The next wave of food innovation: 7 start-ups to watch

The future of food is being shaped by a new generation of innovators.

From fermentation and functional ingredients to novel enzymes, reformulation technologies and advanced nutrition solutions, these seven start-ups are tackling some of the F&B industry’s most pressing challenges.

FoodNavigator speaks to seven emerging companies about the technologies driving their businesses, the opportunities they see ahead and the milestones they hope to achieve in the coming year.

Biophelion: Fermentation’s next frontier

Q: What does Biophelion do?

A: Biophelion is a fermentation company in Jena, Germany. We produce specialty ingredients that the food industry currently sources from plants that are hard to grow, slow to mature or harvested from the wild.

Q: With a focus on developing highly robust microorganisms and bioprocesses, where do you see the biggest untapped opportunities for industrial fermentation in food?

A: Food supply chains have to change, not only at the volume end. A lot of what the industry depends on comes from a narrow set of origins, and some of those are already under strain.

The part that gets less attention is the other end: low-volume, high-value compounds where the supply chain is genuinely fragile. The twentieth-century answer to that was to plant more, and we know what large monocultures cost in land and ecosystems.

Fermentation produces in a tank instead. That is where deep-tech fermentation does the most good per litre, and it is why a platform that makes several ingredients from one process make sense, rather than one plant per molecule.

Q: What makes your solution different?

A: We run one process that yields several products in sequence, and we decide per batch how much of each we take off. Demand moves, output moves with it. Nothing sits in a tank waiting for a buyer who is not there, and no product has to be subsidised because it came out when no one wanted it.

The process is also designed to work with multiple feedstocks, enabling production to be established close to available raw materials without requiring major redesign.

MicroLub: Healthier products without compromising indulgence

Q: What does MicroLub do?

A: MicroLub is a deep-tech ingredient solutions company, spun out from the University of Leeds. We develop protein-based technologies that enhance mouthfeel, texture and nutrition in F&B products.

Q: As consumers seek healthier products without sacrificing indulgence, how are your protein-based technologies helping brands reformulate fats and oils?

A: Fat performs a number of functions in food – including lubrication – and it’s the lubrication that gives products their rich, creamy, indulgent mouthfeel.

Our protein-based technologies replicate that lubrication using water rather than fat and, in practical terms, that lets customers reduce the fat and calorie content of their products by up to 75% – with no noticeable change in mouthfeel or texture.

In blind trials across a range of categories, including dairy, plant-based dairy, bakery, sauces, dips and more, tasters couldn’t tell the reformulated product from the full-fat original.

Q: What does success look like for your company over the next 12 months?

A: We’ve just closed a $10m investment round, which is going to give us a springboard for taking MicroLub to the next level.

We have some very exciting plans for the next 12 months, including converting our active customer trials into commercial agreements, opening our own food tech lab and continuing to develop new technologies.

Caffree: Reinventing coffee and beverage formulation

Q: What does Caffree do?

A: Caffree is developing an enzymatic decaffeination platform that removes caffeine at the point of use – no solvents, no freight, no centralised processing facilities required. Our three-enzyme system converts caffeine directly into theobromine, cutting the cost, complexity and environmental footprint of decaf production.

Q: What opportunities does your proprietary caffeine control enzyme system create for beverage manufacturers?

A: Our enzyme system opens up point-of-use processing, so manufacturers can decaffeinate closer to where the product is actually made rather than shipping green coffee to a handful of centralised facilities and back.

This collapses freight time and cost, giving roasters and beverage makers control over their own supply chain instead of depending on a small number of third-party processors.

Because the system works enzymatically, rather than through solvents or high-pressure extraction, it opens the door to more precise, tunable caffeine reduction.

Q: Why is Future Food-Tech London an important event for you this year?

A: Future Food-Tech London puts us in the room with the exact audience we’re building for – beverage manufacturers, roasters and investors who are thinking seriously about sustainability and supply chain innovation in F&B.

It’s a chance to introduce Caffree’s platform to a European audience at a moment when we’re actively deepening conversations with global players, and to connect with potential pilot partners and investors who care about the shift towards a cleaner, more localised process.

