The Dutch company yesterday announced a new collaboration with patient organisations European Genetic Alliances Network and the International Genetic Alliance, and called it "the first step towards a stronger cooperation between patient organisations and the nutritional industry".
In practical terms, the collaboration will involve bringing together knowledge on needs and requirements from an everyday practice point of view with the latest developments and research in functional ingredients and nutritional products.
"[This] will certainly help in developing the right products and decreasing the time to market," a spokesperson told NutraIngredients.com.
One of the primary aims will be to create awareness and increase public knowledge about the role of nutrition in preventive health management. Activities will include co-organising international congresses and symposia, promotional activities such as press conferences on achievements, trends and new relevant products; and giving partners and patient organisations access to resources and documentation.
Dr Philip Rijken, head of nutritional science at DSM Food Specialities said: "Together we aim to further promote evidence-based development of functional food ingredients and nutritional products which are effective in optimising and maintaining health in general or in reducing chronic/genetic disease risk".
Ysbrand Poortman, secretary general of IGA, said that functional food ingredients can make a contribution to patient organisations, consumer organisations, policy makers and the general public.
DSM Food Specialties, part of DSM's Nutrition cluster, already has a strong portfolio of functional food ingredients, including Lafti probiotics, Fabuless for weight management and PeptoPro for sports drinks.
Nutrition figures large in DSM's Vision 2010 strategy and the group has identified value-added ingredients as a more interesting growth area than traditional vitamins, where margins have been squeezed by a number of factors in recent times, including competition from China and raw material costs.
DSM today published its 3Q results, in which the Nutrition cluster experienced a fall in net sales from €622m in Q3 2005 to €614, and operating profit slipped from €94m to €79m.
These results were attributed to higher energy and raw material costs that affected all businesses; DSM Nutritional Products took steps to address this at the beginning of this month when it announced a worldwide 10 per cent increase in vitamin, premix and citric acid prices.
"DSM Nutritional Products achieved solid volume growth at slightly lower prices," said the group. Aside from the lower margins, the decrease in operating profit was put down to innovation expenditure, costs of maintenance shutdowns, and the effects of negative exchange rates.
DSM Food Specialities' sales and operating profit were affected by the phasing out of the phytase tolling business.
The group as a whole saw net sales increase by five per cent compared to the prior year period to €2.1bn but operating profit (EBIT) slip five per cent to €209m.