The Fountain of KnowledgeResearch for Nutrition,Health and Wellness

Nestlé Research Center

Health and enjoyment: drivers of research 2

We transform science into consumer benefits 4

Attitude, activity and food:the base for health and wellness 6

Unlocking the nutrition puzzle 8

Towards a personal nutrition 14

Why we choose our foods 22

A new direction for food research 26

Quality from farm to fork 30

Building food safety in from the start 34

Foods for the future 38

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Health and enjoyment: drivers of research

Nestlé has a long-standing reputation for excellence in research on food and nutrition that has benefited consumers for over a century. The Nestlé Research Center is one of theworld’s leading laboratories in the food and life sciences, andundisputed leader in some domains.

To lead into the 21st century, Nestlé’s management took thestrategic decision to position Nestlé not just as a trusted foodcompany, but also as the world's leading nutrition, health andwellness company, embodied in the corporate motto, “Good Food, Good Life”. The strategy firmly placed nutrition as a major driver for the Nestlé Research Center, not onlybecause of the scientific challenges, but also through the directrole and responsibility of the center in the future of Nestlé.

What does the shift mean in reality? It responds to themodern consumer’s needs and desires for foods that not onlyprocure enjoyment but, at the same time, offer nutritionallyproven health benefits at all stages and ages of life. Health andenjoyment are the ingredients of wellness and well-being.

A visionary strategy to build a knowledge baseFew areas of research are as complex as food research. Fooddemands a multidisciplinary approach utilising the physical,biological, medical and social sciences. The Nestlé ResearchCenter is among the world leaders in research on food and nutrition because Nestlé has constantly invested for thefuture to remain at the leading edge in the key scientificdisciplines, conscious that the return on investment might not be immediate.

Nestlé has always held that good food is the main source of health. As knowledge on food has progressed, so has theconcept of what is good food. At first, food was good if it wassafe. Then, it was good if it also provided all the basic nutrientsto prevent nutritional deficiency. Now, food is good when itprovides added health benefits through specific physiologicalfunctionalities, while still fulfilling the basic needs for safety and nutritional adequacy. But in addition, food products mustalso look and taste good and offer convenience of use for the consumer.

Research on food demands not only a highly qualified staff –the Nestlé Research Center has 300 scientists, many of whomare international experts in their fields – but also a balancebetween basic knowledge-building research and appliedresearch. For specific areas of expertise or analytical techniquesnot available in-house, Nestlé scientists work with externalinstitutes, so possibilities for research are virtually limitless.

From knowledge to innovationConcrete innovations depend on applying knowledge. Taking all the multidisciplinary competences together, thepotential for innovation at the Nestlé Research Center is enormous.

The cumulative knowledge is applied in focused researchprojects so the resulting innovations reflect real business needsin the strategic context of health and wellness.

Innovations in nutrition research target specific health benefitsthrough foods. Six consumer health benefit areas have beendefined: growth and development, protection, gut health,performance and beauty, weight control, and healthy ageing.These are outlined in greater detail in the section describingnutrition research.

Achieving health and wellness through foods is a challengeand an adventure. It extends the boundaries of consumerexpectations and satisfaction beyond the classical sensoryexperience. But one rule stands out: today’s knowledge providesthe base for tomorrow’s innovations.

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We transform science into consumer benefits

“One of our aims is to transform scientific results into somethingmeaningful for the consumers. They want products that will tastegood and promote physical and mental health and wellness”Peter van Bladeren Head of the Nestlé Research Center

What was your judgment of the Nestlé Research Center when you joined? Right from my first contact with the scientists here, I wasimpressed with the breadth and depth of their research. I immediately saw the Nestlé Research Center as a world leaderin food and nutritional sciences. Everything I have seen sinceconvinces me I was right.

How is research in Nestlé evolving?We have seen a major evolution in both the food and nutritionalsciences. Food science now looks beyond individual foodconstituents to the structures of whole food systems. Food structures depend on interactions between foodconstituents at a molecular level. They determine sensoryproperties like creaminess or crispness, how flavour is releasedfrom foods in the mouth and how nutrients are carried throughthe digestive system and made available to the body.

Our approach to nutritional science is also changing quicklyfrom the “bookkeeping” of nutrients in products to a conceptbased on nutritional value rather than simply nutrient content. We are also living through an exciting evolution in identifyingnovel nutrient systems and demonstrating their specific health benefits. Using new bio-analytical techniques, we now bring together food and nutritional sciences in studies offood/consumer interactions.

Our eight departments each provide specialised technologiesbut our projects are more and more inter-departmental. This is a key change. In fact, the multidisciplinary approach is the onlyway to solve the complex scientific questions we are faced with.

What are the consequences for the Nestlé Research Center of the strategy to transform Nestlé into a trusted nutrition,health and wellness company?The Nestlé Research Center is essential for this move. It meanslooking beyond the classical concept of foods as a source ofnutritional adequacy to foods with added value in the form of health benefits. To identify and prove health benefits and makespecific health claims for products, you need research to findand support them. The Nestlé Research Center is increasinglybecoming the center for these competencies. So far, we havesuccessfully focussed on promising new trends in science to deliver more. Now, we are translating these into consumerbenefits.

Peter van Bladeren has been head of the Nestlé Research Center

since 2002. He is a leading scientist in the fields of toxicology

and biotransformation. Before he joined Nestlé, he was Director

of TNO Nutrition and Food Research Institute in The Netherlands,

and has a distinguished academic career

Who defines the consumer health benefits to be targeted as research goals?For the company as a whole, we have defined global healthbenefit areas. Individualised nutrition is one of these. But thereare also more specific goals like healthy ageing, reinforcing theimmune system, digestive efficiency, growth. This is a majorchange that will affect all Nestlé product sectors and all markets.Selling a beef cube for its flavour and convenience is one thing.Selling it for its health benefits is a totally different story.

The move towards a nutrition, health and wellness companyimplies the need, across all business sectors and markets, for a strong science base to understand and communicate toclients and consumers the health benefits of our products. It is essentially a question of integrating science more effectivelyinto the teaching and training programmes of the company.

What activities in the Nestlé Research Center have beenreinforced, and why?Apart from nutrition, the main area is in food/consumerinteractions. This looks into the physiological and neuronalmechanisms of food perception. For the future, we believemolecular biology and bioanalytics will help us move towardspersonalised nutrition by identifying biomarkers of risk factorsin individual subjects for health conditions like obesity, diabetesor cardiovascular problems. This opens the way to proposingfoods that act preventively long before clinical symptoms beginto show up. For some individual consumers, this will meanfinding ways to fill gaps in their own specific nutrient demands.In nutrition, we will always be dealing with the complexity offood with its many components.

Food safety now focuses on early-warning, detecting newpotential risks in the food supply chain and dealing with problemsbefore they arise. Health and wellness are multidimensional,eliminating risks on the one side and providing new benefits on the other.

And we must not forget the strengthening of our research in pet foods after Nestlé’s acquisition of the Ralston-PurinaCompany in the USA. Nutritionally speaking, pets are verysimilar to humans, so they can now benefit from over fifty yearsresearch in Nestlé on human nutrition.

