The panel convened at the recent Asia Pacfic Agri-Food Innovation Summit in Singapore, and was comprised of FrieslandCampina Asia President Corine Tap, CP Foods Director of Open Innovation Peemdej Utsahajit, Kewpie R&D Planning Specialist Toshiharu Tanaka, Mondelez VP E&D AMEA Marco Michielsen and A*STAR Singapore Institute of Food and Biotechnology Innovation Executive Director Sze Tan.
The session, focused on the state of nutrition in the Asia Pacific region, was moderated by our sister title NutraIngredients-Asia Editor Tingmin Koe.
One of the major topics discussed during this session was the implementation of regulatory policies to control nutritional intake, such as sugar and salt taxes.
“Thailand implemented a sugar tax several years back which has been found to be quite successful, and we expect a salt tax is on the way soon as well,” Utsahajit told the floor.
“These are policies to limit overconsumption and there has been some impact in this regard, but we also believe that there are some gaps in implementation that need to be addressed before the impacts are meaningful.
“For instance, the sugar tax was imposed on packaged beverages only and this was expected to affect some 80% of products and make a big change in sugar consumption – but in reality this only affected retail numbers but left restaurants and other foodservice out of the equation.
“This is where consumer behaviour comes into play as well as in Thailand it is a very, very common practice and part of local behaviour to eat out or order in food delivery, so the regulations in their current format are not managing this side of things.
Tanaka concurred with this, adding that in Japan there are additional consumer issues such as a rapidly ageing population as well as social-related malnutrition that need to be considered.
“Everyone knows that Japan’s society is ageing at a rapid rate, and some doctors have been highlighting food as the centre of innovation to ensure nutrition is optimal, but in Japan this is not enough,” he said.
“We have come to realise that in addition to getting nutritional food into elderly diets, we also need to get them to include exercise and social participation into their daily routines, which may seem like a basic thing but in fact many are not getting this.
“Then there is also the fact that around 10% of Japanese children are facing malnutrition due to factors such as domestic violence or other reasons, which means they are not able to access the food at all.
“So all in all we believe that to ensure optimal health and nutrition in Japan, it is not only a food issue that needs to be solved but also requires a combination of multiple interlinking projects from all aspects.”
Tan highlighted that although there is quite a lot of research being done on nutrition in APAC, there is still a dearth of progress when it comes to nutritional deficiencies.
“The R&D being done on deficiency in APAC is not the most progressive which is a major factor hindering good nutrition uptake here,” she said.
“There is a pressing need for us to link the gap between nutrition-giving through food, as we do not eat nutrients per se but food, and the relevance must be clear in order to push this through.”
Realistic steps
In order to make effective changes moving forward, Tap stressed that it will be crucial to get the food industry more in-line with nutritional strategies, and the best way to do this is by becoming part of existing company strategies such as sustainability frameworks.
“Initiatives such as public-private partnerships and education are all very important to get these messages through, but at the end of the day we need to get these nutritional strategies integrated into a food company’s strategy for it to have big impacts,” she said.
“The best way to do this is to integrate nutrition as part of a company’s sustainability strategy, and when it is in this best interest then there will be investments into areas like supply chain and increased funding to develop it, which is what is really needed in the long term.”
Michielsen added that it is also important to get consumers as closely involved and aware as possible by increasing their literacy in this area.
“The most direct way food firms can contribute here is to standardise and simplify product labels so they know what they are buying and consuming,” he said.
“Beyond that there are also areas such as increasing the use of wearables and other digital tools so as to increase their access to health-related information.
“Overall though we are aware that improving the nutritional content of products is important, but maintain that it cannot be done overnight – what industry should be doing now is also to work towards changing consumer palates slowly to acclimatise to less sugar and salt, and slowly this will move from the strong flavours needed now to much milder, and such a change will be far more permanent than a sudden [shock to the system].”
