How We Embraced Atacama's Powerful Gift

In preparation for Vitafoods Asia in Bangkok on September 20-22 (you can visit us at booth D30), we want to split hairs about our company's relationship with the Atacama Desert. We have talked widely about the Atacama's Desert uniqueness and its inexhaustible power source status, and it's time to give our team and the process we have been through their due recognition.

The value of the desert's powerful sun, cleanliness, and climatic stability throughout the year are indisputable. But it’s time to give the people who saw Atacama’s potential for the culture of Haematococcus pluvialis and later developed a system to take advantage of those resources the credit they deserve.

It all started with a question in 2003: "How can we produce something valuable for people's health while doing it the right way for our planet?". We chose to culture microalgae out of many options, a difficult feat that demanded the right conditions and a remarkably capable group of people. We had the latter, so the need set the direction towards the Atacama Desert.

Harnessing the desert's gifts wasn't just about planting and waiting. Research, development, and a lot of innovation were needed along every step to achieving industrial scale. Our previous experience, hard work, and commitment to our goal allowed us to claim that gift.

Having sunlight and a pristine environment available without limitations, we have come to these specific outcomes:

• Cost-effectiveness: We have developed a deeply efficient proprietary process that leverages the exceptional surrounding environment.

• Sustainability: Whatever we do, sustainability must be the bottom line. To be true to our values, we must only start from a sustainable point.

• Reliability: With consistent weather patterns in Atacama, we can produce throughout the year, scaling as and when needed.

• Large capacity: Owning the land and having developed the whole process from end-to-end is what allows us to tweak, adapt or scale the production system.

At its heart, our journey is a fusion of nature's brilliance and human perseverance. The Atacama Desert is at the core of our essence and is how we make Astaxanthin as nature intended.

You can visit us during one of the three tradeshows we attend each year: Vitafoods Europe, Vitafoods Asia and VIV Asia to learn about Astaxanthin. Visit our webpage for our human-consumption product, NatAxtin® and our animal-consumption product, Red Meal®.