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The future of food

By Mic Dover, 2007-07-26 23:00:00
Originally published in Idealog #10, page 44
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Idealog July/August 2007, page 44. Photo by Tranz/Corbis

The future’s bright, the future’s a personalised smoothie—just tap your genetic code into the virtual grocer. Mic Dover meets the Kiwis who are reinventing what we eat

If you believe the food futurists, 21st-century food is going to be fun, funky and functional. The US Army has developed a sandwich that stays fresh for seven years, and food companies are working on ‘smart nutrient delivery systems’ where nanobots embedded in your nachos will “get the right nutrient to the right gene at the right time”. Functional foods, also known as nutraceuticals, are blurring the traditional dividing lines between food and medicine. A new science has arrived, nutrigenomics—the study of how human genes interact with food, instigated by the Human Genome Project, the DNA knowledge explosion that also brought us designer drugs and cosmeceuticals.

This makes previous talk about ‘convergence’ (such as between computers and telecomms) seem clunky in comparison. New convergence is happening at the cellular level—like L’Oréal working with Nestlé to produce foods that will “improve the quality of skin, hair and nails by supplying nutrients essential to your physiology”.

Picture this: you’re browsing a virtual supermarket, picking out grocery items with your data glove from the comfort of your favourite armchair. You touch a virtual yoghurt pot and your computer automatically compares your DNA profile with the yoghurt’s ingredients. The yoghurt glows green—meaning ‘safe to buy’. Less healthy products glow amber while complete ‘no-nos’ for your genotype glow bright red and are extremely reluctant to jump into your shopping trolley. For those of us who prefer to visit the supermarket in person, personalised ‘geno-goggles’ do the same job.

That scene from the future seems entirely probable to Dr Jim Kaput, senior molecular biologist at California Davis University’s Centre of Excellence in Nutritional Genomics. Kaput is recognised as one of the world’s leading nutrigenomics scientists in the field of ‘polymorphisms’—naturally-occurring variations in the body’s DNA sequences.

These variations explain why different people respond differently to the environment, he says. There’s a saying that ‘genes may load the gun but environment pulls the trigger’—but scientists admit they still don’t know exactly what sets off these little health triggers.

“This is the task that faces nutrigenomics,” says Kaput. “But I’m sure your GP will one day look at your genetic profile to design you a customised diet. It’s not a question of if, but when.”

Our academic community is already on the case. Fifty-five New Zealand-based scientists are collaborating on research into inflammatory bowel disease, looking at what’s happening genetically in plants all the way up the food chain to humans. One of these scientists is Lynette Ferguson, head of nutrition at the University of Auckland and programme leader of the New Zealand Centre for Research Excellence in Nutrigenomics. She’s more bullish than Kaput on timescales.

“The science is accelerating at a rate we didn’t envisage a couple of years ago. I think two or three years from now we could see smoothie-like products geared to specific chronic diseases. Eventually, I can see nutrigenomic juice bars where we’ll just dial-up personalised drinks on the spot, based on our individual human barcodes.”

But the science isn’t quite there yet. “Identifying genes that cause chronic disease will be challenging because of the complexity of genotypes, diets and their interactions,” says Kaput. “It’s doable but it may require a nutrigenomics research programme on the scale of the Human Genome Project to realise the vision.”

Can New Zealand businesses join the scientists as world players in this field? Auckland-based nutrition expert Julian Mellentin thinks so, but he worries that some Kiwi companies “struggle to think beyond the farm gate. There’s a lot of science and production but not enough brand development.”

One company Mellentin admires is Auckland nutraceuticals manufacturer Vital Foods, which produces a range of products based on kiwifruit extracts that relieve common gastrointestinal complaints. The company’s first success story was Kiwi Crush, a kiwifruit juice product that has been extremely successful, especially in hospitals, and has recently broken into both the Japanese and Chinese markets.

