All PFN ARTICLES

FoodTech in 2026 isn’t about who has the wildest idea, it’s about who actually shows up in food people eat. After years of hype, pullbacks and painful reality checks, a new class of companies is quietly moving ahead by doing something radical - making workable ingredients, scale, and slot into everyday products without asking consumers to change their habits.

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.

It’s the kind of milestone that makes both baristas and biotechs blink: The New Milk is officially here, the world’s first dairy milk made entirely without cows. Co-created by Israeli food-tech pioneer Remilk and heritage brand Gad Dairies, this precision-fermented milk delivers the taste, texture, and nutrition of real dairy, just without the livestock. For consumers, it’s a genuine milk experience that’s lactose-free, cholesterol-free, and 75 percent lower in sugar; for in

In the desert heat of the UAE, a vast new 4-million-litre precision fermentation facility will take shape and quietly, New Zealand’s Fonterra has a stake in the mix. Through its backing of Netherlands-based Vivici, Fonterra now sits within an Abu Dhabi partnership alongside The EVERY Company and the Abu Dhabi Investment Office (ADIO), marking one of the world’s largest industrial-scale fermentation projects designed for high-purity, Halal-compliant protein production.

Precision fermentation just scored a $10.4 million boost from the Endeavour Fund, with AgResearch leading a five-year programme to turn pine pulp and other local side-streams into high-value food proteins and ingredients. Framed as a low-emissions bioeconomy pathway, the project is designed to convert forestry waste into scalable, export-ready ingredients that sidestep livestock emissions and feed into the next generation of sustainable foods .

Precision fermentation, spearheaded by innovators like Auckland, based Daisy Lab, offers a sustainable path forward by utilising existing in