All PFN ARTICLES

India’s snack aisles are mutating again and this time, they’re going fully functional - India's plant-based snack boom. Seaweed chips, protein-packed bites, and fortified mini-meals are turning up in every metro, and they’re not framed as “vegan alternatives.” They’re just… snacks. Quick, nutritious, fuss-free, and engineered for a population that lives on the move.

Here’s the thing nobody really talks about: breast milk is basically a real-time diagnostic of the human diet. The new University of Texas study showed when nursing mothers swapped beef for plant-based meat for just six days, their breast milk radically changed its fatty-acid profile showing more medium-chain fats, less long-chain polyunsaturated ones. That’s not a moral argument; that’s biochemistry. It tells us the body is a lot more “live-wired” to what we eat than we pret

Molly Ally isn’t just another plant-based ice-cream brand, it’s the proof point Asia has been waiting for. Thai start-up's cracked the code by designing ice cream around a truth most global brands ignore: Asia is overwhelmingly lactose intolerant, and traditional dairy desserts simply don’t love Asian bodies back. Molly Ally’s success comes from treating this pain point not as a limitation but as a creative brief.

Americans are about to inhale a staggering amount of avocados, more than 3 billion pounds in 2026, says the Hass Avocado Board. That’s roughly 1.36 billion kilos of green gold, an astonishing number confirming what brunch menus have been hinting at for a decade - avocados aren’t a trend, they’re a cultural fixture.

Plates earned its Michelin star back in July, but the real story has only just surfaced: 95% of its diners aren’t vegan. That single number torpedoes the tired “plant-based is over” narrative and shows what’s really happening on the ground. Flexitarians, omnivores, and curious carnivores are willingly booking a fully plant-based tasting menu because it tastes brilliant, not because they’re signalling ethics or identity.

China has just made one of the biggest protein calls of the decade and barely anyone outside the industry has clocked it. The National Health Commission has approved mycoprotein (Fusarium venenatum) as a new food raw material for the first time, thanks to an application by Jiangxi Fushine Biotechnology.

Chocolate haggis (yes, you read that correctly) is back on the menu for the upcoming Hogmanay and Burns Night, pushing the boundaries of what we politely call “ethnic food.”

Victoria, Australia has just given plant-based protein a serious upgrade, opening a $12 million Plant Protein Hub and glasshouse at Agriculture Victoria’s Horsham SmartFarm. This isn’t a token ribbon-cut, it’s a fully kitted-out engine-room with shared labs, a test kitchen, analytical gear and grower access, built to turn lentils, chickpeas and field peas into the next wave of high-protein products.

The global demand for almonds is about to hit a new high. According to the latest report from the US Department of Agriculture, global almond output is forecast to reach around 1.8 million metric tons (shelled) in the coming season, the highest volume since 2020-21.

Australia’s precision-fermentation scene just got louder. Eden Brew has landed a regulatory first with FSANZ officially accepting its application for assessment — the first precision-fermented milk protein ever to enter the ANZ regulatory system. For a market still arguing about whether next-gen dairy is “real enough,” this is the moment the science steps into the ring with the regulators.

If you want to know where food is really heading over the next five years, forget the doom-scroll headlines about collapsing plant-based sales. The real story is happening in fermentation tanks, mycelium reactors, lipid biodesign labs, cultivated-meat cell bays, AI flavour engines, and vertical farms pushing out produce with military precision. According to TRENOS, these 20 companies, the Global Top 20 Food-Tech Companies, are building the infrastructure of the next food syst

The global herbal tea market is quietly steeping into one of the world’s biggest “natural wellness” plays — hitting US$2.49 billion in 2022 and steaming toward US$4.33 billion by 2032. A neat 5.6% annual growth tells you everything: people are ditching artificial everything in favour of old-world, plant-based brews that feel cleaner, calmer, and more in tune with the body than the hyper-caffeinated drinks industry wants to admit.