Millbo combines functional bread innovation with neuroscience to target GLP-1 nutrition demand

GLP-1 medications reshape conversations around appetite, portion sizes, and food choices. Bakery manufacturers are exploring how everyday staples can deliver greater nutritional value without losing their traditional appeal. 

Italian bakery ingredient specialist Millbo is addressing this opportunity through Panvivo GLP1ve, a functional bread ingredient concept designed to help manufacturers create nutrient-dense bakery products combining protein, fiber, and fermentation-based ingredients. 

The company has partnered with sensory-neuroscience specialist Thimus to better understand how consumers respond to functional bread concepts and how product formulation and communication influence acceptance. 

The move comes as food manufacturers increasingly explore GLP-1-inspired nutrition strategies, with suppliers focusing on higher-protein, fiber-rich, and nutrient-dense products that support changing consumer expectations around satiety and food value.

GLP-1 reshapes bakery expectations

According to Alessandro Boggiani, group chairman at Millbo, the impact of GLP-1 is extending beyond people using weight-management medications and influencing broader consumer attitudes toward food.

“GLP-1 medications have changed the conversation about food faster than almost any trend we’ve seen,” Boggiani tells Food Ingredients First. 

“People taking them eat less, so every mouthful has to earn its place.”

He adds that consumers who are not taking GLP-1 medications are also adopting similar priorities.

These consumers are influenced by GLP-1’s impact around them, they are “looking for more protein, more fiber, less empty calories.”

Bread baked with Panvivo GLP1ve (Image credit: Millbo).For bakery manufacturers, this creates an opportunity to improve nutritional value while maintaining the qualities consumers associate with bread.

“Bread has been a staple food for thousands of years, but some people are cutting back. But as it is a staple, people don’t want to give it up completely. They are looking for options.”

Reformulating bread with function and familiarity

Millbo says improving nutritional density in bakery products requires balancing functionality with taste, texture, and clean label expectations.

“If you’re adding high levels of fiber and protein, dough can behave differently,” Boggiani says. “Pulses can add flavors that not everyone enjoys.”

Manufacturers also face pressure to improve nutritional profiles without creating complex ingredient lists.

“Consumers don’t want UPFs. So, the challenge is to create a functional product, raise nutritional density, keep processing on existing lines simple, and protect taste and texture, all without a long ingredient list.”

Panvivo GLP1ve was developed to address these challenges. The bread concentrate combines fibers, protein sources, coarse pulse flours, sprouted buckwheat, sprouted red lentils, and active sourdough. 

Boggiani says fermentation and sprouting help overcome some of the sensory challenges linked to higher fiber and protein inclusion.

“It’s used at around 30% of flour weight and works on standard processes, across tin bread, traditional loaves, wraps, pinsa, snacks, and rusks,” he says.

“It’s also clean label, with no preservatives, emulsifiers or e-numbers, so bakers can raise the nutritional profile without adding to the ingredient list concerns consumers already have.”

Neuroscience for functional food acceptance

While nutritional performance is central to functional bakery development, Millbo and Thimus say repeat purchase depends on consumer acceptance beyond health claims.

Mario Ubiali, founder and CEO of Thimus, highlights the importance of understanding subconscious responses to functional foods.

“From our point of view, some of the challenges related to functional bakery products relate to repeat purchase as much as they do to the more technical aspects of formulations,” Ubiali tells Food Ingredients First.

“Subconscious acceptance of functional food works differently compared to traditional, more familiar products. Which is where neuroscience can help pinpoint the right framing for it.”
Functional bread concepts aim to deliver more protein and fiber while maintaining taste and texture.

The partnership uses Thimus’ T-Box platform, which combines conventional consumer feedback with sensory-neuroscience data examining factors such as implicit liking, familiarity, emotional engagement, and cognitive responses.

Boggiani says traditional consumer testing does not always capture the full food experience.

“However good the nutrition story is, bread is an everyday food with strong expectations around taste, texture, and familiarity,” he says. “If it doesn’t deliver on those, people won’t buy it twice.”

“Traditional testing relies on what consumers say, but food choice is driven by emotional and instinctive responses people often can’t put into words.”

Ubiali explains that neuroscience can reveal differences between what consumers consciously report and their underlying reactions.

“To read subconscious, emotional response, our technology reads electrical activity in the prefrontal cortex and turns that into readable signals on implicit liking, familiarity, and emotional engagement, which we then analyze alongside what people declare in the survey.”

“The gap between the two is often where the real insight sits.”

He adds that consumer perception can be influenced by how a product is introduced.

“The finding that has mattered most in the collaboration with Millbio [Group] is that the brain doesn’t taste a product in isolation — it tastes it in context.”

“We’ve seen the same formulation score differently on implicit liking purely based on how it was framed before the first bite, which means formulation and communication can’t be separated, and you can use neuroscience data to tune both together rather than fixing the recipe hoping for the best.”

Keeping staple foods relevant

Millbo sees opportunities for GLP-1-inspired bakery products in everyday formats rather than niche health products.

“Sliced bread, wraps, and rolls are eaten daily,” Boggiani says. “These are the products that people feel they need to miss out on or cut back on when they are following a diet plan. We want to be able to keep those staples on the table.”

He says the opportunity extends to consumers looking for better nutrition more broadly.

“There are also the consumers not on GLPs who simply want to eat less, but better quality. Our Panvivo product talks to both those audiences.”

The company also sees potential in smaller eating occasions.

“Panvivo GLP1ve also provides a solution for snacking moments and smaller loaves. Quality nibbles, you could say. When having a snack, consumers can still pick something with nutrition packed in.”

Boosting bread’s purpose

Looking ahead, Boggiani believes bakery innovation will need to focus on making familiar foods more purposeful.

“GLP-1 isn’t a passing fad. It’s reshaping how people think about appetite, portions, and value, and it is bigger than a single medication.”

“The bakers who respond by making bread more purposeful, rather than simply smaller or lower in calories, will be the ones who keep bread relevant. We are trying to make it easier for them.”