Future Food-Tech 2024: Exciting innovations from the show

The future is bright for the food and beverage industry. That’s the message heard loud and clear at Future Food-Tech 2024.

From fresh new start-up brands to industry experts, the event celebrated innovation at all stages of food and beverage production.

But there were a few trends, which stood head and shoulders above the rest – food safety, sustainability and wellness. Food and beverage manufacturers were out in force to help create a safer, more sustainable supply chain, and to support the health and wellbeing of consumers.

Fighting fake foods with Chemometric BrainFake foods are a major problem for the food and beverage industry, and it’s one they’re working hard to tackle. Enter Chemometric Brain. This clever piece of software is able to analyse food products through their packaging, confirming that the food is exactly what it claims to be. What’s more, it can also help brands to maintain quality control of their products as ingredient levels can be checked.

“Food safety should not make life difficult for a company, it should be a strategic ally for full production control and continuous improvement. That’s why we created Chemometric Brain,” said Jacob Kristensen Illán, Vice President of Digital Food Quality of Chemometric Brain.

Sensip-dx makes food safety more efficientFood safety is another serious issue impacting the food and beverage industry, and its one which sits high on the priority list for manufacturers. The problem? Safety checks remain relatively slow, which in turn slows the production process. That’s where Sensip-dx comes in. The Dutch start-up is innovating to improve food safety, with its new technology. Founded at the University Maastricht, its devised technology that uses imprinted polymers, coated on a small metal disk. This sensor detects binding of bacteria using thermal measurements. It can also distinguish between living and dead bacteria, detect the presence and concentration of bacteria, and provides results in just 15 minutes.

“Fast results will increase the value added during the food production,” said Jaap Drenth, CEO of Sensip-dx.

Blakbear gets fresh with foodThis clever start-up is ripping up the ‘use by’ rule book, creating an app which can analyse exactly how fresh a product is. This is a huge breakthrough in the fight against food waste as it can stop food being thrown out when it’s still perfectly safe to consume.

“A third of all food is wasted,” said Max Grell, CEO of BlakBear. “BlakBear measures food directly, and we want to make it algorithmically efficient.”

And we’re not the only ones who thought this was a nifty new invention. The majority of show-goers did too as the British start-up won the Award for Innovation at the show.

Aiding hydration through chemotherapy with HuMOLYTEIn the ever-changing world of food and beverage, it’s rare to hear of a new product, which stops you in your tracks, making you want to hear every last detail, but HuMOLYTE did just that. Why? Because it’s a product we all hope never to need, but will be glad of if we do. Why do we hope we never need it you ask? Because it’s a drink which aids hydration for patients undergoing chemotherapy. Directly or indirectly, cancer is something that touches all of our lives, so it’s inspiring to see the food and beverage industry innovating to support patients through their treatment.

How does HuMOLYTE help during chemotherapy? Chemotherapy treatment can lead to diarrhoea, causing dehydration and electrolyte loss, and leaving the gut injured and prone to leaking. Conventional sports drinks can only improve symptoms marginally, unless the damaged cell lining in the gastrointestinal tract is healed – HuMOLYTE aims to act as that healer, making the lining of the intestinal tract stronger, while increasing mucin (thin lubricant layer) production by the intestinal cells. This, say the creators, helps to keep these cells connected, while the magnesium-rich electrolyte mix rehydrates the body.

“HuMOLYTE is a patented electrolyte hydration mix designed to help minimise the vomiting, diarrhoea, and mouth sores encountered by cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy,” said Dr Sourabh Kharait, founder & CEO of IGH Naturals, which launched HuMOLYTE.

Plant-based embraces the gut health trend through fermentationMATR Foods is combining two of the world’s favourite food trends by making plant-based gut friendly. How? We’re glad you asked. They use the art of traditional fungi fermentation on a mix of organic vegetables, legumes and grains to create a new plant ingredient.

“Whether we call it the magic of nature or the science of fermentation, we owe everything to the fungi. As the fermentation begins, the roots or hyphae of the fungus spread throughout our ingredients,” said Randi Wahlsten, CEO of MATR Foods. “This binds everything together and a deep umami flavour is created naturally.”

Healthy, semi-solid fats with Perfat Technologies“I’m the fat guy from Finland” joked Jyrki Lee-Korhonen, CEO and co-founder of Perfat Technologies when introducing his product, during a pitch session at the Future Food-Tech event in London. The Finnish start-up has developed a fat that delivers a high nutritional profile, combined with the functionality to allow food producers to replace traditional fats such as butter and palm oil with a much healthier solution.

“We wanted to make a fat that provides the functionality required in various food applications. This is why we designed Perfat to offer tailorable hardness, neutral taste, and uncompromised mouthfeel,” said Lee-Korhonen.