All PFN ARTICLES

For some of us, the scent of lemon verbena brings back a grandma's garden and her potions. Today, that familiar plant sits within a global botanical ingredients business, while orchard woods are becoming the basis of premium non-alcoholic spirits. Two recent developments suggest the garden and forest still have plenty to offer modern food and wellbeing businesses.

Impossible Foods has found a pragmatic way into one of Europe’s most important grocery markets simply by stopping to waiting for its signature heme ingredient to be approved.

GLP-1 drugs may have triggered America’s protein obsession, but the greater opportunity is emerging from a more disruptive change: consumers are beginning to buy and eat less. Food companies and supermarkets must now extract greater nutritional and commercial value from every mouthful.

One of the world's most respected food judging panels has again recognised a growing number of plant-based products at the 2026 UK Great Taste Awards, reinforcing a trend that is becoming increasingly difficult for the wider food industry to ignore.

The United Kingdom has become one of the first countries to publish a government-backed roadmap identifying the food technologies expected to shape its future food system over the next decade. Developed by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and Food Standards Scotland (FSS), the report highlights precision fermentation, biomass fermentation, cellular agriculture, controlled environment agriculture, molecular farming, gas fermentation and several other emerging production systems

Heineken has just nudged beer into strange new territory: the gym bag. Its UK launch of Outd00r Brewing is a 0.0% alcohol-free lager range with electrolytes, vitamin C and magnesium, positioned as an “isotonic 0.0 lager” for the post-run, post-ride, post-padel, post-whatever crowd. In other words, beer is no longer just trying to be booze-free. This functional beer now wants to be useful.

Fresh, live fermented foods are quietly breaking out of the health-food corner in the UK and sauerkraut is leading the charge. Once seen as a sour continental side dish, kraut is now being re-discovered as a flavour-forward, everyday food, buoyed by growing interest in gut health, fermentation literacy, and mounting consumer distrust of ultra-processed foods.

The arrival of a bioprinted meat product into the spotlight of a major industry awards show signals a turning point, as Redefine Meat’s 3-D-printed Flank Steak takes out the Plant-Based Meat Alternatives champion title in the UK's The Grocer’s New Product & Packaging Awards 2025. But it isn't just a trophy, it's recognition from the heart of the UK food trade.

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.

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.

Whitworths has just dropped the UK’s first unprocessed walnut-based meat-free mince, and it’s a quiet challenge to the fake-meat aisle. Forget long ingredient lists and over-engineered soy bricks, this mince is just walnuts, lentils, and quinoa, spun into a texture that actually chews like beef. At £3.20 a pack, it’s aimed squarely at shoppers tired of the ultra-processed plant-based tag.

Forget just ready-meals and curry kits, Indian meal-building kit's secret power is in accompaniments. Think naan, paratha, rotis, samosas, pakoras, chutneys, pickles and raita bases. These aren’t full meals, but they’re the missing links that make a plate feel whole.