UK rides new wave in ‘functional foods’

The global market in functional foods is predicted to grow 72 per cent in the next five years to reach £1 billion by 2012, according to consumer market research company Mintel.

Although this is slower than the 140 per cent increase achieved between 2002 and 2007, it is more impressive in a maturing market, and will be driven by a new range of products beyond basic micronutrient and vitamin supplements.

The emerging generation of functional foods will be more complex, taking account of growing knowledge about how different nutrients are absorbed and interact with each other.

Classifying functional foods

To be called functional, a food must provide benefits beyond its immediate nutritional value through additives, such as lowering cholesterol or aiding digestion.

Increasingly these benefits must be proven through scientific research or trials.

Foods that do not have specific additives do not count, no matter how healthy they are, such as salmon, which is rich in omegas.

The effective market in functional foods is therefore larger than it appears from surveys, according to Graham Clayton, commercial director of the Food Chain Centre of Industrial Collaboration at the University of Leeds.

People are switching to healthy foods such as salmon in order to benefit from the ingredients they contain.

Clayton points out that the cost of establishing claims of benefits in order to register them on the packaging means that some truly functional foods are not classified as such.

Manufacturers are instead relying on public knowledge.

“For example Pocari Sweat in the Far East makes no on-pack claims but is known by everyone to be an isotonic health drink for the many benefits which the public is aware of from published research - known as 'claims by association',” said Clayton.

UK draws on biotech expertise

The UK has the growing sophistication required to develop the functional foods demanded by an increasingly health conscious and medically aware consumer.

Clayton said: “Functional foods are an obvious target sector for the UK food industry under such cost pressures. Add to this of course the UK’s huge depth of expertise available in commercial and industrial laboratories and the development of these products is very feasible.”

The UK’s strength in functional foods is based on the opportunities there for exploiting due to the large biotechnology base, as well as a combination of innovation, industrial expertise and efficiency.

In particular there is the ability to make the most of the raw ingredients both inland and around the shores.

A good example is Ocean Biotechnologies, which extracts Omega-3 oils along with high-value protein products from fish and shellfish processing waste streams.

The UK leads the European functional foods field by a long way, however you want to measure it

Iain Cloughley

Ocean Biotech

The UK has become a leading centre for sustainable aquaculture as a whole, with functional foods such as Ocean Biotech’s fish oil products playing a growing role, according to the company’s head Iain Cloughley.

“The UK leads the European functional foods field by a long long way however you want to measure it,” said Cloughley.

“We have a tradition of original thinking which I think puts us ahead of everyone else, and what’s good is that in the last few years this has been transferred into companies and commercial reality.”

New opportunities

This all comes at a time when the functional food field itself is undergoing a sea change through exploiting new knowledge of gene and protein interactions.

In future it will be possible to design foods, like medicines, for specific needs, and fit them into personalised diets that cater for an individual’s particular constitution.

The functional food field […] is undergoing a sea change through exploiting new knowledge of gene and protein interactions

The field is maturing beyond basic and sometimes unproven supplements to one of delivering more subtle benefits that aid absorption of nutrients, and prevent a range of conditions relating to energy metabolism, such as diabetes.