Veloforte and BIOVIT: How Natural vs Synthetic Fortification Was Built on Evidence

The Swansea University evidence behind CollagenPro and MagnesiumPro's ingredient sourcing, and what it means for your training and recovery

By the BIOVIT Team - guest post for the Veloforte blog

'Natural' gets used so loosely in food and supplements that it's fair to ask if it means anything at all.

Chemically speaking, there is no structural difference between a naturally sourced Vitamin C molecule and a synthetic one, and that raises the question: is 'natural fortification' just a nice new term for the same old ingredient?

For Veloforte, BIOVIT answered that question with evidence, not marketing language, and CollagenPro's Vitamin C, Zinc and Vitamin D3, alongside MagnesiumPro’s Vitamin D3, B6 and B12, are exactly where that evidence gets put to the test.

BIOVIT supplies the natural vitamins and minerals behind both products: the Vitamin C, Zinc and Vitamin D3 in CollagenPro and the Vitamin D3, B6 and B12 in MagnesiumPro.

We were tasked to align with Veloforte's 'real food, no shortcuts' position. 

This ethos goes beyond the headline ingredients- collagen and magnesium- and applies to every supporting nutrient in the formula 

Lara Giusti, co-founding partner of Veloforte, spoke at length about the importance of pairing collagen with a high-quality Vitamin C blend when discussing the CollagenPro product formulation on a BIOVIT Live webinar:

"Combining collagen with a high-quality Vitamin C is really important - Vitamin C is essential for collagen synthesis. 

The BIOVIT micronutrient organic blend contains Vitamin C, Vitamin D, and Zinc: Vitamin D for bone support, Zinc for immunity and cognition, and Vitamin C for energy, collagen production, cartilage health, and more. 

It's a strong daily supplement to pair with collagen."

This strategy isn't a gimmick. The ingredients in CollagenPro earn their place on their own merits, supported by strict EFSA-authorised claims:

• Vitamin C: Contributes to normal collagen formation for skin, bones, cartilage, gums, teeth, and blood vessels.

• Zinc: Supports normal immune and cognitive function.

• Vitamin D: Aids in bone maintenance and normal muscle function.

In practice, CollagenPro's blend delivers 24mg of Vitamin C (30% NRV) from organic amla extract, 0.75µg of Vitamin D (15% NRV) from organic lichen extract, and 1.5mg of Zinc (15% NRV) from organic guava extract.

And MagnesiumPro follows the same principle: Vitamin D3, B6 and B12, each dosed to 15% of the Reference Intake, from lichen, lemon peel and shiitake mushroom respectively. 

Lara summed up why sourcing mattered there too: "Synthetic fortification was never an option. Veloforte's entire range is forged from natural real food ingredients so when it came to developing MagnesiumPro there was simply no compromise."

A vitamin is a vitamin, no matter where in the supply chain it comes from. 

What differs isn't always the raw material, it's how that raw material becomes a finished vitamin, and how that's then stated in a nutrition declaration.

Take Vitamin C. Synthetic ascorbic acid is often made from plant-sourced glucose, then converted through several stages of industrial chemical synthesis into the finished vitamin. 

BIOVIT works differently: we extract and concentrate the Vitamin C that's already present in organic amla, rather than reconstructing it through a chemical process afterwards. 

Same starting point in some cases, a different route to the finished ingredient.

We source our vitamins and minerals from a plant, alga or fungus, and declare that source on pack: 

• Vitamin C from amla

• Vitamin D3 from lichen

• Zinc from guava leaf

• Vitamin B6 from lemon peel

• Vitamin B12 from shiitake mushroom

  
  

  
  

Synthetic versions are produced through industrial chemical synthesis, and the name reflects that: ascorbic acid, cholecalciferol, pyridoxine hydrochloride, cyanocobalamin, or zinc sulphate.

Vitamin D3 is one of the starkest examples of that contrast. 

Most conventional D3 on the market, the cholecalciferol used across mainstream fortified foods and supplements, is derived from lanolin, the grease extracted from sheep's wool, then chemically converted into its active form. 

The D3 in both CollagenPro and MagnesiumPro comes from lichen instead, a naturally occurring plant-based source that produces the same active molecule without starting from an animal by-product. 

Same vitamin, same molecular form, different starting point.

Every ingredient follows roughly the same three-step process: source it naturally, process it, then deliver it to the mixer.

For CollagenPro, that means organic amla berries and guava leaf, refined down into the Vitamin C and Zinc used in the blend. For MagnesiumPro, it's lemon peel and shiitake mushroom, refined into the B6 and B12. 

Both products also share one thing: their Vitamin D3 comes from the same source, lichen.

None of it is constructed from raw chemical input in a reactor; the natural source does most of the heavy lifting before it ever reaches us. Our job is further concentration and standardisation, then dry blending, no heat, no thermal processing, so there's no nutrient degradation and no need to over-dose the formula to compensate for losses.

That's also how CollagenPro achieves its long shelf life. Everything is manufactured in the UKand every blend is stability-tested in partnership with RSSL and Eurofins, with our in-house Registered Nutritionist calculating precise overages so the finished product still meets its label claim right through to end of shelf life.

