since it's also used for CASE, we can do the abrasion within the brush. Also, we can change into something more rigid. For our test with the hand dish soap, we are using a sponge with the scrubbing side. This allows us to evaluate visually the efficiency of our hand soaps, but also multi-surface cleaners and any type of formulation that requires contact with the surface. Let's see how it goes. Here, what you can see, these are melamine plates covered with crème brûlée stains baked according to the IKW protocol. We are testing one of our homemade dish soaps that is included in the Sepapa kit. This is a turgotometer. It allows us to test eight formulations simultaneously from the dishwashing to the laundry. We can also use it to test the protocol of dye transfer inhibition. We are able to control not only the speed of the turns, but also the water temperature and its hardness. Thanks, Kasha. Let me introduce Allison Hunter, Technical Service Manager, who will talk more about preservatives and a method for how to determine the right ingredients for your cleaning formulation. One of the trends we're seeing in the North American market is that home care products are following some of the trends from the personal care market. For preservatives in particular, the personal care market and now many home care brands have rejected the use of formaldehyde donors and parabens. These are effective preservatives that were widely used in the past. Although only a very small amount is typically needed in a formulation, preservatives provide a valuable function to protect the packaged product from microorganisms such as bacteria, yeast, and mold. In the news recently, there have been some recalls of well-known home care products due to microbial contamination. Choosing the wrong type of preservative or not including enough preservative can be a very costly mistake. Adding to the challenge, home care products run a gamut of pH ranges compared to a narrower pH window for personal care products, which need to be non-irritating to skin. It is possible to formulate a home care product that doesn't need a preservative for impact edge protection. The formula may be self-preserving if it meets any of these criteria: if it's anhydrous or low water, less than 5%; if the pH is less than 3 or greater than 10; if it contains greater than 20% alcohol; or if it contains an EPA-registered disinfectant. Even when these criteria are met, a preservative efficacy challenge test, or PET test, is recommended if the formula doesn't contain a registered disinfecting active. A disinfectant efficacy test is required by the EPA for sanitizing products. After determining that your product will require a preservative, the next step is to select the best type to provide adequate protection while allowing the desired claims or certifications for the product. I'm going to review a few common preservatives that are effective at different pH ranges, as well as some of the different benefits to consider. sodium benzoate is a preservative that is already well known and trusted in food, personal care, and pharmaceuticals that home care formulators are starting to utilize. For lower pH formulas, and that's around less than 7, and formulations that are going to be EPA Safer Choice registered, sodium benzoate may be a good fit. Sodium benzoate is a broad-spectrum preservative, which means it's effective for controlling bacteria, yeast, and mold. Some notable green benefits include nature-identical, biodegradable, and EPA Safer Choice ingredient listed. The use level is dependent on the pH, with lower pH requiring lower sodium benzoate levels, near the 0.1% level, and higher pH formulas requiring a higher use level, up to 1.25%. Since the level of preservative required is very formula-dependent, a PET challenge test should always be performed. A newer preservative technology developed for personal care products but available for use in home care contains caprylyl hydroxamic acid, or CHA, blended with different polyols and/or medium chain terminal diols. These can be a good fit when formulations need to contain all bio-based materials and the pH is between 4 and 8. Formulations containing organic acids are effective when in the undissociated acid form. CHA has a high PKA of around 9.4, which is the reason it provides efficacy above neutral pH. Spectrastat PHL is an example of one of the Spectrastat grades available based on CHA chemistry. I chose this one to review today because the components in the blend are all listed on Tosca, which means it can be used outside of personal care. In addition, it is appropriate for clear formulas, which is not the case for some of the other grades. All of the Spectrastat preservatives are broad-spectrum and biodegradable. This particular grade is 66% bio-based. Use level is dependent on the pH. With lower pH formulas requiring Spectrastat PHL near the lower end of the range at about 1.5%, formulas with a pH near the upper end of the effective range require loading at the higher end, around 3%. Again, PET challenge testing is always recommended to dial in the correct level. Phenoxyethanol meets the criteria for home care formulations with pH below 8 that need to be EPA Safer Choice registered. Although phenoxyethanol is not naturally derived, it is a broad-spectrum, biodegradable preservative with a recommended use level less than 1%. For microbial cleaning products, Novozymes recommends phenoxyethanol as being compatible with their bacillus microbes. Methylisothiazolinone, or MIT for short, and blends of MIT with methylchloroisothiazolinone, CMIT, represent another option for preservative selection when effectiveness is needed for a broad or higher pH. Although CMIT/MIT blends are effective up to pH of 8, MIT is effective over a large pH range from 2 to 12. MIT and CMIT blends provide broad-spectrum preservative efficacy, they're biodegradable and EPA Safer Choice listed. Since their use level is extremely low, we have seen them in home care products claiming to be greater than 99% bio-based. Olá, sejam bem-vindos ao Centro de Soluções de Hoanalista do laboratório de Home Care e Industrial Cleaning da Univar Solutions Brasil. Eu sou a Jeniffer Assis, analista do laboratório de HIC. Eu sou a Maria Clara Saldanha, analista do laboratório de HIC. Somos as responsáveis por realizar testes e estudos de produtos de limpeza. Aqui, fazemos sugestões de fórmulas, color match, e estudos de estabilidade térmica e sun test, que é equipamento que submete a amostra à luz de maneira constante e confiável. Aqui são sugestões de fórmulas que fazemos aqui no laboratório. Aqui são os nossos liquid tints, que são utilizados para dar cor a produtos líquidos. Aqui são os catch, que são os corantes para produtos em pó. Aqui é o sun test, nosso equipamento. Colocamos aqui dentro as amostras. Nesse equipamento, a gente avalia ele com a solidez à luz. Ele fica de maneira constante exposto à luz. A cada 6 horas no equipamento, ele dura 6 meses o produto. Além disso, também realizamos alguns testes de performance, dentre eles o de lavagem de roupas. Esses testes são conduzidos para gerar inovação, sustentabilidade e performance, a fim de substituir matérias-primas agressivas ou, em escassez, por matérias-primas mais sustentáveis. Iremos falar pouco sobre os processos de lavagem que nós utilizamos, a fim de verificar o cuidado com a roupa, a maciez e a remoção de manchas. Atualmente, no Brasil, há a tendência no crescimento da fabricação do detergente lavar roupas líquido, devido à facilidade de produção por exigir maquinário mais simples. O detergente lavar roupas em pó, ele é produto mais popular na região. Embora seja bem específico e demande bastante energia, algumas empresas já estão utilizando energia verde nesse processo. Sabemos que, nos últimos anos, o mercado tem sofrido com as altas de preço e a falta de matérias-primas bases para a produção de detergente em pó, como, por exemplo, a barrilha. Por isso, trazemos propostas com ótimo custo em uso, maior performance e disponibilidade para ser aplicado no detergente em pó. Esses testes são bem detalhados e específicos. Nós controlamos a dureza da água, temperatura, agitação, dosagem de produto por litro de água utilizado. Tudo para reproduzir ao máximo o que o consumidor vai encontrar em seu lar. Nesses testes, podemos utilizar máquinas de lavar ou o turgotômetro, que simula em pequena escala uma lavadora de roupas. Com ele, podemos reproduzir até seis lavagens de uma vez, com pouquíssimo gasto de água e mantendo a proporção de produto e tecido que seria encontrado numa lavagem convencional. É uma alternativa mais rápida e sustentável para realizarmos os testes de performance. As sujidades também são padronizadas nesse processo. Para isso, nós utilizamos manchas técnicas, como as zempas, e utilizamos manchas naturais também, que são feitas com elementos característicos da região. Por exemplo, fazemos uma mancha de sorvete com a marca popular do país. Sempre seguimos o procedimento de dosagem, forma de espalhar e tempo que essa mancha ficará impregnada no tecido antes da lavagem. Assim, conseguimos reprodutibilidade e confiabilidade nos nossos testes comparativos. Com tudo pronto e alinhado, adicionamos as manchas na térmico. Em seguida, adicionamos alguns tecidos em quantidade padronizada para servirem de carga e simularem a lavagem em domicílio Aqui temos 2 resultados de testes de performance de lavagem, comparando detergente lavar roupas com enzima e outro sem enzima. Aqui podemos ver a mancha não lavada, comparada com a mancha sem enzima, e aqui com enzima. Aqui se repete da mesma maneira: não lavada, sem enzima e com enzima. Para definir numericamente a limpeza e a eficácia dos testes, nós utilizamos o espectrofotômetro nas manchas, tanto antes quanto após a lavagem. Ele vai medir se houve uma mudança de cor e se a mancha ficou mais clara, obtendo assim dados comparativos confiáveis. Além da performance de limpeza, também podemos fazer testes de manchamento, de espuma, como podemos ver aqui na proveta, a formação da espuma no produto, entre outros testes para dar todo o suporte para o mercado de lavanderia. É importante destacar que, em nosso Centro de Soluções, nós conseguimos realizar testes específicos para outros mercados, como louça, automotivo e superfícies. Essas são algumas das capacidades do nosso Centro de Soluções de Home Care e Industrial Cleaning para trazer inovação, sustentabilidade e performance para o seu produto de limpeza. Please reach out to us to learn more about global cleaning trends driving the future of clean. Remember, your next clean innovation starts here at Univar Solutions. Thanks everyone for joining the Cleaning Solutions Around the World. Brandon Beyer is the moderator here, but I'm going to step back and ask some questions from our experts, Allison Hunter, Katarzyna Romek-Cheviron, and Jeniffer Assis. I'd like to start with Allison with a few of our frequently asked questions. Allison, what's the difference between a preservative and a disinfectant? Yes. A preservative inhibits microbial growth. That's for in-package protection to ensure consumer safety, and it can also extend the product's shelf life. A disinfectant is actually, in the U.S., regulated by the EPA and needs to be registered with the EPA. There are some EPA actives, common things that you're probably familiar with, like bleach, hydrogen peroxide, ethanol, certain quartz, and certain types of acids like lactic, hydrochloric, citric, and others. Thanks, Allison. Jeniffer, question for you. Are dye tests always submitted to SUNTEST? Yes. In Univar Solutions Brazil, we always conduct this test. It is important to know that we submit the colored product and the base without the color tube, because sometimes some color changes are from the product and not necessarily a stability issue with the colorant. In this case, we can provide all the technical support to solve it too. Thanks, Jen nifer. Kasha, or Dr. Kasha, is there some kind of hand dishwashing protocol? Actually, there is. The American Cleaning Institute came up with a set of simple guidelines in this matter. There are 5. The 1st one, it's a prep. You scrape off your food, then you fill, get some clean water, very hot, not too hot to prevent burn on your hands, and add some soap. You wash, you scrub away under the water, then you have rinse. You remove all the certain residue and dry with air dry or towel dry method. Of course, this varies from 1 household to another, but these are the official guidelines. Thanks, Kasha. Kind of going back around the horn, back to you, Allison. Enzymes are really popular now, especially in all regions, reducing water temperatures. Are there any types of preservative issues or compatibility challenges when formulating with enzymes and preservatives? Yeah. The main issue is that enzymes are not compatible with formaldehyde or formaldehyde donors. We're seeing less of those types of preservatives being used in home care anyway. The other issue to be aware is that for stability, formulation should be between pH 7 to 9. Any of the preservatives I talked about that are effective in that range can be used. Thank you. Jeniffer, what are the advantages of reducing soda ash and replacing it with enzymes in a powder detergent? To continue the dialogue around some enzyme applications. When we do this replacement, normally, we can reduce a large% of soda ash and use less enzymes. Of course, the value will depend on the% that you will put on your formulation. We talk about something around replace 10% for 0.2% as a general example. The soda ash cost is low, but it varies a lot. In many moments, these exchanges become a cost gain. Enzymes delivery are better performance, more sustainable, and gentler on hands and fabrics. Thank you. Kasha, I'm going to continue the dialogue kind of around some of these environmental impacts. One was, how can we assure that the products we're using today have a minimal impact on the environment? That seems to be a trend when it comes to the addition of enzymes. What could you say around that, please? Well, we are striving for most concentrated formulations, and that will limit the usage of water, as well as we're trying to implement green, biodegradable, plant-originated surfactant systems that are boosted with enzymes. We're going back to enzymes again. The biggest advantage is that they are efficient even in cold water to limit the energy consumption, and it allows us to enable the lowest interference with our surroundings. Thank you. Nothing says waste like throwing away an entire bottle of a product because it's gone bad without preservative. Allison, you had mentioned the importance of completing preservative efficacy challenge tests, so PET. Is that a service that Univar Solutions provides? Currently, we don't provide that service at any of our Solution Centers. However, we do have some outside labs that we partner with. If this is something that is needed for a project, we can certainly scope it into a lab service project. Just kind of adding to that, Allison, where do you see preservatives going in the next few years? Yeah. I think we'll continue to see more green preservatives with higher bio-based content coming from beauty and personal care. A good recent example, Inolex launched Spectrastat GHL, which is a 100% bio-derived preservative. It's not listed on TSCA yet, which means it can't be used outside of beauty and personal care. The other trend, I think we'll continue to see more systems used, more boosters and chelants used in combination with a primary preservative. Another example of this, LANXESS has recently introduced Emerald X7, which is a booster technology that you can use with sodium benzoate. Thanks, Allison. Preservation is about keeping a product together and not growing microbes, bacteria, whatnot. One of the other big challenges with formulation is stability. I know we have two people here in particular that are in the lab. A lot of times, stability testing with light is people making a sample and sticking a bottle in a window. Jeniffer, could you tell me, is the sun test more reliable than the window stability testing? Yes. When we submit a sample to light test using a window, we depend on sun incidence, and this varies according to the time of year, season, and even weather conditions. When we use an equipment, we are standardizing the same incidence and equally between the samples, making the test much more reliable. T hank you. I think we may have lost a little connection with Kasha, but that's okay. We'll wait till she pops back on. As a question for you, Allison, what challenges do you foresee as formulators replace older preservative technologies with new, green, bio-based versions? As you just alluded to, sometimes there can be compatibility issues when you just swap out one preservative for another, things like viscosity shifts or phase separation in your formula. At Univar Solutions, we're here to help you optimize formulas and use some of the new, greener preservative technologies. Thank you. Kasha, it looks like we've got you back. Quick question for you. Kind of one is it's a twofold question. One, historically, how did people wash their dishes before dishwashing products were invented? Coupling on to that, why would you even use a hand dishwash product versus, say, automatic dishwash? First thing, how has this always been done historically? Second, why would you ever wash things by hand where you can just stick it in a dishwasher and hit go? That's a really good question. I like this part a lot. The whole job of dishwashing began in prehistory with some spurring of pottery and utensils at the nearest water source. It could be a river, a lake. When we go further with the time, the Babylonians and the Egyptians, they already had soaps. There were mixtures to suit different purposes, apparently. They were including two or more of animal and vegetable fats, ash, some alkaline salts, as well as oils. When we move even more, and take as example the Chinese Xu Dynasty that discovered that certain plants could even be used to remove the grease, it's really impressive. A more modern example would be here that comes from the book from 1869, The American Woman. It advised against the use of soaps, as while it is very good for your hands and clothes, obviously, it's a really nasty thing to eat, right? They recommended to use baking soda instead and sugar sand for scrubbing. From prehistory to the modern times, the approach changed a lot and not so much at the same time, like I mentioned in previous households. The products that we are using, this is a completely different standard. Yes, it's sometimes tedious to do the hand dishwashing instead of just putting everything conveniently into the automatic dishwasher. We need to take into consideration that in different parts of the world, the dishwasher availability is either scarce or simply a potential user is not able to afford one. The good part is that with help in growing efficiency, we have hand dish soaps in different forms, which are suited to different needs, and they can provide the best cleanliness for our daily utensils. It's highly important as we consume food and beverages from it. Thanks, Kasha. Jeniffer, I have a question to kind of jump off of what Kasha had said. When we talk hand dish and we talk automatic dish, there's different forms of products. Some are liquid, some are gel, some are powders. We talked a bit about enzymes. Could you speak, are the enzymes used in powder products the same as those used in liquid? It's a really good question. We have liquid enzymes, and we have powder enzymes for both of or more applications in products. For powder products, for liquid products, they will have the same types of enzymes, but one in liquid and one in powder. Thank you. I want to respect everyone's time. One last question. This one's going to you, Kasha. What can the Solution Centers offer our customers in light of the increasing demands for sustainable products? Across the entire globe, in each and every Solution Center, we have a team of application specialists who are working tightly together with our technical account managers, as well as sales departments and product marketing managers to bring the most suitable solutions that are tailored for not only every need, every pocket, but also to each and every customer. Thanks to our suppliers, we have access to a vast variety of raw materials. With our knowledge and, of course, passion for novelty, we can use that for prototyping and making things as snug as a glove for every demand of our customers. Thanks, Kasha. Thanks, Allison. Thanks, Jeniffer. Thanks for everyone today for joining us for The Clean Solutions on the World, as well as this Q&A for some frequently asked questions. If you have any follow-up comments, questions, discussions, please reach out to us through univarsolutions.com. We are always happy to help. Thank you much. Welcome to Foodology by Univar Solutions. My name is Natalia, and I have here with me my colleagues, Danielle and Glyn. Hi, Natalia. Hi. Today, we're going to highlight ingredients and innovative solutions from our wide portfolio, which we will showcase a number of recipes to really target a variety of applications, including the bakery, ready meals, sauces, plant-based alternatives, dairy and beverage. We're going to showcase quite a lot today. We're all looking for healthier food for ourselves and for our families: cleaner label, reduced sugar, fat, and salt, fiber and protein fortification, and choice under the free-form and flexitarian nutritional options. Today, we're going to showcase a number of recipes which should really be great for any family and any occasion. Danielle, from a food technologist point of view, what would you like to highlight today? I suppose today is all about showcasing a full menu of product that is nutritionally optimized. The key takeaway for me is that we don't have to compromise on appearance, taste, texture, or flavor. We'll show you starters, main courses, and desserts that really hit the mark. We'll talk to you about the functional ingredients within them all, and we'll also talk about process as well. I'll hand it over to Glyn, who will talk through the menu in a little bit more detail. Thank you all. Today, we have a full menu. We have a starter, which is a plant-based prawn clean-label cocktail sauce. Main course will be a plant-based lamb kofta with an enriched-fiber pita bread and a no-added sugar chili ketchup sauce. Dessert, we have a couple of options. We have a plant-based natural alternative yogurt to yogurt and a plant-based high-protein yogurt. We also have an aerated, no-added sugar chocolate mousse to finish. Also, just to round off the whole menu, we have a mojito mocktail no-added sugar to that as well. Thank you, Glyn. Looking forward to that. Thank you. Let's look at the concept of the plant-based prawn, where we have managed to achieve really a remarkable authentic texture and flavor, which Glyn will serve with the plant-based sauce, which is clean-label and suitable for vegans. Before we go to Glyn, I'm going to ask you, Danielle, the meat analog industry really has advanced greatly in the last five-10 years. Lots of innovation has been in the marketplace. What would you say now is perhaps one of the biggest challenges for formulators? Within the last two years, especially, we can see a lot happening with innovation within the meat analog industry. A lot of people are looking maybe one or two years ahead in terms of innovation. Sometimes, a product that's being launched on shelf can seem to be a little behind the times because innovation is pushing on so much. What we're seeing is a big push away from the sausage and burgers. People are going down the route of looking for muscle texture. They're looking for that chicken breast that can compete with a normal chicken breast. They're looking for fish fillet. They're also looking for steak texture. We're really focusing on the longer, more fibrous textures and not just something like your sausage or your burger. There's a really, really big push in innovation. That has to cover a lot of different materials, which we'll talk about later on. Fabulous, yeah. Hence why we have chosen the fish alternative or prawn alternatives. Absolutely. Glyn? I have one here. This is obviously from a process perspective, this is all ingredient, key ingredients that you've mentioned are all blended together and then deposited into a prawn-shaped mould and then just set. As you can see, the color and the visual of this looks pretty realistic when you compare that to a real prawn. Yeah, yeah. It's the color, really, that really is remarkable. The smell as well. The smell in there as well, which is you've got those elements, the kind of fish flavor is in there as well. It should give you that authentic kind of visual and smell. Yeah, looks great. We'll taste it later. Yeah, Danielle, what are the key ingredients that were used to really develop this recipe? Yeah, this is a very bespoke recipe. I suppose the key thing is texture with this product. To deliver on that texture, there's a real synergy between proteins, hydrocolloids, and fibers. This formulation, especially, we've got your plant-based proteins in there. You've got your pea sorry, it's faba bean concentrate in this one. You've also got some fibers, bamboo and pea to really support with that texture as well. Then there's a stabilizer system in here as well. It's a real kind of bespoke stabilizer system to give that firm texture that we expect from something like a prawn. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. We did quickly touch on the really remarkable color here. Danielle, which exact ingredient has been used here? In this product itself, we have calcium sulfate. Calcium sulfate has a kind of gel functionality within this. Yes, it helps with the firming, but it also gives an opacity to the product as well. We don't want to have anything that's kind of off-color. We want to have that nice white, solid, opaque color, which works very well. One thing I will say, these have been hand-painted for demonstration purposes. That doesn't mean to say that this cannot be done on a larger scale. For this, yeah, but they look really realistic. We're delighted with them. Yeah, yeah. I hope you guys can actually see it through the camera. Appreciate it's difficult. Yeah, they look really authentic, just like the real thing. We will be serving it with the cocktail sauce. Absolutely, yeah, no problem. Here, we have in front of me all the key components that make the cocktail sauce. We have our kind of flavoring. We have our Dijon mustard, tomato sauce, a little bit of lemon juice, a little bit of vinegar. We have our starches here. They're slurried in the oil. We have our kind of proteins, which help thicken and bind and give you the mouthfeel. We will go through the process of how it's made. Basically, we slurry together the key functional ingredients, add those to the process, to the mixer, give those a mix for six minutes on 90 degrees. We slurry our starches with the oil so they incorporate really easily, and then whisk those into the thermomix. They're just whisked, basically, just for about 1 minute. We then add our flavorings, and then that's it. That's our cocktail sauce. The magic of TV, we have one I've made earlier. As you can see, it's finished. It looks great. It's chilled. It looks good. It's got that lovely viscosity, that oiliness that you'd expect from a mayo-based. This is obviously vegan with our flavorings in there as well. Yeah, quite smooth, quite rich, lots of body to that as well. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Indeed, yeah, it does look great. We know that it's going to taste great as well. Danielle, usually, the challenge is to replace egg in a vegan formulation. Talk us through from a functional ingredient point of view. Historically, modified starches would be used, especially for the emulsification whenever you're replacing eggs and mayos or dressings or whatever it may be. Now, we've gone down a different route. We've used faba bean concentrate. Even pea concentrate, it could be anything at all. Those proteins will do the same job as egg. They'll bind the oil, they'll bind the water, and they'll make that a really stable product. This recipe has 34% oil in it. As you can see, that's really stable in the recipe in using the proteins. Indeed, yeah. Yeah, that's right, yeah. Glyn, how have you found, actually, creating it? Because it's still quite a lot of water in this. It's 34% of oil. Absolutely. Yeah, obviously, normally, about 60% for a full-fat mayo with obviously, you use egg yolk as the emulsifier as well. With this, you're still gaining that lovely kind of viscosity, which it works really well. There's no detriment to flavor. In fact, I think it's a cleaner flavor. Oh, that's great. Yeah, yeah. I think sometimes, when you have too much oil, you can spill that too much from the mouthfeel. Yeah, it's absolutely great. Brilliant. Is it suitable to be used in a high shear environment? They're suitable for high shear and high temperature. The starches and the proteins within the recipe, the functional ingredients within this recipe, we've chosen those especially to be able to withstand those conditions. We have an instant starch in here, which is free, shear-stable, and very process-tolerant. We also have a co-texturizing starch, which is just adding to the viscosity. We're letting the instant starch do the work with the water binding and the stabilization. Then the co-texturizing starch is just giving us that really nice, creamy, indulgent mouthfeel. Great, yeah. Glyn, just quickly, how did you find substituting such a high amount of oil in this recipe? I think it works really well. I think when you look at real mayo, which is egg yolk-based and obviously 60% oil rather than, I think, it was 34%, you still get the richness, that lovely viscosity, the creaminess almost. I think you do get a cleaner kind of mouthfeel as well, which I think's really nice. You get that lovely acidity, lactic note, which works really well. Yeah, great job. Excellent. I think now it's time for you to dish up our starter. Yeah? No problem. Let's do that. Let's do it. Thank you. Okay, now we come to the assembly of the vegan cocktail, prawn cocktail. Again, it's very classic. With this one, we have our avocado, which goes in first. Very simple. We'll put in there our chiffonade of gem lettuce. Okay. Very simple. Our lovely vegan prawns. As you can see, the texture there is perfect. We've just diced these up for today just so you can see, just so they can eat a little bit easier. Okay. We have our in a piping bag, we have our lovely vegan cocktail sauce, which we're just going to sort of just pipe on top. As you can see, that lovely viscosity, see how it kind of just ripples over the top, nice and thick, not too runny. Just finish that classically, finish that off with just a little bit of cayenne pepper on top just to give it a little bit of piquancy. Just move that off there. Finish off with the old classic lemon just on the side of the glass. That's it. That's our cocktail. As you can see, very simple, very classic, but looks pretty authentic. That's the final vegan prawn cocktail. Would you like to try? You would above, of course. There you go, ladies. Thank you so much. Thank you. Enjoy. Delicious. I can see how glassy that sauce is. No, Glyn? Yeah. Works really well, doesn't it? Yeah, it really does. Yeah. Okay, we're going for it. Wow. The texture of that prawn. Yeah, just like they say, I do know it really is authentic. Got a good bite, good bounce back, just like you would expect from a prawn. The sauce, that is really good. Cuts through, doesn't it? The citric comes through really well. Yeah. A really nice melt away in the mouth as well from the co-texturizing starch. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, this sauce is absolutely spot on. Yeah, well done. Yeah. Well, well done to both of you. Yeah, absolutely. Very good to see. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. For the main course, we chose to serve plant-based lamb kofta with a fantastic, authentic meat-like taste and texture, which will be served on a high-fiber pita bread with an addition of no-added sugar chili ketchup. It's three fantastic recipes, all great in their own right. Glyn, let's take us through the recipes for the plant-based lamb kofta. Absolutely. First off, it's literally with these. They've obviously been pre-made, pre-formed. They haven't been cooked through. What I've done is just griddle them in a griddle pan. What we'll do later is put those in the oven for about three to four minutes at about 160 degrees Celsius. Brilliant. How have we achieved that great texture for the koftas? To get something so meat-like, it's not just coming from one type of ingredient. With this, there's quite a complex recipe of texturizers. I suppose the base of the recipe is our extruded pea proteins. That's both the mince and the chunk. That's to give you your succulence, your bite, your texture that would match a meat. The chunk's been added in there for just some added texture. We have our stabilizers. The stabilizers in there, they work well with the proteins, but it's giving you that bounciness, that elasticity, that fibrous texture that we would expect from meat. We've got methylcellulose in there for the hot gelling properties and some starches also just to help with yield, water binding. They're all working together there. It's not just 1 hero ingredient here. We've got them all working as a team. Brilliant. We call it plant-based lamb kofta. Talking about, is it flavorings you use or extracts? For this one, we just use extracts, natural extracts for this one. We've got a lot of different ones going on there. As I say, they're all declared as natural. What we can really do with our partner, Kalsec, is really tailor the flavor to whatever the brief is asking for. It could be herbs, spices, chili, onion, garlic, whatever it may be. Given that real kind of natural, as if you're using the ingredients themselves, balancing out all the flavors. We've used a lot in this one. Yeah. Once it's going to start cooking, once you're going to serve it, Glyn, we will in here. Yeah. When they say finish cooking, you've got almost the fat extracted from it as well, the smell of the lamb from the natural essence. They do, at the texture perspective, they do taste almost like real lamb. It works really well. Wonderful, yeah. Take us through a little bit of the process of that. What's going to happen next, yeah? Next, obviously, these are going to go into the oven for three to four minutes. Then at the end of the session, we're going to present those in a pita as a finished product. Wonderful. What about the color of this product? Color's really important, especially when you're giving the appearance of a meat-like product. Looking at that, I think that that's lamb. I look and that's what you would expect to see from a lamb kofta. The natural colours from Kalsec, again, that we've used in here has really given us the visual that we need. We've used beetroot. Beetroot helps give us that red colour, especially in the raw state. Then the malt extract, which is also considered to be natural, has given us that brown colour. That is heat-stable. We'll see that even in the cooked product. Very authentic-looking. The versatility of these ingredients is really remarkable. It's really moved on now in the last couple of years. Now we have our no-added sugar sweet chili ketchup. I have all the ingredients here in front of me. I can talk those briefly through with you, just a brief overview. We have all our functional ingredients, our starches, added sweeteners. We have our tomato purée to give that body and depth as well and the color, the vinegar, and our fresh chilies and a little bit of water just to obviously help it liquidize. From a method perspective, we add the chili, the vinegar, and the tomato purée into the thermomixer. We blend that until super smooth. We add all our other ingredients, but first, obviously, slurry the starch with the water. We raise that to 95 degrees and let that cook for at least 25 minutes. Obviously, for today, we've obviously got one made. We've pre-made earlier. Chef Glyn, show us the no-added sugar ketchup. Here's one, obviously, we've made earlier. As you can see, you've still got that ketchup-like texture and viscosity. Good depth of flavor. You've got almost like the flecks of the chili in there as well, obviously, from your fresh chilies. Yeah, great ketchup viscosity. That works really well. Super. Of course, let's just talk a little bit more about no-added sugar whatsoever because sugar is such an integral part of any ketchup. How have you found it formulated for that? I think the beauty of this is it works superbly well. You associate a real ketchup, obviously, really full-on sugar, full-fat, everything else. I don't think you notice it in this as much. I think because it's got chili in there as well, it sort of masks it slightly. I think it delivers really well from viscosity, the sweetness, the acidity that you associate with a good ketchup. Wonderful. Yeah. Danielle, hero ingredients, what are they? There's actually quite a lot going on here from the starches and the sweeteners. I'll talk you through the starches first. On this base, we've used tapioca. We've used a tapioca starch. That's given us that luster texture that we would see a little bit less of a viscosity versus a cornstarch. It works really, really well in condiments. Clean, isn't it? Just gives it. Yes, yes, it does. It gives you a really nice mouthfeel as well, tapioca. We've also backed that up with one of our cotexturizing tapioca starches. In this case, we've used modified starches, it can be clean labelled, again. These are really, really heat-stable, free, soil-stable. Tick all the boxes. Then to sweeten it up. The sugar's been taken out. As I said before, sugar is a very, very important part of a formulation, not just for sweetness, for body as well and mouthfeel. With this recipe, we've built it back in. We've used erythritol again, which is zero calories. It's coming in a granulated form. It's bringing in body and a little bit of sweetness. Then what we've done is we've boosted the sweetness with alpha from PureCircle, which is one of our premium steviol glycosides, so helping us achieve that no-added sugar claim. Then what we've added into the end is one of our secret ingredients. Not really a secret. Now I've shared it with you all, but our NSFs. That supports with masking. We don't want any of the bitterness coming through. It also helps just improve that sweetness, just building up to it as well. For me, I don't see any difference whenever you use those all in synergy. Let's give it a go. This is our high-fiber pita bread, which is going to accompany our kofta and our sweet chili ketchup. I have all the ingredients again in front of me. Here we have our functional flours, high-protein flour, normal bread flour, yeast for the fermentation, oil, a little bit of sweetness there. We're using a bit of agave for this pita bread, a little bit of seasoning, and obviously, water. Normally, this would take between an hour and a half to make, about 10 minutes to make the dough itself. Obviously, we've got an hour to proof and also another 20 minutes to sort of let it settle. Normally, you'd mix your flours, functional flours, seasoning, yeast, mix that all together. Then you would add your warmed water, liquid. Add your oil and your agave. Give that a good mix on a Kenwood mixer or any mixer with a hook attachment and let that mix until you've got elasticity there and you've got a little bit when you press the dough itself, you've got a little bit of bounce. Then you'd take that off and then let that proof for about an hour. After that, you would then take out the dough itself, form it into 50 g balls, roll it into pita shapes, and then ideally place those onto almost a preheated tray with maybe some grease-proof paper and bake them for about, I'd say, about six to eight minutes on 180-200 degrees Celsius. Then you end up with basically a lovely roasted pita, baked pita. Brilliant. Hero ingredients, Danielle. High-fiber? Yeah, the two ingredients that are worth a mention in this product are the high-fiber cornstarch. That's just a mixture of a process-tolerant cornstarch with an insoluble fiber. It's really, really supporting. You get that high-fiber claim quite easily. We have our citrus fiber. That's all about supporting the processability. You don't want it to be too sticky. You want it to work quite well. You really need to make it malleable, yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Also, it helps keep it softer through life. It really supports with the shelf life. Brilliant. How have you found working on this particular product? I think there's not much difference, in all fairness. I mean, you're getting that richness, that kind of fiber element. I think it doesn't have any effect at all, really. I think it makes it it's the same. You take a percentage of the flour out, obviously, to replace that. I think it works really well. One thing I would like to mention as well that's not been used here today, but if you wanted to have even a longer shelf life, we have some enzymes within our portfolio, so from our Valena range, that work really well with high-fiber products. Even improving the texture a little bit longer, really extending the freshness on that through life. There's other things we've got up our sleeve as well, so. Fantastic. Sustainability, healthy conscious, yeah, healthy nutrition, ticks all around? All the boxes, yeah. Three delicious recipes coming into one main course, very healthy plant-based kofta. Indeed, yeah. I'm going to assemble that right now. First and foremost, I'm going to get the kofta out of the oven, which I've reheated. I'll just take that out of the oven now. That's had three or four minutes in the oven. I'm looking forward to trying that. As you can see, you've got the because it's reheated through now, you've got all the juices. It almost looks like natural juices from the kofta itself and the fat itself. They look beautiful, lovely color as well. Now it comes to the assembly of it. It's very simple. We're going to place our lettuce, a little bit of lettuce, a little bit of gem lettuce in there. I think, right, you said that you wouldn't like red onions in yours, is that right? No onions for me, Chef. Thank you. Yeah, I'll pass on that. We'll make sure of that. Let's put a few of those tomatoes in there. Oh, I can smell the aroma of that coming. Yes, wonderful. Then we're going to drizzle a little bit of our sugar-free ketchup. Don't be shy with that, Chef. I'll have. A little bit more tomato? