Food and nutrition for the silver market

IN THE following decades, Asia Pacific will witness its population ageing faster, with Japan, South Korea, and Thailand as the top three countries in the region with the most elderly. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) says that by 2050, one in four people will be over 60 years old – or a total of 1.3 billion. About 53% will be women.

The special needs of senior adults have to be addressed by the F&B industry. Besides nutritional value, food must have suitable sensory qualities, and packaging design must consider the frailties associated with ageing.  

A new exhibition launching in Singapore from 8-10 November 2019, ELDEX ASIA, gives companies in the eldercare industry an opportunity to showcase products and services that address these needs. 

The event to be held at Halls 405 and 406 of the Suntec Singapore Convention and Exhibition Centre, will highlight among others, interesting products at the Food for Elders Pavilion. With the support of the Enterprise Singapore, the trade and enterprise development government agency and the Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (ASME), several locally based F&B manufacturers will be presenting products such as ready-to-eat meals, protein-rich natural foods, as well as calorie- and nutrient-dense snacks, desserts and beverages.

According to Joseph Yeo, Event Director for ELDEX Asia, over 100 exhibitors, 5,000 trade visitors, and 12,000 consumers are expected at this three-day show and conference. Exhibitors will also be coming from Taiwan, Malaysia, the UK, and Germany, to name a few.

“We hope to deliver an inclusive and representative event for the ageing societies in Asia,” Mr Yeo said. “ELDEX focuses on encouraging active ageing. While we welcome everyone (pre-registration required to qualify for free entry), we will focus on the visitor demographic aged between 30 and 50 years old.  By choosing to age actively, we hope to reduce the number of years living in frailty. We wish for people to live longer and better.”

Focus on food

To date, the Food for Elders Pavilion will feature products from the following F&B companies:

SATS, provider of gateway services and food solutions; UNO Nutrition, a one-stop solution partner for product development; Nuvojoy which offers low GI foods; Tat Hui Foods, maker of instant noodles brand KOKA; Health Food Matters, a specialist in food for seniors; and Faesol, maker of healthy foods.

Most diets in Asian countries may not be the healthiest. According to Mr Yeo, Asian/ASEAN diets are rich in carbohydrates and low in protein and fibre. “Our diets also tend to be high in salt and fat content. Sugar is also quite prevalent in diets.”

Industry has a huge part to play in revolutionising convenience products if they are to market to senior consumers. “Besides developing nutritious foods that are balanced and rich in protein, the industry needs to look at making food tastier and easy to masticate, and take into consideration that elderlies have weaker gums, loss of teeth, and chronic conditions such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and high blood pressure,” he said. “Strokes are more likely to afflict the elderly than the young.  Hence the ability to wean stroke patients off a feeding tube is critical towards the patient’s recovery journey and subsequent independence.  Developing suitable food products in this regard will be helpful.”

Unfortunately, most food and beverage products are developed and produced for the masses, and so there are but few meant for the elderly market.

“The food industry is one of the largest industry verticals globally. Its focus has traditionally been on innovation by developing new products, tastes and flavours for the masses. Food can be trendy in this regard. On the other hand, the trend of people living longer has been fairly recently recognised in the last 10-20 years. The numbers have been growing globally albeit at a relatively slow and stable pace.  Besides ageing communities in Japan, Korea and Singapore, this rate is set to accelerate especially in developing markets such as China, Thailand and Malaysia. The food industry is at an inflexion point on innovating food products for the elderly,” Mr Yeo explained.

In many ASEAN countries there seems to be a lack of every day convenience foods suited to the elderly’s dietary needs in terms of formulation and sensory characteristics. But what would be ideal for them?

“An area of interest would be smaller food portions – suited for a lowered appetite,” Mr Yeo said. Another category is on food that is jam-packed with nutrients and vitamins such that our food becomes the delivery of supplements needed to keep the body in balance and the elderly healthy.”

Food and beverage companies provide the right products older consumers by collaborating with stakeholders such as nutritionists, dieticians, nurses, caregivers and the elderly, according to Mr Yeo.  “Organising customer focus groups is important as tastes, flavours and fragrances can be very personal preferences.  This would be important especially for the elderly who wish to age comfortably,” he added. “It would also be good to engage homes, hospices and hospitals to define problem statements, and to encourage food manufacturers to respond to these identified problems to find suitable solutions.”

Conferences and workshops for professionals

Apart from the variety of innovative products, solutions and technologies on exhibit, ELDEX will have a hosted buyer programme that will match targeted buyers with exhibitors, as well as free-to-attend workshops.

A medical conference on nutrition and exercise for elders will be presented by at least 10 expert presenters, two from the US and the UK. It is mainly for medical doctors, nurses, allied health professionals such as dieticians, nutritionists and occupational therapists, physiotherapists and speech therapists. Pending approvals from the relevant medical boards, there will be CME and CPE points for attending doctors and nurses, according to Mr Yeo.

Exhibitors will conduct educational workshops and product demonstrations to raise levels of awareness among the community. There may be a charge for some but a majority of the sessions will be free to attend.

“We are working with other stakeholders to develop interesting feature areas and will continue to announce them in due course,” Mr Yeo said.

Sidebar: What about packaging?

Developments in packaging that consider the needs of the elderly lag behind despite the fact that seniors are the fastest growing consumer group. Such packaging would at least have larger font size so labels can be read easily; and they should be easy and safe to open.

“As far as we know, there has not been a lot of attention in this domain currently,” said Mr Yeo. “It is understandable that in Asia, the onset of a silver tsunami has been fairly recent, with the exception of Japan and Korea. It was only recently that Singapore enjoyed the world’s longest life expectancy, overtaking Japan. The demographics in Asia are changing rapidly with improving living standards, and hence affecting eating habits and requirements including food packaging. This is clearly visible in China and Thailand where they are ageing most quickly. This trend will persist in other populous markets like Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines as economic development improves overall quality of life – including with increasing healthcare standards and education levels. It would be a growth area for packaging manufacturers to keep abreast with and meet the growing demands of the ageing marketplace,” he explained.