Vital Foods is backed by Australasian venture firm BioPacific Ventures together with Swiss venture capital firm Inventages and New Zealand’s Seeka Kiwifruit Industries. Their combined investment is funding clinical trials of Vital Foods’ range of products for digestive disorders and expanding its international marketing.

“Our products build on the long history of kiwifruit health benefits, especially for digestive complaints, but to grow the business internationally we need much more informative science to support the brands,” says CEO Trevor Wilkinson. “Being based in New Zealand has worked well for Vital Foods—we have ample local supplies of our key raw material, access to world-class biotech research facilities and there is good support available from the government for developing businesses like ours.”

So is nutrigenomic shopping coming to a supermarket near you? “Not yet,” says Mellentin. “The big problem is that most diet-related diseases are found in the lower-income groups. But when you target those diseases with products like Tip Top’s Up White Omega-3 DHA bread, they cost more. The food industry doesn’t work like electronics—mass production doesn’t lower the unit cost of the ingredients.”

In New Zealand, the nutraceuticals industry focuses on products like mussel powder, fish oils, dairy products, bee and honey products, deer by-products, essential oils, herbs and vitamin or mineral dietary supplements, as well as the ‘improvement’ of traditional products like fruit and vegetables. A recent survey by Investment New Zealand identified 128 Kiwi companies involved in nutraceuticals, of which 49 planned to launch new products in 2006–7.

Companies like HortResearch and Crop & Food Research can combine a huge horticultural research knowledge base with modern biotech expertise to produce new, healthier fruit and vegetables. Dr Julian Heyes, the leader of the plant and food composition team at Crop & Food, is involved in Vital Vegetables, a trans-Tasman research project investigating the phytochemicals in vegetables. It’s thought that phytochemicals protect against metabolic syndrome—a cluster of risk factors that predispose people to heart disease, type-2 diabetes and some cancers.

The researchers are studying phytochemicals in broccoli, capsicum, watercress and tomatoes with the aim of creating new, ‘high-health’ vegetable products. Heyes believes we’ll see serious, science-backed nutrigenomics products on sale “in perhaps three to five years’ time”.

But is the media buzz about nutraceuticals and nutrigenomics based on reality? Or is it being generated by food companies that see these developments purely as marketing features providing a competitive edge? Heyes thinks most innovation in food products is driven by smart companies that recognise a market niche.

“The science is accelerating at a rate we didn’t envisage. In two or three years we could see smoothie-like products geared to specific diseases. Eventually, I can seee nutrigenomic juice bars where we’ll just dial-up personalised drinks based on our indicidual human barcodes”

Dr Ian Ferguson, chief scientist at HortResearch, agrees. His work is driven by the need to produce ‘new’ fruit and vegetables that can compete with a steady stream of novel processed foods. “Apple consumption is declining globally. Fruit as a convenience food has to compete with a muesli bar, and apples and pears have been around a long time—it’s easy for consumers to consider them old hat,” says Ferguson.

The kiwifruit is a classic example of novelty winning new markets and a great deal of research takes place in New Zealand in the quest for a similar market winner. HortResearch is currently experimenting with a cross between a crisp, juicy Chinese pear and a flavoursome European one, as well as a new red-fleshed apple. Red flesh indicates a high concentration of anthocyanin—an antioxidant known to offer health benefits. There are rumours of ongoing work to commercialise a red-fleshed kiwifruit.

Research shows that consumers are willing to pay more for fruit with novel colours, tastes or added health benefits—a lesson learned from Zespri Gold, the vibrant yellow-fleshed kiwifruit. Ferguson’s work includes research into argutas (a grape-sized kiwifruit variant) to produce a snack-sized kiwifruit with an edible skin, in a range of colours with optimised health properties.

