At CSM, we recognize the importance of a balanced nutrition. CSM offers a range of solutions to create healthy lifestyle products and indulgent products. Because bakery products play such a big role in our daily dietary habits, a sound fit with health and nutrition recommendations is especially important for this category. Therefore, CSM considers its choice for safe, healthy, nutritious and delicious bakery products to be a key part of its strategy.
From a nutritional point of view, foods can be categorized according to their nutritional composition and physiological functionalities, which CSM has visualized using a pyramid model. The model comprises four levels of nutritional functionality. The foundation level contains products with nutrient profiles that comply with standard nutritional advice. The second and third tiers cover products that comply with standard nutritional advices, and have some added nutrients. In the second level, a nutritional claim refers only to the content of the added nutrient (nutrient content claim), whereas in the third level a claim also refers to the physiological function of the added nutrient (nutrient function claim). The top tier of the pyramid covers foods with enhanced nutrient functionalities and/or those that can claim that they help to reduce the risk of disease.
CSM's experience with lactic acid derivatives also makes it a perfect fit for mineral balance improvement solutions. To create healthier alternatives in several bakery categories, CSM has launched a "Better for You" program. This program aims to improve nutrient profiles in a diversity of bakery products, like an improved fatty acid composition in the fat mix of indulgent products. The "Better for You" program facilitates the innovation to even more nutritional functionality, which our 'Good for You' product line will fit into. Our "Good for You" program aims to create products designed for specific nutritional needs. So, for instance, increasing dietary fiber intake is a major challenge in Western diets. CSM sees great opportunities for bakery products to help consumers increase their dietary fiber intake in a pleasant way, by using the dietary fibers found in cereals. CSM will focus on two nutritionally important areas: products that support intestinal health and products that help people to manage their body weight, e.g. bread products. In addition CSM will innovate in products that offer healthier choices in the indulgent bakery products segment, which may help consumers to manage their body weight more effectively.