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Ignorance delays carotenoids’ take-off
Traditional Chinese flavour to natural foods
Plastics stretch lead in barrier market
Research hurts learning – Royal Society
US to spend $200m/y to boost NPD
We must do lunch - for $3500
Non-bottle is new beverage container
Peek into future factories
Phytosterol production process wins gold
UK firms scoop 17 WorldStars
Reservatrol may limit stroke damage
Aspirin offers cheap heart insurance
Spumador selects SIG for aseptic line
Markets
Ignorance delays carotenoids’ take-off
Consumer ignorance about their
health benefits and competition from India and Chinese suppliers threatens
to hold back the development of the $348m European carotenoid market, says
market researcher Frost & Sullivan.
Used by the food and feed
industries primarily as a colouring agent, the nutraceutical properties of
carotenoids have remained largely underutilised, says the firm. “Only in
Germany have carotenoids been widely used for their functional properties
in supplements. Consumers in other European regions are unaware of their
use as a food fortifier or as a new ingredient in a supplement.”
The firm forecasts the European
carotenoid market will rise to $419.6m in 2010, driven by personal health
and ageing issues. “Among health claims linked to carotenoids are the
ability to reduce the risk of degenerative diseases, prevent cardiac
ailments, combat cancers such as prostate cancer and boost immune
function,” Frost & Sullivan food research manager Anne Ibbotson
said. But, she warned, impending legislation to tighten proof of health
claims could dampen demand.
Even so, the supplements and
fortified foods segment is poised to become the fastest-growing segment of
the carotenoids market, she claimed. “It is likely to boost its share of
overall market revenues from 18.2% in 2003 to 27.0% in 2010, making it the
second-largest revenue generator behind the animal feed segment.
Innovation will help sales.
Ibbotson pointed to a joint venture between L'Oreal and Nestle to develop
a "beauty pill" using food ingredients such as lycopene. “This
marks the emergence of a potential new segment, cosmeceuticals,” she
said.
Frost & Sullivan predicts
beta-carotene sales will reach $23.0m, lycopene $26.0m and lutein $21.0m.
Sales of natural astaxanthin are to grow 26%/y between 2000 and 2010.
The firm expects the number of
suppliers to remain steady at 28 to 32 companies. The two leaders, Roche
(soon to be DSM) and BASF, control three-fourths of the total carotenoids
market. They dominate the three largest segments, beta-carotene,
astaxanthin and canthaxanthin. Sluggish growth in these segments has
intensified competition between these two rivals who are increasingly
operating in commodity segments and competing on price.
The growth experienced by all
lutein and lycopene suppliers has reduced competitive pressures. Until
now, these niche companies have survived because they are too small to
attract takeover bids.
Innovation
Traditional Chinese flavour to
natural foods
The benefits of traditional Chinese
medicines will be on sale in the range of natural foods made and sold by
Earth Power, a new US food distribution firm.
Earth Power is the brainchild of Dr
Albert Leung, a classically trained pharmacognosist and author on
commercial uses of natural products. It aims to surf the fast-growing
$150bn global retail demand for natural foods.
Leung and Earth Power aim to
preserve the essence of traditional Chinese medicine while spelling out
its importance today.
"The time is right for
consumers, especially over-medicated fellow Americans, to understand and
choose tonics rather than rely on modern or herbal drugs for the treatment
of symptoms," said Earth Power vice president and general manager
Darin Smith.
Plastics
stretch lead in barrier market
Cost, performance and innovation in
plastic barrier packaging films are winning market share from metals,
paper, and glass to reach sales of more than $2bn in 2003, says market
researcher Kline & Co.
Over the last five years, industry
growth has prevailed in spite of constant demand for higher performance at
lower cost. “In fact, these market pressures have been a key driver
behind the growth for plastic films,” says LaVerne Ellerbe, the firm’s
materials industry manager.
"In the price-driven flexible
packaging markets, barrier film converters like Pliant and Pechiney
Plastic Packaging have found a competitive advantage in new
technologies," says Ellerbe. "They've developed new film
structures, coating technologies, and package designs that compete more
effectively against foils and other traditional barrier materials."
