J Korean Med Assoc.  2005 Jun;48(6):529-537.

Functional Foods in International Market and Its Prospects

• Park KY
• Kil JH

Abstract

Nutraceuticals link nutrition with medicine. They cover dietary supplements, functional foods, and medical foods. The definition of functional foods is the foods that promote health and possibly prevention and curing of certain diseases, in addition to basic nutritional supplementation. This concept is becoming popular with consumers because of a heightened awareness of the link between health and food and nutrition. Food manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies are enthusiastic about developing functional foods because their global market is growing very rapidly. In this article the authors overview the trends and current developments in the markets of functional foods, especially of USA, Europe, Japan, and Korea. The market shares of USA, Europe, and Japan cover more than 85% of the world functional food market. Dietary supplements including vitamin/minerals, herb and phytochemicals also keep growing. We expect a variety of functional foods will play an important role to promote the human health and to create new medical markets in the future.

Keyword

Functional foods; Global market; Prospect of functional food

MeSH Terms

Dietary Supplements
Europe
Functional Food*
Humans
Japan
Korea
Phytochemicals

Figure

• 

  Figure 1

Reference

4. Katz F. Research priorities move toward healthy and safe. Food Technology. 2000. 54:42–46.

6. Lee CH. Functional food of interest to ASEAN: from traditional experience to modern production and trading. Food Sci Biotechnol. 2004. 13:390–395.

9. Hilliam M. The market for functional foods. Int. Dairy Journal. 1998. 8:349–353.

11. Menrad K. Market and marketing of functional food in Europe. J. Food Engineering. 2003. 56:181–188.

14. Biesalski HK. Kramer K, Hoppe PP, Packer L, editors. Nutraceuticals: The link between nutrition and medicine. Nutraceuticals in health and disease prevention. 2001. New York: Marcel Dekker, Inc.;1–26.