Italian bakery ingredient specialist Millbio has formed a partnership with Thimus, a Brescia-based consumer neuroscience company, to apply neuroscience methodology to the development and positioning of functional bread products.

The collaboration centres on Millbio's Panvivo GLP1ve, an ingredient concept developed for industrial bread manufacturers seeking to respond to consumer interest in the GLP-1 space. GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1) is a gut-released hormone associated with satiety signalling and has become a focus of significant consumer and clinical attention in recent years, partly driven by the uptake of GLP-1 receptor agonist drugs. Panvivo GLP1ve is designed to support the GLP-1 pathway while maintaining the taste, texture and familiarity that bread buyers expect.

Where the Thimus partnership adds a different dimension is in how consumer response to such products is evaluated. Conventional product testing typically relies on what consumers consciously report. Thimus' T-Box platform combines that self-reported feedback with neuroscience data capturing implicit emotional and cognitive responses during product experience, covering factors such as emotional engagement, familiarity, implicit liking and cognitive effort. The aim is to provide a more complete picture of how a product lands with real consumers, beyond what questionnaires alone show.

Alessandro Boggiani, CEO of Millbio, said:

"No matter how compelling a nutritional proposition may be, it must also work for people in the real world. Bread is an everyday food with powerful expectations around taste, texture, enjoyment and familiarity. Our partnership with Thimus enables us to deepen our understanding of how consumers respond to our concepts and to apply that learning to create even stronger products."

Mario Ubiali, Founder and CEO of Thimus, went on to say:

"Food choice is not determined by rational information alone. The way people experience food is shaped by emotional and cognitive responses, many of which are difficult to capture through conventional questions alone."

Insights from the partnership will assist with product refinement and innovation decisions, as well as how functional products are targeted and communicated in the marketplace.