For many people, nanotechnology is the stuff of science fiction, more likely to be seen on the Starship Enterprise than the local supermarket shelf. But nanotechnology – the manipulation of materials at the scale of between one and 100 nanometres (nm), or one billionth of a metre – offers many opportunities for food producers, and packaging manufacturers working with the food industry, to push the limits of food technology.
Working on the nanoscale not only makes materials more compact or precise – it can also fundamentally change the way they react, offering major new application potential. For example, because of its UV-blocking capacity, titanium dioxide is widely used in products such as sunscreen, giving the product its creamy white colour. But at the nanoscale, titanium dioxide particles are transparent, offering UV-blocking potential in applications where the white colour of the ‘normal’ particles would be unacceptable – such as in food packaging.
According to German consultancy Helmut Kaiser Consulting, there are already more than 180 different food applications using nanotechnology either on the market or in the pipeline, and the market for ‘nanofood’ is expected to be worth US$20.4bn in 2010, up from just US$7bn in 2006. The consultancy says that there are more than 200 companies working on nanofood products across the world, with the US, Japan and China leading the way, not least because R&D funding for nanotech (in all applications, not just food-related) is the highest in these regions. Most countries in the world see nanoscience and nanotechnology as important. Japan allocated around US$960m on nanotech R&D in 2004, while the US pledged US$3.7bn between 2005-2008. Europe, in contrast, has pledged around €1bn in public funding for nanotech R&D, according to figures from the UK’s Institute of Food Science and Technology (IFST). Funding levels are expected to increase rapidly by the end of the decade as the benefits (commercial and otherwise) of nanotechnology become clearer.
The IFST points out that nanotechnology has always been a part of food processing, since many elements already found in foods occur naturally on the nanoscale: food proteins, polysaccharides and lipids for example can all be nanoparticles, while setting jellies or making custard also involves manipulation of naturally-occurring nanoscale structures. This nanoscience, understanding how food components react and interact at the most basic level, is part and parcel of all food production: nanotechnology is taking this scientific understanding to the next level, to create new products that react in specific ways to create specific characteristics.
Space-age applications
According to the US-based Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), there is seemingly no end to the ‘space-age’ applications of nanotech in foods. For example, food could be designed with a ‘biosensor’ function that allows the product to tell whether it is contaminated, or allows it to be traced more easily throughout the production chain. Nanotech could also be used in encapsulation technologies to offer greater protection from external contaminants, without the need for more artificial preservatives. But the IFT notes that while there is a myriad of potential uses for nanotech in the food sector, most of them will prove far too expensive to be commercially viable, in the short to medium term at least. That is why the IFT suggests that it is in the formulation of ingredients that nanotechnology will have its greatest and most immediate impact, not least as the market for functional foods and nutraceuticals continues to grow.
This is because nanotechnology allows companies to create products that are far more effective when it comes to delivering the functional ingredient to the right part of the human body once the food has been ingested. The functional ingredient is encapsulated in the nanomaterial – colloids, emulsions, biopolymers can all be engineered at the nanoscale – and then released when it receives a specific environmental ‘trigger’, ensuring that the ingredient is delivered only where it will do the most good.
But food industry applications for nanotechnology are not limited exclusively to these ingredients delivery systems. There are already various packaging material producers are experimenting with to create more effective products for use in the food industry. The IFT highlights nanolaminates – extremely thin food-grade films – that are being used to create edible ‘packaging’ for products as diverse as confectionery, backed goods, meat products and fruit and vegetables. The films can help protect products against moisture or heat, and can offer other advantages such as carriers of functional ingredients, colours or additives – and all without any visible sign that they are even there.
Major players involved
Food nanotech might still be relatively limited in scope, but that is not to say that some of the world’s biggest food companies are not involved. Many of them have been investing in nanofoods for some time – albeit with relatively little song and dance, a reflection of the controversy that surrounds the technology, seen by some critics as tantamount to genetic modification. US group Kraft was the first to invest heavily in nanotechnology, opening its first nano lab in 1999, and it heads a consortium of universities and research laboratories, dubbed Nanotek, looking into potential food applications for the technology. The company remains tight-lipped about exactly what applications it is looking at – not surprisingly given the cut-throat competition in the food industry – but it is thought to be researching the opportunities offered by nanotech in the field of ‘interactive’ products, tailored to the needs of specific consumers. One product that the company is thought to be working on with researchers in Spain is a drink that changes colour or taste depending on who is drinking it – a colourless, flavourless liquid containing nanocapsules with a range of different tastes and colours is subject to an external trigger – a simple microwave device, for example – and offers the taste and colour combination preferred by the consumer. Similar technology could be used to create foods that can adjust themselves to match the nutritional requirements of the consumer.
