PeptiSleep: Plant Peptides for Melatonin-Free Sleep Products

Jenelle Benson and Marc Burkhalter from Nuritas came on Beyond the Blend to talk about PeptiSleep, a sleep ingredient made from peptides in brown rice.

Jenelle is Director of Business Development for Supplements in North America. Marc is Head of Product Formulation, and before Nuritas he ran chocolate innovation at Nestlé. Nuritas is one of my favorite companies we've worked with over the last year.

Melatonin is the number one sleep ingredient. It knocks you out. PeptiSleep goes after cortisol instead, and my team built 4 product concepts around it.

Too Long; Didn't Watch

• PeptiSleep is a network of plant peptides from brown rice, found by screening millions of peptides with software.
• It doesn't knock you out like melatonin. Nuritas built it around cortisol and staying asleep.
• The hard part with oral peptides is surviving the gut. Nuritas tests for that before human trials.
• There's 1 published pilot. 26 people. The authors call it exploratory, and so should you.
• Jenelle's pitch for brands: people leave melatonin because of the hangover. Get Nuritas' consumer data before you put "no grogginess" on a label.
• Blog Bonus: 4 turnkey PeptiSleep product ideas, from a sleep tea to a liposomal liquid sachet.

The PeptiSleep Origin Story

Nuritas is a biotech company based in Dublin, Ireland. They've spent 12 to 13 years building what they call the world's largest plant peptide library, millions of peptides screened from plant sources.

Marc described discovery as finding a needle in a haystack with a magnifying glass and a magnet. Every failed lab result goes back into their AI platform, so the next search is better.

For PeptiSleep, the target came first: sleep quality. Staying asleep and not waking up at 3am. The search landed on brown rice.

What Is PeptiSleep?

Peptides are small proteins, usually between 2 and 50 amino acids long. Think of them as cellular text messages. They tell cells and tissues what to do.

PeptiSleep is a hydrolysate, protein broken down into pieces. A few peptides in the mix are the "main characters," and the rest are the supporting cast.

On the mechanism, she described 2 orexin receptors involved in the stress response and cortisol release. Nuritas says the peptides in PeptiSleep dock on those receptors and help keep cortisol from spiking at night.

You need cortisol. It gets you up in the morning. The goal is to flatten the 3am spike, the one where you wake up replaying everything you said yesterday.

I love the approach. Bring the body back toward balance instead of over-supplementing.

What the Research Says

This is what I like about Nuritas. Pharma does one thing very well: it knows that just because something should work doesn't mean it gets into your bloodstream.

Gut survival is one of the biggest filters Nuritas uses before it spends money on human trials. Marc called the gut "abusive." If a peptide works in the lab but doesn't survive digestion, it's back to the drawing board. We covered why that matters in injectable peptides and oral alternatives.

In a randomized, placebo-controlled pilot study in Sleep Medicine: X, 26 adults with sleep impairment took PeptiSleep or a placebo for 56 days. The PeptiSleep group scored better than placebo on getting to sleep and on sleep quality. Barely. Both results sit right at the line for statistical significance. Wearable data from Oura rings hinted at differences in heart rate variability (HRV) and sleep stages.

Read it for what it is. It's small, single-blinded, and the authors call it exploratory. If you build on this ingredient, keep your claims in that lane, and get claim language from Nuritas' substantiation, not from this post.

The Story a Brand Can Tell

When I asked what story a brand should lead with, the first answer was grogginess. People leave melatonin because of the melatonin hangover and the weird dreams. If you want a melatonin-free sleep product, start there.

Her other angles came from sleep stages. Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep is mental recovery. Deep sleep is physical recovery. And endurance athletes already track HRV.

Turnkey PeptiSleep Product Ideas for Founders

My team built these 4 concepts with Nuritas and our internal Research and Development (R&D) team. The formulas are close to ready, give or take a flavor tweak.

1. PeptiSleep Sleep Tea

A honey-flavored sleep tea with PeptiSleep as the hero, supported by magnesium, chamomile, gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), and L-theanine.

Nuritas has already tested PeptiSleep in tea bags and powdered teas for heat stability. It has a mild, neutral taste, and people with capsule fatigue want something to sip at night.

2. Immunity Plus Sleep

A warm drink that supports normal immune function and restful sleep in one cup. PeptiSleep, magnesium, vitamin C, elderberry, and GABA.

It was the first time Marc had seen this on a concept page. His point: when you're not feeling great, sleep is one of the first things to go.

3. Tart Cherry Plus PeptiSleep Capsules

Tart cherry for recovery, PeptiSleep for sleep, in a capsule older athletes are used to taking. Hyrox and marathons keep growing, and those people care a lot about sleep and recovery.

6 to 10 hours of sleep is a big chunk of your day to put toward recovery. The next version could add PeptiStrong, Nuritas's muscle peptide. The trade-off is more capsules. See our capsule manufacturing capabilities.

Steuart Nutrition capacity: capsule manufacturing capacity for orders of 5,000 bottles or more.

4. Liposomal Magnesium Plus PeptiSleep Liquid Sachet

This is one of my favorites because of the format itself. It's approachable. A single-serve liquid sachet fights pill and powder fatigue, and as far as I know there aren't many, if any, liposomal products using PeptiSleep.

More on the format in our guide to liquid sachets and liposomal packs.

My take: I would buy this one. We're building out our liposomal line now.

Steuart Nutrition capacity: liquid manufacturing capacity for runs of 2,500 to 5,000 units and up.

Your Next Move

Concepts mean nothing until a brand takes one to market. The time it takes to get from good idea to shelf is longer than anyone in this industry likes to admit, and that's what these concepts are meant to cut down.

We have sleep tea samples in the works. If one of these fits your road map, or you have your own take on a PeptiSleep product, I'd love to hear it.

When the time is right, book a discovery call. We'll talk through your formula, your format, and your growth plan, and give you a no-pressure roadmap from a team that's been there.

Ben Steuart, CEO & Owner, Steuart Nutrition

Ben Steuart is the co-founder and CEO of Steuart Nutrition, a contract manufacturing and supplement innovation partner for powder, liquid, and stick‑pack supplements. He launched the company in 2019 alongside his wife, Sarah, building on his lifelong roots in the food production industry, where he grew up working in his father's food-manufacturing business in Mabel, Minnesota.

Throughout his career, Ben has developed deep expertise in supplement manufacturing and business operations. At Steuart, he leads with a commitment to lean operations, fostering long-term partnerships, and delivering flexible, transparent service, prioritizing the client's vision as much as his own. His leadership guided the business's rapid expansion from a single facility to multiple locations, enabling agile responses to market needs, from producing hand sanitizer during the COVID‑19 pandemic to scaling CBD and nutrition supplement lines.

Ben's approach is rooted in strong values. His faith as a born‑again Christian deeply informs the company's mission of "glorifying God and establishing a transformational workplace". This culture of integrity and continuous improvement fosters a trusting, mission-driven environment, distinguishing Steuart as both a capable and conscientious industry leader.