Key developments in flexible
packaging include recent equipment advances to co-extrude films with more
than seven layers. New package structures like multilayer stand-up pouches
and metalised films have also allowed plastic films to compete
aggressively against rigid packaging in pet foods and specialty chemicals,
and against other flexible materials in medical and snack food packaging.
Innovations in barrier coatings
technology have also intensified competition among plastic films,
including high-performance barrier structures made from OPP and PET. And
multilayer co-extruded films are now vying for a larger share against
laminated and coated film structures, the firm says.
But pricing is still the market
driver. "Not only do plastic films have to do it better than other
barrier materials, they also have to do it cheaper to win new applications
and maintain their share in replacement markets," says Ellerbe.
She points to silicone oxide and
aluminium oxide coatings that are now economic and deliver a value-added
barrier compared to foils in clear, retortable stand-up pouches. Metalised
films have also proved cost-effective in snack food packaging, and
laminated plastic/foil constructions are displacing metal cans in fish and
pet food containers.
But the researchers expect a rash
of buy-outs. "Packaging materials suppliers need to be aware of where
their products and their competitors' products are in their life cycles in
order to focus their R&D efforts, defend market share, and maintain
growth," Ellerbe says.
Kline & Co plans to study the
market for barrier materials used in flexible packaging. For information
on how to subscribe to high-performance barrier packaging films 2004,
go to www.klinegroup.com/y381a.htm.
Potential subscribers based in Europe should contact Jonathan Duff at +32
(2) 776 0738 or jonathan.duff@kline-europe.com.
Research
Research hurts learning – Royal
Society
Undergraduate teaching may be
suffering because universities are placing too much importance on
research, the President of the Royal Society, Lord May, told Fellows of
the Royal Society at an event to mark the founding of the UK's national
academy of science in 1660.
Lord May said the Research
Assessment Exercise, often combined with a growing bureaucracy
masquerading as accountability in universities, is devaluing the
commitment to teaching in research-active universities. “It is almost a
mark of status in some places to have a minimum engagement with
undergraduates," he said.
His comments come as the government
embarks on a massively unpopular scheme to make undergraduates pay up to
£3000/y towards their costs.
Lord May said the shift is bad for
the researcher. “It is endlessly intellectually invigorating to organise
a course, guide a student's paper or project, and generally interact with
students who do not know, or who question, the answer that the
conventional wisdom supplies. The virtues and pleasures of teaching
undergraduates should be more explicitly recognised, exemplified and
rewarded through effective mentoring and other methods."
He rejected suggestions that only
research-oriented universities can teach high quality science
undergraduate courses.
He called for more knowledge
transfer from universities to business, but not at the expense of basic
research. "The UK is excellent at producing new knowledge, but less
outstanding in harvesting the fruits of such knowledge,” he said. “The
fundamental requirement is a cultural change, with more young people
willing to undertake the unpredictable and risky adventure of trying to
carry an idea toward the marketplace.
"In universities there is a
marriage of motives between researchers, mostly driven by curiosity, and
their sponsors, mostly driven by economic concerns. This marriage has its
occasional tensions, particularly when well-intentioned bureaucrats seek
to direct funding to projects which look like being tomorrow's commercial
winners, rather than responding to the self-set research agendas of the
best scientists.
"Past experience suggests that
even the experts you would choose to assign research priorities are
unreliable fortune-tellers. For instance in 1895, Lord Kelvin, while
President of the Royal Society declared that "heavier than air flying
machines are impossible". Eight years later, the Wright brothers took
the air."
NPD
US to spend $200m/y to boost NPD
US consumer goods firms will spend
$590m over the next five years to boost product development processes,
says new research just in. Established PLM vendors like IBM and SAP need
new skills to tackle the industry's fragmented product development
activities, say the researchers.
Diet
We must do lunch - for $3500
Here’s a way to lighten your
wallet as well as your bathroom scale.
Private chefs Marissa Mitchell and
Stephanie Goldfarb, caterers to Halle Berry, Quentin Tarantino, and
Cameron Crowe among others, are offering to cook you a an elegant low carb
catered holiday dinner for 10 guests for a mere $3500.
