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with products such as Warburtons' omega-3 enriched Good Health Loaf for Women and Allied Bakeries' Burgen Cholessterol withdrawn due to disappointing sales.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.

The Euro 57bn European meat products market is a very important one for the region's food manufacturing and ingredients industries.

While most firms are still trying to get across singular functional food messages, such as heart or brain health, one expert is confident that consumers are ready for a more complex message.

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.

People who write popular books about diet and health are often crusaders so convinced they have discovered the secret to battling the bulge or improving health, they feel an overwhelming desire to spread the word.

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.

Has the European Commission gone loco with its organic logo plans? Certainly, many of the leading champions of the organic movement believe that it has gone completely off the rails if it thinks they will support its plans for a new EU-wide standard logo. They also allege it is undermining the credibility and integrity of the organic tag.

Over recent years there have been several reports of suspected fraud in the supply of olive oil. In March 2008, the Italian police arrested 23 people and raided more than 80 farms after claims that low quality olives from around the Mediterranean had been processed and passed off as a superior Italian product.

DMV International has launched a new vegetable-based powdered topping suitable for use in ice creams, aerated instant desserts and bakery applications. Aerion DP 90 is free of hydrogenated fat.

Cognis Nutrition & Health is marketing a liquid form of Tonalin, its brand of the weight management ingredient, conjugated linoleic acid. Tonalin can be taken from the bottle or diluted in a drink.

Israeli firm Solbar Industries has launched a low-sodium 90% isolated soy protein. The firm maintains that it can reduce typical sodium levels in its soy isolate to 300mg/100g.

French plant extract company Naturex is marketing a patented hops extract that is said to reduce the effects of the menopause. Two placebo-controlled clinical trials indicated that taking 120mg of Lifenol per day for six weeks significantly reduces hot flushes.

Ingredients firm Synergy has launched a line of sweetness boosters for dairy applications. The range enhances natural sugar perception, while delivering a fruit flavour profile. It allows manufacturers to reduce the added sugar content in dairy products and improve flavour.

The global popularity of the cranberry continues with 223 new cranberry-based product launches reported by Mintel in the first quarter of 2008. This follows 900 new product launches for 2007, up from 54 in 2006.

Healthy lipids firm Lipid Nutrition has produced a powdered version of its appetite suppressant ingredient PinnoThin. Derived from pine nuts, PinnoThin is claimed to stimulate the appetite-suppressing hormones CCK and GLP-1.

Always famed for its health-giving qualities, the nutritional content of the apple is now being heralded as an elixir of beauty and slimming aid by the French nutraceutical firm Val de Vire Bioactives.

Vollmond lager is not your average beer. Made in the Swiss Alps by Suisse Connection and recently launched in the UK, the beer is brewed according to biodynamic farming principles, which means it is brewed only on the night of the full moon.

The latest chefs' council event run by flavours giant Givaudan in Barcelona has generated scores of ideas that utilise ideas from the world's leading chefs.

General Mills is taking a more targeted approach to open innovation as its worldwide innovation network (G-WIN) celebrates its first anniversary.

A New Zealand-based firm is hoping to take the European market by storm with a herb native to the country that boasts strong anti-fungal qualities.

Worryingly for companies that are plugging fibres as the hottest healthy ingredient on the block, UK consumers at least do not seem to be getting the message.

Inflamed situation

Wisdom used to be thought to increase with time so society would progressively benefit from the synergistic accumulation of the sum of its parts. However, recent issues and "initiatives" appear to challenge this philosophy.

The annex of nutrition claims permitted under the Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation will be reviewed in the third quarter of this year, raising hopes that some glaring omissions in the list could be addressed.

Consumers in different parts of Europe like to talk about gut health in very different ways, according to a new survey commissioned by ingredients giant Syral.

GlaxoSmithKline is confident that it will not fall foul of the nutrient profiling clause in the Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation with its new Lucozade Alert drink.

Nestlé will open a new research and development (R&D) centre in Beijing in July, housing more than 80 scientists.

Omega-3 fish oil suppliers are hopeful that a compromise will be struck this month that will end a legal dispute threatening fish oil supplies into the EU.

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is actively seeking partnerships with entrepreneurs, academics, suppliers or other third parties to develop brands like Ribena, Horlicks and Lucozade as it builds an open innovation platform.

The big guns in confectionery will start lobbying in earnest this summer in a bid to prevent the nutrient profiling system in the EU Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation from killing off the European functional chocolate market.

Martek Biosciences will conduct a new clinical study into the effects of the omega-3 fatty acid DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) on cognitive function in children, bosses have confirmed.

The company behind the Novel Food application for pulp from the baobab tree is preparing a second application to gain approval to market oil from the marula tree in food in the EU.

Probiotics will continue their journey from dairy into a wider range of products - from salad dressings and ice cream to cereals with chocolate - in the next 12 months, according to Lal'Food, the functional food business unit of French ingredients giant Lallemand.

A German firm with one of the world's largest databases of natural products is looking to partner with ingredients firms or food manufacturers seeking biologically-active ingredients from fungi, plants or bacteria.

More than a quarter (26%) of the planet's arable land will have to be devoted to fuel production by 2020 in order to meet current biofuel targets, sending food prices into the stratosphere, alternative energy experts have warned.

Retailers will be forced to think twice before they use emotive, unscientific and inflammatory rhetoric about E-numbers if the UK's second largest grocer loses a landmark case over the sweetener aspartame, according to a leading food safety expert.

Manufacturers have been warned against slashing the quality of ingredients in their products in attempts to offset soaring costs.