Food Innovation Research Articles

What Role Does Regulation Play in Responsible Innovation of Nanotechnology in Food and Agriculture? Insights and Framings from U.S. Stakeholders

Historically, market regulation has played an important role in shaping the trajectory of scientific and technological innovation in food and agriculture. However, regulators’ traditional focus on safety and efficacy may be insufficient to address more complex ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI) of novel products, such as the use of nanotechnology and nanomaterials in food and agriculture (nano-agrifoods). One solution might be to implement the principles of responsible innovation (RI) to challenge innovators and policymakers to better anticipate risks further upstream and be responsive to societal desires and concerns, although substantial barriers to implementation persist. This paper presents stakeholder views on the relationship between regulation and RI in nano-agrifoods based on a broader U.S. stakeholder engagement study conducted in the fall of 2020. We found that participants raised key issues that incorporated all 4 pillars of RI (anticipation, inclusion, reflexivity, responsiveness). We also found that participants’ attitudes about the relationship between regulation and innovation informed their recommendations about the relationship between regulation and RI. These attitudes are represented in a spectrum of views, ranging from “regulation as barrier” to “regulation as driver” of innovation. We further identified implications for how each attitude might be used to operationalize RI in regulatory systems. Overall, these results suggest that just as regulation drove key innovations in the twentieth century, regulation may still have a role to play in helping to promote RI of nano-agrifoods in the twenty-first.

From the President and IFST News

From the President and <scp>IFST</scp> News

Current situation and future direction of traditional foods: A perspective review

Innovation of traditional foods become a new paradigm in the food industry as an effort to prolong the shelf life of the food following the changes in the society’s life style. The innovation was also supported by the current advance study on packaging technology, microbiology, biotechnology, metabolomics, medicinal properties and health as well as computational methods. This review covers various definition of traditional foods and some terms closely related to traditional foods, including ethnicity and ethnoecology, the progress of innovation of traditional foods as well as the risk of the traditional food innovation in terms of product identity, culture and continuity. Geographical Indications (GI) as a strategy of protection and standardization of traditional food are, therefore, discussed in this review. At the end, a recommendation for the direction of traditional food in the future is given in order to create a paradigm on the future action for protecting traditional foods.

Kinerja pemasaran yang dipengaruhi oleh orientasi pasar, inovasi produk dan bauran promosi

This study aims to perform a simultaneous and partial analysis of marketing performance influenced by market orientation, product innovation, and promotion mix variables in food and beverage Small &amp; Medium Enterprises (SMEs), members of the Association of Food and Beverage Entrepreneurs (ASMAMI) of Jambi City. The study population was all ASMAMI members, amounting to 160 people, and at the same time used as a sample. This study uses survey techniques, with data collection using a closed questionnaire. The research method used is quantitative with analysis tools in the form of multiple linear regression. The research findings are that the marketing performance of food and beverage SMEs of the members of the City of Jambi ASMAMI is influenced by market orientation variables, product innovation, and promotion mix both simultaneously and partially. The more dominant variable in influencing marketing performance is the product innovation variable.

Food Innovation in the Frame of Circular Economy by Designing Ultra-Processed Foods Optimized for Sustainable Nutrition.

Despite the large debate about the relationship between ultra-processed foods and the prevalence of some diet-related diseases, the innovative potential of various processing technologies has been evidenced in pathways that could lead to modifications of the food matrix with beneficial health effects. Many efforts have been directed toward the conjugation of a healthy diet and sustainable exploitation of natural resources for the preparation of accessible foods. This minireview highlights the possible links between processing, sustainability, and circular economy through the valorization of by-products that could be exploited to prepare nutrient-rich ingredients at lower economic and environmental costs. The assessment of the quality and safety of functional foods based on ingredients derived from food waste requires a more robust validation by means of the food-omics approach, which considers not only the composition of the final products but also the structural characterization of the matrix, as the bioaccessibility and the bioavailability of nutrients are strictly dependent on the functional characteristics of the innovative ingredients.