Another growing area of interest for HortResearch and Nestlé is mood management. Omega-3 DHA is an ingredient with a big role in the mood food market, but new ingredients are also being explored for their brain health benefits. Apparently, the names of ingredients such as the amino acid GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid), PS (phosphatidlyserine) and L-theanine will soon be happily tripping off our tongues as we learn how to improve our mental wellbeing by eating functional mood food.

Classifying the gene pool 

Once you start designing foods and drugs for specific human genotypes you’re potentially creating new social and economic groups that can combine lifestyle and diet choices, buying power and political clout. These could eventually outstrip traditional groupings based on ethnicity, religion or politicals. A global group based on the genetic fingerprint of post-menopausal woman highly susceptible to breast cancer would have many members. And of course, companies would love to identify such groups for targeted marketing of suitable products.

“The health of New Zealanders of all ethnic mixtures stands to benefit from the results of nutrigenomics research,” says a paper by Jim Kaput and Lynette Ferguson. “However, it is essential that we ensure that nutrigenomics information is used in a socially responsible manner, since it has the potential to address health disparities in sub-populations, including ethnic racial minorities, the poor and the elderly.”

The biggest hurdle may well be the ethics, not the science—if you know the future health outcomes for your genotype, then so will insurance companies. Unilever France recently signed an exclusive deal with a French insurance company to offer discounts on health insurance. To qualify, all you have to do is prove you are purchasing Unilever’s Flora Pro-activ cholesterol-reducing spreads. Fonterra denies it has any similar plans for New Zealand.

Until then, for most of us the best-known functional ingredient is probably the Omega-3 fatty acid found in oily fish and certain oils, nuts and seeds. Omega-3 is widely believed to reduce the risk of heart disease by lowering cholesterol levels. Also becoming more visible on the public’s radar are antioxidants, those substances that deactivate the ‘free radicals’ in our bodies. Free radicals are molecules that cause cellular damage in a process called oxidation. Antioxidants are believed to improve health and slow ageing.

Currently one of the biggest functional food sectors is ‘spreading fats’ (we used to call them margarine and butter). Spreads like MeadowLea Logicol and Flora Pro-activ Light are designed to reduce low-density lipoprotein (LDL—the ‘bad’ cholesterol that clogs up your arteries) without harming levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL—the ‘good’ cholesterol).

It all sounds very radical to most consumers, but Mellentin sees the health claims of food products as nothing new. “The link between diet and health has been well-established in Asia for thousands of years—it’s western consumers who seem to think it’s new.” He gives the example of Yakult, a drink that is relatively new to New Zealand but has been on sale in Japan since 1935 and in other Asian countries since the 1960s.

Drinks are another fast-developing area of functional foods, with added vitamins and herbal extracts becoming common. Cholesterol-lowering orange juices have been on the market since 2003, including Coca-Cola’s Minute Maid Heart Wise and PepsiCo’s orange juice in the Tropicana Essentials range. Energy and stimulation drinks such as Red Bull and V can also be classified as functional foods. Danone has been extremely successful in China with the V energy drink and Mizone vitamin water brands, both developed in New Zealand by Frucor Beverages.

In the US, the carbonated soft drink market’s 25 years of unbroken growth appears to be over. Even sales of low- and no-calorie diet drinks are down. Cadbury Schweppes’ response to the shock news of a decline in sales of its flagship 7-Up brand was to reposition the brand as ‘all-natural’. In contrast, the US fruit smoothie market grew 40 percent in 2005 and the number-two brand on the market, Naked, was quickly bought by PepsiCo.

The more exotic products like Yakult depend on the cuisine and lifestyle media to tell shoppers about friendly (probiotic) bacteria, which are said to promote and maintain gut health. With yoghurt labels proclaiming ingredients like bifidobacteria and Lactobacillus acidophilus, consumer education becomes increasingly important.

“A major obstacle to take-up of functional foods is the lack of consumer education,” says Mellentin. “Take lutein, a dietary supplement derived from spinach and marigold flowers that is good for eye health—a US company spent millions on research and putting it into a range of products. But sales flopped because consumers had no idea what lutein was or what it could do for them.”