The low carb dinner consists of low
carb appetisers and a stylish four-course sit-down dinner catered by the
two chefs and served by a butler and bar tender while a uniformed valet
parks the cars.
“It's very reasonable
price," says Pure Foods co-founder Brad Saltzman, who is launching
his own line of low carb products to be sold through the firm’s new
retail stores in Beverly Hills and Santa Monica and 14 more California
locations slated for 2004.
Saltzman is clearly capitalising on
the Atkins Diet craze, which has attracted some 25m Americans, claims
Atkins Nutritionals. The firm claims it will double its sales from $100m
within a year.
Weight loss market reaches critical
mass
The US market for weight loss
products was worth $39.8bn in 2002, up 6.6 percent from 2001, says US
market researcher Market data Enterprises. It projects the market will hit
$48.8bn by 2006.
Innovation
Non-bottle
is new beverage container
US-based Rocky Mountain Business
Solutions has won US Patent 6,651,845 for its innovative Not-A-Bottle
container system for flowable materials. Commercial benefits include lower
cost and an environmentally superior package, claim the makers.
The system consists of lightweight
plastic bags, separate dispensing containers, and container caps. The
disposable bags contain the flowable material, have a lip (much like a
baby bottle liner), and a "pierceable" top or pull tab for
opening. The container cap captures the bag lip between the container and
the top, and has a dispenser appropriate for the contents.
Applications include beverages
(water, juice, and power drinks), dairy (milk and soy), baby formula,
foods (condiments and salad dressings), motor oil and lubricants,
household products (liquid soaps, detergents, and spray-on cleaners) and
personal products (shampoos, lotions, and hair spray).
Cost is reduced due to
significantly less plastic than bottles, reduced foreign package fees, no
expensive closures, and no bottle deposits. The environmental advantages
include less resource (plastic) use and minimal landfill impact if the
product is not recycled. For more information try http://www.rockybusiness.com.
Conference
Peek into future factories
An international conference will
share views on emerging and future trends and needs in advanced
manufacturing. Held under the European Commission’s Framework Programme
(FP6), it will take place in Cernobbio, Italy, from 17 to 19 May 2004.
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The forum will address
manufacturing at large, and topics include sustainable design,
products and manufacturing processes
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collaborative extended
enterprise, supply change management
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modelling and simulation,
virtual engineering, digital factories
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development and industrial
applications of nanotechnologies and biotechnologies
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innovation management in
manufacturing technology
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intelligent devices, robots,
machines, processes for intelligent manufacturing systems
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human aspects in manufacturing
A call for papers is currently
open. For further information, go to www.imsforum2004.org
or contact Marco Taisch, Politecnico di Milano, E-mail marco.taisch@polimi.it.
Awards
Phytosterol production process
wins gold
A Franco-German-American team has
won Germany-based specialty chemicals company Cognis’s annual innovation
award of 25,000 euros for a process that converts by-products from methyl
ester production into free sterols. Phytosterols have many different
applications, and can bring significant benefits. For example, they are
added to margarine as cholesterol-reducing agents.
The awards are given to internal
project teams whose ideas make Cognis and its customers more competitive.
The judges look for originality, creativity, technical excellence,
customer orientation and market success.
Cognis’s sterol production was
previously part of the same edible oils refining process hat made Vitamin
E at its US plant. But this methodology offered limited scope for
increasing sterol production, so an international cross-functional team
was set up to examine alternative methods. Working closely with customers
from the food and pharmaceutical sectors, the team could ensure the end
product fully meets actual market requirements.
The Gold Award went to Steve
Frandsen, Yannick Basso, Roland Cazals, Jean Rigal, Bernhard Gutsche and Jörg
Schwarzer.
The Silver Award for 15,000 euros
went to Mike Wiggins, Ayaz Khan, Ken Breindel, Dave Brown, Shruti Singhal,
Dipak Shah and Shailesh Shah. This cross-functional team, with members
drawn from research and development, marketing and production, worked on
DSXÒ 3075, a rheology modifier for water-based paints that is 30 percent
more effective than existing rheology modifiers and also friendly to the
environment.
