All PFN ARTICLES

New Australian research suggests better advertising won't necessarily persuade meat eaters, the category first has to deliver convincingly on taste, quality and value. The plant-based meat industry may have spent too much time trying to find the right message when the bigger challenge is the product proposition itself.

A mould-ripened vegan Camembert has claimed the highest honour at the 2026 New Zealand Vegan Cheese Awards, reinforcing a broader story emerging across the country's food innovation sector: New Zealand's plant-based cheese industry is no longer experimenting—it is maturing.

Plant-based food doesn’t have a taste problem, it has a perception problem, and the internet keeps proving it. A recent viral video shows a man raving about a burger, calling it “one of the best ever,” right up until he’s told it’s vegan. It wasn’t, it was beef the whole time, yet the flavour apparently changed instantly.

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.

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.

Air India just pulled a move most airlines keep avoiding. by making plant-based the norm, not novel. Forget the token vegan meal baked in 1992, this is a full cabin rollout of vegan, gluten-free, allergen-friendly and low-oil dishes designed to feel like real food rather than “special meal” purgatory. Khichdi, stuffed paranthas, curated veg mains, it’s the first time an old-school flag carrier has presented plant-based eating as part of modern Indian aviation rather than a fr

The Australian plant-protein sector is still alive and kicking and valued USD 338 million in 2024 and tipped to push nearly USD 600 million by 2033. The headlines sound good, but scratch the surface and you see what’s really going on: a solid, middle-of-the-road year-on-growth of 6.6% means the sector is maturing, not exploding.

Malaysia Airlines has quietly rewritten a piece of its brand identity. The carrier’s signature satay skewers, a staple of its premium cabins, now come with a Lion’s Mane mushroom twist. Passengers flying Business Class and Business Suite on routes to Australia, New Zealand, and India can choose the plant-based satay alongside chicken, beef, and lamb, while other long-haul travellers can pre-order it in advance. Same marinade, same service ritual, just plant-based.

US-based innovators like Wild Earth and Jiminy’s are using artificial intelligence to formulate plant-based dog food, tailored, traceable, and totally alt-protein. From plant-based blends to insect-derived kibble, the future of pet nutrition is being cooked up in a lab, not a slaughterhouse.

Oscar Mayer has just dropped the “EveryBun Pack,” a dual box set of old-school pork wieners and its Not Hot Dogs, plant-based cousins born out of the Kraft Heinz x NotCo partnership. No blending, no meat-plant mashups, just side-by-side dogs in one pack, each wrapped separately like awkward cousins at a Labor Day cookout.

From now on, PlanetFood.News isn’t just reporting news, it’s delivering trend intelligence with an opinion, powered by our sister platform TRENOS.ai. Every PFN story will now run in two layers:

Something fishy and frankly fabulous, is happening in the plant-based protein world. Just weeks after selling out its first alternative fish product in under an hour, Slovenian whole-cut disruptor Juicy Marbles has dropped its next act in the form of Kinda Salmon, a thick, unbreaded filet of fungi plant-based salmon goodness aiming to do for fish what its marbled steaks did for beef.