When it comes to animal fats, the meat industry has a problem, says Paul Hart, application technologist with Solanic, which makes potato protein. "When you process a pig you need to process all of it to extract maximum value. So you want to do something with the bones (fertiliser); something with the intestines (pet food); and something with the muscle meat - first quality for prime cuts and joints, second quality for hams and processed meats. Then you're down to the mechanically recovered meat and eventually rendered lard."

There has been a lot of consolidation within the European chewing gum sector in the last five to six years, with Cadbury snapping up a raft of smaller producers to strengthen its position in the market. The result has been to push innovation to the next level.

To make functional foods - often bitter or poorly tasting - palatable, the flavourist is charged with somehow disrupting the system, to make the consumer unaware of any off notes.

I t's fat, Jim, but not as we know it. To be precise, it's hard fat (palm, ghee), that has been heated up, infused with fresh herbs, chillies and spices, then cooled back down again. And if one small Lancashire-UK-based firm has its way, it could pave the way for some pretty unusual new premium products.

With the health and wellness megatrend driving growth in probiotics and other health-promoting dairy cultures, the EU's impending Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation is a mixed blessing for the industry. The major players are already working to get their health claims onto the approved list under Article 13 of the legislation. But some of their more cautious dairy customers are delaying the development of new products until they know for sure what they will and will not be able to claim after the regulation comes into force at the end of next year.

Four years ago, functional breads were never going to get off the ground. While probiotic dairy products were proliferating, fortified breads were struggling for survival, with products such as Warburtons' omega-3 enriched Good Health Loaf for Women and Allied Bakeries' Burgen Cholessterol withdrawn due to disappointing sales.

For products which are more body-food than brain-food, ready-to-drink (RTD) sports drinks provide a surprising number of mind-teasing paradoxes in areas from development to marketing.

Green Tea Polyphenols (GTPs) are light green or light yellow powders containing four compounds: catechins, flavones, phenolic acids and anthocyanins. Catechins contain three free states: catechin (C), epicatechin (EC) and epigallocatechin (EGC) and two gallates: epicatechin gallate (ECG) and epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG). EGCG is the most important and most bioactive.

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.

If manufacturers are serious about launching a new food or drink in a major European market, they will probably have to cough up the best part of Euro 10-20M.

Beauty and the feast

Everyone knows that 'an apple a day keeps the doctor away', but not many appreciate the health-giving properties of nuts. Indeed, they are frequently eschewed by consumers - especially women - owing to their high fat and calorie content, although there is extremely strong evidence to substantiate countless health benefits.

If anyone can crack the beauty foods market, Danone can. With Actimel and Activia, the intrepid dairy giant has already shown that it has a knack for identifying an opportunity and turning it into a profitable functional foods category.

Speciality oils are niche products, which are sold in small, often luxuriously packaged, quantities with a higher unit value than the major products in the bulk edible oils trade. But what 'switches us on' to use them? Is it their taste? The perceived health benefits? Or the cachet that accompanies a distinctive name, origin or label?

Salt reduction is big business and it is only going to get bigger as the health and wellness juggernaut continues to pull legislators, consumers and the food industry along in its wake. Companies are already marketing extremely promising flavour enhancers designed to reduce sodium levels without impacting on taste and other functional properties. But there is also more basic research going on into our perception of saltiness, and that research is starting to yield exciting results.

As consumers become more health conscious, food manufacturers are increasingly looking for ways to incorporate ingredients that can deliver health benefits without compromising the taste or performance of their products. Microencapsulation looks set to be the tool of choice.

Remember that packet of lentils gathering dust in the back of your cupboard? Why haven't you opened it? Probably, you just haven't found the right moment. Cooking with dry pulses requires imagination and creativity - not something in ready supply after a hard day at work.

Henry Ford once famously remarked that, if he had asked his customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse. He might have added that, if he had asked his marketing team what they thought their customers wanted, they may well have said the same slow horse with a slightly different coloured forelock.

As wheat prices hurtle skywards, many ingredients firms might be tempted to avoid it at all costs, but ingredients giant Cargill has thrown caution to the wind with a £75M newly converted wheat mill.

