What Is Collagen?
Collagen is an essential protein in the human body, widely present in the human body’s skin, bones, muscles, blood vessels, tendons, and connective tissues. It is one of the most abundant proteins in the human body, accounting for about 30% of the total protein content. Collagen helps the body perform important functions, including building and repairing muscles and tissues. There are more than 40 types of collagen in the human body, of which type I and type III are the most abundant.
Collagen is odorless, colorless, and dissolves immediately in liquid. It can be added to any drink. The shelf life of collagen is generally three years.
The traditional Chinese collagen health product “Ejiao” is mainly made of donkey skin (it is the collagen contained in donkey skin). This product has a high nourishing and healthcare effect and has a reputation as one of the three treasures of traditional Chinese medicine. China’s largest Ejiao manufacturer – Dong’e Ejiao.
Why Do People Need To Supplement Collagen?
As we age, our bodies start producing less collagen in our 20s. It can lead to signs of aging, such as sagging skin, the appearance of wrinkles, stiff joints, loss of bone density, and weakened bones.
Our ancestors replaced this loss by eating animals whole, but our modern diets don’t get enough collagen.
What are the health benefits of taking collagen?
Experts suggest that humans can supplement 5-10g of collagen daily. This approach can bring the following benefits to the body.
- Skin health: Collagen can improve skin elasticity and moisture content, reduce the appearance of wrinkles and fine lines, and make the skin more youthful and radiant.
- Joint health: Collagen can support and lubricate joints, help reduce joint pain, stiffness, and muscle damage, and promote joint flexibility and exercise capacity.
- Strong bones: Collagen is one of the main components of bones. Supplementing collagen can increase bone density, reduce the risk of osteoporosis, and support bone health.
- Cosmetic effect: Supplementing collagen can improve the quality of hair, nails, and the skin around the eyes, making them healthier, stronger, and more lustrous.
- Digestive tract health: Collagen is beneficial to the digestive tract tissue, helps repair and protect the gastrointestinal mucosa, and maintains the healthy function of the digestive tract.
What Are Collagen Used For?
Collagen has good biocompatibility, biodegradability, and biological activity. Therefore, it is widely used in food, medicine, cosmetic feed, and other fields.
Food Grade Collagen
- Application: As a functional health ingredient, it is added to milk, yogurt, soy milk, meat products, sausage, bread, and other foods.
- Function: Enhance immunity, nourish skin, relieve joint pain, improve osteoporosis, improve product quality, etc.
Beverage Grade Collagen
- Application: As a functional health ingredient, it is added to fruit juice, carbonated beverage, mineral water, protein drink, coffee, oral solution, and other functional beverages.
- Function: Enhance immunity, nourish skin, relieve joint pain, improve osteoporosis, improve product quality, etc.
Cosmetic Grade Collagen
- Application: Added as a functional health ingredient to facial cleanser, cream, firming lotion, lotion mask, shower gel, shampoo, and other cosmetic products.
- Function: nourishes and whitens the skin, keeps moisture, and eliminates wrinkles.
Feed Grade Collagen
- Application: It produces mixed and compound feed as a substitute for imported fish meals.
- Function: Collagen has a high digestion and absorption rate and has a good feeding effect and economic benefits.
All in all, collagen can be added to various products as a nutritional ingredient. For example, health food, solid drinks, skin care products, cosmetics, sports nutrition food, baked goods, protein bars, capsules, tablets, candies, desserts, etc.
How To Express Collagen Specifications In The Market?
Molecular weight: The molecular weight of collagen raw materials can be adjusted according to needs, usually expressed in Dalton.
Raw material source: Collagen raw material can come from different animal sources, such as cows, pigs, fish, etc. Each source of collagen has different properties and uses.
Purity: The purity of collagen raw materials can be adjusted according to requirements, usually expressed as a percentage of 98%. High-purity collagen raw materials are more suitable for some specific applications.
Model: Type I, Type II, Type III, Type V, and Type XI. Among them, type I is the most widely used, mainly referring to oral administration, and the molecular weight is generally relatively low. Type II is mainly used in medical treatment and health care, and its molecular weight is usually relatively high.
In addition, conditions such as the solubility and smell of collagen can also be learned in detail at the time of purchase.
What Are The Sources Of Collagen?
Currently, cowhide is the primary source of collagen in the market, followed by fish. China is currently the largest supplier of raw materials. However, as the largest supplier of cowhide, Brazil has an absolute advantage in raw materials. In recent years, some large enterprises have begun to invest in the construction of collagen factories in Brazil, which will have an unpredictable impact on the future competition pattern.
Fish collagen is mainly collagen extracted from fish’s skin, scales, or bones. It has a similar structure and function to collagen in the human body. Fish skin collagen is cheaper than fish scale collagen because the supply of fish scales is less, so the fish scales will be more expensive.