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Let's put plenty on for you then. Wonderful, yeah. Then. Then a little drizzle of the ketchup, our chili ketchup. Yeah, wonderful. Okay, that's that one. We'll try. Hopefully, that'll sit nicely there. Yeah. Danielle, as Chef is dishing this up, obviously, we demonstrate these technologies in the kofta format specifically. Would it work in some other formats too? Absolutely. What we do is we take each brief as it comes, and then we come up with a spoke solution. Yes, absolutely, the stabilizer systems, they might need to be tweaked slightly, just depending on the texture that you want. The base of the protein mince and the protein chunk, along with the methylcellulose, are definitely used a lot. We're just tweaking the texturizers there just to give you that desired texture, whatever it may be. Wonderful. Yeah. What about the sauces as well? Yeah, this one would be easier. You have the sweeteners there for the body and the taste. Yeah, that could be replicated in a lot of different sauces. What do you think then? Absolutely. Yeah. I think with this as well, yeah, you can use a vegan yogurt, which is incorporate a little bit of fresh coriander in there, a bit of mint, a bit of cumin. Yeah, you can diversify a little bit. You can make more of a Greek style. You can put olives in there if you wanted to as well. These are a little bit messy. I can pass them over to you. That's fine, yeah. We do have some messiness here. I'll pass them over to you. You've got serviettes there. We do, indeed. Thank you. Oh, sorry, that's in Italian. No, no, no. I'm not sure. Sorry. Yep, my mistake. Now we'll have the first one. Then one with plenty of tomatoes. Chef, that looks delicious. Okay, enjoy. We're ready to go here. Yes, isn't the color looking really good there? You can see the brown cooked color. It just looks so authentic. Just mind it isn't spilled onto your clothes. Wow. I think, Chef, that is absolutely spot on. What I love about the kofta itself is the juices that are in there. It almost feels like you're eating something really meaty, real meat. Absolutely, yeah. For me, I would really struggle if it was a blind test. Even on a remote, it looks exactly like the meat. Absolutely, yeah. It's so close, doesn't it? Brilliant job then. Fantastic. Yeah, I'm glad you enjoyed it. Yeah, right. Yeah, the chili ketchup as well for me, it's that little spiciness in that. Yeah, the whole smells feel it. Absolutely. Round it. Just the whole thing comes together. Yeah, yeah, definitely. True synergies, isn't it? Absolutely. Delicious. Thank you. Pleasure. No problem at all. Thank you, Chef. Now for the desserts. We have a selection of two plant-based yogurts here. Both of them are protein-enriched. One is showcasing the enzyme technology applicable for the dairy alternatives. The other will focus on the sugar reduction, so nutritional optimization through sugar reduction. Both will be served by Glyn with the fruit prep with no added sugar. Thank you. Danielle, talk us through the very first one. Talk us through the enzyme technology that we wanted to showcase. No problem. With the first yoghurts, we've added an enzyme called Galaya Smooth. That's a mild protease. What that will do is it will hydrolyze the proteins within that mix, and that will add a lot of viscosity to the yoghurt. We don't want it to be too thick, too claggy, have a sandiness or a grittiness. Our Galaya Smooth enzyme really supports with a desirable texture, keeps it really glossy, and gives it that nice spinnable texture that we would expect from a standard yoghurt. I suppose another thing to mention is the enzyme is clean labeled. It's a process-enached, so it could not be more clean labeled. Yeah, it really, really helps give a real spinnable texture and also drinkable in fermented products, either dairy or dairy alternatives. Let's actually ask Glyn to maybe show us the smoothness of that because it's really quite remarkable. I mean, when you look at this on a plate and you smooth that across, it is literally silky smooth. There is no grain. There's no graininess, no lumps in there at all. As you can see, it's absolutely silky. That looks great. Machined to it as well. It's exactly what we'd like to see, that glossiness. Sometimes we can get that grittiness, as I mentioned. It's heavy. No, that's what the enzyme does. Perfect. This is the plant-based recipe, but I believe it can be used in the traditional dairy as well. Absolutely. The enzyme will do exactly the same job to the dairy proteins. It'll hydrolyze those. There's also sometimes a cost saving in dairy because it can lead us down the road of using cheaper milk protein isolates rather than the really expensive ones as well. Yeah, it's worth looking at as well. Brilliant. Where in the process should it be added? We would usually say to add in with the culture at the fermentation stage. Yeah, that would be our go-to. Yeah, yeah. You mentioned that the yogurts will be pasteurized. Does it affect the clean label? Do you need to show that at the back of the pack? No. Traditionally, the pH within the enzyme will inactivate it. That means it won't actually be active in the finished product. It is a process-enached, so it doesn't need to be declared. Now let's look at the second yoghurt. Again, plant-based, again, protein-enriched. Here we really wanted to showcase the reduction of sugar. Danielle, talk us through what have we used to create, really, that great recipe. The basis of this recipe is our protein isolate. That's got about 80% protein in there. The good thing about that is it's got really low flavor. We don't have those pulse notes coming through. Also, we've got our rice starch. That's adding to the color. It's giving us that nice white color that we've achieved there today. It's process-tolerant as well, free salt stable. I suppose, talking about sugar reduction, we've used our NSFs. That's natural stevia flavorings. They're FMPs. What that means is they just support with sweetness. It's like a sweetness enhancer. They're not declared as a sweetener. They are declared as a natural flavoring. It just helps with the overall delivery of the sweetness within the product. Great, yeah. Just to clarify, it is not entirely sugar-free, is it? Because you need that for fermentation. Yeah, there's a little bit of sugar in there. It's sugar-reduced. Yeah, yeah. When it comes down to dishing it all up, the fruit prep will actually be sugar-free. Absolutely, yeah. Just the low-fat and high-protein yogurt is not something entirely new on the market. What makes this particular recipe so unique? I suppose, going back to what we said before, it's lovely and smooth and glossy. We've achieved the same kind of texture as we have with the enzyme technology. We don't want it to be too thick. It works really well along with the fruit prep. It's not claggy. It's what we would expect from even a dairy yogurt as well. It's very comparable in texture and taste. Indeed, yeah, with a versatile ingredient, yeah. Glyn, I guess over to you. Would you like to dish it up, or would you like to actually talk us through a little bit about the fruit prep? Absolutely, I can do, yeah. I mean, the blueberry compote or the fruit prep, as you call it's a simple recipe. Obviously, we're using frozen blueberries, a blueberry compote, almost purée. It's cooked slowly in the thermomix for about 90 degrees for about 10 minutes. Again, as you can see, we're using all the key ingredients, all those lovely ingredients that give you the viscosity and the gloss and the mouthfeel. If I move over to here, you can see just on the camera, it looks beautiful and glossy and natural. It'll just complement the actual yoghurt itself really well. No added sugar, which is a bonus. You've got a lovely, healthy product to complement this lovely, silky, lactic natural yoghurt, vegan natural yoghurt. Yeah. Thank you, yeah. As Glyn now dishes it up, makes it look beautiful, would you highlight any key ingredients here? Absolutely. To achieve the new added sugar claim with this compote, there is erythritol in there. Erythritol would be one of the key ingredients here because it builds back in the body. When you take away sugar, you're not just taking away sweetness. You're taking away the body. Erythritol, zero calories, but it comes in granular form. We add that in for body. It's about 60% as sweet as sugar. There we have to boost that. That's when our lovely PureCircle Reb M comes into play. That's our most sugar-like steviol glycoside. There's a real synergy between erythritol and Reb M just to deliver body and sweetness. It's very good for replacing sugar. We also have within here some of our HOMECRAFT Create flour. Tapioca flour, very process-stable, works really, really well. Then again, we have the co-texturized starches just to give us that lovely mouthfeel. As you said, there's the synergies of ingredients, which I suppose what inspires you as a food technologist, really, to work on certain briefs. Yeah, our portfolio is very good for that because we have a lot. We can pull it all together and just really give you a final solution. Yeah. Glyn, let's give it a try. Yeah, let's try it. Yeah, I mean. Yeah, which one shall we try first? Maybe the one with Galaya Smooth? Yeah, try it one first. Yeah, yeah. Let's go. Again, here we are looking at the smoothness of that, yeah? Yeah, absolutely, yeah. Technology. I mean. I think for a healthy vegan diet. Yeah, it looks beautiful. It's so smooth. There is no graininess whatsoever on that. Yeah, actually, I will have a little bit more of the prep. I'm going straight in there. Yeah, just for me, the key thing is the grittiness and the sandiness. I don't have any of that at all. Smooth, yeah. It's very smooth, isn't it? If you talk about the compote or the fruit prep, the sweetness is there. The key thing to mention is the stevia that we have and the stevia that was used there. People think stevia. They think metallic, better aftertaste. The BioConversion Reb M, very, very sugar-like with no aftertaste at all. No, I'm delighted with that. It's great. I think that throws a very clean flavor. Really nice, really good. Indeed, yeah. I love the culinary touch there. It's simple. Well done. Yeah, just a little touch. Wonderful, yeah. Let's now go for the second one. Yep, right. Here, the reduction of sugar. This is what we're looking for. Go for it, Danielle. Thank you. Because that has a different base, a different protein base. You can hear. Again, the pea protein does not give us any of the peanuts that we would expect. Delicious. For me, it's fantastic. Also, the NSF that I had mentioned, the natural stevia flavoring, is not only giving you a little bit of sweetness there, but it's masking. It's got masking technology. That protein, it's also being masked there as well. It's got a jewel functionality. Again. Just complementary jewel, is it? Absolutely. Really, really, really happy with these two recipes. Gorgeous. That's why we brought them here today. Thank you. Great product. Thank you. We have one extra dessert here. This time, it's not vegan. We're focusing here on a traditional dairy, an aerated chocolate mousse. Using one of quite special hero ingredients here. Danielle, what is that? Yeah, today we'll be showcasing a chocolate that's been produced using our Valio high protein, low lactose skim milk powder. The chocolate itself is 30% reduced sugar. Glyn then has put together a chocolate mousse. Yeah, it's delicious. Looking forward to testing it, Glyn. I've taken the chocolate itself and melted it completely over a bain-marie of water and then you can add an infusion of an espresso coffee or a liqueur or other things, orange, raspberry. For today, I've used a little bit of espresso. We've taken that down to 15 degrees in temperature and then added that to a spoon of gum. You get that aeration in the mousse. You get a real light, fluffy kind of mousse with a hint of espresso in the background. Okay, so now I'm going to just pipe the chocolate mousse. As you can see, you have a beautiful kind of almost like a soufflé of foamy kind of chocolate. What I'm going to do is garnish that with a little bit of our grated chocolate, our sugar-reduced, just on top. Very simple. Then just a few little raspberries on top just to garnish. As you can see, that is actually holding really well, nice and firm. Also, there you go. It's simple. Guys, would you like to try this? See what you think? Wow. There you go. See what you think. These are perhaps the best perks of the job. I promise that our lovely crew will actually be trying some of these. I mean, have a look at this aeration. Just superb. Glyn, for you make this kind of product all the time. Was it okay with the sugar-reduced chocolate? Absolutely, yeah. You try that now and see what you think. I mean, it's just got that richness. It's still got the chocolatey notes and still got sort of a natural sweetness. Aeration as well. Did a good job there. Extremely light this is. It feels healthy, but it's almost indulgent at the same time. You still have that sweetness coming through, so. Yeah, you said it. Yeah, it's a healthy indulgence, which is, yeah, what we all need. Yeah, very balanced flavor as well. Yeah, absolutely. I've did all of that, I think. Glyn, superb. Thank you. Danielle, great work on the recipe. Thank you. Absolutely. Brilliant. What a better way to end today's session than with a refreshing drink of no alcohol, no added sugar mojito. Glyn, pour us a glass. Absolutely, no problem. Whilst Glyn is serving it, Danielle, what are the hero ingredients that you would like to call out? We've got two different ingredients in here. We have our steviol glycoside, which is the Bio Reb M. As I mentioned before, this is our most sugar-like steviol glycoside. It really helps with getting the no-added sugar claim. Plus, we don't have any of the afternotes that people always say. If you say stevia, they say, "Oh, bitterness, metallic aftertaste." We don't have any of that with the Reb M. And we also have the NSF, which is our natural stevia flavoring, declared as natural flavoring, but really helps in the buildup to the sweetness and also the lingering notes as well. Working together just to give you a full sugar replacement. Fabulous, yeah. Okay, ladies. Thank you very much, Glyn. It has been our absolute pleasure to be presenting our healthy menu today. We hope that we have really hit, really targeted some of your challenges and gave you some inspiration. With this, cheers, guys. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Oat milk is still the key growth driver within the plant-based dairy market. Working with our suppliers, Novozymes, we can offer you liquefaction and saccharification enzymes to help you achieve your desired viscosity and also your desired sweetness. That could be a low sweetness, a medium sweetness, or a high sweetness, or no added sugar. I also want to mention some of our proteases in our range. These will help you hydrolyze the protein and achieve a protein claim in your oat milk. Feel free to reach out to myself or your regional account manager, we will be more than happy to help you develop your oat milk. Thank you. Hi, welcome to Foodology by Univar Solutions. I have here with me two of our Europe, Middle East, and Africa technical team. Myself and Danielle had the pleasure of presenting our live session with Glyn to you just now. I'm delighted to welcome Alan O'Donnell. Hi, Alan. Hello. Hi. Alan is Technical Sales Manager, has over 26 years of experience in the food and beverage industry, whilst Danielle has got very close to 15 years, very experienced team here we have with us today. What we will now discuss is some of the pertinent challenges, some of the questions which our teams are being asked throughout the time that we have been working with our business partners, with our customers on formulating for healthy nutrition. Let's start talking about stevia. Danielle, I'm going to address this question to yourself. There was a lot mentioned about stevia during our webinar, and it all sounds really interesting. stevia has never really worked in the past because of the undesirable off-taste. How are these products different now? How do they work? In the past, stevia would have mostly been Reb A because Reb A within the stevia leaf is the most common steviol glycoside. It was widely available. That's where the bitter aftertaste and the metallic notes kind of stem from, is the Reb A. A lot of people still have the opinion that stevia itself has those notes. What PureCircle have done is they've really pushed on innovation when it comes to stevia. They've extracted more steviol glycosides from the stevia leaf itself, which has then given us the opportunity to use products like Reb M, but also their bespoke blends. We now have blends from the PureCircle range like Delta, like Alpha. We also have the BioConversion Reb M as well, which is going to become readily available across U.K. and Europe within coming years, if not already signed off and ready to use. Yeah, something that has had a reputation for bitter afternotes and quite metallic. Now we've got really premium steviol glycosides that we know are very like sugar. We can replace sugar. We can get no-added sugar claims from our steviol glycosides, the sweeteners themselves. PureCircle also have a range of NSFs, which are natural stevia flavorings, declared as natural flavorings. We would consider them to be sweetness improvers. They work so well with the steviol glycosides themselves. If you want to build up to the sweetness, an NSF can help with that. They can also deliver on dairy notes or specific fruit notes. They can also help with salt reduction as well. They're so versatile across all applications. They also help hold onto the sweetness. It's not just that sweet hit that we get, builds up, and then lets it go away slowly. We can really replace sugar by using these natural sweeteners. They've really pushed on the market. For all applications, we have a solution for you. I think that's the key point that Danielle is making there. Previous incarnations of stevia, the Reb A, allowed us to reduce sugar by about 30%. Now, depending on the application, we can get full sugar replacement with these new generation products. Massive advances. Excellent. You can see the excitement of the technical team when talking about this wide portfolio of all different stevia, which really should be just right for whichever project you're working on. Let's now talk about the dairy yogurt and especially the protein enrichment. One customer, for example, has a high-protein dairy yogurt, which is too thick. They're looking to develop 15% protein. This is a really interesting challenge to solve. If they use the enzyme, will this be stable through its shelf life? Alan, what would you say? Okay, will the enzyme be stable through shelf life? The enzyme will have done its job upfront, and the enzyme is deactivated. It's not present in the final product. It will absolutely do a job in terms of reducing that viscosity. What it will also do because a large part of that viscosity results in water-holding capacity. What we don't want as we go through shelf life is syneresis or that water coming out of the food system. There will be still enough viscosity there to hold onto the water. The beauty of the Galaya Smooth that you saw in the earlier piece, it's not a full protease. It's a mild serine protease. It has very, very specific sites of action. You don't get a full breakdown of your protein. It's just a partial hydrolysis of your protein, which also means that you don't get the bitterness associated with other proteases. Thank you, Alan. This product is by one of our strategic supply partners, Novozymes. It's a pleasure working with their enzymes and enzyme solutions across so many different applications. Let's now talk about that plant-based lamb kofta and prawns as well, the plant-based products, which we have just now showcased during the culinary session. Danielle, a question to you. Are the proteins in these two products enough to achieve this meat-like texture? Or do you need the stabilized systems and hydrocolloids? I would say the proteins are highly functional. Our range of proteins really lend to that, giving us texture, water-binding, emulsification, whether that's our concentrates, our isolates, or our extruded proteins. They work really, really well together. What I will say, to really drive this on and look at the products now that are launching in store to give us specific textures to match the prawn, to match the lamb kofta, I really do believe there's a real synergy between the hydrocolloids, the fibers, and the proteins. I do think it's essential to build them all into your blend just to help you tweak as well. We have people now looking even further ahead at muscle texture like steak, chicken breast, whatever it may be. There, again, we need to be looking at fibers and hydrocolloids as well as our protein. When we're talking about healthy eating and wellness and all that kind of thing, of course, protein is where we want to be looking at and focusing at. To give that extra kind of bite and texture, especially at a hot cook or whatever it may be, adding in those other products really pushes it on. I think we're going to see more of that in the future as well, not just the proteins. Absolutely, yes. Talking about sugar reduction, such a wide and very pertinent topic crosses again a number of applications. We have talked about sugar reduction in beverages and in chocolate, for instance. Alan, could the sugar reduction be achieved in other applications, not just chocolate, using this skimmed milk powder in particular? Can this be declared lactose-free? From Valio, yes, they can be declared lactose-free. It can easily be used to either make a lactose-free claim where you have skimmed milk powder or a whole milk powder, but not only lactose-free, sugar reduction as well. What we are doing here is we're hydrolyzing the lactose into its constituent monosaccharides, glucose and galactose, which are sweeter than the original lactose. That gives us the opportunity to reduce the added sugar thereafter. Interestingly, I also have another customer that uses this product simply to get rid of an allergen. They're using it in a bakery application where they previously had used the standard skimmed milk powder simply for the reason to get rid of an allergen. Multiple functionalities from this range. Thank you, indeed. Such a versatile product. Let's talk about flavor. I hope that watching our session now, you could tell how much Danielle and myself enjoyed those recipes that Glyn has recreated. Flavor is such an important aspect of the longevity of the brand. Danielle, are the flavor extracts actually natural, and can they be declared as such? Yes. We're very lucky to have Kalsec who have such an amazing range of natural extracts. That's ranging from anything from our garlic, our onion, our alliums, right through to herbs, spices, chillies. Not just one chilli. They've got a full range. Yeah, and considered to be natural. We've got extracts that can be declared as so. Really, really diverse portfolio of extracts. What's also great about Kalsec as well is that they can offer some bespoke blends. They've come up with their own blends as well, whether it's an Asian blend. If necessarily you wanted something specific, then we can look at bespoke blends. They'll do the work with us to deliver on a project. Yeah, natural extracts. What I will say as well that really complements the natural extracts is the other products that we actually sell from Kalsec as well. That's the natural antioxidants and natural colors. They all complement each other. No, we're really excited to be working with them as our new partner. Yeah. It's natural all the way there. No problem. Yeah. Great. And it really, really helps to deliver just the right, that authentic experience that a brand owner would be looking for when formulating a recipe. Talking about the starches and their functionality. In this ketchup recipe, Alan, we have used the modified starches. Which clean label alternatives do we have? Okay. What we've used is we've used a modified tapioca starch. We've used two different starches, one for base viscosity and one for that mouthfeel, so almost to build the body back up when we took the sugar out. In terms of clean label alternatives, we would have clean label alternatives to both of them. I mean, tapioca-based, our NOVATION 3600 would work well. We'd also probably put in a NOVATION Indulge 3920, which, interestingly, would have the same ingredient declaration as the NOVATION 3600. Instead of where you've got two ingredients, you would only have one declaration on the back of pack. It would be tapioca starch or starch. Yes, we could replace both of those starches with a clean label alternative. Again, this is where we'd have a conversation with our customer as to what they actually want to achieve, what claim they want to make on pack. There are other ingredients in there. stevia, for example, as natural as it is, does carry an E number. If the customer wanted to make a full additive-free claim, we just have to have a sensible conversation with them about that because there are other ingredients that maybe we can't offer clean label. Thank you. I guess one of the questions we're quite often asked is, "Do you have the recipe? Can you share this recipe with me? Because I have really enjoyed this concept which you have just now presented to me." My answer is, "Yes, recipes are valuable." Alan, what is usually our approach on that? What I would say is that depending on where you're watching this webinar from, please contact your local account manager or your local technical sales manager. We will have different portfolios and access to different ingredients depending on which country you're watching in from. Just reach out to your local Foodology account manager or technical sales manager, and we'll absolutely be able to help you with recipes. Alan, Danielle, thank you to our listeners. It's been an absolute pleasure presenting to you this particular session. We are looking forward to hearing from you with more questions, more discussions, more engagement. Let's continue to innovate together. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Hello. My name is Brandon Beyer. I manage a global team of customer-facing technical professionals within the household and institutional cleaning vertical at Univar Solutions. Welcome to Green Does Clean. Today, we're going to talk about a few topics. What is green? Why do we care? The big question, do green solutions actually clean? Cleaning touches almost every part of your day. Whether you're doing laundry or washing dishes, cleaning is woven into our daily routines. Laundry and dishes are familiar to everyone. Those of us in the cleaning industry spend a lot of time also thinking about and defining hard surfaces, which can be wide and varied. They can be horizontal or vertical, made of wood, tile, steel, etc. They could be located in bathrooms, kitchens, driveways, the siding of your home, or the inside of a car. Regardless of where or what you are cleaning, green and sustainable solutions are impacting you even if you were unaware. These products go down the drain and can impact wastewater and ultimately our lakes, rivers, and streams. Cold-water washing requires less energy, which has an impact on the energy grid. 1X products have been concentrated to 2X, 4X, 10X, or even 100% and are now commonly delivered in reusable and recyclable packaging. Green cleaning is here, and it is part of your everyday life. Why do we care? The information age has created an increasingly educated and demanding customer. Whether these are formulators at the bench or end-use consumers, the future of cleaning needs to respond to this high level of base knowledge. What do customers want from their cleaning solutions? They want cleaner clean or maximum cleaning efficacy from their products. The products need to be safe, cost-effective, and easy to use. They need to be green and delivered in eco-friendly packaging. Labeling transparency is also important. Finally, customers love multifunctionality in their products. Much of this list either directly or indirectly impacts what we call green cleaning. If we were to move with the industry trend and consumer requirements, we need to take this topic seriously. When it comes to green cleaning, there are a lot of questions and challenges for a chemist or formulator. The household and industrial cleaning team at Univar Solutions is confronted multiple times a week with some iteration of the following request: "I want to go green," or "I need my products to be more sustainable." It's an important but often vague request. We're tasked with turning green and sustainable into an actual actionable product. That starts with the definition. What is green? Green means different things to different people. What does green mean to you? Do you literally just see the color of green with some molecules floating around? Does it evoke imagery of plants, flowers, and essential oils? Perhaps it is a vision of your home as a sanctuary with very strong spa vibes. To me, green cleaners are the farm-to-table approach to an industry I have devoted almost 20 years. That makes traditional cleaners a bit more akin to cheap fast food. They are effective, but they come with some baggage. More on that in a minute. Green cleaning has also become a popular topic among influencers or cleanfluencers, as I like to call them. You do not need to search long to find a cleaning hack based on using baking soda, vinegar, and lemons. These can actually work in some applications, and it opens our dialogue up to the actual contents of a green, sustainable product. When it comes to chemistry, green has a few core characteristics: no phosphates, no chlorine, fragrance-free, no pigments or dyes, and bio-based. We have some basics about what might be in a green product and how green is perceived as a concept, but we have not yet defined it. I believe it is important to set a baseline definition. Why? The first reason is to prevent greenwashing. Greenwashing is a real threat to consumers. Greenwashing is a process of conveying a false impression or misleading information about the environmental impact of a product. It can be used to overemphasize the sustainable aspects of a product while ignoring deleterious environmental baggage. It is often performed through environmental imagery, vague and misleading labels, and ultimately attempts to capitalize on the growing demand for nature-friendly solutions. This is why we spend some time asking, "What images and concepts do you associate with green?" It allows you to identify your own bias and make informed decisions when selecting products and ingredients. Is the solution you're choosing really green, or is it cleverly marketed to play on your built-in perceptions? A second reason we need a definition for green is to prevent green confusion. Green confusion is a result of the lack of a single set standard for green, sustainable products. There are myriad green labels to delight and confuse: Safer Choice, RSPO, Ecocert, Nordic Swan, etc. There are just as many green terms, inherently or readily biodegradable: bio-based, reusable feedstocks. With no set international standard to define green, what do we do? At Univar Solutions, our answer is to set down a series of parameters for how we can talk about green and sustainable products with customers and suppliers alike. Univar Solutions has defined the following sustainable product characteristics: natural or bio-based, carbon footprinting, safer substitutes, circular materials, social impact accreditation, environmental accreditation. Each product characteristic is supported by evidence from suppliers, often third-party, at the product level. To be transparent, each sustainable product at Univar Solutions will be characterized in this framework. This is the first step, as product sustainability emerges in chemicals and ingredients. We have a definition. Do these products and chemistries actually work? Does green clean? Let's talk a bit about cleaning. Allow me to introduce the Sinner Circle. It was developed in 1959 by Herbert Sinner and is a simple and elegant way to describe the levers in cleaning. The circle illustrates the four main physical factors of cleaning. Chemistry is usually the cleaning solution. Temperature affects the efficacy of the cleaning solution. Mechanical action is the physical power exerted to scrub away a soil. The exposure of time impacts all three factors. At the center of Sinner Circle is our universal solvent, water. This visual is a useful way to depict the nuances of cleaning. Let's look at examples from laundry. Sinner Circle can capture the differences between advanced laundry application, which is depicted by the image on the left, or traditional basin washing, which is illustrated on the right. The traditional approach is inherently green. Time is however long you need to get a garment clean. Mechanical action is sweat equity. Temperature is determined by nature. The chemistry is a minor component. The advanced laundry approach is what we are really talking about today. There is substantial reliance on chemistry to drive cleaning. Per our topic today, that chemistry needs to have a favorable ecological profile, enable less energy use, and the faster it works, the less energy is needed to drive a laundry wash wheel. It is not all chemistry, though. Green cleaning can also be driven almost exclusively through water levers. Heating water requires a lot of energy. Whether we're talking about a laundry application, dish, or car wash, reducing the need for hot water is a win for a more sustainable future. This is not always easy, as reducing temperatures and maintaining cleaning performances requires innovation and testing. Simply turning down the temperature of the water is a potential green solution. A second lever is the amount of water required to rinse a product or soil from a surface. There are some obvious limitations to this lever based on the application. We are not going to find a way to reduce the water required to rinse an entire car down to a single drop. Through technologies like rinse aids, the amount of water required and the speed at which it sheds from a surface can be reduced. A final example is water content within the products themselves. This is the essence of compaction. Supply chain leaves its own environmental impact. Shipping drums and totes of products that are predominantly water never feels great. In the ideal scenario, we're shipping highly concentrated products with little to no water. Without making a single new chemistry, there is room to grow into more environmentally friendly product usage simply by lowering water temperatures and reducing water content. However, if that is where we stopped, I can confidently say that green would not clean. Reducing temperatures needs some help to maintain performance. When we take a deeper look at green cleaning chemistry, it is important to remember it does not have to be an all-or-nothing approach. If you're starting on the more traditional side of the spectrum with nonylphenols and phosphates, you have a great cleaner but one with some environmental baggage. Do you need to go all the way to enzymes and microbes in a single formulation leap? No. Green cleaning can be and often is a journey. Moving from synthetic to natural, non-biodegradable to readily biodegradable, from synthetic feedstocks to natural, renewable feedstocks can all be steps towards green cleaning. Green solutions often suffer from challenges in perception, which is the whole point of my talk today. Do these products clean? Are they too expensive? Are they really green, or is it all marketing? How can you tell the difference from a more sustainable cleaner versus a purely synthetic option? Two visually identical products can have wildly different ecological profiles and performance. Laundry offers a great opportunity to illustrate just how far the innovations in green cleaning have come. How do we prove that one solution performs better than another? How do people like my colleagues and myself develop and test laundry products? The answer? We do laundry. We do lots of laundry. The difference between what you all do every day and what we do in lab is the addition of soil swatches. These are preset stains that allow us to measure the efficacy of a cleaning solution. When we are comparing a traditional laundry cleaner to a green cleaner, this is the crucible through which these products must pass. If our green solution does not remove chocolate, grass stains, body soils, makeup, or any soil you can imagine, it is not a viable option. With the addition of enzymes to the classical laundry package of surfactants, dispersant polymers, and chelants, these green laundry solutions perform as well, if not better, than the laundry products from decades previous. Does green clean? When it comes to laundry, absolutely. However, I've only talked about laundry. To be completely transparent, that is because it is one of our best examples of successful green cleaning. Green does clean, but there are gaps in some applications, gaps that are closing as new chemistries arrive every day. Old chemistries are being remade from alternative feedstocks. You have traditional chemistry or the same molecule, which may have come from petrochemicals in the past, being generated via bio-based pathways today. Enzymes continue to redefine what can be done at reduced temperatures. Microbes and the surge in microbial cleaners give access to continuous cleaning. These products can continue to work and clean hours and days after they are applied. Does green clean? Yes. Does it depend on the application and how well it cleans? Absolutely. This makes our job both important and fun. We, as an industry, need to close the gap where performance is lacking and continue to drive improvements where we are already enjoying green success. Green cleans but not everything. At Univar Solutions, we are here to help identify where your green cleaning gaps exist, turn them into actionable projects, and continue all of our journeys along the green spectrum. The next time I give a talk like this, I can definitively say, "Green does clean with no gaps and no caveats." Thank you so much for your time. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to the Univar Solutions Home Care and Industrial Cleaning team. Thank you for that presentation, Brandon. That was wonderful. We have some common questions that I think will be very useful for the audience. I'm just going to dive right in. Okay. Thank you. Question one is, "What is the most important green attribute of a finished product or raw material? You know, Megan, this really needs to be defined by the consumer or formulator. My answer is going to be a bit of a non-answer. I would say you need to define what is most important to you upfront, whether that's, say, biodegradation, EPA labeling, etc. It's important to remember, in addition to that, though, being green is really important. Sustainable is where we want to be. You can't forget performance and cost. A lot of times when people come to myself and my team looking for the same question, we spend a fair amount of time upfront defining green and sustainable before we even start with formulation. You know where your target is. Per the presentation, it's a journey. It doesn't have to be all at once. The biggest thing is when you come in, even if you don't know, Univar Solutions, the team can help you define green. If you do know, help communicate that to people you're working with, then we can get you to a solution. Wonderful. The next question, "Why were NPEs and phosphates removed from so many products? They really seem like great cleaners. You know, they are. Make no mistake, NPEs and phosphates are spectacular surfactants in water conditioners, respectively. The initial pushback in a lot of green solutions, and I lived through this personally, was that there was such a big performance and cost gap because the NPE and phos lens work so well. A little more background, NPEs are considered to be endocrine receptors. It's a really weak effect, but the concentrations are high enough to make this a concern, especially in aquatic environments. They're also moderately bioaccumulative, so they're not readily biodegradable. Phosphates are a concern because they can lead to eutrophication. That's a process where a body of water becomes overly rich in nutrients. Sounds good at first, but it can lead to harmful algae blooms, reduce oxygen in the water, and ultimately lead to what we call dead zones. Great cleaners. They just come with some environmental baggage. Got it. Got it. All right. Next question, "Are preservatives considered green and sustainable? Isn't their primary function to inhibit growth or kill? I mean, if I have to use a preservative, can my product be considered green? Yes. A couple of thoughts. One, there are preservation technologies that are considered green, such as benzoates. They're inherently natural. Systems can also be self-preserved at very high or very low pH. We don't even need to add a chemical preservative. As a thought concept, green has a core principle of waste reduction. If the product goes bad due to bacterial growth, you run the risk of being too green for your own good. Sometimes trade-offs need to be made. What would be more wasteful and less sustainable green than making a 10,000 batch and having to throw it away in two weeks because you've got fungus, mold, bacteria, whatever, growing in it? You can read the news. There are cautionary tales where this has happened. It's a very big concern. Sometimes trade-offs need to be made. Sometimes there are preservatives that work within a pH range that can allow your solution to be entirely green, per some general definition. Next question, "Where are most new innovations occurring in support of greener products and raw materials, new molecules, things of that nature? There's a lot of spots. This is a personal opinion, but I think there are new molecules. I think we're seeing a lot of the movement right now, at least in terms of basic chemistries, old chemistry being made in new ways. Say a less sustainable or a product that was made from completely synthetic feedstocks, made from maybe plant-based feedstocks or waste streams, process improvements. Maybe the chemistry is exactly the same, but the overall carbon footprinting and the way the material's made is more sustainable for the greater environment. Then there's biotech. There's things we've made through reactors for years that are now being generated through microbial action. People are literally using bugs to do synthesis to grow new molecules or old molecules. I would say, in addition to that, there's improved data metrics and performance monitoring, just water and energy usage. You can actually show that you have a more sustainable process or a product that works at lower temperatures and whatnot because we can actually see the data. You'd use less water over a week, a month, a year. Concentrates, taking things from 1X to 2X to 100% concentrated, perhaps solids, powders. That's another move in really the green, sustainable front. The last thing that comes to mind is microbial cleaners. The idea of using probiotics, good bacteria, to help support the action of long-term continuous cleaning. You put it down, you get it clean, the microbes hang around and keep generating enzymes. Everything we think of as a soil is a food to them. Get it clean, keep it clean, and the microbes exist to continuously clean. Kind of four areas: old chemistry made new ways, improved data metrics, concentrates, and microbial cleaners. That's the first things that come to mind in terms of where most of the innovations are happening today. Wonderful. This is a great session. Thank you so much, Brandon. Thank you, everyone, for joining us on this session, "Green Does Clean." If you have any questions, reach out to our team. We're happy to follow up and help on all things cleaning. Thanks again, Brandon. Thanks a lot, Megan. Hi. I'm Jessica Drangeid, and I'm an Application Development Specialist with Univar Solutions. I started my career in the agriculture industry, but I've spent most of my time working in the automatic car wash industry. Here, I formulated a lot of products for car washes as well as had the opportunity to get out in the field and test the new products to make sure that we were seeing the same results we saw in the lab out in the field with all the different variables. When I talk about the automatic car wash industry, I'll be focusing on tunnel wash, which includes cars moving through a tunnel on a conveyor or a chain, having cleaning and finishing products applied. It also includes in-bay automatics, which are bays which cars can drive into. Then when they're stationary, an automatic arm moves around them, applying cleaning and finishing products. These can be touch-free car washes or can include brushes to add some mechanical action. There are also self-serve car washes, and this is where a customer will pull up into a bay and apply product to their car themselves. These products are all included in the automatic car wash industry because they use very similar, if not the same, products. Other types of car washing include professional detailing and retail and DIY or do-it-yourself products, which can be done by a consumer at their own house. A lot of growth throughout all these channels of car wash during 2020 and 2021. A lot of this is linked to the pandemic when people were very aware of the vehicle hygiene and also did have extra time. Sometimes these can be fun experiences, especially tunnel washes with a lot of foam and color to them. We do see that the automatic car wash industry is continuing to grow. However, we are seeing more of a slowdown in the retail product growth. A lot of this is due to people returning to work and having less free time. We also think a lot of people are seeing more of the challenges with applying these finishes themselves to their car. People do like the convenience of washes. In America, especially, cars are seen as an extension of someone's personality. A car tends to be a person's second largest purchase after their home. Even with the pandemic, being a few years ago, we're seeing people are still very aware of that vehicle hygiene, and that is continuing. Before we get into automatic car wash, I do want to touch on the detail and professional cleaning a little bit. In this channel of car wash, we see a focus on the interior cleaning and protection, specifically on upholstery, hard surfaces, and glass. With detailing cars, they also focus on exterior cleaning and finishing. They use cleaning products and can use bucket and soap or a foam cannon to apply these. In addition to mechanical action, they can get the surface of the car clean and then apply different waxes, polishes, and ceramic and graphene, which have become really big buzzwords in the industry. We've seen this even translate over into the automatic car wash industry. These do provide more of a durable finish that lasts for a longer time and actually cures to the surface of the car. Finally, we see a lot of focus on wheels and tire cleaners and then also tire dressings in the detail space. A clean rim and wheel can give the perception of a cleaner car. These products are either acid or alkaline-based. With tire dressings, we do see these applied manually, normally. They are going to make sure that they have a continuous finish of gloss on the tire. We do have starter formulas for these types of products. Please reach out to your account manager if you have any questions or would like to see these formulas. The automatic car wash industry has been growing at about 2%-3% per year, and it's estimated to continue this rate up until at least 2030. We have seen a lot of consolidation in this industry as well. This is happening a lot at the wash level, where we're seeing a lot of chains buying up smaller washes or even doing new builds. We are seeing the consolidation on the supplier side as well. A lot of companies are offering chemical equipment and service so that they can provide a holistic approach to the car wash. In America, we see car culture is very popular and convenient for a lot of Americans. Going through automatic car washes can save a lot of time, which is why we do see this industry continue to grow. We're starting to see this grow globally as well. When we think about this, we do need to keep in mind different regulations with different areas. This can include specific chemicals we can use or even what disclosures are required around chemicals. In addition to the chemical we use, we also have to pay attention to the regulations around water, depending on which region we're operating in. Since I have been at Univar Solutions, I've worked with our lab and marketing team to create a car wash kit. This kit features five different starting formulas that are commonly found in an automatic car wash. When we're looking at the automatic car wash, we focus on two different sections. The first one is going to be cleaning. In the cleaning section, we want to make sure that we're getting good coverage and removing soils from the car. We'll go through a few applications that are commonly found in this section. The first typical product would be a bug remover. This is applied by an attendant with a brush or sprayed on, or it could also be applied through an arch that sprays it onto a car. Bug removers typically tend to be alkaline because they do need to target the organic exoskeleton of the bug, which can get stuck in the clear coat. It also includes surfactants and chelants to help increase that efficacy. The next application are wheel cleaners. These are applied through CTAs or chemical tire applicators. There's normally two sets of these, and they can be either alkaline or acidic-based, which will target different soils. A good way to figure out which type of product will work best at your wash is to look at the color of the soil coming off of the wheel. A black color is going to indicate more of an organic-based soil, so