Unilever boss honoured

Niall chairman Unilever FitzGerald has received the Society of Chemical Industry's 2003 Centenary Medal from its world president, Dr Jeroen van der Veer.

Accepting the medal, FitzGerald said he was probably the first fast moving consumer goods manufacturer to receive the honour. “150 million times a day, someone somewhere in the world chooses a Unilever product. Science… is the basis of our competitive edge.”

Unilever is now the UK's fourth biggest investor in R&D, FitzGerald said. “As we see it, sophisticated science has no value without an application. We pursue it as our means to create and target simple, practical solutions to identifiable needs. We don't go for unnecessarily complex solutions - but if solving a consumer's problem means pushing back the boundaries, then that's what we will do.”

FitzGerald said Unilever’s research is built on satisfying human needs to look good and to feel good. The company aims to deliver these through good hygiene, good health, and environmental and social sustainability.

“Equally important is our view that prevention is better than cure. You can prevent the majority of deaths from diarrhoea simply by enabling people to wash their hands properly.

“The positive impact of soap on public health is greater than that of medicine - life expectancy in Victorian Britain increased by three months per year, every year, between 1880 and 1900, due to the infection control associated with simple cleaning habits.”

FitzGerald went to give examples of how Unilever science is used. Combining perfumes with bleach and making it thicker made it more acceptable and effective, he noted. Cholesterol-cutting products such as Flora Pro-activ reduce the threat of coronary heart disease. Unilever scientists have developed an enriched long-life white maize flour.

“Despite popular misconceptions, we are not condemned by our genes. While genetic make-up influences the ageing process, in reality about 75% of its impact is shaped by environmental factors. So positive lifestyle interventions can promote 'healthy' ageing, protecting people from damage due to their environment and making them feel better about themselves,” he said.

It also makes economic sense. FitzGerald quoted American National Institute for Health research on diabetes treatments. The NIH found that lifestyle changes cost one-third of the $100,000 a year treatment with the drug metaformin. “Consumer-attractive low glycaemic food products are sure to be a vital weapon in the impending diabetes 'epidemic',” he said.

“But even now sophisticated science means we can indulge in and enjoy our food whilst simultaneously accumulating health enhancing essentials: Bertolli olive oil is enriched with anti-oxidants, which together with the oil itself, provide benefits to the cardiovascular system and help spread the well known life-enhancing benefits of the Mediterranean diet.

“And there is a further societal reason why prevention is far preferable to cure. With populations in the developed and developing world ageing, it will become increasingly difficult to afford cure. It is fast becoming a political imperative to focus resource on prevention of illness and sustaining vitality.

“Bringing vitality also draws on clever molecular science such as 'responsive' deodorants: molecular cages that can lock up some of the all-important perfume, only releasing their payload when the underarm is hot and it is needed, to cognitive neuroscience, research that understands how the body signals to itself the interplay between smell and touch to bring real delight to the consumer's experience.

“And as the secrets of the human genome are unlocked, we are looking into how the individual's genetic make-up affects his response to diet, thus creating massive opportunities for proactive public health strategies world-wide.

“But vitality is also about joy in life: our seemingly arcane study of arctic organisms unlocked for us the secrets of why they don't freeze, enabling us to reap new knowledge on controlling ice crystal growth. The result is ice cream with a host of new shapes and textures, for the delight of young and old everywhere.

“This isn't science for its own sake. It is science applied to prevention rather than cure, to making people's lives better, longer and more fulfilling, and to protecting and sustaining the environment. We want our science to mean less disease, and less waste of resources. Which ultimately means more value for our consumers, for us, and for society.

“We are committed to sustainability not for altruistic reasons, but as a matter of hard-headed business logic. If, for example fish stocks are not sustainable, then ultimately we have no business - no fish, no Birds Eye fish fingers.

Across the world, about six thousand people - mainly children - died today, and die every day, because of poor hygiene and lack of access to safe water. So we are acting. Our research into detection of microbial and other contaminants, and the means for their controlled elimination, is enabling us to develop domestic units that purify contaminated water to WHO purity standards, for about 4p a day - it will bring a new meaning to the phrase, 'life is cheap.'

