FOCUS GROUP: BREAKFAST MEETING: SMES AND THEIR CO-OPERATION WITH ACADEMIA

SMES AND THEIR CO-OPERATION WITH ACADEMIA

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Jean Michel Antoine and

Mats Strömqvist

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Danone Vitapole – Palaiseau – France,

Arexis AB, Göteborg, Sweden

Abstract: Co-operation between SMEs and Academia can be a win-win situation when each partner understands the constraints of the other. SMEs are often leaders in innovation; therefore more ready to share interest in research. They are flexible and dynamic. They need a short feed-back to sustain their co-operation. Academia is often more long-term oriented and more question- than answer-oriented. A code of conduct can ease the relationship because it can anticipate the potential problems.

Key words: SMEs, Co-operation, Research.

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INTRODUCTION

Co-operation between infant food manufacturers and academia is essential. They both have the same final objective: to provide young children with the best products to ensure an adequate nutrition and to optimise the health potential of children.

2. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN INDUSTRY AND ACADEMIA

There are however some differences between both partners:

Academia aims to measure the nutritional needs of children, the physiological pathways and the understanding of the mechanisms, with a specific attention to possible diseases. Unusually they have an extra

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aim- to generate a new piece of knowledge and therefore a good paper in a good journal. Discovery is a powerful driver in Academia, and Nature is so complex, that it appears there is no end to the quest of knowledge.

Food manufacturers, on the other hand, are aiming at always producing the best product, with the highest standard of hygienic quality and with the strict specifications. Food safety, adequate storage and stability of the formula are some of the daily concerns of the food producers.

3. CONSTRAINTS FOR MANUFACTURERS

Some of the constraints of the Infant Food Manufacturers were clearly stated in the presentation of Andrée Bronner from Paris. She emphasised the importance of the aim: to create the best alternative to breast milk. In fact the exact composition of the human breast milk is not totally known yet, and may never be known. The development of a new formula is a very long and complex process. Selection of adequate raw materials, identification of sustainable source of raw ingredients, adaptation of the industrial process to ensure the required standard of hygiene, without damaging the nutritional qualities of ingredients, adequate shelf-life and cost-efficiency are challenges that every producer must overcome. In fact there is no one perfect solution but many appropriate compromises.

It is so difficult and time and money consuming to make a formula, that manufacturers are not willing to change the process, or the recipe of a formula every day. They need convincing evidence that a new ingredient or a new process is needed before changing their specifications.

The co-operation with Academia is necessary to provide sounded suggestions for changing formula and also to provide guidelines for the assessment of new formula or new effects.

4. PARTICULAR PROBLEMS/OPPORTUNITIES FOR SMES

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) expect clear information from

Academia on their recently acquired scientific knowledge and

recommendation for implementation of new knowledge. EPSGHAN is doing such work in a fashionable manner, and this workshop, organised with the help of EU, Academia and Manufacturers aimed at selecting among the recent information the relevant information that must be translate into products.

SMEs are most of the time more reactive than large manufacturers and they have more flexibility to change recipes and/or specifications.

Co-operation with Academia will be easier from this point of view.

Similarly it may be easier to work on a smaller scale of production to make a new product for clinical testing. It is one of the strengths of SMEs to be more open to innovation. They are also interested in smaller markets than those of larger companies, and they are willing to develop specific products.

SMEs may need, more than larger companies with specific nutritional expertise, a guidance about new knowledge in the nutrition field. For example the conclusion of this workshop must be crystal clear: what information represents progress in science? For all producers including SMEs it is an incentive to look for a potential new ingredient. Further, what kind of knowledge is a significant breakthrough that will be implemented in recommendations and must be considered as opportunities by SMEs?

5. EXAMPLE OF SUCCESSFUL CO-OPERATION

Co-operation between SME and Academia can be successful. Mats Strömqvist from Sweden illustrated this with an example: the bile salt stimulated lipase. The discovery of a naturally occurring enzyme present in breast milk, a specific lipase, was the starting point of a collaboration between a University and an SME to implement the production of that lipase in transgenic animals, necessary to provide enough enzyme for clinical studies which are mandatory to demonstrate the efficiency of this new ingredient.

First academia was important in defining the potential benefits of

such an ingredient: it is a first estimation of the potential market for the

product. Then one SME was essential in using transgenic animals as

providers of ingredients, and another SME in developing a formula for

pre-term infant and considering this ingredient as a trigger for innovation

within its market.

6. INFORMATION AND EDUCATION

Information and education is another fruitful field for co-operation t between Academia and food producers. It is a common interest to educate the consumer and to harmonise the information sent to consumers as William Heird from Houston reported. One excellent principle is to start from the questions asked by the consumers and to provide a balanced answer with practical applications.

In the area of infant nutrition a balanced panel of experts from industry and academia can provide adequate answers to these questions and the food industry has the capacity to convey the message in different formats adapted to the different audiences. They also have the capacity to send that message to a very large group of people, and to send it regularly to disseminate a fairly balanced set of answers to the most frequently asked questions. The kind of co-operation is also an excellent training for Industry to understand the complexity of the scientific message that must be provided, and for Academia to work on the simplification of the message that must be understood by the largest group of the population. To make Science Simple and Understandable is another daily challenge where co-operation provide mutual benefits.

Science without application will not provide enough money to support new research. Food production without innovation and improvement towards an impossible target, to reproduce breast milk on an industrial scale, will not provide enough money to support new growth, and will not allow food producers to achieve their goals: to create the best product.

7. A WIN-WIN SITUATION

Co-operation does not mean loss of independence nor integrity; in

fact it is the opposite. In a win-win situation, both Academia and food

producers plays its part. Hugo Heymans from Amsterdam presented a set

of principles, codes or rules, that ease the co-operation between

Academia and food producers. There are different set of existing codes

that must be used to define the rules before starting any co-operation.

Scientific integrity is of mutual interest: a long term profitable business cannot be built on uncertainty or weak science, especially for infant food. Intellectual property is important to assess throughout the process and there may be different perspectives on the value of information:

Scientific knowledge is as important as industrial know-how to make a t profitable success. Understanding the rules of patenting, keeping the information secret as long as possible, and being the first to publish, are important considerations to protect the interest of both parties.

8. CONCLUSIONS

The input of the EU is key to ease the process of sharing common

interest. It can facilitate the development of competitive knowledge

within academia and the implementation of this knowledge into the food

industry, specifically the SMEs which are instrumental in all successful

innovations.