the future of Food

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the future of Food Biotech
Jan Willem van der Kamp TNO Nutrition and Food
Research, Zeist, Netherlands
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Contents

• Introduction
• Food and Nutrition main trends
• The role of Biotechnology
• Gene technology and transgenic crops
• Impact of the genomics revolution
• Final remarks

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TNO the Netherlands Organisation for Applied
Scientific Research

• gt 5000 staff, 14 institutes
• Market-driven
• Objective and independent
• Contract research organisation
• International in scope (offices in Japan USA
  Detroit, Boston)
• Broad knowledge and technology base

Apply technological knowledge to strengthen the
innovative power of industry and government
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The five core areas in which TNO is active
Quality of Life
Natural and Built Environment
Advanced Products, Processes and Systems
ICT and Services
Defence and Public Safety
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TNO Nutrition and Food Research - Profile
Product Process Innovation
Pharma
Agro-Food
Health in relation to Nutrition
Quality and Safety
Chemistry
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TNO Nutrition and Food Research Market Drivers

• Food and Health
• functional food / novel food issues

• Quality and Safety
• consumer safety issues

Product en Process Innovation - food- and
biotechnology issues
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The Future of Food - main trends

• Convenience
• Food, Health Wellness
• Taste and New Experiences
• Conditions to be fulfilled
• Food safety
• Sustainability

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Convenience

• Meal preparation acceptable duration
• 30 min (1980) ? 15 min. ? 8 min. (USA)
• growth of ready prepared meals/ ingredients
• Albert Heyn 1996 ? 2006 30 ? 65
• .
• New food supply channels
• growth of food service
• decreasing role of classical supermarket
• New food production consumption chains
• New food technologies
• for composite non-homogeneous products and mild
  preservation

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Novel mild preservation technologies for
convenience foods
Ultra High Pressure
High Intensity Light
Pulsed Electric Fields
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TNO Barrier Model system for bake stable coatings
Selection ingredients based on theoretical TNO
Model
Development of barriers and coatings
Application examples
Direct application on TNO application model
products
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Food Health and Wellness

• Rapid growth of food related health problems
• OBESITY, type-2 diabetes
• Relation food intake ? health more insights
• role of total diet and of specific
  ingredients
• Insights and Confusion
• (New hype in USA low carb diets

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Food Health history and trends

• 1900 detection/ prevention of deficiencies
• e.g. vitamin A, Iron
• 1970 balanced diet
• supply of sufficient nutrients (carbohydrates
  , fats, proteins, minerals, vitamins
• Nutritional recommnedations Schijf van 5
• 1990 - benefits of specific functional foods
• beyond the balanced diet role of non-nutrients
  
• Growth of Functional Foods market
• Growing soft benefits/ wellness market (e.g.
  Organic)

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The GM Crop story

• 1995/6 introduction of GM soy
• 2003
• 4 GM food crops soy, maize, rapeseed, cotton
• produced in USA, Canada, Argentine, China
• start in Brazil, India
• steadily growing market share
• Delays in introduction of new GM crops (wheat,
  rice) for economic reasons
• Limited perspectives for new GM crops
• Unless there will be a major need

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GM food crops for Europeno perspectives lt 5 years

• No convincing demonstration of benefits
• No direct need for food producers
• minor benefits vs. major risks for food
  producers
• Significant contribution of president Bush in
  reducing acceptance among Europeans
• why does he want that we have to eat his
  crops?

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Food industry - actions after implementation EU
GM labelling regulation

• Avoidance of any GM labelling
• Reformulation of thousands of food products and
  ingredient mixes, focussing ..on removal and
  replacement of soy flour ..and - protein
• Demand for purified soy lecithin and for non-GM
  soy flour

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European GM LABELLING "WORST CASE"
EXAMPLEimpact of the requirement for labelling
when gt 1 of a component in a product is GM

• Onion oil "standardised" with 20 vegetable oil
• Vegetable oil may contain soya, maize, rape,
  cotton may or may not be GM crop-derived
• Standardised oil dispersed at 0.1 on salt
• 3 in seasoning ... 2.5 seasoning in sausage
• Sausages in "Mixed Grill" at 15
• labelling required for
• 2 parts Vegetable Oil in 100 million parts of
  meal

