10074440Kendacare: Disrupting the UK snack market with healthy, convenient and delicious personalised-nutritionClosedCollaborative R&DInnovate UKThere is a growing burden from diet-related disease within the UK, leading to severe healthcare cost inflation as increasing numbers become affected. Poor diet is a significant factor, today attributable to 9% of all NHS spend\[1\]. Since 2011, the UK has experienced a halt in overall life-expectancy gains, with a widening gap between rich and poor\[2\]. Under-50s in the UK are experiencing increased 'avoidable deaths'\[3\], while the UK's obesity-rate is among the worlds' highest\[4\]. These challenges have been exacerbated by the dominance of unhealthy, high in fat, sugar, salt and additives (HFSS) snacks. These 'convenience-snacks', an £11-billion-per-year industry in the UK\[5\], offer an easy-to-find, tempting and affordable option for a time-poor, stressed, on-the-go UK adult-population, are a leading cause of unhealthy diets among the mainstream population, leading to severe health-issues including obesity, diabetes, high-cholesterol and cardiovascular-disease. KNC will disrupt the convenience-snack market by developing a nutritious, delicious, inclusive and affordable food-supplement unlike anything available in the UK today. 'Kendacare', an ambient food-supplement, consumable as a shake or everyday-meal supplement, will be the first food-supplement range with personalised-formulations designed to address several stratified nutritional needs and health-challenges of the aged 25-50 adults in the UK; beginning with obesity, diabetes, high-cholesterol and healthy-joints. The Kendacare range will come in both dairy and plant-based formats and in a variety of delicious flavours, empowering healthier-habits within UK adult diets and reducing food-waste. Kendacare is an ambitious project that will include detailed market-research and expert-collaboration to develop stratified, bespoke recipes that proactively-address the most pressing health-issues impacting UK-adults today. The project will comprise several technical challenges, from incorporating novel natural ingredients (minimally-processed, stability-controlled and all UK-sourced), to incorporating innovative manufacturing steps (milk-fractionation), to delivering enhanced-nutrition in a format that is tasty, convenient, inclusive, accessible and affordable for UK-adults. Development of Kendacare will comprise a 30-month project involving R&D, quality, production and regulatory challenges never-before-overcome in our industry, necessitating research, analysis and process-innovation to deliver the ambitious taste, nutritional, shelf-stability, convenience and sustainability targets. Successful development and commercialisation of a novel, nutritionally-superior and regulatory-accredited food-supplement known to address key UK health-issues, will stimulate a proactive, preventative approach to UK-health, helping address the urgent-challenges of diet-related-diseases, gut-microbiota development, sugar-level regulation and mental-health, while delivering significant domestic revenue, export potential, local job-creation, re-investment in UK agriculture and a reduced burden on the NHS and wider UK-economy. \[1\]-NHS-England:-NHSPrevention-Programme-cutschances-of-Type-2-diabetes-for-thousands \[2\]Marshall-et-al.-Mortality-and-life-expectancy-trends-in-the-UK:-Stalling-progress.-The-Health-Foundation;-2019 \[3\]UK-Attitude-Towards-eating-Healthy-Market-report-2022-(Mintel) \[4\]-WHO-EUROPEAN-REGIONAL-OBESITY-REPORT-2022 \[5\]-BCC-Research-Global-Snack-Food-Market-Size-Scope-And-Forecast-(2020)