Keynote Address
Food Ingredient Innovations to meet changing consumer needs and government regulations.
ABSTRACT
Delivering ingredient solutions that deliver health or functional benefits with a clean label, at an economic price is a challenge for large ingredient companies and start up entrepreneurs. Ingredient companies need to innovate in order to add value to agricultural ingredients, stay competitive with changing consumer trends and adjust to changing regulations and processing technologies.
Many important questions must be answered to justify an investment. Is an ingredient new to the world or new to a geography or product category? What benefits does it bring and what value must be created to justify the cost. What other ingredients will it compete with? What capacity is needed to supply customers?
The ingredient development process will be reviewed, and examples of ingredient innovation to meet changing consumer needs, regulations and adoption of new technologies will be discussed, providing useful context for future UNL Food Science innovators.