All PFN ARTICLES

Little Lato has done it again. For the second year running, the Auckland dairy-free gelato maker has scooped the Tetra Pak Dairy-Free Champion at the NZ Ice Cream & Gelato Awards, with its Mango Lassi Vegan Gelato.

Edinburgh-based Intelligent Growth Solutions (IGS) and Aberdeen’s Modutec signed a deal to build what they’re calling the world’s first “GigaFarm” in Dubai’s Food Tech Valley. The first 20 towers are shipping now, with a full build-out of 200 growth towers projected to crank out more than 3,000 tonnes of fresh produce a year. What's interesting is that volume replaces just one per cent of the UAE’s fruit and veg imports, a glimpse of how much reliance on overseas supply chain

A new study in Nature shows conventional chicken and duck still rules the roost in Singapore, followed by plant-based meat, with cultivated meat trailing third in consumer acceptance. That doesn’t mean the lab-grown stuff is a flop, but it does show old habits and trusted flavours still carry more weight than futuristic proteins, even in a city-state priding itself on food innovation.

Australia’s mushroom meat darling Fable Food Co. has scored another big win in the fast-casual space. Its smoky, rich pulled shiitake has just landed in Zambrero’s Signature Burrito, rolled out across nearly 300 restaurants nationwide. Paired with the chain’s limited-time Truffelo Sauce, the burrito is loaded with mushrooms, veggies, corn, pepitas, and serious flavour.

Forget the Grammy stage, Entertainer Billie Eilish is now making waves in the kitchen. With nearly 74 million TikTok followers, the global pop icon just dropped her own take on the viral Dubai Chocolate, a pistachio-layered dessert that’s been blowing up feeds since late 2023.

Shandi Global is no longer a kitchen experiment but a $30 million food-tech contender. Their chickpea, mung bean, soy, and pea-based proteins are already feeding schools, hospitals, and workplaces across Asia and beyond. Their mission? Nothing less than fixing global protein deficiency while making meatless burgers taste like the real deal.

Grill’d has signed a national partnership with Beyond to launch the Beyond Burger IV - the fourth-gen patty now boasting avocado oil, 20 grams of plant protein, and a clean label free of soy, gluten, and GMOs. For Beyond, whose share price has been battered globally, the deal is more than just another menu slot, it’s a potential lifeline. Grill'd has 173 burger outlets Australia wide.

Pistachio Papi, who just clocked the biggest week ever in Woolworths’ spreads aisle. Twenty thousand jars flew off shelves in seven days and that’s with constant out-of-stock gaps. Imagine the numbers if they’d actually managed to keep up with demand.

Zespri’s SunGold kiwifruit secures Good Housekeeping’s Best Snack Award for the fifth consecutive year, cementing its status as the growth driver of the kiwi category and a rising star in global fruit consumption. This follows from the EU's recent ruling giving the Green Kiwifruit from Zespri 'health status'.

US Based, The Mushroom Meat Co. has dropped four bold, pre-seasoned flavours in the form of Carne Asada Bites, Korean BBQ Bites, Pulled Carnitas, and Southern BBQ Pulled, all crafted for chefs who need speed without compromising flavour.

Seaweed has always been there at the edge of the tide - useful, humble, occasionally headline-grabbing, but next month in Nelson it gets its moment in the boardroom. The 2025 Seaweed Summit brings together industry innovators, science leaders, Māori enterprise, and even a Government Minister, signalling that this is no longer just a niche curiosity but a sector on the brink of being noticed.

Oscar Mayer has just dropped the “EveryBun Pack,” a dual box set of old-school pork wieners and its Not Hot Dogs, plant-based cousins born out of the Kraft Heinz x NotCo partnership. No blending, no meat-plant mashups, just side-by-side dogs in one pack, each wrapped separately like awkward cousins at a Labor Day cookout.