Health & Nutrition

Health is now a major driver for food development in addition to convenience and taste. More scientific information with regard to the relationship between diet and health becomes available every day and this creates possibilities for innovation. Ingredients like vitamins, minerals, amino acids, fibres, herbal extracts and other nutraceutical ingredients such as omega-3-fatty acids and sterol esters can be used to develop food with a health or nutritional benefit.

 

The choice of appropriate ingredient depends on the positioning, or benefit proposition, of the healthy product. Positioning can range from, better-for-you products, with a reformulated composition, i.e. taking fat, sugar, calories and/or salt out, to benefits based on true health platforms, like heart, eye, bone or digestive health.

 

Product positioning can centre on themes like “feel good”, “look good” and “body shape”. Feel Good can relate to being concentrated when studying, feel energetic while performing or relax after working, Look Good has been dominated by personal care products, but today we know that diet has a clear influence on skin health. Body shape relates to maintaining or achieving a healthy body weight as well as a healthy body composition, with or without sports or heavy exercise.

 

Product positioning is often focused on a specific target population group, such as children, athletes, elderly people or working mothers. A health & nutrition concept can be applied to “traditional” food such as beverages, dairy or bakery products but also innovative ideas can evolve. As an example of the latter, let’s look at “foods-on-the-go”.This trend offers opportunities for convenience products combined with healthy eating; hand-held foods in portion packaging, with added health benefits.

 

To choose the right ingredient following basic questions need to be answered. What is the food application and desired product positioning? What needs to be communicated to the consumer? Which ingredient fulfils the requirements and can technically be formulated, in sufficient dosage, in the application and under the given process conditions? Important to emphasise in this context is that an “ingredient” is not only the ingredient itself but also the accompanying scientific evidence of effectiveness.

 

• Proteins & Amino acids
• Vitamins
• Minerals
• Fibres
• Herbal and Non-herbal extracts
• Sugars, sugar substitutes, starch derivatives, intensive sweeteners
• Other nutraceutical ingredients

 

For specific product availability in your location please follow the links to your country.