The future of foods for health looks promising with abundant opportunities arising from a focus on ingredient functionality for health or on health states. A triangle of science, health claim marketing, and consumer demand is discussed. Each component shows solid growth and staying power for the market's future. The forefront of science in nutrition, food technology and agriculture embraces nanotechnology and nutragenomic exploration, and, the application of patents to food processing and food packaging. Across the dimensions of discovery, development, regulation, and market performance nutraceuticals and functional foods continue to advance. This spectrum of activity vividly demonstrates the strong future for nutraceutical and nutritional products, as ingredient discovery continues to focus, and, consumers advance in their sophistication of products.
A potent triangle of science, health claim marketing, and customer demand creates dynamic market opportunities for new food product innovation and introduction. Previously, limited to dietary supplement products, new and unusual active ingredients for health promotion are now being formulated into conventional foods. The new creativity in product formulation for health benefits traces to the accelerated activity in nutrition research advancing discovery, recent expansion of regulatory options for ingredient approval, a focus on health claim marketing tactics and consumer interest. This triangle of science, health claim marketing, and consumer demand creates a powerful growth strategy for the food and nutritional industries. Revised Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulatory criteria now make this more achievable in the US. Notably, the new guidelines for Qualified Health Claims suggest a divergence in Qualified Health Claim usage, promoting both strong science-based `Health Delivery' positions as well as marketing enhanced `Health Halo' positions for products.
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