Public Funding for Food Science Fusion Limited

UK Diets lack dietary fibre and nutritional research links this to both mild and chronic disease in gut health, diabetes and coronary disease to the low dietary fibre. UK fibre consumption consistently falls below the government guidelines in all age and socioeconomic categories. The proportion of people who are overweight or obese has increased in every age group (since 1993). Almost half of the poorest men and women are obese compared with just one-fifth of the richest. [https://ageing-better.org.uk/health-state-ageing-2022][0] Yet "Food on the Go" is a continually expanding food category with a significant portion of products in the pastry sub-category. Public Health education has failed to deliver the lifestyle changes necessary to impact community health. High Fibre Salt and Sugar(HFSS) regulations are emerging as a policy solution to address this challenge. The UK food industry produces significant volumes of fibre rich side streams that can be utilised to enhance product quality. Nudge Fibre is focused on using nudge nutrition to increase the fibre uptake inline and exceeding HFSS targets using new and novel approaches. Typically, the cheapest products lack dietary fibre, have poor HFSS scores and face significant consumer resistance to change. The development of high quality commercial bakery pastry will use UK sourced food side streams that are currently by-products of food processing that have lower carbohydrates, increased protein and up to 12x fibre content. The use of side stream products results in a UK supplied cost competitive product in a price and nutrition sensitive market. By using the nudge nutritional theory and cost-effective ingredients it will deliver levels of fibre in high volume "food on the go" and value range products to increase consumption of dietary fibre and nutritional's, that can be applied across a wide range of applications ensuring the highest possible impact. The project will focus on the sensory, performance and mechanical properties of increasing the levels of fibre in industrial bakery pastry products. The use of modern food science to prove that the scope for high quality products can be developed cost effectively in industrial manufacturing processes. The project will combine industrial production methods with novel formulation and state of the art sensory analysis to develop a clear route to market. [0]: https://ageing-better.org.uk/health-state-ageing-2022

The UN warns 'Our food systems are failing, and the COVID-19 pandemic is making things worse' and clearly points out 'we must strengthen social protection systems for nutrition' June, 2020\. It is even more important to improve diet during and after the COVID-19 pandemic to aid recovery. UK Public policy is rapidly shifting towards the inclusion of greater levels of dietary fibre in foods especially for low cost products targeted at socioeconomic groups CDE, where choice is financially constrained. Government guidelines published in July 2015 (SACN, 2015) and Public Health England (2016) recommended to increase dietary fibre intake to 30g /day, as part of a healthy balanced diet. However, most adults are still only eating an average of about 18g/day in the UK. It is still a challenge to use sustainable and low cost dietary fibre source for increasing dietary intake without compromising the food quality and sensory properties of foods. Bakery products are a main source of dietary fibre in UK and western diet, providing about 25% of total dietary fibre daily diet. The aims of this project are to introduce a natural and low cost dietary fibre source in a micropowder format to bakery food products, delivering healthy baked goods with the nutrition claim of increased fibre and lowered sugar/fat cake products (20% sugar reduction and/or 30% fat reduction) both with pleasing sensory properties . The project targets the high volume industrial bread manufacturing process and the "grab and go" cake sector with new increased fibre formulations