Digestion services for Food industry

Digestion of food in the human digestive system is complex and includes many physicochemical processes that control food intake and nutrient absorption

We are beginning to understand that the structure and physicochemical properties of food as well as its composition are critical factors that significantly influence digestibility, nutrient absorption and hence the nutritional value and health impact of a food. To understand the health benefits of a certain diet or food ingredient it is important to study and understand the release of nutrients from real foods during the digestion process.

This is extremely challenging and very expensive to study the digestion process in human studies. Therefore we use a range of in vitro models which have been validated in human studies, which can replicate the human digestive system. The models have been designed to complement human studies so we can understand precisely when, where and how food and their nutrients are broken down and released during the digestion process.

Application Areas & Methods 

Our methods can be used to evaluate the influence of digestion conditions, and to carry out studies on the positive or negative effect of food structure (particle size, viscosity, addition of emulsifiers, etc.), food composition (food fortification, etc.), the survival of probiotic bacteria, dietetic factors (interactions between food components such as fibre, minerals, etc.) and food processing (thermal and non-thermal treatment, fermentation, etc.) and storage upon nutrient and bioactive compound bioaccessibility, in order to establish the nutritional value of foods and improve food formulation/design and new product development.