All PFN ARTICLES

For years, dairy-free cream has talked a big game but quietly failed the barista test. Now New Zealand based, ANDFOODS looks like it may have cracked something more meaningful, not in a lab, but in cafés and full-scale facilities stretching from China to Auckland and Singapore.

For decades, the meat industry framed alternative proteins as fringe, fake, or faddish. Now, as MEAT the book prepares to land as a top-ten Spring 2026 science release, that narrative is quietly collapsing. Written by Bruce Friedrich, Founder of GFI - Good Food Institute, the book doesn’t argue against meat consumption at all, it argues the method of producing meat is obsolete. And crucially, many of the world’s largest meat companies agree.

Japan has done it again. Not with sushi, not with matcha, but with ramen that quietly rewrites what comfort food can be. Towzen, a cult vegan ramen institution born in Kyoto, has landed in Sydney’s CBD, and the queues are doing the talking. On Kent Street, inside a 140-year-old heritage building, diners line up in the heat for bowls of soy-milk ramen that feel both deeply Japanese and unexpectedly modern.

In the UK, Marks & Spencer ( M&S) is under fresh scrutiny after a vigilante food waste watchdog posted a video on Instagram and TikTok showing wheelie bins of in-date, unsold food and flowers left behind an M&S store, everything from sliced meats and whole chickens to potatoes and bakery goods still days from expiry.

Beleaguered Beyond Meat is no longer just trying to fix dinner with its plant-based meat, it’s coming for your drink can. The company has launched Beyond Immerse, a sparkling functional beverage line full of plant protein, fibre, antioxidants and electrolytes, positioning it as a lighter alternative to heavy protein shakes. Three flavours, two protein tiers (10g and 20g), and a limited-run release via the Beyond Test Kitchen from January 15. On the surface, it looks like inno

Vietnam’s busy cities are confronting rapid urbanisation and shrinking farmland by augmenting traditional organically grown vegetables with cutting-edge urban vertical farming models. In Ho Chi Minh City, cooperatives like Tuan Ngoc Hydroponic Vegetable Cooperative are expanding hydroponic and IoT-controlled production, scaling from 1,000 m² of leafy greens in 2019 to over 10,000 m² today and boosting output from 3 t to ~30 t monthly while maintaining premium quality and trac

High-protein bread isn’t new. But high-protein bread that actually behaves like bread? That’s a different story. US based, Protein Chef’s Double Protein Bread isn’t chasing macros with bolt-on protein powders, whether from animal dairy or even next-gen precision-fermented whey. It’s quietly rewriting the rules of baking itself: two regular slices delivering 12g of protein without the dense crumb, odd textures, or “functional food” aftertaste usually defining these sorts of pr

The new U.S. Dietary Guidelines just out have done something almost unthinkable in the post-2019 food wars as they’ve re-centred red meat, dairy, eggs, poultry and seafood as primary protein sources, while quietly sliding plant-based proteins further down the nutritional hierarchy. Not banned. Not dismissed. But no longer treated as nutritionally equivalent. That alone tells you something fundamental has shifted.

Fresh news shows US based, mycelium-based maker Meati Foods has had its property seized for nearly $7 million in unpaid taxes, illustrating just how severe the downturn has become in the proteins world. This follows the earlier winding down of Believer Meats and Meatable, both of which shuttered operations despite raising multi-millions because they couldn’t simultaneously crack cost, scale, and market adoption. In each case, promising technology met the harsh economics of f

Meat isn’t being replaced, it’s being re-engineered, and New Zealand is now part of that shift. Across food science, a new logic is taking hold, the future of protein isn’t “meat versus alternatives,” it’s meat plus. Hybrid protein , a blending of animal protein with algae, yeast, plants, or fermentation-derived biomass, is emerging as the most commercially realistic path to better nutrition, lower environmental load, and preserved taste. This isn’t a food trend. It’s a re

Since the first Gisborne truffière produced in 1993, more than 40,000 inoculated trees across 100+ sites have been planted from the Bay of Plenty to Canterbury. Yields of well over 100kg per hectare have already been achieved, reputedly among the highest in the world for cultivated truffles. Agronomically, New Zealand isn’t the problem but whether the country can become a serious player in the global truffle game.

According to researchers at the University of Utah, this species triggers Lilliputian (tiny people) hallucinations, in other words vivid visions of tiny human-like figures dancing, marching, and interacting with the environment. But what’s interesting is 96% of documented cases report identical imagery. No psilocybin. No ketamine-like dissociation. Just tiny people. Everywhere.