From Lab to Label: The Scientification of Consumer Brands

Karina Urdaneta talks about cycle and women’s health (one of our favorite topics at Citruslabs!) with Susanne. She also shares her journey as a first-time entrepreneur and shares advice for others looking to start their own wellness company. 

• The personal inspiration behind Xula Herbs

• Her 5 year struggle to get a medical diagnosis for endometriosis 

• The herbs behind Xula Herbs

• The pilot study results on Xula Herbs for women with menopause

• How women can benefit from CBD and cannabinoids 

• Karina’s unique approach to product development

• Her biggest struggle when she started Xula

• How she built brand awareness and consumer trust

About Xula Herbs and Karina Urdaneta

Xula Herbs represents a cycle-focused approach to wellness. From stress and sleep to menstruation, their products are designed to help you optimize your cycles. They believe everybody deserves to feel good in their bodies.

Susanne sits down with Chloe Giraldi, Vice President, Nutrition Science at Hologram Sciences to uncover why women’s health has been overlooked and how Hologram Sciences is combining technology, personalization, and, clinically-backed ingredients to make positive changes in health. Together, they discuss: 

• The three pillars that inform Hologram Sciences’ mission 

• What excites her about nutrition and how it impacts behavioral health in today’s wellness-focused world

• How creating personalized nutrition leads to better overall health outcomes

• The types of innovative products in current development at Hologram Sciences

• What motivated them to pursue a clinical trial for their Daily Balance gummy for relief from peri/menopause symptoms

• The lack of training that medical professionals receive in women’s health areas

About Hologram Sciences 

Today, we're talking sustainability, growth, and product-market fit--all on a bootstrapped budget (which is how she likes it) with Belinda Lau from ELIMS. You'll hear:

• How ELIMS markets a fluoride-alternative toothpaste (with an ingredient developed by NASA)

• How they win with sustainability built into the fabric of their business operations and strategies 

• Belinda’s biggest learnings from operating a bootstrapped CPG company in today’s VC-funded world of startups

• How she innovates and stays ahead of customer demands and trends

• Belinda’s advice for up-and-coming founders

About Belinda Lau & ELIMS 

Imagine if you built your career in the SaaS space and wanted to transition to consumer goods--specifically in the food and beverage industry. Would you anticipate some challenges? That's exactly what Vincent Bradley did when he co-founded Proper Wild! In this episode, we chat with Vincent about:

• How he was inspired by his personal health journey to create Proper Wild

• Proper Wild’s biggest challenge as a CPG wellness beverage company

• The secret to building a CPG brand when you’ve only ever had software experience

• How he used paid ads to validate his packaging and branding before production

• What motivated Proper Wild to seek a clinical trial to test their product

• How he’s using his study results in his marketing

• His future outlook for the CPG industry, post-pandemic

• Comparing online success versus in-store success

About Vincent Bradley & Proper Wild

Join us as we delve into the captivating story of how Bilal accidentally stumbled upon the formulation for his renowned kale powder, turning a chance discovery into a game-changing brand. In this episode, we discuss

• How he accidentally but successfully formulated his kale powder
• The most important element for building a brand from scratch
• His controversial viral Facebook ad that generated a lot of buzz
• Government grants–are they worth it?
• The scientific community’s reaction to his data transparency practices 
• What people get wrong about the health and wellness industry
• His quest to bring high nutrition to all 

About Bilal Qizilbash

CEO, Bilal Qizilbash made a breakthrough discovery. He discovered that juiced leafy kale could selectively kill melanoma cancer cells in vitro while leaving non-cancerous cells alone. The breakthrough led to a U.S. patent and continued laboratory studies. This discovery was nothing short of a scientific breakthrough, but it was accompanied by a more significant realization—the potential to positively impact humanity through a simple yet powerful product: Bilal's EasyKale®. 

About Ek Foods

Many supplement brands are adopting a “science-forward” image. ASYSTEM is at the forefront of this wave of industry change. Moving away from white plastic bottles that collect dust in your cabinet, they’re investing in sustainable packaging, third-party product testing, and full transparency about how they formulate their products. Henry Simonds, President of ASYSTEM, knows that consumers are educating themselves and looking for products that actually work.

