BioProFibre will develop a range of cholesterol-lowering foods and demonstrate their effect on humans in a clinical study. This will allow SMEs to participate in the attractive functional food market, giving them improved competitiveness. The new products have the potential to generate 12 Mio € extra annual turnover and additional employment at the SMEs involved. Society will also benefit because consumers will have access to a wider variety of tasty cholesterol-lowering foods.

SMEs represent >99% of all companies and >60% of total turnover in the food sector. But they are under severe pressure from large companies which have bigger and more efficient plants and superior marketing organisations. SMEs hence must move into markets with higher margins and growth rates. The functional food market offers both these benefits. However, the cost necessary to demonstrate the health benefits of such foods cannot be afforded by SMEs.

Nine food manufacturing SMEs will develop cholesterol-lowering foods in conjunction with two food ingredient companies and two RTD-performers. The latter possess the expertise necessary to convert plant-based ingredients into foods and to demonstrate the hypocholesterolemic activity via in-vitro tests, animal studies and clinical studies on humans. As innovative approach, BioProFibre will demonstrate the bioactivity of the ingredients and their stability during processing, plus potential synergies from different protein and fibre ingredients. This will significantly reduce the effort required to generate data that demonstrate the health benefits of these foods and will also increase opportunities for making new cholesterol-lowering foods.

In contrast to current cholesterol-lowering foods which contain minute amounts of phytosterols or stanol esters added to regular products, BioProFibre will develop new natural foods using bioactive ingredients that also texturise and stabilise the foods and so can partly or completely replace original ingredients.