you'll want to use an alkaline product to target this. A brown color will indicate an inorganic soil, so you'll want to use an acidic-based cleaner to target this. Next, we move on to the pre-soaks. Typically, there are two pre-soak applications: a high-pH pre-soak and a low-pH pre-soak. In most cases, car washes will use a mix of a high-pH and a low-pH. However, I have seen successful washes use two high-pH pre-soaks or two low-pH pre-soaks. It just depends on different variables that you'll find at your wash. With the high-pH pre-soaks, they target organic soils, which is going to be bird droppings, oils, greases, and pollen. Low-pH pre-soaks will target clays and hard water spots, which you can find on a car if you use hard water to wash it. In addition to these products, you can use a booster with them, and boosters can really boost these products in different ways. You can use a hard water tolerance booster. You can use a foam booster or even heavy duty, which will increase the efficacy of cleaning in these products. For example, this could include more alkalinity than you would be able to fit in your alkaline pre-soak. The next products that are included in the wash section are going to be conditioners and neutral foamers. These products help lubricate brushes so that they don't scratch cars. You want to make sure that you're not hearing any squeaking when these brushes are working on the car because this can indicate drag and create scratch on the car surface. There is an exception to this. Some of the low RPM brushes will make noise, and the manufacturers do let you know that this is okay. When you are looking into this, make sure you check with the manufacturer. These products include a lot of surfactants to create foam. They also can include dyes or fragrances to create fun foam shell. In our car wash kit, we do include two products that are in the cleaning section of the tunnel or the wash. This is the alkaline pre-soak or high-pH pre-soak and a low-pH pre-soak. Common raw materials that you'll find being used in the cleaning section include surfactants. These are going to be non-ionic surfactants, which are neutral or don't have a charge; anionic surfactants, which have a negative charge; and amphoteric surfactants, where the charge will depend on the pH of the solution they're in. These can create foam, especially the anionic surfactants and amphoteric surfactants. They also give the products detergency, which will help with cleaning, and they help reduce the contact angle so that you can really spread out the product and cover the car well. There are also chelating agents in these products. Chelating agents are used to increase hard water compatibility. This can reduce the scale buildup in nozzles, tips, foamers, and in lines. This is really important because if you do start to have some buildup, it can change the pressure of the product coming out or even the amount. In addition to hard water compatibility, you can get some inorganic cleaning from the chelating agents. For example, they can target iron really well, which can be found in some clays. We also like to include dispersants in the cleaning products. Dispersants help reduce redeposition, and it keeps soil suspended in that wash solution longer. This is really important, especially when you're using a longer dwell time, which can help increase cleaning to a certain point. Once you have those products on a car for a long period of time, you can hit a point of diminishing return. This is where the soils start to redeposit back onto the car, which is why we like to include these in the cleaning section. The second half of an automatic wash is going to be the finishing section. In this section, we're working on increasing the contact angle so that the water and product really beads up on the car surface and also providing a nice gloss or protective finish to the car. Common applications in the finishing section include polish, which are very similar to conditioners. They can create a great foam shell and add lubrication. They also sometimes include dyes and fragrances. The difference is these will include a surface enhancement additive, for example, a silicone or a wax, to add some gloss to the surface of the vehicle. The next product is waxes, and this adds a gloss and shine depth to the surface of the car. Different waxes can be chosen depending on different melting points, which will give a different look to the car. We have extra service products, which is how it sounds. It kind of contains extra service products that provide different benefits. For example, rain repellents, ceramic and graphene products. These are buzzwords that we do see come from the detailing industry, but they can create a lot of water repellency and dirt repellency at some points and also add a lot of durability and protection to the car. In these products, we do typically tend to use silicone functionals and different surfactants to help build the formulas. We have drying agents. These help shed water from the vehicle surface and can create a drier car in combination with the blowers. In these products, we tend to include mineral seal oil. In closed-loop systems, we do tend to avoid this, and then also cationic surfactants. Tire dressing or tire shine can be applied either online or manually. If we're applying it online, it does tend to be less viscous so that it can go through the pump a lot easier. With these products, we want to make sure that we're applying it in a consistent way that gives a nice homogeneous gloss and shine to the tire. In our tire dressings, we do use PDMS, so polydimethylsiloxane, and a wetting agent to get this consistent look. Finally, in this section, we finish with a spot-free rinse. This is RO water. When we rinse with this, we don't have as many minerals left on the car that are found in hard water. Our car wash kit does contain a few of the products that are in the finishing section. The first product is an emulsifiable ceramic concentrate. This product is a bit different than other products on the market because it is a non-aqueous formula or has no water in it. We do see some benefits with this. The product is stable for longer than other products that are an emulsion because you don't have that separation. It is easier to produce and quicker because you don't need that high shear to form some of those complex emulsions. Mainly, we have the ability to use silicone resins, which provide a lot more durability on the finish of the car. This product also includes surfactants, and it will form the emulsion within the line. When it's applied to the car, it will mix well with the water, and then you will still have the benefit of the silicone resins. We also have a drying agent in the kit and a tire dressing. The common raw materials that we do find in the finishing half of a wash include waxes. Some common waxes that can be used are sunflower, carnauba, or beeswax. These do have different melting points, so it is important to look lower melting points. It won't last as long, but it will give more of a shine and more of a slick feel to the car. We use a lot of silicones in the finishing section of the wash. As I mentioned before, we are working on adding silicone resins here, but we do use a lot of amino functionals as well as PDMS on tires and to increase the gloss on the finish of the vehicle. We do also use surfactants in the finishing side. However, these tend to differ from the ones we use in the cleaning section. We use cationic surfactants, which have a positive charge, and amphoteric surfactants, again, which the charge will depend on the pH of the solution it's in. These surfactants do help increase the surface tension, which is the opposite of what we were doing in the cleaning section, and we can create foam. This foam tends to disperse a lot quicker than the foam we're creating with anionic surfactants in the cleaning section, which is exactly what we want in the finishing section. With the cationic surfactants, we can also get some water repellency because the car has a negative charge. With the surfactant, the positive end will be drawn to the negatively charged car, so the hydrophobic end will be sticking out. Our lab in Houston has a few different testing capabilities that we're able to use within the car wash industry. The first is going to be around foam. We have a few different ways we can measure foam of products and compare them to each other. This includes the blender test or graduated cylinder. We also do have an instrument we can use to look at the duration that the foam lasts. Again, this is really important, especially for foamy products that we're using in the finishing section of the wash. Another test that we can use is hard water compatibility. With this test, we do make a variety of water hardnesses depending on what we're targeting. We can mix the different hardnesses with different ratios of the product to find where we start to see that failure. After 24 hours, we'll check the mixtures, and if they're clear, that tends to indicate that they'll work pretty well. If we do see cloudiness or any scale forming, that can indicate that we'll start to see failure or scale buildup in the wash. The lab is also able to measure contact angle on specific substrates, which is really cool because we can look at how products actually behave on the surface of a car. That applies very closely then to real-world situations. We can also look at continuous weathering and UV exposure to coatings or also the hardness of different finishes on the car. When we look at combining the cleaning section and the finishing section, we're really focused on balancing everything out. A main part of this is making sure that we're using surfactants in the right area. Sometimes, if we see a car isn't drying as well as we want, it's not because we need to use a different drying agent or even increase the drying agent. We may need to look at where we switch from the cleaning section to the finishing section and make sure that we're increasing that surface tension instead of decreasing it. Another thing to focus on as we're moving through the tunnel is to lower the pH of the surface of the car. Cars do dry optimally when the car surface is a pH of 6.5 to 6.7. This can help reduce microdrops, which form if the pH isn't in this range. With microdrops, once the blowers hit them, you'll see they break into smaller drops instead of rolling off of the car, which is what we want. Reclaim systems have started to gain a lot more popularity. With reclaim systems, we do have to focus a little bit more on the chemistry we're using with them. We want to avoid anionic surfactants since they will combine with cationic surfactants from the finishing products when they're in the reclaim system. This will then form a black, gummy, or slimy material, which can get passed through the reclaim system and end up on cars or brushes. With reclaim systems, it's important to keep the water moving. Stagnant water will create a foul smell from good bacteria dying due to the lack of oxygen in the water. If the pump is turned off when the wash shuts down, you'll notice the smell in the morning when you start the wash up. If you keep the water moving at a speed to get adequate oxygen in the water, you'll reduce that smell. Mainly, we recommend to follow any reclaim system instructions. Finally, it's important to pump the tanks out regularly. If they don't get pumped out, you can see the sedimentation builds up and move from tank to tank or even stay suspended in the system. Of course, this will come back out when that reclaim water is used. We like to focus a lot on the sustainability and safety of our products. I do believe car washes are a very sustainable practice since they do extend the lifetime of a car. They also use less water than if you wash your car at home in your driveway in most cases. We do have green chemistries available, and we are able to get these chemistries to work well and, in most cases, just as well as other products that are traditionally being used. Please reach out to your account manager with any questions or if you would like help finding some more sustainable chemistries to include in these products. We would want to make sure to recommend using PPE when you're working with some of these harsh chemistries, especially strong acids or bases, and make sure that you're looking at the SDS and understand any risks. Once again, please reach out if you have any questions. Welcome, everybody. Really hope that you're enjoying the day so far. We certainly are. Really big thank you there for watching that presentation, Tunnel Car Wash Driving Cleaning Innovation. I'm delighted to be joined by the star of the show, which is Jessica, our U.S. Application Development Specialist. We're going to have a brief discussion around that video now. If any of you have got any questions, please make sure that you put those into that chat box, and somebody will be there to answer any of your questions. Welcome, Jessica. Yeah, just talking about the Tunnel Car Wash today and the Car Wash Kit. I was just wondering, do you need to use all of the products together from the Car Wash Kit? Great question. You don't need to use all of these products together. Kind of like I talked about in the presentation, the main focus should be on balancing the Sinner Circle just in general and kind of finding what works at each wash location. The high-pH pre-soak will target organic material, and the low-pH pre-soak will target inorganic material. It is very common to use both a high and low-pH pre-soak. However, not all locations always need to. I've seen very successful washes with two passes of a high-pH pre-soak, for example. It depends on a lot of different variables. It's just a kit that's there to kind of help educate and help you guys all see what's available. One thing I would like to point out is to make sure there's enough room left in the tunnel when you switch from cleaning to the finishing process and make sure your surfactants are changing with that process too. Make sure you're going more to those cationic and amphoteric surfactants and then starting to bring that pH down. Like I mentioned, you want to have the surface of the car at around a 6.5 to 6.7 pH for optimal drying. Brilliant. No, thank you. That's a great answer. Thank you very much. Just wondering if and what trends you are seeing in the car wash industry at the moment. Is there anything that stood out to you? Have you noticed anything in particular? Yeah, we've been seeing a couple of those, actually. We are seeing more of a focus on sustainable products. A lot of this is due to new regulations, especially ones at the state level around different chemical disclosures, and water usages is a big one. This leads to a lot of popularity with reclaim compatible products, which if you reach out to your rep at Univar Solutions, we can definitely help you make some of these products reclaim compatible. We're also still seeing a lot of popularity around the ceramic and graphene buzzwords. Of course, ultra-concentrated products. We're still seeing a lot of need for those due to the lower shipping costs and smaller footprint they take up in the back room. Excellent. Thank you. Then something that's not a trend but something that is vitally important. Just a question. Do you believe that end users care about sustainable car wash products, especially if that will increase the price? Yeah. Yeah. We have seen a lot of customers be willing to pay more for the sustainable and green products. We're seeing this especially with younger generations, mainly including the millennials and Gen Zs. I believe this challenge is going to be communicating the changes from the traditional products we've been using to more environmentally friendly ones and making sure people are educated about this. Green doesn't mean a decrease in performance, but we are sometimes seeing an increase in price, as you mentioned, especially against some of these NPEs or phosphates, which have been used to chelate. Again, we do have solutions for these different surfactants, different chelating agents that we can help work into these products to offer a greener, more sustainable solution. Again, please reach out with any specific questions on those. No, definitely. Yeah, definitely just like to echo those words you said there as well. Do you have any recommendations for formulating a graphene product for tunnel wash? We don't currently supply graphene, but many of the claims that are associated with those graphene products can come from the silicones that we do supply, for example, the durability and the protection. I do know that it is a big buzzword, and it is important to a lot of washes. We can help with dispersion of graphene in your guys' products. I would recommend using a reduced graphene oxide if this is the direction you want to go. A lot of times, this is the type of graphene that professional detailers will focus around. I will say I haven't seen a significant increase in efficacy with the graphene in tunnel washes. Again, it does give that perception of a durable finish. Yeah. Yeah. Excellent. Thank you. Yeah, are you working on any additional products? What's next for the car wash industry? Yeah, that's a great question, actually. At Univar Solutions, we're currently exploring the use of microbes and enzymes. They're great for cleaning hard surfaces, cleaving soils from substrates, especially really tough soils, and mitigating odors. I think they would be a great fit in this industry. We're currently working on safety assessments because this is a new application. We want to make sure we're entering the market in a responsible way with these products. They can cause people to develop allergies if breathed in, kind of similar to pollen if you think about it from that protein standpoint. Currently, we do have some microbes that are approved for use inside of vehicles, and we're developing an enzymatic bug cleaner. This product will be foamed onto a car to limit any enzyme concentration in the air. I highly recommend people do stay away from aerosolizing any enzyme products for this reason. Then also be very cautious if you're going to spray them. You want to make sure people aren't going to be breathing these in. Once we have finished our safety testing and assuming it passes, we'll be adding this enzymatic bug cleaner to the car wash kit when that's ready. Sounds excellent. Sounds like you're going to be very busy as well, which is good. Very busy in the car wash industry. Yeah, absolutely. No, that's brilliant. No, thank you for your time today, Jessica. Thank you for the great presentation, great video that you've done. I really enjoyed it. I'm sure all of the audience did as well. Just to everybody listening in, if you do have any questions, as we've mentioned, please don't hesitate to contact us, reach out to Univar Solutions. We'd be more than happy to help you, speak to you in the future. I really hope that you've enjoyed the day today and you enjoy the rest and you join a lot more different presentations as well. Thank you very much. That's the end of this presentation now, and we'll speak to you all soon. Thank you very much. Yes, thank you. Hi, I'm Chef Mike Haracz, Culinary Development Lead. I'm Charles Purcell, Senior Application Development Manager for Foodology by Univar Solutions North America. Healthy nutrition is the new norm as focus intensifies on boosting and maintaining health. Consumers have become mindful nutritionists, educating themselves on what they need for health and what the nutrient density and functionality of their foods need to be. Markets show rising demand for healthier foods as consumers look for cleaner labels, less sugar, salt, and fat, fiber and protein fortifications, and choice under the free from and flexitarian nutrition. They routinely scrutinize ingredient lists and educate themselves on risks such as acrylamide, product safety, quality, and traceability all matter like never before. Is the quality experience, which enhances all senses. Taste, texture, flavor, and appearance of goods matter alongside convenience and a healthier nutritional profile. Currently, the word healthy is on track to get updated in the United States. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has proposed new definitions for healthy as a nutrient content claim. The new approach is reflective of the advancements in nutrition science. It aims to promote nutrient-dense foods that offer consumers essential nutrients from key food groups. The FDA has also stated the proposal aligns with FDA's goals to help foster a healthier food supply, empower consumers with the information they need to make healthier choices, and reduce diet-related chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. The Canadian label landscape is also changing to support healthy eating habits. Similar to the U.S.A, Canada will start having front-of-pack symbols to highlight food products that are high in sugar, sodium, and saturated fat. Canadian manufacturers will have until January 1st, 2026, to make these changes. Today, we're going to highlight recipes and ingredients to formulate products with a healthier nutrition profile. We'll leverage the latest ingredients and innovations for healthier eating. What are we going to create, Chef Mike? We will start off with a double chocolate chip muffin that we can pair with a rich lactose-free chocolate milk. For later in the day eating occasions, we will create a protein bar to fuel our workout and end our day with a light mojito mocktail. Our team of food scientists and chefs will walk you through each of the formula, prep, and ingredients that deliver a healthier product. Let's get started. Hi, I'm Dylan Morton, and I am the Food Product Development Specialist with Foodology by Univar Solutions. I'm Nadeen Myers, Application Development Specialist for Foodology by Univar Solutions. Today, we'll be making a double chocolate chip muffin that highlights a variety of ingredients that we can provide for you. We have developed this formula to hit on some key trends in the industry like sugar and egg reduction. Now, let me walk you through how to create this delicious double chocolate chip muffin. The first thing we're going to do is preheat our oven to 350 degrees. Now that our oven has been preheated, we're going to go ahead and weigh out all of our dry ingredients. This includes stevia, flour, baking soda, salt, OptiCake Excel, cocoa powder, instant coffee, and CitraBlend EX. We're going to go ahead and set that to the side for future use. Now, the first thing we're going to put in this bowl is some brown sugar. We'll go ahead and put that in the bowl. Now we're going to combine that with our allulose, which is this light syrup that you see here. Now we're going to mix this on low speed for about 30 seconds or so, just until it's well incorporated. Now that we've got our allulose and brown sugar combined, we're going to go ahead and add the rest of our wet ingredients. Here we have our milk and canola oil. Go ahead and dump that in there. We also have our Greek yogurt. That is 2% Greek yogurt. See if we can get that in there. Got most of that. We have a little bit of water. Lastly, we're going to add a little bit of egg. Now that we have all the rest of our wet ingredients added in there, we're going to go ahead and mix this on low speed for about two minutes until well incorporated. Now that we've had this mixed for about two minutes or so, I'm going to go ahead and scrape down the bowl just to make sure that we got everything well incorporated. We look pretty good here. Now what we're going to do is we're going to go ahead and take our dry ingredient blend, and we're going to add this in about one-third at a time just so that we don't get any clumps. Just lower that down. All right, there's about one-third. Go ahead and lift that back up. Probably mix that for about 30 seconds or so, and then we'll go ahead and add the rest of our dry ingredients. Looks pretty good. Now we're going to go ahead and give it one last scrape, make sure we got all those dry ingredients mixed in. The last step here is going to be to take our chocolate chips, and we're simply going to fold those in by hand. We'll take those. All right. Now we're going to have to unattach our mixer there. Set that to the side. All right, now we're just going to mix these in. Quick little mix. That looks good. It smells delightful. I cannot wait to try these. Scrape that off. Now we're going to take our handy-dandy little scooper, and we're going to go ahead and scoop these into our muffin tins until they're about three-fourths of the way full. This should be just about the perfect size. Now that we have our muffin tins full, we're going to go ahead and place them in the oven. That those are in their oven at 350, we're going to go ahead and let them bake for about 20- 22 minutes, or until the toothpick comes out clean. Just like that, we have our delicious muffins right out of the oven. Now what we're going to do is have Nadeen talk a little bit about the specialty ingredients that go into these muffins. I would like to introduce you to the ingredients that were highlighted in this chocolate muffin recipe. There are several to highlight. Univar Solutions is the distributor of choice when looking for food-functional ingredients. When looking for sugar reduction ingredient options, Ingredion and Allulose is an excellent choice. Allulose has a similar sweet taste profile and all the functionality of sugar. It is 70% as sweet as sugar and only contributes 0.4 calories per gram, and provides the functional bulking, browning, and freeze point depression in formulations that sugar also provides. If Allulose is not allowed for use in your region, a second formula was created using Cargill's Zerose, which is an erythritol, a sugar alcohol or polyol, that is water soluble and occurs naturally in many fruits and vegetables. It is also commercially produced through fermentation from a simple sugar derived from corn called dextrose. Zeros also helps food retain moisture. stevia is often used in the combination with other sweeteners, and in our formulation, Cargill's Truvia RA95 is a clean-tasting stevia with a minimum of 95% Reb A. To achieve that rich, decadent chocolate flavor, Cargill's cocoa are a great choice. In these muffins, Cargill's Russet Plus was used along with Cargill's Semi Sweet Chips to add just the right flavor and texture to make these sugar-reduced cakes taste indulgent and decadent. To help enhance that rich chocolate flavor profile, Camlin Fine Sciences vanillin adds those vanilla-like notes that are so important. Finally, Novozymes OptiCake Excel is often used in sweet baked goods to help with crumb softness, elasticity, and volume. When using enzymes, a tiny amount goes a long way, and it is also very label-friendly. If you are looking for ways to help reduce ingredient costs, and specifically eggs, look no further than Citrus Extracts CitraBlend EX. CitraBlend EX is a clean-label, functional ingredient that can be used to partially replace whole egg liquid or powder. In this recipe, Chef was able to achieve a 50% reduction of eggs and still achieve the same functionality and moistness that eggs add to a baked good. We want to thank you for participating in today's webinar with Chef Dylan and myself. On the next screen, you will see the formula for the chocolate muffins. Please reach out to us if you would like a copy of the recipe or technical assistance when using any of the ingredients that were highlighted. I am very excited to drink a bunch of chocolate milk today. We have developed a reduced sugar, lactose-free chocolate milk showcasing our lactase enzymes, cocoa powder, carrageenan, and stevia sweetener for a tasty beverage the whole family can enjoy. The processing steps are to confirm we have appropriate suspension of ingredients and for a consistent final product. Our goal is to provide an easier-to-digest milk beverage with reduced calories but still an indulgent mouthfeel. Let me walk you through how to create a rich, lactose-free chocolate milk that is delicious at any time of day. The first thing we're going to do is add our lactose-free milk to a bowl. This is milk that's already been enzymatically treated to break down the lactose. We're going to put together our dry blend by mixing our cocoa powder, salt, sugar, vanillin, carrageenan, and stevia. Like so. Now that this is blended, we are going to whisk this into our milk. We're going to add this mixture to our pot and heat this to at least 185 degrees Fahrenheit while using our homogenizer at 6,000 RPMs, and we're going to continue to homogenize for about four minutes. This is our benchtop process. I know we have specific equipment available to us, so your process might look a little different. Yep, 185. Nice. All right, we're up to temp and homogenize, so we're going to turn this off. We're going to take this, we're going to put it in an ice bath, and then once it's cooled off, we're going to serve. I hope you're ready for some chocolate milk. I've been waiting. Excellent. Now our chocolate milk is ready to go. Let's see how it came out. Nice and creamy. Looks good. There you are. All right, ready? Cheers. It's chocolate milk. Great. Love it. Good job. Delicious. Well, thank you very much. Let's talk for a minute about the ingredients we used in the formula. Lactose-free milk starts by using an enzyme called lactase. Novozymes lactase product called Saphera breaks down the naturally present lactose in milk into two monosaccharides, galactose and glucose. These two monosaccharides actually deliver a sweeter taste than the lactose. This results in a milk that is not only lactose-free but requires less additional sweeteners. Gerkens Russet Plus cocoa powder provides superior flavor and color. You really can't have chocolate milk without cocoa. That's true. Calorie reduction is achieved by using Gerkens stevia sweetener called Truvia RA95 in place of sugar. Truvia RA95 is a clean-tasting stevia with a minimum of 95% Reb A. Vanillin plays a critical role in chocolate milk. It is what makes cocoa powder taste like chocolate. Camlin Fine Sciences vanillin provides the vanilla-like notes that are so important to a quality product, and you can really taste it in here. Finally, there are two defining characteristics of a really good chocolate milk product. They're suspension and a rich, creamy mouthfeel. Carrageenan is the perfect hydrocolloid to deliver both functionalities. As you probably know, carrageenan has been the go-to in chocolate milk for decades. Utilizing a carrageenan that contains Kappa 2 carrageenan from Gelymar, you will achieve both superior mouthfeel and excellent cocoa particle suspension. Now let's talk about the production procedure. It can take up to 24 hours to achieve full lactose reduction in cold milk using enzymes. Once that's achieved, actually making the chocolate milk product is fairly straightforward, as you just saw. Dry ingredients are added to the milk in the proper order and mixed until they're fully dissolved or dispersed. You can premix the dry ingredients if you like we did. The product should be homogenized at around 2,500 PSI and pasteurized at 185-190 degrees Fahrenheit and packaged. Pasteurization is necessary in order to fully hydrate that carrageenan. Chef Mike and I would like to thank you for joining us today. On the next screen, you'll see the formula for the chocolate milk. Please reach out to us if you want a copy of the recipe card. Have you ever wondered how to create a tasty protein bar to help fuel those intense workouts? Today we have a wonderful formula that I will be making that works great as a pre-workout boost or post-workout recovery. Here's how it's made. First, we're going to weigh out all of our dry ingredients. That includes whey protein concentrate, whey protein isolate, peanut powder, cocoa powder, sub4salt, FOSSENCE P95, maltitol powder, stevia RA95, and vanillin. Now we're going to go ahead and put these in our mixing bowl. We're simply going to mix this up for about 30 seconds or so. We're going to mix that just until they're well incorporated. That won't take too long. All right, that looks pretty good. Now what we're going to do is weigh out all of our wet ingredients. Here in this bowl, we have our palm oil, our corn syrup, glycerin, water, and rosemary extract. We're going to go ahead and add our wet ingredients to the bowl. That looks good. Now we're simply going to mix this for about 30 seconds to one minute until it resembles about a coarse wet sand. Now we have our finished product here that resembles a pretty good coarse wet sand. Now, the final ingredient that I want to highlight here is our dark chocolate compound coating that we have. You can use it to either dip or drizzle on your bars however you would like. However, we do have some here that's already been melted that we're going to use to dip the bars into. Now what we're going to do is we're going to take our mixture here that has been completed, and I'll sort of give you guys a little view of the wet sand so you can see that in the bowl. You can see it's sort of that wet sand consistency. I'm going to go ahead and give it a little mix by hand just to make sure we're not missing anything at the bottom of the bowl. Looks pretty good. Now what we're going to do is just scoop this out of the bowl, and we're going to put it into our container here. We're going to press it in this mold for about 30 minutes or so. We're going to put that in here. All right, I put about half in there. We had a little extra. Now what I'm going to do is I have another one on the bottom here, and we're simply just going to press it down. It's going to make a nice bar shape. Should be good there. Look at that. We got a nice little bar. Now we're just going to let that sit for about 30 minutes or so just so it can sort of come together and it doesn't break apart when you try and cut it into different shapes and pieces. Now we have our finished product of our protein bars. Here we've coated them in a little bit of our dark chocolate compound coating, and each bar has about 20 g of protein for you to use for your workouts. Now I'm going to hand it off to Nadeen to take a little bit closer look at the ingredients that we highlighted. Thank you, Dylan. These look absolutely fantastic. Let's take a closer look at the ingredients highlighted in the protein bar formula. Ingredients maltitol is a sugar alcohol widely used to reduce the sugar levels of many protein snacks without adversely affecting the product's level of sweetness. It is 95% as sweet as sugar but contains about half the calorie content of regular sugar, and it comes in either a liquid or powder form. Tata's FOSSENCE P95 is a short-chain fructo-oligosaccharide, or FOS for short, made from fermented cane sugar. It is 100% soluble with a sweet flavor profile containing 40%-70% of the sweetness of sugar depending upon the grade that you've purchased. FOS has many gut health benefits and is an excellent fiber sweetener choice when preparing good-for-you products. When considering a natural preservative to support shelf-life stability as an antioxidant, look no further than Camlin Fine Sciences NaSure rosemary extract. NaSure comes in either liquid or powder form and can be used in a broad array of food applications from fats and oils, spices, seasonings, snacks, and nuts, just to name a few. Jungbunzlauer's sub4salt is a patented mineral salt which helps to reduce sodium content without compromising the taste. A one-to-one replacement of salt with sub4salt allows sodium reduction of up to 50% while achieving identical functionality in finished products. These bars contain two of Cargill's ingredient lines. We have a cocoa powder and the compound chocolate used for the coating, along with the stevia Truvia RA95. Cargill offers a broad range of cocoa powders and inclusions from non-alkalized to heavily oxidized powders, morsels, and chunks. Cargill's chocolates are natural and can be labeled as real, meaning that it meets the FDA's standards of identity. The use of whey protein in sports and snacks products delivers the nutrients shown to positively affect body composition. Research has demonstrated that whey proteins are critical for muscle growth and recovery. Leprino's whey protein isolate and whey protein concentrates are the newest ingredients in the Foodology by Univar Solutions product portfolio. Leprino's products are superior when it comes to flavor and functionality. Because these ingredients are the result of the production of mozzarella cheese, they do not impart any additional flavors or colors that other typical whey products would. Whey protein isolates are 90% protein, while whey protein concentrates contain anywhere between 34% to 80% protein and can help improve the moistness, texture, and extend the shelf life of your bar. We'd like to thank you all for participating in today's webinar. On the next screen, you will see the formula for the protein bar. Please reach out to us if you have any additional questions or want a copy of the recipe card. Let's end our day with a relaxing alcohol-free mojito. Let's do it. Mocktails are a fast-growing segment as consumers want to enjoy the taste and experience of traditional adult beverages while still needing to be productive with the rest of their day. We also know health-conscious consumers are looking for ways to enjoy the things that they love with the added benefits like reduced calories. In this recipe, we are showcasing our stevia sweetener. The flavor of stevia has come a long way since its introduction to the market many years ago, and it's the closest it's ever been to replicating the experience of real sugar. Let me walk you through how to create this tasty mocktail perfect for that business lunch. We're very simply just going to add all of our ingredients together. First, we're going to add our stevia. Like so. Once that's dissolved, we're going to add our rum, lime, and mint flavors, which we've already combined. Just like that, we're ready to go. We're going to plus it up a little bit. The first thing we're going to do is add some lime to our glasses. Great. Like so. We're going to add some mint to it as well. Mint everywhere. Okay. Now we're going to do our muddling. We're basically just going to smash all these things together to release a bunch of the flavor that's going to be released in our beverage. I can smell it already. Like so. Very easy. Everything's nice and smashed there. Now we're going to add some ice to our glass. Starting to look like the real thing here. Just like that. All we have to do now is pour over the top. We're also going to finish with a nice garnish of a lime wheel. There is our mojito mocktail. Now it looks like the real thing. Yeah. Should we give it a try? Let's do it. Let's do it. Cheers. Very good. Very tasty. Love it. Well, who doesn't like a mojito at the end of the day? Mocktails are all the rage these days. Let's have a look at what goes into making a great-tasting mojito mocktail. As you probably know, a traditional mojito cocktail consists of sugar, lime juice, rum, mint leaves, and some form of carbonated water like seltzer water or club soda. In this formulation, we have eliminated the sugar and substituted Cargill's stevia product called Truvia RA95. Truvia RA95 is a high-purity, clean-tasting stevia product which delivers a minimum of 95% Reb A. Chef Mike, do you remember when stevia first came out? Yes. It had some drawbacks. The flavor profile, although sweet, had some funny tastes at the end. It's come a long way since then. Absolutely. It's cleaned up, and this is a particularly delicious-tasting product. It's a powdered form, and it dissolves quickly and easily. Lime juice, rum flavor, there is such a thing, a bit of lime and mint flavor round out the formulation. Add a couple of mint leaves and a lime wedge, and you have a truly refreshing, lower-calorie mojito mocktail. Chef Mike and I would like to thank you. On the next screen, you will see the formula for the mojito. Please reach out to us if you want a copy of the recipe card. Our team of chefs and food scientists are here to help you create your next-winning recipe. Thank you for joining us today on our journey to create healthier products. Well, thanks to everybody for joining our Foodology by Univar Solutions webinar. I hope you saw some tasty treats and got some great information and some great ideas for your development and formulations. We actually have a couple of questions that came in as well, we're going to go ahead and address those now. Charles, I'm going to start it off. We've got a question about the double chocolate chip muffins. The question is, are there other zero-calorie sweeteners you offer that can be used in baked goods like this? Zero-calorie sweeteners is a good question. The answer is yes. There's a lot of them on the market. They've been around for a while: stevia, sucralose, aspartame, you name it. They've been out there for a while. The challenge with zero-calorie sweeteners is the bulking effect that you don't get because they're so high intensity. The primary consideration is, what are you going to make up the volume with that you're not getting when you use sugar? That's basically the big challenge. Yes, a lot of different high-intensity options out there for getting that sugar count down. Gotcha. Depending on who the customer or consumer is, some may have a different preference to a different flavor profile. We know certain zero-calorie sweeteners have a different flavor perception. Depending on the product, its end application, you may be able to mix and match for a better final product for your consumer, so. You also have to think about heat stability, making sure that whatever you pick is heat-stable. Excellent point. Excellent point. Another one came in. Can these muffins be made vegetarian or vegan? What do you think, Mike? That is a very good, chefy question. These muffins specifically were made low-calorie, but they are with real dairy, eggs, things like that. Certainly, it can be made vegan or vegetarian. You have to, let's say, obviously replace the egg. In doing that, you may need to add a hydrocolloid system as well as maybe some fiber for structure. Also, switching out the chocolate chips that we use were milk chocolate. There are a variety of vegetarian-vegan options for chocolate where they're replacing some of the dairy components with coconut or just the cocoa fat and things of that nature. Certainly, a baked item can absolutely be transitioned to vegetarian or vegan, just making sure that whoever your customer is, you need to document it appropriately. You don't want to have any cross-contamination in your facility. Making sure that either you can do a full vegan item or sometimes you have to add the little asterisks that this is made in a facility that also makes meat and meat-type items. You may need to add that to your ingredient statement or label, but you certainly can switch this recipe up. That is an excellent question as we always try to tailor our recipes to as many people as we can, and dietary restrictions are a huge one for us. We're going to move on to. Milk. