Food and Nutritional Ingredients:

Specialty food additives, nutraceuticals, functional food ingredients, dietary ingredients, innovative nutritional ingredients used in food & beverage industry, and related products

Food additives are a board and growing category of chemicals which provide benefits such as extended shelf life, increased nutritional value, or flavor, color, or texture enhancements when added to food. Food additives include colorants, acidulants, emulsifiers, enzymes, shelf life extenders, sweeteners, thickeners and stabilizers such as pectin, humectants such as sorbitol, nutritional ingredients such as niacin and thiamine, as well as flavoring agents.

The term “nutraceuticals” is often used to describe products derived from food sources with extra health or physiological benefits in addition to the basic nutritional value found in food. Nutraceuticals are broadly defined products and can generally be categorized into functional foods and supplements. Functional foods are foods that have been fortified or enriched with one or more ingredients known to benefit health or well-being. Examples of functional food ingredients include probiotics, sterols, antioxidants, tannins, fatty acids, fibers, saponins and various other phytochemicals such as carotenoids, flavonoids, and isothiocyanates. Dietary supplements are also products that contain one or more dietary ingredients designed to provide further nutritional value to the diet. They are designed to be taken in small, concentrated quantities (such as in pill form) and include vitamins, minerals, botanicals, amino acids, enzymes, and related products.

Major players in the food additives and nutraceuticals market include ADM, Associated British Foods, Novozymes, Ingredion, DuPont, BASF, Cargill, Royal DSM, Ajinomoto, and Tate & Lyle. Food and nutritional ingredients are increasingly used in existing as well as new food applications, their use being driven by an increasingly health conscious population with evolving dietary patterns, growing demand for foods and beverages with a longer shelf life, increasing consumption of premium quality foods, and expansion of convenience and processed food industry in developing economies.

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