November 8/Leuven, Belgium/PRNewswire -- Fugeia announced it has engaged in a collaboration with Nestlé on the development of food products containing Brana Vita.

Brana Vita is a food ingredient product rich in arabinoxylan oligosaccharides (AXOS), soluble fibers derived from the cell walls of wheat bran. The AXOS in Brana Vita are potent prebiotics, stimulating the growth of beneficial colon bacteria such as bifidobacteria. They also exert strong antioxidant activity due to the presence of AXOS-bound polyphenols.

The ingredient recently won novel food approval in the European Union and obtained GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe) status in the United States.

"We are excited to work together with a world leading nutrition company," says Willem Broekaert, managing director and co-founder of Fugeia. "This collaboration first of all aims to strengthen scientific evidence for the benefits of Brana Vita. With our combined capabilities, I am confident that we will develop novel applications addressing well defined nutritional requirements, based on the newest scientific insights."

Financial and other terms of the collaboration were not disclosed.

 From the November 9, 2011, Prepared Foods' Daily News.