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. We're going to move on to chocolate milk now. We had a question coming in. Does utilizing lactose-free milk change its functionality? That is a great question. I can answer that one. No. It doesn't really at all. Very little sweetness comes from lactose itself, so you're not going to miss anything when you switch over to a lactose-free chocolate milk because you're going to be adding something back for sweetness anyway. Feel free. Lactose-free away. Excellent. That's a very easy way to just use it in whatever application. You don't really have to worry about its functionality changing, so that's fantastic. Mike, here's one. Explain how the beverage could also have a reduced fat claim while still tasting indulgent. How does that work? This is a very good question. Obviously, fat as a chef is a wonderful flavor driver, but it also functions while you're eating. That fat can coat your mouth, coat your tongue. Some of those flavors are absorbed into fat and linger on your tongue longer. In an indulgent chocolate milk, not only is the viscosity of your milk important, but also kind of the composition of it. If you are reducing fat, you may want to replace it with, again, hydrocolloids or some other ingredients to thicken it a bit. That will let it linger on your palate longer and mimic kind of that higher-fat beverage. If you are perfectly fine with a natural sugar and that sweetness, some of that also helps give a little body to the chocolate milk. If you're taking fat out in general, you are going to want to replace that and build viscosity back. There's a variety of hydrocolloids that can do that and mimic what it's like to use, let's say, whole milk or if you're cutting it with half-and-half or cream or whatever you're making to make it extra indulgent. That is not super difficult, so. It can be done again. Awesome. Absolutely. Again, based on your consumer, what their ingredient preferences are, you certainly can decide what ingredients are allowed in your toolbox to make these adjustments. The cleaner label, the more natural, any of those kinds of claims, it wouldn't necessarily say it's more difficult, but then you know what ingredients you have available to get the results there, so. Chef Mike, I'd just add, if you're facing that challenge and you're not sure what to do, we're happy to help you with that challenge. Absolutely. I think not only us here, but we have a huge team that are not only fully capable of developing any kind of item from benchtop through manufacturing. If there are specific holdups, let's say you're developing a low-fat chocolate milk and you are not getting the viscosity, not only do we have people like us who have developed these kinds of things. We certainly have dairy industry experts. We have plant-based experts. If you're transitioning from a dairy milk beverage to a plant-based one, we have so much knowledge to be able to support any of those kinds of activities. That's easy enough for us to do. We will help guide you through the process to do that. Absolutely. Speaking of functionality, we got a question for our protein bar. What functionality do some of the other protein types and sources provide that are whether they're in the protein bar that we saw or other protein source options out there? Ooh, I can take that one. Protein is very specific. The go-to forever has always been whey proteins in bars. Now, with the rise of plant-based proteins, the sky's the limit. There are every kind of plant-based protein out there you can think of. Taste is a huge consideration and mitigating bitterness. Proteins have a tendency to suck up moisture in your bar. If you don't want one that's going to break your teeth in three months, be sure that you're working with humectants and be sure that it's not going to dry out because once you put those in there and there's any water or moisture that can be grabbed by those proteins, they're going to want to suck it up and your bar is going to get hard. It's very, very important to have that as a consideration as well as the overall quality of the protein, I would say. If you're looking at the amino acid content of the proteins, it's something to consider. Interesting. Again, we've got a huge toolbox full of proteins to talk about. Very cool. I do know not only sort of the product development functionality, but the actual dietary functionality of some of these proteins. Something like a whey protein is very quickly absorbed by the body and broken down where a casein or some of these other ones take a lot longer to break down and longer to digest. Depending on what kind of consumer you are and what activity level you have, you may want a very strong whey protein-related bar for right before or right after working out. If you're, let's say, on a diet and are just snacking and want to be nourished in between meals, some of those slower-digesting proteins would probably be a better bet to keep you fueled and filled for a longer period of time, so. Very good point. Here's another one, Mike. What's the difference between a protein bar and a meal replacement bar? You kind of just alluded to it a little bit there. Yeah. That is an excellent question. Normally, a protein bar, obviously, your high source of protein and depending on, again, activity level, what you're trying to let's say, your specific diet, what your dietary goals are. That protein bar is usually pre and post-workout. Again, depending on what else is in there, could be kind of an in-between meal thing. A meal replacement bar isn't just high in protein. It's high in your macronutrients. That includes carbohydrates and fats. As it's stated in the name, this is not a, let's say, "I need to add a little bit more protein to my meal." This is maybe you're on the road and you need a full meal. Maybe your activity level is so high and you are burning so many calories that you need to add meals to your daily intake, like a Michael Phelps who's eating 10,000 calories a day and actually needs to eat calorically dense foods to meet that requirement. You do want to add fat and you do want to add carbohydrates to this. Certainly, a leisurely game of pickleball, you might need a protein bar to supplement. If you are collegiate, Olympic, running marathons, weightlifting for building large quantities of mass on you need a whole lot more caloric and fat intake. That is very much the difference between a meal replacement and a protein bar. If you have, let's say, a liquid protein shake and you want to transition it kind of easy to a meal replacement, you could add your chocolate syrup in there. You could use whole milk to blend the protein powder in because now you are adding fat and you're adding carbohydrates to it. You could kind of adjust your ingredients yourself to make more of a meal replacement as opposed to a full protein beverage or protein meal item, so. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Mike, I think that's about all the time we have, I believe, so. I think we got. We could probably spend one more. Do we want to do a quick one? We can do one more. I think we do one more for the mocktails. We got one. We've got the mocktail. Yeah. Yeah. We got one, which would be, would stevia work in other mocktail applications? If you are working out and you're trying to cut alcohol from your diet, mocktails are certainly a great choice. What other kinds of mocktails would that be appropriate for? Mocktails, they're big right now. Adult alternative beverages that are non-alcoholic. Yeah, stevia can work in a variety, if not all of them. I said this in the recording of the webinars that when stevia first came out, I hated it. It was terrible. It's gone through the stevia of 10, 15 years ago is not the stevia of today. The improvements in technology, and especially the fermented stevia products, are absolutely amazingly good. Very much the same sweetness perception as sugar. Don't shy away from them. Absolutely. Go for it. I think you'll find it a very, very pleasant experience in formulating today's stevia products into your mocktails. Yeah. I think mocktails are also growing not only because they're delicious, but obviously, when somebody is going out to enjoy an alcoholic beverage in a social setting, it's not just about consuming the alcohol, "Please drive safely," and all that, but it's a social thing. You're having drinks with people, with friends. Sometimes, some people just feel like drinking water in that scenario is frowned upon, which I don't believe that's true at all. That's a very responsible thing to do. Kind of taking part in the social experiment of drinking together, having a cool mocktail that looks like a traditional alcoholic beverage while also not consuming alcohol kind of makes that setting a little more like, "Oh, we're all on the same level playing field. We're all enjoying our beverage together, whether it's a traditional alcoholic beverage, which you could, again, use stevia to sweeten those as well if you're looking for a reduced-calorie beverage. Also in that mocktail application, it certainly is very helpful to get a low-calorie non-alcoholic beverage and still be part of the party, if you will. I think that's another thing. You could drink more of them. You could drink a whole lot more of them. That's true. You're basically drinking water with a zero-calorie beverage. If you're eating your protein bar, having your protein shake, reducing your calories elsewhere, that's probably a great choice, so. Very cool. Yeah. All right. I think that's all the questions we have. Again, thanks to everybody who joined our webinar as well as all the questions submitted for our Q&A session here. If you have any questions or need any additional help, please reach out to a Foodology by Univar Solutions person, and they will get back to you as soon as possible. We are very much looking forward to hearing from you and helping with any issues, questions, or development projects you may have. Hi and welcome to Univar Solutions Water Treatment Group's presentation. My name is Jose Gonzalez, and I'm an Application Development Specialist for the Univar Solutions Water Treatment Group. I've got 38 years of experience in water and wastewater treatment, and I've been with Univar Solutions now approximately five years. Today, we're going to discuss with you how our water-focused group can bring a complete solution to our customers. We do this by offering a lot more than just chemistry. We've got a very unique offering in this industry, and this presentation is going to outline all the capabilities that we can offer to our end users, to our suppliers, and to our technology partners. Last year, during Innovation Day, we discussed the organization of our team and some of our intrinsic capabilities that really make us unique in this industry. We outlined several case histories that highlighted those capabilities. This year, we're going to do something a little bit different, and we're going to move a step further and show you how we are able to partner both internally and externally to bring a particular customer a very unique offering. At this time, I want to turn this presentation over to John Fulcher. John is the director of our product marketing for the Water Treatment Group. John? Great. Thanks, Jose. Yeah, the purpose of today's presentation is to illustrate the unique nature of our Water Treatment Group and to outline how deeply we can interact with our customers to provide them with much more than just chemistry. We will carry this out by providing you with a particular example where this group has not only provided basic chemistry to the customer, but we also have set up a relationship to market the customer's co-product, and they've brought in one of our advanced water treatment partners to offer a solution to an operational upgrade at the customer's plant. Today, we would like for you to take away a much better understanding of the unique capabilities of our Water Treatment Group and how we can help our customers with much more than just chemistry supply. This knowledge may provide a solution for you or one of your customers that you may not have been aware of in the past. Take it away, Jose. Hey, thanks, John. I appreciate that summary. We're going to start out with the basics today. This is really a story about partnering on a lot of different levels. Our Water Treatment Group, we routinely partner with several of our internal businesses, and we do this to provide our customers the best solutions. Their chemistry and service options fit very well with our end-use market, and they make great partners for us in serving our customer base in the water industry. In serving the water and wastewater treatment needs of both the municipal and industrial customers, the Water Treatment Group routinely works with our bulk chemical distribution business. Whether that's for a municipal bid or part of a package of chemical offerings for an industrial water treater that we're putting together, we routinely sell and develop the need for the bulk chemical distribution group's products. These are staple products that are used in water and wastewater treatment, and we're talking about products such as sodium hydroxide. In addition to the bulk chemical distribution group, we also partner very closely with our mini bulk division internally. We do this to help our Water Treatment Group customers benefit from this very user-friendly model of chemical storage. In both the municipal and industrial water treatment segments, the mini bulk storage offerings and chemistries like sodium hypochlorite, sodium hydroxide, alum, and even hydrofluosilicic acid, they really go hand in hand with the solution that the water team routinely provides. While we work with our customers and supplying them the best chemistry for their processes, there's also times where we can also take the chemistry that they produce either as products or co-products of their operations, and we market them directly. Our footprint, our technical team spread, and especially our established municipal bid group allows us to market their offerings in a way that they typically themselves cannot do easily. Finally, today, we're going to outline how we're truly providing a complete solution to our customers, and it's way more than just chemistry. We're going to do this by partnering yet again with another resource at our disposal. We're going to start with the basics and show you how this all comes together in this example that we have for you in Nutrien. In this presentation, we're going to outline the close relationship of our Water Treatment Group with our customer/supplier, Nutrien. It's as well as the role that our industry advanced water treatment partners can play in our portfolio of offerings. You're going to gain an understanding of how the Water Treatment Group has capabilities that go well beyond chemical supply for our customers. You're also going to see how we partner with our internal businesses to help provide solutions. Really, our philosophy in the Water Treatment Group is that we're a supplier of solutions, not just chemistry. We pride ourselves in having an internal technical team that's capable of troubleshooting many treatment issues as well as determining the best chemistry for a particular application. Our internal capabilities are augmented by our strong relationships with our supply partners and their technical teams as well, and also with the close ties that we have with our advanced water treatment or AWT partners. Really, starting with the basics at Nutrien is we supply high-quality chemistry to Nutrien on a routine and consistent basis, and they use that chemistry in the production of their products. This is really a basic distributor function. We take this well beyond this, and we'll go into the detail of that here shortly. As a full-line chemical distributor, we're able to leverage our footprint and our purchasing power, and we're able to supply them with some of their basic chemical needs in a very safe and very reliable manner. Because we have such a robust supply chain, we're able to offer this chemistry in a very safe and consistent way, and we're able to assure them they're getting it with the shortest possible supply chain. Our very large and modern transportation fleet assures that we can get them the chemistry they need at the right time and without incident. Our drivers and our equipment are a very big source of pride and of safety for Univar Solutions. The Water Treatment Group uses them routinely for the supply of chemistry to customers like Nutrien. While we supply Nutrien with several chemicals that are essential in their day-to-day operations that we outlined in the previous slides, our relationship with them goes much, much deeper. This is where the Water Treatment Group becomes much more than a chemical supplier to our partner. We become a supplier of solutions to them. The Univar Solutions Water Treatment Group has been in a partnership for the marketing of hydrofluosilicic acid or HFS with Nutrien since 2018. In 2023, we moved the relationship to being an exclusive HFS distributor for Nutrien. This partnership affords Univar Solutions approximately 30,000 tons of HFS annually to take to market. In 2022, the Univar Solutions Water Treatment Group shipped close to 30,000 tons of HFS and were expected to ship the same, if not more, in 2023. The majority of the business is shipped via railcar, and we use local third-party or private fleet for the final leg of delivery, and that's going to depend on where the railcar is shipped. Currently, we ship bulk HFS out of 11 Univar Solutions branches in the U.S., and we ship HFS to two Univar Solutions branches or third-party terminals in Canada as well. Some of the material is sold in package, but really, the majority of this business, we sell in bulk, and we sell it to the potable water industry. The Univar Solutions Water Treatment Group has become one of the premier suppliers of water fluoridation chemistry in this country due to this relationship. Our well-developed capabilities in bid management for the potable water market really allow us to seek and place the HFS throughout the country. In addition to this, our countrywide team of water-focused specialists allow us to develop new business and convert new plants from competing dry technologies. We can also technically support the end users in terms of safe and proper use of the product. This is truly a full-service offering that we give to Nutrien for the placement of their product. More recently, to add another dimension to our relationship, we recently provided Nutrien with consulting services through our AWT partner, ICONX. This was for assistance on a project to expand their RO system throughput. While Univar Solutions Water Group typically doesn't directly provide this sort of specialized equipment or technical capabilities, our AWT partners are well-equipped to do just that. By partnering with them on projects like this, we're able to add an additional depth to our relationship with Nutrien. This multi-level relationship is of great value to the customer and to Univar Solutions. This is truly what we mean by redefining distribution. Let's talk a little bit about the importance of fluoride and the product HFS in the potable water treatment market. Since 1945, fluoride has been added to water systems across the United States. While this isn't an EPA-mandated practice, in studies that have been conducted by the American Dental Association and others, it's been shown that adding fluoride to the drinking water shows benefit for the oral health of the general population. Therefore, the vast majority of potable water plants in the United States fluoridate their water. In the early stages of this practice, a dry powder, sodium fluoride, was used. After a short time, there was another dry powder that was added to the list of fluoridation chemicals, and that was sodium silico fluoride. The thing that these two have in common is that they are bagged dry chemicals, and they typically require operator labor to introduce them to the process. While they're toxic in their concentrated form, special protective equipment has to be worn by the operators feeding this chemistry into the process. If you've ever been to a saturator unit that feeds this chemical and you've seen the process in operation, you're able to see that it's labor-intensive, and it definitely has some inherent exposure risk that's associated with it. One other thing that these chemicals have in common is that neither of them are made in the U.S. anymore, but they tend to come mostly from China. What that means is we've seen over the last couple of years is that supply chains are very long, and it many times is inconsistent because of that. As with most dry chemistries that are used in the treatment of water, liquid alternatives have been replacing the dry products. Because of the ease of feed of a liquid product compared to a dry, there are both safety factors and labor factors that the liquid products can provide. Nutrien's product, hydrofluosilicic acid or HFS, is a liquid. It's much easier and much safer to introduce into the potable water process. As a liquid that's stored in a tank and it's fed by a metering pump, it requires very little or no operator exposure on a day-to-day basis. It's therefore a much safer chemistry to use than the two dry alternatives. Also being a liquid, it can be metered in, and it does not require the daily labor time that a dry product requires to feed. The water industry, like many others, is experiencing a significant labor challenge, and products like this help with their labor requirements. Another advantage to this chemistry is its domestic manufacturing. Because of this, HFS has a much shorter and reliable supply chain compared to the two dry products for this application. Univar Solutions' agreement with Nutrien positions us very nicely with a domestically sourced product that has a much more reliable supply chain and is much safer to use than the competing chemistries. The shortened supply chain and onshore manufacturing also make this fluoride source a much greener and sustainable source for water fluoridation. Stepping beyond the supplier and marketing relationships that we enjoy with Nutrien, we've recently started working with them on the supply of technical support for an improvement project they're carrying out on one of their membrane systems. Nutrien uses reverse osmosis-type membranes to treat the incoming water, and they do this so that it meets the needs of their various production processes. To reverse osmosis systems, they typically require a particular pretreatment system, and that could be based on the quality of the source water. That can consist of chemistry or a combination of chemistry and equipment in order to maintain the best membrane life and performance. While Univar Solutions Water Treatment Group can provide some of this pretreatment chemistry, we typically do not get involved in the supply or specification of the equipment itself. Nutrien is looking at expanding the amount of water that they could treat with this process. While we're not typically capable of providing the equipment that they need to do this, as we previously mentioned, and because this particular solution is more equipment-oriented than chemistry-oriented, we managed together the assistance of one of our advanced water treatment partners, ICONX Chemicals. They're bringing forth their expertise and their capabilities to suggest and possibly provide options for Nutrien. At this time, I'd like to take a minute and introduce Antonio Baker. Antonio is one of our applications development specialists. He's going to discuss with you the value of the relationship between AWT companies and the Univar Solutions Water Treatment Group. Antonio? AWTs can be both suppliers and customers to Univar Solutions. They formulate highly specialized chemicals that go into unique water treatment applications, and at times, our focused water team helps market those chemistries. AWT companies also buy our products using their specialized formulations. AWTs are more focused on specialty chemicals and newer technologies. Their business model can also include advanced equipment supply, newer testing strategies, and also include a very high level of on-site service for their customers. Univar Solutions Water Group has seen many advantages when partnering with an AWT as a way to expand our offering to you, our customers. Thanks, Antonio. Following Antonio to discuss the capabilities of ICONX, here's their CEO, Laura Sanders. She's also going to discuss their role in the Nutrien project and also how an AWT company has a mutually beneficial relationship with the water treatment group at Univar Solutions. Laura? Thanks for that introduction, Jose. As you mentioned, I'm the CEO of ICONX Chemicals, I've been working in the water treatment and specialty chemicals industry for about 15 years. ICONX Chemicals was formed in 2020, we've been a strong participant of the Association of Water Technologies Organization since our beginning. The AWT represents over 500 companies that specialize in water treatment solutions for industrial and commercial cooling and heating systems. AWT consists of water treatment service companies as well as chemical equipment and software suppliers. They really encourage collaboration and teamwork within their organization, and they provide educational resources for their members. ICONX Chemicals is a complete source for industrial water treatment products. We specialize in providing a comprehensive portfolio of high-quality specialty chemicals for water treatment service companies and toll blenders. Additionally, we offer on-site technical support, water and solids lab analysis, as well as formulary support. In addition to our chemistries, ICONX can provide equipment and expertise in the field of filtration and membrane separations technologies. Because of this capability, we've partnered with Univar Solutions to help one of their customers, Nutrien, who specializes in agriculture solutions. There was a need to upgrade Nutrien's RO filtration flow capability, and ICONX showed them how to achieve that with their existing filtration design without increasing filtration size. Our experts evaluated the situation at Nutrien, and we provided options for Nutrien to meet their future expansion needs as well. While this is something that Univar does not typically do, our partnership with Univar allows us to bring this added benefit to their customer. Univar Solutions and ICONX Chemicals have a strong symbiotic relationship in that we buy chemistry from Univar for our custom blends and for our customers, and we also provide specialty chemical products and equipment to fill needs for Univar's water treatment group customers. While our business models may be different, when combined in opportunities such as the Nutrien example, we're able to offer Univar additional capabilities and options for their customers. Thank you for including me and for supporting ICONX Chemicals in this presentation. I appreciate the opportunity to outline our close team relationship with Univar in this forum. Back to you, Jose. All right, Laura. Thank you very much for that summary of your capabilities there at ICONX. We appreciate your help that you're providing us at the Nutrien project. At this time, I'm going to take the time to reintroduce John Fulcher, and he's going to wrap this one up for us. John? Very good. Thanks, Jose. Hopefully, today's presentation has given you a glimpse of how Univar Solutions Water Treatment Group is able to provide our customers with complete solutions. As part of the Univar team, we are able to leverage our distribution business model to supply the vast majority of the chemistry required to treat water and wastewater. By taking advantage of our scale and our nationwide facilities, we are able to quickly and completely meet our customers' chemistry needs. We currently have a group of 17 focused water sellers across the U.S. with the technical capabilities and the equipment needed to do quick and accurate chemical evaluations right on our customer site. Beyond that, we have a group of highly technical application development specialists that allow our water treatment group's customers access to highly trained and experienced water specialists to help solve their more difficult water treatment challenges. In addition to these valuable internal capabilities, we are capable of partnering with customers such as Nutrien to help them with the sales and marketing of their products and their co-products. Doing so has given us an excellent position in the fluoride market here in the U.S. It's also given us access to a much more freight, logical, and safe product for the fluoridation of drinking water in the U.S. Finally, our relationship with AWTs such as ICONX further expands our offering and capabilities to include more specialized chemistry, more equipment-oriented solutions, and a higher level of on-site service for customers that require those items. All of this capability is available to our internal vertical industry teams to help them meet all of their customers' water and wastewater needs as well. By bringing all of these capabilities together, the Univar Solutions Water Treatment Group is able to provide much more than just chemistry to our customers. We provide solutions to meet their needs on many levels, making this group one of the most innovative of its kind in the U.S. We continue to find new partners in the industry to expand our offering and to make ourselves even more valuable to our customers. Again, thanks for your time today. I'll turn it back to Jose for any other closing remarks. Great. Thank you, John. Appreciate that summary. To our audience, we definitely appreciate your attention and participation here. Hopefully, you learned something about our water group and our capabilities to help your customers. We're very happy to entertain any possibilities. Just reach out to one of the focused water sellers or one of the product managers or application development specialists, and we'll be happy to help you with your water treatment needs. Thank you very much. All right. Now for the Q&A session. Jose, first question? Can the Univar Solutions Water Team make joint calls with other Univar Solutions business units to investigate potential water treatment opportunities? John, absolutely. I mean, this is something we definitely are very interested in doing. We encourage this greatly. We would love to see joint calls with folks like the LCD teams or some of the focused industry groups. We'd like to see this because we think that there are possibilities to help some of their customers with some of the water treatment solutions that they need. I think we do a great job of servicing the front end of these businesses, and we have great products and services there. I do think that there's the possibility for kind of selling a little deeper and a little wider by bringing in either one of the water-focused team or one of the ADSs. We can certainly go into those customers, and we can help the sellers determine whether there's an opportunity for water treatment products or maybe help some of those customers with some of the water treatment issues they may be having. We've got an example going on right now in Georgia where we're working with an LCD seller. In this particular business, it's not a chemistry-type solution. It's an equipment solution. We're able to make recommendations and bring in somebody who can provide them the equipment that they need to treat the water the way they're looking at doing. Yes, to answer your question, absolutely. This would be a great use of time by both the focused industry teams, the LCD teams, and also the water treatment team. Great. When I think of other Univar Solutions business units, one that comes to mind is the food group. Can you think of other groups within Univar that are probably big water users? Food is definitely a big one. Mining is, oil and gas. I mean, there are very few industries that don't have a more or less significant water use. It's definitely across the board, and some certainly are greater than others. I would have to say that the majority of folks that are making products are using water in some form or fashion, and they have to treat it either on the incoming side or on the exit side in some form or fashion. That's right. In the way we're designed, we're internally positioned to operate across all these business units to help not only them, but their customers. I'm sure, Jose, you've participated in a lot of these different industries over your time here at Univar. Yep. We're positioned very well to do that. If you look at our focused water sellers, they're spread throughout the country. Our ADSs have geographies that cover the entire country. We've got the capability to help you pretty much anywhere. Yep. Jose, between the conferences we go to and meeting with people in the industry, we're always open and find new potential water treatment products. What is really the best way for someone with a new water treatment product to get it into our network? I mean, that's a good question because that is something that we kind of pride ourselves in having a big portfolio so that there's very few magic bullets in the water treatment industry. There's not really a one-size-fits-all product. Honestly, for a quick response, I would tend to reach out to your local focused water seller. While that may not be the end person that would be able to make that happen, they certainly are going to be a good conduit to address the situation and to get the situation into the right hands so that it can be looked at. There's a lot of different steps that come into bringing a new product online. We work with product management people for our products, so they need to be involved. Depending on the type of product that it is, if it's something that's going to require either repackaging or some formulation or blending, we need to involve the operations team as well. I would say start out with your local water seller and have them kind of guide you through the process. Certainly, the interest is there on this part of the water group for finding new technologies to meet our customers' needs. Exactly. I think what's interesting too is when we bring new products to the field, there's usually a period where we get those products in the hands of our ADSs. They get to try them out in different applications to find where they're going to fit best and direct the team. I'm sure you've seen a few of those come your way here. You probably have a few of these in your test kit right now, right? Oh, absolutely. No, you'd be surprised. Oh, you wouldn't be surprised. We work very closely with a lot of the manufacturers, and we serve kind of as a test system for them because a lot of times, we will have, depending on the size of the company, maybe a larger technical service or application development group than the manufacturer does. By doing that, we can provide a service to them, but it also positions us well with a product if it happens to be something that's of value. Yes, we as ADSs, and even the water sellers as well, will work directly on testing these new products out in applications. Great. We move on to the next question here. If somebody has a water treatment need or even an operational problem with their wastewater system or their water system, who's the best person for them to reach out to? Well, I would have to say that for quick response, once again, you probably want to go to the focused water seller. Many times, they're able to address the situation themselves, and their location, their geography allows them to kind of do this in an expedited manner. They're equipped with a full array of test equipment to do testing on site. A lot of times, the answers, depending on how complicated they are, can be solved by the local focused water seller. Now, if we come across a situation where maybe there's a little bit more involved, something more technical, or something that's a little bit more out in left field, we can bring in an application development specialist. Like I mentioned earlier, there's four of us across the country. We each cover different geographies. We can certainly take that next step to help evaluate a problem and develop a solution for it. From there, we can actually pool other additional resources, whether it's from a manufacturer or, like in the case of Nutrien, from an AWT. One way or another, we will find a solution to a water treatment problem. I would say definitely from the starting point, start with your local focused water seller and go from there. Great. Jose, you mentioned during your presentation, on-site evaluations. Could you tell us a little bit more about that? What capabilities that brings? Sure. Actually, I'm a big believer in this technology, especially when it comes to the industry that we work in. Wastewater is kind of a living, breathing thing. When you try to ship that across the country, say, to a centralized lab or something like that, it can change in nature. Therefore, whatever solution you may find in that lab may not actually work in real life. This on-site capabilities that we have is great. We've got the equipment and the tools to be able to do a tremendous amount of on-site development. Our focused water sellers, they're trained in this. They're equipped with pretty much everything they need to do for either coagulation or flocculation testing on water or solid streams. They carry a full set of potential chemistries, including all the major inorganic coagulants and a full range of polymer products, which are a great deal of the chemistry that is used in these solutions. Anything outside our analytical capabilities that we may not be able to do on site, we can send that to one of our many analytical partners in the country for evaluation. The importance here, what we really want to stress is, hey, we can do this on site. We can do it quickly. Many times, it's a very straightforward fix. If it isn't, then we can bring in an ADS. We can bring in a manufacturer. We have the technology and the tools at our disposal to be able to address these capabilities and address them on site most of the time. Great. During the presentation, you also mentioned that Univar Solutions is the leader in fluoride distribution in this country. What do you see as the future for fluoridation? Ooh, that's a loaded question. It's one of those questions that's a very passionate topic, we could probably do an entire day on the pros and cons of fluoridating drinking water. The reality is that there have been some very good studies, they're fully backed by good science. We believe that science, we believe that adding a trace amount of fluoride to water is beneficial. This health benefit is enjoyed by pretty much everyone who uses tap water. It makes it very accessible. With the recent events of COVID, the importance of supply chains for these crucial treatment products became really obvious. Some facilities had trouble getting some of their fluoride chemistry, especially the dry material that was coming from China. We really see this as a plus for the domestically manufactured liquid fluoride that we're able to market. I do believe that fluoride is going to be added to water for certainly the future and probably the long future. I do believe that liquid fluoride is a much better alternative than the dry products from several different points of view. From a safety point of view, anytime that you have a product that requires less PPE to use, that's certainly a benefit. Operators like that better. When you have a product that requires less labor to use, everybody likes that better because labor is definitely a problem. Really, the big thing here is having that domestic source when it comes to being able to supply a product that's already onshore, typically made not too far or inventoried not too far from the end user. There's definitely a big plus to that from the point of view of sustainability and also of supply security. I definitely see fluoride being used in potable water for quite some time. I do believe we're going to continue to see a trend of the fluoride users going to the liquid product and going to the domestic source for that product. Great. Well, that brings us to the end of our Q&A session, the end of our time together. We've really enjoyed being here today and appreciate everyone else's time for joining us here today at Univar Solutions Innovation Day. The water treatment team can learn more about us or reach out to us on the web. As you work with your local sales rep, they're probably your first line of defense. They can also reach out to us as well if there's opportunities for water treatment. All right. Thanks, John. Thanks to everybody for your attention and your participation in this presentation. Hello. My name is Tamar Serapian. I'm a Technical Business Development Manager with the Nutraceutical line of business with Univar Solutions. I've been with Univar Solutions for about three years. My background is comprehensive in pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, as well as food. My technical background is that I am a food scientist. I've got my master's in food science and technology. I'm excited to be presenting about this topic today, applying sports nutrition principles in adult nutrition, because it really combines my holistic background as well as my passion for fitness and nutrition. Aging is different for everyone. It differs based on physiology, lifestyle, and several other factors. One fact remains: we are all undergoing constant aging. As we age, we experience changes in our nutrient requirements, our metabolism, and our physiological functions. This graphic illustrates changes that we see in aging adults. Changes in the frontal cortex, along with genetics, neural changes, hormones, and individual experiences, can all affect cognition and memory. Additional age-related changes can also include decreases in appetite, metabolic rate, and the ability to absorb nutrients. As a result, we may eat less than what we need to maintain good health and become at risk for nutrient deficiencies. We begin to lose about 3%-8% of muscle mass per decade after the age of 30. This figure then increases after the age of 60. This decrease in muscle mass and increase in muscle atrophy is often referred to as sarcopenia. Sarcopenia, in combination with decreased bone density and bone turnover, also known as osteosarcopenia, can lead to a loss of strength, mobility, and ultimately independence. Staying active and independent in adulthood is important for maintaining cognitive function due to the positive effects of physical activity on neuroplasticity of the brain. Independence in adults is associated with higher incidence of socialization, which is key to ensuring that adults are not falling subject to isolation and loneliness. It's not uncommon to see ourselves under oxidative stress and our bodies undergo higher frequencies of inflammation, which is a low-grade chronic systemic inflammation. Increases in inflammatory response can lead to suppressed immune function and joint stiffness, which also may contribute to a lack of mobility and desire for physical activity. Staying diligent about nutritional supplementation strategies can be useful to navigate the aging process for optimal outcomes. There are several obstacles that can hinder optimal nutrition in adults, the most common obstacle being management of chronic health conditions when they are present, in which case medication is usually involved. Some medications can potentially interfere with nutrient absorption or metabolism, leading to nutrient deficiencies. Certain conditions, such as diabetes, heart disease, and kidney disease, may require specific dietary modifications to manage symptoms and prevent complications. Chronic health conditions can impact appetite, taste, and digestion, which can affect food choices and nutrient intake. Dietary modifications can be difficult to adhere to, and they may require a significant amount of effort, planning, and education. When creating nutritional supplements for this demographic, it's important to create products that are easy and convenient to consume. Exploring alternative forms of supplements, including liquids, sublinguals, gummies, or functional foods and beverages, can help adults with creating healthy habits that they can maintain over time. Malnutrition can be an issue in aging adults with significant consequences. Up to 50% of adults in the U.S. are at risk for malnutrition. As we can see from the graph on the left, the incidence of malnutrition-related hospital stays is highest in those over the age of 85. Causes in malnutrition can range from age-related loss in appetite, poor absorption of nutrients, difficulties of chewing and swallowing, and like we mentioned prior, chronic illness. Malnutrition can have serious consequences for adults, including weakened immune systems, muscle wasting, and can contribute to the development of chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and osteoporosis. Half of older adults living independently have less than optimal nutritional habits that increase their risk for disease. Additionally, malnutrition can contribute to overall negative energy balance, which may have implications for chronic disease progression and increased mortality rate. Easy-to-consume oral nutritional supplementation can help to ensure individuals are addressing their nutrient requirements, leading to better health and overall well-being. A potential management strategy that we can apply to adult nutrition is applying the principles of sports nutrition. The principles of sports nutrition focus on the needs of athletes and their specific nutritional requirements for fuel, enduring, and recovery pre and post-physical activity. Core principles include macronutrient and micronutrient balance, hydration, nutrient timing, and supplementation to bridge any nutrient gaps. Fueling refers to the nutrient consumption prior to and during exercise to provide energy for the body to function at an optimal level. For an adult, this can mean aiding energy levels to ensure adults are motivated to engage in physical activity. Adults tend to be the most sedentary age group, and they can spend 60%-80% of their waking hours sedentary. Endurance refers to the ability of the individual to sustain physical activity for an extended period of time for superior performance. For adults, this means ensuring that adults are maintaining their physical and cognitive health for maximum overall health benefits. Recovery refers to repairing and restoring the body post-physical activity. For an adult, both maintenance and recovery are key to staying mobile and healthy. This is accomplished via consumption of key nutrients that assist with joint health and muscle synthesis and the avoidance of nutrient deficiencies. Let's take a look at some of the similarities of athletes versus aging adults. There are several commonalities to the key requirements of aging individuals to those of athletes. Both athletes and aging adults experience changes in their musculoskeletal structure and function. Changes in athletes and active individuals typically occur during physical activity. Their muscles and bones must adapt to the stress placed upon them during training, with a focus on becoming stronger and more efficient. Faced with the natural aging process, adults need to be mindful of joint degeneration and the onset of conditions like osteoarthritis and sarcopenia. In aging adults, a protein energy deficit can quickly lead to a loss of muscle mass, strength, and function, together with a transient depression of immune function so that exercise performance is completely compromised. Both groups need to be mindful of the right nutrients and protein intake to support muscle growth, recovery, and prevent muscle loss. Athletes may benefit from being mindful of the gut microbiome in addition to nutrient timing and absorption, staying hydrated, and ensuring that proper absorption of nutrients is beneficial to athletes. Athletes also need to be mindful of exercise-induced stress, which can cause digestive issues. Similarly, an aging adult experiences changes in their microbiota due to changes in diet, any medications, and age-related loss of said micro gut microbiota, which can cause digestion issues. Both groups may benefit from consuming nutrient-dense diets with recommended amounts of fiber, pre and probiotics. Cognition and focus are crucial to both athletes and aging adults. Athletes need to maintain focus and stay alert for extended periods of time during physical activity. This ensures they avoid injury and perform at their peak capabilities. The mind-to-muscle connection helps with better performance as well. Aging adults undergo changes in the frontal lobe and may experience age-related declines in attention and cognition. Fatigue and stress can affect both groups of individuals, so it's important to incorporate supportive nutrients in the form of nootropics to enhance and maintain cognitive functions. Whether you're creating products tailored to a professional athlete, a weekend warrior, or an aging adult, Univar Solutions offers a diverse range of products in its nutraceutical portfolio to help you create a value-added product. Let's take a look at some of these products. We do have RedNite, which is a beetroot juice extract. It's standardized to nitrates. Supplementation with a nitrate-rich beetroot extract may deliver neuromuscular advantages during resistance and exercise. Clinical trials on RedNite demonstrated its ability to improve resistance to fatigue. We also offer CoffeeFruit Pure, an upcycled and sustainably sourced dehydrated coffee fruit husk powder, which is a potent antioxidant alternative for your