Eat Up

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Consumer education and changing lifestyles are driving growth in the functional foods industry.

Nutraceuticals and functional foods represent a growing industry, providing consumers with food conveniently enhanced with vitamins and nutrients.
A 2002 report written on behalf of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada titled Potential Benefits of Functional Foods and Nutraceuticals to the Agri-Food Industry in Canada estimates that demand for nutraceuticals and functional foods in Canada ranges from $1 to $2 billion, depending on how the industry is defined.
It further estimates that between $300 million and $1 billion of farm production value goes toward supplying ingredients for this industry.

Driving Innovation:
Jerome Konescni, a member of the board for Ag-West Bio Inc. (Saskatoon, SK) and president of Genome Prairie says there are many reasons why the functional foods industry is growing.
“There’s a number of things that have been happening in terms of the research community and in terms of trends in the industry. For example, the elimination of hydrogenated fats is made law in Canada. This is an example of a regulatory change or government interventions that have changed the food ingredients segment,” he says.

But industry isn’t the only one pushing the functional food trend, Konescni notes. Consumer demand also comes into play.
“Consumers are certainly more intelligent and more aware . . . of issues of saturated fats, of hydrogenated fats, and they also see the need for more fibre in their diet and the benefits of healthy ingredients like omega-3,” Konescni says.
“People want healthier food, but they still want convenience and they still want good taste, so the challenge for the food industry is how can we make food healthier and yet still maintain the taste and convenience that people have become accustom to,” he says. “(It) creates a tremendous opportunity for innovation and new technologies and new ingredients.”

Eggs-tra Special:
Companies such as Burnbrae Farms Ltd. (Lyn, ON) are doing exactly that — innovating the way we eat.
Burnbrae has a history in farming that traces back more than a century, and took it’s first foray into functional foods with the introduction of its first enhanced egg product in 1996.
Margaret Hudson, co-owner and vice-president of Sales and Marketing, says the company decided to move into fortified food in part because of an overall decline in egg consumption.

“The egg category . . . had been declining since the 1970s,” she says. “Partially due to changing lifestyles, changing role of women in the household. If you go back, we were more of a farming society, people needed the big breakfast to power the day because it was very physical. We’ve become a lot less physical in our day-to-day work overall, and people just aren’t eating as many eggs.”
Another factor that has a significant impact on egg consumption is what Hudson calls the “cholesterol myth.”
“This whole concept that the average person should stop eating eggs because they have cholesterol has been completely (refuted),” she says.

Regardless of the reason, Hudson says the decline provided the company with the chance to create new products. Pair that with Husdon’s own personal interest in health and the desire to address the issue that Canadians lack certain nutrients, and you’ve got the new face of Burnbrae.
The company has several different products currently on the market, including its Naturegg Omega 3 shell egg, and its Naturegg Break Free Omega 3 liquid egg.
Omega-3 is a fatty acid commonly found in oily fish, such as salmon and tuna, as well as flaxseed oil. Studies suggest that omega-3 reduces the risk of heart disease.
Hudson says that putting omega-3 into eggs is easy to do: it all comes down to what you feed the chickens.

“The chicken has this great ability to (add) the nutrients from the foods that you feed her . . . into her eggs,” Hudson says. In this case, Burnbrae chickens are fed flaxseed.
Hudson says the benefit of adding these vitamins and nutrients to eggs has to do with convenience and preference.
“My husband won’t take a pill,” she says. “A lot of people don’t eat fish because they hate to prepare it and they don’t like the taste of it. So people aren’t getting these nutrients for a reason.”

Probiotics:
Gregor Reid, PhD, director of the Canadian Research and Development Centre for Probiotics (London, ON) agrees that people are growing tired of taking medication.
“Some consumers prefer to take things as a food,” he says, which in turn represents a changing attitude about health and wellness.
“People are getting fed up with the side-effects of drugs, the cost of drugs and waiting to get sick,” Reid says.
Along with consumer demand and growing scientific evidence that supports functional foods, Reid says the industry is growing because people are taking a more natural approach to their health.
This inclination toward natural products plays into Reid’s own research into probiotics.

Probiotics are defined as live micro-organisms that, when administered in adequate amounts, confer health benefits on the host, he explains.
Reid began working in the area of probiotics in the early 1980s, originally looking to reduce the number of urinary tract infections women suffered. This research expanded to include other types of infection, such as vaginal infection, and later digestive problems.
While his lab currently has a probiotic on the market in an oral tablet form, it is also conducting research into the inclusion of probiotics in yogurt. A current project is studying the effects of probiotics in yogurt in treating diarrhea in AIDS patients in Nigeria.

Though probiotics can be taken in various forms, such as orally
or topically, putting them in food products can carry specific benefits, Reid explains.
“The problem with an organism like lactobacilli or bifida bacterium, they’re quite difficult to grow and they don’t necessarily survive a long time,” he says. “So if it goes into a food, it needs to be a food that people will consume within a relatively short period of time.”
With an approximate 42-day shelf life, yogurt is a very convenient vehicle.
Unfortunately, Reid says that despite the fact that many yogurts claim to contain probiotics, consumers might be easily be duped. Because Health Canada does not define what is and isn’t a probiotic, many companies sell products that might not actually provide any benefits.
“Most of the products in Canada are not probiotics,” Reid says.
Though smaller companies may claim they cannot afford to carry out clinical trials, Reid says it is essential in determining if a product confers a health benefit.

“By selling it, and taking advantage of the terminology, the onus is on them to do the trials and show that they have value in a certain area,” he says.
For now, consumers will have to continue educating themselves, and unfortunately, live with some uncertainty when it comes to particular functional foods.
Despite this, Reid says it is an industry that will continue to grow.

“If you look at Loblaws today compared to 10 years ago, it’s almost night and day . . .The types of products, many are built around some sort of functional food — even if it’s milk with added vitamins, butter that is low in cholesterol, chips that don’t have trans fat,” Reid says.
“I think five years ago I predicted functional foods would eventually be more important than the internet,” he adds. “I think it’s going to be a major part of the future.”