Author: admin

Categories
Weight Loss Products

Herbal Teas – New Stakeholders – Categories, Quality Factors, Constraints | FNB News

FnbNewsAmalgamation of Industries
With the spread of Internet and various social media platforms, a large segment of society is reasonably aware of the enormous health benefits associated with ancient Indian Ayurvedic herbs.

Also, they understand that most of the common herbs have no or little side- effects, and any little side-effects are far outweighed in relation to the potential health benefits. Simultaneously, people are becoming more and more aware of serious side-effects associated with long-term usage of allopathic medicines.

Green tea existed in China and other countries for centuries. With a long list of health benefits associated with green tea, one would wonder what took it so long to reach India! Possibly, this awareness had a positive correlation with the growth of social media platforms. The other premium varieties like oolong and white teas are still less known to people.

While the awareness towards green tea increased significantly over past 3-4 years, the acceptance still remained at a low level due to its bitter taste.

The amalgamation of green tea and herbs offered new opportunities to both herbal and tea industries. Herbal companies did not know about tea, and tea companies did not know about herbs. Both these sets of companies were slow to innovation and lacked agility. Therefore, a new set of entrepreneurs/startups sensed a business opportunity to leverage combined herbal health benefits by blending herbs with teas.

Blending of Herbs with Tea offer Multiple Advantage
These blends are made targeting specific health themes as per the need of society.

Bitter taste of green tea is suppressed by herbal taste. In fact, certain herbs make the tea taste quite pleasant.

Herbal medicines in traditional form like capsules, tablets and syrup are typically consumed with a feeling of being patient, and people stop taking these as soon as they recover from the ailment. In the form of herbal tea, provided it is reasonably tasty, people do not mind accepting these herbal teas as part of their regular lifestyle after recovery.

With warm/hot water as the media, the absorption of herbs in the form of herbal tea is better in the body. Also, unlike tablets and capsules, the absorption of herbs starts right from when tea goes from mouth to throat and further down in the body.

Categories of Herbal Teas
Herbal teas can be divided into two segments:

Wellness segment: It covers basic health themes like detoxification, immunity system, slimming, relaxation, refreshing, digestion and metabolism.

Illness segment: It covers chronic issues like diabetes, high BP, uric acid, joint pain, acidity, blood purification, thyroid and cancer.

Detox teas currently available in the market vary a lot in terms of their formulation. Human psychology also plays a role as people tend to get more convinced about the efficacy of the blend by the number of herbs used in the formulation. Blending 10-20 herbs in a formulation has become a common practice.

Combo packs of detox teas for morning, afternoon and late evening are also becoming popular. In addition to the common theme of detoxification and slimming, these variants have additional themes. For example, Detox-Morning focusses on refreshing/energising and power. Detox-Afternoon focusses more on digestion, whereas Detox-Evening includes certain herbs for relaxation.

As people graduate to the next level, they look for teas for their specific health needs. This segment is still taking shape.

While most people in India related only green tea with health, black orthodox tea without milk is also quite healthy, and tasty too. Black tea based blends are more accepted in countries like USA and Canada.

Quality Aspects
As this is a relatively new product segment, the customers are not able to understand and appreciate inherent quality aspects! They accept herbal teas as long as teas have aesthetic appeal and acceptable taste. Suppliers are taking advantage of the same, and often compromise of the quality aspects to keep the costs low.

The origin of herbs, production practices, and the process of drying, storage, cutting and sterilisation play an important role in the quality of herbs.

Organically produced herbs in pollution- and dust-free Himalayan region are far better than the herbs produced in plain regions. Herbs can be sun and/or shade dried or machine dried. As most herbs are seasonal, long-term cold storage at appropriate temperature becomes a need.

Herbs need to be cut in different sizes based upon the target product. Conventional teabags require TBC size(1-2mm), pyramid teabags require 3-6mm and loose tea pack require 5-12 mm cut size. Powdered herbs are not good for consumption, and also spoil aesthetic appeal. Pulverisation or multiple rounds of cutting result in loss of aroma.

Sterilisation of herbs is also important to stop any bacterial growth. Certain herbs like chamomile, mint, peppermint and tulsi are quite susceptible to catching insects. There are multiple sterilisation processes e.g. steam, gas (Ethylene Dioxide), gamma rays and microwave.

Tea – Quality Factors
Whole leaf teas are better in comparison to broken leaf, fanning and dust. Whole leaf tea leaves require a lot of space for expansion, and therefore come in loose packs, or pyramid shaped teabags. Conventional teabags have tea fanning/dust which is relatively poor in quality.

Darjeeling teas have best aroma, whereas Assam teas are strong in taste.

First flush teas produced during March-April have best aroma. Second flush teas produced during May before monsoon are strong in taste, and have good aroma. The quality goes down after monsoon.

