All PFN ARTICLES

Where’s the rice in Japan ? That’s the question millions are asking as rice vanishes from supermarket shelves, prices spike to record highs, and consumers confront a staple food shortage few saw coming. Japan’s sticky situation is more than a supply chain hiccup, it’s a glaring reminder of why future food visioning is no longer optional.

We don’t usually interrupt your news feed for product launches alone, but this one made us stop in our tofu tracks. Because frankly, it looks like salmon. It plates like salmon. And by the look of these shots, it might just out-fish salmon - OSHI's Plant-Based Salmon.

Most alternative proteins still want you to believe you're biting into a cow. But let’s be honest: consumers are tired of being fooled, and food developers are tired of wrestling with products that fall apart in a frying pan. Enter Maia Farms, a Canadian biotech outfit serving up function over fiction with a next-gen APT (A Protein Thing) not needing to pretend.

New Zealand powerhouse brand, Zespri has just clocked over NZ$5 billion in global kiwifruit sales for the 2024/25 season, sending 220.9 million trays into markets from Seoul to Seattle. Growers are banking record returns, shareholders are celebrating, and the marketing team can finally tick off that 10-year sales target set back in 2015.

Confession time - this writer is a full-blown plant-based pie tragic. My kryptonite? A properly spicy vegan butter chicken pie from the BP servo and with a flaky crust and just enough ooze to stain my polo. So when news dropped UK vegan pie hustlers Magpye had released a Roast Chick’n Dinner Pie, I knew we were witnessing something sacred.

Greek yogurt giant Chobani has just acquired plant-based meal delivery brand Daily Harvest in a move that’s less about dairy and more about daypart domination. Industry whispers put the deal at around USD $600 million, a figure showing Chobani is serious about owning more than just your morning yogurt ritual.

Germany’s Veganz has signed a deal with Illinois-based Jindilli Beverages, the people behind milkadamia, to bring its proprietary Mililk system to North America and the Australia–New Zealand (ANZ) region. That’s right, concentrated plant milk is getting its moment, and the duopoly of almond and oat might be about to get shaken, not stirred.

Earlier this year, a Dubai chocolate sensation stuffed with pistachio, yes, that one, shot to fame on social media. Creamy, crunchy, and algorithmically perfect, Fix Dessert Chocolatier’s “Can’t Get Knafeh of It” racked up over tens of thousands TikTok views, inspired zillions of remakes, and turned pistachio-laced indulgence into a global craving.

A quick dash through Tesco’s UK's fresh aisle right now delivers more than the usual packet of spinach, it offered a glimpse of the supermarket’s newest weapon in the plant-based convenience war. Enter root & soul, a strikingly curated, own-brand range of prepped veg, tempura’d carrots, and grainy goodness aimed directly at Britain’s growing cohort of flexitarians.

The Forbes Asia 30 Under-30s list just dropped, and guess what? The future of food, fibre, and function has a Southern Hemisphere accent. New Zealand and Australia aren’t just keeping up, they’re quietly producing some of the most exciting young founders on the planet. Not influencers. Not crypto bros. Actual scientists. Actual biotech founders. Actual climate-smart inventors.

Enter Shake Your Plants - SYP, the surprisingly cool plant-based drink powder brand turning hydration into a functional, flavourful ritual. Started by two fed-up friends in Dubai, SYP is what happens when kombucha, herbal know-how, and next-gen sustainability have a very dry, very hot baby.

Here’s a sentence we haven’t said in years: New Zealand just made a smart, future-focused science move. And it could actually pay off with huge bioeconomy returns.