Bivo and the differences with meal replacements

One of our biggest challenges is explaining to people what Bivo is.

The reason is that some products apparently similar to Bivo has been existing in the marketplace for many years: we mean dietetic powdered products to be dissolved in a liquid support (normally milk, but sometimes also water).

In this brief article we will try to point out some of the characteristics which differentiate Bivo from everything else that exists now in the marketplace.

In a nutshell: why Bivo is different than the meal replacements which currently exists in the marketplace.

First of all, Bivo from a legal point of view is not a meal replacement. A meal replacement, in fact, to be considered so, needs to be dietetic and according to EFSA legislation has to provide between 200 and 400 calories. Bivo has more calories because it is a complete food, containing in the current version a third of the calories (UPDATE: the version Bivo 2.0 contains one fifth of the calories) that a healthy person should daily consume, and balanced, because it presenting the nutritional proportion which are typical of the mediterranean diet. Bivo is in fact food in any sense, just provided in a powdered form to be dissolved in water so that our body can assimilate it in the most efficient and healthy way.

Another big difference between Bivo and meal replacements is found in its formula. Bivo has been studied to provide high quality nutrition. It gives all the macronutrient that our body needs following the proportion of the mediterranean diet. The carbohydrates of Bivo are complex carbs, balanced in such a way that the product is able to provide energy both immediately, but also for some hours (thanks to a low glycemic index; in this topic we suggest you to read the article of doctor Paola Salgarelli). Meal replacements generally, instead, have among their main ingredients simple sugars (like fructose) and not complex carbs.

This aspect is crucial from a nutritional point of view. To sum up we can say that the complex carbs are digested more slowly, avoiding high blood sugar and presenting other positive properties that simple sugars don’t have, like for example the presence of fibers (fibers which are present in the whole cereals used in Bivo, like oats).

Moreover, meal replacements don’t have the nutritional balance of Bivo. Normally meal replacements are defined as high-protein because the percentage of protein is more than the 30%. The lipid content, on the other hand, is super low.

Finally, we want to highlight some elements which go beyond the product per se.

Bivo is totally different than meal replacements in the mode of consumption. Bivo does not impose any diet: you drink it whenever you want, without any commitment. You don’t have to follow any consumption plan; you can drink it whenever you need it and whenever you want. That’s it.

Also if we consider the communication of Bivo, there is a big difference. Bivo does not promise anything different that what it does: it provides in an healthy and efficient way the energy your body needs also in the moments when the available alternative is not satisfying. Bivo does not promise any miracle diet, nor special effects.

In addition, let’s speak about the so called supply chain. Bivo has really singular features. Bivo is distributed directly from the producer to the consumer through the direct channel of the ecommerce website www.bivo.it/en. We don’t use supermarkets, nor network marketing techniques. The reason why Bivo is able to have such a low price, even if the quality level of its ingredients is certainly superior to that of meal replacements, is exactly this one: the lack of a long distribution channel for the product which determines inevitably the increase of the price for the consumer.

If we speak about our reality as a company, it is evident that any parallelism with other products cannot be made: Bivo is produced by a young Italian company, not by some mega multinational company.

In conclusion we can say that, while meal replacements are useful for losing weight, Bivo has another type of function. Bivo, allowing you to monitor how many calories you intake, provides a smart and nutritionally balanced solution for the situations when the alternative is not satisfying (about that, have a look at What is Bivo).

We are not saying that meal replacements are something bad: they simply are a different thing, which answers to different needs.