“Genomics and proteomics will identify more and more targets for addressing consumer needs - and biotechnology will strive to find the minimum intervention to meet those needs. But sophisticated science will remain our route to deceptively simple solutions, delivered responsibly and with deep consumer insight.”

Prodi wants research to top EU priorities
Coke aims to become secret ingredient
UK food & beverage firms want better-trained staff
Place your bets
UK to update patent law
Get out more
Aussies push isoflavones for ageing symptoms

Innovation

Prodi wants research to top EU priorities

European Commission president Romano Prodi has described knowledge and innovation as the Union's “key priorities”.

He was responding to Ireland’s Bertie Ahern, the new president of the European Council, who touched only briefly on research when outlining his country's agenda for its six-month stint at the helm of the EU.

Prodi claimed there are 400,000 “top EU researchers” currently working in the US, and said Europe must create research centres of excellence that are the best in the world. He said that investment in education and research is not an “abstract problem”, but an issue to be addressed now, as international competitors are already overtaking Europe.

But the British Royal Society may have thrown a spanner in Prodi’s works. It has published a working paper, which says EU members should make a rigorous analysis of how science is funded before it sets up a European Research Council (ERC).

The society is worried that members might cut national research programmes to pay for their share of the ERC.

It felt the gap in levels of private sector research funding between the EU and the US is more important. “While in no way downplaying the importance of fundamental research, focus on the establishment of [an ERC] should not be allowed to displace effort needed to encourage more directly improved innovative capacity within European business,” it said.

Flavours

Coke aims to become secret ingredient

After years of protecting its unique taste, the Coca-Cola Company wants cooks to use Coke in their kitchens. To kick-start their thinking it has launched a recipe book that features regular and diet soft drinks to juices and lemonades.

Coca-Cola says the new recipes, created by The Culinary Institute of America, were inspired by “America's growing love affair with the art of cooking”.

Coca-Cola sales, especially of its big money-spinner, Coke Classic, show lack-lustre growth. And people are buying more convenience food than ever, despite press reports that link it to weight problems.

Despite this, Donna Shields, Coca-Cola’s manager of health and nutrition strategic communications, said "With more home cooks experimenting in the kitchen, we asked The Culinary Institute of America to explore the flavours our wide array of beverages can bring to cooking. "These new recipes demonstrate how beverages can be incorporated into every-day recipes to deliver contemporary, big flavours, with moderate calories in mind."

You too can try Baked Nachos with Braised Chicken, Peppers and Onions, made with Diet Coke; Lemonade-Yogurt-Granola Breakfast Parfait, which uses Minute Maid Light lemonade; and Mango Passion Sorbet, made with Odwalla Mango Tango juice and Minute Maid Premium orange passion juice blend.

To download recipes, go to www.secretingredientrecipes.com.

Training

UK food firms want better-trained staff

A one-stop website for industry and training news is the top priority revealed by research by Improve FDSSC, the proposed Food and Drink Sector Skills Council.

The new council asked a UK-wide sample of large and medium food and drink manufacturers what they wanted to see from the organisation when it starts up in the spring.

They said the web portal should include news, resource listings, best practice training guidelines and the matching of students and potential employees with employers.

Manufacturers also thought that Improve FDSSC should be responsible for improving competency, setting standards and benchmarking outcomes. This would help employers gauge training and cost-effectiveness.

The lack of monitoring, tracking and evaluation schemes contributes means that the time and money spent on training are largely unquantified. Training budgets allocated by companies are also seen as limited and restricting wider and better training of staff.  

Lack of new trained staff coming forward to replace an ageing experienced workforce was seen as a time bomb for the industry.  One manufacturer commented “They will all retire at the same time and where will be our experienced personnel then?”

Technology

Place your bets

US research powerhouse MIT has come up with 10 emerging technologies that they promise will change the world.

The annual list, published in the February edition of Technology Review, is the school’s best guess.

“Nonetheless, Technology Review’s editors are willing to bet that the 10 emerging technologies in this special package will affect our lives and work in revolutionary ways—whether next year or next decade,” it says. For each, they have identified a researcher whose ideas and efforts epitomise the field.