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Nestlé has built up an enormous pool of knowledge in researchover the past 100 years. In the new, forward-looking world youdescribe, is this still of any use?Every scientist entering the Nestlé Research Center should look on this as their heritage. We owe it to our predecessors to look back and benefit from their work. They were often askingthe right questions, but did not have the technologies to answerthem. Now we do, and many of the questions are just as validtoday as they were in the past. Even for new questions,somebody may already have found the answer in a piece ofresearch which, at the time, was academic. Some of our newactive ingredients recently introduced into Nestlé products fortheir specific health benefits come from research performed twenty years ago. But the discoveries were not “timely” in theevolution of the company’s business goals.

I believe that the Nestlé Research Center today, partlybecause of its past, is a major asset for the company. If it did not exist, it would take ten or twenty years to create it, and much longer for it to generate the competitive edge it now offers.

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Attitude, activity and food: the base for health and wellness

Why research for health and wellness?Good food is the major source of health throughout life. It must not only provide the appropriate nutrients, but presentthem in a form that ensures their efficient uptake into the body.So research must ask how efficiently different foods aredigested and how much of the essential nutrients are absorbed,in addition to understanding how food is experienced throughthe five senses. Earlier food research led to identifying andeliminating anti-nutritional factors in foods that impedednutrient absorption, such as phytic acid in cereals that blocksiron absorption. Today’s research in food science looks atstructuring foods and ingredients at a molecular level tooptimise nutrient delivery, so the nutrients declared on thepackage can offer their full health benefits in the body.

Any food when consumed enters into contact with millions of active receptors in the body, either as whole foodcomponents or as molecules. The resulting interactions canlead to sensations of pleasure or displeasure, or, in the longerterm, to good health or food-related health problems.

Seen from the angle of the consumer, foods operate in threetimeframes. In the short term comes sensory pleasure. Do welike it or not? In the medium term comes comfort and feelingwell. Do we feel satiated and replete, or does it give usheartburn or indigestion? And in the long term comes basichealth, the basis of wellness and – ultimately – well-being.

Nutrition and food safety, the two sides of the coinNutrition and food safety are both intimately linked to healthand wellness. Broadly speaking, nutrition research in Nestléseeks to optimise those properties of foods that have a positiveeffect, while food safety research seeks to minimise or excludethose with a negative effect.

Although this relationship between nutrition and safety isgenerally true, the real situation is more complex. Any twoindividual consumers may experience very different sensationsand different health consequences when consuming the samefood. Consider lactose intolerance, for example. Most individualsin a traditional milk-consuming population like Switzerland candigest lactose because the lactase enzyme permitting digestionis synthesised in the body throughout life. However, manyindividuals from parts of the world where milk is not a traditionalpart of the diet, like South-East Asia, lose the ability to digestlactose because their ability to synthesise lactase stops duringchildhood. So in the discussion of nutrition and food safety, the precise profiles of positive and negative elements may differfrom one individual to another.

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Unlocking the nutrition puzzleResearch can reveal which specific components in food havea positive effect on health and which may have negative effects.Nestlé foods can be designed using this knowledge

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Nutrition and changing expectationsExpectations for safe, healthy, tasty foodfall into two categories. The first concernsthe fundamental qualities of safety andnutritional adequacy in all foods to meetbasic physiological needs. The second ismore product-specific, and concerns flavour,texture, convenience or added health and wellness value – the optional qualitiesthat reflect the conscious consumerdesires that determine food choice.

Nutrition research in Nestlé todayaddresses both categories. For example,babies and young infants need specificproteins and fats that give the rightbalance of amino acids and essential fatty acids for growth and development. And all consumers need foods that build strong bones to offset the risk ofosteoporosis in later life. But we mustalso be aware of the conscious desire forproducts that may improve personalappearance and self-image by offering a better skin quality or body shape.

Lifestyle and environment have changedmarkedly over the past decades, placingnew demands on diet and metabolism.Our modern society has produced manyhealth benefits. But it has also seen an increase in diabetes, obesity andcardiovascular problems: the metabolicdisorders prevalent in urban civilisations.For health, the right balance betweenphysical activities and food intake is veryimportant, and this balance dependsheavily on personal attitude. Researchreveals which specific components infood have a positive effect on healthconditions, and which may have a negativeeffect. Nestlé foods can be designedaccordingly. This influences not only newproducts, but also existing productswhere recipes are constantly updated in line with state-of-the-art knowledge in nutritional science.

Identifying nutritional needs and food habitsIn identifying and fulfilling needs throughfoods, Nestlé Research has an extensiveknowledge base coming from severaldecades of clinical trials on nutrientmetabolism and physiological response.This is constantly being supplemented by new research.

To understand the needs of theconsumer, research in Nestlé is necessarilyglobal. A recent example is a seven-yearclinical assessment run jointly with threeleading Chinese universities, the Instituteof Nutrition and Food Hygiene, Beijing,the Jiaotong University, Xian, and theSun Yat-Sen University of MedicalSciences, on the energy requirements of babies and young children in rural and urban China. The results from thesestudies were used for revising theRecommended Daily Allowances ofnutrients (RDA) for infants in China.Research also charts the food habits ofsub-groups within a population, as in thesurvey of what foods adolescents inSwitzerland consume. Contrary toexpectations, results revealed that Swissadolescents stick remarkably closely to the eating patterns they learn as young children. This analysis by Nestléscientists is now an official World HealthOrganisation publication entitledHabitudes alimentaires d’un grouped’adolescents suisses (Food habits of a group of Swiss adolescents).

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Nestlé firmly believes thatmothers’ milk is the best foodfor babies. However somemothers cannot, or choosenot to breastfeed and theyneed an appropriate substitute.This is why Nestlé specialistsin infant nutrition conductextensive research withleading paediatricians andobstetricians in hospitals andclinics worldwide, in order to develop a wide range ofstarter formulas, follow-upformulas and highlysophisticated formulations for babies with specialmedical needs to give a goodstart in life.

Starting from sweet whey,research led to an innovativeprocess to predigest thepotentially allergenic milkprotein ß-lactoglobulin, givinga hypoallergenic infantformula that strongly reducesallergy development. New infant formulas also aimto approach ever more closelythe composition andfunctionality of human milk in essential amino and fattyacids, as well as in other keynutrients like minerals andoligoelements.

(Top) ß-lactoglobulin, one of the

main allergens in cow’s milk

(Above) Comparative amino acid

profiles: human milk (red dots)

and infant formula (blue dots)

Sitting in her ground flooroffice at the Nestlé ResearchCenter, Marie-Claire Fichotspeaks softly, and carefullyweighs each remark. But asresearch coordinator for infantproducts, she also speakspassionately about thechallenges infant nutritioncreates for her and her teamsof scientists.

“Breast milk is the goldstandard, breast is alwaysbest. We still don’t know allthe benefits it provides. All the time we discover newmolecules that we have tounderstand. But that’s biology.As soon as you improve theanalytic tools you discovernew molecules.

“There are three key areasfor our work today. The first is prevention of allergy. Nestlé was the first companyto have a hypoallergenicformula. This is importantbecause, we are seeing asteady rise in allergies all overthe world. The second area is probiotics. We still have a lot of work to do in order to better understand the roleof gut flora for the baby. The third area is growth andweight management.

“Breast milk is an excellentreference point for us and sowe try to equal its nutritionalfunctionality in our work. The first challenge is to try tocopy breast milk composition.New molecules are regularlyidentified in breast milk andthis implies new research tosee how infant products canmatch this composition. This is sometimes difficult.

