“But why not food-based Vitamin C, isn’t it more natural?”

We prioritized the Vitamin C ingredient choice in the following manner:

1. Bioavailability/absorption
2. Product Quality
3. Verified Claims (we are very heavy on available evidence when multiple choices can be considered regarding an ingredient)

Bioavailability/Absorption: In addition to the common Citric acid(from cassava), food-based vitamin C (like Acerola Cherry), are becoming a popular option. However, according to the studies, there appears to be no significant difference in absorption.

Product Quality: Corn-derived ascorbic acid never even made the list due to our non-gmo goal.
And the majority of food-based vitamin C, is essentially ascorbic acid at the molecular level, with no significant absorption benefits.
Cherry acerola (food-based) vitamin C would have also required 5X the volume to get the 100% daily value, and keeping our serving size volume (the amount of powder a kid would actually consume) down was a consideration.
Rose hips(food-based) was attempted, but significantly compromised the flavor quality(it was horrible).
It’s our opinion that much of the food-based vitamin C claims made by many brands is essentially a marketing focus, rather than a quality driven priority.

Verified Claims When Possible: As for the verified claims, there was no evidence that food-based vitamin C did actually improve retention or antioxidant activity (another trend we see among some brands).
So, our only hesitation with ascorbic acid from cassava, was that it may have a potential to upset stomachs when taken in extremely high dosage, which would have been counterproductive to our vision. However, the 90mg in Ollin is a wonderful dosage and nowhere near an acidity level that could cause potential irritation.

Finally, our key focus in the product was the gut microbiome benefits, which plays a much bigger role in immune health than any form of vitamin C. At the end of the day, it was our opinion that the Trademark (verified claims) pre and postbiotics, as well the multi-strain probiotics, were the key factors in making Ollin an integrity based brand.

Our inclusion of vitamin C, is essentially an immediate benefit to immunity, but our product focus is on the longterm benefit of improving the gut microbiome in all ages.