Overcoming Challenges in Food Product Development – A Case Study of a Functional Bread, Branded Nothing Else™

Consumer demand for healthier functional bread has increased over the past decades. However, the development and marketability of functional bread with appealing physical and textural qualities that will demonstrate health-promoting benefits have challenges. This case study of product development highlights these challenges and describes how expertise from branding, culinary food science and nutrition was used to develop a functional vegetable-enriched bread under the Nothing Else™ brand. The Nothing Else™ brand requires eight or less “natural” ingredients. Functional ingredients were drum-dried pumpkin and sweetcorn powders, flaxseed, wholemeal flour and sprouted wheat flour. Challenges of adding the functional ingredients included adverse physical qualities of the baked bread such as lower loaf volume and lower specific volume. Compared to commercial breads, vegetable-enriched bread was liked significantly more by older adults aged ≥50 years for its attributes including taste, naturalness and healthiness, and improved glycaemic and satiety outcomes but not blood carotenoid concentration. Thus, the need to harmonise diverse expertise through product development collaborations may result in ingredient optimisation for the formulation of functional bread with acceptable physical qualities and sensory attributes with an effective dose of bioactive compounds for clinical and self-reported outcomes. This is important to overcome barriers in functional bread development.