Tesco is aiming to get under consumers’ skin with the launch of a new line of fruit-based drinks containing fruit and vegetable peel extracts, dietary supplements and two compounds more commonly found in skincare products.
The Beauty & Go drinks, which have been listed previously by upmarket department store Selfridges, are pitched at busy, health-conscious consumers and are due to arrive in Tesco stores as well as its online grocery website on 4 May.
Priced at £2.99 a bottle, the range includes four different products: Anti-Ageing (pomegranate, raspberry and hibiscus); Detox (cucumber, artichoke and spirulina); Radiance (red grape, rosehip and green tea); and Vitality (pineapple, guarana and gingko biloba).
The compounds found in all four Beauty & Go juices, hyaluronan and collagen, are known to be important in helping skin to repair itself, but so far any concrete evidence of additional health benefits derived from eating them remains undiscovered.
Collagen has been used as a food ingredient for many years in Japan, where many consumers believe that eating the protein has a positive effect on skin health.
But as reported in several publications over the past few years, including the highly influential fashion and style website Refinery29, the widely accepted view among leading dermatological scientists is that any collagen ingested by a human being would be broken down into amino acids by the various processes of digestion, and recipient skin cells cannot distinguish between those acids and others produced by eating, say, a beefburger.
The products are also said to contain so-called MacroAntioxidants, a trademarked term used by supplier Feed Your Skin to refer to tiny molecules that apparently form an antioxidant compound around dietary fibre, for example inside the peel of fruits and vegetables.
The company said there was “proven scientific evidence” that these natural ingredients have positive effects on the health of the human body, including the skin.
Feed Your Skin’s Spanish backers, luxury skincare brand Natura Bissé and R&D firm AMC Innova, point to a recent clinical trial carried out by research group Quantum Experimental which they claim showed “very significant improvements in skin firmness and elasticity” among a sample of 30 participants drinking the products every day for eight weeks.
In a press release, the companies insisted that “objective measurements show that skin elasticity and firmness improve significantly after 56 days of intake” with such effects starting to become evident “after 28 days”.
They added that 72 per cent of the individuals taking part found their wrinkles were “visibly reduced”.
This article was updated on 5 May to remove a reference to Beauty & Go having previously been sold by Waitrose and Marks & Spencer. AMC Group, whose subsidiary AMC Innova is a partner in Feed Your Skin, has won awards from the two retailers for production innovation and environmental responsibility.
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