Functional foods are establishing themselves as part of the food market. But while some products, like plant stanol ester, have well known benefits, others need more research to show they are worthwhile. And food companies who don’t invest time in explaining their product to consumers risk failure, say the experts. Chris Lyddon reports.
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Food is getting cleverer and the level of knowledge is increasing. “Food scientists are finding more and more things out about how foods work,” Dr Frankie Phillips, nutritionist at the British Nutrition Foundation, told just-food.com. But functional foods had been around for a long time. “There is a whole range of things. Think of digestive biscuits,” she said.
One company with a big functional food launch this year is Coca Cola, with Minute Maid’s Heart Wise orange juice, to be rolled out in stores across the United States during November. But the company was no stranger to functional foods, Ray Crockett, Communications Director of Minute Maid, told just-food.com. “We’ve had a calcium orange juice since 1987,” he said. Since then Minute Maid had launched a calcium orange juice with vitamin D added. “The vitamin D in orange juice serves the same purpose as it does in milk. It enhances the absorption of calcium,” he said. “It’s good for people who don’t like milk, or can’t drink milk for whatever reason.” There was also a Minute Maid orange juice with extra vitamin C, E and zinc, designed to improve general health.
“Heart Wise is the next step in that line,” he said. He would not be drawn on future plans for marketing the new product outside the United States. The product will not be expensive. “We’re line pricing it. We believe the greatest benefit is if we keep it affordable.”
The Minute Maid orange juice uses a phytosterol called CoroWise, produced by Cargill and announced in February of this year.
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By GlobalDataStrong evidence on phytosterols
Dr Toni Steer, nutritionist at Britain’s Medical Research Council agreed that the evidence on phytosterols was strong. “They’ve been through rigorous human trials. They do reduce plasma cholesterol. You’ve reduced your risk of getting cardio-vascular heart disease,” she told just-food.com.
Much less rigorous research had been done on things like yoghurt containing probiotic bacteria. “There’s a lot of historic evidence going back to the start of the last century that people in various countries consuming live yoghurt seemed to live longer,” she said. “We know it seems to be good for gastro intestinal health. But there isn’t the trial to show that yes, it does reduce the risk of intestinal cancer.”
The problem was that the reduction in risk had not been quantified. “You can’t say to people that if you eat probiotic yoghurt you will reduce cancer risk by so much.”
One product being researched is Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA). “It’s been demonstrated in rats and mice and it seems to affect body mass, but so far there’s been no human trial,” she said.
“The other one now that there really is good evidence for is consumption of soya protein,” she said. “There’s a lot of good epidemiological evidence and human trials to show that consuming soya protein actually does help.” In the UK the Joint Health Claims Initiative (JHCI) has approved the following statement to be used for some foods containing soya protein: “The inclusion of at least 25g of soya protein per day, as part of a diet low in saturated fat, can help reduce blood cholesterol levels.”
Dr Steer also singled out lycopene, the antioxidant which makes tomatoes red. It reduces cancer or cardiovascular disease. Work was already going on into increasing the lycopene content of tomato products like paste, but scientists were interested in including it in other products. “There’s a lot of interest in people putting these phytochemicals into food products,” she said. “It’s still very much in the idea stage. The question is whether if you take these compounds out of their original source, do you stop them having the advantages for health.”
According to H J Heinz, 37.3% of consumers have heard of lycopene, compared with 6.5% five years ago. Heinz showcased its health benefits at the 2003 American Dietetic Association Food and Nutrition Conference in October.
Communication crucial
The big issue with functional foods was how to communicate the health benefits, said Dr Steer. “Getting people to understand what you’re offering is quite difficult. You’re reducing a long term risk.” People wanted to know whether a particular product would stop them getting a particular disease. “We can only say it will reduce your risk,” she said. “You’re asking people to consume these products as part of their long term diet to get the benefit.”
That meant the consumer spending a lot of money. “When you consider that they’re quite expensive it’s a tall order to get people to buy into them,” she said. One noted failure in the UK had been Novartis’s Aviva range. “They were very expensive and people didn’t perceive a need for them. People didn’t understand what they were buying.”
Cholesterol reducing spreads like Benecol or Flora Pro-Activ did appear to have an effect on people with raised cholesterol. “If you’re in that situation I expect you’d probably pay for them,” she said.
Customers want to live longer
Dairy farmer Michael McGirr was sure why functional foods sell. “We’ve got an aging population and increased wealth,” he told just-food.com. “There’s a desire to live longer and make up for their sins in the past.” McGirr has just finished a study of the sector under the auspices of the Nuffield Farming Scholarships Trust. It involved visits to Japan and the USA, two dairy importers with affluent populations, and New Zealand and Australia, both innovative dairy product exporters. “My goal was to raise awareness that these things are there,” he told just-food.com. In the report on his study he put the value of the market at US$7-10bn a year.
“Functional foods tend to appeal to a lot of people in cities,” he said. “They sell well in New York or the urban areas of Japan. People drink products like Yakult or Actimel on the go.” CLA was an example of how milk could be manipulated to perform a particular function.
McGirr, whose interest centres on added value dairy products, cites bovine colostrum milk, collected from large dairy farms during the calving season, as one example of a food with high perceived health benefits. It had to be collected during the first 24 hours after calving when it contains the highest concentration of immune and growth factors and digestive inhibitors. “Since the SARS outbreak the colostrum price is up by 500%,” he said. “Fonterra has made an absolute killing.”
Pointing out Japan’s lead in functional foods, he berated European dairy processors for missing the market. “Japan is now one of New Zealand’s biggest customers for milk products,” he said. “We lost a huge market then.”
One of the oldest functional foods is a Japanese success story; Yakult, established in 1935. “In some countries outside Japan it’s been marketed successfully for over 30 years,” Yakult’s Jim Munday told just-food.com. UK sales had grown to £29m (US$49.2m) a year since its launch in 1996.
Like Toni Steer, he stressed the need to explain the product to consumers. “It’s been backed by considerable advertising and investment in education of both the trade and consumers,” he said.
A great advantage was that it was sold in addition to the customer’s everyday diet. “It’s attractive to retailers as it’s something in addition to their normal offering,” he said. “If you just say “buy mine instead of his,” it’s a problem. With Yakult it’s a totally new product which means additional sales for the retailer as well.”
