The growth in popularity of functional foods among consumers is showing no sign of abating. As newer health-giving ingredients such as omega-3 oils and coenzyme Q10 become commonplace in the food products that fill the supermarket shelves, more familiar healthy ingredients like vitamins are finding new applications, too.

Business is booming in the vitamin sector, with global sales of vitamins and dietary supplements rising by 7% in 2005 to $48 billion, according to Euromonitor. The market is benefiting significantly from the ageing population, and the market for products containing vitamin K and the B vitamins that offer benefits to the elderly will likely continue to grow.

Vitamins are essential for the body’s development and function. When healthy, the body makes some vitamins itself, such as vitamin D, which is made in the skin when it is exposed to sunlight. Microflora in the gut also synthesise biotin and vitamin K. Others can be made from precursors that are ingested, such as vitamin B3 from the amino acid tryptophan, and vitamin A, which is made from beta-carotene. The rest must be consumed as part of the diet, and as few are successfully stored (A, D and B12 are the main exceptions), it is important that the diet contains sufficient of these compounds to maintain health.

However, various vitamins have other potential health benefits. Take vitamin E, generally found as mixed tocopherols, and used as a food ingredient for its functional antioxidant properties. The most active in humans is the alpha form, but the mixture also contains a trace of beta, with the remainder comprising the gamma and delta forms. As Cognis’s business director, core product lines Steve Frandsen explains, these may have interesting properties too. ‘The gamma form seems to have some clinical evidence in hypertension and some benefits in heart disease,’ he claims. ‘And we’re just starting to study the delta form from the standpoint of some of the benefits.’ He adds that no-one seems to have put a great deal of effort into studying it in the past.

Frandsen says that they’ve seen demand grow since they began to focus on mixed tocopherols. This marks something of a recovery, after scare stories about its safety hit the press in 2005. A meta-analysis study claimed that consuming high doses of vitamin E significantly increased all-cause mortality rates. ‘It was, basically, bogus,’ he says. ‘It picked the three characteristics that seem to be bad out of 20,000 studies on vitamin E and tried to back it up with statistics. It was negated at a conference three weeks later, but the damage was done. Positive news is never good, negative news is always better! But once we get past the negativity and people start to look at the science, I think they’ll be enthused about what they see.’

As well as a pick-up in demand, he also reports a number of new applications for the mixed tocopherols. ‘Chocolate seems to be a big area for people wanting to add something,’ he says. ‘Another new application we’ve found recently is in packs of ready-made noodles in Asia.’

While vitamin C and the B-group vitamins are water-soluble, the remainder are fat-soluble and thus can be more of a challenge to incorporate into food products. It’s not such a problem for fat-based products like dairy, bakery and salad dressings, but it poses a substantial challenge for products like beverages, and vitamins that have been modified in some way, often by microencapsulation, can have real benefits. ‘We see a real trend towards this,’ says Helm’s Matthias Blum. ‘We are trying to hook up with manufacturers who can do this because we are hearing from our customers that there is a demand for these products.’

Cognis’s Frandsen claims sports drinks are a particular problem. ‘People prefer clear sports drinks, but putting an oil into water isn’t easy to do!’ he says. Cognis has been working with Wild Flavors who have expertise in the beverage area. ‘We have been testing a water-soluble powder form,’ he says. ‘And I’d love to find someone who would put it into beer! But beverages do pose a challenge. It’s not so easy to mask taste, and our focus is making sure there are water-dispersible products out there, and being able to use them in different potencies.’

Formulation of vitamin fortified food products can be greatly simplified by the use of modified vitamin ingredients, which numerous suppliers offer. BASF, for example, has a range of water-soluble formulations and cold water-dispersible formulations for near-water beverages, lemonades, juices and so on. ‘For foodstuffs, there are water-soluble and fat-soluble formulations targeting numerous applications such as dairy, bakery, snacks, confectionery and more,’ explains a spokeswoman for BASF. ‘We have a fairly new product line of allergen-free vegetarian formulations which are primarily targeting dietary supplements. However, they are also suitable for food applications. These vegetarian formulations are also GMO, BHT, dioxin and gluten-free and produced in line with halal and kosher standards. This combination of product characteristics provides an optimal, “label friendly” solution for our customers who sell their products throughout the world.’ These vegetarian formulations are available for vitamins A, E, D, K and beta-carotene.