Fish collagen is mainly composed of type I collagen. Even though fish collagen primarily comprises a kind of collagen, it doesn’t mean it’s inferior to bovine collagen. Type I collagen is found in almost every body part except cartilage tissue. It’s the collagen that makes up 70 percent of our skin and is the most abundant type of collagen in the body, so you can tell fish collagen is good for the skin. Type I collagen has multiple positive effects on the skin, including reversing the aging process, reducing the appearance of wrinkles and cellulite, and enhancing skin hydration and firmness. Since fish collagen is type I collagen, it is rich in two specific amino acids: glycine and proline. Glycine is essential for producing DNA and RNA strands, while proline is essential for the body’s ability to produce collagen naturally. Since glycine is necessary to our DNA and RNA, it has many important bodily functions, including blocking endotoxins and transporting nutrients into cells for energy use. Proline acts as an antioxidant in the body, preventing free radicals from damaging cells. Its main function is to ensure the synthesis of collagen, which works by promoting the synthesis process in the body.
In addition, collagen derived from marine animals is significantly better than collagen from terrestrial animals in some respects, such as low antigenicity and hypoallergenic properties. Therefore, marine collagen may gradually replace terrestrial animal collagen.
The two most commonly used fish in the market are Tilapia and Cod. Collagen produced from deep-sea fish is more expensive than freshwater fish.
- Tilapia Growth Environment
The suitable growth temperature for tilapia is 16 to 38 degrees Celsius, and the optimum temperature is 22 to 35 degrees Celsius. Tilapia can tolerate low-oxygen environments and can overgrow in lakes or seawater. It needs clear waters free from pollution and antibiotics. Studies have shown that tilapia scales contain protein (35%~55%), water (12%~19%), ash (25%~35%) and fat (0.5%~1%), and other components. The collagen in tilapia scales is mainly type I collagen (about 30%) and contains some keratin. The most critical element in ash is calcium.
- Cod Growth Environment
The water temperature is 0-16 degrees Celsius, and the sea depth is between 15 and 250 meters. Cod is larger and belongs to cold-water fish. It lives at the bottom of the ocean or in the lower reaches of the deep sea and is distributed around the world’s oceans.
What Is The Best Collagen Alternative?
Whey Protein and collagen can be substituted for each other. In terms of function, taste, smell, and color, they are both very similar and can be replaced. So when the price of whey protein is high, many customers will switch to collagen, and vice versa.
How To Manufacture Collagen?
Since collagen is an extracellular matrix component, it is an insoluble macromolecular structure in the body and combined with proteoglycans and glycoproteins. Therefore, collagen preparation includes material selection, pretreatment, acid-alkaline enzyme saline extraction, separation, and purification of different types of collagen.
Preprocessing
In addition to collagen, animal bone contains oil, various minerals, and other impurities, so it must be pretreated before extracting collagen. First, remove the residual meat, tendon, and other sundries on the animal bone, and then extract the bone oil with n-butanol or n-hexane after crushing. Finally, the inorganic matter in the bone is removed to increase collagen yield.
Collagen extraction generally has three methods.
1. It is a high-pressure assisted physical method.
2. The chemical method combines low-temperature or hot water extraction with solvent pretreatment. Different solvents can be divided into hot water extraction, acid, alkali, and salt methods.
3. It is a biochemical method using enzymes. In general, high-pressure assisted and hot water extractions are for gelatin extraction. Low-temperature extraction and enzymatic needle are the extractions of collagen. But its basic principle is to change the protein’s external environment according to the collagen’s characteristics and separate the collagen from other proteins.
Conclusion
As a professional raw ingredients supplier, Nutri Avenue has decades of experience in this industry. Therefore, we have prepared various collagen specifications in our US warehouses. Here is a list.
| Collagen Specifications | Market Price | Stock |
| Bovine Collagen Type 1&3 | $11-15/kg (based on 1,000kg) | USA |
| Instant Bovine Collagen Peptide Granules | $11-15/kg (based on 1,000kg) | USA |
| Marine Collagen | $17-20/kg (based on 1,000kg) | USA |
| Hydrolyzed Fish Collagen Peptides | $17.5-22/kg (based on 1,000kg) | USA |
| Hydrolyzed Collagen (Chicken) (Type II) Peptide | $65-88/kg (based on 100kg) | USA |
| Hydrolyzed Bovine Hide Collagen Peptides | $11.5-15/kg (based on 1,000kg) | USA |
Depending on the different uses of the product, the collagen specifications that need to be paid attention to are also different. Nutri Avenue provides free samples for customer testing to more accurately meet your needs. Welcome to get a free quote to obtain more details about collagen ingredients.
