Incorporation of bioactive substances into products: technological challenges

摘要

Four different technological hurdles have to be overcome before a product containing bioactive substances is ready to consider marketing: Isolation of the desired component; Pre-establishment of the biological activity; Incorporation of the bioactive component into a formulated product; Verification of efficacy and safety of the final product. The development of products with specific health benefits requires a combination of skills that go beyond those of the traditional food technologists. The competence of formulating tasteful food products that are eaten with pleasure, has to be combined with the ability of designing meaningful clinical trials that prove efficacy and safety of the incorporated bioactive components. The development process willbe significantly more expensive than the traditional way of new product formulation and the final product will consequently be more costly. Once a bioactive component can be efficiently produced on pilot scale, questions about the relevant properties for application use become prominent. It is obvious that there is a desire to have an application range as broad as possible. The component will be envisaged in several end products with often completely different product matrices and manufacturing processes. To effectively incorporate the bioactive component into a product, the prediction of its properties during processing, storage and, finally, consumer use, is required to prevent multiple failures during application development. The first step in thisprocess is the establishment of the key physical chemical properties of the purified bioactive component. This will bring the essential information on parameters such as solubility, stability, heat and pH sensitivity. Step two is the incorporation in the final formulation in a way that the food product is tasteful and the bioactivity maintained in an effective dose. Step three is the ultimate proof that the expected efficacy and safety of the final product is there and can carry the beneficial claims implicitly or explicitly connected to the product. Lactoferrin will be presented as an example to illustrate the various aspects of the incorporation strategy.