Abstract:

In the last decade, many experts in nutrition and wellness have anticipated the key role of functional foods in helping consumers to have a healthy lifestyle. This study analyse the complex key drivers that influence the functional food business, taking into account experiences of food producers from Italy and Romania. There also have been identified the barriers that slow down this emergent industry, like communication failures between research and development (R&D) of functional foods and marketing. One of the findings of this research is that the communication barriers between research and development (R&D) and marketing teams could evolve into marketing unethical approaches (e.g. deceptive packaging, creation of "false needs”, etc.) that could artificially maximize the new products value and also hinder consumers’ understanding, knowledge and freedom of choice, therefore becoming a threat to consumers’ health. A smooth collaboration between R&D and marketing in the food industry is essential to assure the right balance between scientific research and value communication in order to improve consumers’ health on the long term. This paper’s conclusions show that food companies should integrate the local/traditional recipes into new products to assure a right communication and consumers understanding of the newly discovered bio-active ingredients, to drive consumers’ acceptance, positive attitude and receptivity towards a series of new functional aliments.