The Bronze Award and 10,000 euros
went to Bettina Jackwerth, Georg Fieg, Rolf Kawa and Thorsten Löhl for
their work on Cetiol CC, an emollient that improves the performance of
skin and hair care products. It has already proved a success due its
versatility and excellent sensorics.
UK
firms scoop 17 WorldStars
UK packaging designs won 17
WorldStars, the World Packaging Organisations' annual excellence awards.
The Institute of Packaging's John
Webb-Jenkins, said "Each year the UK packaging industry's excellence
is demonstrated at the WorldStars, but the competition is getting
tougher.”
This year 34 countries entered a
record 319 exhibits, and 143 WorldStars were awarded. All entries had to
have already been successful in their own national competitions.
Health
Reservatrol may limit stroke
damage
Reservatrol, the antioxidant
compound found in red wine and grapes, may protect against stroke damage
as well as heart disease, say researchers at the University of
Missouri-Columbia’s School of Medicine.
“For years, scientists have
advocated drinking a glass of red wine once or twice a day to help with
cardiovascular health,” said Grace Sun, a biochemistry professor. “Our
research has shown that a compound in red wine or grapes can have a
similar impact on brain health, and in some cases, may help minimise
damage to the brain when a stroke occurs.”
Stroke happens when blood flow to
the brain is blocked. No oxygen or nutrients enter the affected region.
Soon after, neurons in the affected area release excitatory amino acid
neurotransmitters that encourage calcium to move into the neurons. This
calcium influx generates “reactive oxygen species,” or “free
radicals,” that can be very damaging. Studies with animal models
indicate that the influx of calcium and generation of free radicals can
result in delayed cell death, a process that occurs over the next few
days.
Sun, and her husband, Albert Sun, a
pharmacology professor at MU, discovered that resveratrol absorbs the free
radicals and stops them from doing further damage. While there is still
some damage to neurons, the researchers found a remarkable difference
between brain cells treated with resveratrol and those not.
This research on resveratrol was
published in the Journal of Brain Research and was funded by a
$5.7m grant from the National Institutes of Health.
Aspirin
offers cheap heart insurance
Aspirin and blood pressure lowering
drugs can prevent heart disease at a fraction of the cost of cholesterol
lowering drugs (statins) and clopidogrel (an anti-clotting drug), finds a
study in a recent British Medical Journal (BMJ).
Estimates of cost and effectiveness
were obtained for aspirin, antihypertensive drugs, statins and clopidogrel.
Cost per coronary event was calculated for treatments individually and in
combination for patients at various levels of risk.
Cost per coronary event prevented
in a patient at 10% risk over five years was £3,500 for aspirin, £12,500
for initial antihypertensives, £18,300 for intensive antihypertensives,
£60,000 for clopidogrel, and £61,400 for simvastatin.
A more efficient prevention
strategy would be to offer most men over 55 and most women over 65
aspirin, rather than to give statins to a few high-risk patients, says the
author.
Sales
Spumador selects SIG for aseptic
line
 Italian
contract beverage packer Spumador has chosen SIG Simonazzi for a second
time, this to supply a fully-integrated bottle blow-moulding and filling
line to fill aseptically a range of PET bottles with fruit juices, teas,
and milk-based products.
The new 20m euro, 24,000
bottle/hour line, to go into Spumador’s Sant’Andrea Bagni facility in
Parma, complements a 13,000 bph aseptic line installed at its Caslino in
Piano plant in 1999 for fruit pulp, teas and beverages with a pH up to 7
in PET bottles.
Spumador packs for Carlsberg,
Misura, Fitgar, and a host of big retailer brands, and Coca-Cola with its
Nestea, Minute Maid and Cappy products, whose range includes 100% fruit
juices. It also produces its own mineral water and soft drinks under the
brands S. Antonio, S. Francesco, S. Andrea and Spumador.
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Nanotechnology
heads the research interests of European researchers, judging from the
requests for funding received under the new Framework Programme (FP6).