Wondering about joint pains, wrinkles, muscle-sagging and ageing, no need to worry as there is a brand that believes in the importance of holistic wellness while going beyond into a unidimensional approach to beauty. INJA Wellness is one such brand in India which primarily focuses on Collagen. Collagen is the most abundant structural protein in the human body, which basically helps to keep our cells together. It has great tensile strength and is one of the main components of our skin, muscles, bones, cartilage, tendons, ligaments, nails, hair and eyes.
At INJA, their Marine Collagen products are natural, hydrolyzed Collagen Peptide powder derived from the scales & skin of fish. Marine Collagen works from within to promote optimal skin function, by delivering essential micronutrients to the collagen matrix below the dermis. Hydrolyzed Collagen Peptide is highly bio-available, with an absorption rate above 90%.
In an interview with Rajeev Biswas, Sr. Sub Editor from Sportz Business Fitness Magazine, Bhavesh Sheth, Owner of INJA Wellness, shares his insights regards to the usage of Marine Collagen and how it has benefited him to cope with his postinjury recovery, thus allowing the inception of INJA Wellness as a brand.
INJA Wellness has products that use the finest quality Collagen from Japan & India. Besides being a consumer brand, INJA Wellness also supplies Japanese & Indian Collagen as a raw material to Pharmaceutical, Nutraceutical & FMCG companies. However, being the go-to brand for everyone’s Collagen needs, INJA Wellness products are available on their website, and all other major marketplaces such as Amazon, Nykaa, Flipkart and more. www.injawellness.com
Let’s read what he has to say regards to his journey so far.
Q What was the idea behind introducing the Nutraceutical supplements brand?
And share the inspiring story behind the creation of INJA Wellness as a brand? After a severe sports injury, Bhavesh Sheth was introduced to Marine Collagen by a friend from Japan to help with his post injury recovery and the rest is history.
Businessman, Karateka and Fitness Enthusiast, Bhavesh, was playing badminton when he met with a serious injury, causing ligament tear in his left leg. He was forced to get a surgery after which he could not walk without crutches, let alone exercise. From working out 6 days a week, to not being able to do anything, was getting frustrating.
It was then, that his friend from Japan gifted him 2 months’ supply of Marine Collagen from Japan, to help him with the recovery of his injury.
Being a vegetarian, he was hesitant at first; but upon reading about its virtues, he decided to give it a shot. After about a week of regular consumption, he started feeling a difference not only in his recovery, but he also noticed that his hair started growing faster and skin started glowing. After a couple of months of consuming Collagen alongside his physiotherapy, he was back to working out, doing Karate and even running.
A few years later, after a heavy workout, he felt some pain in that area and decided to look for Marine Collagen in India. To his surprise, he found that it was not available in India. THAT was the ‘Eureka’ moment, which led to the creation of INJA Wellness.
He knew that everyone needed to experience the virtues Collagen had to offer, not just for recovery, but also for the health of people’s skin, hair and overall body function.
Q Mr. Sheth, you have been promoting Collagen in India for past few years. Tell us how the market has changed since you started?
During the last 2 years, the Collagen market in India has begun changing: positively and negatively.
There is now, a lot more awareness about the benefits of Collagen. However, we believe that this is just the tip of the iceberg. In the next few years, the awareness of Collagen is expected to only grow, because it is not a fad, like many other supplements in the past 3 decades; and people, the world-over, are beginning to realise the profound benefits of long-term consumption of Collagen.
Unfortunately, as a lot of people see the opportunity in Collagen, the market has been flooded with low-priced, but sub-standard & low-quality products. It is extremely important to realize that when we ingest a health supplement, ‘Quality’ should be of top importance, because consuming something of bad quality could be counter-productive and even damage the body. There is also a lack of integrity with some sellers, as we see a lot of “Vegetarian Collagens”, which is funny; because scientifically, there is no vegetarian source of Collagen. There is research going on in that subject at the microbiological level. The Veg. Collagen boosters have 0% Collagen and are sold as if they are Collagen supplements. We could have also done this when we started INJA Wellness, as we ourselves are vegetarians. However, we did not want to misguide people.
Q How do you strive to meet the demand of various customers?
We work very closely with experts from Japan to identify the different pain points people have and how Collagen is a good fit for that. Then, we work on formulations to help primarily tackle the pain points. We are the only company with this approach in the Indian Collagen space, which is why we have various products which further help tackle specific problems.
Q What made you come with an idea of using Collagen hydrolysate as a powder form for a supplement, kindly elaborate on the technology behind this?
