All PFN ARTICLES

There’s nothing parochial about this Kiwi product. Wellington’s Fix & Fogg has pulled off what most Kiwi food brands only ever dream of. Eight nut butters now line every Whole Foods shelf across the United States, the home of peanut butter itself.

In a move turning the pharma playbook on its head, the University of Windsor and Shogun Maitake Canada are literally giving away a mushroom-based cancer fighter that early lab tests suggest could help the immune system knock out cancer cells.

New Zealand’s latest migration settings are colliding with its food ambitions. Net migration has collapsed to just +13,700 (YE June 2025), while a 13-year-high 71,800 citizens packed up and left, most young, skilled, and irreplaceable. Those empty lab benches and processing plants aren’t abstract,

LILO Desserts is a case in point. Their Desserts for Everybody™ pipeline turns Central Otago cherries, New Zealand dairy, or plant-based formats into indulgent-yet-functional mousses and crumbles that tick every box - Halal, gluten-free, vegan, or protein-boosted. The secret? A co-creation model with global partners that pushes beyond cheesecake into a scalable “LILO Dessert Solutions System.” (LDSS)

Oaty Butter wins New World Emerge - oat butter goes functional, supermarket-ready. Oaty Butter just snagged New World Emerge’s Start-Up crown with an oat-based, prebiotic-fortified spread that says “goodbye flimsy marg, hello breakfast upgrade.”

Australia just green-lit Vow’s cultivated quail meat for restaurants, yet up in Queensland, the LNP is reportedly moving motions to ban cultivated meat outright, highlighting the $70-billion livestock industry's political heft.

From now on, PlanetFood.News isn’t just reporting news, it’s delivering trend intelligence with an opinion, powered by our sister platform TRENOS.ai. Every PFN story will now run in two layers:

I know some folk who swear by a Bloody Mary at 30,000 feet, a little salty, a little spicy, a whole lot of altitude-induced alchemy. But this? This takes the tomato trend to cruising altitude and then parachutes into the realm of absurdity. Introducing the Heinz Tomato Ketchup Smoothie.

In a bold move worthy of a chef’s kiss, Kiwi-based, MG Group is putting its weight and five hectares of glasshouse real estate behind the humble yet heroic tomato. Up in Warkworth, North of Auckland, the co-op’s sprawling SPL site, best known for pumping out capsicums by the crate-load, is about to get a makeover. And not just any makeover, think of it as a long-term love letter to local tomato lovers, with seedlings expected in the soil before the end of the year.

Into this space walks Ārepa, New Zealand’s brain-obsessed beverage brand, now moonlighting as your night-shift neurologist thanks to the launch of its Brain Capsules for Sleep Support. It’s not warm milk. It’s L-theanine, saffron, magnesium and a very calm middle finger to melatonin.

In a move signaling both conviction and disruption. Food Frontier returns to Sydney with AltProteins 25 on Tuesday, 14 October 2025 at the Sofitel Wentworth marking its shift from Melbourne and acknowledging Sydney’s growing prominence in the alternative proteins sector.

Something fishy and frankly fabulous, is happening in the plant-based protein world. Just weeks after selling out its first alternative fish product in under an hour, Slovenian whole-cut disruptor Juicy Marbles has dropped its next act in the form of Kinda Salmon, a thick, unbreaded filet of fungi plant-based salmon goodness aiming to do for fish what its marbled steaks did for beef.