Consumer Lab: Building academic-industry partnerships to ensure sustained acceptance of healthy foods

Poor diet has a dramatic impact on the prevalence of non-communicable diseases such as obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. In response, researchers can innovate to improve the nutritional quality of food. However, these efforts are wasted if new and reformulated foods are rejected by consumers. The UK can claim considerable expertise in fundamental research on the biological, social, and psychological controls of food choice and dietary behaviour. However, data are often collected in a laboratory and from unrepresentative samples (e.g., university students), and studies rarely account for changes in preference that are known to occur over time. Industry and researchers need better tools to understand food choice and to measure the 'real world' acceptability of food products, and how preference is moderated by changes to their packaging, labelling, and context within which they are made available.

Our hub will transform opportunities for product innovation by addressing these long-standing concerns around 'ecological validity' and whether acute changes in consumer behaviour are preserved over time. Our vision is to develop a distributed UK-wide 'Consumer Lab', comprising a network of industry and academic members and a portfolio of interdisciplinary methods that can be combined to provide high-quality information about food choice and dietary behaviours in real-world settings such as in the home, cafés, and school canteens. We will forge academic-industry partnerships that assess behaviour over long time periods and incorporate multiple lines of evidence (e.g., supermarket loyalty-card data combined with direct observation), thereby improving the quality of evidence we can garner. As part of this process, we will seek out opportunities to develop partnerships that incorporate novel methods of data capture, including, for example, the use of covert digital image capture, ecological momentary assessments, metabolic markers, continuous blood-glucose measurement, and wearable monitoring devices. Recognising marginalised and 'hard to reach' communities, we will prioritise methods and research aimed at studying food choice in these groups, thereby enabling the food industry to address their specific needs.

In developing Consumer Lab, we will bridge the gap between bioscience research and translation. Through academic-industry partnerships our research priorities will be informed by the challenges faced by the food industry and provide actionable outputs and impact. Projects developed across our network will address sector challenges, and training for ECRs will develop a cohort of researchers with sector-relevant skills who are prepared for collaboration. Because food choice is key to other hubs' activities, we will promote our Consumer Lab as an essential platform that can be accessed and shared across the OIRC network. In addition, recognising that consumer evaluation forms a key element of many translational pathways, from the outset, we will establish a separate Hub Outreach Committee, that actively promotes our Consumer Lab to non-OIRC groups.

Our hub brings together an experienced multi-site (Bristol and Leeds) team that comprises complementary academic and industry-relevant experience, together with considerable expertise in the day-to-day management of networks of this kind. We have an exceptional Advisory Panel that represents expertise from several different universities and food companies, and NatCen, Britain's leading centre for independent social research. We have also identified an initial hub membership, which we plan to expand via a range of networking and knowledge-exchange activities, including workshops and training for early career researchers in academia and in industry.

Diet is a major risk factor for a range of noncommunicable diseases. At a population level this is attributed to a rapid transition to modern food systems and energy-rich foods. In response, The National Food Strategy (2021) highlights an important role for food reformulation. However, technical innovation may be wasted if consumers are unwilling to accept a modified product.

The UK can claim considerable expertise in biological, social, and psychological controls of human dietary behaviour. However, academics often fail to deliver the kind of actionable research that is needed by the food industry. Current methods i) lack ecological validity, ii) involve acute observations that fail to account for changes in food acceptability over time, and iii) use unrepresentative 'convenience samples' (typically university staff and students). This hub will transform opportunities for product innovation by building academic-industry partnerships that address these long-standing concerns. Specifically, our vision is to develop a distributed UK-wide 'Consumer Lab,' comprising a portfolio of methods and approaches. Accordingly, we will prioritise industry-relevant research studying food choice in real-world settings, and we will deliver this capability for use across the entire OIRC network.

To achieve this ambition, this hub brings together a highly experienced multi-site team that comprises complementary academic and industry-relevant experience, together with considerable expertise in the day-to-day management of networks of this kind. In addition to addressing the development of early career researchers, our hub will also prioritise research that adheres to high scientific standards (e.g. the use of pre-registration and Open Science). Finally, we recognise the need to ensure that our research and all hub operations are underpinned by the principle that the provision of equal opportunity, valuing diversity, and promoting a culture of inclusion, is vital to its success.