Technological and Economic Optimization of Functional Ready to Eat Meal

Abstract

A ready meal based on precooked gluten-free pasta with a yogurt-based sauce enriched with probiotic bacteria was developed and optimized from both the nutritional and sensory point of view. Conceptually, the work aims at understanding the innovation stress in consumers and check whether the “perfect beauty” of a complex food product innovation, which is extremely admirable from a food technology point of view, could be effectively appreciated by consumers. In other words, we are interested in knowing whether there exists a gap between science-based or ”innovation-leading” technologists’ food preferences and consumers’ preferences, which are taste, information, price and promotion driven.