Does the pace of regulatory progress slow innovation?
With a boom in international food trends such as the “clean label” and the use of novel ingredients such as insect protein and botanicals, South African food industry is quickly working to stay ‘on-trend’. Considering the current regulations, and the ridged scope of them, do they negatively impact the growth and innovation in the food and beverage industry? Or is there room for the regulations to be applied in such a manner as to keep the consumer informed while still allowing growth together with new food fads?
A number of publications, including Forbes1, suggested the top 10 food trends for 2019; amongst them, there were 3 which we have seen an increase of hype around in the media and market, namely:
- Cannabis in foodstuffs
- Plant-based nutrition
- Clean label
These 3 aspects, together with a growing interest in insect protein, will be used as ‘case-studies’. It is important to understand the regulatory system and discover ways to apply the regulations in the product development journey. You can follow the “regulatory decision tree” in this process.
Gabrielle Stevens presented a poster at the 2019 SAAFoST congress. For Regulatory queries or Labelling assessments, please email Gabrielle at [email protected].
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