Taiwan’s Food Innovation Forum Explores Precision Nutrition Solutions
Food Taipei Mega Shows’ theme of “Precision Nutrition & Green Intelligence,” truly shined through at the Food Innovation Forum, an event hosted by TAITRA and the Food Industry Research and Development Institute (FIRDI) on Day Two of the overall expo.
Part of the Food Innovation Forum program was set up to honor the 2025 Green Vision Awards — an awards program that TAITRA and the British Standards Institution (BSI) partner to produce. The top award, the Gold Leaf Badge, was given to 10 companies this year, while another eight won Green Leaf Badge honors. Afterward, keynote sessions highlighted various advancements, innovations and ongoing research to help address nutritional needs of the elderly and aging consumer — a distinct concern in Taiwan and other Asian nations.
FIRDI deputy director general Dr. Shiang-Tang Jane summarized the challenges facing Taiwan’s functional foods industry, sharing data on the upcoming growth in the number of elderly consumers in the nation, juxtaposing it against other challenges the industry faces, and pointing out the promise that artificial intelligence (AI) holds for gearing precision nutrition innovation up to help solve the issue.
Li-Ting Chen, senior research scientist for FIRDI, dove deeply into the value of food, focusing on the value that food engineering brings to the table, especially when combined with revised thinking about product development and sensory data analysis.
Yoshimitsu Mori, president of Japan Care Food Conference, talked about his organization’s work to eliminate undernutrition of the elderly, leading to fewer bed-ridden, poor health outcomes for those consumers. The work to label — and ultimately formulate around — foods on the Universal Design Foods (UDF) scale, which categorizes foods based on how easy they are to chew and swallow for elderly consumers who have various levels of abilities in those areas, is progressing rapidly, he noted.
Dr. Ing. Reza Mahour, co-founder and CEO of Primogene GmbH, then took the stage to explain some of the work his company had undertaken in precision nutrition to help restore functional compounds to the bodies of older and elderly consumers through food consumption, rather than medications. Finally, wrapping up the morning session of the forum, Ushio Goto, deputy manager of Asahi, walked attendees through an overview of functional foods in Japan and how brands such as Calpis (part of the Asahi group) are meeting the needs of consumers in that area.
(Invited media did not attend the afternoon sessions, as we were scheduled for other meetings and events by the show organizers.)
