GOED Omega 3 is comprised of EPA and DHA omega 3 industry processors, refiners, manufacturers, distributors, marketers and retailers, as well as secondary associates and other interested parties including healthcare professionals, educators and researchers. Based on the commitment from the initial 12 founding members, a new office for the trade association has opened in Salt Lake City, UT.
The current founding member companies are Cargill, Ceres Consulting, Croda, Denofa, EPAX, Loders, Lonza/Nutranova, Marine Nutraceuticals, Martek Biosciences, Napro Pharma AS, Ocean Nutrition Canada and Omega Pure. The founding members of GOED Omega 3 were all members of the CRN Omega 3 Working Group, which has been dissolved in favor of the new trade association. The new trade association will build on the accomplishments of the old Working Group including its product quality focus and industry acceptance of the voluntary omega 3 monograph and take on a broader mandate more suited to a trade association. The GOED Omega 3 Start-up Committee consists of Robert Orr, president and CEO of Ocean Nutrition Canada; Philip Fass, vice president of sales and marketing at Martek Biosciences; Bjorn Rene, vice president of sales at Napro Pharma; and Ian Newton, president of Ceres Consulting.
A GOED Omega 3 membership provides companies with an unprecedented opportunityto become architects of a new, positive self-regulatory industry framework that will hopefully be implemented worldwide, said Mr. Orr. There is a huge nutrition gap that will not begin to close until regulations are updated to reflect the results of thousands of clinical studiesonly then will be the public begin to have access to the daily amount of omega 3 EPA and DHA their bodies need to reap the health benefits. This is one of the new associations goals.
Mr. Fass said, We have had a very positive initial response to the new trade association, so we are expanding our membership to other companies who are interested in joining our effort. Our target is to have a membership of at least 30 companies by the end of the 2006 calendar year.