“Cow’s milk, which is thebasis of most infant formulas,displays a different balance

of macro- and micronutrients.One example is proteinquality. Cow’s milk has a lowlevel of one of the amino acids essential for babies so,to have enough of thisessential component, the totallevel of cow’s milk proteinwould have to be increased in formulas. By research onthe fractionation of cow’smilk, we were able to developnew formulations that bettermatch both the protein qualityand quantity of breast milk.

“We also have to get evercloser to the physiologicalfunctionality of breast milk.This is another challenge! To prove the benefits of ourinnovative concepts, clinicaltrials are systematicallycarried out with the targetpopulation showing, forexample, protection againstinfections or prevention ofallergy. These and otherbenefits of breast milk are our targets.”

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Infant nutrition: ensuring a good start in life

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“Infant formulas must work towards the highest standard breast milk“ Marie-Claire FichotInfant Nutrition Coordinator

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Chocolate has a long-standingreputation as a source ofpleasure and well-being. The pleasure of chocolatecomes partly from the richflavour and smooth texture.The fresh cocoa bean is bland.Flavour and aroma aredeveloped by fermenting androasting to create a flavourmatrix of over 300 compounds.

Chocolate is not as bad as some people think. Eaten in moderation, the fat inchocolate, although it issaturated, neither raises norlowers our blood cholesterol.Chocolate also suppliespolyphenols, powerful anti-oxidants with a significantcardio-protector effect.Polyphenols prevent LDLoxidation and, as such, canlimit cellular cholesterol levels.They are efficiently absorbedinto the body after eatingchocolate.

Different crystalline structures

of the fat in chocolate

Emma Pickford startedworking for Nestlé six yearsago as a nutritionist dealingwith chocolate, biscuit andsugar confectionary in York.When she joined the NestléResearch Center slightly overtwo years ago, chocolateremained key to her interest.“I eat chocolate every singleday,” she says.

“Chocolate is a uniquelyattractive substance that hasan almost universal appeal. It is frequently reported to be one of the most cravedfoods in the western worldand there are many theoriesas to why. The most plausibleexplanation lies in its sensorycharacteristics.

“A unique combination ofthe complex aroma, the richtaste and the smooth texture,along with a fat that meltsclose to body temperaturemakes it unlike any other food.

“Chocolate is veryinteresting from a scientificpoint of view. You’re mixingvery basic ingredientstogether and yet you come upwith this extraordinary food.It’s perceived as this‘unhealthy’ food that tastesreally good. But we can showthat in moderation, there can be real nutritional value.

“The potential healthbenefits of chocolate are dueto the naturally occurringflavonoids, or antioxidants,that it contains. If you think of life and health as a battleagainst being attacked byoxygen and becoming rancid,cocoa flavonoids have thepotential to interfere withdisease processes thatnaturally occur in the body aswe get older, helping to reduce

damaging effects of oxygenthat our cells experience.

“Cocoa flavonoids arethought to be particularlyuseful in protecting our bodyduring the steps that lead upto heart disease. They havebeen shown to have anantioxidant activity in reducingthe tendency for LDL (bad)cholesterol to oxidize. This isone of the first events thatmight lead to a plaque formingin the wall of an artery.Flavonoids from cocoa alsohelp to reduce the activity of platelets (blood cells) anddecrease the likelihood thatthey ’clump’ together in bloodvessels.

“You could have a relativelysmall serving of dark chocolateand it would provide you withquite a significant serving of antioxidants. But we wouldnever recommend that youget your antioxidants just fromchocolate. It can be one of the sources, however.

“From a nutritional point of view, chocolate, like everyother food, is neither good norbad per se. When consumedas part of a varied, balanceddiet, it can be both a source of nutrients, including cocoaantioxidants, and a source of pleasure due to its uniquesensory characteristics.”

The research behind a passion for chocolate

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“The potential health benefitsof chocolate are due to the naturally occuring antioxidantsthat it contains“ Emma Pickford Nutritionist-R&D Communication

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Towards a personal nutritionThe exciting new frontier of nutrition research involves the investigation of how a person’s specific genome affects food choice and the exact interaction of a food or ingredient at the individual level

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Consumer health benefit areasResearch on nutrition as a means toachieve health and wellness focuses on six consumer health benefit areas:1. Research covers the processes ofgrowth and development throughout life, especially in early infancy andchildhood. It looks beyond the balance of essential nutrients in infant formulasand complementary foods to optimisingall aspects of food components, fromcomposition to structure and function. 2. Work at Nestlé is discovering how food components, like probiotic bacteria,protect the digestive system againstpathogenic infections, support thefunctions of the immune system, andcontribute to protecting consumersagainst food allergies.3. Other research focuses on the intestineitself to help understand how foods canimpart freedom from gastrointestinaldiscomfort and pain, including stomachulcers. Gastric infections affect some70% of the world’s population and workat the Nestlé Research Center has foundfood ingredients that can help improvethis major health problem. Research is also seeking to prevent the problems of colic pains suffered by a large number of infants.4. Researchers are investigating foods for performance and beauty. Research is identifying value-added ingredients and foods to promote skin quality and enhance performance of activeconsumers in sports and recreation. 5. Nestlé scientists are studying weightcontrol to help understand and improvethe mechanisms of weight managementand prevent the health problems thatresult as a consequence of excess weight.This research area is developing newweight management solutions in theshape of ingredients and food products. 6. Eating a balanced and nutritious diet is important at every stage of life, butparticularly during ageing. So the finalarea of concentration for Nestlé researchin nutrition and health is the increasingelderly population of the world.

Research is providing the knowledgeneeded for the elderly to achieve andfind the same delight in their lives aswhen they were young.

Managing molecules What are the natural molecules present in foods or food ingredients that canprovide these benefits through a specificphysiological action? Once scientists canidentify these molecules, how can wemaximise their effect by ensuring thatthey reach the target tissues in the bodyand are not simply eliminated throughthe digestive system? Presenting activemolecules in an appropriate bioavailableform is a question of being able to controlthe physical environment of the moleculethroughout the operations of foodprocessing, in the food itself and in thedigestive system, until it reaches its pointof entry into the body. This research onwhat are called nutrient delivery systemsis as much a key to the development of products with specific claims as is thediscovery of the active principle.

Individualised nutritionIn scientific research, certain keydiscoveries so change the world thatthings are never the same again. One such discovery came 50 years ago,when James Watson and Francis Crickrevealed the secret of the double helixstructure of DNA.

Both food and its consumer arebiological in nature. Research on DNAthrough molecular biology and genetics,has revolutionised biology, changing it from a static, descriptive science to a dynamic, interactive science. This opensup vast, new frontiers for research onhow the personal DNA gene pool of a given consumer may affect food choiceand the precise interaction of a food oringredient at the individual level. The world’s population today is theprogeny of multiple cross-culturalrelationships dating back to ancestraltimes and mixing genes in successivegenerations.

So the question regarding food andhealth is: what is the influence of theseindividual genetics on individual foodneeds? Are some consumers geneticallypredisposed to develop diabetes, or highblood pressure, or become obese? How much in both the positive andnegative impacts of foods andingredients on health is genetically thesame for all consumers, and how much is individual? And if we can find out, how can we use this? In the biologicalmechanisms of life, genes encodeproteins and proteins modify metabolites.Studies on individual metabolite profilesare revealing “early warning” metabolicsignals that predict whether the individualconsumer is at high risk or low risk ofdeveloping a specific food-relatedcomplaint later in life.

