Case Studies of Our Work
In this section, you can read more about some of the work that we have undertaken in partnership with other charities, organisations and academic institutions.
Click on the links below to learn more about:
OIRC
The British Nutrition Foundation coordinates the Diet and Health Open Innovation Research Club (OIRC) initiative, a programme that fosters collaboration between researchers, industry and wider society. This initiative is funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council with support from the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, Innovate UK and the Medical Research Council.
The programme seeks to drive the application of cutting-edge research to develop healthier, more sustainable food and drink products to improve the nation’s nutrition and health. It also seeks to inspire and support the next generation of nutrition science researchers to deliver innovative projects addressing key diet and health priorities.
The role of the British Nutrition Foundation is to support six innovation hubs, encouraging dissemination and networking across the full breadth of OIRC. These Hubs bring together leading academics in nutrition, food and behaviour science with those looking to improve diet and health in the food industry. The Hubs prioritise funding innovative research that drives improvements in our understanding of the relationship between food and health and how we can improve the nutritional value of the food we eat, as well as improve our understanding of what underpins food choices.
This project exemplifies the Foundation’s approach of uniting key stakeholders to deliver tangible, real-world benefits to society.
If you'd like to learn more about the successes of the OIRC programme and how the hubs, alongside the support of the British Nutrition Foundation have helped to drive innovation in the field of nutrition, you can read about it in our peer-reviewed journal, Nutrition Bulletin.
You can also access an on-demand version of our webinar, Nutrition Science and Innovation - Powerful partnerships for the future.
Watch the video on the right to see some highlights from one of the Consumer Lab hub event:
Raising the Pulse
The British Nutrition Foundation has worked with the University of Reading (led by Professor Julie Lovegrove) on Raising the Pulse, one of the forward-thinking and innovative projects within the UKRI Transforming the UK Food System for Healthy People and a Healthy Environment research programme.
One of the exciting aspects of Raising the Pulse is its focus on increasing intakes of a pulse well suited to the UK - the faba bean. Although it has been grown in the UK for thousands of years, the faba bean is perhaps less well known than the imported soya bean. The University of Reading and its partners are exploring how faba beans can be successfully incorporated into familiar, affordable and convenient staple foods that offer improved nutritional profiles and environmental benefits.
For more information, the Raising the Pulse project is described in: Lovegrove et al. ‘Raising the Pulse’: The environmental, nutritional and health benefits of pulse-enhanced foods Nutrition Bulletin
You can also find out more about the project on The University of Reading's website.
The Foundation has been supporting the University of Reading with campus-wide engagement, information and dissemination on the nutritional, health, and environmental benefits of UK-grown faba beans and other pulses.
We co-developed a multi-channel suite of resources to raise awareness of pulses on campus, focusing on affordability, nutrition and environmental sustainability.
Outputs included information posters, social media templates, table talkers, an educational video, games and quizzes, as well as recipe cards developed in collaboration with Jamie Oliver’s Ministry of Food.
We will be evaluating how this work may influence awareness, perceptions and food purchasing behaviour - helping to generate valuable insights for increasing pulse consumption more widely across the UK. We hope this study will encourage universities to promote greater pulse intake and inspire food manufacturers to incorporate more UK-grown pulses into their products.
For more details about the project, and how pulses can provide environmental, nutritional and health benefits, you can read this paper in Nutrition Bulletin.
More Case Studies
FoodSEqual
We have worked with the University of Sussex, acting as consultants on the FoodSEqual project, which is engaging Bangladeshi women in Tower Hamlets, London and focused on cultural sensitivity in diet and health information.
We aim to leverage this experience to support our ongoing Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) activities.
Quadram
Working with Quadram Institute, the Foundation identified and invited key expert stakeholders ensuring interdisciplinary representation to join Quadram and BNF for a roundtable event focused on two themes: examining potential unintended consequences for nutritionally vulnerable groups during the transition to net zero, and exploring how responses from policymakers, industry stakeholders, and consumers can safeguard nutritional security, with a report for publication.
See & Eat
As part of an EIT Food funded project, involving The University of Reading, The Open University, The University of Torino, Eufic, and Colruyt, The British Nutrition Fondation hosted a webinar for early years practitioners and carers, which looked at practical ways to encourage young children to eat more vegetables. We further created blogs, insight articles and information resources for the launch of a new website related to the project.
Early years expert nutritionists and case studies were used to explore the strategies used to get children to eat more vegetables.
A Matter of Fat
This online course was supported by a research grant awarded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), to King's College London to investigate the health impact of industrial interesterification of dietary fats.
As part of the dissemination of this project we developed a work package that included:
- Peer review journal articles
- Roundtable on Inter-esterified Fats in Food which lead to a consensus document
- Pint of Science event
- Webinar
- BNF online training, development of a modular course for those with an interest in nutrition or food industry who want to have a better understanding of fats in our diet.
Dr Maria Traka
Quadram Institute Bioscience
Dr Traka is the Head of the Food & Nutrition National Bioscience Research Infrastructure at the Quadram, which curates and manages the food composition data of the UK diets.
