Being organised by United Business Media (UBM), the event will focus on in-depth and practical guidance on meeting demands of "healthy consumers" through the potential of functional food and beverages.
Further, a workshop on women's health and infant nutrition would be conducted on the occasion. The workshop will look at increasing the functional product portfolio mix. Another workshop covering implementable and innovative marketing and research and development (R&D) techniques will also be held.
"Around 70 attendees are expected to participate in the event and 30 in the workshop," Oby George, project head, Fi conferences, UBM, informed FnB News in chat over telephone.
The event would focus on updating the functional regulatory landscape as per the new Food Safety and Standards Act (FSSA), 2006, to understand the emerging consumer trends and develop products for better lifestyle and disease management, to determine the impact of nutraceuticals to increase opportunities in the functional scenario, assessing opportunities in the usage of traditional ingredients and understand the ingredient approval process to gain speedy entry and successfully launch F&B products.
The agenda for day-one of the conference will include the following topics: Understanding the current regulatory position as per the latest FSS Act for functional foods and beverages (FF&B) to drive the development of the F&B industry by S S Ghonkrokta, director, enforcement, FSSAI; Clarifying the legal aspects of health claims, labelling and registration guidelines as per the latest Act by Sunil Adsule, director, scientific regulatory affairs, Coca-Cola India; and D B Ananthnarayana, head (herbal), Hindustan Unilever Research.
Understanding the set of systematic procedures to fast-track the ingredient approval process and gain speedy entry into the FF&B market would be covered by Prabodh Halde, head, regulatory, Marico; and Developing a stringent set of procedures for effective clinical testing to validate the efficiency of the ingredient by Brijesh Regal, CEO, Apothecaries; followed by an open discussion with the regulatory members, concluding the first session of the conference.
The discussion would highlight the most critical regulatory challenges faced by the Indian functional F&B industry.
The second session of day-one would cover topics such as Forecasting the Indian FF&B trends and emerging categories to increase your market share in the F&B space by Rashmi Upadhya, managing consultant, Strategy PricewaterhouseCoopers; and Overcoming the multiple marketing challenges to increase the awareness of FF&B amongst Indian consumers by Priti Baijal, associate director, regulatory and medical affairs, Ranbaxy Global Consumer Healthcare.
Effectively balancing marketing and scientific claims to communicate accurate information of FF&B products to the consumers by Alan Collaco, secretary-general,
Advertising Standards Council of India; and Vijay Bhaskar Reddy, head, R&D, Dabur India; closing his remarks on developing immunity against chronic diseases through consumption of FF&B for better lifestyle management; will also be on the agenda.
The second-day of the conference would include panel discussion on understanding the impact of nutraceuticals to increase opportunities in the FF&B space
by speakers like Sharad Kasarle, VP, R&D, Alkem Laboratories; K Srivastava, director, NDRI, Karnal; and Evaluating innovative usage of traditional ingredients such as rice in the FF&B space, to meet consumers' ads health requirements and to increase your existing product portfolio by Vasudeva Singh, head, department of grain science and technology, Central Food Technological Research Institute (CFTRI); Understanding the usage of prebiotic, probiotic and symbiotic in functional F&B to increase the product portfolio by Sanjeev Ganguly, medical director, South Asia Region, Nestle India; and Overcoming the challenges in using fibres to increase its usage in the FF&B category by T Mukhopadhyay, executive VP, Cavinkare. Determining the potential of innovative ingredients in Indian FF&B to maximise the profitability of your product mix would be another aspect to the discussion.
Vinita Satyavrat, head, medical ANI, Abbott Nutrition International India; would
elaborate on Identifying new ingredients to develop FF&B products that can prevent and manage diabetes.
The second session of the day-two would foresee speakers like Vilas Sinkar, VP, R&D, Unilever; who would mention the determining techniques to improve the sensory profile of FF&B products to increase consumption among consumers; Identifying new techniques to improve the quality, hygiene and shelf-life of FF&B products to enhance the standard of the FF&B industry by Sanjay Singh, head, nutraceuticals and herbals, Plethico; and Adopting innovative technology for developing FF&B products that are at par with the international FF&B industry by Arijit Guha Mazumder, head, new product development, GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare; closing the session for the day.
The workshop is basically intended to focus on women's health and infant nutrition that are currently considered to be neglected areas by food and ingredients manufacturers.
Further it would identify the types of foods targeting women's health segmenting the different age groups and how to tap these untapped markets would be another aspect of the same discussion.