Renowned for their ability to ease joint pain, particularly in osteoarthritis of the knee, glucosamine supplements have witnessed healthy sales worldwide. But with a constant stream of new products saturating the market, manufacturers are starting to consider new applications for the amino sugar and the food industry beckons.

I ts leaves had been happily and quietly used for more than two centuries in Latin America as a sweetener and, more recently, in Japan and China as a preservative for pickles and soy sauce.

The health benefits of dietary fibre are well established and the need to include sufficient fibre in the diet is an important aspect of dietary recommendations around the world. So there should be no excuses for not knowing what dietary fibre is and how to eat enough of it as part of a normal, balanced, healthy diet. Well, not really.

When it comes to juices and smoothies in Europe, it's a market of two halves. While western Europe is relying on innovation and premium pricing to bolster stagnant sales, increasingly affluent consumers in the eastern countries are buying more juice, as well as nectars with a higher fruit content.

On the face of it, chocolate is a marketer's dream. Almost everyone likes it and a good proportion of us are mildly addicted. While it faces some flak from the health lobby at a time of spiralling obesity (it packs a hefty punch of saturated fat), the more classy varieties at least try to offset the damage by packing an equally large dose of phytonutrients.

Dismal weather coupled with unprecedented rises in raw materials prices made 2007 a somewhat challenging year for Europe's ice cream manufacturers. Along with other purveyors of so-called junk food, they were also in the firing line as lobbyists looked for someone to blame for the spiralling obesity epidemic.

Applying for a patent is not for the fainthearted. It's complex and time consuming, and like any process involving lawyers, it's not cheap. But hassle and expense aside, protecting your intellectual property could be the best business decision you will ever make, says Devanand Creace, associate at Keltie, a partnership of global patent and trademark attorneys.

Most of the research and development cash spent on nutraceutical product development is driven by marketing goals and the need to comply with regulations about truth in marketing communications, although investing in safety and efficacy data is also on the rise.

Years ago, companies did all their own research and development (R&D) internally, did not need to look outside their four walls for innovation, kept themselves to themselves and did very nicely, thank you.

Following a ruling by the World Trade Organisation in April 2005 that restricted the export of subsidised EU sugar in world markets from 2006 onwards, the EU's Council of Ministers agreed in November 2005 the broad framework for reforms to the Community's sugar regime.

Magnesium is attracting increasing attention in the functional foods and supplements industry. Several human studies have highlighted the beneficial effect of this important mineral on muscle functionality, bone health, hypertension, inflammation, asthma, headaches and even diabetes.

The global market for food ingredient commodities made from fermentation of carbohydrate feedstocks - most notably citric acid and ascorbic acid (vitamin C) - has recently become dominated by supplies from China.

Obesity is almost certainly the single biggest challenge and opportunity for the confectionery industry today. Its prevalence has tripled in many countries in the WHO European region since the 1980s, and the numbers continue to rise at an alarming rate, particularly among children.

It is said, we are what we eat, that is, when we're not busy digging our own grave with a knife and fork. Well, that's never truer for cardiovascular health. The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines cardiovascular disease (CVD) as disorders of the heart and circulatory system, including heart attacks, strokes, high blood pressure and hypertension; and poor diet, among other things, is a major risk factor.

Henry Ford made a car from it. It's used for building materials and biofuel. And it tastes like grass. Yet it seems we in the West cannot eat enough of it.

The image of a woman who stays at home and bakes may seem more than a little outdated to some, but when it comes to the US, home baking ingredients mean big bucks.

Picture this business as a pile of stones, says the chief innovation officer at the world's largest chocolate company. "You pick one up, blow off the dust and realise, oh my God! I'm sitting on a diamond mine!"

No one who watched a recent UK TV documentary that followed in forensic, unflinching detail the humiliating descent into dementia of one ordinary family man can fail to be haunted by the cruel, protracted mind games that Alzheimer's plays on its victims. Nor by the frightening statistic that 60,000 people die from dementia each year in the UK, with many thousands more across Europe.

