Aug 5 2010 --- Lonza recently held a Nutrition 2030 workshop, designed to exchange and share innovative ideas from international organizations, NGOs and academia.

The workshop polled some of the nutrition industry’s leaders to discuss the relationship of food and health, and develop a vision for the long-term future of the food industry.

“This workshop provided a very useful and enthusiastic gathering of some of the best and brightest minds in the nutrition industry for two days of ‘thinking from scratch,’ said Lonza’s CEO Stefan Borgas. “This initiative brought together a diverse global mix of interesting people, organizations and companies in an open and relaxed atmosphere that resulted in lively discussions. The willingness of everybody to participate led to productive ideas that will
contribute to the growth of our industry in the near future.”

The group analyzed potential future nutritional megatrends, while working together to identify potentially disruptive factors the food sector may face. Continued efforts to fight malnutrition and deficiencies in developing areas were a topic of interest, as was the potential to prevent diseases through affordable fortified nutrition and optimized diet.

A discussion about the influence of foods on immune function was conducted, as were similar talks on the brain health and gut health markets. Each market was deemed in need of broad industrial-academic partnerships, as the challenges are too big for single companies or institutions to face. Additional topics included:

• The balance between conventional and GMO-based food and nutrients in local food sourcing and markets
• The young, as a dynamic market segment that cannot be forgotten due to constant focus on the aging population, women and babies
• New approaches to waste as a resource for food production
• Developments in diagnostics and testing, and their influence on nutrition and food
production
• Land use and the acceptance of genetically modified crops
• Expected stricter rules for health related claims on nutritional products
• The “omics” sciences: genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and, one day, epigenetics, and how they may influence the way we choose food in the future
• Biotechnology and agrotechnology as important technological drivers to quantitatively
and qualitatively secure food supplies

As a result of the workshop, a Nutrition 2030 network is being established to further joint cooperation on selected nutrition topics that require the brainpower of combined organizations. To this end, an e-newsgroup is taking shape that will serve as a platform to discuss critical topics, and provide the forum to exchange news, ideas and announcements. The newsgroup is not limited to the participants of the first Nutrition 2030 workshop, but is open to all interested individuals from academia, industry, NGOs and the public sector.