WHC is a unique brand that provides the purest and most environmentally friendly omega supplements on the market. And that is recognized as far away as the United States and China.

The story began in the 1980s when Jo Wyckmans took salmon oil supplements for his health. But to his dismay, his triglyceride levels appeared to rise. His search for the best highly concentrated fish oil turned to a disillusion: the purity of the fish oil could have been way better. That dissatisfaction became Jo’s main impetus to develop his product line of pharmaceutical-grade, highly concentrated omega-3 oils.

In 1999, Jo started with a molecularly distilled, highly concentrated supplement high in EPA and low in DHA. Two years later, he was the first to market high-dose omega supplements, purified and concentrated in collaboration with KD Pharma, through a unique environmentally friendly process called supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) extraction. This method typically uses CO² (carbon dioxide).

This extraction method results in omega-3 products of the highest purity and with the highest possible concentration. This particular form of CO² distillation was and still is environmentally friendly, leaving the lowest possible ecological footprint. Jo Wyckmans and Dr. Rudi Krumbholz (KD Pharma) worked closely with the University of Antwerp to analyze purity and concentration. This exclusive collaboration created a huge shift in the world of omega-3 fish oil. At the time when more and more scientific evidence was appearing pointing to the importance of higher and purer amounts of EPA over DHA, Jo was already one of the few pioneers in Europe supporting the use of high EPA and DHA products for health reasons.

More than 20 years later, this partnership continues to bear fruit. WHC Labs markets omega-3 products made exclusively by KD Pharma – marine-derived formulations and fully vegan supplements.

WHC’s marine and vegan oil supplements score 5 stars with the leading IFOS (International Fish Oil Standards). UnoCardio 1000 from the WHC range is also the best-selling omega-3 supplement on Chinese Tmall (Alibaba Group) and JD.com.

The patented supercritical SFE/SFC triple process technology offers significant advantages:

• 400% less heat is used during the process than molecular distillation. In addition, there is no exposure to oxygen, and natural CO2 is used as a mild alternative to organic solvents. This keeps the heat-sensitive omega-3 fatty acids excellently protected from oxidation.
• This technology produces the highest possible concentration of omega-3 fatty acids. Ordinary fish oil usually contains only 30% omega-3, with the remaining 70% being residual – often saturated – fats. In contrast, WHC’s products contain as much as 95% pure omega-3 fatty acids and are stripped of all unnecessary fats.
• The SFE/SFC triple process technology allows unique ratios of EPA and DHA to be put together. This enables WHC to choose exact ratios between these two fatty acids that closely reflect the current scientific understanding of omega-3.
• Unprecedented purity. Each batch of oil from WHC Labs is analyzed by IFOS and certified with 5 stars. In doing so, WHC Labs goes far beyond international standards for heavy metals, PCBs, pesticides, and dioxins.

WHC Labs uses patented low-temperature technology to make its omega-3 supplements: the Supercritical Triple Process CO2 technology. This technique produces omega-3 oil with an unparalleled degree of concentration and purity and allows the production of customized formulations based on the most advanced research. And that, moreover, in a very sustainable way.

Supercritical Fluid Technology (SFT) typically does not use toxic organic solvents. Instead, it uses CO2 (carbon dioxide) under high pressure at low temperatures (40-50°C) to extract and/or separate the various fatty acids from fish oil. To do so, SFT usually employs two crucial steps to purify and concentrate the fish oil: Supercritical Fluid Extraction (SFE) and Supercritical Fluid Chromatography (SFC).

SFE, or “counter-current SFE” (ccSFE), is an elegant technology to purify and concentrate fish oil. On the one hand, it can be used to remove cholesterol and contamination with heavy metals, PCBs, dioxins, and other contaminants from triglycerides. For economic reasons, the use of SFE is limited to producing semi-concentrates. Thus, it can combine EPA and DHA in 50-65% concentrations.

SFC technology is a highly selective and mild method to purify further and concentrate the pre-concentrated fish oil and separate it into batches of pure EPA and pure DHA. This process is carried out at temperatures between 40 and 50°C. The relatively low temperature prevents heat stress on the very temperature-sensitive EPA and DHA fatty acids. This makes SFC one of the most suitable technologies for concentrating polyunsaturated fatty acids.

Some products are labeled “supercritical” but are only made with SFE purification and extraction. Thus, these products can never have the same quality as omega-3 concentrates formulated with the two steps of this SFT process.

The patented supercritical triple process technology has more steps than Supercritical Fluid Extraction (SFE) and Supercritical Fluid Chromatography (SFC). The fish oil is deodorized during the SFC process, and the triglycerides (rTGs) are reformed.

By combining these technologies and steps, WHC Labs succeeds in producing exclusive omega-3 oils with extremely high levels of omega-3 and unique purity while the environmental impact is low.