next supplement or functional food or beverage. We offer SerinAid, a phosphatidylserine, which is a naturally occurring phospholipid which supports proteins which manage the entry of nutrients into the cells and the exit of stress-related waste products out of the cells. SerinAid may safely reduce elevated cortisol levels and optimize cognitive function. Phosphatidylserine may help activate individuals, may help activate individual improved exercise capacity, reduce muscle soreness, and reduce fatigue and accelerate recovery. We also offer AlphaSize, which is an alpha-GPC, a premier choline donor which increases the available choline for the synthesis of acetylcholine, a vital neurotransmitter located in the brain and muscles. Numerous studies show the intake of AlphaSize may increase cognitive function, optimize muscular output, sharpen agility, and delay mental fatigue. We offer PureMune, which is an organic yeast beta 1, 3/1, 6 glutamine, which offers many benefits when formulating products for immune support. Its low-dose, fast-acting formula activates all three parts of the immune system. Sytrinol is a powerful blend of bioflavonoids and tocotrienols extracted from natural citrus and palm fruits that may help support healthy cholesterol and triglyceride levels. Eriomin is a citrus bioflavonoid that helps support healthy glucose levels, promoting auditory, visual, and cognitive function. Lanconone is a proprietary blend of botanical ingredients with clinical evidence that shows relief from joint pain. MaxiCuma was a revolutionary water-soluble curcumin that is sustainably produced using a green extraction process. It's tasteless and odorless, and it resolves the challenges of low solubility and low bioavailability associated with curcumin formulations. Whey and casein are dairy proteins that assist with muscle recovery. Hemp protein is a plant-based alternative to dairy proteins and offered in both organic and conventional. To showcase our innovative products in prototypes, I'm excited to introduce our next two presenters: Charles Purcell, our Senior Manager of Application Development for the Univar Solutions Foodology team, and Chef Mike Haracz, the Univar Solutions Corporate Chef and Culinary Development Lead out of the Hatchery Kitchen in Chicago, Illinois. Charles and Chef Mike, take it away. Welcome to the Univar Solutions North American Food Solutions Center, where chefs, food scientists, and chemists come together to assist our customers in bringing their products to life and into the hands of consumers. I'm Chef Mike Haracz, Culinary Development Lead. I'm Charles Purcell, Senior Scientist with Univar Solutions. Today, we'll be showcasing some products from our nutraceutical portfolio in end-use applications aimed at promoting healthy aging. Today, we'll also discuss a few product prototypes where we combine both ingredients and applications targeted for sports nutrition to create a nutritional supplement solution for aging adults. These prototypes are developed with a common goal of improving the overall health and well-being of aging adults. All products are prototypes only and should not be taken as medical or legal advice. Chef Mike, let's get started. What Charles has here is a nootropic shot. This formula provides a targeted dose of alpha-GPC 50%, a highly bioavailable choline donor that can enhance cognitive function, memory, and learning. Alpha-GPC is also believed to increase the production of acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter that is important for brain function. AlphaSize A-GPC has interesting utility in mind-to-muscle sports nutrition formulations, where it may optimize muscular power output, sharpen agility, and also delay mental fatigue. This is due to acetylcholine's action involving motor unit activation of muscle fibers and subsequent muscle contraction, as well as its ability to increase cognition due to its mental sharpness benefits. This formula also contains lutein. Lutein is a well-studied carotenoid for vision. Studies also suggest that lutein may be beneficial in increasing neurobiological efficiency in brain regions that are at risk for age-related deterioration, which supports cognitive function in older adults. We have used Xanthogreen, a water-soluble 10% lutein ester, to support both eye health and cognitive function. Xanthogreen is solvent-free, sustainable lutein sourced from marigold flower. This formula is targeted for adult nutrition and can be consumed as a quick and convenient way to support brain and eye health. How many of you start your day with a yogurt parfait? This is a delicious and nutritious way to start the day and a healthy addition to your diet. This is a great example of taking an everyday, simple-to-consume food item that your customers already enjoy and making it a value-added product with a couple of additions. This yogurt contains a deodorized and flavor-neutral algal DHA, a plant-based source of omega-3 fatty acids that are known to support brain health, cognitive function, and cardiovascular health. Our algal DHA comes in multiple forms, including powders and oils, multiple concentrations ranging from 10%-70%. This is 40% DHA. The deodorized and neutral version will help to eliminate fishy odor and taste from algal alternatives, which make it extremely application-friendly. The granola topper contains PureMune, the only organic yeast beta-glucan clinically studied for its role in benefiting the immune system. It activates faster and at a lower dose of only 30 mg compared to any other beta-glucan in the market. It's offered in organic form, and it's a great addition to the diet to help support a healthy immune system. Ready-to-drink beverages are familiar to both athletes and aging adults. This prototype incorporates micellar casein, cold-water-soluble and highly bioavailable curcumin called MaxiCuma, and magnesium for maximum benefits while resting. Micellar casein is a slower-digesting protein compared to whey protein. Its slow release of amino acids into the bloodstream supports muscle synthesis and may be beneficial for older individuals who are at risk of age-related muscle loss. Additionally, casein is a complete protein and contains all the essential amino acids the body requires to build and repair tissue. It's a good source of calcium, and it provides a lower insulin response, which can be great for aging adults who experience insulin resistance. This product actually contains magnesium. Magnesium intake has been associated with its effect on performance and recovery. Studies have shown its effectiveness in significantly reducing muscle soreness after strenuous exercise and enhanced recovery of blood glucose, which has an overall positive performance impact. Magnesium can assist with counteracting sleep and cognitive disorders, which may be common in the elderly with mild magnesium deficiencies. Yes. During exercise, the human body experiences a breakdown of carbohydrates that can suppress immune response and potentially alter gut permeability. Prebiotic FOS, also known as fructo-oligosaccharides, increases the population of beneficial bacteria in the gut and stimulates the production of short-chain fatty acids that aid in increased energy for liver and muscle cells to delay fatigue and improve endurance performance. Prebiotic consumption is also associated with overall wellness. FOS is fully water-soluble and works synergistically in these formulations. This formula contains carrageenan as a thickening agent and vanillin, which imparts a delicious taste in our formula. The nutrition profile of this formulation is 15 g of protein, 50% of the daily value of magnesium, and 2 g of prebiotic fiber. MaxiCuma is an instant water-soluble curcumin that is clinically studied. MaxiCuma contains 172x more free curcumin than similar products in the market. Its longer half-life is ideally suited for one-a-day doses. Typically, the obstacle with turmeric products is their low bioavailability and low solubility in water. This restricts its use in various applications. Another benefit of MaxiCuma is that it is neutral in taste, so there is no earthy aftertaste. It can be easily used in applications like effervescent tablets, gummies, lozenges, sachets, dairy, and as in this case, an RTD beverage. Great. Let's demonstrate how MaxiCuma easily dissolves in water, unlike standard turmeric. I have here 0.2 g of MaxiCuma that I'll dissolve in 500 mils of water. Easily done. A simple stir. The MaxiCuma is 100% solubilized. This creates a fantastic opportunity to incorporate turmeric into a variety of applications. Worth mentioning again, it's a novel form of curcumin that provides much higher free curcumin. Turmeric has various advantages, including supporting reduced inflammation and benefiting joint health. Incorporating it into your application is easy with MaxiCuma. Now we will revisit the ingredients we used in each of our demos today. For the nootropic shot, nutraceutical active ingredients used are AlphaSize A- GPC, a 100% cold-water-soluble alpha glycerol phosphoryl choline to support cognitive function; Xanthogreen, cold-water-soluble 10% lutein ester to support cognitive function and eye health. For the yogurt parfait, active ingredients used are neutral and deodorized algal DHA, 40% DHA, a plant-based source of omega-3s shown to support cognitive function and development; PureMune, organic yeast beta-glucan supports a healthy immune system. For the ready-to-drink recovery nighttime beverage, nutraceutical products used are micellar casein, an important muscle recovery ingredient for sleep that prevents muscle breakdown, MaxiCuma cold-water-soluble turmeric extract, 24x more bioavailable than your standard 95% curcumin to help support healthy inflammatory response, magnesium phosphates, which are a great way to incorporate healthy levels of magnesium, carrageenan as a thickener, vanillin and Truvia for flavor and to impart sweetness. As we have discussed, developing effective nutritional products for adults and athletes requires an understanding of the unique nutritional needs and challenges faced by both groups of individuals. The food scientists and industry experts at Univar Solutions stay up to date with the latest research and trends in nutrition and can assist your teams with developing innovative and effective products that help achieve a variety of nutritional goals. Thank you for joining, and we look forward to hearing from you about these and the myriad of other ingredients Univar Solutions can provide for your final formulations. Hi. Welcome to Tamar Serapian's Q&A portion of the presentation. My name is Sarah Gonçalves. I'm the Technical Business Development for Nutraceuticals here in Canada, and I will be the moderator for Tamar's session. Tamar, I really loved your presentation. I think it covers a topic that we're just not addressing today in the sense that there isn't a huge overlap between sports nutrition and adult nutrition. Thank you so much. Thanks. Going through the demos as well as some of the ingredients that you were talking about, I started to think about what do you think and what do they taste like, I guess, in the formulation? The products like the alpha-GPC, the AlphaSize, the PureMune, the micellar casein, would you mind commenting maybe a little bit on the flavor profiles of those ingredients? Yes, absolutely. Thank you for that. That is typically the number one question that any formulator really is going to be focusing on when they're looking to incorporate these products into a final formulation. Due to limited time, I couldn't really touch on flavor profiles of every single one that I presented during the PowerPoint. As far as what's presented during the live demos, most of the products are actually tasteless and flavorless. For example, the alpha-GPC that we used in the nootropic shot has a neutral flavor, and it is completely tasteless. The PureMune that was in the yogurt parfait is also completely tasteless and odorless. Again, very easy to incorporate into a variety of different applications. We also use that micellar casein in the ready-to-drink beverage. That casein is actually a byproduct of a mozzarella cheese-making process. What's unique about that is the factory that we obtain these products from only manufactures mozzarella versus maybe some other factories who maybe make cheddar cheese or Gouda. You might be receiving some off-colors, off-flavors, off-notes. That's what's really unique about the micellar casein. It's a very white and very consistent colored product, and there is minimal taste to that as well. We did include some other ingredients like fructo-oligosaccharides. Those are inherently sweet products and actually can be used to help to replace sugar in some applications as well. Most of our products are very versatile and have minimal taste and flavor. That's actually quite interesting. Just going back to the casein that you were talking about, I have tasted some sodium caseinates or even milk protein isolates, which can be a little bit sulfury and chemically. It's really nice to know and hear that the micellar casein is a completely nice and clean flavor to add to any application, I assume. Yeah. Our supplier is actually Leprino Foods, and they are one of the largest national manufacturers of mozzarella cheese. It's a very, very unique supplier. Yeah. Wow. No, that's great to hear. I mean, in terms of actually just thinking about casein, is there anything in the micellar casein specifically? I know you've used it in the sports nutrition, adult nutrition product in the demos, but is there any other applications that you might recommend the casein for? Oh, that is a great question. What comes to mind initially is the ready-to-drinks just because they are so easily consumable. We see a lot of these protein products and a lot of functional foods. We're starting to see the incorporation into things even like a pasta or a pasta sauce. More and more consumers are demanding higher protein content in a lot of their food groups because there's tons of studies and clinical evidence showing that protein keeps you satiated for a longer period of time. Customers are starting to get more active, focus on their health a little bit more. They're noticing that protein is a huge ingredient. It's a huge macronutrient. It's vital to their health. They want to see that incorporated into more just general food products. We're seeing functional foods kind of be a huge target market for some of our not only whey protein but also micellar caseins. That leads into another question that I kind of had top of mind, actually. You talked a lot about sort of older adults, but what demographic would you maybe try to target with adult nutrition or sports nutrition-style products? Would it be those over the age of 30? Those over the age of 60? Where do you see this trend being most focused towards? Yeah. That's typically why I mean, I'm very sensitive about the term older adults because we're not referring just to those over the age of 65. A lot of these aging changes and these obstacles that we're seeing do occur in these later years. Sometimes, more and more, we're starting to see the onset of these issues in our 30s or our 40s, which doesn't necessarily mean you're an older adult. More and more, we're seeing our consumers really start paying attention to their health in these decades of their lifetimes because they want to ensure that by the time that they get to the age of 60, that they're aging in a proper manner and that they're increasing their years spent very healthy and very active and cognitively present. We want to focus on increasing health span, not just lifespan. Healthy aging, really, it would be doing adults of any age a disservice to just focus on those over 60 as a target market. We really want to be promoting these products, too. We want to be focusing on sports nutrition and healthy aging. As we've seen in the presentation, there's a huge crossover. I do really think that we should be focusing on adults of any age and trying to help educate them and make them more aware that some of these food products and supplement products can really be beneficial as the decades go by. Absolutely. That's great. I like that answer, and I think the audience will appreciate the response to that as well. Sorry, you talked about whey in your presentation, and you talked about casein as well and hearing a lot more about milk fat globule membrane as a source of protein, but also as a source of phospholipids. Do you think there's a place for that in adult nutrition as well as sports nutrition, or how do you see sort of that product playing out in this space? Absolutely. Typically, we actually see milk fat globule membrane I'm just going to refer to it as MFGM. Typically, we see the product actually in infant nutrition products. It's called out on the label because it's extremely important for cognitive development of children. Now that we're noticing a focus on cognitive development and maintaining cognitive function in healthy aging and aging adults, it's important to start applying that to adults as well. With that being said, sports nutrition then is not exempt from that category. Everybody wants to stay cognizant. They want to retain their memory. They want to stay social and active. I do think that there is a place in multiple markets for MFGM to be incorporated into products. It is such an emerging field, and I think you're right. The focus portion is a huge part of the sports nutrition world as well. In your opinion, do you feel like there's a protein that might be better for adult nutrition in regards to both whey and casein? I never want to say that something is better than something else because in the end, it all depends. The two are both highly beneficial. They add protein content to a variety of different applications. They are used in different methods. For example, whey protein is typically used post-workout for protein benefits. The way that we really want to focus on using the casein, because it's a larger molecular size, it keeps you satiated for longer. It keeps you fuller for longer. We want to use it in the evenings, at nighttime. It kind of helps to provide that sustained release as well. It provides extended bioavailability as we sleep, which can kind of help to limit muscle atrophy and kind of helps increase our body sustain the muscle that we want to maintain through our adult years. You actually bring up a really great point. I was thinking while you were saying that, coaching does create a lot of satiation. One of the challenges with as we get older, we need more calories, and sometimes it's harder to consume them. Maybe you're trying to do weight management, so maybe protein is good in that sense. One of the challenges they're seeing with older adults is it's hard to get the amount of protein consumption that they actually need to, I guess, attenuate sarcopenia in that sense. Do you feel like there's or is there an effective strategy to improve protein consumption? Sorry, what may you suggest, I should say, for increasing protein consumption in older adults? A lot of it really does begin with education, which can be difficult, but kind of educating older adults on the benefits of protein, which are widely known with athletes and individuals who are focused on exercising. It's vital if you're an athlete or involved in any type of physical performance. Older adults and those maybe who are already past the point of 60 years old may not really understand the full benefits of consuming adequate protein, especially as we age and we start to see some of that muscle loss and reduction of bone density. Incorporating protein into a variety of applications is really going to be the most beneficial for these age groups. Like I said, we're starting to see them in functional foods a lot more. I think even being sneaky and sneaking it into some foods is great because a lot of adults may just not be reaching for a protein supplementation product. They might be just going to buy their average marinara sauce or maybe their average pasta product, and we're starting to replace some of the grains and carbohydrates and other products that may not be as nutrient-dense with protein that's actually going to help their health and well-being in the long run. I think that goes for a lot of the ingredients you talked about today, not necessarily sneaking them in, but you're right, educating them on how do we increase the nutrient density of the products that they're eating? How do we replace sugar with something like fructooligosaccharides so the average consumer is getting their prebiotics? Almost like you're not sneaking it in, but you are educating and improving the nutrient density of a regular average product that you might go shop at. Absolutely. That was kind of the whole point of these product prototypes, too, is to showcase that you can take an average product that's consumed pretty frequently every day and place something into it that can help with immunity, like the PureMune product or some of the alpha-GPC that's helping with cognition, but that isn't really a health product or a supplement. We're really looking to incorporate a lot of these products into just everyday food items so that they can help with well-being and health. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for the detailed responses, Tamar. I feel like our audience will have a lot to absorb and interpret and hopefully apply to their formulations in the future. With that, thank you so much. Thank you, Sarah. Have a great day. You too. Welcome, everyone, to the Agriculture Chemical Presentation for Univar Solutions Innovation Day. My name is James Rogers, General Manager for Central and Northern California and Business Lead for our National Agriculture Innovation Initiatives. I'm very excited to share all that Univar is, all that we have done, and just exactly what that means for you. We've affectionately dubbed our ag initiative Chemistry That Grows. That pun is intended. For us, that means so much more than just distributing a portfolio of chemicals. It's about growing all of what we have to offer with the full strength of our global footprint, extensive supplier and product portfolio, top-class private fleet, carrier relationships, and technical expertise, just to name a few, but with a local partner feel capable of delivering tailored solutions specific to your needs. Now I would like to introduce Christian Je`uris, our ag chemical Business Development Manager, who will take a look at how we're redefining distribution. We will share how we apply all of that to the ag market. Finally, we'll close with answers to some common questions we've heard along the way. Christian? Thank you, James. Appreciate y'all being here today. Here's our agenda for our agricultural presentation. Our purpose is to demonstrate how Univar Solutions is reinventing distribution in the agricultural market space. Our process is, in the first half of the presentation, we'll review our capabilities and how we are helping our customers raise the bar on innovation, i.e., helping you bring the market your product development quicker. In the second half of the presentation, we'll focus on agriculture and our team's technical know-how, which in turn will highlight that Univar Solutions is your go-to supplier partner in agriculture innovation. The payoff will be to understanding the value our team brings to our customers and how to use it to grow your business, provide the technical know-how you are looking for to exceed your goals in innovation. Let's get started. Redefining distribution. Well, I love that chemistry that grows. Love that. How are we doing this? Well, there are three key value adds Univar Solutions brings when redefining distribution in the agricultural market. It's our scale, our reliability, our innovation capabilities. We are a global leader in chemical ingredient distribution. We provide global expertise with localized service. We provide fast market information within a reliable and resilient network. We position ourselves ahead of market disruptions by the following: Number one, having an industry focus, whether it's oil and gas, food, personal care, to agriculture, we have industry-trained representatives to provide you the products and information you require. Number two, providing sustainability, whether it's sustainable ingredients to sustainable, reliable service, Univar is there for you. Number three, technical acumen. Both from within Univar Solutions and from our vast array of supplier partners, we have the technical know-how to assist you in formulating your agricultural product lines. Number four, digitalization. You can log into univarsolutions.com and obtain pricing, review invoices, ask for samples, and obtain technical documents, just to name a few. Number five is we provide market intelligence to help you manage and grow your innovations to fruition. Lastly, reliability. You can rely on Univar to provide the products and services you require for innovation in agriculture. Let's talk about Univar Solutions and how we deliver to our customers. Well, it's more than just products. It's a broad portfolio of products from the best brands in the category. If you formulate organic formulations, we have organic certified ingredients for your review. We bring technical expertise and application support. We do this with our internal expertise as well as our supplier's vast technical know-how. Since Univar covers a variety of markets, like I said, from oil and gas to food to coatings, just to name a few, we bring you important insights that you can use to manage your business regarding demand dynamics, pricing, feedstocks, supply constraints, and supply alternatives. All these insights will be valuable so you can grow your ag business. Now let's discuss supply chain. Univar Solutions is well positioned to service our agricultural customers. Well, let me say it. We're worldwide with approximately 600 distribution facilities across the world, 4,900 tractors, trailers, and tankers providing inventory and delivery alternatives. Approximately 2,500 railcars are in our fleet, 120 rail and barge terminals, and 20 deep-sea terminals. Why are these statistics important? Well, it shows our scale to service your business with reliability of supply no matter where in the world you need product. Located in 32 countries and delivering to nearly 100,000 customer locations across approximately 120 countries, we're there for you. Committed to industry-leading customer service and on-time delivery, ready to deliver custom supply chain solutions for your business from supplier's plants directly to your customer's facilities. Some of the things that we do in our supply chain is blending. We have a variety of blending capabilities, bulk breakdown, from barges to railcars to tankers to drones, totes, two-and-a-half-gallon jugs. We got it for you when it comes to packaging. We can private label. We can warehouse. With over 90 facilities, we have thousands of square feet of warehousing and transloading, which we'll talk in a minute about that. All right. Global sourcing and expertise with a local service, that's really our theme as part of our capabilities. We have over 1,800 suppliers, full range of over 15,000 commodity and specialty products serving a wide range of markets, industries, and applications, including custom blends and special package offerings, from drums to railcars, pallets to truckloads, ability to service a wide variety of volumes and packaging types, custom blends, dilutions, and inventory solutions, procurement of product solutions for your business, from rush orders to just-in-time inventory planning. Let's talk a little bit about some of the product categories. In acids, we have things for the agricultural market like phosphoric acid, sulfuric acid, hydrochlorate. We have macro and micro fertilizer ingredients, chelates, enzymes, specialty chemicals, polymers, processing aids, silicones for the foamers and wetting agents, solvents, surfactants, and water treatment, again, just to name a few. Univar Solutions provides a broad portfolio of products and technical expertise that will help you accelerate growth and simplify doing business. Global expertise. Expert teams specialize to serve global market verticals. Let's say you need a product in Brazil or technical expertise. Univar can handle it, and we can provide this for you. We have dedicated teams who know the agricultural market space and the trends impacting your business. We bring you a wide range of products from the world's leading manufacturers. You can also tap into Univar Solutions' global network of laboratories and Solution Centers, which are staffed with technical experts to assist you. We have over 42,000 customers. We are a committed supplier partner with global capabilities, providing the technical support to help you extend your capabilities and fast-track product development. We have 500 premier suppliers and focused sales and marketing teams, along with dedicated product management resources to support your business. Let's take a look at our global supplier partners. Wow, as you can see here, this is the best of the best. From the Cargill to the ingredients, from the Stepan to the Honeywell, as you can see, these are premier global suppliers, and you have access to their technical knowledge as well as their product breadth and broad product portfolio. Now let's talk ag. Well, there are six basic processes that happen each growing season from the grower's perspective, from soil prepping and soil assessment to crop planting and nutrition to bloom if you have permanent crops like peaches and apples and nuts to root flush to crop development and crop protection. There's harvest, and then it's post-harvest, and we do it all over again the following season. Let's get started. It starts with soil prep and soil health assessment from the grower's perspective. The planting season starts with the grower prepping his soil for the crop he is about to grow. Obtaining the proper pH in soils for optimum plant nutrient uptake is a key first step before planting the crop the grower wants to grow. The second step the grower does before planting is assessing his soil's current nutrition and decides the type of nutrients his soil is deficient in last season's crop uptake. A question I'm asked a lot is, "Why do we have to keep adding fertilizers each growing season?" Well, throughout the season, as inputs are added to the soil, they are binded in the soil, binded within the organic matter of the soil. There's leaching, there's nitrogen evaporation, and most importantly, the crop itself sucks up a lot of nutrients from the soil to sustain itself and produce the fruit. A new growing area in soil health are biologicals. These are manufacturers of aerobic and anaerobic bacteria that assist in the breakdown-release of nutrients binded in the soil and organic matter. These nutrients are available for plant uptake, which, with this technology, helps the grower offset synthetic fertilizer inputs for a more balanced approach. Let's touch on some of the key product categories. We're soil prepping. For soil prepping, we have products like gypsum calcium sulfate, calcium carbonate, sulfuric acid, potassium carbonate. These are all chemical additives that you can add to the soil for better soil health and be able to grow a better crop. We have, in the soil biological space, we were talking about growing that bacteria. Well, Univar provides carbohydrates. These bugs need carbohydrates to be able to grow. We supply things like maltodextrin, molasses, dextrose, a variety of carbohydrates. Another area that's kind of exciting in the ag space is soil wetters. This is an area, so from the top of the soil to the root zone, if that area is wetted properly, then your nutrients get down to the root zone where the crops need it. Now let's touch base on nutrition. The grower has assessed his soil, assessed his deficiency. Now he's going to plant his crop and add the nutrients to his crop to be able to grow it. Well, during this first stage of plant growth, growers are purchasing and applying synthetic and organic fertilizers. We are there to provide the chemicals and ingredients our nutrient formulators require with a broad portfolio of ingredients that cover all aspects of plant nutrition. There's a lot of innovation happening in the fertilizer space these days, in micronutrient space. Univar is there with a broad portfolio of products, which is helping our customers innovate new formulations. Let's talk about some of these product categories. The way I was taught, the MPK, which is nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, these are what they call macro fertilizers. Then there's secondary macros, the calcium, the magnesium, and the sulfur. The way I was taught is those are kind of like the protein, the beef, and the chicken and the fish for humans. Then there are micronutrients. They need vitamins too. Us, it's the fruits and veggies and vitamins that we take. The plant needs those too for healthy growth. We have EDTA sulfates, nitrates, amino acids, organic acids like acetic and citric, just to name a few. We also have organic fertilizer ingredients for those people that are manufacturing organic compost-type nutrients. They may want to fortify those with, let's say, iron or zinc. Well, we have those, and we have those as OMRI or organic certified ingredients. Crop defense. We've assessed our soil, we've planted our crop. Now, during the crop development stage, the grower has increased weed, fungi, and insect pressure, and he wants to make sure that he protects his crop. We provide a variety of chemical ingredients for the manufacturing of crop defense products such as herbicides and insecticides, fungicides, biologicals, and adjuvants. Adjuvants are a series of products to assist in pesticide uptake such as spreaders and stickers, wetting agents, and utility adjuvants such as pH buffers and chelants and infield tank mixed defoamers and foam markers, to name a few. Adjuvants help reduce pesticide use. An area of crop protection that is growing market sector are biological pesticides. These are products that eradicate the insect pests via biological active versus chemical control of pests. Let's talk about some of those product categories in this stage. If you're formulating crop defense products, we have the solvents and surfactants that you need to emulsify the actives and put them into a proper way, a formulation. In adjuvants, we can supply the surfactants, the methylated cetols, the paraffinic oils, fatty acids, which are the stickers, silicone defoamers, and pH buffering agents. In the biological space, they use a variety of specialty chemicals and resins to manufacture their products. Taking care of our most precious resources such as water is in our DNA. Water is a key product in growing of crops, and it starts with clean and healthy irrigation water. We provide the products that provide clean, safe irrigation water for crop growth, as well as chemistries to keep the grower's irrigation systems running smoothly and at optimum efficiency. For water sanitization, you have sodium hypochlorite, calcium hypochlorite, paracetic acid. All three of these are sanitizers and pathogen killers, and they're all OMRI certified. We also then can provide our water treatment formulators with sequestration agents. These are agents that sequester sodium and calcium from depositing on the emitters, so that way the emitters are running smoothly and, again, at optimum efficiency. You can see here, we have overhead sprinkler systems, we have pivot systems, and then we have drip irrigation. Each one of these requires slightly different type of maintenance. Some growers pull water out of the aquifer, and they put it into line ponds. Those ponds can get algae in them. We can provide the copper sulfate that can control that algae. Of course, we have the citric and ammonium sulfate, which are nice pH buffers and chelants that you would use in water treatment. Other ag market segments that we service are animal feeds. Our animal feed customers make animal feed supplements, just like humans, cattle need vitamins too. Our animal feed customers are requiring ingredients to make their supplements, which could be zinc and copper and calcium. We can provide those type of ingredients. Another area that's growing in this ag space, animal feeds the base, is probiotics. Probiotics manufacturers, you're always thinking about probiotics for humans. There's probiotics being manufactured for cattle and hogs, and this helps them digest their food better. That way, they provide good health to them. Seeds. Let's talk about that. Seeds is one of the most expensive items that the grower buys each year. He wants to make sure that every seed germinates and gives him the proper yield per acre. There are companies that coat the seeds. The coating of seeds could be a coating on the seed with a micronutrient in it. When the seed is starting to germinate and propagate, it has the nutrients that it needs to have better growth and stabilization as it starts its life. There are also coatings that contain maybe an insecticide, whereby, like in corn, there's nematodes or an insect that go after the corn itself, the corn seed. There could be a slow-release insecticide there that will keep away the nematodes and that way make sure that the corn propagates properly. Hydroponics and greenhouses, another area that is really, really growing. There are crops such as kale, arugula, specialty peppers. They bring a premium price to the marketplace, especially restaurant owners who want to provide high-quality products. In this space, we provide nutrient ingredients for these different types of growing media. In the growing media, it's basically in the hydroponic space, basically water. Instead of soil, the water contains all those ingredients or fertilizer and vitamins, shall we say, that the plant needs. For that, the type of chemistry they use are slightly different than used with soil. Lastly here is our custom blending services. Univar Solutions provides a unique set of capabilities for agricultural customers that need additional blending and packaging options to assist with their growth. Let me give you an example. Let's say you're a West Coast or an East Coast customer and wanting to sell your finished products into the Midwest. Well, you could use Univar Solutions to blend your products, saving them freight by using us at our centrally-located Waxahachie, Texas, blending facility. What it does there is most of the raw materials come from the Gulf Coast. You have freight from there to the West Coast or the East Coast. You formulate, you jug, and then you bring it back to the area. Let's say it's the Midwest that you're trying to sell the product. Well, wouldn't it be nice for us to be able to blend your products for you in Waxahachie, really close to the Gulf Coast sourcing of chemistries, and then package in Waxahachie, Texas, and ready to go up the highway up to the Midwest without having to have that freight back and forth cost? We can help you save money and actually be more profitable and be able to penetrate so your products can penetrate a market that you want. In Waxahachie, we have toll and turnkey chemical blending services. We have technical formulation expertise. We have laboratory facilities equipped with state-of-the-art instrumentation. All around, you can rely on us. In conclusion, Univar Solutions has the ingredients and chemistries for our ag formulators in the products they manufacture for each stage of the plant growth. From the ingredients we offer, the technical know-how you can tap into, along with our capabilities, Univar Solutions is there to help you grow your ag business. Let's grow together in 2023 and beyond. Go ag. I want to thank you all. I want to pass the thank you for attending. Thank you for taking the time to be with us today. On that note, I want to pass it on over to James Rogers for a question-and-answer section. All right, Christian, great work. Thank you so much for that awesome presentation and go ag. Along the road, Christian and I have heard a lot of questions from customers, and we've narrowed it down to just a few that we'd like to address here on the call. The first one that I would like to throw out there for us to address is what differentiates Univar Solutions from the average regional distributor or chemical broker? Christian, what would you say on that? Love that question, James. Well, with our 90+ facilities we have in the U.S. alone, that sets us apart from regionals. Regionals do a super job. They have their own expertise. With Univar, if you're looking for a product, we have over 90 locations to be able to find that product. Okay? That differentiates us. The other thing that differentiates us is our own private fleet of trucks. We have a huge, as you've seen on the recording, we have a huge number of tractors and trailers. Throw that in with James, your expertise in operations, which is adding also the common carrier pieces to it that can also assist us. We have our own trucks. We have our own fleet. I think that's a big differentiator. The other thing that I think we bring to the table is not only do we have the 90 facilities, but a lot of those facilities have rail. We have the terminals. If a customer wants to bring in a rail car, and we can then bring it to one of our facilities, and then we can translode that into a bulk tank truck, or we can tow it off for the customer that may not have rail, and then we have that rail to be able to service them from that perspective. What do you think, James? Yeah, I would add on that. I think we tried to touch on a lot of those things initially in the first part of the presentation, right? I think what adds on top of that, right, the 90+ facilities in the United States that are with top-notch chemical distribution experts in operations and transportation, the world-class fleet that we have. I'd also add in that we have all of the experts that are behind those folks, our regulatory departments, our product specialists, the portfolio of suppliers that we work with that also provide us additional specialty knowledge for all of the industries that we work with, especially now with the ag industry. I think when you're dealing with a regional distributor or chemical broker, they probably very likely have a smaller portfolio of suppliers, and they might not have the global footprint that we have, where for many of the products that our customers are looking for, we are multi-source. I think we do have some questions here in a minute that will get into security of supply chain. I think that is a huge differentiator for us, right? If you are a national customer and you want to work with one distributor, that would be us, right? We have national footprint to help you in any location where you may be, and you're dealing with the same people, right? Next question is one that we get as we're moving more and we're seeing more of organics and bioag out there in the market. Let's talk a little bit about how well-positioned Univar Solutions is to service that organic and bioag space where we see many of our customers are moving. Yeah, in this area, I'm very excited about this with Univar supply availability. One of the key things that Univar has is we cover a variety of different markets, whether it's food, oil and gas, personal care, whatever, each one of those as a variety of different industries. In particular, the food industry has a lot of ingredients that they need that need to be organic. Okay? On that note, because we have this, we sell into all of these different markets. These different markets also have our multiple vendor partners, and they also have organic certified ingredients within their portfolio. I think this differentiates us in the marketplace in the aspect that because we cover so many industries, we have so many different suppliers that we can offer an organic certified type of ingredient that our customers need. I think that's a big deal. We have a good database of those products. We sell them on a regular basis, again, to food, personal care, cosmetics, whatever. We can apply those or be able to provide our customers formulating those to them. That way, we're not just sort of cutting a corner that we only have fertilizers or micronutrients or something like that. We can sell a variety of these things with organic certification involved. I think I would add some of the things that we've seen recently, right, Christian, is where we've had customers come to us looking for OMRI certified materials, and where there may not be one or that material may not be OMRI certified, and we've been able to work. We have angles where we could work with suppliers as well on finding and/or getting that product certified OMRI as well. I think that's one of the benefits. Again, it's the relationships with the major suppliers that help us find that solution for you, right? We may not have that solution on tap on the table today, but we do have the resources to search that solution out that our customers are looking for, right? As this space grows, this is why we say our chemistry grows with you. Okay, one more question here. How is Univar able to ensure the security of supply in these disruptive times that we've been through in the last couple of years? This is another great question, James. I want to start off with I'll talk about facilities. We've already talked a little bit about that. I'll bring that towards the very end. One of the key things that has happened over the last couple of years has been product surges. Domestic partners may have been in a sold-out position. Okay? We've been able to help our customers because of our international sourcing group. During times when the domestic supply was tight, we were able to bring in imports, which we do on a regular basis to kind of balance things out, okay, to be able to supply those products to our customers. I think our import and domestic supplier network is a big deal. Then on top of that, throw in the transportation fleet and the 90 facilities. Another thing that had happened is we didn't have product maybe in Los Angeles, but we had it in Philadelphia, or we had it in Atlanta. That's a big deal, which ties into having suppliers. We have global suppliers. We could have a global supplier in the U.S. that could be in a sold-out position or a tight inventory position, but he may have extra product, let's say, in Europe or maybe in Latin America. Then we have the resources to import those products to be able to supplement or provide an alternative chemistry to the customer to be able to get him through his formulation needs during the time of crisis, shall we say, that we've been experiencing the last couple of years for sure. What do you think? I think I would add to that. What I would add to that is write down those lines, the additional benefit that ties back into kind of some of the brokerage, right? When we're dealing with the seasonality and the chemicals that we're bringing in for certain seasons in the ag industry, we see where a lot of that stuff is coming on container ships from overseas. As a customer, you don't want to know that your containers of EDTA, etc., are parked sideways in the Suez Canal, and there's no other solution for it. In that solution, to what you said, right, we have multiple suppliers that can bring many of our products from both international and domestic sources that can get that to the customers. In addition, we have that ability with our facilities, right, where we can have what I would call forward-facing inventory sitting in our facilities that's ready on a much shorter lead time to get to our customers as needed. That benefits the customer, right? That benefits our customers in the fact that we have these multiple sources. We have warehouses where we have it in stock, and we have domestic and international. Something happens with international politics or supply chains, we have domestic sources. Something happens with rail shipping where we've seen multiple times in the last couple of years where rail lines have been having issues or struggles. We have a massive private fleet and relationships with common carriers to still get products to customers. I think in the last piece of it is many of our customers are anticipating total demand for the year, right, for that season. You may miss the mark, right? You may need a little bit more towards the end of that season. Univar Solutions, right, we could be that solution where you don't have to wait another 6, 8, 12 weeks for lead time to bring in that container or whatever it may be. There's a likelihood that we can have that product in one of our warehouses on quick ship to get those last orders, potentially saving time to the customer on the total sales cycle time for our customers in that situation. For me, I think that kind of is the all-encompassing, closing-the-loop circle of life, if you will, to security of the supply chain. Yeah. Well, okay, on that note, we don't have any other additional questions that we wanted to go through. Christian and I would love to thank everybody for spending some time with us listening to the presentation and listening to us have a little bit of banter and question and answer here at the end of the presentation. Thank you for listening. If you have any questions, as always, please feel free to reach out to your local rep or any of your resources that you have in your local area. Thank you very much. Welcome, and thank you for taking the time to attend our webinar, Formulating for Plant-Based Supplementation in Nutraceuticals. My name is Sarah Gonçalves. I'm one of the technical business development managers for Nutraceuticals. I've been with Univar Solutions for close to a decade. Prior to that, I got my training in chemistry. While I'm presenting, do not hesitate to use the chat box to ask questions, and we can address all inquiries at the end of the presentation. The purpose of today's webinar is to resolve some of the challenges that plague the plant-based supplement industry, such as perceived efficacy, decreased or nonexistent water solubility, bitter organoleptics, and often large delivery formats with longer than we would like ingredient labels. We will start with a review of the plant-based industry and its growing share of the dietary supplement market, and move into opportunities to improve herbal products to meet consumer demands. The solutions we will provide to consumers' needs include clinically studied plant-based ingredients. To overcome the organoleptic and solubility challenges, we'll head to our application laboratory where our experts in the lab have formulated with cold-water-soluble botanicals. Finally, we'll talk about a solution that can be used to shrink those particularly challenging herbal formulations. There are some Easter egg ingredients today that have included and can further support in the formulation, which we'll talk about throughout our time in the lab. Our expectation is that you leave this presentation with more ways to formulate plant-based products using the novel ingredients in the Univar Solutions portfolio, strengthening your brand and, as we, hashtag, grow together in this exciting plant-based market. Let's get started with our first section, the status of the plant-based supplement markets and the opportunities to grow within the industry. The share and number of plant-based launches are growing cross-industry, but especially in the vitamin, mineral, and supplements market. For example, this data from Innova Market Insights states that there was a 63% compound annual growth since 2017 to 2022 on the plant-based launches compared to the food and beverage market, although, in my opinion, still substantial at a 21% CAGR. Additionally, Mintel advises on the global vegan and vegetarian claims and the VMS market share has doubled since 2017 from 12% to 24%. This is an incredibly healthy market. This migration to plant-based has multiple drivers. Plant-based terminology has a strong association with better environmental sustainability, naturalness, and ethical value. Consumers who are concerned about their personal health, the health of the planet, and animal welfare are more likely to opt for an herbal supplement. Overall, Innova Market reports that 27% of consumers globally said they had increased their supplement usage since 2020, which is a great statistic alone. Diving more into the plant-based supplements, 41% of U.K. consumers agree that supplements made solely from plant-based ingredients are actually the most appealing. Even with 24% of the market share, 45% of U.S. consumers would like to see more plant-based products in the VMS market. 