In contrast, French multinational Danone spent $750 million a year educating the market about its Actimel probiotic drink, losing money for six years before moving into profit. Kellogg, Weetabix and Nestlé have all invested millions of dollars in explaining to consumers the digestive-health benefits of their prebiotic cereals.

One of the few Kiwi companies with such deep pockets is Fonterra, which supplies probiotic ingredients to food manufacturers and also markets its own milk products such as Anlene, a functional food that aims to improve general bone health, and AnMum 1 and 2, nutraceutical milk powders that target pregnant and breastfeeding women, respectively.

Unlike dairy, cereals and grains have been slow to join the nutraceutical bandwagon, but breads fortified with Omega-3, calcium and soy protein are on the increase. One US company markets Women’s Bread for its ability to prevent osteoporosis and menopausal symptoms while its Men’s Bread includes fava beans to boost zinc content which is supposed to fight prostate cancer.

Functional breads on Kiwi shelves include Molenberg Vital, Vogel’s Soy & Linseed and Tip Top Omega. Nelson’s Dovedale Bakery has recently started adding chia to its organic bread, an ingredient previously unknown to the New Zealand food industry.

“The food industry is embracing new technology with unbridled zeal. One international conference had keynote presentations on ‘Second-generation GM foods’. ‘The role of edible coatings and biopolymers in food packaging’ and this stunner, ‘The fallacy of the consumer’s right to know’”

What is chia? In 1997, Cirildo Chacarito, a 52-year-old Mexican Indian wearing his homemade tyre tread shoes, won a 160-kilometre race in California, beating hundreds of younger competitors by a 30-minute margin—much to the annoyance of the race’s sponsor, Nike. When asked how he did it, Chacarito replied “I took the chia seed before and during the race’’.

Chia looks like poppy seed and is extremely rich in Omega-3, contains no gluten and has no known toxic components. It’s thought that warrior Aztecs would consume chia before going off to war, so they could survive for long periods without food, but still have enough energy to fight.

The more Roland Dallas heard and read about chia, the more excited he became by its possibilities as a functional ingredient in bread. Dallas founded Dovedale in 1992 and although he sold the bakery in 2003 he retained brand ownership for overseas territories. He’s now rolling out the franchising of the Dovedale brand throughout Australia.

“Chia is a wonder food really,” says Dallas, as he reverently digs his hands into a huge sack of the stuff. “Apart from being rich in Omega-3, it has six times the calcium content of milk, it has magnesium, potassium, antioxidants, high fibre content and is a good source of protein. It also has great water absorbability, so it creates a slow release system in your body that gives you extra energy over a sustained period of time.”

Dallas argues that chia is a superior source of Omega-3, since fish stocks are depleted and other sources like flax seed oil are questionable because concerns about the toxicity of solvents used to extract the oils. Chia’s energy content is particularly appropriate for Dovedale’s core market, coeliacs (people allergic to gluten). Their health is characterised by low levels of nutrient assimilation, which translates into a lack of energy—so chia is an ideal added ingredient.

“For the mainstream market,” says Dallas, “maybe we could cut down on caffeine and consume chia instead—we’ll be able to dance all night long then take a break in a chia lounge to eat or drink something that’s low-carb, low in cholesterol, high in antioxidants and high in energy. That’s the kind of food functionality that would definitely interest weight-conscious night clubbers.”

Can we have our organic cake and genetically engineer it too?

The number of genetically-engineered (GE) and organic crops continues to increase from small bases but the debates over the pros and cons of each remain shrill and often hysterical. Farmers insist that organics can’t feed the world but the growing number of consumers buying organic poses a huge problem for New Zealand’s long-established intensive agribusiness model.

