This year's NutrAward recognized two products for their roles in cognitive health and cellular integrity. The ingredient Cereboost, by Naturex, received the prize for new, innovative and evidence-based health and nutrition ingredient. VitaPQQ received the award for best use of a novel ingredient in a finished product. This was a new NutrAward category for 2010.

Jacques Dikansky, President and C.E.O. of Naturex declared: "We are delighted to receive the NutrAward prize for new, innovative, evidence-based health and nutrition ingredient. This award underlines the remarkable potential of Cereboost™."

Naturex developed Cereboost™ for its activity on cognitive performance. It benefits from the first clinical study confirming the traditional use of American Ginseng for brain health. The subjects supplemented with Cereboost™ experienced significant improvement in the cognitive areas of working memory and alertness. This ingredient perfectly fits the desire of consumers to naturally maintain high cognitive performance at any age.

For the finished product category, VitaPQQ™, won for the ingredient PQQ from Maypro Industries. Manufactured using a unique patented process by MGC Inc. in Japan, the ingredient PQQ is marketed in North America by Maypro and is now backed by several clinical studies and by over 175 PubMed listed published studies.

"We are very proud that an ingredient that Maypro introduced into the U.S. market has been recognized by our industry peers" said Steve Yamada, the founder and president of Maypro. "This validates Maypro's strategic focus over the past 32 years on introducing truly innovative clinically proven ingredients developed in one market into other world markets."

Studies have demonstrated in animal models that PQQ can improve the number and function of the mitochondria and can protect mitochondria from damage. Similar compounds such as resveratrol which have been shown also in animal studies to have a similar mode of action as PQQ pertaining to mitochondrial biogenesis, have generated significant sales in the supplement industry and have become subject of research by major pharmaceutical companies.

Strategically positioned with the Nutracon conference, and celebrating its 12th year, the NutrAward celebrates innovative, evidence-based health and nutrition ingredient and technology products. 2010 finalists for Best New Ingredients included Scientific Food Solutions , TSI Health Sciences and Naturex. New this year was the addition of the NutrAward for Best New Finished Product using a functional ingredient. The 2010 finalists included Ganeden Biotech, EuroPharma® Inc. and Quality of Life Labs.

"Our Supply Network team was extremely pleased with the quality of all the NutrAward entries this year," said Len Monheit, Supply Network director with New Hope Natural Media. "This went hand in hand with the Nutracon conference and SupplyExpo tradeshow and education. The content was superb and provocative; the level of participation and interaction was extremely high. The conference environment generated new business development opportunities as attendees connected and engaged with some of the most innovative minds enabling them to better compete in emerging markets around the world."

For more on the companies and the products:
Naturex manufactures natural speciality ingredients for the Food & Beverage, Nutrition & Health and Personal Care industries. Headquartered in France, Naturex employs 900 staff and has 11 production units located in Europe (France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and England), the United States (New Jersey and California), Brazil, Australia and Morocco. In addition, the group has several sales offices worldwide. For more, please visit www.naturex.com.

The distribution of the ingredient PQQ in the US is being developed via channel-specific licenses with major pharmaceutical, multi-level marketing (MLM) and direct mail companies. For more, please visit www.maypro.com. For more on Nutracon, SupplyExpo and the NutrAward, please go to SupplyExpo.com.