All PFN ARTICLES

The country’s leading grower of tropical plants and fruits, Exotica is fast becoming a poster child for weather-smart food innovation. Their secret? A mix of horticultural hustle, zero compromise on quality, and a product range reading like a tropical tasting tour for the senses: freeze-dried dragonfruit, botanical extracts, mango spice cubes, and a sugarcane juice so fresh it practically hums.

They used to say a Perrier bottle was the height of European sophistication, green glass, tight bubbles, and a whiff of French prestige. But now? It’s starting to smell more like cover-up than class act.

It’s taken years of plant-based flops, fridge disasters, and rubbery regrets, but at last, science has served up plant-based dairy-free cheese wheels that grill, melt, stretche and brown. Cue applause from every lactose-intolerant millennial who still remembers the trauma of early cashew 'cheddar'.

Forget feedstock, New Zealand’s kiwifruit rejects are being stitched into a very different future. At the centre of it all is KiwiLeather Innovations, a next-gen biomaterials company quietly turning over 50,000 tonnes of orchard discards into a new kind of plant-based leather.

“Truth is, I didn’t like the taste of the fruit,” says Satish Kumar, Principal Scientist for Tree Crops at Plant & Food Research New Zealand (Shown left), with a smile. “And that gave me a challenge - could we improve it (the dragonfruit)”

Back in the 1870s, a Chinese immigrant named Chew Chong was foraging black fungi in Taranaki and shipping them by the tonne to China. (Depiction shown below) The fungus? Hakeke. Known to the rest of the world as Woodear mushroom. Today, more than a century later, New Zealand’s long-forgotten export hero is suddenly back in fashion, everywhere but in the Land of the Long White Cloud.

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.

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.

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.

First the lettuce shortage. Now this. UK supermarkets are being hammered by cyberattacks as Co-op, M&S, Nisa, Costcutter are all caught with their digital pants down. Shelves are bare, payments frozen, customer data leaked. Execs are now muttering “blockchain” and “resilience” like last-minute prayers.

In a gut-churning replay of the Chilean cherry catastrophe that saw tonnes of fresh fruit left to rot thanks to Maersk’s China-bound logistics fumble, this week it’s bananas under the boot—900,000 boxes of them, to be exact, rotting in Panama’s sweltering Bocas del Toro heat. Why? A local workers’ strike over social security reforms has brought the region’s biggest export lifeline to a screeching halt.

In a curious twist of weather changes meets cuisine, HelloFresh has teamed up with Oxford’s Dr Joseph Poore and trend forecaster Dr Morgaine Gaye to dish up a glimpse into your 2050 dinner plate and it’s not what your nana would recognise. Think soy sprouting in Scotland, edible fashion accessories, and AI-powered recipes designed to save your gut and the planet.