Secretive food firms risk public backlash, Lords warn

The secretive attitude of food companies towards nanotechnology research risks starting a consumer backlash against products that could improve health and reduce waste, a parliamentary inquiry has found.
Nanomaterials that are 800 times finer than a human hair have the potential to deliver foods that are very low in fat and salt and packaging that changes colour when food is spoiled because of the strange properties of molecules at such a small scale. Their development, however, has also raised safety concerns because their effects on humans are poorly understood.