Development of the "medicinal food product"

Approval has been given by the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology to Eat Right Foods for the development of an innovative bio-available nutrient and mineral rich product under its “accelerated R & D TechNZ grant funding” initiative.

The project is considered to be the first of its type and a real tipping point in the creation of the “medicinal food product”. For Eat Right Foods, who has been developing and supplying its range of organic and unrefined ingredient snack products to consumers in New Zealand, Australia, the US, Asia and parts of Europe, the product development project is a culmination of the proprietary knowledge gained from over nine years in the health-wellness industry.

Although the company has received other grant funding to assist with some of its other world first product development projects (TechNZ assisted with the development of an anti-Candida product in 2003 and the Date and Apple cookie in 2002), the current project is considered to be the company’s most innovative and ‘beneficial to health’ to date.

All of this comes at a time when the market is catching up with some of the Eat Right initiatives and consumers are demanding more from their food. Such is the demand for medicinal foods (ie foods to treat conditions such as diabetes, gastrointestinal tract impairment, allergies and obesity) that Nestle will “invest $500 million into expanding its medical nutrition business over the next decade ... a market that could “eventually be worth $100-150 billion”. Medicinal nutrition is considered more profitable and more promising than traditional consumer food business, where margins are traditionally very low because of fierce competition.

As well as product innovation in the medicinal foods industry, the company has trademark protection of its EATRIGHT registered brand for all “food preparations adapted for medical purposes” in New Zealand and the USA as well as other country brand protection rights.

www.eatright.co.nz