A good quality of tea would have only top bud and two leaves of the plant, termed as‘Premium Pluck.’

Herbs and teas have different brewing parameters. Herbs are typically brewed at 99 degree C for 5 minutes, whereas green tea is brewed at 80 degree C for 2 minutes. Blending experts overcome this issue by managing the ratio of tea and herbal ingredients, and also use some dominating herbs to suppress the bitterness of green tea.

Selling Channels
E-Retail: Online selling is a big enabler, particularly for specific health solution. Amazon/Flipkart provide relatively large volume at low margin. Promotion of own website takes a long time to capture traffic.

Traditional stores/super market keep only limited varieties of wellness teas as their shelf cost is quite high.

Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) is a good platform for herbal teas as agents have a good story to approach customers.

Hotel/Restaurants/Cafes (HoReCa) have limited potential for herbal teas. Customers prefer to use herbal teas at home, and experiment with other fruit and flower flavoured teas in cafes.

Institutional sale is limited to basic varieties of cost-effective herbal teabags.

Nutritionists, dietitians offer a good channel as they have readymade customer base.

Constraints faced by Herbal Tea Industry
As this industry is primarily driven by startups, they often face capital constraints. While people prefer the convenience of teabags, it becomes difficult for companies to come up with too many varieties of teabags. Each variety of teabag requires an initial investment in the order of Rs 2 lakh, which becomes a significant amount during experimentation phase.

Managing various sales channels also require people with different skill sets. Attracting and retaining such a talent is often difficult for startups.

The regulatory framework by multiple government bodies also overlaps in certain areas causing confusion and overheads.

Future Trends

1. Herbal-Milk tea: 95% people in India consume milk tea, and are likely to continue to do so. As soon as milk is added to tea, all the health benefits associated with tea are lost. However, herbs could still be added to milk tea to make it a healthier option. Baidyanath (Kapiva) have come up with a set of such teas.
2. Make your own herbal tea: People are likely to choose herbs for their specific health needs, and request herbal tea manufacturers to make a suitable tasty blend incorporating those herbs.
3. Use of unique herbs: There are unique herbs produced in remote regions whose knowledge is limited to locals/tribes in those regions. Discovery and production of such herbs would get more and more institutionalised, and incorporated in herbal tea industry.

Categories
Weight Loss Products

The Truth About Garcinia Cambogia

If you ask me, there’s really only one way to lose weight and keep it off, and that’s to adopt a healthy lifestyle. That includes eating nutritious meals and exercising daily.

But there are plenty of marketers out there would vehemently disagree – because magic pills make money. Acai berry, green tea extract and capsaicin all had their time in the spotlight.

But, let’s explore a supplement that has exploded on the weight loss scene more recently: Garcinia cambogia.

Garcinia cambogia is a small, pumpkin-shaped fruit. You may know it as tamarind. The extract of the fruit is called hydroxycitric acid, and that is what the “magic pills” are made from. But do they work? [9 Meal Schedules: When to Eat to Lose Weight]

Let’s explore the research:

1998 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association: After a 12-week randomized, double-blind study of overweight men and women, researchers concluded that Garcinia cambogia did not produce significant weight or fat loss above the placebo.

2013 review in the journal Complementary Theories in Medicine: Researchers evaluated clinical trials that used plant extracts as potential treatment for obesity, and found that the evidence was not convincing in most cases. One exception was a combination of Garcinia cambogia taken with another herb called Gymnema sylvestre, which showed a slight increase in weight loss results. It’s a glimmer of hope, but surely, more research needs to be done on the subject.

2005 study in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology: Researchers tested a high dose of Garcinia cambogia extract on obese male rats. The good news? The rats lost weight! The bad news? Extremely high doses seemed to cause testicular atrophy and toxicity. Yikes!

If you do decide to hop on the latest bandwagon, whether it is Garcinia cambogia or some other plant-based extract, proceed with caution. If you’re talking any prescription medications, talk to your doctor before adding any herbal supplement. There may be dangerous interactions. And as researchers saw in the 2005 study on rats, there may be consequences to taking large doses. [Related: Garcinia Cambogia Supplement Often Lacks Active Ingredient, Study Finds]

Until we have more research to draw from, we can’t know what is truly safe.

Healthy Bites appears weekly on LiveScience. Deborah Herlax Enos is a certified nutritionist and a health coach and weight loss expert in the Seattle area with more than 20 years of experience. Read more tips on her blog, Health in a Hurry!

Categories
Weight Loss Products

Analysis | The Technology 202: Critics say FTC’s fine against app now known as TikTok doesn’t go far enough

Ctrl + N

The logo of the application TikTok in Paris on Dec. 14, 2018. (Joel Saget/AFP/Getty Images)

Some Federal Trade Commission officials are calling the agency’s fine against Musical.ly (now known as TikTok) for children’s privacy violations a “big win.” But critics say it highlights how Washington regulators aren’t doing enough to keep kids safe online. 