AGROVOC: The linked data concept hub for food and agriculture

Newly acquired, aggregated and shared data are essential for innovation in food and agriculture to improve the discoverability of research. Since the early 1980′s, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has coordinated AGROVOC, a valuable tool for data to be classified homogeneously, facilitating interoperability and reuse. AGROVOC is a multilingual and controlled vocabulary designed to cover concepts and terminology under FAO's areas of interest. It is the largest Linked Open Data set about agriculture available for public use and its highest impact is through facilitating the access and visibility of data across domains and languages. This chapter has the aim of describing the current status of one of the most popular thesaurus in all FAO’s areas of interest, and how it has become the Linked Data Concept Hub for food and agriculture, through new procedures put in place.

A Cross-Sectional Audit of Sorghum in Selected Cereal Food Products in Australian Supermarkets.

Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench) may play a role in mechanisms that elicit favourable health effects. In Australia, sorghum is successfully grown, but it is not widely consumed, and its presence in common food products is unknown. This study examined the utilisation of sorghum in common food products, specifically breakfast cereals and snack bars, in a cross-sectional study of five supermarkets in New South Wales, over a 7-day period in February 2020. Details relating to ingredients, food format, brand, and product name were recorded. Sorghum was present in 6.1% (23/379) of breakfast cereals in a variety of formats, such as extruded shapes, flour, and puffed grain. In 8.7% of these, sorghum was listed as the first ingredient (greatest contribution by weight). Sorghum was utilised in 2% (6/298) of snack bars mainly as puffed sorghum and was listed in the fourth or subsequent position in the ingredient lists for all. ‘Sorghum’ did not appear in the name of any products. In conclusion, this baseline study indicates that sorghum is present in a small proportion of breakfast cereals and snack bars, highlighting the opportunity for greater investment in sorghum food innovation and marketing that would encourage consumer recognition and expand the product range.

Development of innovative forms local food into creative economy food

This study was a mixed research study. The operation was divided into 4 phases: Phase 1 studied concepts related to local food Creative Economy and Techniques for Upgrading Local Wisdom to Creative Development, Phase 2 Build a framework for developing innovative forms of local food to creative economy food, Phase 2 is to develop a traditional food innovation model towards creative economy food, and phase 4 is to study the acceptance and feasibility of the traditional food innovation model to creative economy food. The objectives of this study were to develop innovative forms of local food into creative economy food. The results of the study revealed that the overall creative economy guideline factors were at a high level. Sustainable development was found to be at a high level. The six creative economic guideline variables are 1) product differentiation strategy, 2) partnership strategy, 3) environmentally friendly production strategy, 4) innovation strategy, 5) employee strategy, and 6) strategy marketing able to explain sustainable tourism management at 68.30 percent. The components of the development of innovative forms of local food to creative economy food consisted of 1) the identity of local food 2) community organizations 3) management

The Impact of Alternative Foods on Consumers' Continuance Intention from an Innovation Perspective.

This paper aims to model consumers’ perceptions and preferences toward alternative foods. We conducted a survey of 519 people and analyzed their responses using a structural equation model. The article discusses the role of food innovation quality (FIQ), a concept developed from innovative design, which shows how consumers perceive the quality of products in an innovative context. Further, the paper discusses the relationship between this concept and promoting consumer acceptance of alternative foods. Studies suggest that higher FIQ may lead to increased consumer satisfaction with alternative foods, which may in turn lead to higher levels of trust and continuation. Moreover, expectations play a significant role in FIQ and in the perceived value of alternative foods in the model. This illustrates that the promotion of alternative foods in an innovative manner should include establishing a practical mechanism for meeting consumer expectations. Given the continued growth in global food demand, it is both effective and beneficial to promote alternative foods through innovative design as part of a broader food industry approach. On the one hand, alternative foods produced in an innovative manner serve to energize the consumer market by expanding dietary choices. On the other hand, alternative foods, which include new forms of meat products, contribute to the alleviation of the problem of meat production capacity in agriculture. In addition, the alternative foods process eliminates the emission of large amounts of carbon dioxide by traditional agriculture, increasing the sustainability of food production.