This isn't just a question for formulators. BIOVIT's own consumer research found that 92% of UK supermarket shoppers want the vitamins added to their food to be natural, and 73% expect everyday food products to contain only natural vitamins and minerals. 

So the question of whether natural actually performs differently in the body isn't academic, it's what shoppers are already assuming when they pick a product off the shelf.

This is the part that matters, and it's backed by real research, not just a claim.

A single-blind, randomised, controlled human intervention trial of sixty-one healthy adult volunteers was undertaken as a result of our collaboration with Swansea University (supported via the UKRI-funded 'Better Food For All' programme and led by Prof. Richard Bracken) to look at natural versus synthetic bioavailability.

This measured circulating blood levels of several vitamins and minerals, including Vitamin C, after thirty days. 

Both naturally sourced and synthetic doses were formulated to cover 60% of the Reference Intake. The result: natural and synthetic forms matched each other equally, with no significant evidence that either delivered greater bioavailability. That's not a claim of superiority, it's proof of no compromise. 

BIOVIT's natural vitamins perform exactly as well as their synthetic counterparts, before you even factor in what a whole-food extract carries with it that an isolated synthetic vitamin doesn't.

The findings were published in a peer-reviewed journal, Current Developments in Nutrition, in 2026, and presented at the Nutrition Society Winter Conference. 

That's the clinical baseline CollagenPro and MagnesiumPro's natural vitamin fortification is built on: not a marketing claim, a peer-reviewed one.

Bioavailability tells you how much of a nutrient reaches the bloodstream. It doesn't tell you what that nutrient then does once it's there, and that's really where CollagenPro and MagnesiumPro's formulations were built with intent.

In CollagenPro, Vitamin C isn't just travelling alongside collagen. It's a required cofactor for the enzymes (prolyl and lysyl hydroxylase) that carry out the hydroxylation step collagen synthesis depends on, and without enough Vitamin C, that step doesn't run properly, no matter how much collagen protein is in the product. 

In MagnesiumPro, Vitamin B6 is understood to support the cellular transport processes involved in magnesium uptake and utilisation, one reason it's paired with magnesium rather than sitting in the formula on its own. 

Both point to the same idea: the supporting nutrients were chosen for a functional role in the product, not just to round out a label.

If natural fortification doesn't deliver more of the vitamin into the blood, then why should it matter in relation to other fortification options available?

A vitamin that was extracted from a whole fruit, leaf or fungus never reaches the market alone. The desired extract, Vitamin C for example, comes with whatever polyphenols and flavonoids occurred naturally alongside it in the source material. Independent lab analysis of amla extract, for example, highlights that it has greater overall antioxidant activity than ascorbic acid alone.

Independent analysis of that same extract highlights the presence of various polyphenols and flavonoids that aren't found with isolated synthetic vitamins.

Lara's made a similar point in relation to smaller brands that have taken on similar approaches, noting that 

"start-up and SME brands are often the ones pushing innovation boundaries, using more natural ingredients rather than going down the mass-produced synthetic route." 

Similarly, the fourth of Veloforte's 'Four Ps' for good sports nutrition products-'

1- powerful

2- portable

3- palatable

4- positive for digestion'- in her words refers to 

"something more natural, something your body knows how to digest, where you recognise the ingredients on the back of the pack."

Fair to say the Swansea trial measured bioavailability, not gut comfort, so we're not suggesting that switching from one vitamin source to another has a direct impact on digestion. 

What Lara's actually pointing at is trust: a product built from identifiable food sources such as amla is easier to trust than one carrying a long list of isolates.

You don't need a chemistry degree to tell natural from synthetic on a label, you just need to know what to look for.

The table below matches the common synthetic name for each nutrient against its natural, botanical equivalent, so you can check CollagenPro and MagnesiumPro against the ingredient list:

None of this proves that synthetic is unsafe or does not work; all are regulated, tested, and carry appropriate health claims. This is simply stating where the nutrient was sourced from.

We are not advocating that synthetic vitamins fall short, the Swansea trial suggests otherwise. What we're advocating for is honesty about what 'natural' actually buys you: equal bioavailability, backed by peer-reviewed evidence, plus the polyphenols, flavonoids and traceable sourcing that come with a whole-food extract and simply aren't part of an isolated synthetic vitamin.

This speaks to consistency: a product built from real food should be able to assert the same about every additional component, not just the headline ingredient. 

That's why CollagenPro and MagnesiumPro are held to that same standard, and why, as Lara put it, there was 'simply no compromise' when Veloforte worked with us.

Vitamin C, Zinc and D3 aren't there to round out a label, they're formulated, sourced and tested to the same standard as the collagen and magnesium they support.

Next time you flip a pack over, you'll know exactly what you're looking at, and why it's there.

Try CollagenPro or MagnesiumPro and see how that looks, or read the full Swansea University trial at biovit.com/research.

We're BIOVIT, the natural vitamin and mineral ingredient company behind the naturally sourced vitamins in Veloforte's CollagenPro and MagnesiumPro.