This presents the possibility to offerconsumers personalised dietary adviceand food products years before anysymptoms appear, to offset the risk for as long as possible.

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In the area of health andwellness, two worldsconverge: foods andmedicines. Food is a source of pleasure as well as the fuel for physical activity. Buttoday’s consumer is moreaware of the ability of foods to maintain health andimprove recovery. Hence theconcept of performance foods or functional foodswhich, through the presenceof physiologically activecomponents, provide aspecific health or wellnessbenefit over and above thatexpected from consuming the nutrients present in a normal diet.

The health benefits of plants and yoghurts are wellknown, so performance foodsare not new. What is new isthat research in nutrition has begun to look beyond the presence or absence ofnutrients as such, and toexplore the physiologicalfunctions of many foodcomponents coming fromplants and micro-organisms,as well as from animalproducts like milk. Discoveriesby Nestlé’s nutritionists arealready leading to a newgeneration of products withclinically proven health claimsbased on specific bioactiveingredients.

(Top) Probiotic lactic acid bacteria

reduces incidence of allergy

(Above) Different cell types of the

immune system

Food chemist Bruce Germancame to the Nestlé ResearchCenter on sabbatical from hisprofessorship at University ofCalifornia Davis. Although heretains his academic post inCalifornia, what attracted himto the NRC was the challengeof shifting nutritional researchto the goal of maintaininghealth and preventing disease.

“The science of disease iscomparatively easy at leaststrategically. You havesomething wrong and thegoal is to find it. When you do find what is wrong , thetask is to solve it, and thepharmaceutical industry hasbeen successful with themodel of developing drugs ascures for diagnosed diseases.

“Maintaining health, andpreventing disease however,is a different problem. Staying healthy means gettingeverything right, and if youdecide to change one factor toreduce the risk of one disease,you run the risk of makingsomething else worse. So neither the problems northe solutions are simple. You have to have a very deftapproach of looking at allaspects of health at the sametime. Furthermore, even whenwe think we have identified a metabolic problem in anindividual that couldeventually lead to disease,since people are not all thesame, the solutions tometabolic problems won’t allbe the same.

“Nutrition research createdone of the great bodies ofscientific knowledge bystudying the essentialnutrients and as a result, all the molecules that are

necessary for human growthand survival are known. Now nutrition research isturning to understand thevarious effects of the othercompounds in foods and howthey can procure healthbenefits. The task ofunderstanding the healtheffects of these non-essentialcompounds is more complexand the science needs to beeven more rigorous but resultsare already emerging that areleading to foods with addedhealth value.

“Nutrition will use genomictechnologies as a knowledgebase, but that can’t beenough. I have the samegenome from the day I’m bornto the day I die, but thatdoesn’t mean I should eat thesame throughout my life.Understanding metabolismshould provide better answersfor guiding diets for thedifferent stages of life and fordifferent people.

“Ultimately we canpersonalise foods for healthand with foods we have anadvantage over drugs, we canalso personalise for taste.Nestlé will be able to buildfoods that are simultaneouslydelicious just for me andhealthy just for me.”

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“Ultimately we can personalise foods for health and also personalisefor taste“ Bruce German SeniorScientific Advisor

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Weight gain occurs whenenergy intake exceeds energyused. The human genome hasnot changed since Palaeolithictimes. But our environmentand lifestyle have: in generalwe eat more food and engagein less physical activity.

Weight loss improves insulinresistance as well as bloodpressure and blood lipids. Low fat diets should reduceweight, but not if the lower “fatenergy” is compensated byhigher “carbohydrate energy”. Most weight loss programmesare disappointing, especiallylong term, partly becauselifelong compliance to lifestyleand diet changes is difficult.This is where Nestlé can helpconsumers take control of theirbody weight by making tastyfoods the weight-controllingchoices.

The Nestlé Research Centeris investigating new weightmanagement solutions. The work includes humanstudies to show the efficacy of ingredients or products, as well as a new and importantaspect of obesity researchtoday, namely to understandhow nutrients affect bodytissues through the regulationof genes, proteins andmetabolites.

(Top) Human immortalised

adipocyte

(Above) Adipocyte dedifferentiation

Hilary Green earned her PhDin metabolic physiology andthen built a career in clinicalnutrition and the impact ofnutrition on human health.Hilary joined Nestlé in 2002.Since then she has worked onbone health and plant sterolsfor cholesterol lowering, and is now the Product AreaCoordinator for PerformanceNutrition and NRC Coordinatorfor Weight Management.

“We’re working onunderstanding the genetic and metabolic differencesbetween individuals and howfood choices affect them.Today we can get a singlemeasure of blood cholesterol,but that doesn’t explain howeveryone will respond to a diet or food that is intendedto reduce blood cholesterol. It would be good to getinstead a metabolic,biochemical signature thatprovides a pattern, rather thana single indicator, in order to help consumers choose a diet appropriate to theirmetabolic needs.

“One of our research goalsis to understand body fat. We believe this holds the keyto understanding body weightcontrol. Not all fat is the same.The fat under a baby’s skin ishealthy. But the fat around theabdomen of adults is far fromhealthy. People with excessabdominal fat are at increasedrisk of diabetes, high bloodcholesterol, high bloodpressure and the blockedcoronary arteries that lead tocoronary heart disease.

“We want to understandwhat makes the fat under theskin so different from the fataround the internal organs

and abdomen, and how dietinfluences the way in whichpeople accumulate excess fat.For this, we have analysed fatsamples from obese womenentering the LausanneUniversity Teaching Hospital(CHUV) for surgical treatmentof their obesity. We havediscovered which genes areswitched on or off in eachtype of fat. We now know thatover 6,000 genes aredifferently expressed in thetwo types of fat.

“And importantly, many ofthese differences help toexplain why the fat around theinternal organs and abdomenis associated with chronicmetabolic diseases.

“All of this work isn’t justabout weight control. It’s alsoabout a healthy diet. We shouldbe very concerned aboutpreventing weight gain as wellas encouraging weight loss in people who are overweight.Enhancing satiety can helppeople to feel better whileeating less. Foods that give a slower rise in blood glucoseshould make you feel satiatedfor longer. Perhaps we can do that through novel fibres in foods.”

Tackling obesityand diabetes

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“Not all body fat is the same“ Hilary Green Weight Management Coordinator

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Nutrients from food build and maintain all body tissues,including the skin. The classicalapproach to skin beautyproducts – dating to well beforeCleopatra bathed in asses’milk – has been throughointments, creams and oilscarrying active ingredients,massaged into the skin.

The union between Nestlé,bringing expertise in nutrition,and L’Oréal, bringing expertisein skin care, has led to anexciting alternative: eating yourway to skin and hair beautythrough active ingredients in food supplements. The firstresult of this joint venture isInnéov’s Fermeté, a productthat restores skin elasticity in aging. The loss of elasticityresults in wrinkles and otherskin effects. Inneov Fermetécontains Lacto-lycopene®.Lycopene is a naturallyoccurring molecule found intomatoes. In its pure form, it crystallises and is insolubleso, if ingested, it passesthrough the digestive systemwithout being absorbed. But Nestlé scientists found a way to ensure its absorption:disperse lycopene as individual molecules on driedmilk particles. This ensures a high efficiency of absorptionand allows the lycopene toreach the skin from the inside.

