All PFN ARTICLES

A dairy-free take on classic Kiwi onion dip and a founder who loves experimenting have given New Zealand’s plant-based food sector something to celebrate. Savour Vegan Creamery founder Auda Finan has been named Food Technologist/Developer of the Year at the 2026 New Zealand Food Awards, with Savour’s Onion winning gold in the Chilled/Frozen category and Butta collecting silver.

These five foods as concepts are speculative, but each has roots in science or products already emerging here.

Innova Market Insights' Top 10 Food Trends for 2027 suggests a significant change in consumer expectations. Nutritional quality, digestibility, metabolic health, longevity and fermentation are increasingly shaping what people want from their food. And there's a subtle message for food manufacturers: simply adding another five grams of protein may no longer be enough.

Nearly 26,000 producers have embraced a simpler route from farm to consumer, true 'food power'. Australia and New Zealand could learn from it. While Australia and New Zealand grapple with grocery bills and supermarket dominance, Poland has been building another route to the dinner table. Its agricultural retail trade scheme allows eligible farmers to turn their own ingredients into bread, preserves, juices and other foods, then sell directly under simplified rules.

SIAL Paris is putting the protein boom under scrutiny ahead of its 17–21 October food fair. Its published trend analysis warns of “protein washing” - marketing that elevates protein content without a corresponding nutritional benefit. The message to manufacturers is clear, protein quantity alone cannot establish a product’s value; quality, digestibility and the overall food matter too.

For some of us, the scent of lemon verbena brings back a grandma's garden and her potions. Today, that familiar plant sits within a global botanical ingredients business, while orchard woods are becoming the basis of premium non-alcoholic spirits. Two recent developments suggest the garden and forest still have plenty to offer modern food and wellbeing businesses.

Beyond Meat is broadening its offer from meat alternatives into everyday plant nutrition. Its brand-new "Phytosphere" portfolio brings together protein powders, savoury bars, beverages and meal products through a dedicated direct-to-consumer website. The range combines plant protein with nutrients including fibre, positioning Beyond across more eating occasions.

Impossible Foods has found a pragmatic way into one of Europe’s most important grocery markets simply by stopping to waiting for its signature heme ingredient to be approved.

Every time tofu or soymilk is produced, a wet soybean pulp called okara is left behind. It still contains valuable nutrients and protein, but because it is highly perishable, fibrous and relatively unappealing in taste and texture, much of it ends up as low-value animal feed or food waste.

Meati lost the bathwater, but a remarkably well-priced baby has been saved providing food biotech's second life. Somewhere amid the collapse and attempted revival of US alternative-protein company Meati Foods, a valuable piece of the food-biotech future was left behind: twelve 25,000-litre fermentation tanks, their associated seed systems and a combined 300,000 litres of production capacity.

Food innovation is entering a more commercially disciplined phase. The strongest developments are no longer technology demonstrations or novelty launches, they involve proven manufacturing, familiar applications and clearly defined routes to market. Here are five consequential food signals from the past week

GLP-1 drugs may have triggered America’s protein obsession, but the greater opportunity is emerging from a more disruptive change: consumers are beginning to buy and eat less. Food companies and supermarkets must now extract greater nutritional and commercial value from every mouthful.