The fine against the app — which lets people create lip-syncing music videos — is the largest the agency has issued in a children’s privacy case. That might sound like a steep punishment, but at $5.7 million, critics say it’s actually a relatively paltry sum for a Silicon Valley darling that was acquired by the Bytedance (the Chinese maker of TikTok) for close to $1 billion. 

That penalty for illegally collecting data — such as location information — from children under 13 must be higher to properly enforce the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, according to Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass). 

“While this fine may be a historic high for a COPPA violation, it is not high enough for the harm that is done to children and to deter violations of the law in the future by other companies,” Markey said in a statement. “I urge the FTC to make COPPA enforcement a top priority and protect the privacy of a uniquely vulnerable class of Americans — our children. That means making companies pay higher monetary penalties that will actually incentive COPPA compliance.”    

COPPA was written in 1998, when dial-up ruled and apps that would allow children to upload videos from their phones were still about a decade away. But the FTC fine against Musical.ly and the ensuing criticism could bring greater attention to the need to update children’s privacy laws in Washington — and ratchet up pressure on regulators to scrutinize if there are other companies that may be in violation of federal law.

Privacy advocates say Musical.ly isn’t the only company taking advantage of children online and that tougher enforcement and protections are needed. 

“TikTok and others have been failing to comply with COPPA for years, and the FTC has been reluctant to challenge the privacy invasive practices of the companies that target children,” Jeffrey Chester, the executive director of the nonprofit Center for Digital Democracy, told my colleagues Craig Timberg and Tony Romm. “This is too little, too late.”

The Musical.ly case is a particularly glaring example of how children’s privacy can be exploited online. Musical.ly, the music video app TikTok merged with in 2018, has a long, well-documented history of attracting users under 13. In 2016, the New York Times reported that the app had many users in grade school, and it was using their location data to suggest people nearby follow them. 

Yesterday’s fine was a rare instance where the FTC has been able to enforce COPPA on a general-interest app. COPPA provides broad privacy protections to children under the age of 13, prohibiting online services from collecting data about kids without their parents permission. But as Craig and Tony pointed out, the law only applies to services that have “actual knowledge” that the users are underage or services that are specifically directed at children. 

In the Musical.ly case, the FTC was able to show that many of the children using the app had their true ages written in their profiles, and Musical.ly still did nothing to limit their access to the app. 

“The operators of Musical.ly — now known as TikTok — knew many children were using the app but they still failed to seek parental consent before collecting names, email addresses, and other personal information from users under the age of 13,” FTC Chairman Joe Simons said in a news release. “This record penalty should be a reminder to all online services and websites that target children.”

The TikTok case could give the agency the precedent to probe other general-interest apps causing concern among children’s privacy advocates, such as Google’s YouTube or the video game Fortnite.  

The agency has already received a complaint about Google’s YouTube. Over 20 advocacy groups filed a complaint last year that said YouTube is violating the law because it is collecting data about children watching videos on the service without getting permission from parents. They say YouTube knows of this because of the high-number of child-directed channels on the service. The FTC wouldn’t tell my colleagues yesterday whether it was actively investigating YouTube. 

Common Sense Media, one of the groups that filed the complaint against YouTube, weighed in: “It is no secret that tech companies are illegally and knowingly collecting personal information from children,” Jim Steyer, chief executive of Common Sense Media, said in a statement to my colleagues. “Musical.ly wasn’t the first company and they won’t be the last, which is why we need the FTC to continue to regularly enforce the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act and hold companies accountable in a big way.”

TikTok promised to require new users to verify their age. It also launched a separate app for people under the age of 13 that complies with U.S. privacy laws and will delete all data about children it previously collected. 

“We care deeply about the safety and privacy of our users,” TikTok said in a blog post. “This is an ongoing commitment, and we are continuing to expand and evolve our protective measures in support of this.”

A passenger enters an Uber car at LaGuardia Airport in New York. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)

BITS: Uber and Lyft are planning to give some of the most active or longest serving drivers money to buy stocks in their upcoming initial public offerings, the Wall Street Journal’s Maureen Farrell reports. The companies are planning to give drivers a cash reward that can be applied toward stock.

“It is typically hard for an ordinary investor to buy a company’s stock at its IPO price before it begins trading on an exchange, so this move would give drivers access they likely wouldn’t have had otherwise,” Farrell writes. 

Uber, which has 3 million drivers globally, plans to give a “significant portion” of its drivers around the world a cash bonus or stock, based on a sliding scale determined by length of service or number of trips. Uber has long tried to provide drivers with company shares, but “had encountered a roadblock because of securities laws that make it challenging to give private shares to independent contractors,” Farrell wrote. 