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GM food crops in Europe missed opportunities
and benefits

• Significant environmental/ farmer benefits
• soil management CO2 reduction farm economics
• Negligable safety risks
• content of GM material in GM seeds lt 0.1
• no indications of safety risks of these
  materials
• Major shift of advanced plant (biotech)
  research from Europe to USA and China

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GM crops and foods long term perspectives

• Shift-at-once to large scale labelling,
• due to ..major supply problems of non-GM
  materials
• The ALDI scenario
• GM products entering the low cost end of the
  market
• Shift in consumer attitudes, due to perceived
  benefits of (new) GM crops
• Quality? Sustainability? Feeding the world?
• Products with high quality or specific health
  benefits
• No need for GM many other options

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Genomics technologies a Revolution! Unlimited
measurements / analysis
Classical Biology
Focused Experiment
Question
HYPOTHESIS
Contemporary Biology
Applied Genomics Experiment
Bioinformatics
Focused Experiment
Question
HYPOTHESIS
Thousands of measurements (of DNA/RNA,
proteins or other compounds simultaneously)
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Applied Genomics technologies

• Non-targeted, holistic technologies (replacing
  the classical deterministic approach)
• (High throughput)
• Compare the complete set of a specific
  biomolecule/ parameters under different
  environmental conditions
• Generate vast amounts of data that are analysed
  and interpreted by computerised algorithms
  (bioinformatics)

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The new era in nutrition science is called
nutrigenomics. It is believed that
nutrigenomics will revolutionize wellness and
disease management.
Food and pharma companies worldwide have
recognized the commercial opportunities and have
embarked on substantial nutrigenomics efforts.
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The food industry is growing towards
develop- ment of a third generation of functional
foods
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Traditionally, the discovery of novel bioactives
in nutrition is a top-down process
Symptoms heart disease, elevated cholesterol,
atherosclerosis
Whole organisms
Mechanism is a black box
Empirical leads
soluble fiber
cholesterol level
plant sterols
Low throughput screening
body
statins

• -3 fatty acids

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Health effects of food compounds mostly
are related to specific interactions on molecular
level
gene regulation, SNPs transcriptional control,
histone interaction
DNA
sequencing, genotyping
translational control, processing, stability,
transport of mRNA
RNA
transcriptomics (genomics)
Food compound
receptor interaction gene control, signal
transduction,
protein
proteomics
enzyme regulation inhibition, modification
metabolomics
transport regulation channel or pump interaction
metabolite
multitude of functions
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the new multi-analysis technologies
example Microarray DNA chips for gtgt 1000 DNA
species
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Selected examples of ongoing projects in
Nutrigenomics at TNO

• Functional Food ingredients Against Colorectal
  Cancer
• A genomics approach towards gut health. The
  effects of pro-biotics on mammalian gut health.
• Search for biomarkers indicating satiety (part of
  obesity program)
• Benefit-risk evaluation of flavonoids in foods
  and their use as functional food ingredients.
  Functional genomics-based biomarker development
  for efficacy and safety
• Metabolome analysis of a fungus for the
  identification of enzyme inducing and
  non-inducing growth conditions
• Metabolomics of a bacterium for the production of
  a metabolite and a dairy product
• Transcriptomics on the quality of malting -Barley
  (cDNA arrays)
• Metabolomics of health components of Ginkgo and
  Cannabis

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Screening for new functional food bioactives in
vitro
Quality and authenticity of foods
Safety testing
Nutri-genomics
Food processing
Animal
Plant Microbials
Efficacy testing
Production of food ingredients
Human
Biomarker development
Genotyping
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Food and Biotech impact of genomic and related
multi- technologies

• New (combinations of) ingredients and products
  with beneficial health effects
• both for reduced health risks and for wellness
  (e.g. post prandial wellness)
• Food good food for you (individual diagnosis)
• Production of new ingredients in non-GM
  micro-organisms
• New systems for rapid safety assessment

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Conclusions

• The food supply chain - major changes ahead
  mega shift to convenience and food service
• Major role of omics technologies
• food and health mass individualisation
• getting the most out of non-GM biotechnology
• tool for food safety related measurements
• Role of GM biotechnology
• short term as a research tool
• GM food crops in Europe gtgt 5 years, unless
  unexpected developments take place