Our Story – How Kfibre began
Kfibre is manufactured and distributed by Queensland based company HFS that was created by Janine and Gordon Edwards.
HFS began its long journey in 2006 with a goal to manufacture a new option of dietary fibre for the food industry from sugarcane. Why sugarcane ? It could be because sugarcane actually has a strong history of health benefits when the whole plant is considered and not just the sugar, or it could just be because in Ayr, Queensland – The only thing Janine and Gordon could see, is sugarcane….
The married couple started HFS and still hold their roles as director and managing director of HFS (a Australian public unlisted company) that has grown significantly since it’s research beginnings. The first efforts were to find a way to break down whole sugarcane stalk without breaking every piece of equipment in the factory first. Sugarcane is hard.
The secondary goal was to reduce the sugar content. The world seems to have a love hate relationship with sugar, you need the energy sugar contains, but moderation is ideal. In this instance moderation was not ideal for HFS though, it needed to be a low calorie standalone healthy total dietary fibre to be considered in the market. The process was developed, and the pilot plant was built to showcase the product and what it could do for manufacturers as a dietary fibre source.
HFS’s manufacturing process produced functional prebiotic fibre that maintains the integrity of the phytonutrients in the source plant. The process is chemical-free and produced a product that was high in bioactives as well as fibre.
This is where the cart started leading the horse. Kfibre was tested in the market with several manufacturers and also provided to individuals as a fibre supplement for general gut health management.
Consumer response returned such strong positive anecdotal health stories from customers that HFS realised the value and progressed to a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility for Kfibre and now has long term University research partners (University of Tasmania & University of QLD) and there have been human clinical trials and scientific publications using HFS sugarcane fibre with more currently underway.
These studies document the ability of Kfibre to normalise digestive health via changes in the microbiome, resulting in beneficial relief from digestive issues, constipation, as well as weight management.
Janine and Gordon still run the Kfibre facility today and couldn’t be more proud of what their discovery has led to for gut health management and they’d love to get the word out so that more people can experience the food-health benefits of Kfibre and maybe one day they’ll get to retire too.
The luxury of a good product allows the phrase to be thrown around at HFS “If you’re taking a supplement of some kind and you can’t tell if it’s working – try Kfibre, you will feel it”