K2VITAL™ compared to natto soy based fermented products

Origin
K2VITAL™ contains menaquinone-7 (MK-7). This is achieved by using natural flower based ingredients as starting material in the production process.

The natto soy based products are produced by means of fermenting a bacterium in soy broth.

Identical to MK-7 found in nature
Vitamin Ks can exist in both cis – and trans- forms. The production process of K2VITAL™ enables Kappa Bioscience to produce and document a menaquinone-7 (MK-7) molecule which is identical to the biological active isomer trans-menaquinone-7 found in nature.

From the literature is it known that cis-analogs of vitamin K are biological inactive¹. Producers of vitamin K2 products containing MK-7, should thus document that their product is the trans-menaquinone-7 to ensure customers a biological active product.

Many MK-7 products do not always comply with these requirements.

High purity of vitamin K2 – no contamination from fermentation
Kappa Bioscience is using traditional vitamin production processes to obtain pure menaquinone-7. This results in a concentrated, trans-MK-7 product free form impurities which may appear in for instance bacterial fermentation processes.

It is known that bacteria used in the fermentation process produce not only MK-7 but also several other menaquinones². Extracts from bacterial fermentations may therefore contain various forms of menaquinones, and not only MK-7.

The quality of the products can be evaluated applying different forms of analytical procedures like HPLC, IR and NMR. These methods will identify all forms of MKs in the product, as well as the stereoisomeric forms of the MK molecules. A high quality product must contain trans-MK-7 as the main vitamin K2 form and no impurities.

When using a bacterially soy-based fermentation process for production of  MK-7 is it complicated and costly to achieve the same degree of purity and concentration as obtained for the Kappa Bioscience product.  Vitamin K2 products made by fermentation technology originating from diluted oil-based solutions of MK-7 (in the range of a few percent concentration of MK-7) offer less flexibility in meeting customers’ demands.

K2VITAL™ products all contain >95% trans-MK-7 molecule diluted in a standard powder or oil for the food and food supplement industries.

K2VITAL products for special consumer groups
The highly purified raw material of K2VITAL™ enables Kappa Bioscience to guarantee the products free from many substances known to cause health problems for certain groups of consumers. With full control over production processes and technologies used, Kappa Bioscience can guarantee the MK-7  used in K2VITAL™ products free from allergens- including soy proteins ; free from lactose or other sugars, free from bacteria, mold or yeast and that the product has not been in contact with or contain any kind of toxins or pesticides. In addition no raw material has been grown as genetically modified organisms, thus MK-7 is a 100% non-GMO product. The raw materials used for carrier of MK-7 are carefully chosen to meet all requirements and specifications described above.

No animal material, or raw materials derived from animals, is used in the production of MK-7. The production does not introduce any steps not in accordance with requirements for Kosher certification.  Absence of animal material also ensures that all classes of vegetarians (lacto-ovo- vegetarians, vegans) can consume our MK-7 diluted in a powder or oil