A decade ago, the whole concept of “functional foods” seemed distantly futuristic, if not a bit faddish, to much of the conventional food and beverage industry. Because all food is intrinsically functional, early-stage pioneers were sometimes viewed as opportunists traversing thin ice. To suggest that some foods or ingredients offered health benefits beyond the conventional was occasionally derided as outright heresy. The first ventures bringing functional products to market faced a gauntlet of brutal entry barriers: skeptical regulatory advisors, a lack of in-depth scientific substantiation for new ingredients and a consuming public still content with standard food fare.
Today, a solid functional products marketplace is emerging, along with an improving regulatory climate, a growing body of scientific substantiation to back up specific ingredient health claims, and increasing consumer awareness that diet remains the primary key to a healthier lifestyle. Touting multiple organoleptic and physical characteristics of a given ingredient remains the cornerstone of progressive functional ingredient marketing, but the twenty-first century functional food and beverage arena is awash with a new generation of product offerings making hundreds of nutritionally oriented health claims. The cutting edge in this still-germinal marketplace is the growing wave of ingredients promoted for multi-tiered functionality--numerous and diverse health benefits attributed to a single ingredient, nutrient or constituent--which represents a significant departure from the long-standing marketing approach of tying one major health benefit to each functional ingredient.