Functional foods centre targets SMEs

By staff reporter

- Last updated on GMT

Related tags Nutrition

A UK university has established a functional foods centre that will assist smaller companies not in possession of exorbitant R&D purses to get product development projects underway.

The Functional Food Centre launched this month at Oxford Brookes University with the aim of undertaking “research and consultancy in the exciting new area of functional foods”, ​with a focus on helping out smaller players.

“Few companies, with the exception of the very largest, have the in-house capability to undertake the research needed under new UK and international regulations for functional food health claims,”​ the Centre announced in a statement.

“The new centre will meet an unmet need in this large and expanding market, working closely with each client to ensure that optimal solutions are found to customers’ technical and commercial requirements.”

Its commercially-funded activities will include testing ingredients, developing functional food products, conducting clinical trials, supporting health claims as well as providing training for health professionals and industry.

The Centre is headed by​Professor Jeya Henry, who has been an integral part of Oxford Brookes University’s Nutrition and Food Research Group that is Europe’s largest Glycaemic Index Testing Centre.

The Group has been working in the area of GI for about 15 years and has worked with the food and nutrition industry along with government agencies in the UK and internationally.

The Functional Food Centre Centre will sit within the School of Life Sciences, and be supported by the Schools of Health and Social Care and Social Science and Law.

“The research and consultancy portfolio will not only concentrate on the scientific characteristics of food and nutrition, but also integrate both the science and social aspects of food,”​ said Oxford Brookes in a statement.

However the Centre was unavailable for comment at the time of publication.

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