Functional Food: New baby food is Beech-Nut entry into healthy additive industry

By Steven Cook
Gazette Reporter

February 24, 2002
CANAJOHARIE - The children were in their highchairs and the parents were busy attempting to get them to eat earlier this month.

Beech-Nut was unveiling its new First Advantage line of baby food, touting the food's added bonus of DHA, a type of fatty acid normally found in breast milk.

The fatty acid, the company claims, helps support a baby's visual and intellectual development. Last year, the federal Food and Drug Administration cleared the way for the use of DHA in food for infants.

The company has spent more than $3 million in developing the new product. The product is seen as an investment and commitment to Canajoharie.

The product is also Beech-Nut's first step into the growing field of "functional foods," foods with additives aimed at improving health.

"This is our first entry," Beech-Nut Chief Executive Officer Scott Meader said at the unveiling. "If it's successful, we have more to offer. We have a few other ideas."

The functional-food industry pulled in more than $16.2 billion in sales in 1999, according to a General Accounting Office report. It is an industry that is only expected to grow. By 2010, according to the GAO report, returns on functional foods are expected to reach nearly $50 billion.

Advances in technology have helped manufacturers add nutrients and other additives to such foods as cereal, orange juice and even potato chips, with the intent of helping consumers and boosting profits.

The additives range from calcium in orange juice to ginseng in potato chips. The foods have gotten so plentiful, they're hard to miss.

"You can walk down any food aisle and pick out a number of food products that are functional foods," FDA spokeswoman Monica Revelle said.

The first functional foods appeared more than 100 years ago with the introduction of vitamin D to milk to allow for greater absorption of calcium, according to Althea Zanecosky, a dietitian for the American Dietetic Association.

Around that time, iodine was added to salt to help prevent goiter.

The industry has grown in recent years because of an increasing awareness among consumers about foods perceived as healthy, analysts and dietitians said.

Such foods as calcium-fortified orange juice offer an alternative to consumers who can't or won't drink milk, they said.

The DHA added to Beech-Nut's new First Advantage baby food and baby formula also allows mothers who can't breast-feed to offer their babies food that is more akin to breast milk.

"There's a lot of promise here," said Ilene Ringel Heller, spokeswoman for the Washington-based Center for Science in the Public Interest. "Here you have a wonderful product in orange juice with calcium because so many children don't like to drink milk. It's a wonderful way of providing it."

Sales on rise

Sales of functional foods are growing locally, as well. Price Chopper stocks a long list of such foods, from drinks to cereals, according to Price Chopper spokeswoman Maureen Murphy.

The store sells orange juice, apple juice and even hot chocolate fortified with calcium.

"People buy them, so they stay on the shelves," Murphy said. "Some of the things have already been fortified, but there's more in the marketplace."

One local company that has been capitalizing on this phenomenon is the Schenectady-based Fortitech.

Fortitech, founded in 1986 in the Rotterdam Industrial Park, manufactures the nutrient mixes to companies for such foods as cereals, sports drinks and infant formula.

The company formulates custom blends for clients in a global distribution network.

"People are very interested in health and nutrition," Fortitech marketing manager Maria Michael said. "They're looking at ways to eat proper things to help their heart and bones."

If the term functional food is taken at its broadest definition, it would also encompass the original healthy foods, foods with natural vitamins, minerals and other healthy aspects: fruits and vegetables.

Simple tomatoes have lycopene, something that has been linked to lower risk of prostate cancer. Other fruits, vegetables and other natural foods have beneficial effects on other diseases.

Now, with greater advancement in technology and consumer appetites, companies are adding other substances, until now generally included in dietary supplements, such as ginseng or kava kava.

"We've gone from naturally occurring functional foods to adding compounds to foods that we know people need," Zanecosky said. "I have a concern when you start adding herbs that are not controlled to foods. There hasn't even been a determination on how much you need for it to be effective."

Zanecosky noted such products as tea with echinacea as example of additives that don't have scientific information to back up claims that they treat disease. "I don't know if people really need to drink echinacea in tea, but people think 'wow, that's great.' "

Advocates concernedIt's that part of the industry that has consumer advocates concerned.

Manufacturers have attempted to use herbs like echinacea and ginkgo in teas and foods, such as potato chips, under more lax FDA dietary supplement regulations. But when they are integrated into food products, they fall under stricter food guidelines, the FDA's Revelle said.

The FDA has had to issue warning letters to some companies to follow the stricter guidelines, Revelle said.

Aside from any possible health benefits, consumer groups also question the need to pay for such additives. Added ingredients often add to the item's cost.

"We don't say they're all great or they're all bad," senior nutritionist David Schardt, of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said. "You have to look at it on a food-by-food basis and see what's being added and how much good that food is to begin with. Then you draw a conclusion."

Posted May 5, 2002