Toward a sustainable food system and agroecology transition in Vietnam

Even with the impressive results of agricultural growth and food security during last nearly 40 years of Renovation, the Vietnam Socio-economic Development Strategy for 2021-2030 seeks to accelerate agricultural restructuring and develop a modernity-oriented agriculture. Vietnam also aims to improve the resilience and adaptability of the agricultural sector against climate change, and to align this sector with the processing industry, markets, export activities, and global value chains. In 2021, Vietnam has actively contributed to United Nations Food System Summit (UNFSS) dialogue with more than 1000 participants involved in National Dialogues. Vietnam is willing to contribute to the transformation of global food systems as a food-providing country that upholds “transparency, responsibility, and sustainability”. This will serve to create comprehensive and sustainable breakthroughs for the entire system and will fulfill the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). For the solution, Vietnam wishes to become a Food Innovation Hub of Asia. Vietnam has made digital transformation a key priority in the agricultural sector and has encouraged the application of digital technology to agricultural production and business activities. Vietnam’s food systems need to be transformed into green, sustainable, and low-emission agriculture and due attention should be given to agroecological production. Vietnam also commits to achieving nutrition security in 2030. A National Action Plan for a sustainable food system will be built.

How product information and source credibility affect consumer attitudes and intentions towards innovative food products

ABSTRACT Innovative foods often offer consumers an important contribution to their quality of life. Nevertheless, consumers often encounter technology-based food innovations with a certain degree of scepticism. To counteract this scepticism, information about the innovative product is often communicated. However, two elements must be taken into account to ensure that the given information does not reinforce the scepticism: first, the right amount of information and, second, the source of information and its credibility. In order to be able to implement these elements effectively in a communication strategy, this paper uses two online experiments and analyses of variance to investigate the impact of different amounts of information and different sources of information on consumers’ product evaluations (i.e., affective attitude, cognitive attitude, and behavioural intention). Study 1 found that more information does not always lead to better product evaluations. Furthermore, the results of study 2 show that independent or scientific sources of information are perceived as more credible and tend to lead to a higher product evaluation. Moreover, higher credibility measured by attractiveness, trustworthiness and expertise leads to a significantly higher product evaluation. From these results, communication strategies can be designed that gain higher consumer acceptance for technology-based food innovations.

Food Technology Neophobia Scale and Food Innovations Technology: Nutrition Needs &amp; Business alignment for Next Normal

Purpose: A proposal framework based on two recognized constructs over food innovations technology (FINT) and food technology neophobia scale (FTNS) involving consumers' nutrition needs and the businesses' opportunities. Methodology: Revision of literature about FINT-FTNS, post-COVID nutrition needs, and businesses with a questionnaire applied to 401 regular consumers (Oct-Dic-2021). Results: FINT-FTNS, suggests developing businesses based on the inclusion of indicators such as information media, the intention to purchase, the type of food technology with benefits to be consumed, and regulation policies to protect the consumer. Limitations: The snowball self-report sampling method may be a source of biased survey results because the survey is only in the Mexican environment, and it could be considered a limitation in the research scope. The food industry's innovation models indicate that more research is necessary to adapt external knowledge with socio-economic and institutional change. Conclusions: For the final framework's sides (FINT and FTNS), we have determined several suggestions based on nutritional, eating patterns, innovation, technology, and marketing concepts to improve the framework for business applications to foster a healthy food intake against chronic diseases for the next normal, to complement this research.

