Experts at a conferencence called for ensuring nutrition security by creating awareness and academia-industry linkages, value addition and sharpens product development skills of food science students to combat food and nutrition challenges.

The international conference entitled "Role of Ingredients and Process Optimization for Product Development" was organized by National Institute of Food Science and Technology, University of Agriculture Faisalabad in collaboration with Pakistan Society of Food Scientists and Technology (PSFST). Chairing the session, UAF Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Asif Tanveer said we have to sharpen the skills of food sciences students in the product development that was the need of the hour. He said that healthy food practice must be disseminated among the people. He said that tremendous initiatives are being taken on the governmental level to address the issues. He said that lack of availability of potable water and pure foods were areas of concern, aggravating the issues. He said that plenty of food/high caloric intake, and dependence on impure environmental pollution, and unsafe foods posing a serious disease threat for the people. Dean Food Sciences Dr Masood Sadiq Butt said that county had a lot of potential to earn foreign exchanges by exporting its food and grabbing the international market. He said that malnutrition had emerged as the biggest problem than energy crisis. He said that vitamin-D deficiency is high with 60 percent; vitamin-A 45 percent whereas maternal anemia deficiency stands at 49 and child stunting level at 43 percent. DG NIFSAT Dr Tahir Zahoor said that the people must ensure food safety measures and healthy food for a better society. He said the country can earn heavy foreign exchange by focusing on value addition and bring the innovation in our food sector. He added that academia industry linkages were essential to fight the modern challenges in the modern world. He said that compliance of standards of the food safety was the guarantee of a healthy nation. He said that there was a lot of room to work on the issue. Shahid Hafeez Khan, Senior product development manager Almarai Saudi Arabia presenter discussed about product innovation, new product development KPIs, new product development formulations, ingredient optimization, sensory evaluation and marketing of product Dr Ayesha Sameen said that more than more than half of children were anemic or severely anemic. She said that with the value addition, we can fight the issue of poverty alleviation.