The list is

• Universal Translation

• Synthetic Biology

• Nanowires

• Bayesian Machine Learning

• T-Rays

• Distributed Storage

• RNA Interference

• Power Grid Control

• Microfluidic Optical Fibres

• Personal Genomics

For more see ww.technologyreview.com/articles/emerging0204.asp

Patents

UK to update patent law

The UK government today published a bill to encourage more innovation through an updated patents law.

The Bill provides for a more supportive framework, particularly for small businesses, to enforce patent rights across the European Union. It includes measures to help those trying to resolve disputes over patent rights, and provisions to ensure compliance with international commitments that help UK businesses.

In particular the Patents Bill would, if passed

Enable the Patent Office to pass an independent non-binding opinion on patent validity or infringement. This would help settle disputes over patent rights without parties having to resort to expensive litigation.

Bring UK patent law into line with the revised European Patent Convention. This would cut red tape and make it simpler for UK businesses to operate across Europe.

Modernise UK patent law to be more responsive to customers needs. For example, the Patent Office could change application forms without first having to amend regulations.

Modify existing protection for alleged infringers. The aim is to encourage out-of-court settlement of disputes but still deter patent owners from making unreasonable allegations of infringement.

The Bill is available from here.

Innovation

Get out more

Feeling dull, uninspired, bereft of innovative ideas? You should get out more.

That’s the advice from California’s Stanford Business School, which has just looked at how people become innovative. Those who get out most are three times more likely to innovate than entrepreneurs stuck in a uniform network.

“Cut the umbilical cord to the folks around the office water cooler. Mix it up. Take a class with strangers, seek out ideas from people you don’t ordinarily talk to, do anything to get out and mingle more with folks from other professions. Broaden your social horizons, and you just might come up with the next crazy idea that sparks an industry,” the researchers say.

Traditional studies on business innovation predict whether an established firm or industry is likely to produce innovations, says Martin Ruef, one of the authors. “I wanted to examine how people become innovative rather than why they reject conventional routines and adopt someone else’s innovations.”

In 1999, Ruef surveyed Stanford Business School alumni who had started new businesses to find out what lit their fire. He based his study on data from 766 entrepreneurs from a target group of 1,786, including some foreign entrepreneurs. The metrics for innovation included the introduction of new products or services; trademark or patenting activity; exploitation of a new market niche; new methods of production, distribution, or marketing; and industry restructuring.

Ruef concluded that the most creative entrepreneurs spend less time than average networking with business colleagues who are friends, and more time networking with a diverse group that includes acquaintances and strangers.

“Contrary to common assumptions,” says Ruef, “the evidence suggests that in many cases strong social ties do not provide significant new information, so it helps not to be as embedded in them.”

Ruef says disparate information and its transmission are keys to innovation. “Weak ties of acquaintanceship provide non-redundant information and contribute to innovation because they serve as bridges between disconnected social groups,” he says.

“Weak ties allow for more experimentation in combining ideas from disparate sources and impose fewer demands for social conformity than do strong ties.”

In terms of the entrepreneurial team itself, “the more entrepreneurs you have, the more likely you are to have innovation because people come in with different backgrounds and perspectives.” But he warns that even if complete strangers spend a lot of time together, the ties among them soon will be the equivalent of strong ties and drown out the benefits of non-redundant information.

Ruef also found that people tend to be more creative and innovative when they are new to an industry. “The longer entrepreneurs have been in the industry, the less innovative they are.” Career tenure is not necessarily a bad thing because extensive experience can contribute to more profitable business in other ways. But veterans just don’t come up with wacky or creative ideas that can really spark a new industry, he warns.

Ingredients

Aussies push isoflavones for ageing symptoms

Australian isoflavones research firm Novogen has set up a media centre s to provide information on research on isoflavone and related health implications.

The Novogen Centre for Isoflavone Research (NCIR) feature background on the use of isoflavones to treat many symptoms related to ageing. These include menopausal symptoms in women and Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia (BPH), or enlarged prostate, in men.

The material supplements the North American Menopause Society's (NAMS) position statement on the treatment of menopause symptoms. This concludes that supplementing behaviour change with dietary isoflavones is an acceptable treatment option for menopause symptoms.

Novogen’s lead anti-cancer compound phenoxodiol, which is based on an isoflavone-related molecule, is in several human clinical trials around the world. Click here for more.