Functional Food Research in Europe: 3rd Workshop Demonstration of the Nutritional Functionality of Probiotic Foods: FAIR CT96-1028

The workshop is the third in a series of workshops for the FAIR Demonstration project entitled Demonstration of the Nutritional Functionality of Probiotic Foods, FAIR CT96-1028. The aim of the EU project is to substantiate the real value of probiotic products to the EU markets and to EU consumers by providing a sound basis for assessing the functionality of specific probiotic foods, and to enable the industry to demonstrate the health claims for probiotic products with regard to management of intestinal disorders and immune enhancement. The objectives include establishment of a scientifically based selection of probiotic bacterial strains, demonstration of the beneficial value of probiotic products in human pilot-testing (both on children and adults) with new and novel methodologies, and verification of the functional and technological requirements essential for the industrial production of probiotics as functional foods. Year 1998 will be the milestone to show the first clinical testing results on both children and adults. The main emphasis in the third workshop is also to demonstrate the present situation in functional foods research in Europe by combining the forces with other projects on Functional Foods in the FAIR programme. This is established within the scientific programme by inviting several project coordinators from the main EU-projects linked to functional foods and nutrition to present the state-of-art of their research. In the near future the 5th frame-work programme will be in its starting phase and a comprehensive seminar with the main EU-projects linked to functional foods will be of both informative and valuable for scientific communities and industries. A panel discussion on probiotic value for the European consumer as well as a demonstration of probiotic products will be held during the workshop.