Development of an emoji-based self-report measurement tool to measure emotions elicited by foods in preadolescents

Emoji evolved as an attractive instrument to measure emotions in preadolescents due to their potential to express a wide range of emotions. However, the emotional meaning of emoji can be ambiguous and is often not universal across age groups, which has not been considered when developing emoji questionnaires. Hence, this research aimed to develop an emoji-based self-report measurement tool to measure emotional responses to food products in preadolescents. In total, 5 studies were conducted, and 454 preadolescents (aged 9–13 years) participated to develop the tool. First, preadolescents selected food-related emoji (Study 1, n = 96), then they evaluated their dimensional emotional meaning using projective mapping (Study 2, n = 162). They then evaluated the linguistic semantic meaning by describing emoji with emotion words (Check-All-That-Apply) (Study 3, n = 92) and vice versa (Study 4, n = 85). Finally, one-on-one interviews using a modified version of the Repertory Grid Method were conducted to investigate emoji more in depth (Study 5, n = 19). The findings resulted in 17 emoji pairs associated with specific linguistic semantic and dimensional (valence, power, and arousal) meanings. Based on this, we developed an emoji-based self-report measurement tool to measure emotions in response to food products with two suggested response formats, the CATA Emoji Pair Questionnaire and the Emoji Pair Rating Scale. Future research will test the discriminative ability of this tool over a wide range of food products. The questionnaire will allow for a better understanding of preadolescents’ affective responses to food and could be used in food innovation targeted at preadolescents to promote healthier food behaviors.

Looking inside Mexican Traditional Food as Sources of Synbiotics for Developing Novel Functional Products

Currently, emerging alimentary alternatives are growing, leading to the consumption of natural products including bio, fermented, and traditional foods. The studies over functional properties of food matrices and their derived compounds have resulted in the development of new functional alimentary items. However, most of the population still has limited access to, and information about, suitable foods. Analyzing traditional fermented products, we found fermented food matrices containing beneficial bacteria, with the possibility of exerting effects on different substrates enhancing the bioavailability of short-chain fatty acids (SFCAs), antioxidants, among other food-derived products. Maize (Zea mays L.), agave varieties, nopal (Opuntia ficus-indica), and beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) were key foods for the agricultural and nutritional development of Mesoamerica. We believe that the traditional Mexican diet has relevant ingredients with these functionalities and their association will allow us to develop functional food suitable for each population and their current needs. In this review, the functional properties of maize, agave, nopal, and frijol are detailed, and the functional food innovation and development opportunities for these food matrices are analyzed, which may be an important precedent for future basic and applied research.

The Thai SME Open Innovation Food-Machinery Flexibility Model

Food machinery SMEs have been essential constitutional actors in Thailand’s food industry. Their participation in food innovation is considerably recognized. However, their innovation logics and practices remain poorly understood. To understand the role of open innovation (OI) in this change, specifically the OI logics and practices in new product development (NPD), the food-machinery framework has been chosen to analyze 109 NPDs in 2 Thai food machinery SMEs. This model identifies the various flows of knowledge between the different actors. The results demonstrated the new OI practices being absent from previous typologies, and six distinctive patterns within the same framework. These alternatives were revealed through the distinction between laboratory and industrial scales. The refined model demonstrated the ability of Thai SMEs to adjust OI logics and practices to the nature of the collaborative strategy associated with each NPD. Finally, the results exposed some Thai SMEs switching their business from generic machinery companies to innovation intermediaries.

IFE Manufacturing to showcase innovation in food and drink

<scp>IFE</scp> Manufacturing to showcase innovation in food and drink

Leveraging intrinsically rewarding symbolic attributes to promote consumer adoption of plant-based food innovations