(Top) Young skin structure

(Above) Aged skin structure

The stylish Isabelle Bureau-Franz is the Nestlé ResearchCoordinator for Innéov, thejoint venture between Nestléand L’Oréal. In addition to theusual challenge of bringingtogether scientific innovationand business requirements,her task also demands knittingtogether the research ofnutrition scientists at Nestléwith the skin and hairbiologists at L’Oréal.

“The Nestlé-L’Oréal jointventure has been operatingfor two years and we alreadyhave two products in themarket, but the science startedeven earlier. It takes at least three years of science to launch a nutritionalsupplement with proven skin or hair benefits.

“There is a lot of workneeded to understand thedifference between a nutrientand an ingredient and whathappens to that nutrient in thebody. L’Oréal was very used to studying what happenswhen something is applied to the skin or hair, but when you take something orally it’s very different.

“One of the key problems we looked at was that, with ageing, and aroundmenopause, the skin becomesdrier, thinner, less dense andless tight. It’s about skinhealth and beauty, notpathologies, which are theprovince of drugs. That’s what led to our first product, Innéov Fermeté. We knew that lycopene is a powerfulantioxidant and had beenshown to have beneficialeffects in helping to preventdegenerative diseases linkedto the ageing process.

In the form of lactolycopene,and associated withisoflavones and vitamin C atnutritional doses, it has beenshown to have a beneficialeffect on the skin. Isoflavonesare also natural substances,known as phytohormonesbecause of their structuralanalogies with estrogens.They are mainly extractedfrom soy.

“In skin models, L’Oréalscientists have shown that this original nutrientcombination leads to a significant increase ofhyaluronic acid and collagensynthesis, which are both keyparameters involved in skinfirmness and density.

“In postmenopausal women,daily oral administration of this nutrient combinationmodifies the skin physiology,giving an anti-ageing benefitstarting after three months.This evolution is significantlydemonstrated by skinbiophysical evaluation, andalso by the women’s self-assessment.

“Skin density, measured by ultrasound scanning, is significantly better in womentaking the lactolycopene/isoflavone/vitamin C nutrientin a pill form compared to a placebo; the visco-elasticityproperties of the skin areimproved. In addition, after six months of taking theproduct, skin replicas showthat the redensifying effect in the subcutaneous layertranslates into a smoothingeffect at the skin surface.”

Beauty from inside

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“We are pioneers in the development of nutricosmetics”Isabelle Bureau-Franz Research Coordinator for Innéov

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Why we choose our foodsFood choice is personal, influenced by tradition and culture,but also by our personal database of food-related smells,tastes, textures, sounds and colours, built from the earliestmoments of life

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Mechanisms of food choiceConcentrating on health benefits doesnot mean that Nestlé Research is lessactive in the more traditional areas of thesensory properties of foods, such asflavour, texture and appearance. The finalproduct for the consumer is a food or a drink and no food product, howevernutritious, has been successful unless it tastes good and looks good. Behind thehealth benefits, the sensorial aspects offood determine specific food choices. So research addresses the question of whatare the physiological and psychologicalmechanisms underlying food choice.

Sensory experiences begin early in life.Even in-utero, babies are reported to hearsounds and to “taste” certain foods eatenby the mother and transmitted throughthe placenta. In the first few weeks of life,young babies generally like sweet tastes.But they have much less ability to detectbitter taste than they will have a fewyears later. In young children, all fivesenses develop. Colours and shapes offoods begin to be interesting, as well ashow they taste and smell, and howsmooth or rough they feel in the handand in the mouth. Then the consciousrecognition of the sounds foods makestarts to develop. Sounds created in themouth go directly to the ear from thebuccal cavity: the crispness of a freshapple, the crunchiness of a Smartie, the silence of a yoghurt.

During these early years, all childrenbuild up a personal database of food-related smells, tastes, textures, soundsand colours which they carry throughinto later life, adding new data to theirown individual sensory memory as themenu becomes more varied and they livenew sensory experiences. But mostimportant for this discussion, they learnto say “yes” or “no” when presented with certain foods and may often say“no” to foods they have never seen before.This is the beginning of food choice, and more nuanced food preferenceswhere an individual says, “I like all of thesefoods, but this one is my favourite.”

When confronted with a new food,specific molecules and structures itcontains send a myriad of signals to thebrain which compares them with what isalready registered in the personal sensorydatabase, and the brain immediatelyanalyses this mass of information todecide “I like it” or “I don’t like it”. This issurely one of the marvels of life.

Food choice is personal, influenced byexternal impulses linked to tradition andculture. Cross-cultural curiosity mayinfluence food choice through the desireto try new tastes and culinary experiences,or may exclude novelty to stay with what is familiar. Tastes, smells andappearances are key to accepting a foodor not. Further, the sensation of satietydetermines how much of the food will beeaten. Research on satiety and on howthe signals of having eaten enough aretriggered will help us better to understandand react to the epidemic of obesity.

Earlier generations, which did not have today’s sophisticated tests for foodsafety, depended on using naturalbiosensors – the receptors involved in the five senses of taste, smell, touch,sight and hearing – to decide whether a food was safe or not. The senses were a matter of survival. Bitter and sour tastescause aversive, avoidance reactions.Bitter, in particular, is a warning signal:don’t eat this. Today, this particular aspectof survival has become the responsibilityof the food industry, through theguarantee of safe foods, and Nestléembraces this as a principle.

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Rich aroma and flavour areessential to the pleasure ofdrinking a good cup of coffee.Flavour research has shownthe extreme complexity andsensitivity of coffee aroma,which is made up of morethan 1,000 individualsubstances. The aroma is atits most complete and bestimmediately after the coffee is roasted. Continuous R&Dactivity since the 1940s has aimed at optimising all the various steps in Nescaféproduction to maximiseconservation of both aromaand taste.

The quality of a cup of coffeeactually starts at the plantation.Thorough understanding of the various steps that leadfrom the coffee bean to thefinal beverage is essential to preserve optimally all therichness. Together withmodern analytical techniquescombining sensory andinstrumental measurements,this in-depth understandingensures that today’s Nescafégives the full pleasure of a freshly brewed cup of roastand ground coffee.

Nestlé R&D has also createdNespresso, which offerssophistication and eleganceas well as a range of delicateflavours and aromas for theconnoisseur.

Different coffee blends and roasting

conditions give specific aroma

landscapes.

(Top) Nespresso Capriccio

(Above) Nespresso Arpeggio

When we interview Johannesle Coutre he expresses vividenthusiasm for the emergingfield of flavour perception onthe molecular level. Le Coutrejoined Nestlé Research Centerin 2000 from his position as a biophysicist/biochemistresearch associate at theUniversity of California Los Angeles (UCLA). Tastereceptors had recently beendiscovered, and Nestlérecruited le Coutre to leadtheir efforts in the field.

