SEKAYA, a brand that focuses on plant-based products, has added to its product lines, expanding its reach towards skincare, food supplements, and powdered vegetables for shakes and smoothies.

“We’re committed to developing high-quality plant-based products that can improve their lives,” Bernice Gonzalez, Sekaya marketing head, said during a May 27 digital press conference.

Sekaya (short for Sentro ng Katutubong Yaman) is the consumer brand of Unilab, Inc.’s Synnovate Pharma Corp., which focuses on functional food supplementation in the natural health landscape. It launched its first line of botanical infusions in 2018.

Infusions — unlike tea which only contains leaves — include bark, roots, and other plant parts.

The three new lines focus on different markets: the Raw Actives is a line of plant-based superfoods for athletes, Botanicare is its skincare line, and Sekaya Food Supplements is the company’s first 100% locally sourced supplements.

The Raw Actives line has five products: Daily Greens (P1,900 for 60 servings) which include spinach and kale, Barley Greens (P1,800 for 60 servings), Maca Factor which include maca roots (P1,500 for 100 servings), Powerbeet (P1,500 for 30 servings), Vegan Protein which has a mixture of pea protein and brown rice (P2,500 for 30 servings), and Pea Protein (P1,800 for 30 servings). The items in the line can be taken in smoothies or mixed with water to make a juice.

The Botanicare line only has one product, the Aloe Ferox, a water-based gel cream moisturizer said to be easily absorbed and which contains 99% cape aloe (Aloe ferox). It costs P780.

Its Food Supplements line also has just one product for now, but the company has positioned the line as being composed of “premium, pharma-grade, natural food supplements that are 100% sourced and manufactured in the Philippines, designed to address the needs of Filipinos,” according to a release.

Its first product, Sekaya Organic Moringa, comes in 500 mg capsules that cost P980 per bottle. Moringa is touted as an antioxidant and is said to boost the immune system.

“Moving forward… all our future launches are going to focused now on local products,” Ms. Gonzalez said.

The plan for the brand is to come up with “more than a hundred products in the next five years,” for the food supplements line, according to Abigail D. Nepomuceno, director and business unit head of Synnovate.

“The Philippines is very rich in terms of natural resources and so we should be the first one promoting our natural products… it just lacked the science as of now,” she added.

The company, she said, is working with the country’s Department of Science and Technology on a “standardization study on local herbs,” and are sourcing five products from the department’s Industrial Technology Development Institute and the Philippine Council for Health Research and Development.

The said products, which Ms. Nepomuceno declined to give specifics on, are “supposed to come in the next year or so” and that “most of them would be locally sourced.”

Sekaya products will be available via Lazada in June. For more information, visit the Sekaya Facebook page. — Zsarlene B. Chua

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