Cyndy AuRegional Director, Regulatory & Scientific Affairs (Asia Pacific)DuPont Nutrition & Health

Associate Fellow, Institute on Asian Consumer Insight (ACI) hosted by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

cyndy.au@dupont.com

Presented at the 5th ASEAN‐European Food Innovation CongressThe Athenee Hotel, Bangkok, Thailand14 November 2017

A Progressive Food Standard and Safety:

Building Trust for Innovation & Growth

Objectives

1. To emphasize on the Core Values of a progressive food standards and safety.

2. To provide an understanding of the issues in food standards and safety impacting trust. 

3. To share on an action‐oriented collaboration initiative on food safety education.

4. To reflect on the past, current and future of food standards and safety and its impact on food innovation and growth.

Convergence or Conflict?

Consumers have a right to expect that the foods they purchase and consume is safe and of high quality.

Policy maker

Foodindustry

Academe

ConsumersTrust

Food safetyAuthenticityEducation

Food science & technologyNutritionInnovation

R&D

Scientific evidence

Food standardsHealth claims

MediaTraditionalDigital

Thailand 4.0

4CONFIDENTIAL – FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY

It Starts Here!

A personal commitment to the highest standards of environmental, health and safety excellence. 

People need to know that you care

before they care about what you know!

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Building Trust

Young Nutrition Leadership Program for ASEAN leaders, 5 Aug 2017, Port Dickson, Malaysia

Training young leaders from Ministry of Health, public sector, healthcare professionals and food industry from Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam.

Cultivating Awareness, Intention & Behaviour

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Food Innovation

STRICTLY FOR INTERNAL USE 8

Communicating Innovation / Science

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Communicating Innovation / Science

Risk Communication

Meeting consumers’ expectationsFormula Format Function

Value for money is a way of life for most consumers and more is always perceived or accepted to be better.

Hence, probiotics formulated with multiple microorganism strains (and high in potency) would be expected to sell better than a product with a single strain of microorganism.

Regulatory landscape and detection methodology must keep up with product innovation

Food manufacturers need to research and develop stable and sustainable probiotic strains that can be delivered in formats such as powder that can be sprinkled and added into familiar local dishes like soups, rice or porridge.

Asians usually start the day with hot dishes rather than cold food.

Asian consumers are expected to look closer into the probiotics’ specific functional health claims during purchase.

An extensively researched probiotic strain built on scientific evidence: efficacy and efficiency.

Responsible probiotics manufacturer will develop deep competency in in vitro, animal pre-clinical and human clinical trials to substantiate health benefits

What do Asian consumers value?

• Marketing probiotics to Asian consumers should also take into consideration:

o convenience; o incorporating probiotics into existing traditional 

or new brands; and o the use of technology like health apps or 

websites, to help consumers understand the science behind probiotic products. 

• However, the most important driver in most Asian countries is likely to be affordability. 

• When creating new probiotic products, brands must take cost into account while assuring that the product is of good quality, tastes good, has reliable distribution channels, and importantly, storage that guarantees the viability of the probiotic microorganisms until the use by date.

Health seeking behavior vs. nutrition literacy

• Research shows that 50% of shoppers are seeking "health" when shopping for food, but nutrition knowledge and literacy amongst Asian consumers is at much lower levels than for their Western counterparts.

• While Western consumers use prior product knowledge and nutrition labels, Asians often rely on highly visible external cues that are clearly seen (including pack design, product information, claims and advertisements) to determine whether food products are healthy.

• There is clearly an urgent need to educate Asian consumers in food nutrition literacy, as well as how to read food labels correctly, so that consumers can make informed choice comparisons between alternative products. Education needs to start early, ideally in schools. 

• Government policies to prevent food manufacturers from posting confusing or unsupported cues on their food packaging will also help build closer relationships between responsible food brands and their new target audiences in the Asia‐Pacific region.

(Lwin, 2017)

Acknowledgments

References

• Risk Communication (Powell & Teng, 2017)

• Pan Asia Wave Study 2, Institute on Asian Consumer Insights, Nanyang Technological University (Lwin et al,. 2017)

On the Webfood.dupont.comdanisco.com

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