“For the detection of aroma,volatile odorants are capturedby the mucus covering theolfactory epithelium in the nose.Subsequently the volatilesbind to specific receptors inthe microvilli of olfactoryreceptor neurons to initiate a complex signal transductionchain, which eventuallyresults in neural stimulation.To decipher complex aromas,the nose has hundreds ofdifferent olfactory receptors,which are able to detect a widerange of molecules. Afterstimulation of the receptors in the nose a complex odourmap is generated in corticalbrain areas to unleash theperception of aroma to ourconscious mind.

“Taste and olfactoryreceptors are like locks, andthe taste molecule is the keythat unlocks them. Moreover,via the retronasal pathway wealways stimulate our olfactorysystem when eating food.Therefore, if you block yoursense of smell with a nose-clip, you can’t distinguishbetween apple and oniongratings in your mouth. So when we say flavour, wereally mean taste and aroma.

“Flavour detection requires,in addition, the gustatorysystem in the mouth. Tasting,in contrast to olfaction, iscategorised into five differentbasic modalities: sweet, salty,sour, bitter and umami (thesavoury taste of monosodiumglutamate). Within the tastebuds, specialised cells thatoften express only onespecific receptor type to binda certain ligand, convertstimulation into a neural signal.

“Today we know thatspecialised cortical centers inthe brain integrate gustatory,olfactory and even irritant andauditory inputs to generatemulti-dimensional perceptionsof flavour.

“There’s still so much wedon’t understand, however.Taste receptors have beendiscovered throughout thegastrointestinal tract, forinstance. What are they doing?And the next challenge for us is appetite and perceptionphysiology. What are themolecular signals for appetiteand satiety? We hope to findthe parameters that controlfood uptake. Food/consumerinteraction is so complex. It operates on molecular,psychological, sensorial andsocial levels.”

Capturing the captivatingaroma of coffee

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“The use of molecular and cellular life sciences will help us to build novel pathways to pleasure“ Johannes le CoutreLeader of Appetite & Perception Physiology Group

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A new direction for food researchHow do you keep a biscuit crisp, cappuccino foamy or create the unctuous texture of ice cream? The new combinationscience approach to food research helps provide the answers

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A new challenge for food researchWhile nutrition research investigateswhat happens to food in the body once it is consumed, food research looks at theproduct on the plate. Nestlé’s productsmust deliver the pleasure of sensoryenjoyment and the health and wellnessbenefits of nutrition at the same time.

For decades, food research was a so-called separation science, concentratingon isolating, identifying and cataloguingthe large numbers of individual moleculesfound in foods and ingredients. But whena consumer eats a food product, he orshe consumes a food system generatedby the interactions at a molecular level ofthe many components present. Any goodfood is much more than the simple sumof its parts.

For Nestlé to manufacture the “goodfoods” that give “good life”, Nestlé’s foodscientists have to understand and makeuse of these interactions. Food researchhas shifted from an analytical separationscience to a combination science,assembling the natural building blocks of foods: air, water, proteins, lipids,carbohydrates, fibres, minerals, traceelements, vitamins and other bioactiveingredients, using molecular architectureto generate improved or new food oringredient structures and functionalities.

An example of structural engineering in foods is provided by the new NestléFoam Booster, which generates the foam that crowns the new Cappuccinoproducts. The components are basic foodmaterials that are well known in the food industry; the secret lies in how theyare combined and processed.

Building food structures demandsknowledge of food materials, particlephysics, colloidal and nano-systems. But it also requires an understanding of what happens to these food materialsduring mechanical processing likebeating or grinding and biologicalprocessing like fermentation using yeasts,moulds and bacteria.Getting structures right is as much a keyto good sensory properties as is the

nature of the ingredients chosen, anddepends on precise processing conditions.Typical problems include: how to keep a wafer or biscuit crisp, how to generatethe unctuous texture of ice cream, or how to make sure the consumer getsthe full benefit of a particular flavour. But problems also extend to how to makesure that powdered products reconstituteeasily in water, run freely in dispensingmachines and do not give lumps duringstorage. And since foods are materials of biological origin, bio-guided processeswill have a major impact in developingsofter technologies.

In the context of health benefits linkedto specific bioactive ingredients, foodstructures have two major roles. The firstis in stabilising sensitive ingredients toensure that they retain their physiologicaleffect when incorporated into foods. This may be by micro-encapsulation,which isolates them from the food matrixbut makes them available to the bodyonce the food is consumed. The secondis in ensuring that active ingredientsreach the target tissues, and this maymean protecting the ingredient fromstomach acidity so that it is released onlyin the intestine.

These technologies approach thoseused in the pharmaceutical industry, butin Nestlé the protecting materials usedare all of food origin. Examples are caseinmicelles from milk, and maltodextrinswhich are polysaccharides from plants.

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Nestlé has a long history ofstudying food structures at a macromolecular level, and ofusing the knowledge to directfood product development.Proteins, carbohydrates andfats, with air and water, arethe main building blocks offood structures. Various three-dimensional combinationsgive different food textures,like the crispness of freshbaked wafer, the smoothnessof an ice cream, thesponginess of bread, thefirmness of cappuccino foam,or the crunchiness of roastednuts. In fact, the structurelargely defines the product,including its appearance, its texture, its flavour and itsnutrient availability in thedigestive system.

In designing foodmanufacturing processes,Nestlé scientists andtechnologists must ask fourmain questions regardingfood structure. How do wemake it? How do we keep it?How does it break down when consumed? And, forpowdered products likeinstant coffee or milkpowders, how easy is it toreconstitute? Food structure is crucial to the performanceof a food or drink. Getting itright is one of Nestlé’s secretsin superior product quality.

(Top) Lycopene cristals from

tomatoes

(Above) Hexosom particles made

out of monoglycerides

Heribert Watzke is irrepressible.In the midst of explainingsome scientific point, he can’trestrain himself from springingover to his computer to showa graphic animation ofmolecular structures incappuccino foam. He insistson doodling diagrams toexplain the direction of foodscience research. He joinedthe Nestlé Research Centereleven years ago, from anacademic career as a colloidscientist at the Swiss FederalInstitute of Technology (ETH).He was brought in tounderstand food from a structural point of view. He now calls himself a nanoscientist.

“I’m very interested inextending the functionality of food. You eat food becauseyou’re hungry or you likesomething. But food can have many more functionsand fulfil more needs. It canbe for feeling good or forperformance.

“The difficulty with food is that we’re always doingsomething new, but it has to be the same. We’reunderstandably verytraditional about how we view our food.

“Classical food researchwas product centred andcommodity driven. The goalwas for the product to matchexpectations. We’re moving,however, to a world wherefood research is consumercentred and consumer benefitdriven. We start with delight,health and performance andour understanding of whatcreates that, and then wederive a product that deliversthose benefits.

“But this isn’t easy.Nutritionists have a wholecatalogue of molecules thatthey know work, but thedifficulty is finding a way tomake them bioavailable in a food product. It also involvesprocesses. How can youoptimise production processesso you don’t lose, for example,vitamins?

“I’m very excited now aboutwhat nanotechnology andnanoscience means for food.Nanotech offers us thepromise of enabling healtheffects through controlledbioavailability, and betterunderstanding of rawmaterials as bionano-technological systems.

“But you can’t make a simple technology transferwith food. What Intel is doingwith nanotech, for example,just doesn’t transfer to food. I’m convinced that with food you can find out moreabout nanotech than fromsemiconductors. After all,nature is the ultimatenanotechnologist.”

