All PFN ARTICLES

French cultivated-meat startup GOURMEY has just submitted the first cultivated-duck application to Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ), marking the first cultured-meat filing since Vow’s local debut. The company’s cell cultivated duck biomass (Anas platyrhynchos domesticus) is designed for foie gras and pâté formulations with a 5–80 per cent inclusion rate.

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?

Australians just delivered a reality check to big Soft Drink/Soda. Raw C coconut water sold over 500,000 one-litre bottles in a single week at Woolworths, marking the biggest week ever for coconut water and for the first time, it outsold 1.25-litre PET soft drinks on units. Baseline sales jumped nearly 40%, showing the switch to “healthier hydration” isn’t a fad; it’s the new fixture.

When two corporate giants control 80% of New Zealand’s grocery market (Woolworths & Foodstuffs) , even carrots start looking like currency. Enter Good Groceries by Wonky, the cheeky, pragmatic new move from Wonky Box, already famous for rescuing “ugly” fruit and veg. Now they’re expanding into butcher-quality protein, refillable dry goods, and traceable staples, taking direct aim at the duopoly that’s left Kiwi shoppers paying some of the world’s highest grocery prices.

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.

The global nanocellulose market is swelling fast, tipped to hit between US $1.5 billion and US $3.4 billion by 2032, depending on who’s counting. Now, New Zealand’s AgriSea wants a slice of that action. Its new NanoSea plant in Paeroa has just completed first trials, marking what’s believed to be the world’s first commercial-scale seaweed nanocellulose biorefinery.