Medical Industry Offers Food Ingredient Companies Huge Potential – Study

07/12/07 Growing price competition from low-cost manufacturers has been forcing ingredient companies to search for new ways to sustain profitable growth, which Kalorama Information predicts will likely come from the sale of products or byproducts to pharmaceutical, medical foods, or biomedical device companies -- a potential $1 billion market -- in a new report, Healthcare Opportunities for Food Ingredient Manufacturers.

Thousands of bioactive phytochemicals have potential or established pharmaceutical or medicinal applications. Food-grade pectin, used as a thickening agent and stabilizer in food, tops the industry's list of ingredients most likely to succeed in healthcare. Useful for such applications as drug delivery, gene repair, and tissue repair, pectin offers food ingredient manufacturers as much as $890 million in sales to the healthcare industry. Glycomacropeptide, a whey component that is released during the manufacture of cheese, has been shown to stimulate the body's synthesis and release of cholesystokinen. This compound plays a role in the regulation of digestion and appetite suppression, providing yet another $65.6 million market in the healthcare industry.

"There are a variety of market opportunities in the healthcare sector, either in drugs, medical foods, or medical devices," said Steven Heffner, publisher of Kalorama Information. "The cost-effective discovery and recovery of novel ingredients with improved properties from food processing streams depends on next generation analysis, isolation, and separation technologies. Food ingredient manufacturers will have to turn to science and technological advances to add value to their primary, byproduct, and waste streams."