Foods and strategies to enhance nutritional health for people on a low budget
On 2nd July 2014 experts from across Europe gathered at the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts, Brussels, to listen to the final results from the CHANCE project, as well as presentations from external nutrition experts, at the conference: 'Targeting at risk-of-poverty populations in Europe with affordable and nutritionally enhanced food products'.
CHANCE, a three-and-a-half year research initiative comprised of academics, food and drink industry representatives and SMEs aimed to address poor nutrition of European citizens living on a low budget.
At the conference, invited speaker Andreu Palou, General Director of the Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Nutrition and Biotechnology from the University of Balearic Islands, emphasised the importance faced by the new challenges in food and nutrition, which are chronic diseases and well-being. One of the main outcomes of CHANCE is the creation of nutritionally enhanced food prototypes for people at risk-of-poverty.
Low cost ingredients, containing nutrients, which are lacking in people's diets, and lower-cost packaging were used in the production of CHANCE food products; therefore making them cheaper to produce. For example, a bread was developed with a special soybean ingredient increasing its fibre, mineral, protein and vitamin content. A tomato ketchup, pizza, ham, cheese, bread loaf and a variety of blueberry-based products were developed by the project.
To understand how these products would fare on the market, the CHANCE foods were subjected to a number of economic and sensory tests, such as their appearance, smell, taste and texture to evaluate product competitiveness against leading brands. These tests showed that the CHANCE products were indistinguishable in taste compared to current brand-leading products.
"CHANCE outputs could be further exploited by the food industry and our conference served as a specific forum where scientists, stakeholders and opinion leaders met to discuss future strategies," said Francesco Capozzi and Alessandra Bordoni – joint coordinators of CHANCE.
CHANCE researchers also explored the barriers towards healthy eating, and concluded, based on surveys of over 1,000 consumers, and interviews with 32 small-and-medium-sized enterprises and 21 retailers across five European countries, that one of the main barriers is lack of knowledge about healthy foods. Healthier foods are perceived as both expensive to purchase and to produce and are less tasty.
"Low-cost healthy food products compete with less healthy foods, which are often cheaper for the consumers and have a higher financial return for the food industry," said Antonella Samoggia, a CHANCE project economist at the University of Bologna, Italy.
Nutritionally enhanced food products will not just aid those at risk-of-poverty. Results from the project show that saturated fats, salts and sugars are too high in the population as a whole and important fibre, vitamins and minerals are lacking in people's diets.
Researchers from the project recommend that healthy eating initiatives and schemes are developed and promoted, such as cookery classes for all ages, and that there is a greater provision of healthy ready-to-eat lunches and snacks. The food industry is aware that risk-of-poverty consumers are an increasing market segment to be targeted with tailored, nutritionally enhanced foods.
A further study using recruited participant income and analysing urine sample data could not accurately predict healthy eating behaviour or clearly identify if a participant was in the risk-of-poverty group or the affluent group. Nutritional issues are common to both groups of people.
Provided by EUFIC - European Food Information Council