77% of Indian VMS consumers agree that using sustainable and ethical products makes them look and feel great. Judging by other North American reports, such as those found in the WholeFoods Magazine, these feelings are replicated across North America. Creating products that highlight essential and novel ingredients that support socioeconomic responsible action will be the VMS product that will outshine the others on the shelf. The previous statistics may want you having to formulate a new plant-based supplement right now, but there's a few challenges that come to mind when formulating with botanicals. One of the growing problems for consumers, as highlighted by a recent Inside the Bottle report written by New Hope Network and Nutritional Insights, is that there's a lack of transparency on the efficacy of the products, which presents a challenge on starting their supplement journey. A misunderstanding on whether the product is treating or preventing a health concern, meaning that the industry needs to incorporate more clinically studied ingredients, clearly highlighting the benefits for consumers. Formulations with plant-based ingredients can be challenging to incorporate into those preferred dosage forms, such as sachets, gummies, and chewables, due to their bitter flavors, and that botanicals and plant-based derived ingredients can often have really high water activity, or they're sticky, making them really challenging to work with and create smaller, more likable dosage forms. Our presentation is going to address providing solutions to these three formulation challenges since there's a huge opportunity to continue to grow within the plant-based space. We'll cover the first solution on plant-based alternatives on our ingredient journey and talk about the botanical blend with human clinical studies, Lanconone. Our first solution proposes using an herbal supplement for a classical animal-based ingredient. We discuss the efficacy and transparency issues are really a consumer demand. Lanconone can help meet the plant-based need with safety and efficacy human clinical trials. Glucosamine is typically derived from the crustacean family. Derived from animals and their byproducts, such as shells, exoskeletons, shellfish, shrimps, as well as lobsters, glucosamine's main role in supplements is to improve joint health. Lanconone may support joints by promoting a healthy inflammatory response in the body. Lanconone may have lasting effects actually after the discontinuation of Lanconone. Lanconone is a proprietary blend of these seven botanicals, including ginger, boswellia, ashwagandha, Indian trumpet tree, guggul, smilax, and resin. Here on the right-hand side, you can see we place Lanconone into bright Univar Solutions orange veggie capsules with a two-serving size of 400 mg each. You should be reaching for Lanconone if you are planning on making a joint health product instead of glucosamine and joint movement to a plant-based offering. Let's move over to the lab to discuss more ways we can be successful with herbals to meet the needs of the plant-based market. Our first demo covers managing a healthy inflammatory response in a sachet form, where we try to formulate for both solubility and organoleptics. Welcome to the Houston Solutions Center, where the magic really happens. We have geniuses here in our application center, like Jessica Zhang, who was able to fine-tune my formulation and make it come to life. If you have formulation challenges and are interested in working through them with the Univar Solutions team, we are here and happy to support. Their lipid-based bioactives are not soluble in water, and their bioavailability as sole ingredients has been questioned. Our first demonstration will be an effervescent healthy inflammatory response sachet involving MaxiCuma, a cold-water-soluble turmeric powdered extract. MaxiCuma has been extracted with a renewable ethanol source. It also has studies showing a 24x more bioavailability than 95% curcuminoid extract, with 172 more available free curcumin in the blood and a longer half-life in the body. A further plus, it has a neutral aftertaste. MaxiCuma's unique properties are derived from our supplier's patented lipid technology. This formulation contains a total of 3 g of MaxiCuma and 1 g of ginger, delivering 1,200 mg of active curcuminoids and 100 mg of active gingerols. We also used other key ingredients in the Univar Solutions portfolio to make this a successful effervescent sachet. The first includes CITRICOAT, an encapsulated citric acid that reduces the chance of our sachet undergoing any prereactions, and it will improve the flow of the material. We also just added a touch of silicon dioxide for some additional anti-caking benefits. Our long-term partners over at Church & Dwight and Arm & Hammer provided us with sodium and potassium bicarbonate to complete the reaction. We added malic acid just for a touch of acidic apple flavor and, of course, more effervescence. For its prebiotic benefits, we added 2 g of fructo-oligosaccharides, which will also provide some sweetness. Lastly, you cannot forget about the erythritol to round out the sweetness profile and a touch of tricalcium phosphate for both flavor, anti-caking properties, and mineral supplementation. We'll take the sachet here and pour it into the water, showcasing its rapid and complete water-soluble nature. Voilà. Minimal stirring for five seconds results in a dissolution of less than 30 seconds. Tasty, fizzy, and refreshing. Interested in a water-soluble curcumin extract and a water-soluble ginger extract or any of the excipients we talked about, just message us in the chat. Let's sachet over to another cold-water-soluble botanical option. Our second demo is a healthy eye sachet, where we also formulate for solubility. lutein esters and DHA, two ingredients that play an important role in eye health, are also lipid-based ingredients that would not typically be found in a sachet due to their hydrophobic nature. Xanthogreen, a lutein ester, is extracted from marigolds via a patented supercritical fluid, CO2-solvent-free extraction. We have additionally incorporated a DHA derived from algae. The formulation delivers one gram of lutein and 10 g of DHA. Here, we will display a water-soluble algal DHA and a water-soluble lutein effervescent sachet product using similar effervescent ingredients as the previous formulation. Look at this quick dissolving lutein esters and algal DHA. Minimal stirring for five seconds results in a dissolution of less than 30 seconds. Reach out to request your samples of these ingredients in the chat box. Let us review the next demonstration in the lab, which includes shrinking your tablets. Our last demo, we'll formulate with hygroscopic materials and shrink down a tablet. Many plant-based derivatives have high water activity or can have very hygroscopic properties. They often have higher dosages to get the required amount of bioactive. You may have consumers who just like simpler ingredient declarations. Let's take a look at the solutions to these challenges. Here is where we introduce Nutritab. Nutritab is a co-process excipient with guar gum. Its benefits include great mouthfeel and flavor. It's accompanied by zero chalkiness or grittiness. Added is an excellent source of calcium and phosphorus, two important musculoskeletal nutrients. Not only that, the excellent compressibility of Nutritab allows for you to formulate chewables while reducing the ingredients along with the tablet weight and thickness. Less weighing and testing in your plant also means less processing time for you and more chewable tablets. AlphaSize is a plant-derived Alpha-Glyceryl Phosphoryl Choline. AlphaSize, a premium choline donor, which crosses the blood-brain barrier to increase available acetylcholine, an important neurotransmitter responsible for memory and muscle function. alpha-GPC has numerous studies that show its ability to improve memory, hand-eye coordination, focus, agility, and power output. It has unique studies on its ability to improve REM% during sleep and can act as an ergogenic caffeine replacement. AlphaSize is both tasteless and odorless and available in both regular powders and a 50% water-soluble version. Today, we'll be using the water-soluble version of the AlphaSize 50% in formulation as it's more suited to chewables and mouthfeel. Our second active ingredient is RedNite, a beetroot juice extract standardized to 1.75% nitrates. Nitrates are vasodilators, thinning and expanding the blood vessels to allow for nutrients, blood, and oxygen to be delivered to the brain and muscles. RedNite has this beautiful reddish-purple color, as you'll get to see from the tablets here in the lab, and can impart a sweet flavor. In both chewables, our active ingredients include 150 mg of AlphaSize and 150 mg of RedNite. On your left-hand side, we'll have a tablet formulated with classic ingredients found in a chewable tablet, including maltodextrin, directly compressible calcium carbonate, directly compressible dicalcium phosphate, Primellose, sodium croscarmellose, fumed silica, and a lubricant, Mallinckrodt 4024 Nutri-Grade material. In the second formulation, we have removed four ingredients: the maltodextrin, calcium carbonate, dicalcium phosphate, and fumed silicon dioxide, and replaced it with just one ingredient, Nutritab. We kept the disintegrants and lubricants, as well as our active ingredients, the same. We have also managed to keep the calcium content the same between the two tablets. Keeping the diameter constant, you can clearly see a 21% reduction in height. Additionally, the active nutraceutical ingredients display a more even distribution during blending. Let's take a look at some other key details for the chewable. We were able to recreate the Innophos white paper on co-process excipients to achieve the following exceptional results. The target was to keep the amount of calcium across the tablets the same, you actually get an additional amount of phosphorus in the secondary tablet. The Nutritab version shows a 39% decrease in weight and a 21% decrease in thickness. You actually get a more acceptable range for hardness with the Nutritab product as well. You get less hardness with the tablet overall with the Nutritab, 72% reduction in the hardness, actually. With the Nutritab formulation, there's a substantial reduction in the ingredients. We go from eight to five. In Innophos's measurements on their processing time, they actually saw a 44% reduction in processing time because you no longer have to weigh out eight ingredients. You only have to weigh out five. Additionally, you only have to measure out that amount of material to go into production. These are phenomenal results. If you are designing a chewable, we can ship you a sample today. Please do not hesitate to ask. We covered a decent amount of information today. To summarize, we highly encourage diving into the world of plant-based supplements with Univar Solutions. We offer alternative joint health ingredients in the plant-based space, such as Lanconone, a seven-botanical blend that has studies to show its ability to produce a healthy inflammatory response in the joints. We discussed our water-soluble bioactives, such as turmeric, lutein, and ginger extract, that can have improved solubility, organoleptics, and bioavailability. Finally, we discussed Nutritab's ability to shrink both your tablet and your processing time. I want to re-highlight the branded ingredients and material technologies we discussed today. For actives in alphabetical order, we highlighted the nootropic, AlphaSize, the alpha-GPC, fiber with inherent sweetness, FOS, fructooligosaccharides, ginger in water-soluble ginger extract with 10% gingerols, Lanconone, as we just mentioned, MaxiCuma, bioavailable water-soluble and green turmeric extract, and Xanthogreen, SCF CO2 extracted lutein esters. For excipient technologies, CAB-O-SIL, anti-caking fumed silica, CITRICOAT N, the micro-encapsulated citric acid, the NutraGrade magnesium stearate 4024, Primellose, a super disintegrant sodium croscarmellose, and of course, Nutritab. I'd like to leave everyone with some food for thought as we wrap up our time today. Plant-based ingredients are viewed by consumers as cleaner ingredients, but terms like plant-based, like clean, do not have an exact definition. However, it's important as an industry that we support trends that encourage environmental sustainability. That may mean adopting the mantra that naturalness does not always mean safe. It is important as an industry that we do not get mesmerized with the consumer allure to natural. We must always take a step back and evaluate the safety, efficacy, and transparency of the product that we're delivering to the market. Conversely, there has been a villainizing of scientifically longer ingredient names, which seems contrary to the plant-based mission. Long names that include naming conventions that may actually be plant-derived. It is in all our responsibility to educate consumers on plant-based ingredients. Thank you so much for your time today. That wraps up formulations in plant-based supplements. Let's move over to the question portion of the webinar. Thank you, Sarah Gonçalves, for your talk here today on NutraFormulating for Plant-Based Supplements. We have some questions, frequently asked questions from our audience, and some common questions I'd like to ask you. First one is there a difference between AlphaSize compared to generic alpha-GPC? That's a great question, Tracy Sheehan, and thanks for starting us off on that one. Yes, definitely a big difference between the two. I want to start off with they're obviously derived from two different sort of raw materials. AlphaSize, specifically the branded ingredient from Chemi Nutra, is plant-derived. Compared to sort of the generic offerings, which are derived from synthetic sources. Now, proof of purity, historical safety usage, really FDA regulatory compliance, and research validations are really critical these days and for a really good reason. The amount of abundant studies that these are actually done are done on the plant-derived AlphaSize product. We know it's safe. We know it's legal. It's fully FDA GRAS and water-soluble and tasteless, odorless, extremely stable, sort of non-reactive. I didn't talk about this in the presentation, but it has iGEN non-GMO certification. That's sort of the basis of the AlphaSize product. Then you have these synthetic alpha-GPCs coming into the market space, and they can actually have contaminants from their starting materials, like genotoxins and endotoxins, which can be present in the final material. It's a shame that these sort of synthetic products have almost, I don't know if there's a good word for it, but tried to tack on and say they have the same benefits as the plant-derived materials when those safety studies and efficacy studies have not been done on the synthetic materials. That is really the biggest difference between really AlphaSize and sort of generic alpha-GPCs is that plant-derived product versus the synthetic materials, which may have potential contaminants in them. Yeah. You mentioned toxins perhaps could enter into the alpha-GPCs. Do manufacturers test for toxins in their quality control measures? Well, they're not present, obviously, in the plant-based wines, but for the synthetic materials, it doesn't seem like those endotoxins are tested for. In reality, you could be getting a product which may or may not have those if it's a synthetic material. When it comes to something branded like AlphaSize, that's why you want to move in that direction because you know that quality really comes with it. Yeah. Great. Thank you, Sarah. Next question is, in your effervescent sachets, there are fructooligosaccharides. What is the purpose, and is it stable? Yeah. That's another great question, Tracy. FOS is the fructooligosaccharides, is just to recap, I didn't talk about it too much, it's a prebiotic fiber, which really feeds microbiota to produce short-chain fatty acids. Those short-chain fatty acids go on to produce a multitude of health benefits, including improved immune, bone health, and of course, gut health. Where possible, I sort of always try to add fiber. It's good for the gut. I thought that that was a perfect formulation for it, in a sense. However, FOS in this formulation, and many others, is really a great sugar replacement. FOS is approximately about 40% the sweetness of sugar, or sucrose, I should say. It really pairs well with erythritol to provide a well-rounded sweetness. FOS isn't actually typically stable at, I should say, for long periods of time, like around one to two weeks at room temperature at low pH. Low pH, it tends to hydrolyze into smaller molecules, which is why we use it in a ready-to-mix here because we didn't have to long-term store it at room temperature in water, sorry, I should say. If there's anything you're adding it to, like an RTD, that might be something you want to consider, whether it's refrigerated or not. It is stable at the room temperature. Only when you go to add it to water do you get that potential pH and stability. If you're consuming it right away, there's no challenges there. Yeah, my question. Sarah, could FOS be blended with other sweeteners? Yeah, absolutely. I would definitely consider, I mean, it's a great product on its own. It actually has a really, and this is based on panels, I should say, it has a nice sweetness in the sense that it's similar to sucrose and some of these sweeteners that are not high intensity because high intensity can sometimes leave you with funny aftertaste, etc. So you can blend FOS with other products. It's nice on its own. But in this formulation specifically, we added erythritol because just to add an extra layer of sweetness and bulking agent. FOS can be a bulking as well. But if you want even more sweetness or you like the stevia flavor, the monk fruit flavor, you can absolutely blend it in with those as well. There's no issues. Fantastic. FOS seems to be a great product for the center of our gut health. Thank you, Sarah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we didn't get to dive into phos too much today. I would say bars, it has a great place there. It's going to bring humectancy, sweetness. There's just so many applications. It really extends itself across the board. Ready-to-drinks that may have a little bit of a higher pH. These RTMs, cookies, really anything you want to reduce sugar in. You can kind of, again, you asked this, but you can kind of blend it in with some of those other sweetening products, polyols. Various applications for this phos in many food, beverages, and dietary supplement applications. Thank you, Sarah Gonçalves. What are some of the other trends you see that would suggest the market is headed towards more plant-based supplements? Yeah, absolutely. There's so many. Customers have been really keen on using plant-based ingredients where it makes sense. They can use more environmentally friendly ingredients. It's really a win-win across the market. It's become really popular. It's another great example to use hydroxypropyl methylcellulose in capsules. HPMC is derived from cellulose, which is a renewable plant source. To my point earlier, that's a little bit of a longer naming declaration that people go, "Oh, what is methylcellulose?" Or HPMC, it's too long for me to pronounce. But it is. It's a plant-based ingredient, which really kind of supports our long-term goal to support the planet. These products that a lot of capsules today are still made of gelatin, I think the writing's on the wall for that eventually. Collagen maybe products as well. As the market tries to come up with a vegan collagen, even though I won't get on my vegan collagen train and we need to come up with maybe a different terminology for that. Making the switch to a pectin gummy, for example, gummies, gelatin-based gummies are kind of on the end of their shelf life as well, I should say. People are transferring to a pectin gummy is another great example. A soft gel, using carrageenan or using a pectin for soft gels as well. We're moving towards that as a society, and really, I'm here for it, so. Would pectin or carrageenans also be used in vegan collagen? I'm hearing more and more interest in vegan collagen. I know it's not out in the market yet, but many consumers are looking for such a product. I've definitely seen some, yeah, absolutely. I think there's a possibility it's coming soon. I've seen some press releases that people are talking about designing a vegan collagen product. Yeah, I think that's definitely coming from companies across the globe, which will definitely be interesting. I think there's a lot of vegan ways to actually stimulate collagen as well. Things like vitamin C, we can get from plant-based sources, and we know that that can stimulate collagen. Even if you don't want to consume collagen as a molecule itself, there's vegan alternatives to boost collagen that are available today in the market, no problem. There's ways around that as well. A vegan-type collagen product, would the collagen be derived from the fibrous material within the plant material? I actually don't know because that's one of the challenges I see with vegan collagen is that collagen is one of the, I should say, biomolecules that animals make, right? It's one of the differences between plants and animals, right? We're able to make collagen where plants are not able to. I mean, I'm interested to see whether it's going to be an amino acid sort of because we know we can get proteins from plants. I'm interested to see what is going to be the actual chemical makeup of it. Is it going to be identical to collagen? I think there's definitely some work to be done on that, but I'm interested to see on what it's going to be from specifically, but I actually don't have a lot more information on that now. I'm interested to see where it goes. Well, Sarah, thank you for answering those questions. We appreciate your time today. Again, appreciate all the work that you've done and answering all the questions pertaining to Nutra formulation with plant-based supplements. If you have any additional questions, please reach out to your sales account manager and visit us at www.univarsolutions.com. Perfect. Thank you so much for moderating this session, Tracy. I enjoyed our conversation today. Thank you all. Hi, I'm Rob Stepan, Applications Development Specialist here at Univar Solutions. At Univar, we're all about innovation. We keep our customers and suppliers front of mind. This is especially important in the multifaceted world known as the metalworking fluids industry. The metalworking fluids world has as many formulations as can be imagined accomplishing the work needed. Sustainability has become an important and growing aspect of this world. It is vital that we stay at the forefront of development and harness each innovation whenever possible to deliver on performance, on cost, and especially on sustainability. The work we do brings value to our customers and to our suppliers. At our Houston Solutions Center, we are well-equipped to tackle a variety of challenges and development projects supporting the metalworking fluids market, from formulating a next-generation water-based, fully synthetic metalworking fluid to finding ways to improve the performance of new sustainable products. We have the people, and we have the equipment to make this happen. Whether you're a customer or a raw material supplier, we can assist you with developing new formulas, modifying existing formulas, and carrying out performance testing and analysis. In today's demonstration, we'd like to focus on the performance of the formulations we've developed. This is especially important today given the tremendous demand on this growing, broad market. This is phase one in our planned multi-year sustainable product development for this market. Today, the focus on sustainable systems presents an opportunity to improve and enhance performance, figuring out the necessary components to put together a product that meets sustainability criteria and yet delivers the needed performance in each machining requirement. The technologies used for sustainable metalworking fluids are old and new, as evidenced by the base oil selection in this phase of our product development. It is growing with new additives and novel base oils. Today, we'd like to focus on three base oil types, which have been in the market for a while: canola oil, sunflower oil, and soybean oil. We will discuss the different base oils and why we choose them in the first phase of the product development. These products are familiar to most metalworking fluid manufacturers as they've been used for decades for the excellent lubricity for certain types of machining operations. Today, we're also developing innovative products addressing sustainability by taking a hard look at what is available that can be used for customer sustainability efforts. These products were a natural place to start. Additionally, these products are readily available and are known entities to most formulators. The central issues with them are their lack of oxidative and bioresistant stability. Those were kept at the top of our minds in formulating working products and addressed with the best available technology today. When formulating a cutting fluid, it's important to know the application. For example, ferrous versus non-ferrous machining. A big challenge is to provide formulations that meet the needs of both those metals. How do we do that? One way is to be able to have a multifunctional component that provides corrosion inhibition, anti-wear, and also extreme pressure for both ferrous and non-ferrous formulations. The working pH of any given metalworking fluid is a key indicator of the fluid's health. Whether a coolant, washing compound, or water-based corrosion preventative, while the optimal pH for any given fluid or situation differs, there is a pH for your fluid mixed at your concentration and used in your machine where the pH of the fluid will stabilize. Most metal removal fluids are alkaline, meaning they have a pH above 7. For a variety of necessary compromises, a metalworking fluid typically has a pH between 8.5 and 10.5. Most coolants today are formulated to include rust preventatives. These rust inhibitors provide a protective barrier on the metal surface. The cast iron chip test, known as the ASTM D4627, is a good indicator of a water-soluble product's rust preventative qualities. Measuring bacteria levels should be completed along with the checks on fluid quality, for example, pH levels and fluid concentration. Bacterial contamination will affect the quality of metalworking fluid. In addition to decreasing quality, this contamination can also lead to substantial health risks for employees and users that encounter the fluid. The most common way to measure microbial activity is the use of dip slides. The HSE recommends using dip slides to monitor the general activity of aerobic bacteria. A dip slide is a sterile culture medium used to dip into the liquid to test the levels of bacteria. The dip slides are then incubated, typically for 48 hours at 30 degrees Celsius, to allow for any microbial growth. A reference chart is used to compare the results and trend activity over time. Each dip slide is dual-sided, and each type of agar tests for a different group of microorganisms. Foam is typically considered to be an undesirable property in metalworking fluids. High foam levels in metalworking can be challenging as they can flood equipment and make it difficult to see the tool and the workpiece, which can inhibit manufacturing efficiency. Since most metalworking fluids have good cleansing properties to help keep machines clean, they may foam when agitated. The quantity of foam that occurs depends upon the chemical composition of the metalworking fluid product. The quality of the water used for mixing and the degree of agitation in the system are the main parameters to be aware of. Micro tapping torque is an important test in the world of metalworking fluids and used to screen formulations to ensure basic performance needs are being met. ASTM D8288 is the methodology used for the screening test. The test has relevance for other metal cutting applications beyond tapping, such as sawing, milling, or honing. The Rtec Tribometer MFT-5000 is the world's most advanced tribometer. The instrument is designed to evaluate friction, wear, mechanical properties of materials, as well as lubricants over time. The MFT-5000 is used extensively in industries such as metalworking fluids, lubricants, oil, and grease. With its robust modular platform, with the wide range of interchangeable modules and sensors, which allows the instrument to combine several tribological tools in an all-in-one device. Cutting tool tribology allows the user to simulate and improve the cutting tool process in a lab-scale setup. Same real process parameters and finished component mounting generate useful data at a rapid pace. Stay with us to see this state-of-the-art piece of equipment in action. We thank you for joining us. Contact us if you're ready to get started on your next lubricant and metalworking solution. Thank you for joining the presentation today. I am Jesse Ziobro, Senior Innovation Chemist at our Houston Solutions Center. With me today are John Hardt, Application Development Specialist, and Rob Stepan, who is also an Application Development Specialist. There's great discussion around the path towards greener technology and sustainability in the lubricants, grease, and metalworking fluids industry. We would like to dive deep more into some specific questions in regards to the video you just watched. Question one, what performance characteristics do sustainable dibasic acid complexes such as amine and monohydric alcohols offer to the metalworking process? Rob, would you like to take this question? Yeah. Good question, Jesse. I think that the diesters are commonly used in things like compressor oils and engine formulations. In metalworking, they have the advantage of being able to be put into a water system as an emulsion or even a true solution, providing extreme pressure, anti-wear, and especially boundary lubrication, so running a film formation. They're clean. They're bioderived. They're low toxicity. Their ability to prevent metal-to-metal contact is really where these things shine. You get that bioderived products now that are being developed that have very high performance. Right along with Rob was saying, we can see some data from these types of products that provide the performance characteristics that you need related to coefficient of friction and load-carrying capacity, all of that, but also not providing any toxicity issues. That makes it easier for the end users and also for the waste removal as well. It's not as problematic as what some of the older chemistries were. That stuff is what we're seeing is some really good progress from the chemistries being utilized. Exactly. As the data comes out with the bioderived products, do you see more of a shift where people are converting from a petroleum base into the bioderived base stock products for their metalworking fluids? Yeah. I'll go ahead first. I've seen that starting to happen in different parts of the country where people are taking a great deal of notice towards utilizing products that have much better profiles from a labeling perspective and from an environmental perspective. There's customers out there that are on the bleeding edge of doing everything biorenewable, sustainable, all of that. We're definitely helping to support that type of drive. I think you're going to see a lot more customers looking to utilize these types of products because their performance levels have been increased, even though they may not have some of the, let's say, uglier chemistries of the past. Rob, what do you think? Absolutely, John. I think that and what we showed earlier in our video, Jesse and I, is that we're proving out and displaying that sustainable formulations and alternative sustainable formulations have just as much strength as far as extreme pressure, anti-wear. They also have the advantage of having better boundary lubrication in every case, especially against just 100/100 oil or something that's typically used in a soluble oil. I think also, you look at some of the materials that are going in in these sustainable systems, I mean, they're basically either borderline food-grade or cosmetic-grade type materials. The skin irritation that goes on with all the stronger chemistries that are in prior use are going away. It's giving the workers a safer place to work and also disposal because of the biodegradability. I mean, it just goes from soup to nuts on all that's from cradle to grave. I think that's where the drive is coming from. Question two, what are the market performance characteristics of sustainable base fluids? I'll take this one. Lubricants offer several attraction advantages when compared to traditional petroleum lubricant base stocks such as high viscosity index, higher flashpoint, lower volatility, lower evaporation loss. They provide an excellent source for incidental food contact in processing plants such as food, pharmaceutical. They have a very low environmental impact, superior solubility with additive chemistry, and enhanced lubricity due to their polar nature, which can lead to improved performance efficiency and extended tool life for the end user. Yeah. I think that as we showed in being formulating chemists, I think that early on, it was a challenge to get some of these bioderived and sustainable materials into a stable emulsion. I think that is just complete that landscape has changed completely. There's so many choices now that are strong. As we displayed earlier with the nice, clear, stable metalworking fluid that we made, I think so it's showing that it's possible. It's not difficult. That the results can be advantageous over the other choices that are more environmentally unfavorable. I think durability plays a big factor too, longevity in the sump. I think some of these newer products are helping to expand the life of what historically have been products that couldn't last that long. Now we're starting to see things that could last just as long as the petroleum products and provide same as or better than performance than what people have seen historically, which also helps support the credibility of these products and make them much more acceptable into the marketplace. Agreed. Yep. Question three, what are the performance characteristics of high oleic and thermomodified triglyceride oils? John, would you like to take this one? Sure. I think what you're finding is just like we spoke about on the last question was the durability aspect of these products. They're starting to be able to last longer. They have a much higher load capacity, lower coefficient of friction. You're reducing the temperature at the point of contact between the tool and the workpiece. You can carry that heat away that is generated. It doesn't require as much torque to be able to put that tool through the workpiece. It's a whole lot of better performance characteristics than what you could get from the older-style oil-based products. I think that is making a very big push. Also what Rob said earlier about emulsion stability, that's been a problem in the past as well. I think those things are starting to be overcome with some of the newer chemistries that are out there. Even some of the older chemistries can do a good job with that. What do you think, Rob? Absolutely. Yeah. I think that also that we're looking at so if we look at some of the triglyceride oils, let's say sunflower, canola, and the ones that we looked at, Jess, I think that when you look at the high oleic version of these, and these were all driven by the food industry. Now they cross over into metalworking. People who are formulating are looking at, "Oh, okay. These are really for higher temperature stability, lower toxicity, those kind of less rancidity, etc." Now that's landed into metalworking fluids. I think that there's a lot more available to formulate with that are sustainable, as John said, with the surfactants, the anti-wear, the extreme pressure, the boundary lubrication, the corrosion inhibitors, which we showed earlier in our formulations. I think that they're viable. They're sustainable. Also what John brought up is an important fact that they're durable. That's something that in the past has been kind of a stop point for a lot of people using them. Yep. The availability of the products makes it more attractive too. When there's a potential shortage in petroleum, this gives the end user some variability in formulation also too. Good point. Question four, do you guys see a shift from soluble oils into synthetic metalworking fluids? Absolutely. Like I said, historically, I think metalworking was done exclusively with oil. This goes in the past. Then there was a drive towards more cooling because the cooling part of and that's why they're called coolants. Because an important factor in tool life and good machinability is the fact that you remove heat. You have to have some friction to remove metal. I mean, it's just a fact. You're creating heat. When they started to take these oils and they said, "Well, let's put them into water. We're going to add surfactants and some coupling agents, etc." They're going to go into a and now we have a metalworking fluid that's called a soluble oil. They're pretty problematic because the oil itself is very nonpolar. The emulsions tend to be very loose, unstable. They take on a lot of tramp oil because it's similar to the composition of the actual metalworking fluid. You end up with a lot of housekeeping and dumping systems and cleaning, etc. The next step was semi-synthetic, which is kind of a hybrid between a soluble oil and a synthetic, kind of in the midway. That gives you some of the lubricating properties of the oil, but it also adds the synthetic durability. Finally, at the top of the tower is going to be synthetic. Those have fantastic cooling properties. They're very durable. They're usually bioderived or very low toxicity. They're super efficient. I think that's where eventually everything's going to end up landing on semi-synthetic for sure and definitely moving into the synthetics as we see this progression. I've seen a lot more discussions around the semis and the full synthetics here over the last couple of years. People are looking at different types of substrates. They're much more difficult metals to machine. You're seeing higher temperatures as a result. You kind of have to start moving up that pyramid from soluble to semi-synthetics and in some cases, full synthetics to be able to do the job that's needed to do to take that heat away from machining those metals. I think you're also starting to see a newer trend towards biostability where you're able to formulate these products without biocides as a part of it. I think that's something that's developing and is going to continue to develop over the next couple of years where you're going to see some interesting formulations coming out of that. I believe you're going to see a growth in the semi-synthetics and the full synthetics for sure. Yeah. Good point, John. I think another thing that's a salient point to that is because of the high-pressure systems that are being incorporated, 4,000 to 6,000 PSI, especially with non-ferrous, aluminum can be a bit sticky. You want to remove those chips and the fragments out. This allows the machining program to have higher speeds and faster movement from one part to the next. I think that one of the inherent properties of some of these synthetic components is their low foam properties. When you look at if we looked at what we were talking about before where you have a soluble oil, so those are loaded with soaps and surfactants, and they foam. That foam lowers the density of the fluid. Also just picture a beaker with foam in it versus a beaker with pure metalworking fluid. You can see that you're missing a lot of that lubrication and cooling that can happen with the system without foam. I think foam can also collapse and cause it's harder to remove heat out of the sump because it acts as an insulator. These synthetic systems are typically like we showed in