Exploring the wondersof food structures

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“With food you can find out more about nanotech thanfrom semiconductors” Heribert Watzke Head of Food Science Department

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Quality from farm to fork Ensuring global quality and safety in the almost unimaginablecomplexity of the food chain requires regular development of new analytical methods and safety evaluation through risk assessment

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Research on food quality and safetyIncreasing globalisation in the food trade,greater consumer expectations for varietyand availability of foods, a growingdemand for convenient, fresh and healthyproducts with a longer shelf-life, and thedesire for traceability all contribute to theneed for constantly adapting approachesto assure global quality and safety. Theresult is a totally integrated “farm to fork”approach, operating all along the foodsupply chain.

The food chain covers a field of activityalmost unimaginable in its complexity. It starts with the seed the farmer plants,and goes through cultivating, harvesting,processing, preservation, packaging,transport, storage and sale, to cookingand final consumption. The food chaincan involve many partners and beaffected by external elements like theweather, as well as by farming, trade andindustrial practices. But most specificproblems are the same wherever thelocation or whatever the environment.The differences are a question of degreerather than substance.

To emphasise the importance attachedto this activity, a quarter of the staff of the Nestlé Research Center is involved atthe heart of Nestlé’s worldwide qualityand safety network. This provides acenter of scientific competencies, withclose links to markets. The NestléResearch Center works in two mainareas: development of analytical methodsand safety evaluation by risk assessment.In addition to longer-term projects, theCenter is geared up to react instantlywhen safety issues arise – in a factory or through a public food scare – as anintegral part of the company’scommitment to the Nestlé Seal of Qualityfound on all Nestlé products. The Seal of Quality guarantees the compliance ofNestlé products to both safety and qualitystandards, and represents a true bond of trust between the company and itsconsumers.

What determines food quality?All Nestlé research activities target foodquality in its broadest sense, including its social and sensory qualities, andnutritional value. In the specificterminology of the Nestlé ResearchCenter, specialists in food quality addressthe basic qualitative and quantitativequestions regarding the composition andorigins of raw materials, ingredients and finished products. The researchinvolved leads to precise and reproducibleanalytical methods for quality control that are sent out to Nestlé’s regionallaboratories and factories worldwide.

Any finished product has many qualityspecifications, technical and sensory,that define its density, colour, sweetness,shelf-life and nutrient composition,among other aspects. The analyticalmethods developed in the NestléResearch Center provide factories withthe tools to check that they are meetingthese specifications in day-to-dayproduction in order to meet consumersatisfaction and safety every day.

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Analytical methods impact on much more than thefinished product. They start on the farm or plantation byidentifying the origins of rawmaterials, allowing fortraceability. When Nestlé buys raw materials – fruits,vegetables, cereals, spices,meat, fish – the supplierguarantees that theseconform to a predefined set of quality specifications.

Even for regular and trustedsuppliers, all raw materialsentering any factory are testedwith standard procedures to confirm that qualityspecifications are met.External factors like storage or transport conditions, or human errors like sendingthe wrong material caninfluence quality on reception,so nothing is left to chance.

The second question for raw materials and ingredientsis authenticity. How canNestlé be sure that an olive oilused as an ingredient is reallya cold-pressed extra-virginquality, or that a vanillaflavouring is 100% natural?Food quality researchprovides the answers throughprecise analytical methodsthat mean Nestlé canguarantee the quality of allfinished products and thecompositional informationpresented on the label.

(Top) Electrophoresis gel of the

proteins from lecithin

(Above) Chromatogram to identify

and quantify sugars in soluble coffee

When Fabiola Dionisi wasdoing the research for her PhDin food chemistry, she spentsix months working at NestléResearch Center. Now, afterten years at NRC, she is incharge of a research group for quality and safety.

“We have to look at qualityfrom the field to the consumer.Along the whole productionchain a global approach for ingredient management is required. This approachconsiders the variability andstability of an ingredientstarting from its manufacturingat supplier level, duringprocessing, transport andstorage of the finished productuntil consumer consumption.A special focus is to be givento the ingredients stated onthe label, to functional claimsand Branded Active Benefits.

“For those ingredients, a strict quality assurancesystem has to be in place to guarantee consistencybetween declared and realcontent in the product. Nestlé Research Centercontributes to this globalapproach with an in-depthknowledge of the ingredients.This includes knowledge onthe sources of ingredients andtheir authenticity and naturalvariability, and also takes intoaccount ingredient stabilitybefore, during and after foodmanufacturing.

“This knowledge iscompleted by the developmentof appropriate analyticalmethods to characterise andmeasure ingredients in the raw materials and finishedproducts.

“Another prime considerationfor us is authenticity. This is

very tricky. Authenticity isabout adulteration. We lookfor specific markers thatidentify the adulterant. But it’s rare for the marker tobe specific to the adulterant. It’s like solving a complexpuzzle. You have to puttogether the whole picture to arrive at an answer.

“The problem of how toensure food authenticity canbe tackled by applyingaccurate specifications forraw materials and selectingsuppliers that have a QualityAssurance System in place.Compliance with specificationis assured by regular audits of suppliers, certificates ofanalysis and periodicanalytical checks. Hence it is necessary to identify andanticipate emergingauthenticity issues, to confirmauthenticity of potentiallyadulterated products, to develop methods adaptedto solve new problems and to organise or performanalytical surveys of sensitiveraw materials.

“Looking at quality from‘farm to fork’ becomes moreand more key for Nestlé withfunctional ingredients. We have to devise ways toensure that an ingredient hasthe right activity and doesn’tdegrade in production andthat it doesn’t degrade to theend of shelf life.”

Measuring quality

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“It’s like solving a complex puzzle. You have to put together the whole picture to arrive at an answer“ Fabiola Dionisi Leader of Ingredients & Authenticity Group

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Building food safety in from the startOur food is safer today than ever before, but it also faces far greater scrutiny. Research must go beyond guaranteeing safe food products and anticipate new and future safety concerns that may affect our food

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Consumers expect safe foodsFood has never been as safe as it is today,but it has also never been so carefullyscrutinised by consumers and regulatoryagencies. Nestlé Research must not onlyhave the necessary systems in place toguarantee safe food products but, moreand more, must anticipate new and futuresafety concerns that may affect our food.Safety must be built into any new ingredient,product or process right from the start.

The World Health Organisation definesfood safety as the assurance that food willnot cause harm to the consumer when it is prepared and/or eaten according toits intended use.

Food safety is itself an element of foodquality. It concerns micro-organisms,contaminants, allergens, substancesoccurring naturally in foods, or generatedin processing and/or storage, or comingfrom packaging materials. Legal normsdefine the maximum admitted amountsof such substances in a finished productto comply with public health and hygienestandards. Further to this, food safetyresearch in Nestlé sets internal norms.

Food safety research is a different typeof science to nutrition. Its task is globaland preventive. When it does the job well,its actions remain invisible and unseen. It only becomes visible when a safetyissue surfaces. It is globally driven by thedemands of legislation but, beyond this,Nestlé assumes the ethical responsibilityof applying new knowledge on foodsafety even if this goes beyond the purelegal requirements.