Antioxidants can help reduce the risk of diseases associated with oxidative stress, from heart attacks, strokes, cancer, diabetes, cataracts, arthritis and Parkinson's to Alzheimer's. And few fruits are packed with as many of these free radical-busters as the humble cranberry. Despite rising prices, cranberries remain the superfruit of choice, and are known to be effective in tackling everything from urinary tract infections to gum disease, helicobacter and pathogens such as E. coli and Salmonella.

The big guns in essential fatty acids will be out in force at FiE. First in the queue to raise the healthy lipid stakes is Kievit, which will be promoting its broad range of encapsulated oils and fats, along with Cognis, which will be showcasing its Omevital high purity omega-3 fish oils, and Lipid Nutrition, which will be highlighting its Marinol fish oil concentrates, which have a clean taste and smell and high stability.

Whether they boost satiety, speed up metabolism, inhibit protein breakdown or block fat absorption, weight management ingredients are great at grabbing the limelight.

Five years ago, few marketers would wax lyrical about protein on the front of their packs unless they were talking to bodybuilders or serious athletes. Today, they are shouting about it from the roof tops. New forms of vegetable protein represent a particularly fertile area of opportunity given that animal protein is becoming increasingly expensive and environmentally costly. Quite apart from this, more user-friendly products are now coming on to the market and clinical studies have revealed a broader range of nutritional benefits.

As pressure to reduce the use of sugar, fat, salt and artificial colours and flavours increases, a host of exhibitors at FiE is offering creative solutions without compromising on taste, texture or appearance. Leading the way is Cargill which will present TexDesign, a new fat replacement system that can help reduce fat in baked goods by up to 50%.

It's good for the gut, good for the immune system, and great at keeping the hunger pangs at bay. What's more, consumers are finally cottoning on to the fact that they are not getting enough. Whether it's derived from corn, apples, sugar beet, peas, oats, larch, barley or chicory, fibre is the hottest ingredient in town.

Your chance to network with a truly international selection of ingredients suppliers and food manufacturers all under one roof, Fi Europe (FiE) is the biggest ingredients show in town.

If enzymes were removed from food manufacturing, many staple products would disappear from retailers' shelves. These handy proteins are used as catalysts in the production of everything from alcoholic drinks to cheese and fruit juice. Perhaps they are best known for quickening the fermentation of beer and wine and improving leavening and freshness in baked goods.

In scientific terms, solubility is a description of the amount of a substance that will dissolve in another substance to form a solution, where a solution is a homogeneous mixture of substances. It is often convenient to create a solution to improve compatibility, aesthetics and bioavailability.

D espite the fact that 80% of the atmosphere we breathe is nitrogen, nature has not blessed us with a convenient molecule to do for nitrogen what haemoglobin does for oxygen - collect, store and circulate it. Thus we need a regular intake of protein to provide vital nitrogen in a convenient form for our metabolism.

Consumers may not be as conscious of it, but texture is as important as taste, smell and appearance when it comes to food appeal. That's why the market for texturising ingredients will continue to enjoy steady growth, according to Dennis Seisun, founder of California-based IMR International, which hosts the Food Hydrocolloid Information Center.

Consumer concern over health and well-being has led to an increasing demand for food products and supplements that offer more than just the basic nutritional benefits. Dietary supplements for gut health, which contain either probiotic or prebiotic ingredients that yield health benefits relating to their interactions with the gastrointestinal tract, are examples.

Having had dramatic success in recent years in the pharmaceutical and dietary supplements market, speciality oils containing omega-3 fatty acids are now poised for a high growth future as functional ingredients in foods and drinks. But how do prospects look on closer examination?

It's low in cholesterol, non-hydrogenated, highly heat stable, and GM-free - that's why not even a 25% price increase in the past 12 months could staunch demand for the world's most prolifically used food oil.

Acrylamide first hit the headlines five years ago when Swedish scientists reported unexpectedly high levels of this potential carcinogen in carbohydrate-rich foods cooked at high temperature.

Certain fruits are undeniably good at grabbing headlines. Packed with antioxidants and fibres and brimming with sex appeal, so-called 'super fruits' - from goji berries to cranberries - are loved by celebrities and nutritionists alike. But will they prove equally adept at demonstrating their myriad health benefits to regulators as the Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation kicks in?

