Food firms in Asia need to spend more in R&D to meet changing demand for healthy life
Food companies in Asia need to spend more on research and development to meet people’s changing demand for a healthy life, the Economist Intelligence Unit said in a report released today.
Asian consumers are increasingly worried about food safety and quality at a time when their diets become more complicated and health-driven, the “Fixing Asia’s Food Systems” report commissioned by food giant Cargill said.
People in Asia now eat less rice but a wider variety of food and that requires food companies to pay more attention to research and development to meet the demand, Robert Aspell, president of Cargill Asia Pacific, said.
The report pointed out that current spending on research and development is still considered low by the 820 respondents in a survey.
“Urbanization, changing diets, the double burden of undernutrition and obesity, technology constraints, the need for transparency and sustainability and politics — together, these trends paint a picture of fragmented food systems across Asia, which struggle as they are pulled in different directions,” the report said.