Innovation in Food Technology

What happens when a legacy CPG giant like PepsiCo acquires a fast-growing disruptor like Poppi? It’s a blueprint for the future of FMCG. PepsiCo has spent years evolving its portfolio, shifting toward healthier, functional, and better-for-you options. From acquiring Siete Family Foods to Sabra Dipping Company, and now Poppi, they’re doubling down on what today’s consumers want: ✅ Functional Ingredients: Poppi taps into the gut health boom, projected to reach $72B+ globally by 2032 (Source: Market Research Future® (MRFR)). Consumers aren’t just looking for hydration—they want drinks that boost immunity, digestion, and energy. ✅ Premiumization of Soda: Traditional soda sales have declined by 12% in the last decade, while functional and prebiotic sodas are growing 35% YoY (Source: Beverage Digest). Brands like Poppi prove that consumers will pay a premium for added health benefits. ✅ The Power of Challenger Brands: Nearly 60% of Gen Z & Millennials say they trust emerging brands more than Big CPG (Source: McKinsey & Company). PepsiCo knows the future belongs to brands that feel authentic, mission-driven, and community-led. So, The “Big Food vs. Challenger Brand” battle is over-it’s now about collaboration. Legacy brands need disruptors to stay relevant. Health & wellness aren’t trends-they’re becoming industry standards. If a brand isn’t innovating in functional benefits, it’s already falling behind. The next wave of acquisitions? Expect strategic buys in functional beverages, gut health, and personalized nutrition. This is just the beginning. Are Big CPGs moving fast enough to keep up with evolving consumer demands? #FMCG #PepsiCo #Poppi #GutHealth #ConsumerTrends #MergersAndAcquisitions #FoodAndBeverage

India’s food landscape is shifting fast. The recently released Godrej Food Trends Report 2026, built on inputs from hundreds of industry experts, lays out clear trends that F&B brands can’t afford to ignore. From an F&B perspective, here’s what brands need to internalise - + Savoury protein is the next big format → Sweet protein has hit fatigue. The pivot is toward namkeen - bhel bars, high-protein kebabs, street-food-flavoured protein snacks. Backed by new manufacturing tech, this category is primed to scale. + Fibre is the new protein → ‘Fibremaxxing’ is going mainstream. Gut-health awareness, GLP-1 diet influence, anti-UPF sentiment - all pushing in the same direction. Fibre-fortified snacks and RTE products have a real runway. + Snacking needs a mood brief, not just a taste brief → Mindful indulgence is what drives the next generation of snack loyalty, like nostalgic flavours, mood-enhancing cues. + Beverages → Savoury-forward cocktails - fat-washed, fermented, umami-rich - are redefining the bar occasion. For beverage brands, the brief is shifting. Complexity and cultural storytelling over sweetness and high ABV. + Q-commerce is reshaping home cooking → ‘Assisted cooking’ - quality base preps + consumer-finished dishes - is a product innovation white space that didn’t exist three years ago. + Flavour boldness is non-negotiable → India isn’t chasing global fads. It’s doubling down on teekha-chatpata roots. Innovation that plays it safe on flavour will get ignored. + Sweets & desserts → Mithai is going Indo-modern - texture mashups, western influences, multi-sensory indulgence. The traditional sweet is being reinvented. + Provenance sells → GI tagging, micro-region storytelling, and women-led agri sourcing are becoming premium brand assets - not just CSR footnotes. In today’s world, consumer signals - expressed and otherwise - are multiplying fast. Brands that read them early and build them into innovation pipelines won’t just keep up. They’ll own the shelf. #trends

₹223 Crore Dairy Playbook: How One IT Executive Turned Cows Into a Data-Driven Business India doesn’t have a dairy shortage. It has an efficiency problem. The traditional model is low-yield cattle, unstructured feeding, no data, and middlemen-heavy distribution. The new model is high-yield genetics, precision nutrition, real-time tracking, and direct-to-consumer delivery. This shift is powering a new-age dairy business. Built by Deepak Raj Tushir through Binsar Farms. From 50 cattle to a ₹223 Crore enterprise. This isn’t farming. This is Agri-Tech execution. ✅ THE NUMBERS 1. Herd size: 50 → 450+ high-yield cows 2. Daily milk output: 7,000–8,000 litres 3. Annual revenue: ₹223 Crore 4. Net margins: 5–6% 5. Cold chain speed: Milk chilled to 4°C within 2 hours Low margin. High discipline. Massive scale. This is how dairy actually makes money. ✅ From IT Job to Agri-SaaS Thinking This wasn’t a career switch. It was a systems upgrade. DNA testing for herd selection, data tracking for every cow, predictive health monitoring and feed optimisation through PMR. Every cow = a data point. Every litre = a measurable output. This is SaaS thinking applied to agriculture. ✅ Where the Real Money Is Made Milk is not the business. Control is. 1. 200-acre contract farming loop. 2. Guaranteed fodder supply 3. Predictable input costs 4. Consistent output quality Add to that A2 milk positioning, high-margin products: ghee, paneer, curd, lassi, and direct delivery within 12–24 hours. Remove middlemen. Capture margin. That’s the playbook. ✅ The New Dairy Stack What changed? Not the cow. The system around it. 1. Genetics → Higher yield per animal 2. Nutrition → Better milk solids 3. Monitoring → Lower disease loss 4. Cold chain → Zero wastage 5. Old dairy = volume game 6. New dairy = efficiency game ✅ The Reverse Brain Drain Signal This story is bigger than one company. It signals a shift from: - Urban professionals → entering agriculture - Tech mindset → applied to primary sectors - Farming → becoming structured, scalable, investable 120+ jobs created. Dozens of farmers integrated. Agriculture → from survival to income engine. ✅ The Hidden Moat Nobody Talks About It’s not branding. It’s not even A2 milk. The real moat is: Supply chain control, data-led herd management and feed security through contract farming. Because in dairy, if you control input + output, you control profit. ✅ Let me share the #Rajspectives 1. Dairy isn’t low-margin. Bad systems are. 2. Data is the new cattle breed advantage. 3. Vertical integration beats market dependency. 4. Cold chain is the difference between profit and loss. The future of farming is not rural. It’s intellectual. India’s next big startups won’t just come from apps. They’ll come from farms run like companies. Because when engineering meets agriculture, the output isn’t just milk. It’s a predictable, scalable cash flow. #india #agritech #dairy #business #strategy #sales

73% of restaurant brands are investing in AI. Only 9% say it's making a meaningful difference. That gap isn't a technology problem. It's an execution problem. I sat down with Jenifer Kern, CMO at Qu, to go deep on their 7th annual State of Digital Report, and the headline is clear: the industry has moved from "should we do this?" to "why isn't this working yet?" Here's what stood out to me: Digital is no longer a channel. It's core infrastructure. 57% of brands now generate over 25% of total sales digitally. QSRs just made their biggest jump yet. And with that scale comes a new set of problems nobody fully planned for. Fragmentation is the silent killer. Guest satisfaction on digital orders runs up to 10 points lower than in-store. Not because the food is different. Because the experience spans channels, systems, and data silos. Tech spend is actually going up, despite margin pressure. That surprised me. But it makes sense. Brands that dumped money into experiments now need those experiments to work. Cutting tech spend would just make the ROI problem worse. The smartest question right now isn't "what AI should we buy?" It's "what outcome are we trying to drive, and does our data infrastructure support it?" The year of serving smarter doesn't start with technology. It starts with getting your foundation right. Full episode and report breakdown in the comments.

A recent collaboration between the az groeninge Hospital in Belgium and world-renowned chocolatiers Julius and Dominique Persoone (The Chocolate Line) offers a glimpse into novel solutions at the intersection of food and wellbeing. At the request of speech therapists and radiologists, The Chocolate Line developed 𝗺𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗽𝗿𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀 to support patients with swallowing or chewing difficulties, including those recovering from stroke or oral surgery. One praline masks the bitter taste of contrast liquids used in diagnostic procedures; another offers a smooth, citrus-based alternative for patients unable to chew. What began as a response to a clinical challenge now raises broader questions about how taste, comfort, and sensory design can be integrated into care. – Will we see more '𝗽𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗻𝘀' in the future—chefs working hand-in-hand with doctors? – Can 𝗳𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝗱𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻 play a greater role in how we approach treatment, recovery, and care? – And what does it take to make patient experience a 𝗱𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗼𝗳 𝗶𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻, not just an afterthought? If you're working in this space, we’d love to hear from you. EDHEC Business School Alix La Cotte Karin Kollenz-Quétard Pushpa Tiwari Axel Tagliavini Nina de Man Lynn A. Ignat Kulkov #futureoffoodandwellbeing #futureoffood 📷 De Krant van West-Vlaanderen

What is the potential of technology to meaningfully reduce fresh food waste, and in doing so significantly alter a grocery retailer’s P&L? Heading into Groceryshop later this month the challenge of escalating shrink is top of many minds. Much focus is understandably on increasing theft and the impacts of organized crime on retailers and their employees. The largest source of loss for many grocery retailers, though, remains fresh food wastage. Fresh food waste can cost up to 3% of total turnover for some grocers, therefore significant reductions here have the potential to transform the economics of grocery stores that run on such wafer-thin margins. And there’s a greater opportunity, as between 40-60% of fresh produce grown globally is wasted. There’s a clear sustainability and moral imperative to do better. Around the world we’re observing a range of technologies emerging that seek to reduce fresh food waste, and which fall into four broad buckets: 1. Dynamic Pricing tools that utilize AI to automate the mark-down price to ensure products sell out before date expiry, like Ahold Delhaize's Albert Heijn chain is trialing in the Netherlands 2. Produce coatings or protective stickers, that utilize natural antimicrobial compounds to protect against disease and extend shelf life, like Apeel, AgroSustain SA or Stixfresh 3. Ordering or inventory management tools powered by AI that optimize order quantities, manage in-store positions or empower store teams to efficiently allocate rescue channels, such as those from Picadeli, Afresh or Smartway.AI 4. Hydroponic vertical farms, located in-store to dramatically shorten the supply chain and respond quickly to changing demand, like SweGreen currently in ICA Gruppen Sweden and now expanding in EDEKA ZENTRALE Stiftung & Co. KG supermarkets in Germany I’d love to hear your thoughts and other solutions you’re seeing or trialing. Let's chat at Groceryshop!

Whole Foods Market: food trends follow values, not fads Whole Foods Market – the US-based natural and organic retail chain (part of Amazon, over 500 stores, ~$22B revenue) – just released its annual food trend forecast for 2026: The Next Big Things. --> https://lnkd.in/edC5Mvxn Curated by the Whole Foods Trends Council, the report reveals how evolving consumer values around health, sustainability, and lifestyle are reshaping the food landscape. Here’s what stands out: 🔹 Tallow Takeover Animal fats like tallow are making a return, as consumers move away from industrial seed oils and revisit traditional fats. → Indicates a broader shift from plant-based purity to a more “ancestral” approach to eating. 🔹 Focus on Fiber Fiber is stepping into the spotlight, especially for gut health, satiety, and overall wellness. → Reflects how microbiome health is entering mainstream nutrition awareness. 🔹 Year of the Female Farmer In line with the UN’s declaration of 2026 as the International Year of the Woman Farmer, there's growing recognition of women-led agricultural ventures. → Puts diversity and inclusion at the center of food production. 🔹 Kitchen Couture Design-forward packaging is transforming everyday staples into display-worthy kitchen objects. → Highlights the increasing role of branding, aesthetics, and self-expression in food purchasing decisions. 🔹 Freezer Fine Dining Chef-crafted frozen meals with global inspiration and clean labels are redefining the frozen aisle. → Convenience is no longer at odds with quality or transparency. 🔹 Very Vinegar Vinegar – especially small-batch and drinkable formats – is gaining traction for both flavor and function. → A signal of fermentation culture and acidity becoming wellness tools. 🔹 Sweet, but Make It Mindful Natural sweeteners, fruit-based desserts, and smaller portions are reshaping indulgence. → It’s not about restriction, but about intentional choices. 🔹 Instant Reimagined Premium instant foods and beverages – from lattes to meals – now deliver on taste, nutrition, and clean ingredients. → A rising category for time-poor, quality-conscious consumers. Whole Foods Market remains a reliable indicator of conscious consumption trends in the North American food ecosystem – often with global ripple effects. Europe here we come ;-) #foodtrends #retailinnovation #consumerbehavior #fmcg #foodtech #ecommerce #retailstrategy #omnichannel #healthyfood #naturalproducts #packagingdesign #conveniencefood #sustainability #agriculture #femaleempowerment #nutritiontrends #futureoffood #cleanlabel #microbiome #fermentation #guthealth #sweeteners #frozenfood #instantramen #globalcuisine #wellnessindustry #us #northamerica #wholefoods #amazon #foodsystem

These Finnish researchers met at a supercomputing center and started making food from thin air. Now they've opened the world's 1st commercial air-protein factory. Meet Dr. Pasi Vainikka and Dr. Juha-Pekka Pitkänen, Co-Founders of Solar Foods. The perfect scientific partnership: Pasi brought expertise in renewable energy systems, understanding how to make future energy carbon neutral. Juha-Pekka brought his PhD in bioprocess engineering, mastering how microorganisms convert resources into valuable products. While working at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland in 2014, they had a sobering moment: Making energy carbon-neutral wasn't enough. One-quarter of humanity's carbon footprint comes from food production. Agriculture occupies 40% of habitable land. Livestock farming drives deforestation. What if we could disconnect food production from agriculture entirely? The solution: In 2017, they spun out Solar Foods with a radical idea: produce protein using only CO2, water, electricity, and a proprietary microorganism. No farms. No rain. No arable land. Only air and renewable energy. Their product, Solein, is a complete protein powder that works in everything from pasta to meat alternatives to dairy-free yogurt. Today, Solar Foods has: → Opened Factory 01, the world's first commercial-scale air-protein facility (April 2024) → Producing 160 tons of Solein annually → Raised €43M+ in equity and secured €110M in EU grants → Won NASA's Deep Space Food Challenge (feeding astronauts) → Achieved regulatory approval in Singapore �� Planning IPO on Helsinki Stock Exchange Their impact is staggering: 🌍 10x more land-efficient than soy protein 🌍 100-300x more sustainable than meat production 🌍 Factory produces same daily protein as 300-cow dairy farm 🌍 Works in deserts, Arctic regions, even space One quote that captures their vision: "Just like with quantum computers, it's no longer a question of will cellular agriculture become a thing: it's evident that it will. The question is more about who leads the charge." — Did you know about Pasi, Juha-Pekka, and Solar Foods? If not, I share more stories of exceptional climate leaders every Monday for #ClimateFounderMondays Follow me by clicking the bell icon on my profile to be notified next week 🔔

A cow can’t say it’s sick, so India built an AI that can. Sarlaben is an AI assistant for dairy farmers connected to Amul. It tracks milk data, cattle records, and farm inputs to detect early health issues, send alerts, and give personalised advice. Expected to serve 36 lakh farmers across 18,500+ villages, it supports voice access and works in Gujarati. But this isn’t just about cows. Healthier cattle mean lower losses, more efficient feed use, and reduced waste, improving the sustainability of dairy farming. Early detection can also prevent disease spread, protecting wider livestock systems and rural ecosystems. It’s about protecting farmer income, strengthening climate resilience, and bringing AI into rural India where it matters most. Amul (GCMMF) Amul India

Billions are flowing into food tech — but are we backing the right problems? DigitalFoodLab just dropped their excellent 2024 breakdown of investment trends (link to download the report in the comments) No surprises at the top: Delivery, AgTech, and Alt Proteins are still pulling in most of the money. Clear stories, high visibility and consumer buzz. But some things that caught my eye: ➡️ Packaging is finally climbing the agenda — lots of deal activity, but capital is still lagging behind. ➡️ Food waste management is way behind — low deal flow, low investment, despite being one of the biggest climate and cost levers we have. ➡️ And animal feed? Last year’s favourite, this year’s ghost. A reminder that hype doesn’t always lead to impact. Alt proteins continue to dominate. But the space is fragmenting fast. Lots of startups, thin differentiation, not enough scale. This isn’t about picking winners. It’s about asking better questions. Are we investing in what’s easiest to pitch — or what’s hardest to fix? If we’re serious about food system transformation, we need to back the unglamorous stuff too: waste, packaging, infrastructure. The stuff that sits upstream. The stuff that actually shifts the system. What would it take to move capital in that direction?