Food consumption has a significant environmental impact which can be alleviated when consumer adoption of plant-based food innovations is increased. Attempts to increase adoption are often tailored to instrumental product attributes that consumers find important, but our studies show this is not necessarily a prerequisite. The current work aims to examine the role of symbolic product attributes in predicting consumers' adoption intention (Study 1) and whether symbolic product attributes can be leveraged to affect behavioural adoption of a plant-based food innovation (Study 2). Our online study (Study 1) shows that consumers indicate they find symbolic product attributes less important, relative to instrumental considerations like price. However, evaluations of symbolic attributes tied to consumers' self-identity significantly predict consumers’ intention to adopt a plant-based food innovation. At least part of the underlying mechanism pertains to the intrinsic reward of acting sustainably: symbolic attributes predict adoption intention via the feel-good factor of consuming a plant-based food innovation, particularly for consumers with a strong intrinsic motivation to act environmentally-friendly. In a field experiment in a supermarket (Study 2), we found that mainly stressing symbolic attributes tied to social status promotes behavioural adoption, more so than when symbolic attributes tied to self-identity are stressed in a promotional campaign. Together, the studies suggest that leveraging intrinsically rewarding symbolic attributes of plant-based food innovations can be an alternative way to promote consumer adoption.

Food futuring in Timor-Leste: Recombinance, responsiveness, and relationality

The pluralistic nature of food culture and food systems produces complex and blended realities for research, often prompting approaches that embrace mixed methods and cross-sector partner­ships. In parallel, calls for the decolonization of research methods have brought attention to the importance of relationality when working with local communities and traditional knowledge hold­ers. This article presents the process and outcomes of the Timor-Leste Food Innovators Exchange (TLFIX), a multifaceted initiative centered on the contemporary and historic foodways of Timor-Leste, including current challenges to individual health, cultural identity, and economic-ecological sustainability brought about by centuries of colo­nial and transnational influence. Conceived within an international development context, TLFIX aimed at building local empowerment, economic development, and social change. Methods included quantitative, qualitative, and material-based ap­proaches, including surveys, storytelling, and culi­nary innovation. As a “consulting academic” on the project, I contributed to the research design, coached team members on storytelling-as-method, and participated in a portion of the work. For the current text, I use the notions of recombinance, respon­siveness, and relationality to interpret our collective experience and to frame an example of carrying out mixed-method and mixed-participant work in com­plex food contexts. As a whole, this example illus­trates ways in which to leave space for improvisa­tion and emergence within food practice and scholarship.

Analysing Food Innovation Drivers: Chefs’ Perspectives

ABSTRACT This study has two main objectives. First, to investigate the various attributes influencing food innovation. Second, to analyze the relationships of different factors and their implication on food innovation in India’s restaurants (fine dining &multi-cuisine). A quantitative methodology with exploratory and confirmatory analysis was conducted. Data collection was conducted by questionnaire (n356) survey. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. Descriptive statistics were used to identify factors influencing food innovation among the chefs, and inferential statistics were used to analyze the significant relationship among the factors influencing food innovation. Results show that food innovation is influenced by recipe development, menu merchandising, customer satisfaction, and advertising. This study also underlines the significant relationships that exist among different factors which impact food innovation.

KERE (KEBAB RENDANG): AS A NEW INNOVATION AND RICH OF PROTEIN FOOD TO CONSERVE LOCAL CULINARY IN INDONESIA

Rendang is a typical food that is rich of protein from Padang city, West Sumatra, Indonesia. Rendang is a kind of food made of beef and combined with spices typical of West Sumatra. Rendang has a special and delicious taste. Therefore, rendang was ranked as the 1st most delicious food in the world based on World delicious food in 2011. However, the ranking of rendang becomes 11st in 2021. Because of that, we will make new innovation that is expected to be able to increase the ranking of rendang in the world to the first place. Our new innovation is to combine rendang with kebab. Kebab itself is a typical Middle Eastern food that has several advantages. The advantages are practical, economical and delicious. The combination of these two special foods that come from different countries will certainly produce a special, unique, delicious and affordable food innovation. This rendang kebab is expected to be an innovation that attracts the attention of many people, including young people who like something new. The kebab rendang also has very good prospects in the future because we still conserve the local culinary and the producing is directly handled by the expert, namely students who is originally from west Sumatra and has traditional and modern cooking skill that need not to be doubted.