Food for mind, body and soul

At a basic level, food is the fuel for the body and a necessity of life. But, if you have a certain personality, lifestyle and attitude, it can be so much more complicated.

Nutritional value is common ground that all food products share, and one that can be measured. At the forefront of consumers' minds is eating the well publicised five portions of fruit and vegetables a day, keeping their salt intake down, watching the amount of saturated fats they consume, counting calories and maintaining a healthy balanced diet.

So in today's demanding world of new product development there are many boxes that need to be ticked at concept stage. Some of these include the nutritional values for front of pack, market positioning, cost, shelf-life expectation and appearance. Once all of these are addressed, taste seems to be the least relevant in the decision-making process, although the talent of a good developer is to satisfy all criteria.

With the current economic climate being so prevalent in the media, people think of value in a monetary way, and in terms of how much they can get for their cash. So we ask: are consumers really willing to trade taste and satisfaction for cost? Well, I guess that all depends on how much our consumers are affected by the credit crunch. It's the food industry's challenge to utilise ingredients and process in order to maximise flavour at minimum cost.

But we cannot overlook the emotional value of food. Consumers seek the feel-good factor, whether it's 'mood food' that improves mental well being on consumption, or the satisfaction of preparing food that is appreciated by others. So supermarkets and retailers may wish to control the value criteria during the development process.

However for me, food value is not all about quantifiable measures - and it would seem that the emotional role that food has in the diet has a big role to play.

Becky Sparks is director and food technologist at Sparkling Innovation r.l.sparks@totalise.co.uk