Developers get personal about food

Personalised nutrition will also be covered at Food Manufacture’s​ ‘New Frontiers in Food and Drink’ one-day conference, which takes place in London on March 17.

During Session 2, titled ‘Getting personal about new product development’, Professor John Mathers, director of human nutrition at Newcastle University, will discuss the latest advances in personalised nutrition.

In the same session, Professor Barry Smith from the University of London will describe how neuroscience is changing food design.

Professor Gary Frost, from Imperial College, London, will describe how the problems of obesity are being tackled through increasing the satiety of foods.

The manipulation of food structure and protein content to produce satiating, energy reduced foods and beverages is also the subject of a three-year Campden BRI research project, begun in January 2015.

The project is designed to help the food industry develop products that assist in weight management. They do this by manipulating the food structure to modify consumer perceptions of – and satiety responses to – energy reduced products, and through the enhancement of protein content to enhance satiety.

Ageing population ​

Campden BRI’s three-year member subscription-funded research project on designing food and drinks for personalisation of diets for different life stages will investigate the need to develop products for a rapidly ageing population.

As people get older their sensory perceptions, such as smell, taste, vision, and hearing, and body movement, decrease. Thus, there is an increasing need for food and drink that meets the ageing population’s gradual sensory loss.

Campden BRI’s project on improving the nutritional status of crops for the agri-food chain will investigate the potential for enhancing the vitamin, mineral and phytochemical content of commonly consumed crops using agronomic approaches and/or targeted crop nutrient supplementation, to optimise raw material quality.

Product fortification  ​

Product fortification will also be the subject of the British Nutrition Foundation’s Professor Judy Buttriss’s talk during Session 3 of the New Frontiers in Food and Drink conference, which will be devoted to targeting new markets.

In this session, Dr Peter Wareing, principle food safety advisor at Leatherhead Food Research, will outline how to make products healthier through reformulation, without jeopardising food safety.

The session will conclude with a talk by Professor Arnold van Huis, a tropical entomologist at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, who will explore the potential for using insects in the food chain.

Food Manufacture Group’s one-day food innovation conference: ‘New frontiers in food & drink’ takes place on Thursday March 17 at etc.venues St Pauls in London. More information about the event is available here​. Alternatively, call Ilanit Slowly on 012934 610347.