The food industry is innovating fast. But not fast enough.
This is the view of Simon Guoyard-Norman, principal at consultancy Arthur D Little, shared at Future Food-Tech London.
“The world is changing faster than we can keep up with,” he says.
Boosting the speed of innovation would require fundamentally changing the way the food industry operates (and tripling or even quadrupling the amount of investment that goes into it), he says. He remains sceptical that this is possible.
There is a disconnect between R&D and commercial
One bottleneck for innovating in food tech is the disconnect between R&D and commercial, which comes to a head when one hands a product over to the other.
“There are huge challenges when teams of scientists, product developers, and engineers have been working for months and years on something they’re really passionate about, and something they think is really useful, and a huge benefit to society. And they give it to the marketing team, and the marketing team say ‘hold on, what am I meant to do with this?’”
This problem exists across the board, he says, from the biggest companies to the smallest start-ups doing the most novel things.
Solving this challenge is a “people question”, rather than a question of the technology itself.
Formulators need to be careful with fibre
The fibremaxxing trend will be different from the protein craze, suggests Guoyard-Norman.
We have entered a transition phase; our view of what a healthy product needs to be is shifting.
Indeed, fibre is becoming a more popular ingredient. Yet eating too much fibre can have negative side effects, such as bloating.
“As a product developer, you really want to maximise what you can deliver to a customer,” says Guoyard-Norman. “But actually, if they feel bad having had your product, they’re never going to buy it again.”
Because of this, the fibre trend presents a “much more nuanced challenge than the challenge of putting protein into everything”.
Cultivated meat remains promising
Despite these challenges, Guoyard-Norman is optimistic about some areas of food innovation. Cultivated meat, for example, does have significant potential, he suggests.
“From a sustainability angle, cultivated meat is super promising. From a taste and functionality perspective, it seems like some of the work that’s being done can bring more protein to your life, bring more healthy fats to your life.”
He acknowledges the commercial and consumer acceptance questions that remain for the technology. Nevertheless, he remains positive.
“I’m still not eating it day-to-day, but I’m willing to wait another ten years.”
Will GLP-1s transform the food industry?
The impact of GLP-1s on food innovation, at least in Europe, is currently unclear, Guoyard-Norman suggests.
While in the US, the drugs are “a huge topic”, yet in Europe, more limited access makes their potential less profound.
In some places, the influence of the drugs can be seen. “The changes that we see obviously are affecting big CPGs quite broadly. The ability to have a snack, and enjoy your snack, is changing.”
In the end, however, he is sceptical about the drugs’ ability to change how most people think about the food industry.
“It’s important to keep note of, important to have a strategy for, but I don’t think it changes everything we’re doing at the moment.”
Overall, innovating in food is not easy. Many bottlenecks remain. Yet at the same time, progress in food tech is far from static. The industry keeps trying new things, and in many instances, succeeding at them.