Managing riskThe major problems of food safety involvemicro-organisms, mainly pathogenicbacteria like Salmonella, Listeria and E. coli. Analytical methods are required to detect harmful micro-organisms. But safety and quality considerations alsoenter into the design of manufacturinglines in the factories, to minimise risk ofbacterial infestation in the process byidentifying the critical points where thismay occur.

Other potential hazards come fromenvironmental contamination, such aslead from car exhausts deposited oncrops, as well as agricultural chemicalslike herbicides and pesticides orveterinary drugs. Laboratory methods ofanalysis are being miniaturised so thattechnicians can use hand-held measuringdevices out in the field to measurespecific contaminants directly on cropsbefore they are harvested.

Food processing conditions may resultin creating substances that represent ahealth risk. By far the majority of changesin the food occurring during processing –in a factory as well as in the home kitchen– are not only harmless, but significantlyincrease safety and lead to flavour andaroma development. But can we be surethat everything is safe? So this questionis also addressed in food safety research.

Then, there is the safety of newingredients. These are subjected to abattery of tests, and results are submittedfor approval to national and internationalfood safety authorities before they are used.

No food raw material was ever put onearth specifically for human consumption.Natural does not necessarily mean good.In fact, some natural components in raw materials are toxic, like the ergotalkaloids on grain crops or aflatoxins onpeanuts. Methods must be sensitiveenough to detect these in smallquantities on raw materials entering thefactory and in the product because,unlike living micro-organisms, they arenot all destroyed by processing. Some of them can, however, be removed byprocessing, like cyanogens in the maniocused to manufacture tapioca.

Safety assessment involves a two-pronged approach. First, determine thelevel at which a substance is toxic. Then, measure the level of the samesubstance in a food. If this is sufficientlyless than the limit for toxicity, the food is safe because the potential toxin ispresent at levels too low to cause harm.As already stated by Paracelsus “It’s thedose that makes the poison.”

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Many bacteria have been usedsince ancient times to processand preserve foods, like thetraditional Lactobacillusbulgaricus bacteria used in theBalkans to produce yoghurtswith a reputation for longevity.Or more recently, the probioticlactic acid bacteria discoveredby Nestlé scientists and used inLC1 fermented milk products,with a proven health benefit.

However, others areresponsible for food spoilageor in some cases illness. Oneof the key questions for foodsafety research in Nestlé is,“How can we destroy thepathogenic bacteria in foods,mainly Listeria, Salmonellaand Escherichia coli, to beable to guarantee the safetyand keeping quality of Nestléproducts?” Most industrialprocesses used to datedepend on heat treatment,and follow on frompasteurisation developed atthe end of the 19th century.But, heat treatments kill thegood bacteria as well as thebad. So Nestlé food safetymicrobiologists areinvestigating new methods to get the best of both worlds,by selectively destroying thepathogens while preservingthe health benefits offered bythe good bacteria in Nestléproducts.

(Top) Isolated bacteriophages

(Above) Cell attacked by

bacteriophages, results in cell lysis

Following her Master’sDegree in Microbiology andCellular Biology from LyonUniversity, France, CatherineBoissin has spent the past 14 years in the NestléResearch Center, working inquality and safety aspects ofantimicrobial components.Although she speakseloquently about her work, it becomes evident that themore interesting part of her day has been interruptedby our questions. When weleave, she is going to test a new cocktail of bacterio-phages, which looks verypromising.

“In some respects, thescience of bacteriophages isvery old. They were first foundin the 19th century, and we’velong been aware that they canexist in dairies. But there theyare bad: they destroy the lactic acid bacteria needed for yoghurt fermentation.

“But research inbacteriophages stoppedbecause it was far easier touse antibiotics. Now, becauseof rising antibiotic resistance,it’s important to look foralternatives. Our colleagueshere at Nestlé ResearchCenter started work on thepositive side of bacteriophagesabout ten years ago, lookingat them as a treatment against E. coli.

“Two years ago we started to wonder whether we could use bacteriophages toeliminate pathogens. Couldwe selectively kill pathogenicbacteria while leaving thegood bacteria used for theirfunctionality unharmed?Bacteriophages are harmlessto humans and are already

used. They are not somethingwe create; they are already innature and we can use them.

“They are natural predatorsof bacteria, and each isspecific for a particular speciesof bacteria. This opens up new possibilities in foodprocessing, for example, in using a mixture ofbacteriophages targeted tosimultaneously deactivate theundesired Listeria, Salmonellaand E. coli.

“This breakthrough meansthat pathogenic bacteria can be eliminated, even inproducts containing healthy,functional bacteria likeprobiotics. Further, it mayoffer the means to use milderprocessing conditions in thedrive for products with a more natural freshness.”

Bacteriophages as a tool in food safety

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“Nature’s own bacteria killers fight for safety” Catherine BoissinResearch Scientist, Microbiological Safety Group

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Foods for the future

Food trends evolve continually. Yet despite intriguing futuristicconcepts and changes in consumer behaviour, the fundamentalsof nutrition do not change.

Each Nestlé food product starts with raw materials, includingcoffee, cocoa, milk, soybeans and grain. Nestlé has accumulatedan extensive body of knowledge about the treatment and usesof each raw material, and how to transform these into attractiveand healthful products, corresponding to consumer expectations.

In the future, consumers can expect more products that makepositive contributions to their health. This does not mean,however, that food is going to be turned into medicine. Nestlé’sfirst probiotic products have already shown that good healthand good taste can go hand in hand.

Future products – the fruits of today’s R&D – are expected tohelp prevent diabetes, osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease andexcess weight. Even brain function will in future be supportedby foods, as our knowledge of the connection between diet andmental activity becomes clearer. There are many ideas aboutfuture foods and each may have merit. What does seem certain isthat future foods will be designed increasingly to reflect lifestyleand a search for health and wellness on the part of consumers.

In Nestlé’s drive to meet consumer needs for safe, tasty,nutritious, convenient and affordable food products, advancesin genome research, giving detailed molecular knowledge of how foods work in the body, are expected to bring uniqueopportunities to improve food performance. Yesterday’s foodswere primarily designed to correct nutrient deficiencies.Tomorrow’s foods will be targeted to prevent health problemsarising before symptoms show, and to offer the benefit of a more personalised nutrition for the individual consumer.

Convenience, availability, ease of preparation, low-cost,variety, freshness, enhanced properties of flavour, taste, aromaand texture will all play a role. The ultimate achievement willperhaps be when each individual eats or drinks food andbeverages specifically tailored to fit his or her needs, desiresand expectations.

Writing and editing

Nestlé Research Center,

Communication Group

with Ian Horman,

Visualising Complexity,

Blonay, Switzerland

and Lance Knobel, London,

United Kingdom

Concept and design

Nestec Ltd., Marketing

Communications, Corporate Identity

and Design with messi & schmidt,

Lausanne, Switzerland

Illustrations

Russell Cobb, London,

United Kingdom

Photography

Markus Bühler-Rasom, Zurich,

Switzerland

Printing

Entreprise d’arts graphiques

Jean Genoud S.A.,

Le Mont-sur-Lausanne, Switzerland

Cover picture

Sculpture Fleurs d’argile, at the

entrance of NRC, created by the

artist Edouard Chapallaz in 1986

© October 2004, Nestlé Research Center, Communication Group

Nestec Ltd.Vers-chez-les-Blanc1000 Lausanne 26Switzerland

www.research.nestle.com