Baobab buzz...

Work is progressing to get baobab fruit pulp powder and extract certified as "generally recognised as safe" (GRAS) by the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA). A dossier will submitted soon and the GRAS certification - expected in around six months - will be central to us marketing baobab successfully as a safe food ingredient in the US. Again with eyes on the US market, our market development manager Cyril Lombard and Chief Exec Gus Le Breton will be heading to the States for the Supply Side West trade show in Las Vegas, October 22-24. "This is the world's largest exhibition of healthy and innovative ingredients, so a really important opportunity for us," says Cyril. "We'll be focusing on generating US commercial interest in baobab and devil's claw." Meanwhile in London, July's publicity blitz has resulted in a surge of manufacturer enquiries about baobab fruit pulp. Billy Smith, marketing manager at our commercial partners Afriplex, will fly to London in October to join PhytoTrade Africa's Rosie Abdy Collins at a series of meetings with interested companies. We can't mention them here (for obvious commercial reasons) but they include some top names and we're confident that the UK's first baobab products will soon be in the pipeline.