Loek Pijls, Director, Innovation and Nutrition at The Coca-Cola Company, Belgium, answered our questions :
Mr. Pijls, you are currently Director, Nutrition and Innovation at the Coca-Cola Company, at such a position, how do you interact with ingredients suppliers? Are we talking about sourcing innovative compounds, encouraging the suppliers to innovate?
Nutritional and functional aspects of our beverages can be modified e.g. by adding certain ingredients, possibly replacing others at the same time. We seek to keep up-to-date our understanding of what consumers look for, and as well as of which ingredients could meet their needs. To this end, we inform ourselves e.g. via suppliers, as well as via other independent sources of scientific information. We are keen to identify and apply ingredients that are helpful in any way, and indeed encourage suppliers to innovate their offer in this respect.
Within The Coca-Cola Company, what role is to be given to public research within the development of products of general consumption?
One can observe at times bias, prejudice and misunderstandings about – the presence or absence of – beneficial or adverse effects of certain products and their ingredients. We encourage objectivity and an evidence-based approach in the societal debate on public health nutrition, and we support research to that end – and act upon it.
With exponentially higher expectations, how does The Coca-Cola Company apprehends nowadays experienced and demanding consumer?
It is instrumental to continuously tune into consumer expectations. Beyond this, is the development of innovative products that consumers may not yet think of, but when offered they really appreciate them – ‘moving towards where the puck is going, rather than towards where it is’, to use an ice-hockey analogy.
NutrEvent is not about making nutrition more mainstream or making processed food healthy from one day to the next. There is an opportunity here to translate Nutrition science so consumers improve their well-being & health. But there are many steps between the will and the way, could you enlighten us on NutrEvent’s role within this process?
Depending on our current diet and physical condition, our health may be improved, or better maintained, if we make certain ‘healthier’ choices. Nutrition science can indicate what could be ‘healthier choices’, for whom. The agrofood business can facilitate this by producing such ‘healthy choices’, and making them sufficiently appealing and available so that they will actually be consumed by those who may benefit from them. Nutrevent is one of these settings where the different crucial players come together and can progress jointly. And there is no way other than the joint way.”
