All PFN ARTICLES

What’s really at play here is a shift in how fresh produce reaches Asia’s growing middle class: farm-to-feed-scroll. Chilean cherries have long relied on logistics and Lunar-New-Year gifting culture; now they’re adding algorithms. For the AG2, grown in Chile’s Colchagua Valley and rooted in 1950s Californian genetics, TikTok isn’t just an ad channel, it’s the market itself.

Enter Squeaky Bean and their new plant-based pies - Braised Veggie and Spanish Chorizo Style - now hitting Tesco shelves just in time for the autumn chill. Each one is golden-crusted, bean-packed, and brimming with fermented vegetables for added gut-friendly flavour.

For anyone who’s ever tried a plant-based fish finger and thought, “Nice idea, but it still smells like beans,” science might finally have your back. Researchers in Brazil have mapped the exact aroma compounds that make real fish smell and taste “from the sea.” Their work with mushroom-based fillets and soy–oat blends at the Federal University of Lavras has decoded the volatile molecules that turn bland into believable.

Canada’s got a taste for hybrids, but not the meaty kind. Vancouver’s Maia Farms has unveiled The Shred, a next-gen protein that blends oyster mushroom mycelium and Canadian yellow pea protein, promising the chew, flavour, and versatility missing from earlier soy or wheat-based offerings. The startup says it’s using fermentation tech to mimic natural fibre alignment, producing a pull-apart texture that actually feels like food, not filler.

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.

Did you know New Zealand still cages its breeding sows - mother pigs, literally. Behind the “clean green kind” image sit iron bars where breeding sows cannot even turn around.

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.