Amid all the whingeing about Europe's Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that this much-maligned piece of legislation could open a lot of doors that are currently slammed shut, says Dr Peter Olesen.
Consumers in Finland, the UK and The Netherlands might be bombarded with claims about cholesterol reduction and friendly bacteria, says Chr Hansen's quietly spoken research and development (R&D) chief. However, companies trying to market functional foods in many Member States have spent years battling against draconian national restrictions.
Indeed, in Denmark, the very prospect of a positive list of generally accepted health claims that will override national restrictions - the core of the Regulation - is positively fantastic news, says Olesen. "We've never had health claims in Denmark as the authorities won't allow anything, so anything that harmonises rules across Europe is great news."
With a couple of notable exceptions, it's the ingredients companies rather than consumer product manufacturers that are driving innovation in the food industry today, claims Olesen. "The big manufacturers are becoming increasingly focused on their retail customers and rely on their suppliers to innovate. We are expected to present manufacturers with a suite of innovative ideas to play with. It's our job to look out there and ask what society will want and need in the future."
Meanwhile, competition can come from unexpected places, adds Olesen.
There are big bucks to be made from health and wellness, and several previously discrete sectors (pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, food and drink, diagnostics) are now starting to converge and compete in order to cash in, he says. "Big pharma wants a slice of the preventative health market, and that includes food and drink."
As for geographical competition, Europe and Japan might currently lead the field in functional foods, but China is rapidly catching up, says Olesen, who dreamed of being a plant biologist when he was growing up. His wish came true: several years later he was heading up plant biotechnology research at Danisco, where he eventually went on to become vice president of R&D. "We were trying to regenerate new sugar beet and oilseed rape plants from a single cell; it was very exciting." After two years at Sandoz Seeds and four at Copenhagen Pectin, he went on to join Danish cultures, enzymes, colours and flavours supplier Chr Hansen in 2000.
The process of being scrutinised by private equity group PAI, which acquired the ingredients business of Chr Hansen in summer 2005, forced everyone to think more strategically about where the business was going, says Olesen. "You get to know your business really well when someone wants to buy it! Instead of having a horizontal approach, with research, development and applications, we decided to take a new approach and created a core research group, then made product divisions in each area that did development and application work together."
There are huge potential growth opportunities in starter cultures for cheese and yoghurts, he says. "Only a third of cheese firms are using professional starter cultures in their cheese vats - there's a huge market still to play for."
In core research, Chr Hansen is focused on two major areas. "The first is functional genomics and cultures - moving even more deeply into bacterial strains, identifying new functionalities, molecular biology. We have the genes sequenced for all our major cultures now. The second major area for research is healthy functionality."
THE FUTURE OF PROBIOTICS
Probiotics will develop in two waves, predicts Olesen. "The first will address gut diseases such as colitis and irritable bowel syndrome and Crohn's disease; the second will seek to tackle inflammation as the underlying cause of a range of diseases from obesity to arthritis and atherosclerosis."
However, more work is still needed to develop appropriate delivery vehicles for friendly bacteria, he says. "We need a breakthrough in micro-encapsulation if we are really to broaden applications. A fat matrix is ideal because you can exclude oxygen and water. Cereals can be a problem because you have intermediate water activity, which is the worst thing you can have with freeze-dried bacteria."
For cardiovascular health, another area of interest at Chr Hansen, dairy has a lot more to offer, predicts Olesen. "Milk proteins are very interesting. Our research programme on starter cultures and enzymatic functions has found strains able to make enzymes that degrade milk proteins into peptides and amino acids that can regulate blood pressure. We've done some animal studies and seen good effects." The results of human clinical studies will be available shortly, he says.
The fact that Unilever's foray into blood pressure regulation products under the pro.activ brand was not a resounding success has not put him off. "I wouldn't be surprised if Unilever came back to this market, but with different claims and new branding.
"My view is that purely technical claims about blood pressure regulation don't really resonate with consumers; whereas if you can get a heart disease risk reduction claim approved [under article 14 of the EU Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation], you might be onto something."
As for cancer, it could be years before scientists are able to make definitive risk reduction claims for foods, says Olesen. "It's a fascinating area of research, but too risky in my opinion. Putting together a convincing scientific dossier (to support a cancer risk reduction claim on a food) could be very difficult."
Results of the EU-funded Syncan project, which investigated whether pro-, pre- and/or synbiotics could reduce the risk of colorectal cancer, were encouraging, he adds.
"However, we still need more studies with larger cohorts of people, which are very hard for one company to fund."
There is greater potential in the study of nutrigenomics, which explores the relationship between diet and genetics, he predicts. "We have been working with the European Nutrigenomics Organisation and TNO (a Dutch not-for-profit organisation that focuses on applied science) for some time. It's a fascinating area. Can you divide populations up into genetic groups like you can with, say, blood groups?
"There will be a business opportunity for some people in providing personalised dietary advice on the back of DNA testing, but for businesses like ours, the opportunity will come from targeting big, well-documented subgroups."
Some of these subgroups are already well documented, says Olesen, who will relinquish his current role in March and assume the new role of chief science officer.
"We already know, for example, that people with a certain SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism - or genetic variation) will send their cholesterol sky high if they eat saturated fat, whereas others can eat it without impacting their cholesterol at all."