We used to call it puppy fat. If you were a fat toddler, you wouldn't necessarily become a fat adult: now, you probably would," says Dr Atul Singhal, a consultant paediatrician and advisor to the UK's Infant and Toddler Forum, set up last year to supplement health professionals' diet of glossy nutritional advice from manufacturers with some impartial, albeit less consumer-friendly science.

Can we choose to eat foods that will substantially reduce our risk of developing cancer? If so, which foods, which cancers, and what's the evidence? Is it strong enough, for instance, to make a health claim under the new European Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation? Well, not yet. But one day soon, perhaps.

Earlier this year, the European Commission announced its intention to dish out €114M to the Irish government for dairy development projects under its AgriVision 2015 Action Plan. The Republic has spawned an enviable catalogue of home grown talent over the years, such as Glanbia Nutritionals, Carbery Ingredients and Kerry Ingredients, which explains why the EC singled out Ireland for this particular sum. The aim is to position the country at the forefront of added-value dairy products, and that includes improving whey protein concentrate production.

People who eat more whole grain foods are less likely to suffer from coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers. The data supporting this statement are mostly from detailed analyses of large-scale population (epidemiological) studies carried out in the US and Europe, which show very strong inverse relationships between whole grain consumption and risk of disease - in other words the more whole grains consumed, the lower the risk of disease.

Europe might be the biggest market for functional foods in value terms, worth over $90bn and commanding a 39% share of global value sales, but that doesn't mean the market is saturated. The continent has seen sales of functional foods grow by 40% in the last five years, which puts it well ahead of the average and there's still a huge appetitie for innovation.

Set amid acres of farmland in France's Nord Pas-de-Calais region, Roquette's gargantuan starch processing facility in Lestrem dominates the local landscape to such an extent that it has even diverted a river in order to expand its industrial empire.

Diogenes, the Cynic, was a Greek philosopher. Born about 400 years BC, he was a beggar who lived in the streets of Athens and made a virtue of extreme poverty. He is said to have been an austere ascetic, railing against the consumer society of his day, "his clothing of the coarsest, his food the plainest, and his bed the bare ground".

Few market researchers would dispute that 'mood foods' could deliver big bucks for the food industry, says Dr Mike Green, a former clinical psychologist at Unilever. But research in this emerging field is still embryonic, despite a steady stream of product launches claiming to boost children's exam results, calm nerves after a long day, or re-energise weary grey matter.

The statistics are simply staggering: 8,000 functional ingredients approved for use by 400,000 food manufacturers employing 10M distributors to feed 1.3bn people who are buying in to a $12bn health food market. It's a long way from the rice and chopsticks austerity of the Mao era. Today's Beijing shopper might peddle to the local store on one of the city's 9M bikes, but he'll stop for a Starbucks and Big Mac on the way and bring back Yakult with the ginseng root.

Texturising is no longer just a question of improving the sensorial qualities of foods, their ease of manufacture or shelf-life. These factors remain high on the manufacturing agenda, and rightly so, because they are drivers of profitability and consumer taste appeal.

European consumers have an insatiable appetite for dietary supplements despite widespread debate about the benefits - if any - of taking vitamin and mineral supplements, and they are supporting the €4.4bn Western EU market with renewed gusto.

Replacing fats in processed foods isn't easy. The presence of some fat appears to be essential for taste and texture. But fat-based fat replacements, such as Olestra, are not seen as the answer because of their laxative effect and Europe's ingredient suppliers have been left to rely on fat-mimicking carbohydrate- or protein-based replacements. But these don't always deliver either the taste or the texture that consumers want.

Antioxidants are currently under scrutiny as a panacea for health, vitality and anti-ageing: but the generalised ORAC (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity) approach to them is being superseded by an interest in compounds with specific physiological effects.

Since January 2006, when the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) requirement for labelling the trans fats content of food products came into force, there has been a remarkable transformation in the edible oil consumption of Americans. Once it became legally necessary to label for them, food companies did not want to include trans fats on their labels, and so most have opted to eliminate or at least drastically reduce the trans fat content of their products.