Both Unilever and Nestlé are also investing in nanotechnology in a bid to make better products – the two companies’ ice cream brands, for example, could benefit from nano emulsions that make the product smoother – and Danish groups Arla and Danisco are part of a consortium of businesses and research establishements called NanoFOOD which is looking at biosensors, packaging and health-related nanotechnology, as well as another interesting area – the coating of food production machinery with nanoscale anti-bacterial films that will mean safer food and lower production costs.
Uncertain future
As these examples show, there is massive potential for nanotechnology to create better, safer, cheaper food products for the benefit of all. But despite this potential, there are still plenty of people who see more danger than benefit from ‘tinkering’ with the make up of the food we eat. Many organisations are concerned that we simply do not know enough about the long-term effects on human health from the consumption of food products created using nanotechnology, and that the food industry is pressing ahead in order to steal a march on lawmakers, who have been slow to see the need for regulation.
Friends of the Earth (FoE), for example, is calling for policy-makers in Europe to come up with a comprehensive set of rules concerning food nanotech that is based on assumption that nanotech is potentially dangerous and should be treated with caution. In a report published in 2008, it said it had identified 104 food products containing nanotechnology on sale across the world, but that it expected that this was just a “small fraction” of the actual number because of food companies’ unwillingness to admit that they are using the technology. FoE suggests that the same things that make nanoparticles such an opportunity for food producers – the small size means that they have a greater chance of delivering ingredients directly into human cells, tissues and organs – are also potential serious health risk. It claims that nanoparticles of silver, titanium dioxide, zinc and zinc oxide, which are already being used in nutritional supplements, food packaging and food contact materials, have been found to be highly toxic to cells in test tube studies, and that the lack of strict laws requiring the labelling of nanofoods is putting consumers at potential risk.
The group is calling for a moratorium on the further commercial release of food products, food packaging, food contact materials and agrochemicals that contain manufactured nanomaterials until nanotechnology-specific safety laws are established and the public is involved in decision making. It also wants all manufactured nanomaterials to be subject to new safety assessments as new substances, even where the properties of their larger scale counterparts are well-known, and for all products containing nanomaterials to be clearly labelled as such, giving consumers a real choice.
Risk assessment
Lawmakers are not unaware of the growing demand for greater regulation of nanotechnology in food – although in Europe they are also conscious of the need to ensure that regulation does not completely stifle investment in new R&D in this field, since Europe’s poor performance compared to the US and Asia in terms of R&D investment is a major bugbear for the European Commission, which has made boosting innovation one of the cornerstones of European policy. The European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) began tracking developments in the nanotechnology field in 2006 (seven years after Kraft first started investing in nanotech) and had been charged by the European Commission to look into whether there is a need for a specific risk assessment approach for nanotechnology applications in the field of food and feed. The agency has concluded that “established international approaches to risk assessment can also be applied to engineered nanomaterials (ENMs)” and “ that in practice, current data limitations and a lack of validated test methodologies could make risk assessment of specific nano products very difficult and subject to a high degree of uncertainty.”
Whatever the European Commission decides to do with EFSA’s Opinion, it will by no means signal the end of the debate – indeed, it is more likely to simply open up more questions about what exactly constitutes nanotechnology. As one Unilever official, speaking at an EFSA conference in 2007 put it, the mere act of eating and drinking breaks food and drink down to the molecular and sub-molecular level before turning it into waste products, energy or body fat – a perfectly natural nanotechnology process that takes place every day inside all of us. Before regulatory authorities can convince sceptics that food nanotechnology is being properly assessed, regulated and labelled, they are likely to face the thorny task of finding a definition of nanotechnology that is acceptable to everyone. And while that discussion goes on, companies will continue to invest in potential new nanotech products that could push even further the boundaries of any potential definition.
