KitoZyme, the Belgian maker of food supplements to tackle problems ranging from high cholesterol to dry skin, is planning to list in Brussels in three to four years, as long as market conditions are favourable, its chief executive said.

"It's certainly written down in the minds of my shareholders," chief executive Hugues Bultot told Reuters when asked if the listing would take place at that time. "That's the scenario they prefer."

The Belgian market for IPOs has stalled since the listing of biotechnology firm Movetis at the end of 2009.

KitoZyme is hoping that its natural products will benefit from an increasing desire among an ageing population to eat health-enhancing foods.

It uses fungus to make ingredients that can help cut cholesterol levels, stimulate immunity, protect wine from some micro-organisms and style hair.

KitoZyme's main product is the cholesterol fighter Artinia, which a company in the United States is planning to launch as a food supplement shortly, Bultot said.

The firm is also in talks with cereal and soup makers which could incorporate Artinia into their products.

"Within one or two years this product has to be incorporated in food ... as a consumer you will buy Artinia in a soup or you will buy Artinia complemented with cereals and so on," said Bultot in a telephone interview.

The company made just under €1 million in sales in 2011, primarily because of its products for wine, but Bultot is expecting this to rise to €4.5 million ($5.88 million) this year as other products start to come on line.

By 2016 it expects sales to reach about €35 million, opening the door to the stock market listing.

"What we have to show to the market is the ability to convert technology into products, so therefore you need sales, so the actual shareholders are considering the stock exchange for 2015 or 2016," he said.

The company, spun out of the University of Liege in 2000, was co-founded by Carl Mestdagh, a member of the Mestdagh family behind the Champion supermarket chain in Belgium. Mestdagh Group owns approximately half of KitoZyme.

KitoZyme hopes to list in a holding company format where it would sell stakes in its speciality ingredients and medical pharma divisions to industrial partners, and operate a consumer healthcare division independently, which would develop its own uses for the firm's products.

"We saw that the people developing the application for the end consumer were the ones who captured the most value," he said. "In order to shorten this ... we decided to develop certain private label applications."