The NHS has launched a company to provide food-testing service for industry. The new company, Hammersmith Food Research, has branched out from the NHS nutrition and dietetic research unit at London’s Hammersmith Hospital and will offer glycaemic index (GI) and food testing on human volunteers.

Hammersmith Food Research will offer companies throughout the food-chain quick and affordable food measurement and advice as the food sector’s interest in topics such as GI increases.

Director of the new company, Dr Gary Frost and head of nutrition and dietetics at Hammersmith Hospital said: “The link between low GI diets and reduced risk of diseases such as diabetes and heart disease is strengthening. This may be responsible for an increasing interest in GI from the food industry. We offer the backing as a research hospital in terms of infrastructure and access to human volunteers.”

In addition, the company offers advice in designing trials for new foodstuffs and consultancy. Dr Frost said: ”We can back out expert measurements with advice on managing the GI if foods and ingredients to achieve best formations.”