Not many people know that the triple helix structure of COLLAGEN was unravelled in 1954, by Indian Scientists, G. N. Ramachandran & G. Kartha, on the basis of fiber diffraction data. This was hailed as one of the landmark biology discoveries of the Century.
The Collagen which we use at INJA, is sourced primarily from NIPPI, Inc., of Japan, who we represent in India. Nippi was the first to succeed in solubilizing Collagen, receiving a patent for the process in 1960. It was this landmark event that accelerated the applied research of Collagen worldwide. So INJA’s Collagen connection runs deep, to its roots; both, with India & Japan. (Thus, our name IN-JA, includes: India & Japan).
Q How INJA Wellness is different from other nutrition brands, and also share some information regards to its progress till date?
There are primarily 4 things amongst many others, which make INJA different from other brands:
- Pioneers: With due humility, we can say that we have educated India about the virtues of Collagen & its myriad benefits, during the last 5 years of our active operations. At numerous exhibitions & seminars, we have been the only Collagen company.
- Focus: We are the only brand in India that is primarily focused on Collagen.
- Quality: Ours is the finest, when it comes to quality – it’s amongst the best in the world.
- VFM: Considering our quality, we offer great value for money to our customers.
Q Shed some light towards your products line-up, their variants, and available flavours?
All our products use premium, unique & effective Japanese formulations and we do not compromise on the quality of the ingredients used. Further, all our Collagen is Marine-sourced, made from the scales & skin of Fish (which would otherwise be thrown away).
We use the world’s finest quality of Japanese & Indian Collagen Peptides and offer products in powder-form, as per the customer’s needs as follows:
Q How much is the awareness of Collagen among the general population currently and what is stopping its use considering its amazing benefits to mass market?
Agreed, that currently, in comparison to other countries, the level of awareness of Collagen in India is pretty low. But let’s not forget that India has been a fast learner & an even faster adapter to change. Once any concept gets inside India and if it is found to be good or useful, it travels very fast; like we have been amongst the fastest to take to Mobiles & Internet Data consumption, not to mention: Corn Flakes, Noodles & Pizzas! There are several big corporations who have already started preparing for their entry into the Indian Collagen space. It is just a matter of some time, may be a year or two, to witness an explosion in the awareness & the subsequent consumption of Collagen products in India.
Q How do you see the Indian Nutraceutical supplement market in near future?
India as a population, is getting more health conscious. This is leading people to take more to fitness as a way of life, through institutions, professionals & practices, which would help them reach their goals. Gym attendances as a ratio to gym sign-ups have increased over the years in India. This positive lifestyle change makes people even more aware of their body and about products that can help their body get better and healthier. As a result, the Indian Nutraceutical market is going to only keep booming in the near future & beyond. This would highly benefit everyone, because a healthier population is a happier population.
Q Kindly tell us more about your client base who are using your nutrition products?
We have a very diverse client base. It spreads across both genders; and also covers people from the age of 20 to those in their 80’s.
To put it simply, our client base is anyone who cares about herself or himself; from skincare, haircare, joint pain, guthealth, muscle-repair; or even if it’s just for overall wellness. Anyone who cares about improving & maintaining oneself, is our existing or potential customer.
Q In this era of post COVID how your strategies kept INJA Wellness as an organization healthy?
We realized early on, that we have to pivot from offline, and focus more on selling online, through our own website, as well as marketplaces such as: Amazon, Nykaa, Flipkart and more. We also focused more on sharing about the health benefits of Collagen & how it works at the cellular level, truly making it the ‘Miracle Protein’.
Q What are your future expansion plans?
We are working on a multi-pronged strategy; whose pillars are as follows:
- Educating everyone about the fundamental need for good health & complete wellness, as a pre-requite for happiness, now more than ever before, post the pandemic.
- Development of new Collagen-products with top worldclass quality.
- Educating people about the virtues of long-term Collagen consumption.
- Helping more brands to enter the Collagen Industry by supplying them Bulk Collagen, as we represent NIPPI, Japan’s Made in Japan Collagen & IKIGEN, Japan’s Made in India Collagen. We invite companies to come & launch their own Collagen products, as we believe that together, we all will be able to contribute more & also achieve more.
- Launching INJA products in other countries of the world and establish INJA as a successful ‘Indian’ multi-national brand.
Disclaimer:
The information contained in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as a health advice. We would ask you to consult a qualified professional or medical expert to gain additional knowledge before you choose to consume any product or perform any exercise.
