4. Nutritional properties and applications

With growing awareness of the relationship between health and diet, a new concept of nutrition developed in Japan in the late 1980s. Today, this concept of functional foods is recognized worldwide and is one of the main drivers of innovation in the food industry.

All consumers are particularly interested in foods that improve the body's physiological functions, reducing the risk of disease.

To avoid communications that could mislead the consumer, legislators are increasingly defining the various functional ingredients, regulating their applications and the related nutritional and health claims and profiles.