As long ago as 2000, Saatchi & Saatchi’s Kevin Roberts was urging New Zealand to go all the way for clean-and-green. “Here’s the opportunity: a US government report of 21 developed nations shows that consumers are prepared to pay 35 percent more for organic products. We have a priceless opportunity to establish ourselves as the high-quality, high-value, natural food centre of the world. We need to produce, market and brand the highest quality food and make our clean green reputation a reality before we lose it altogether.”

But both major political parties seem unconvinced by this. Labour’s reluctance to embrace an anti-GE stance has been a source of great frustration for many of its supporters (and of course the Greens). Labour’s position seems to be, ‘We can have our organic cake and genetically engineer it too’. They call it ‘coxistence’.  “Different production systems—including GE and non-GE systems such as integrated pest management, conventional agriculture and organics—can all benefit New Zealand,” says MAF spokesman Graeme King. The policy is underpinned by what King describes as “a rigorous regulatory regime, approving GE applications on a case-by-case approach, and considering the whole of the production chain.”

Last year Greenpeace revealed that illegal, Chinese-grown GE rice—unapproved for human consumption and containing a toxin that may cause allergic reactions—has been found in food products such as baby food and yoghurt in the UK, Germany and France. Rice is the world’s most important staple food crop; any widespread contamination poses an enormous threat to global food security.

Despite Greenpeace’s demand for stricter regulation, many governments still claim that the biotech industries are fit to regulate themselves and prevent GE contamination. Overseas, GE scientists say they will soon be able to breed pigs that produce meat with ‘built-in’ Omega-3. The research is in its early stages, so no one has yet sampled the pigs to see if they still taste like pork.

According to the latest research by Mellentin’s company, New Nutrition Business, the market for weight management “looks set to become a strategic focus for food and beverage companies in 2007 and beyond”. In the last 12 months Coca-Cola launched its calorie-burning drink, Enviga, Nestlé acquired the Jenny Craig weight management centres, Kellogg repositioned Special K as a weight-management mega-brand and Unilever moved to secure the global licence for Hoodia gordonii, a Namibian plant that suppresses appetite.

Meanwhile, the food industry is embracing new technology with unbridled zeal. One international conference had keynote presentations on ‘Second-generation GM foods’, ‘The role of edible coatings and biopolymers in food packaging’ and this stunner, ‘The fallacy of the consumer’s right to know’.

Mellentin has just published Ten Key Trends in Food, Nutrition and Health 2007, a report for businesses working in the food and health sectors. The report makes clear predictions about the ongoing development of the nutraceuticals industry, saying that weight management, mood, digestive health and being “as natural as possible” will be the key for development of healthier products.

Japan remains the world leader in developing functional foods and beverages; only America and Finland come close in terms of innovation in food and health. Japan showed the West that a functional food or beverage targeted at a specific illness or disease—such as high or low blood pressure—will result in niche sales only. Until the science of nutrigenomics can deliver DNA-based consumer groupings, the growth in sales of functional products will overwhelmingly reside in the concept of ‘wellness’, not illness. It’s not just food companies and health agencies that can learn from all this—businesses whose activities touch on diet, lifestyle, health, sport, leisure and more may find themselves sparking on the possibilities.

In the US, a new organic food bar called the Wunderbar claims to have the antioxidant power of 340 grams of broccoli or 1.5 kilograms of tomatoes. The bar contains oils derived from the nucleus of the Chardonnay grape, black cumin, pumpkin and black raspberry seeds, is high in fibre, contains organic non-dairy dark chocolate, organic agave, organic wheat grass powder, flaxseed and organic erythitol—a plant-derived sweetener with zero calories and a glycaemic index of zero.

Are you salivating? Faced with such claims, natural foods may struggle to compete with processed foods in the individualised nutrition stakes, but don’t bet against enterprising New Zealanders trumping the Wunderbars of this world with a highly-personalised pear or a genetically-customised kumquat. If we can get the branding right, the world is our oyster. Or should I say functional green-lipped mussel?

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