Lyft will give drivers that have given at least 10,000 rides $1,000 in cash that can be applied to IPO shares. 

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) on Capitol Hill in Washington on Feb. 5. (Zach Gibson/Getty Images)

NIBBLES: Republicans and Democrats debated during a hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee whether a federal privacy law should override state legislation, the Hill’s Emily Birnbaum reported. Almost all Republicans on the panel supported the idea that federal privacy legislation should replace state laws to prevent differing rules between states. Democrats wondered whether Republicans’ position aimed to circumvent a new state law in California that seeks to restrict tech giants’ data-collection practices and is scheduled to go into effect next year.

“Are we here just because we don’t like the California law and we just want a federal preemption law to shut it down?” said Sen. Maria Cantwell (Wash.), the committee’s ranking Democrat, according to the Hill. “I find this effort somewhat disturbing . . . This is the first thing that people want to organize here in D.C. is a preemption effort.”

But senators from both parties did agree when it came to chiding representatives of the tech industry at the hearing. “We now realize this data-sharing is not a bug,” said Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), according to Birnbaum. “It is a business, it is a business model, and big tech has made a whole lot of money by exploiting the use of this data.”

Workers prepare to move products at an Amazon fulfillment center in Baltimore.  (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

BYTES: Amazon is rolling out a new program that will allow brands to delete listings for imitation products on its platform, the Wall Street Journal’s Laura Stevens reports. The anticounterfeiting program, called Project Zero, has been in testing with about 15 companies, and Amazon is now inviting other brand owners to join. 

In addition to giving brands more power to monitor fake products on the platform, the company is rolling out a tool that will allow Amazon to verify a product’s authenticity when it enters a warehouse via a unique code that companies can print or stick on to their packaging. Amazon engineers are also refining algorithms that can detect counterfeit goods on the service. 

“In shifting some monitoring duties and authority to brands themselves, Amazon is taking an unusual step,” Stevens wrote. “Other tech companies use outside contractors to help monitor their platforms but don’t generally let users remove content.”

Jessica Castro and her baby Zoe during a protest against mandatory vaccinations in Olympia, Wash., on Feb. 20. (Lindsey Wasson/Reuters)

— Most of the anti-vaccination content that is broadly circulated on Facebook is produced by a relatively small group of pages on the social network, according to the Atlantic’s Alexis C. Madrigal. Therefore, the reach of anti-vaccination messaging could decrease if Facebook moved to shut down only a few of such pages on the platform. Madrigal reported that an analysis with the social-monitoring tool CrowdTangle showed that seven anti-vaccination pages were behind almost 20 percent of the top 10,000 posts about vaccination since 2016.

Greg Wyler, founder of OneWeb, in Tysons, Va., on Feb. 13. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)

— The company OneWeb wants to send a constellation of satellites to space that could bring Internet access to remote parts of the world, The Washington Post’s Christian Davenport reported. The company’s satellites would be about the size of a refrigerator and would connect to stations on Earth. OneWeb, which was founded by Greg Wyler, has received investments from SoftBank, Qualcomm, Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, Coca-Cola and others. “The ultimate goal is to connect every school in the world, and bridge the digital divide,” Wyler told my colleague. “We’re bringing connectivity and enabling it for people around the world, and in rural populations.”

— Amazon is backing out of a skyscraper under construction in its hometown of Seattle, GeekWire’s Monica Nickelsburg reported. The company doesn’t plan to occupy offices that it had leased in the tower but will instead sublease them. Just as Amazon faced opposition from local politicians and activists in New York over its now-scrapped plan to open headquarters there, the company has also faced criticism in Seattle. “It’s not hard to draw a line between the battles; two Seattle City Council members traveled to New York to warn Amazon opponents about what it’s like to have the company in your backyard,” Nickelsburg wrote. (Amazon founder and chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

— More technology news from the private sector:

The Federal Trade Commission in Washington on Jan. 28, 2015. (Alex Brandon/AP) 

— The Federal Trade Commission brought its first case against the use by a company of fake paid reviews on Amazon, the Verge’s Nick Statt reported. The case resulted in a settlement. “The company in question, named Cure Encapsulations, Inc. and owned by Naftula Jacobowitz, paid a third-party website to write five-star Amazon reviews for a weight-loss supplement called garcinia cambogia,” according to the Verge. “The plant, native to Indonesia, is widely mischaracterized as contributing to weight loss, but is in fact known to cause acute liver failure.”

— More technology news from the public sector:

— News about tech workforce and culture:

— Tech news generating buzz around the Web:

— News about tech incidents and blunders:

— Today in funding news:

Coming soon:

Michael Cohen details his work as Donald Trump’s “fixer”:

Tornado touches down during snow showers in New Mexico:

Heinz’s Ketchup Caviar is just as bizarre as it sounds: