Organic Dried Fruit Moves From Pantry Staple to Functional Snack
Organic dried fruit is quietly having a moment and not the dusty trail-mix kind. According to Verified Market Reports, the category is riding a wave of clean-label snacking, rising disposable incomes, and a renewed appetite for food that feels both simple and earned. The firm projects a 6.5% annual growth from 2026 to 2033, pushing the market from US$3.35bn in 2024 to US$5.78bn by 2033. This isn’t dried fruit nostalgia, it’s a food sector re-valuation.
4 hours ago1 min read
Leaf Rubisco Protein Enters the New Zealand Bakery Aisle
Eggs are quietly becoming optional in South Island bakeries. Foodstuffs South Island, NZ is trialling Leaf Rubisco Protein as an egg replacement across more than 200 New World, PAK’nSAVE and Four Square stores, marking the first major retail test for the Canterbury-based ingredient maker Leaft Foods. Cakes, muffins and fresh bakery staples are the proving ground, exactly where eggs normally do the heavy lifting on structure, binding and lift.
1 day ago1 min read
Italy Starts 3D Printing Its Food, Literally
Italy has spent centuries defending how food should be made and now it’s quietly experimenting with how food might be printed. In Abruzzo, researchers at ENEA’s EltHub are using 3D printing and lab-grown plant cells to create edible “inks” shaped into sliced foods and steak-like cuts. This isn’t novelty gastronomy, it’s applied food engineering, designed around texture, nutrition, and accessibility.
2 days ago1 min read
Ultra-Processed Foods Are Under Fire But Plant-Based Isn’t the Villain
A major analysis of more than 30,000 brain scans has reignited concern about ultra-processed foods (UPFs), linking heavy consumption to cognitive and neurological risks. But as the story ricochets through mainstream media, a familiar distortion is taking hold: plant-based foods are being swept into a problem they didn’t create and don’t own.
2 days ago1 min read
China Cracks Industrial-Scale Cultivated Cultivated Pork In A World First
China has just vaulted to the front of the global cultivated meat race with the announcement Joes Future Food has commissioned the country’s largest cultivated meat pilot plant and completed the world’s first scaled trial production of cultivated pork in a 2000-litre bioreactor. This moves cultivated pork from research curiosity toward real production models supporting massive commercialisation. Such pilot scale is rare in the global sector and signals China’s growing enginee
3 days ago1 min read
Kombucha as a Gateway to Metabolic Ferments
A new computational study from the UK has thrown a curveball at the functional-food world as researchers find sterilised plant-based metabolic ferments, dead ferments, may still exert meaningful metabolic effects along obesity and type-2 diabetes pathways. Forget probiotics and gut flora nostalgia, these researchers are mapping how heat-treated ferments could influence insulin signalling, lipid regulation, and appetite control without the live bacteria consumers assume are do
4 days ago1 min read
ALDI £1.99 Plant-Based Play Rewrites the Veganuary Rulebook
ALDI UK is quietly doing what many plant-based brands keep promising but have not yet delivered: making meat-free eating genuinely affordable. Just ahead of Veganuary, the UK grocer has expanded its Plant Menu private-label range with a Vegetable Burger, Vegetable Popcorn Bites and No Chicken Pieces, all landing at £1.99 and hitting shelves from 30 December 2025. No premium pricing. No virtue tax. Just plant-based food priced like everyday food.
4 days ago1 min read
Monkey Picked Coconuts - An Ethical Scandal
For years, the coconut aisle has traded on a halo of tropical purity, hydration, wellness, plant-based goodness. But behind some Thai coconut products sits a practice feeling wildly out of step with 2026 ethics and that is forced monkey labour. According to Foodfacts, pig-tailed macaques are still being captured, chained, and trained to harvest coconuts in parts of Thailand, despite repeated assurances the practice has ended - monkey picked coconuts.
5 days ago1 min read
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