our experiment, the inherent low foam properties of these systems are preferred, especially in the high-pressure systems. That concludes another Q&A session. Once again, thank you for joining our presentation today. If you would like to hear more about what you saw in today's presentation or have additional questions, our contact information will be dropped in the chat below. We look forward to working with you on your next solution. Welcome to today's presentation on polar white tablet coatings, a future without TiO2. My name is Adam Duxbury, and I'm a Product Development Manager here at Univar Solutions. I've been here for approximately four years now. I always knew when I was growing up that I wanted to work in the chemical industry. That naturally started with me getting a degree in chemistry at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. My true passion is formulation and solving problems in factories with formulation. Ultimately, all of the things that we come into contact every single day, they're formulated products, that's what gets me excited every single day. I've had about 15 years in the industry now, 11 of which were in the laboratory. I've worked in food, pharma, personal care, BPC, and HIC. Let me tell you that the formulation methods are roughly the same. There's nothing new. Sometimes an application in plastics works really well in pharma and vice versa. The common thread in all of that is that in every job I've worked in, I've always solved problems in factories with formulations to produce finished products. Today, I'm looking forward to guiding you through the presentation and a future without TiO2. On today's agenda, we will discuss the regulatory background, the technical solutions, and the additional services that we can offer. The reason we are here today is to talk about the polar white coatings. Our coatings are simpler to use, easier to coat, quick to apply, and innovative. Before we dive straight into that, let's look at the background of TiO2 and how we arrived here, and specifically, a future without TiO2. Where did this all start? We're going to look firstly at the food impact. If you look at the regulatory statement, titanium dioxide as a food additive is not considered safe in the EU and has been banned since the 7th of February, 2022. It's fair to say that the nutraceutical element of the food industry saw this coming and responded really well. The wider food industry really struggled with this challenge. White is a key component of food products, especially decorative bakery, wedding cakes, and short-shelf-life products. On the whole, the transition away from TiO2 has been pretty good in the nutraceutical market. There are some well-established products and solutions for that industry. Where that then feeds in is that some of the challenges and problems that the food industry has encountered, the pharmaceutical industry can look at and maybe respond to those and not get caught out in the same way. Let's start with the regulatory background on this. The EU Commission shall, after consulting the European Medicines Agency, review the need to maintain TiO2 for exclusive use as a color for medicinal products by April 2024. What this means is that based on the fact that the food industry has decided to ban their use, the pharmaceutical industry is now reviewing this and deciding and determining whether they can remove it from their products. This is still going ahead. There is no change to this date. However, they have issued some guidelines and some guidance for manufacturers. It as as follows. For products already authorized containing TiO2, the market authorization holder should collaborate with each other regarding the research and development of replacements, especially when it comes to TiO2. Furthermore, provide a full dossier regarding all variations that will impact the product following this change. For example, composition, process, testing. What it's saying there is that the industry really needs to get ready and collaborate and come up with some innovative solutions and really present these to the market so that we have some viable alternatives in place. We don't want to arrive at 2024 and have no alternative to TiO2. From my experience, I've seen this collaboration between companies and industry bodies already. You'll all be aware that there are products on the market that allow the removal of TiO2. The regulation then goes on to say, "For new marketing authorization approval, the composition can still include TiO2 for the time being if the development work has already started. The applicant can change or remove TiO2 before submission." If you're halfway through developing a product, don't worry. If you put TiO2 in, you can still formulate it out up to the point of submitting your MAA. There are further calls on the pharmaceutical industry to make all possible efforts to accelerate the research and development of alternatives to replace TiO2 in both new and already authorized products. This is very much the case today. We are, in some regards, lucky that the food industry, specifically nutraceuticals, has gone through this process because they've done a lot of the hard work already. That isn't to say that there are still some challenges, but a lot of the teething issues have been resolved in that regard. The final thing I wanted to mention is the ECHA classification. This is really where it all started, the ECHA classification fed into food, then into pharma. ECHA particularly looks after the classification on the label or on the safety data sheet of a TiO2. Now, in November 2022, a legal challenge was brought of one relating to titanium dioxide being classified as a potentially carcinogenic substance. The ruling determined that there was a manifest error in ECHA's assessment of the studies used and because it was not based on an intrinsic property of the substance itself. There is still a right to challenge this ruling. That process is ongoing. It only impacts the ECHA classification. It doesn't have any impact on what the food industry will do or the pharmaceutical industry. Now, it's fair to say that if ECHA did change its classification, that the food industry may look at this again. The problem you have is that because such a lot of issues have been raised around TiO2, there's a negative connotation within the food industry. This does transfer somewhat to the pharmaceutical industry as well. These assessments are independent of that ECHA classification. Titanium dioxide does have a multitude of functions, including whiteness, opacity, UV protection, and is a key component of color blends. This is often forgotten. When we think of TiO2, we think of white. Actually, it affects all of those pale colors that we also use as well. TiO2 can really perform all of these functions together. It really is the workhorse of color formulations. We all know the challenges associated with formulating titanium dioxide out of products. Firstly, what is permitted for use? The majority of alternatives use calcium carbonate. On its own, it is quite limited. One of your big challenges relates to creating opacity and whiteness. As we know, calcium carbonate on its own is poor at this. The market now realizes that there is no one-for-one replacement or a product that can achieve all of the desired effects. There are some specific coating challenges associated, namely the balance of coating weight, whiteness, and coating speed. Just to elaborate on that, if you take calcium carbonate on its own and try to create the same whiteness, you're probably putting 5x-10x the amount of coating that you would typically need to put on. For most manufacturing environments, this is just not acceptable. Now we'll take a deeper dive into our polar white solution and how we came to solve this issue. The first thing that we did was to define the scope and identify what was truly important to our customers. We evaluated all of the materials suitable for using coating and screened these for opacity. We also discounted materials that could not be considered, such as zinc oxide. Using experimental design, we reviewed our initial screening results and found that no one substance could do it all. Like I mentioned previously, there is no one-for-one replacement or anything where one material on its own can achieve the majority of the functions. We really did have to review our results. We then, as we so often do, looked towards nature to find our inspiration. This is where we arrived at the polar bear. The polar bear's fur is colorless. The skin of the bear is often quite dark. We observed that the light was refracting in such a way that it was masking the dark skin color underneath. Using the experimental design, we undertook trials to replicate this effect. In honor of our inspiration, we named the range polar white. The initial product was developed in response to a nutraceutical requirement for food applications. Subsequently, it was developed to meet the pharmaceutical specification requirements as well. What are polar white coatings? Our coatings are simpler to use, easier to coat, quick to apply, and innovative. We're going to use the time now to take a deeper dive into each area. We are simpler to use. Our coatings are fully formulated, ready-to-use coatings. This means that all you need to do is add them to water and mix. There's no other preparation steps. There's no weighing out color or adding individual ingredients together. It's just add our product to water. All of our formulations are based on HPMC. This means that all the formulations we use have the same coating methodology. They have an analogous formulation. This is especially important when considering the layering of coatings. It also makes training on any of our coatings much easier because if you can use one of our coatings, you can use all of them. All of our coatings are shared and color-matched. This takes the headache and complexity out of using color, which at times can be very difficult. We are easier to coat. Now, how do we achieve this? Well, all our coatings use the same basic conditions. We target the same viscosity and use for all of our blends. This is 400 to 500 centipoes. We also target the same tablet bed temperature, which is typically between 38 and 42 degrees. This means that whichever coating you buy from us, from our white to TiO2-free to synthetic to natural, they all use these same parameters. We tell you the settings that we're using. If you send us your tablets to try on our coating machine, we will send you a report with all the settings, tell you the limitations, the things to consider. We tell you everything. That means you are in full control of your coating process. There are no secrets. The coatings are designed for rapid application and providing that you stick to the temperature and viscosity parameter. Settings such as speed, inlet air, spray rate can be varied to suit your individual requirements. We have designed these formulations to be tough, which means that should the operational settings be substandard, it shouldn't matter. They really are robust, easy-to-use formulations. We are quick to apply. Now, I alluded to before that the coatings like quick application. Specific to polar white coatings, the faster you can apply the coating, the less you need to place on in terms of coating weight to achieve a white coating. So it really favors a fast, rapid application. What better news for a manufacturing manager than hearing the faster you can coat it, the less you need to apply, the cheaper it will be. Our solutions do disperse rapidly in water. They don't require mixing the night before. You can even mix them up to one hour before use. Because our coatings are so quick to apply, the impact of changing from TiO2 to TiO2-free is minimal. We are innovative. This is something we're particularly proud of. It's worth pointing out at this point that in our laboratory, we have a tableting machine that is an industrial tableting machine and a small-scale coater that is replicating what you have in your industrial facilities, a full setup. This means that our lab is able to swiftly respond to the market needs. We can be agile with our formulations because everything from the formulation design through to testing on your tablets is in our control. We're not relying upon anybody else to do any of that work. We have the expertise to back it up. Should our coatings not meet your individual requirements on specification, do have the facility to optimize it and work with you. We're not going to say, "This is all you can have." We're going to work and collaborate together. A common example is a customer may say that they cannot meet our viscosity requirement, but they still want that rapid application. Well, we can work on the polymers to design a formulation that has a similar solid content but with a lower overall viscosity. Our innovations are color-led. This is really important because a lot of coatings in the market talk about the technicality of the polymer. Actually, we lean on the colors to help us coat using and exploiting the fact that it adds solid content and, in some instances, helps the plasticization and formation of the coating. Our innovations are all color-led. If we talk specifically about the products, I've picked two out here just to share with you. We have in our arsenal a range of products, but they're all based on HPMC. Depending on the grade, we can offer EP, U.S.P, and a food regulation grade as well. We've pre-prepared all of our documentation. We have SDSs, TDSs, CFAs, and specifications, as you would expect, information on how to use the coating, but also a full regulatory pack available at the ordering of a sample. We can typically provide samples of between 250 g to 1,000 g for laboratory trials. I mentioned before that we have a lab coater. Our preference is for you always to send your tablet to us minus the API. We will run a coating trial on your samples, send you iterations with different coating levels back, then the target coating weight as well. Then we can have a conversation looking at the physical tablets. This counts for both white and color tablets. How does it look in practical terms? Well, I mentioned before that we really focused our energy on reducing the manufacturing time. We knew when we approached this problem that you would have to apply more coating. Typically, we recommend that you apply 1.5x-2x the amount of a titanium-based coating that you would use. In the example here, if you use 2% of TiO2 coating, you'll need approximately 3%-4% of our coating. This is a good range to start. Ultimately, it comes down to the type of tablet, the shape, and size. This is a good ballpark to start. When we look at alternative products in the market, this increase is pretty slim when compared with those other products. The application rate is faster. This is because of the solid content within the formulation itself. Typically, that's around 18% solids, which for a HPMC-based coating, that's very high. That results in the 40% more solids. It's also a faster application. The combination of the higher solids, the temperature, and the fact that it likes to be sprayed faster means that typically, there's no significant change in production time. I wanted to talk now about some additional services that we offer. If you're looking for a color, typically, you would look for coatings where the color is already integrated within that coating. However, the way that we operate is we ask you, "What shade and color do you require?" Everything we do for coatings is custom. We have experience developing TiO2-free color coatings. This includes naturals and synthetic coatings and oxide coatings for use in pharmaceutical applications. We've got a good history of nutraceutical options. We have a very good understanding of the regulations and limitations of synthetic colors in food. We also have our natural range as well. For pharmaceuticals, we have a full range of oxides and TiO2-free whites. We can develop unique shades as well. The development arm of that, we can customize the formulation that we have. Now, at the moment, we have two chassis that we typically work on: the polar white formulation and our standard HPMC formulation. We can adjust those formulations to meet your individual requirements. For example, if you have a different viscosity requirement or if you wish to spray at a different temperature, or there are some specific settings that you need to take into consideration. When you first think of color, you think of the color of the tablet. Actually, behind all of that, we can really help to develop a unique and bespoke coating for yourself. If I'm going to mention the natural, this is a really good example of an innovation that we worked on. We have some vibrant alternatives to synthetic colors with our outstanding capacity. Now, how did we achieve this? Well, I said that we lead developments with color. We try to exploit the color for coating. In doing so, we've utilized encapsulated natural colors. These have more of a pigment behavior than they do of a dye. Because you've got these pigment-type products on a micron scale, the longevity of the color is much longer. What that results in is excellent light, temperature, and storage stability. To give an example, the Inasso color typically has a shelf life on its own of about six months. In a coated tablet, we can exceed over two years in the finished format because of that benefit of the encapsulated natural color. We can support you from lab up to mainstream production. These are compliant for nutraceutical applications in the EU and U.S., all of which are TiO2-free. We can do talc-free. It's a really good representation of how we've taken a traditional problem, something that is readily available in the market, and really innovated. Because we can utilize a color as part of the formulation, the solid content within our formulations is very, very high. What I would also say is that if you buy a red from us, the way you cut the red is the same as the blue, as the green, as the orange. They all work exactly the same. There's no difference in the way that you would approach coating those. Again, they like a rapid, quick application. I ask if you can remember one thing from today's presentation. It's that our coatings are simpler to use, easier to coat, quick to apply, and innovative. Thank you. Hello, welcome to our Q&A session for polar white tablet coatings with Adam Duxbury. Adam, thank you so much for the presentation. It's wonderful to be here with you and ask you a couple of questions that we get often from different customers. I'm sure they just learned a ton of information from what you just shared. First of all, I want to just come right out with a question, just asking a little bit more about color by Univar Solutions. I'm curious about this brand and how expansive it is, what it offers to our customers, and if you can just share more about the global offerings that this brand has to offer. Yeah, it's a great question. It's something I can talk at length about, to be honest, because we don't talk enough about what we do at color. Univar Solutions is known globally as a distributor of color. What is not so well known is the fact that the color division actually blends its own color. It's unique in Univar in that we can actually make something bespoke for customers' needs. That site itself in the U.K. has been operating now around about 65 years. What they don't know about color isn't worth knowing, right from synthetic oxides all the way through to natural colors. They've done everything with color that you can think of. We have facilities on site for dry and wet mixing. We can handle ATEX powders. We can do a multitude of things, including mixing those colors with ingredients used within your formulation. We typically handle things like food ingredients, pharma ingredients, and BPC ingredients on site. In terms of reach, we sell these products globally, quite a proportion into Europe. We also sell into the U.S., South America, and across to the Far East as well. Our reach is global. There are no challenges to us selling color all over the world. Oh, that's great. Well, thank you so much for just elaborating a bit more on that. Now, this next question is one that is probably one of our most common questions when it comes to a topic like this. That is, how much coating would a customer need to apply if they were aiming to achieve a white coating on a tablet? Yeah, this is a really key question. It's probably the most common question I get for TiO2 coatings. I noted in the presentation that we typically recommend 1.5x-2x the amount that you would apply of a TiO2 coating. The reason for this is that we've really designed and engineered our formulation to have the lowest increase in coating. Everybody knows that you've got to put more on. The amount depends on the formulation. Ours is one of the slimmest formulations. This means that the difference between what you were applying initially to the free from grade is quite small. If you have a tablet that's 2%, typically, you're targeting 3%-4% with our coating for the TiO2-free. I would elaborate on that and say that all tablets are slightly different. Depending on your tablet, you can engineer that a little bit more. That's where we come in. We have our coating laboratory where we have a coating pan that is a mirror image of what you have in production, including the spray heads and the settings. We can take your tablet minus the API, stick it in our machine, coat it with our product, give you iterative levels of coating, and a full coating report as well. It might be that you think, "Actually, I can get away with 1.2x." It might be that you've got a newer tablet and you want to apply a little bit more for a safety factor. All of this knowledge gives you that guidance. It also takes the complexity out of using a formulation of this type. That's great. Thank you so much. I know, obviously, we just spent some time talking about white coatings. Talk to me a little bit now about your experience with TiO2-free color coatings. What are the coatings within the scope of the Solution Centers and their lab capabilities? What might you be able to tell us about your experience with that? Yeah, this is another great question. Obviously, when we think of TiO2, we naturally think of white. TiO2 goes into the majority of color coatings, and especially things like browns, where it is a constituent part. Simply just replacing it one for one with chalk is not good enough. It just won't work. Now, what we did in the past, and because of our experience with other industries, we've really leaned on our expertise of removing the TiO2 and what else we can put in its place. Subsequently, we proactively developed some shades, some yellow, pink, blue, and beige shades to countertype the existing ones in the market. These are the most common colors that you would see requested. What I would say is that should you have any specific requirements, we can also formulate this out. The other thing that we have for the neutral market is our natural colors. The encapsulated naturals are really a good alternative. They are naturally TiO2-free. You get this bright, vibrant color without the need of an opacifier or the softening of the TiO2. We have a multitude of formulations, but a lot of expertise behind that because of some of the work we've done in food and BPC in the past. That's great. I'm sure color selection in tablets is something really interesting and a fun discussion to have with different customers that you might work with. Absolutely. Absolutely. It's really useful because quite often, color isn't seen as an active ingredient. It's seen as a functional material just to give color. Where we really lean on our expertise is we're using it to build up some part of the formulation. It's adding something to the solid content. We can also utilize some of the colors to add some of the film-forming properties as well. Really, when we're looking at changing color, we're not just thinking of the color as an individual ingredient. We're thinking of how we can exploit that to best optimize the formulation. There have been cases where we've looked at a countertype and come up with a new formulation where we've been able to really exploit the properties of color to improve the coating parameters. That's great. Thanks so much. We had a customer come to us recently. We're kind of hopping back to tablets now. For a model, they had a modeled tablet. They were finding it difficult to coat and hide spots in the tablet. What type of solution might you offer for a challenge like this with a customer? Yeah, this is a really common thing that we see in the industry at the moment where the TiO2 in the past was hiding a multitude of sins underneath the tablets, mottling and damage and things like this where you get differences in shade and color. What we did is we looked at what the industry commonly does, which is apply a clear coating and then the white coating on top. Now, under normal circumstances, that would be enough. With a TiO2-free coating, you could still see the spots coming through. It just wasn't enough. Even when we screened putting a clear on than TiO2-free, it just wasn't acceptable to us from a quality level. I would say that our acceptable limit on color is probably higher than most. We wouldn't release the product unless we're truly happy with it. We looked at the challenge and thought, "Actually, we think we should cap it with an oxide." That's what we did. We came up with a special coating based on iron oxide. This totally hides and masks and caps the spots and mottling. This might seem counterintuitive to put a color underneath because you would intuitively think, "I've got to put more white coating on." This is just not the case. You put the same amount of coating that you would apply on top of a clear layer. You can completely hide the oxide layer. What you don't get is the propagation of those spots or the mottling coming through that coating. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, actually. Well, thanks so much. All right, now, one final question for today. That is, if customers or suppliers are interested in engaging with your team, starting a project within one of our Solution Centers, what would that next step be for them? Yeah, this is a really important point. I would always encourage everybody to reach out to their local account manager. This is your day-to-day contact. However, if you've got any idea of a project, they can pull myself or one of my colleagues in from the Solution Center. We're available globally. Quite often, on a day-to-day basis, we're speaking to people from around the world on a variety of different projects. Where we can really add value is that the account managers can really help you with a day-to-day relationship. We can add that technical value. I mean, my expertise is in coating. I can coat most of these products with my eyes closed. That's how many times that we've done them. When you're talking to us about problems or challenges, we really understand it on a very basic level of the things that are going wrong or the challenges you're having or what you're trying to solve. We would form a project together with the account manager and yourselves, understanding your regulatory requirements, your color requirements, and coating requirements. We also like to get in your tablets to our coating machine because nothing is better than seeing the color on your tablets. That's where we really like to partner up. This isn't just a transactional relationship. We really care about what we're doing. We want to give you the best coating for your facility. Nothing makes me happier than when I hear a report of a trial in a factory and it's gone fantastically. Please reach out to your local account manager. We work globally with the account managers. There's somebody within our Solution Centers that can support you. I've said to you before, Monica, that our Solution Centers have such expertise that we can support right from APIs all the way through to coated tablets and everything in between. That it might not just be the coating that is of significance to a discussion. We might also need to discuss the tablet formulation to help improve the coating and vice versa. Please lean on us for expertise. Please ask us for information. Please contact your local account manager. That's great. Thank you so much, Adam. It has been so wonderful speaking with you. We so appreciate all of our customers and suppliers who joined us for this important session today. We've learned a lot. We look forward to connecting with you soon. Thanks so much. Thank you. Univar Solutions en México. Una empresa líder en la producción y distribución de productos e ingredientes químicos industriales, así como formulaciones especializadas utilizadas para una amplia gama de industrias. Contamos con un equipo especializado de producción, distribución y ventas, expertos en el mercado de lubricantes con un sólido conocimiento técnico. Invertimos constantemente en nuestras instalaciones de última generación, en analíticos, en tecnologías y herramientas, para que nuestros productos y servicios sean de la más alta calidad. Nuestros productos son realmente valiosos, ya que podemos mejorar el rendimiento de productos tales como lubricantes para motores de combustión interna, engranajes hidráulicos, fluidos de metal mecánica, refrigerantes y de corte. Trabajamos también antiespumantes para adhesivos, selladores, elastómeros y productos de limpieza doméstica e industrial. Tenemos una red de distribución estratégica. Trabajamos con total transparencia y nos esforzamos para que nuestros negocios crezcan y nuestras relaciones sean duraderas. Contamos con la certificación ISO 9001:2015 en almacenamiento, procesamiento y distribución de productos para la industria química y desarrollo de nuevos productos. Univar Solutions fue fundada en 1924 en Estados Unidos, mientras que en México llevamos más de 25 años atendiendo a más de 100 clientes en el mercado de lubricantes y fluidos de corte. Cabe mencionar que la planta cuenta con una capacidad de producción hasta de 10 MT por día. Buscamos ser la empresa de distribución líder en el suministro de materias primas para el mercado de lubricantes y fluidos de corte, ofreciendo un portafolio completo, incluyendo productos como solventes y productos de especialidad como surfactantes, aminas, modificadores de viscosidad, aditivos de extrema presión, emulsificantes, antioxidantes, entre otros. Contamos con personal comercial y técnico especializado que nos permite apoyar a nuestros clientes en el desarrollo de formulaciones y nuevos productos, empleando materiales innovadores y sustentables que coadyuven a reforzar el posicionamiento de nuestros clientes en el mercado. En nuestro laboratorio especializado para la planta de silicones, nos enfocamos los más altos estándares de calidad. Hola, soy Noé Gallegos. Soy el coordinador de control de calidad de Planta Tule. Vamos a intentar aterrizar el contexto del departamento de control de calidad y las actividades que ejerce en esta planta. Vamos a dividirlo en dos. Son dos secciones importantes: la parte del almacén, que es toda la liberación del producto en piso, vamos a decirlo, la parte operativa, y toda la parte de producción y lo analítico, todo lo que brinda la parte o el servicio que brindamos hacia la parte productiva. Básicamente, las dos áreas son muy importantes para el flujo operativo de toda la planta. Somos el control principal para el ingreso y salida de todos los materiales. No hay nada en esta planta que no pase por control de calidad. Aterrizándolo al contexto analítico y toda la capacidad operativa que tenemos en este laboratorio, en el que le brindamos servicio a producción en específico, tenemos una capacidad instalada muy amplia. Al día de hoy, contamos con equipos de primera generación, contamos con algunos equipos genéricos, análisis normales comunes, pero tenemos análisis muy puntuales también: viscosímetros autocalibrables, incubadoras para estabilidad acelerada, caframos de última generación para realizar pilotos aquí en sitio. Al día de hoy, tenemos un laboratorio totalmente renovado, bastante espacio para poder tener percepción a futuro, para poder tener visión a futuro, equipos nuevos, cosas por el estilo. Podemos tener atención al cliente en análisis muy específicos para resolución de problemas, como un Solution Center, pero participando del lado como laboratorio de control de calidad y, aparte, en el día a día y en la operación diaria. Contamos con 3 personas en el departamento de calidad que están totalmente operativas: 1 analista, 2 inspectores y un servidor como coordinador de control de calidad. Somos 4 personas en el departamento. 2 personas están totalmente y al 100% atendiendo el almacén, y 1 persona está al tanto de toda la situación que pueda suceder con producción. Un servidor se encuentra de la mano trabajando con el tech manager, que es Carlos Galeano, para los desarrollos que se puedan suscitar, y con otros departamentos para las reclamaciones o cosas que nos vengan encima con los clientes. El punto de la capacidad instalada o de tener un laboratorio de última generación es poder brindar o tener y mantener el sentido de la calidad en robustez y en los más altos parámetros de calidad, para poder tener a nuestros clientes con nosotros durante mucho tiempo. Esto es lo que hacemos como departamento de control de calidad aquí en Univar Solutions, y es la forma en la que participamos dentro de toda esta gran cadena. Al día de hoy, podemos realizar de 300-350 análisis por semana, repetibles, robustos y muy confiables. Esto hace que nuestra capacidad analítica sea tan amplia que podemos abarcar de lo específico a lo general en cualquier análisis de distintas índoles y que se susciten hacia nuestros clientes. Ellos pueden acudir a nosotros en cualquier situación, y nosotros tenemos toda esta capacidad tan amplia para poder atender sus necesidades. Hola, soy Ana Daniela Santiago. Soy parte del equipo de control de calidad y me desarrollo en el área como inspector. Dentro del laboratorio, realizamos distintos análisis físico-químicos y de desempeño a los fluidos de silicón. Por mencionar algunos análisis, tenemos como ejemplo la viscosidad. Para la viscosidad, tenemos distintos spins que nos permiten tener una visión más amplia de la viscosidad cinética de nuestros fluidos. Otra de las pruebas que realizamos es la actividad antiespumante y desespumante. Para esta prueba, utilizamos probetas graduadas y surfactantes estandarizados que nos permiten evaluar el desempeño de nuestros fluidos en un medio real. Forzamos la generación de espuma y así calificamos el desempeño del producto. Otra de las pruebas que realizamos es la estabilidad acelerada, en donde utilizamos marcadores colorimétricos y el producto a distintas solubilidades. Esto para garantizar la vida útil de nuestros productos y su calidad. Todos los análisis y pruebas que realizamos a los fluidos son para garantizar la calidad, el desempeño y la vida útil del producto, y así satisfacer las necesidades de nuestros clientes. Soy Carlos Galeano, gerente técnico encargado de la parte de desarrollo de nuevos productos y soporte al área comercial. En Planta Tule, nos enfocamos a la innovación y desarrollo de nuevos productos. Tenemos la más avanzada tecnología para el desarrollo de silicones y productos antiespumantes para la industria de metal mecánica. La industria de metal mecánica en México está creciendo. México es uno de los más grandes fabricantes de autopartes y ensambladoras a nivel mundial. El desarrollo de nuevos productos es clave para el incremento de ventas y el aumento de nuestra presencia en el mercado. Somos capaces de producir todo tipo de antiespumantes: base agua, base de fluidos o libre de silicones. Estos productos están diseñados para cualquier tipo de aplicaciones de mercado, ya sea en lubricantes, aceites directos o en emulsiones, o aceites sintéticos o semisintéticos. Estos productos son capaces de abatir la espuma, de controlar la espuma o de evitar la formación de la espuma. El uso y la necesidad de nuevos productos y desarrollos nace aquí, en Planta Tule. Todos los productos están orientados a satisfacer esas necesidades de desempeño, donde aleaciones nuevas, emulsiones diferentes, tensoactivos diferentes, requerimientos de mercado diferentes, regulaciones sanitarias y de seguridad e higiene necesitamos cubrir. Todos estos productos podemos enfocarnos y desarrollarnos para ese mercado. Trabajamos en equipo. Trabajamos para nuestros clientes, para mejorar su negocio y apoyarlos en cada etapa del camino. Les facilitamos servicios completos que se adapten a sus objetivos. Estamos bien preparados para ayudarles a prever, explorar y aprovechar las oportunidades de crecimiento. Ofrecerles inteligencia de mercado sobre la industria química que los mantenga a la vanguardia. Ayudarles a generar mayores márgenes y a optimizar las operaciones en la cadena de suministro. Nuestro éxito se centra en el éxito de nuestros clientes. Gracias por ver nuestro video. Vamos a presentarnos. Mi nombre es Carlos Galeano. Soy el Technical Manager para la parte de Luxa Metal Workings y estoy encargado de la parte de desarrollo de la planta de silicones también. Conmigo me acompaña Noé Gallegos. Hola, buenos días. Muchas gracias por ver nuestro video. En mi caso, soy el coordinador de control de calidad de Planta Tule en sitio. Llevo 2 líneas del departamento de control de calidad, que sería el laboratorio y todas las liberaciones en análisis de los productos que se fabrican aquí en sitio, y todas las liberaciones de producto en piso de lo que entra y sale de material de línea. Esas serían las actividades que realizamos aquí en planta. Gracias, Noé. Vamos a proceder ahorita con la parte de preguntas y respuestas. ¿Tienes por ahí la primera pregunta, Noé? Sí. La primera pregunta, la primera duda que resalta es: ¿cuál es el parámetro crítico para una emulsión antiespumante? Hay distintos parámetros críticos para poder determinar este tipo de parámetros, pero nos basamos en tres específicamente: actividad antiespumante, actividad desespumante y el porcentaje de sólidos. La actividad antiespumante y la desespumante van a trabajar totalmente con tensión superficial del producto a antiespumar o a desespumar, y podemos evaluar con una cierta estandarización de espuma qué tan veloz podemos tener estas dos actividades. Ese sería uno de los parámetros críticos principales para saber que nuestras emulsiones son funcionales al 100%. Como segundo parámetro, que es el porcentaje de sólidos, el porcentaje de sólidos siempre nos va a dictar qué cantidad de activo tenemos en esta emulsión. Activos algunas otras materias primas que se cruzan, principalmente la cantidad de activo que nos puede ayudar a propiciar esta actividad antiespumante, esta actividad desespumante de la emulsión. ¿Algún otro que creas importante, Carlos? Además de la capacidad antiespumante y demás, necesitamos ver también que el antiespumante como tal cubra los requerimientos de seguridad e higiene de cada planta. La composición base de los surfactantes, de los coadyuvantes y de los otros componentes que tiene la fórmula tiene que estar acorde a las necesidades de la planta. Gracias, Noé. Por aquí tengo la siguiente pregunta, dice: ¿existe la posibilidad de hacer un producto acorde a mis condiciones y necesidades de operación? Sí, tenemos la forma de hacer un producto, como le llaman, a la medida, un traje a la medida. Tenemos un equipo que está en campo, de ingenieros, que se encargan de visitar a cada uno de ustedes, los clientes. Hacen el levantamiento en conjunto de las necesidades, la operación, la composición química del producto que necesitamos aplicar el antiespumante, ya sea en la industria automotriz o cualquiera de las industrias que tenemos. Esta información es llevada al laboratorio. Noé, con su equipo especializado de ingenieros y químicos en el laboratorio, puede hacer el análisis fundamental de qué química es la que necesitamos o es más eficiente para el producto en cuestión, y empezar a hacer el diseño de experimentos. Dentro de este diseño de experimentos, empezamos a tener información que nos va a ayudar a entender el problema en particular de la espuma que se está generando en la planta del cliente, y podemos atacarlo de varias maneras. Ahí es donde la interacción entre el equipo de laboratorio, el equipo que está en piso con el cliente, interactúan de una manera como equipo para poder conseguir el desarrollo más adecuado. Por ahí vamos a platicar más adelante, yo creo, dentro de las preguntas, las capacidades que tenemos en el laboratorio. Podemos ver cómo interactuamos tanto el laboratorio con el desarrollo y con el cliente para poder obtener estos productos a la medida. ¿Tenemos por ahí la siguiente pregunta, Noé? Sí, muchas gracias, Carlos. Una pregunta bastante interesante: el tiempo de vida de anaquel. ¿Cómo se establece el tiempo de vida de anaquel de una emulsión? Es una pregunta bastante interesante. El tiempo de vida de anaquel se estima en función de la estabilidad de los componentes de las materias primas en la emulsión y su desempeño como producto terminado en pruebas de estabilidad acelerada o estabilidad a largo plazo. Básicamente, en resumen, acorde a las características físico-químicas y de vida útil originales de la materia prima, se realiza un estimado. Después de que se mezcla o se emulsifican todos estos componentes, al producto terminado todavía se le hacen distintas pruebas de rendimiento para saber o calcular cuál es dicha estabilidad. Tenemos dos importantes: estabilidad acelerada, eso es a corto plazo, a ciertas revoluciones por minuto, por cierto tiempo, con marcadores colorimétricos para poder distinguir las fases, las distintas fases en las que estos materiales se pudiesen llegar a separarse y es que fuese una emulsión no estable. Estabilidad a largo plazo, que esto ya es más para productos nuevos, para productos de desarrollo nuevo, que es incubadoras a presión y temperatura controlada durante lapsos de tiempo largos, para poder estimar de manera precisa cuánta es la vida útil de un producto. En el día a día, en los productos que ya están probados, en los productos que se fabrican, utilizamos estabilidad a corto plazo. Son centrífugas que se programan a distintas revoluciones por distinto tiempo, con su marcador colorimétrico, y evaluamos en el momento de la producción si fue viable o si sí fue bien emulsificado el producto. En el caso de los de desarrollo, como mencionaba, tenemos incubadora especializada para poder resguardar muestras de 100 mililitros aproximadamente en frascos herméticos específicos para esa operación, que podemos y vamos monitoreando semana con semana para poder evaluar y revisar hasta qué punto podemos llevar nuestros productos. Digamos, los llevamos al límite para saber hasta dónde es viable tener ese material, a qué temperatura, a qué presión, por cuánto tiempo. Y de esta forma podemos evaluar que la emulsión, así como sea estable aquí en la Ciudad de México, pueda ser estable en Guatemala, en Brasil, en Monterrey, en Guadalajara, en lugares más calurosos o más fríos, dependiendo hacia dónde vamos. Podemos asegurarnos que lo que estamos fabricando aquí es para distintos tipos de lugares. Carlos, tendrás la siguiente pregunta por ahí. Sí. Dice: ¿cuentas con productos que van destinados a la industria automotriz? Tenemos una variedad enorme de productos para la industria automotriz, desde la parte de donde están las armadoras, en donde necesitamos productos libres de silicón, donde no queremos que haya silicón disponible o en el ambiente para evitar los pittings y los problemas con pintura. Tenemos antiespumantes, que son con alto contenido de silicón para aplicaciones donde el desempeño y el requerimiento para abatir la espuma sea inmediato. Tenemos productos antiespumantes que no contienen ningún tipo de nanofenol, fosfatos, nitritos ni ningún otro material. Tenemos una variedad muy amplia de antiespumantes, fluidos de silicón, antiespumantes en emulsión, que permiten no solo atender a la industria automotriz, sino a todas las industrias del mercado. Particularmente, hablando con la industria automotriz, el requerimiento año con año ha ido aumentando. Las necesidades, nuevos materiales, nuevas operaciones que han venido de diferentes partes del mundo nos han llevado a optimizar, a desarrollar, a mejorar las fórmulas actuales. Tenemos hoy en día un portafolio de más de 50 fórmulas diferentes para poder atender a este mercado. Además de los productos antiespumantes que tenemos para la industria automotriz, contamos con productos de diferentes distribuciones como DAO, Stepan, Solvay, etcétera, que nos ayudan tanto en componentes como en productos terminados a atender la industria automotriz y sus necesidades en formulación para productos de corte, para metalmecánica, de extrema presión, hidráulicos, etcétera. Somos una solución muy amplia y completa para la industria automotriz y las industrias en general. Contamos con el apoyo del laboratorio en Houston para todo lo que son los análisis de desarrollo y desempeño de los productos terminados, utilizando estos componentes y aditivos, además de laboratorio y pruebas físicas que podemos tener con Noé en su laboratorio aquí en la Ciudad de México. Muy interesante lo que mencionas, Carlos. Más recientemente, fórmulas nuevas libres de alquilfenoles y aldehídos. Importantísimo esta parte en la que incluimos emulsificantes más amigables que un alquilfenol de toda la vida. Tenemos otro tipo de tecnología, la cual va avanzando y vamos a la vanguardia con ese tipo de situaciones. Así como productos que antes se necesitaban fundir a cierta temperatura, el día de hoy los tenemos con otro tipo de tecnología, solubles en agua, más amigables, más eficientes. Importantísimo ese avance aquí en Univar. Pasamos a la siguiente pregunta. Dice: ¿con qué certificaciones cuentan? Una pregunta bastante interesante y ad hoc a lo que sería el departamento de control de calidad en estos momentos. Tenemos 2 certificaciones en la planta el día de hoy: ISO 9001:2015, que es directamente hacia calidad, hacia la calidad de cómo trabajamos en planta. Buenas prácticas de documentación, buenas prácticas de fabricación, buenas prácticas de laboratorio. Y esto nos ha dado una ventaja. Me parece que ya estamos en la segunda revisión de esta norma, ya llevamos un tiempo con ella. Nos da una ventaja muy grande. Poder asegurar a nuestros clientes que su producto va a llegar con la mejor calidad posible es uno de los trabajos que nos hemos encomendado desde hace ya 3 años. El departamento de control de calidad se ha asegurado de tener distintas barreras y controles robustos para poder asegurar la calidad de los productos. Barreras de revisión y de ejecución de procesos en el ingreso de los productos. Todo el material que ingresa tiene validaciones específicas. Todo el material que sale a cliente a cadena de suministro tiene controles específicos, procesos específicos, controles de producto no conforme, controles de recuperación de producto, controles de salida a cliente con requerimientos específicos de cliente. No solo eso, toda la organización y reproducción de análisis en el laboratorio. Tenemos el control hacia la materia prima, el control hacia el producto semiterminado, el control después de que el producto se envasa, se pesa, se etiqueta y después el control de la salida hacia el cliente. Tenemos toda una cadena de suministro acompañada con sus dotes de calidad para poder asegurarle al cliente que su producto siempre llegará con la máxima calidad. Excelente, Noé. Muchas gracias a todos por ver el video. Estamos a sus órdenes. Muchísimas gracias a todos. Hasta luego. Hi, everyone. I wanted to welcome you to our discussion today on the differences between formulating nutraceuticals versus pharmaceuticals. Today we have two industry experts that will give us insight into both of these growing fields. Jessica Zhang is our Pharma Technical Services Manager. She works out of the Houston Solutions Center. She's the go-to person for pharma formulation, advice, and troubleshooting any customer concerns that are related to anything technical. Tracy Sheehan is the Technical Business Development Manager for nutraceuticals in the U.S.A. East Region. He's an expert in the growing field of nutraceuticals. Today I will be moderating this discussion. My name is Karina Abdellari, and I'm the Pharma Application Development Specialist for North America. I'm based out of Toronto. Today, on our agenda, we will be diving into the main differences between pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals. We will be looking at key trends that exist in both of these fields. We will go over what an innovative co-processed excipient or CPE is and how they're used in both fields. Finally, we'll take a look at different prototypes that our Solutions Center has produced. Onto Tracy Sheehan to kick off our first topic. What are the main differences between nutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals? Thank you, Karina. Nutraceuticals are products derived from food sources that deliver extra health benefits in addition to the basic nutritional value found in our foods. Nutritional ingredients that have been in the form of dietary supplements are a rapidly growing category of consumer products globally. Many nutraceutical active ingredients, or NAIs, have been clinically studied through double-blind, placebo-controlled studies to support human health. Dietary supplements containing nutraceuticals, by law, cannot claim to diagnose, cure, prevent, or treat disease. Nutraceutical products have expanded into various formats beyond the traditional solid doses like tablets, capsules, soft gels, gummies, and powders. The expanded dosage format includes chews, lozenges, bars, shots, sprays, film strips, ready-to-drink beverages, and a variety of functional foods and beverages regulated as dietary supplements. Jessica, would you like to tell us about pharmaceuticals? Yeah, thanks, Tracy. When it comes to pharmaceuticals, there are several key factors. One of the main ones involves the treatment of a specific indication or disease state. Done, through a variety of dosage forms, they all typically require a licensed medical practitioner for administration. Another one involves the multitude of clinical trials and studies that are required before a new drug product can be commercialized. The entire end-to-end process may take upwards of 10 to 20 years. Another factor is actually the amount of dosage. It also differs. Many active pharmaceutical ingredients, APIs, are dosed in small quantities, such as mg or even smaller microg. For intravenous drugs, such as injectables, most are often diluted as well. This is because there are higher risks of overdose and a higher margin of error when it comes to some of the more potent APIs. This is reflected even in the physical size of some drugs, such as tablets. Pharmaceutical tablets are generally smaller in size. Ultimately, a little goes a long way. As you can see from what Tracy and I just discussed, although there are overlaps between pharma and nutra, ultimately, pharmaceuticals are used really to treat a disease that has already made itself known, versus nutraceuticals are focused much more on prolonging, preventing, and general overall health. Thank you, Jessica and Tracy, for that detailed overview of the differences in the two industries. Right now, let's get into the emerging trends that we're seeing in both. Thanks, Karina. In the nutraceutical industry, healthy aging is a big current trend. The United Nations General Assembly has declared 2021 to 2030 the UN Decade of Healthy Aging. Average health span has increased by 26 years across the globe since 1950. Consumers cite brain, health, and bone strength as the top concerns for getting older, and are investing in health supplements. Cleaner label supplements containing all-natural and herbal ingredients is another current trend. The brain health and supporting cognitive function category is another trend which has experienced over 18% growth since 2021. Managing stress and quality of life have become a mainstream health concern. Since the beginning of the COVID pandemic, consumers are seeking supplements that support mental well-being, mood, sleep, and mental acuity, which is supporting the rise of adaptogens and nootropics. Nootropics, or cognitive health-supporting ingredients, including DHA, ashwagandha, bacopa, choline precursors like alpha-GPC, or phosphatidylserine. Active nutrition is another mainstream trend that is relevant to all stages throughout life. Inclusive of all demographics, it focuses on enhancing human performance, both physical and mental. There are a multitude of factors that contribute to performance enhancement in an active lifestyle. With more people in tune with their health, active nutrition is becoming the new normal. Many sports nutrition ingredients fall within this category, but they are not limited to just athletes or weekend warriors. Another one that is worth mentioning is gut health, or digestive health, really the center of our overall health, which is also no longer a trend but a mainstream public health matter worldwide. Digestive health issues are prevalent across the globe and are caused by a variety of factors, such as change in our diet, lifestyle choices, aging, and more. Gut microbiota play a big role here. Several research studies have linked the gut microbiome and its metabolites to both physical and emotional well-being via multi-organ biodirectional communication. The biotics, pre, pro, and post, play a big role in this ever-growing category. Clean label products are really surfacing in our industry. There is no clear definition for them since this can have multiple meanings to people and organizations. Clean label can describe a product containing all-natural ingredients, for instance, or non-GMO, containing no flavors, free of artificial flavors or ingredients, free of chemicals or preservatives. Vanilla and fruit flavors are commonly used in many flavored, chewable tablets. Gummies are an increasingly popular format for delivering nutraceuticals. Gummies come in many shapes, sizes, and various flavors. Hard-shell capsules inside of soft-shell capsules are used to deliver oil-based nutraceutical emulsions. Active nutraceuticals such as lycopene, CoQ10, liquid vitamin E, vitamin D and E, and other fat-soluble vitamins, some carotenoids such as zeaxanthin, and forms of omega-3s and 6 fish oils. Botanicals and other phytochemicals creeping into the over-the-counter market are products such as turmeric extract with standardized curcumin, citrus bioflavonoids, coffee fruits, beetroot extract, citrus fruits and peels, and palm seed extracts, and FOS, or short-chain fructooligosaccharides, are now being utilized in many formulations to reduce or eliminate sugar. Also, I've seen ginger extract and Gravol for nausea. Label claims such as delivering ORAC, or the oxygen radical absorption capacity, which represents the antioxidant capacity typically found in natural products such as fruits and vegetables, to help to neutralize or fight free radical cells. We see supporting brain function, mood, focus, supporting immune, gut, heart health, healthy cholesterol levels, managing inflammation, reducing joint pain, and products derived from plant-based proteins are commonly seen in dietary supplements today. Jessica, what emerging trends are you observing in the pharmaceutical industry? Yeah, thanks, Tracy. That was very informative. On the pharma side of things, coming down from the effects of the pandemic, there's now much more pressure on drug innovation. That ranges from unique dosage forms or simply a wider range of dosage forms for the same API, or, of course, more targeted drugs such as biologics. Some of these unique dosage forms that have shown up on the market include bilayer tablets. One reason for this innovative dosage form involves the chemical stability of APIs. Usually, when combined together, many APIs react negatively and show signs of degradation. These innovative dosage forms physically separate them, so neither API touches one another. The tablet is layered, so one API is for one layer and then the other for the other. From a patient standpoint, this also eliminates having to take two different tablets versus just the one. There has also been a new push for palatability and taste masking in drugs. In the past, patients consumed the drug regardless of how bitter it is because it's lifesaving and needed. Now, with an aging population, ease of access comes into the forefront. Many elderly are on multiple medications, and the influx of so much medication can be taxing, especially when it is bitter and hard to swallow. This also gives the drug a market advantage over its competitors when you can say that it tastes better than the competitor and still have the same effect. In terms of new drug approvals in the U.S.A, it actually experienced a decrease of around 25% in 2022. Nearly 1/3 of those approvals were for biologics. This has pushed small molecules ahead for the first time, with more and more molecules being discovered than ever before. Cell and gene therapy is a rising trend. Just from these few trends alone, we can see that there are many exciting innovations happening in this space, with much more being discovered every single day. Thank you, Jessica and Tracy. I 100% see these trends emerging. Another thing that I am seeing is a lot of new active compounds that are in the pipeline are actually having reduced solubility, and this is also creating a large push for more innovative excipients. Especially, like you mentioned, to create a bilayer tablet for vulnerable populations, that means they have to take less pills. That will be directly appealing to consumers. For healthcare practitioners, reducing pill burden or increasing acceptance will have a direct effect on compliance, and that will affect the effectiveness of the medication overall. Yeah, definitely. Now onto co-processed excipients, or CPEs. Jessica will go over what they are and how they can be utilized. Thanks, Karina. With all that we've discussed so far between me, Tracy, and Karina, one big hurdle is that the more complicated the innovation, the more time-consuming the development cycle is. The more complex the problem, the more time spent, the more money spent. Lately, novel excipients such as CPEs have come into the forefront for many of our suppliers. What does this mean? Most formulations use commonly known excipients such as silica, microcrystalline cellulose, magnesium stearate, just to name a few, in the final drug formulation. CPEs take these individual excipients and co-process them into a singular blend. The final powder blend has multiple excipients combined with a more uniform particle size and distribution. This plays a key role in helping with the development cycle, as the uniform blend really helps ensure equal, if not better, drug product quality with less ingredients needed. This helps reduce time and energy savings, reduce waste during the mixing and weighing process, and all of which ties into better sustainability. We can see, co-processed ingredients can be a great solution and a value add for customers, especially if they're looking to reduce bulkiness or reduce the number of ingredients that are used in their formulations. Let's take a look at some of the prototypes that have been created in our lab in Houston. Here are some examples of prototypes that we've developed in-house at our Solution Centers. These all use CPE. Here you can see there are some chewable tablets, some hard-shell gelatin capsules, some orally disintegrating tablets. All of these contain both active pharmaceutical ingredients and active nutraceutical ingredients to really highlight the CPE's versatility and effectiveness. Regardless if the final end product is for pharma or nutra, CPE will get the job done. Among other capabilities, here you can also see that our labs are fully capable of developing products from beginning to end to really help support our customers and suppliers at any stage in the product development cycle. Hello, thank you so much to Jessica, Tracy, and Karina for that insightful detail regarding nutraceuticals versus pharmaceuticals. My name is Monica Hill. I am another member of the Univar Solutions Pharmaceutical Ingredients team. I'm excited to be here with you today as we dive a little bit deeper into some of these topics with our subject matter experts. First of all, I noticed on your most recent slide with prototypes that you talked a little bit about the involvement of active ingredients, obviously, in both spaces. I wondered if you could kind of kick off this discussion talking about the differences with active ingredients in the pharmaceuticals and the nutraceutical space. Monica. Active pharmaceutical ingredients, APIs, they're usually well-defined chemical entities for a specific disease state. We have a lot of clinical trial data to really showcase the exact mechanism and molecular pathway that this drug will affect. We know exactly where in your body the API will target to lessen your headache, for example, as well as the potential side effects that will come up. There are also APIs for biologics as well that are in a completely different process. They're grown in a living organism, whereas most traditional APIs are not grown in a living organism. That is also a whole different specification on its own. What about for nutraceuticals, Tracy? Jessica, formulation of nutraceuticals requires the same knowledge of chemistry and skills as for pharmaceutical formulations. Phytonutrients or phytochemicals are active nutraceutical ingredients that manufacturers have clinically tested for their bioavailability by bypassing the liver with minimal metabolization and accessible to support essential cell functions. That's great. Thank you so much. Tracy, this next one's for you too. What can the public expect in terms of ingredients when it comes to nutraceuticals? Like with pharmaceuticals, it's well known that there are clinical trials, safety data, and an expected standard across the board. Is that the same for nutraceuticals? Monica, that's right. Many nutraceutical active ingredients are clinically studied, just like pharmaceutical ingredients, through double-blind placebo-controlled studies to prove that the active ingredients are bioavailable and the standardized phytonutrient levels are quality-tested for safety. That's first and foremost for all consumers, is that the products are safe. Also, the non-active nutraceuticals are also quality-tested to ensure they are safe. Perfect. Thank you. I know another topic throughout the presentation was on excipients. I'm kind of hoping that the three of you might be able to address this or one of the three of you. How do you see novel excipients impacting patients in the future? The formulation of medications with novel excipients can have both positive and negative effects on patients. Starting off with the positive, if we use novel excipients, they may actually help improve delivery and ultimately effectiveness of the medication. This may include something like increasing the solubility of a poorly soluble molecule or having the ability to target delivery to a specific tissue, and that might increase the bioavailability of the drug. This type of optimization of drug delivery might also lead to reduction in the dose that's needed to be used for that effect and ultimately reducing potential side effects and toxicity versus traditional excipients. From a patient's point of view, that means easier administration, reduced pill burden, as well as potentially less side effects. On the other hand, with anything that's novel, there's always that potential for negative or unknown effects. That's something that needs to be kept in mind, and monitoring is of utmost importance for that. I also just wanted to point out, Karina, that with novel excipients or maybe just improving on existing excipients so that it's a larger particle size or smaller particle size, that it makes the drug development cycle faster so that you then commercialize the product faster and ultimately patients and consumers like us get the drug faster. Oh, 100%. That's a great point. Awesome. Well, I know that consumer awareness is going to be a part of the answer to this next question. The theme of today is innovation. I'm just curious to hear from our experts, what are the key drivers for innovation? I know some of those trends that you were talking about. What do you see as the cause for some of those things? The biggest thing from my side is that regulations. Regulations are constantly changing. The regulatory landscape is always on the move. Because of that, the market has to keep up with it, whether it's addition of new ingredients to the monograph, removal of certain ingredients from monograph. Ultimately, that all affects the drug product, and we have to formulate to reflect that. Additionally, as you mentioned, coming down from the effects of the pandemic, there has now been more awareness from the younger generation than ever before. This is leading to differences in consumer practices as people have more access to education surrounding health. Everyone can pick up their phone and Google something. With that, you now have the younger generation educating the older generation as well to be more aware of the products they're taking, asking more questions from their physicians, stuff like that. What about you, Tracy? As a result of the pandemic, there's been more awareness for the younger generation than ever before. This is leading to differences in consumer practices as people have more access to education surrounding their health. There's been an increased demand for innovative nutraceuticals due to health-conscious consumers, increased awareness about food and disease prevention, and promoting wellness and longevity and health span, and prevention also in management of chronic diseases through our diet and less dependence on pills and drugs. Phytonutrients in the form of active nutraceutical ingredients are constantly being clinically studied for their health benefits. Yeah. In addition, there is an increased push for research towards rare diseases. That just means that there will be more active ingredients that might have less solubility than the traditional ones. We will have to become more creative with the excipients we have or just generating new ones or co-excipients as well. Great. Thank you so much. My final question here, what's next? Let's talk a little bit about the future. I know we talked some about trends, and that's probably driving a good bit of it. What do you see as the future for pharmaceuticals and the future for nutraceuticals? Yeah. We are increasingly moving away from a one-size-fits-all culture with custom medications being necessary for our patients. This is reflected in innovations taking place as well as the variety of nutra and pharma products out in the market. We'll see new emerging technologies that will be disruptive to the nutraceutical industry. What do I mean by that? Consumers are concerned about how bioavailable the active nutraceuticals are actually getting into their bodies and being effective. I think we'll see an increase in bioaccessibility of these active nutraceutical ingredients through extensive studies. Yeah, echoing you, Tracy, pretty much very similar approaches is that we're definitely moving away from a one-size-fits-all. Custom medication is huge. I mean, if you think about it, there's 8 billion people in the world. There's no way just the one drug over the counter at that exact same dosage will work for everybody, especially because everyone's different age, different sex, different health background. That's a huge thing. I also see that coming along with biologics. A lot of genomic research has really shown up in the past few years. In gene therapy, who knows in the future, we may be able to target exactly the RNA-DNA strain in your body and say, "That's what's causing you to have this disease. So we're just going to target that and cut that out." The options are endless. Yeah, I agree with you both. Definitely, it's consumer-driven. People are just so aware of what's going on when it comes to medications and excipients that that will be the major trend. Well, that's great. Well, thank you again so much to all three of you for sharing these insights with us today. I hope our audience is walking away feeling more learned in both the spaces of nutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals. Our team is always happy and here to help with whatever your needs might be, whether it's within our global Solution Centers or in need of quality products and ingredients. Please feel free to reach out to us. We can be reached at Univar Solutions.com/pharmaceuticals or/nutraceuticals. Thanks so much. Na Univar Solutions, oferecemos uma ampla gama de recursos em nosso centro de soluções de lubricantes e metalworking fluids para ajudá-lo a avaliar e utilizar produtos químicos de alta performance em diversas aplicações. Somos seu parceiro de conexões globais, soluções inteligentes e especialistas técnicos focados no seu negócio. Nossa equipe de especialistas vai trabalhar ao seu lado em todas as fases de desenvolvimento para encontrar soluções personalizadas para o seu produto. De Houston a São Paulo, da Cidade do México a Essen, as nossas soluções são globais. O nosso centro de soluções é uma extensão do seu negócio para desenvolver, analisar, testar e avaliar suas formulações. Através de várias disciplinas e fronteiras, fornecemos serviços analíticos e testes de grande alcance, identificando as mais recentes matérias-primas, soluções e técnicas para melhorar a performance e eficácia em suas aplicações. Com a combinação certa de ingredientes e inovação, colocamos o seu produto em destaque no mercado. Para que ele atraia todo o interesse dos consumidores, precisamos de todo o conhecimento e dedicação das nossas pessoas. Olá. Eu sou a Flávia Silva, especialista em desenvolvimento técnico de lubricants e metalworking fluids, tenho muito orgulho de fazer parte da Univar Solutions na busca de soluções inovadoras para nossos clientes. O nosso centro de soluções fica localizado em Osasco, São Paulo, com cerca de 500 sq meters de infraestrutura e possui laboratório de aplicação de diversos segmentos, como Beauty Personal Care, CASE, HIC, Food e Pharma. Como especialista em desenvolvimento técnico, contribuo provendo conhecimento especializado ao nosso time de vendas. Auxilio os nossos clientes no desenvolvimento de suas formulações indicando produtos com melhor performance e custo-benefício. Além disso, sempre estou atenta a encontrar soluções mais sustentáveis para os seus produtos. Olá. Me chamo Diana Ferreira, sou analista de laboratório. Sou responsável pelas aplicações e testes no nosso laboratório, além de apoiar nas demandas técnicas do nosso time de vendas e clientes. Em nosso centro de soluções, realizamos testes como análise de infravermelho, viscosidade cinemática e corrosão Bosch, além de aplicações nas formas dos clientes com as nossas bases e aditivos. Em nosso laboratório, conseguimos simular a necessidade dos nossos clientes, desde uma formulação de óleo lubrificante ou uma graxa especial. Também proporcionamos aos nossos clientes grande diferencial: oferecemos laboratório dedicado à análise e estudo de microrganismos. Com este laboratório de microbiologia, conseguimos analisar de forma mais eficiente os nossos biocidas do portfólio e promover o challenge teste. Com o challenge teste, conseguimos indicar o melhor biocida e sua concentração mínima nas fórmulas. Agora irei demonstrar dos testes que realizamos em nosso laboratório, o teste de espuma. Realizamos este teste para encontrarmos o antespumante mais adequado para o fluido de corte do nosso cliente. É muito importante para as centrais de usinagem escolher o antespumante correto para evitar aquecimento e desgaste no equipamento. Esta é a análise de espectro infravermelho. Esse equipamento auxilia na homologação de novos produtos e na indicação de contratipo aos nossos clientes. Nessa análise, é possível identificar a composição química de material pelos seus grupos funcionais. Agora irei demonstrar a análise de calficha. Em óleos lubrificantes, temos uma norma que determina a quantidade máxima de umidade presente no material. Por isso, utilizamos este teste em homologações de novas matérias-primas para o nosso portfólio e para apoiar as demandas dos nossos clientes. Com estes testes, conseguimos determinar se os nossos produtos atendem às expectativas dos nossos clientes. Como seu parceiro, além de formulações e testes, oferecemos também a expertise do mercado local. Olá. Sou Camila Mucioli, gerente de negócios de lubrificante metalworking fluids no Brasil. Este mercado é composto por graxas, lubrificantes e óleos de corte para o segmento industrial e automotivo. Historicamente, antes da pandemia, víamos crescimento de 3% ao ano deste setor. Em 2020, primeiro ano da pandemia, tivemos uma queda muito grande no primeiro semestre. No entanto, com uma retomada em V do segundo semestre, tivemos o fechamento de 2020 com apenas 1% de queda. Em 2021, encerramos o ano com aumento de 9% no setor e 2022 encerramos com uma queda de 5%. Este setor está muito atrelado à indústria automotiva no Brasil, que até os dias atuais experimenta problemas com crise de componentes eletrônicos, gerando instabilidade nos níveis de produção. Em 2024, esperamos que este mercado retome os níveis médios de crescimento de 3% ao ano. Nosso centro de soluções promove análises e relatórios comparativos de produtos usados no mercado. Uma das principais atividades é apoiar clientes em suas formulações, indicando melhores matérias-primas para suas aplicações. Temos importante interface com o time técnico global, onde mapeamos tendências e as traduzimos para a realidade do mercado brasileiro, como, por exemplo, discussões sobre eletrificação de veículos e produtos mais sustentáveis. Contamos também com o centro de soluções de Houston, nos Estados Unidos, onde podemos ter acesso a vários equipamentos, como o Rtec MFT-5000. Tudo isso faz com que a Univar Solutions seja importante parceiro para o mercado de lubrificante metalworking. Centro de soluções Univar Solutions. Desenvolva de forma rápida formulações inovadoras para o mercado. Olá. Obrigada por assistirem ao nosso vídeo no Innovation Day deste ano. Nós recebemos algumas perguntas e vamos comentá-las aqui. Vamos ver. A primeira é sobre qual o impacto da eletrificação para o mercado brasileiro de lubrificantes. Nós temos aqui no Brasil a questão do etanol, que é combustível de fonte alternativa, sustentável e renovável. Isso faz com que seja uma alternativa bastante interessante à eletrificação, porque a gente tem também uma questão de infraestrutura para os carros elétricos aqui no Brasil. Ainda não vemos uma renovação da frota muito a curto prazo, até pouco mais demorada do que em outras regiões, como Europa, Estados Unidos. Acreditamos que, por conta do etanol e por termos situações mais difíceis para a infraestrutura, a renovação da frota vai ainda levar pouco mais de tempo. De qualquer forma, nós já vemos no mercado pesquisas para IV fluids, matérias-primas sendo estudadas também para o desenvolvimento de lubrificantes de menor viscosidade, que é uma tendência para essa realidade dos automóveis eletrificados. Já vemos o mercado se movimentando, sim, mas a renovação da frota a gente acredita que ainda demore alguns anos. Vamos para a próxima. Diana, algum comentário sobre a eletrificação? Acho que nós, como a Univar, estamos perto do cliente para entender esse mercado e estamos fazendo já, sendo parceiro nessa parte também, ainda vem sendo melhor também. Isso mesmo. Vamos para a segunda. Quais produtos novos a Univar terá no seu portfólio este ano? A gente lançou agora, no primeiro semestre, as polyalphaolefins de alta viscosidade e também o sulfonato de calcio TBN 400, muito usado como aditivo para as bases de graxas e lubrificantes industriais. Temos, sim, algumas novidades que chegarão ainda este ano, mas estamos aí na finalização de todo o processo. Vai ficar para o segundo semestre. O que eu posso adiantar é que são produtos bastante nobres e que ajudarão bastante na performance dos clientes, dos formuladores de lubrificantes. Em breve, vocês saberão. Acho que a próxima, Diana, pode comentar sobre os produtos menos perigosos? Sim. Uma das perguntas foi no portfólio de lubs se há produtos menos perigosos ou com classificações mais brandas para o atendimento do nosso cliente. A gente tem, sim, como exemplo, Parel, Grotem Oxi, as aminas especiais da Angus. São produtos que possuem documentações como FISC, com menos pictograma, deixando a formulação do cliente muito menos perigosa. Além disso, a gente tem os produtos Fujigrade, que exemplo: PMX-200, PAO e PIB, que têm todas as certificações NSF, HALAL, Kosher, para ajudar na hora da formulação do cliente. Isso mesmo. Me lembrou que também teremos, nesse sentido de XIAMETER, menos perigoso, novidades no portfólio também ainda para esse ano. Voltando à pergunta anterior. Indo para a próxima. Como está a demanda de fornecimento de matérias-primas para a Univar? A gente já vê a demanda melhorando desde o último trimestre do ano passado. Não só a produção, os níveis de produção voltam a nível normal, a gente vê a cadeia também melhorando. Existe uma questão de demanda mundial, a demanda diminuiu bastante, então fez com que os estoques de matérias-primas praticamente se autorregulassem. O fornecimento estabilizado. Acredito que agora as demandas voltando a se aquecer pouco, a gente não volte a ter problemas de fornecimento de matérias-primas, não. Algum comentário, Diana, sobre isso? A gente vê bem mais regularizado, até como antes na pandemia, que teve todos os problemas, então está bem melhor essa parte de suprimentos para os nossos clientes. Isso mesmo. Indo para a última pergunta. Vocês têm uma perspectiva de novos equipamentos e testes para a Solution Center? A Diana pode responder também. Sim. Inclusive, a gente tem uma parceria com o laboratório de Houston, que a gente usa a tecnologia deles. Como exemplo, o novo equipamento, o Rtec MFT-5000, que é equipamento de tribologia que nos ajuda a avaliar os nossos aditivos para ver se está atendendo ali a parte de desenvolvimento e tecnologia para os nossos clientes. Temos, sim, investimento para isso. Legal. Importante também comentar que nós temos Solution Center aqui no Brasil, na nossa planta de Osasco, que é muito usado para apoiar iniciativas com os clientes, mas a gente tem livre trânsito também e teremos acesso ao laboratório de Houston com o apoio da equipe local de Houston. A nossa interface técnica global é muito próxima. A Diana tem trocas mensais com todo o time técnico do mundo todo. Isso tem sido bastante importante, até para a gente replicar soluções no mercado brasileiro. O Solution Center está aí para nos apoiar, tanto de Houston, com esse novo equipamento, quanto o nosso Solution Center local. São essas as perguntas que tivemos. Mais uma vez, obrigada por estarem conosco nesse dia e nos vemos em breve. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Univar Solutions Global Houston Solution Center. As you all know, drugs are being manufactured every day all around the world. With that, there are a multitude of factors involved in getting a finished drug product into a patient's hands. There is always room for improvement, and we will be demonstrating one solution for that by using co-processed excipients, also known as CPEs. What are CPEs? CPEs are a blend of various commonly used excipients, such as silica, magnesium stearate, or microcrystalline cellulose, just to name a few, blended together into a single uniform blend. In today's demonstration, we benchmarked a generic ibuprofen tablet and recreated that formulation using a CPE to showcase how CPEs may save on time, reduce waste, and increase efficiency, all while maintaining equal, if not improved, product quality and performance. To start, we characterized the ibuprofen raw material by determining the Hausner ratio using a tap density machine. That value, we then determined whether additional excipients, such as lubricants and flow aids, were needed. In most tablet formulations, such excipients are required for improved powder flow, this case was no different. We weigh out the required amounts of powder, take note of how, on a small scale, weighing out a single ingredient can take around one minute. The benchmark ibuprofen formulation consists of eight total ingredients for just the tablet core. This means it does not include the coating system. Repeat this 8x, it would average out to almost 10 minutes of time spent on powder weighing. In a full-scale production environment, operators are weighing out tens of thousands of kilograms with batch sizes that could be in the millions. You can imagine that the sheer scale of so much powder needed would take hours to weigh out. Conversely, the formulations developed here at the lab consisted of only four to five ingredients. By using CPEs, you are reducing the quantity of ingredients needing to be weighed, which reduces the time spent and waste generated. This concept holds true during the mixing stage as well. With less excipients, the mixing process is simplified and faster. In addition, blending uniformity may be enhanced as CPEs consist of several co-milled excipients. This means the particle sizes of the different excipients are closer in value. Extra processes, such as sieving, milling, or granulation, may no longer be needed. Having powders with similar particle sizes is key to good powder flow and tableting. After weighing and mixing, we ran the final powder blend on our tablet press. Tablets produced all closely matched the benchmark formulation's attributes. Here, you can see the benchmark formulation compared to the CPE formulations. We developed two formulations using different CPEs with different excipient compositions to really demonstrate their versatility and effectiveness. The advantages of using CPEs versus non-CPE formulations are further emphasized during the quality control test performed that you will see up next. The physical dimensions of the tablet are slightly different than the benchmarks due to punch size differences. However, similar hardness values were attained. Disintegration times performed well under the benchmark. Note, however, the benchmark is coated, while the prototypes demonstrated here are not. Dissolution times met the ibuprofen tablet's USP monograph for this solution, with percentage of API release actually higher than the benchmarks. A table of results with all the benchmark products' attributes are displayed here along with the two CPE formulations. All tests were conducted in accordance with the relevant USP method. Thank you all for joining us today as we demonstrated the importance and advantages of using co-processed excipients during the drug development cycle. With a dedicated team of pharmaceutical experts, our Solution Centers can support you through every step of your product development cycle, whether it be formulation development, analytical testing, or innovation projects, all with the goal of helping you bring your product to market faster without compromising on regulations, product quality, or supply chain needs. We'll hear from our colleagues at the Solution Center in São Paulo. Olá, eu sou Eduardo Adachi, especialista do laboratório farmacêutico da Univar Solutions do Brasil. Estou aqui para falar sobre a sua nova formulação de ibuprofeno. Na Univar Solutions, somos distribuidores desse ativo. Oferecemos centro de soluções Pharma, com profissionais globais e laboratórios para ajudar no desenvolvimento de formulações e dar soluções técnicas sobre todo o processo, como, por exemplo, formas de economizar a matéria-prima. Veja só. Aqui nós temos 6 ingredientes utilizados numa formulação de ibuprofen de 600 mg. Aqui a nossa sugestão é a utilização de co-processed para reduzir o número de ingredientes para 4, uma formulação de ibuprofen de 600 mg. A escolha correta de excipientes é muito importante. Isso pode economizar o uso de matérias-primas, tempo de trabalho, reduzir etapas de limpeza economizando água. Podemos até evitar gastos de solventes em testes de controle de qualidade. Com menos excipientes, nós necessitamos de menos esforço, simplificando etapas e tornando o processo mais fácil. Com isso, temos menos gastos de controle de qualidade, a redução do uso de embalagens para pesagem, a diminuição do tempo de etapas de pesagem e menos etapas para o manipulador. Aqui nós temos alguns equipamentos de controle em processo para comprimidos. Nós temos aqui micrômetro. Ele serve para medir a espessura do comprimido. A espessura do comprimido deve ser definida para que ele caiba dentro da cavidade do blister. Esse daqui é durômetro digital. Ele mede a dureza do comprimido. A dureza do comprimido é importante para ver se ele tem uma resistência física, para verificar porque é integrado junto à desintegração. Nós temos aqui uma balança digital. Essa balança aqui serve para medir o peso individual dos comprimidos e a variação entre eles também. Os pesos têm que estar dentro de uma especificação e a variação também não pode ser muito grande. Nós temos também o friabilômetro, que ele mede a resistência mecânica do comprimido ao atrito. Ele tem que medir uma perda de massa que ele sofre durante o processo de atrito e não pode ser grande, porque senão ele não resiste aos processos de revestimento ou ao próprio processo de emblistagem. Nós temos também equipamento chamado desintegrador, que ele mede o tempo de desintegração do comprimido. Agora vamos para os resultados dos testes. Vamos ver o comparativo deles. Vamos aqui olhar os resultados dos testes. O coprocessado, o peso, foi bem parecido com o padrão. A dureza também, a friabilidade também. Houve uma pequena diferença. Na espessura e na desintegração. De maneira geral, os resultados são próximos e a gente pode considerar que a fórmula proposta foi sucesso. Além de ajudar nos seus estudos comparativos, nós suportamos seu negócio com novas formulações. Desde a análise de ingredientes individuais até o desenvolvimento da formulação, temos a experiência e a proficiência para apoiar o seu produto. Aqui na Univar Solutions, você tem acesso a centro de soluções Pharma, liderado por uma equipe global de farmacêuticos, químicos, cientistas especialistas, prontos para dar suporte técnico, fazer testes de aplicação, recomendar melhorias de desempenho e fornecer soluções especializadas e personalizadas. Apoiamos cada passo de sua jornada de formulação, compreendendo o ritmo acelerado da inovação e as rígidas exigências de regulamentação. Conte com nossa equipe para fazer do seu produto sucesso de mercado. Hello and welcome to the Q&A portion of Eduardo and Jessica's session on pharmaceutical excipients. We're excited to have you here with us today and to dive in a little bit deeper with both Jessica and Eduardo from their various locations and labs. We have lots of questions lined up for both of you, so thank you in advance for answering these. I was wondering if you could share with us a little bit more about today's demonstration and if that would be easily transferable into large-scale manufacturing. Yeah, great question. I definitely think it's transferable. Obviously, the equipment that we use are slightly different. It may not be the exact same ones that our customers are using. However, the mixing process is fairly straightforward, pretty simple, and we also have a team of technical experts that can really help you if you're starting formulations. Whether the formulation that we developed, for example, at the lab, works one-to-one, great, but in most cases, it's not. We can be there to really help you fine-tune it and tweak it to your processes as needed. Perfect. Thank you. All right. Jessica, this one might be for you too, but with the use of co-processed excipients, what were some of the surprising factors that you discovered? Yeah. One of the surprising factors, and this may sound a little funny, but it was the cleaning amount that was needed. One thing is that I really hate cleaning up after weighing out so many different powders. Because there were less ingredients to weigh out, there were less powders to clean up. There was less cleanup time, ultimately, and that was just an added bonus that I didn't really see coming. Yeah. Less cleanup always sounds great. Okay. This question is definitely for both of you. I noticed when I was watching your presentation that you have very different equipment in each of your labs. Can you kind of speak to that and what that means for Univar Solutions Global Solutions Centers as far as supporting customers from around the world? Yeah. Eduardo, do you want to start this? We have different equipments, in fact. The concept is similar. We have some complementary equipments as well because in Brazil, in Solutions Center in Osasco, we have a coating machine, so we can coat our tablets differently from the United States. You have a rotatory tablet machine as well, and it's different from what we have in Houston. Yeah. I mean, that's exactly the answer I was going to say, is that our equipment complement each other. What I can't do, what Eduardo can do, what he can't do, I can do, and that just speaks to our network of Global Solution Centers as a whole. We can really help support customers on a global basis and on a local basis as well. Perfect. Perfect. Another Solution Center's question here, but are the centers capable of reformulating an older formulation, so say a wet granulation process, and turning that into a direct compression process? Of course. Since Univar Solutions has a lot of interesting excipients in our portfolio, we can reformulate that in order to achieve a direct compression formulation at the end, turning it easier to do because the wet granulation is more complicated. Perfect. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. We're going to shift gears a little bit here. The next couple of questions are much more specific on co-processed excipients, but can you first speak a little bit to the labeling requirements for using CPEs? Essentially, CPEs are a blend of several different excipients combined together. All of those excipients, they do follow the relevant regulatory requirements, whether it's the USP in the States, EP, BP, whatever the case may be. Because of that, we have to list out all the excipients in the blend. We can't just say, "This is A-Tab." We have to say, "This is the actual makeup within A-Tab," so maltodextrin, stuff like that. Okay. All right. Great. Is it possible to actually produce smaller tabs with CPEs? As a follow-up to that, is every CPE suitable for every formulation? The CPEs are suitable for every formulation. We need to understand what we need as a final result because a CPE can be made with a binder plus a filler. We need to understand if it's necessary to use a binder or disintegrant in the formulation. CPE is tailor-made for each situation. About the question that you did in the beginning, I think that Jessica can answer. Yeah. We'll wait one. Yeah. The short answer is yes. We can definitely make a smaller tablet out of it. In fact, Lamain and Eduardo, we're developing this presentation today. We ended up using less and having a smaller tablet being produced at the final end goal than what would be normally created if you were to just use non-CPE formulations. It definitely does save on literal space as well. Perfect. Perfect. Okay. Last question for both of you, and this is kind of a high-level question, but can you provide some examples of real-world applications using CPEs and then also just give kind of a general summary of benefits using CPEs compared to single ingredients? All right. Real-world applications, this ties back a little into what Eduardo was saying before. Every CPE is tailored a little bit differently. You have some CPEs that are specifically to help with disintegration, some specifically that have binders in it. In terms of actual product development, depending on what your end goal is, you would choose a CPE that fits so that you can get your product out to market faster because you don't have to worry about sourcing all these other different ingredients. Just source this one CPE, this one blend, and you can go ahead and start your formulation process. The specifications are more narrow, so you know exactly how to tailor it. It's easier. It's just more efficient as a whole. Anything I missed? Anything to add, Eduardo, or did she get it pretty good? I think that she did well, very well. Great. Well, again, thank you both so much. Your presentation was so insightful, and your Q&A session was as well. We can't thank you enough for being here with us today. To all of our viewers, we look forward to connecting with you in the lab on your next project. Thanks so much.