All PFN ARTICLES

In a move blending science, Brussels bureaucracy, and digestive relief, the European Commission has officially approved a health claim that may give green kiwifruit a new lease on life, not just as a tangy fruit salad staple, but as a certified gut-friendly food.

What happens when a humble family recipe gets its big break on the world stage? In SHICKEN Spice Babies case, it wins, again. The UK-based plant-based brand has just landed another Great Taste Award, this time for its now-iconic Seekh Kebabs, hailed by the Guild of Fine Food as one of the standout flavours of 2025. That’s three years, three awards, and one very proud kitchen.

In an age when plant-based is being polished and commodified by the big boys, it’s worth pausing to honour the pioneers who paved the aisle-long way. Enter Alice Shopland: quiet rebel, reluctant entrepreneur, and the founder of New Zealand's first vegan cheese company, Angel Food. Her just-released book, Cheese Matters: To Kind Humans, is less manifesto, more memoir, charting her journey from plastic-bag-battling Grey Lynn mum to one of New Zealand’s most dogged food innovato

If plant-based burgers leave you cold and lab-grown steaks feel like science fiction, you’re not alone. Most people don’t want a lecture on sustainability with their dinner, they just want their food to taste good, feel safe, and not blow the grocery budget. Enter a new $3 million New Zealand–Singapore research collaboration aimed squarely at one thing - making hybrid future meat, consumers actually want to eat.

In a move less about shock and more about shedding the last vestiges of a fading food illusion, Beyond Meat just dropped the 'Meat' according to US reports. That’s right, Beyond Meat will simply be Beyond, and with it comes a recalibration of the alt protein narrative. Out with mimicry, in with meaning.

Step into a Seoul supermarket and you’re not just shopping for grapes, you’re navigating a K-pop concert in aisle four. Shrink-wrapped mangoes next to Labubu plush toys, pineapples in luxury box sets, and strawberries that could pass for engagement rings. This isn’t grocery shopping. It’s identity shopping. And according to Karina Keisler of Hort Innovation Australia, that’s exactly the point. Asia's fresh obsession!

Demand for matcha, that vibrant, powdered punch of green tea so loved by wellness influencers, oat milk baristas, and TikTok’s Gen Z elite, is skyrocketing so fast that the world's traditional tea farms are quite literally running dry. The Japanese farms producing tencha, the shaded green tea leaves ground into matcha, simply can’t keep up. And it’s not just a social media surge. It’s a full-blown supply chain crisis.

The global food industry is at a reckoning point, caught between the promise of high-tech solutions and a growing hunger for something far more fundamental: real food. For years, alternative protein innovation has been charging forward. But the more advanced the science gets, the more consumers are left wondering: where did the food go? Now the third wave of food is emerging!

New Zealand’s vegan cheese scene just delivered a full-bodied, pepper-crusted slap to the dairy world with Bûche au Poivre from High Culture Cheese crowned Supreme Winner at the 2025 Vegan Society Vegan Cheese Awards.

And fizzing with intent is Kombucha Bros, the local fermentation outfit quietly embedded in the University of Auckland’s flagship project on bio-fermented functional foods. While headlines fixate on hybrid meats and algae proteins, the real story might lie in the cellulose-rich scaffolds, mushroom mycelium, and botanical extractions now being turned into snacks, sips, and supplements, with Kombucha Bros tapped as a key industry collaborator bringing frontline fermentation in

It's been a busy week in the US. While Florida bans the future and Alabama clutches its steak knives, the United States just became ground zero for one of the most delicious science experiments in human history. Cultivated meat companies are done waiting. They’ve broken out of the lab and into the lunch rush.

Austrian alt-protein provocateurs Revo Foods have dropped their latest fungi-based product, a Minced Fungi Protein made with just four ingredients and not a single shred of soy in sight. It’s lean, clean, and built for the kind of post-animal eater who still wants gains without the conscience.