All PFN ARTICLES

What’s really at play here is a shift in how fresh produce reaches Asia’s growing middle class: farm-to-feed-scroll. Chilean cherries have long relied on logistics and Lunar-New-Year gifting culture; now they’re adding algorithms. For the AG2, grown in Chile’s Colchagua Valley and rooted in 1950s Californian genetics, TikTok isn’t just an ad channel, it’s the market itself.

Enter Squeaky Bean and their new plant-based pies - Braised Veggie and Spanish Chorizo Style - now hitting Tesco shelves just in time for the autumn chill. Each one is golden-crusted, bean-packed, and brimming with fermented vegetables for added gut-friendly flavour.

For anyone who’s ever tried a plant-based fish finger and thought, “Nice idea, but it still smells like beans,” science might finally have your back. Researchers in Brazil have mapped the exact aroma compounds that make real fish smell and taste “from the sea.” Their work with mushroom-based fillets and soy–oat blends at the Federal University of Lavras has decoded the volatile molecules that turn bland into believable.

Canada’s got a taste for hybrids, but not the meaty kind. Vancouver’s Maia Farms has unveiled The Shred, a next-gen protein that blends oyster mushroom mycelium and Canadian yellow pea protein, promising the chew, flavour, and versatility missing from earlier soy or wheat-based offerings. The startup says it’s using fermentation tech to mimic natural fibre alignment, producing a pull-apart texture that actually feels like food, not filler.

A UHT cream Kiwis can’t even buy has just won New Zealand’s top food award. Fonterra’s Easy Bakery Cream, a low-fat dairy formulation designed for Chinese bakeries, has taken the Supreme title at the 2025 New Zealand Food Awards. Brilliant science, yes. But when the winning cream is made for someone else’s fridge, it raises a fair question: whose food industry are we celebrating?

Australian based, Fable’s hybrid meat gamble as shiitake beef lands in the belly of the beast. In a bold move that’s raising eyebrows across the future food landscape, Fable Food Co has crossed the plant-animal line with its new shiitake-infused beef range, now launched through Central Market in Texas, the beef capital of the United States.

Australia's New South Wales Government just dropped its playbook for the next wave of regional manufacturing and it’s all about plant protein. With a glossy new prospectus aimed at luring investors and food manufacturers out of Sydney and into the bush, this is more than a feel-good sustainability pitch; it’s a calculated move to turn 4,500 existing food and beverage businesses into a network powering the global plant-protein boom.

And there it is, another line between “NextGen Food” and “everyday grocery” blurred beyond recognition. Israeli alt-meat innovator Redefine Meat has officially landed its bio-printed “New-Meat” range inside ASDA UK, pitching itself not as a vegan option, but as an upgrade to real meat. Seven products, from Pulled Beef and Lamb Kofta Mix to Flank Steak, are rolling into freezer chests nationwide.

The Alt.Protein 25 Conference has just wrapped up in Sydney, Australia. Definite trends have emerged showing a clear move from planet-saving branding rhetoric to pragmatic innovation, where health, taste, and trust now drive the next phase of the NextGen Food future.

Alt.Protein 25 conference trend emergence as Australia’s bioeconomy has entered its NextGen Protein moment. This new white paper by Cellular Agriculture Australia and ANU reframes food biotechnology as not just an economic lever, but a national security imperative. It argues that food sovereignty, via precision fermentation, plant molecular farming and cell cultivation, must be treated as strategic defence infrastructure.

Next-gen proteins are shifting from hype to habit. Mintel’s 2026 outlook says consumers are moving beyond “maxxing” single macros to diverse, functional diets - think fungi, microalgae, mung bean and hemp - folded into everyday eating alongside fibre-as-armour and microbiome-friendly formats. In short, protein and fibre go mainstream, variety becomes the new virtue, and APAC’s naturally fibre-rich cuisines start teaching the West a few tricks.

US, Whole Foods Market’s 2026 food trends list has dropped and it’s all about texture, gut talk, and grandma’s fats making a comeback.