Food for Health Ireland expands network as second term of funding kicks off

The Ireland-based partnership links academic and government research organisations with major dairy processing companies in the country to encourage collaboration in identifying and developing the science behind new bioactive ingredients from dairy products.

Speaking to us at the Fi Europe show in Frankfurt, Jens Bleiel, CEO of FHI said the new five year funding term plans to build on the success of the network's first term, adding that the project still had a lot 'in the pipeline' for the second phase - especially with regard to commercialising ingredients.

"We now have seven universities, where before it was four, and five industry partners and it was four before. So I think it's just growing and that demonstrates that this kind of model is interesting to the industry, the global market, and also the funders,"​ said Bleiel.

"I think the reason is that we already have good results coming in from FIH1, in terms of healthy aging, muscle metabolism and also in terms of glucose management and glycaemic index."​

EFSA, claims, and commercialisation​

Bleiel told us that intervention studies set up with relation to glycaemic management have been set up "according to what we think might be required by EFSA."

"So we might actually go for an EFSA claim, though we still have to check a few things,"​ he noted.

"That's the whole idea of the research consortium - everything we need to go for an EFSA claim, and to bring an ingredient to the market."​