Skeletal heath is nothing much to worry about, the odd broken bone, it takes care of itself. But when bones shatter after gentle impacts, something's wrong.

Finland, famous for saunas, Sibelius and the world's most successful mobile phone company, gained a less enviable label in the late 20th century: as the CVD (cardiovascular disease) capital of the world and the reason, in part, lay in the soil.

It is no secret that the European food industry is trailing behind its rivals in terms of research and development (R&D) spend. Figures released by the Confederation of Food and Drink Industries of the EU (CIAA) show that in 2004 European R&D spend, expressed as a proportion of industry turnover, was 0.24%. This compares to 0.35% in the US, 0.40% in Australia, and a whopping 1.21% in Japan, which is famous for its forward-thinking. But, while the pressure is on to keep up with competition, question marks hanging over the credibility of industry-sponsored research could prove to be the food sector's biggest setback.

There's nothing new in using biofuels to power internal combustion engines. As long ago as 1925, Henry Ford predicted "ethyl alcohol [ethanol] is the fuel of the future. There is fuel in every bit of vegetable matter that can be fermented". Even earlier, in 1892, Rudolf Diesel ran his first eponymous engine on peanut oil ? and some 20 years later said: "the use of vegetable oils for engine fuels may seem insignificant today, but such oils may become as important as petroleum and the coal-tar products of the present time."

Feeding your face is big business, with more than 500 new beauty foods and drinks launched globally between January 2004 and September 2006, and double digit compound annual growth in oral beauty supplements since 2000.

Leading the weight management pack is Lipid Nutrition, which will showcasing two major ingredients designed to tackle the rising obesity epidemic: Clarinol CLA and PinnoThin.

Healthy lipids suppliers will top the billing at this year's show.First up is Croda, which is launching Incromega Trio, a new product containing concentrated amounts of EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid), DHA (docosahexaenoic acid), and the less well-known omega-3 fatty acid DPA (docosapentaenoic acid) in a bid to cash in on its unique properties.

While the European market for functional foods remains smaller than many people think, it continues to outperform the food and drinks market as a whole, and bioactive plant extracts are key to its growth.

Vitafoods is celebrating its 10th birthday in style with more than 320 exhibitors plugging their wares at Geneva's Palexpo exhibition centre on May 8-10. Vitafoods has now become the key networking event for companies in the health and wellness market, with last year's event attracting a record 4,800 visitors from more than 76 countries, 82% of whom were at director or chief executive level. Over a third of exhibitors also chose Vitafoods to launch a new product in 2006.

A recent report from market analyst Frost & Sullivan suggests that the top five plant-derived functional food ingredients are carotenoids, isoflavones, phytosterols, polyphenols and vitamin E. And its top 10 hot list of botanicals for delivering them includes blueberries (for protection against liver cancer); cranberries (tooth decay); ginger (cancer); green leafy vegetables (obesity); rhatany root extract (skin care); and tomatoes (for blood pressure).

Flavours research and development (R&D) is being shaped by rapidly growing consumer demand for health and wellbeing products. This poses numerous challenges to flavour houses, which are having to re-engineer many of their formulations around natural ingredients, which are typically more expensive and less consistent in quality.

We've come a long way from saccharin, the first non-food sugar substitute, discovered somewhat by accident back in 1878. Manufacture of this sweetener with a bitter aftertaste began in 1901, and it remained more or less the only 'artificial' sweetener until the 1950s, when along came cyclamates (discovered in 1937), breathing new life into saccharin's future with taste improvements created through synergistic cyclamate/saccharin blends.

Those stunning aerial shots of runners crossing the start line in any of the world's major marathons say it all. Sports nutrition is set to run and run. What once was an elite, specialist area for professional athletes and bodybuilders has evolved into much more of a mass market.

It's 40 years since they burned the bra, but social liberation didn't free women from the tyranny of the female body. Menstruation, pregnancy and menopause with the attendant hormonal havoc wreaked on general good health still come with the territory. As does a streak of pure vanity.