In this episode, Susanne and Henry discuss

• How they approach product formulation differently compared to other brands

• Why they decided to invest in a clinical study with Citruslabs

• Which aspects influenced their decision when looking for a contract research organization

• The factors to help you determine whether or not you need a placebo-controlled study when testing your own product

• The duration of a study

• The difference between qualitative and quantitative outcomes and how they can be used in your marketing

• Regulatory and legal compliance with claims

• Do we test on animals?

And we answer your listener questions! Want to send us a question for a future episode? Email us at hello@citruslabs.com

About ASYSTEM

In this product claims-focused episode, Susanne and Heather Bustos discuss:

• What brands get wrong about product claims
• What a warning letter from the NAD (National Advertising Division) really means
• Can a consumer bring a claim against a brand with the NAD?
• Your best prevention method for warning letters from the NAD
• Getting into the specifics behind cosmetic claims language
• How much substantiation do you need behind your claims?
• When should supplement brands enroll in randomized controlled trials
• Risk level questions to ask yourself when deciding which claims to list
• Are randomized controlled trials the gold standard for making health claims?
• Are consumer perception studies enough to back up claims?
• What you should do if you conducted your own study as a brand before these new regulations came out 
• Can you make structure-function claims on superfoods?
• And at the end, Susanne and Heather go over some general claims language that can be acceptable to use that won’t get you in trouble

Reminder: Everything included in this podcast is not legal advice and you should always consult with an attorney before making product claims. 

About Heather Bustos

Heather Bustos founded Bustos Law Group, an FDA compliance law firm that works with companies in regulated industries like food, supplements, cosmetics, devices, and OTC drugs. They help companies succeed by reviewing their products for compliance with FDA, FTC, and CBP regulations.

​Heather has helped numerous companies get into grocery chains and worked with foreign Fortune 100 cosmetic companies to expand their brands to the U.S. by reviewing their full line of products and marketing for federal compliance.

Abby Mercado is the Co-Founder & CEO of Rescripted, a former VC investor, an ever-entrepreneur, and a mom of IVF twins. She joins Susanne Mitschke, Co-Founder & CEO of Citruslabs to chat women’s health and why it’s ridiculous to treat it as a niche market. 51% of the world’s population are women and their health deserves full attention–not just an afterthought.

In this episode, she and Susanne discuss

• Why she recommends Techstars to other startup founders
• Three learnings from Techstars that she uses every day in her business
• How her personal fertility journey influenced her entry into entrepreneurship
• Negative impacts of inadequate “sex education” in America 
• The shop and pharmacy components to Rescripted for total support in your health journey
• How Rescripted determines which supplements and products to recommend in their shop (hint: clinical trials play a major factor)
• How Gen Z and Millennials differ in their approach to women’s health topics
• What people often get wrong about women’s health
• What’s working well in women’s health right now
• What’s next for Rescripted

About Rescripted

From your first period to your last period, Rescripted is the #1 global media platform for fertility and women's health, reaching over 9M people monthly and providing content, tools, and resources for wherever you are in your reproductive lifecycle.

At Rescripted, we believe that Sex Ed is broken, which is why we’re dedicated to rescripting the conversation about everything we should have learned about our bodies, telling truths in the reproductive, hormonal, and sexual health and wellness categories.

As the data-driven ecosystem of the future for women’s health, we’re educating and empowering a new generation of community-forward women who know that fertility health means whole health, and vice versa. We’re rescripting fertility, together.

The health and wellness industry has exploded in recent years, with more and more brands entering the market than ever before. Some are making claims about what their products can do, but how are they substantiating these claims? In this introductory episode, our host Susanne Mitschke, CEO and co-founder of Citruslabs, introduces the topics we'll be covering in each episode of From Lab to Label: The Scientification of Consumer Brands. We'll be talking to brand owners who've tested their products, industry experts who work alongside us to bring credibility to wellness brands, and answering your questions along the way.

Are you a brand owner with a question about clinical trials, product claims, or how we can help you elevate your brand? Send us an email at hello@citruslabs.com.

About Citruslabs

Citruslabs is a contract research organization. That's a fancy way of saying that we test wellness products in clinical trials so that brands can back up claims with evidence-based research. If a brand says their supplement will help you sleep better, they have to have data to prove it. That's where we come in!