Down to a science

It goes without saying, that if you want to make a health claim, whether it's on a loaf of bread or a new drug, you should be able to substantiate it. The only problem is that food manufacturers do not make the same margins as drugs companies and 99% cannot afford to pay for clinical trials to prove that new wonder ingredients do what they say on the tin.

This, says ex-Unilever scientist Dr Tim Foster, means that most firms are forced to hang onto the coat tails of the big boys with 'me too' products if they want a slice of the functional foods pie.

If they don't, it's "then a case of looking at what else could be a differentiating factor", says Foster, one of several scientists in the upper echelons of Unilever's R&D department who has recently jumped ship and returned to academia. "Could you do something around demographics, such as food for children or the elderly? Maybe you can focus on carbon footprinting or sustainability, or even allergy-free foods?"

The lucky few that can afford to dabble in functional foods, meanwhile, will increasingly get into bed with firms in pharmaceuticals and personal care as the boundaries between food, medicine and cosmetics blur, predicts Foster, who became associate professor and reader in food structure at Nottingham University (UK) late last year after 15 years at Unilever.

Foster, who has a PhD in the structuring capability of xanthan gum, landed his first job at Unilever fresh from university. After a couple of years looking at the mobility of polymers like pectin in plant cell walls, he secured a job with chief scientist Dr Ian Norton and started his rapid ascent up Unilever's ranks. By 1996, he was running the entire biopolymers group, "a great opportunity for someone so young, but a big responsibility". Just two years later, he was heading up a project looking at new opportunities to structure the aqueous phase of spreads, which involved a crash course in researching and applying for patents.

While the reorganisation of Unilever's R&D function resulted in some high profile departures in 2005/6 (notably that of Dr Norton), Foster stayed on board and moved to the new R&D base in Vlaardingen, the Netherlands, to set up a group exploring how Norton's 'microstructure' approach to food science could be used to optimise the delivery of taste, flavour and aroma as well as bioactives further down the GI tract.

After two years, however, it was time for a change, says Foster, who is now learning how to negotiate the relationship between industry and academia from the other side of the fence. "That's part of the challenge of my new job. I am still finding the different funding ponds to fish in. I need to be aware of the changing needs of industry, but I'm also wary of industry-sponsored research. You have to be morally selective in what you do and try not to sell your soul."

Indeed, part of his remit now "is to ask the questions that industry is not asking", because its projects are only funded if they are likely to deliver concrete returns to shareholders, he says. Academics, by contrast, can afford to be less risk averse. "We need to look at the known unknowns. Imagine you sell cleaning products and self-cleaning surfaces suddenly take the market by storm. Where will that leave your business? Can you spot the missile that's going to come at you from the side?"

Foster's primary interest today is in increasing food quality and sensory perception, and optimising the delivery of bioactive ingredients. This is not just about 'magic molecules', he says, "but understanding how they are delivered to the right place in the body such that they are as efficacious as possible. You need to ask, what is the molecule? Will it sit in my aqueous or my fat phase? What structures do I have to design so it's delivered in the right place? How do I process my product to make sure the molecule is stable?"

Frustratingly, thanks to the bewilderingly anti-scientific rhetoric adopted by many food marketers at the moment, few people realise how important a role food scientists could play in tackling obesity and improving public health, says Foster.

"There is an awful lot of scientific understanding involved in making food with less fat, salt or sugar, or bioactive ingredients. If we want these foods, we need people who know about the building blocks of fats, sugars and proteins and how to put them together."

The Chinese and Japanese, he says, have no such qualms about people in white coats, and are churning out food science graduates by the bucketload. If we don't start inspiring more of our own students to get their lab coats on soon, he says, we could well be left behind.

"I spent a month in Japan 11 years ago, and I saw things then that are only hitting the EU market now!"