It is the public that drives the food industry.

I was recently asked by a journalist why the food industry just doesn’t do simple food. Well, the answer is very simple – it is because the public want more than just that. It wants; flavour, texture, convenience, long life, portion control, something new, something special, dietary and medical needs met and their favourite product in the shop when they want it.

The Clean Food movement is all about minimising additives in food but unfortunately to do this and achieve the expected public demands, a lot of product and process development is being undertaken.

This development is also ongoing to attempt to meet all the other public demands, so new technology, processing methods and packaging is being developed continuously.

As an example of this, coffee has now overtaken the simple black tea with milk as the beverage of choice in Australia. In part this is being driven by the access to good machine coffee in the home and workplace. It is no longer necessary to visit the local café to get a good coffee. With the advent of the coffee pods and related machines, anyone can now have good coffee at any time. This situation has only come about in the last year or so, and it shows how the food industry has rapidly developed equipment and product to meet a consumer demand.

Cadbury’s have heard the complaint about “the chocolate melts in my hand” for years. Chocolate melts at 33.8°C, which has been an issue since it first became commercially available. If a company could find a way of stopping chocolate from melting, this would make a lot of people very happy, including supermarkets, transport companies and the public.

As part of it’s product and process development, Cadburys have just put in a Patent Application for chocolate that resist heat up to 40°C. This has massive potential implications for the food industry and consumers.

It is being done through an addition to the chocolate process and is yet another example of how businesses in the food industry are constantly working to better meet the needs of the public.