Food Formulation

With any functional food, success is defined not only by how beneficial the ingredient is, but by how well a product is formulated to meet the needs of taste, convenience and price.

Delivery of bioactives in food is a major challenge and it is the focus of FHI's researchers at University College Dublin.  Many bioactives are prone to degradation and some interact with other food components, which can impair their bioavailability.  Therefore, they must be protected throughout their shelf-life (both as an ingredient and in food products) without compromising the sensory properties of the food.   In addition, the bioactivity needs to be incorporated and maintained at a level to substantiate health claims and to ensure safety.

The researchers, under the direction of Professor Dolores O Riordan at UCD, are developing encapsulation techniques to incorporate milk-derived bioactives in food and to test their stability when subjected to typical food technology processes.  They will collaborate with the milk mining, scale-up and health platforms to determine the optimum requirements for the encapsulation technology.