**1. Introduction**

At the present time, alterations in food production and consumption occur constantly. Stand‐ ardized food production gradually gives its place to mass tailor‐made production. Throughout this process, consumer needs also change and progress. In every aspect of life, the search for comfort increases its importance. Functional foods come to the light as a result of the search for comfort to fulfil certain needs. Functional food products become prominent within the several product groups particularly due to their direct effect on human health [1].

Functional foods are a highly important sector of the food market that grow rapidly. Within this concept, the interest towards the pro‐ and prebiotic foods increases by degrees. Foods that

© 2017 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2017 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

beyond their basic nutritional features make positive contribution to our health are named as 'functional foods'. The term functional food underlines the positive relation of nutrition with health [2–5]. The International Food Information Council (IFIC) defines functional foods as 'foods and food components that may provide benefits beyond basic nutrition'. According to the International Life Science Institute (ILSI), the concept of functional foods refers to the 'biologically active components in foods that have the potential to optimize physical and mental well being' [6–13].

The most important target groups of the functional foods are women and elders. The new conception assimilates Hippocrates, the founder of the medicine, nearly 2500 years old philosophy 'Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food', and therefore pays more attention to the healthy nutrition. Nowadays, due to reasons such as the increase in the treatment expenses, labour loss, length of life and the portion of the old people inside the population and people's desire of living a quality life, people start to expect more from the food items [14].

According to the data of the research that is made to reveal the consumers' awareness, acceptance and approach towards the functional foods, mineral water, whole‐grain diet biscuits and whole‐grain breakfast cereals are the most frequently consumed functional foods in the order. The functional food increases the level of the beneficial bacteria in the gut, helps lose weight and supports child development. These three features of the functional food are emphasized by customers as 'the top 3 factors that convince them to consume functional foods' in the research [15].

Education level has advanced hand in hand with the economic development; therefore, people's demand to healthy foods has increased alongside with these progressions. The concept of functional food occurred for the first time in Japan in the 1980s. Functional foods are put on display for customers as an active food trend at the beginning of the 1990s in America and in the middle of 1990s in the countries of Europe.

According to the Foods for Specified Health (FOSHU) affirmed in Japan in 1991, it is stipulated that in order for a product to get functional food licence it is required to meet with certain criteria. Some of these criteria are stated in relation to bee products. Functional foods should help the improvement of the quality of nourishment, and protection and preservation of health, the compound of the product should not differ from the similar type of foods' nutritional substance components within normal conditions, the product should be a well‐used food in daily diets, as all bee products have [16–19].
