Benexia participates to the workshop on “Opportunities for new functional food, healthcare and wellness products” presenting innovative products.
8-9 December 2008 – Gent, Belgium
Some Latin American plants with health-related attributes have the potential to satisfy the growing international demand for foods, healthcare and wellness products with high nutritional and functional value, especially in Europe. Thus it is important to promote the development of export markets for functional food products from Latin American agro-biodiverse crops. This need is being addressed in the EC project EULAFF (European Action on Latin American Functional Foods; http://www.efb-central.org/eulaff/).
The commercial development of a functional food sector and its corresponding supply chain has the potential to significantly contribute to the economic development of Latin American countries, which , along with the development of a European functional foods sector, is the main purpose of EULAFF.
In addition, identification of the active ingredients in these foods, and characterisation of their therapeutic and pharmacological activities would provide new opportunities in the pharmaceutical, cosmetics and ingredients sectors.
Previous workshops held by EULAFF demonstrated a number of promising value chains that have been identified by Latin American research teams and that are of potential interest for European companies in the food, drinks and pharmaceutical sectors.
