Programme

8:30 – 9:30 Part 1: Key trends and innovations for nutraceutical and functional foods in the EU and abroad

• What are the key trends and drivers?
   - An explanation of the differences regionally and internationally
   - How can you formulate successes and failures?
• What are the key opportunities for ingredient companies and manufacturers?
• A look at the influence of health and wellness/pharmaceutical industry/beauty foods
• Understanding consumer views and concerns on functional foods and nutraceuticals
   - The best ways to communicate with the customer
   - How to get the product to market
   - Ways of product launching
• What is the future outlook?

Helen Conn, Food Scientist, HelenConnWorks
Helen Conn was a Graduate Food Scientist from Queen Elizabeth College in the early 70s. She then worked in Product Development with Unilever - Walls, and moved to Pfizer’s Unicliffe Consumer Products to develop the meal replacements Limmitts and Trimmetts. She was subsequently appointed European Technical Advisor for Pfizer Europe Chemicals where she started her career specifically in additives and ingredients.

In 1983, she was asked to join Forum Products Ltd to set up a Food Ingredients business and, shortly afterwards, they were appointed as the first Distributor for the NutraSweet brand sweetener specifically covering the UK. Helen was Director of the Food Division of Forum Products Ltd. and grew thedDivision to a turnover of £23million in 15 years. She was promoted to Managing Director of Britannia Health Products in 2001, another Company within the Forum Bioscience Group, with the specific aim to build the Company’s portfolio of products.

Helen has appeared on several TV programmes on the subject of Food, Functional Food, and Additives. She has appeared at the first two Cheltenham Festivals of Science talking about Functional Food and, with Heston Blumenthal and Dr Paul Clayton, on Mood Food. Over the last 20 years, Helen has travelled extensively, working with companies in China, Japan, India, Australia, USA, South Africa and Europe. She is a Fellow of the Institute of Food Scientists & Technology and sits on the Council. She is a Member of the British Society of Flavourists

9:30 – 9:50 Coffee and networking break

9:50 – 10:50 Part 2: EU regulatory issues: Claims on nutraceuticals and functional foods

• A further look at claims on foods & food supplements
- What is the current EU regulatory status?
- Key deadlines and authorisation procedures you should know about
- Interpretations and restrictions?
- EU vs. national; Inter-country trade?

• Update on nutrient profiling?
- How does it affect functional foods and nutraceuticals?

• Implications on food labelling

• Key questions and answers on the Health Claim Dossier

• What should you know about risk-benefit analysis
• A look into the future:
- Upcoming legislation
- Global regulatory perspective

Dr. Martha Cecilia Kühn, Global Project Manager, Foodlink Forum & Lecturer of Applied European Food Law, Wageningen University
For more than 25 years Dr. Cecilia Kühn has worked in various international new product and new business development aspects for leading food industries in Europe, America and Asia. She is global project manager at Foodlink Forum, and lecturer on industrial application of EU food legislation at Wageningen University.

As global project manager at Foodlink Forum, Dr. Kühn is responsible for all functional foods projects. In the regulatory area, she has assisted with questions on scientific substantiation of health claims, use of new ingredients and labelling questions, contact with authorities and experts in various EU countries, establishing the process for import into the EU of new functional ingredients, preparing several ‘Food Regulatory Watch’ for companies, and with information gathering for strategic decisions and policy statements. At present she is setting up an EU regulatory help-desk for food companies, together with the Law & Governance Group of Wageningen University and the European Institute for Food Law.Dr. Kühn is co-author of ‘The Functional Foods Dossier: Building Solid Health Claims’ (www.FFdossier.net) and responsible for the series ‘State of the European Health Ingredients and Functional Foods Market’.

Dr. Kühn started her career with Unilever as product development manager and later in internal strategic R&D market services. She worked for various food groups at ‘the centre’, at an operating company as well as for groups of sister companies (joint facility of 10 European countries). She also worked in the food ingredients industry as senior food technologist and marketing advisor of the New Business Development group of Gist Brocades (DSM), where she was responsible for food application development and external R&D contracting. She was a Cum Laude graduate in all her degrees, in biochemistry and food science & technology (BSc at McGill University, Canada; MSc at OSU, USA; PhD at T.U. Munich, Germany).

10:50 – 11:10 Coffee and networking break

11:10 – 12:10 Part 3: Product development and quality assurance

• A look at the key steps in product design and development
   - Ensuring nutritional value
   - How to make sure actives work
   - Adjusting the design for flavour etc
   - What are the different techniques of extracting?
• The various methods of qualification and the key processes
   - A look at what the product does when it enters the system
   - How to know where it goes?
   - What are some other general qualification mechanisms
• An outlook on the efficiency in clinical trials
• Some key examples and studies to highlight
• How to identify functional ingredients and physiological targets
• How do these ingredients feed into consumer expectations and market trends
• What is the mechanism of action?
• A look into in vitro and in vivo evaluation of the efficacy of functional foods

Sergey Melnikov, Skill Base Leader, Unilever Food and Health Research Institute
Dr Sergey Melnikov is a Lead Scientist and a leader of Food-Body Interactions group at Foods Structural Design department of Unilever Food and Health Research Institute in Vlaardingen, the Netherlands. After graduation from the Department of Chemistry, Moscow State University (Russia), he obtained a dual PhD in biophysical chemistry (Nagoya University, Japan) and polymer chemistry (Moscow State University). Afterwards he held a postdoctoral position at Lund University, Sweden.

His main research interests include microstructural design of processed functional foods for tailored in-body functionality and controlled delivery of active molecules, as well as novel methods for the investigation of food behaviour in physiological environments.

12:00- 12:20 Workshop exercise

Round Table discussion on nutraceutical and functional food regulation and product development in the modern EU enviornment
Debate led by:Stephen Ruckman, Huntingdon Life Sciences

12:30 End of workshop