We’ve been used to seeing the words ‘fortified with vitamins’ on some food products – notably breakfast cereals – for decades. In the US, for example, manufacturers are obliged to fortify some cereal products with five B vitamins. This has had such an impressive result in reducing deficiencies that it has been suggested that vitamin D and calcium fortification should be mandatory in these products too.

Finland is one country that has already gone down this route. Since 2004, milk and margarine now has to be fortified with vitamin D, and a study published last year in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition confirms that a group of children who ate fortified foods did indeed have higher levels of vitamin D than a group studied before fortification became mandatory.

There has been a good deal of debate recently on the merits of fortifying flour with folic acid, and whether it is safe because folic acid can mask deficiencies in vitamin B12, which causes pernicious anaemia. Most countries in the Americas now fortify their flour, but the debate continues in Europe about whether it should be mandatory. Folic acid has been shown to reduce the incidence of neural tube defects – spina bifida – in babies, and in the US, where flour is fortified, incidence is 50% lower than in the UK, where it is not. It also appears to have an effect on the incidence of stroke.

Of course, if a food doesn’t taste good, it’s unlikely to find much favour with consumers, even if it is healthier than the alternatives. Tate & Lyle has recently launched its Enrich service to help food and beverage manufacturers create bakery, dairy and confectionery products with increased levels of nutrients such as vitamins that taste as good as regular brands. ‘Through 2010, health and wellness packaged food is forecast to grow 21% versus a 9% growth for regular packaged food in Western Europe. In the US, the predicted growth is similar,’ claims Harvey Chimnoff, Tate & Lyle’s director of marketing, Americas. ‘Enriched food and beverage brands that deliver enhanced nutrition but still taste great will be ideally positioned to capitalise on this trend.’

Several of the Enrich prototype formulations make vitamin fortification easier, and have been introduced across three platforms – digestive health and immunity, obesity and weight management, and children’s health. Example products include a multi-fruit drink containing vitamins A, C and E for their antioxidant effects as well as zinc and calcium, and a flavoured water that includes B vitamins with vitamins A, E and minerals, plus protein and fibre to increase satiety. Vitamins also feature heavily in its yoghurt and smoothie prototypes, and there are cereal bars that are fortified with vitamins A, C and E, plus B vitamins, calcium, fibre and protein.

Vitamin supplementation can also improve skin health and even protect against sun damage, according to LycoRed. Research has shown that its tomato-derived lycopene ingredient Lyc-o-Mato – whose components include tocopherols and beta-carotene – reduced skin reddening after exposure to UV radiation by 38%, compared to just 25% for a group of subjects who were given synthetic lycopene alone. A second study showed that the combination of components in Lyc-o-Mato caused a significant increase in skin density and thickness after 12 weeks, along with improvements in skin smoothness and softness, and a reduction in scaling.

Frandsen believes that another future trend is likely to be the introduction of products that boost brain function, which could be very important in the light of the ageing population and the expected huge growth in the incidence of dementias such as Alzheimer’s disease – incidence is expected to quadruple in the next 40 year. And, indeed, there is already some evidence that increased levels of vitamin B12 might cut the incidence of dementia and reduce the rate of decline. Studies have shown that people with an elevated level of homocysteine are far more likely to develop dementia. Increased levels of vitamin B12 in the body are associated with lower levels of homocysteine, and it may be that vitamin B12 fortification could cut the rate of dementia and cognitive decline.

Research continues to discover new benefits of vitamins. As the population gets older, demand for vitamin-containing foods that may protect the ageing body from future illness, from heart disease to cancer to dementia, is sure to increase.