Potina Ltd: Future of functional nutrition

Q: What does Potina Ltd do?

A: Potina Ltd is a children’s nutrition company developing novel packaging technology to protect sensitive nutritional ingredients through shelf life and enable precise delivery at preparation.

Q: How do you see fermentation shaping the future of children’s nutrition and functional food products?

A: Precision fermentation is expanding the range of high-value, human-identical and non-bovine bioactives available for children’s nutrition.

But producing the molecule is only part of the journey to a finished product. Fermentation is expanding what can be formulated. The next challenge is making those ingredients work together in a finished product while retaining their relevant properties through shelf life.

Q: What does success look like for your company over the next 12 months?

A: Our priority is evidence, establishing the benefit before bringing the technology to market. We are planning a controlled comparative storage study across three areas: nutritional quality, including available lysine and protein digestibility; sensory quality, including flavour-related compounds; and bioactive function, initially using lactoferrin and measuring its iron-binding state and retained capacity.

Manufacturers already manage nutrient losses through formulation controls and overage. Our question is whether our technology can preserve nutritional and sensory quality in ways that overage cannot, while also expanding the range of sensitive bioactives that can be incorporated into finished products.

Biosense Solutions: Smarter food innovation

Q: What does Biosense Solutions do?

A: BioSense Solutions provides technology and advanced algorithms for counting microorganisms and quantifying the growth and inhibition of bacteria and food-related moulds. Our fast, sensitive, high-throughput assays help F&B companies evaluate new preservatives more efficiently and develop products with longer shelf lives.

Q: How can advances in live-cell imaging and microbiology help food companies make better decisions during product development and production?

A: Automated, precise counting of microorganisms before an experiment improves consistency, reduces the need to repeat tests and saves valuable time.

Accurately quantifying mold growth and inhibition enables food companies to assess preservatives more effectively and make better-informed decisions throughout product development and production.

Q: What makes your solution different?

A: Last year, we launched the µCount3D – a new standard in microbial counting. To our knowledge, µCount3D is the only imaging-based solution capable of counting bacteria directly within a defined volume.

We have spent several years developing deep-learning algorithms for quantifying mould growth in collaboration with companies and universities. This expertise has resulted in several solutions with significant potential for the food industry.

Dapibuset: Turning waste into value

Q: What does Dapibuset do?

A: Dapibuset™ turns overlooked industrial side streams into a nutrient dense ingredient platform for food and feed. Producers currently pay to dispose of side streams that still hold nutritional value. We convert them into Mycospan™ on site, using modular units deployed directly where the side streams are generated.

Q: Many food manufacturers are looking to unlock more value from side streams and by-products. How does your technology help make that possible?

A: Our platform is modular and deploys at the source, removing the transport and logistics cost that usually breaks side stream economics. Take a brewery: today it pays to have spent grain hauled away, week after week.

With our platform that same side stream becomes the input for an ingredient instead, with payback fast enough to fit within a typical capital equipment payback window. We see the same pattern across different food industries, different side streams and the same shift from disposal cost to on-site value.

Q: What makes your solution different?

A: Most solutions are centralised plants or single feedstock systems. Dapibuset is feedstock agnostic and modular, one platform, deployed on site, adaptable to whatever side stream a producer has.

This removes the two constraints that limit existing approaches, dependence on transport logistics and dependence on a single input source.

Global Sustainable Transformation: Sustainable ingredient production

Q: What does Global Sustainable Transformation do?

A: Global Sustainable Transformation (GST) is developing a biotechnology platform that converts locally available agricultural and food-industry side streams into high-value specialty fats through fermentation.

Our yeast-derived fats can be tailored for applications ranging from cocoa butter equivalents and bakery fats to other functional food oils.

We aim to provide the food industry with scalable, locally produced alternatives to fats such as palm oil and cocoa butter, reducing exposure to volatile prices, constrained supply chains and environmental pressures.

Q: What role can biotechnology play in helping the food industry reduce reliance on conventional vegetable oils such as palm oil and cocoa butter?

A: Biotechnology can fundamentally change how fats are produced. Instead of relying exclusively on crops grown in specific climatic regions, fermentation enables oils and fats to be produced locally from alternative and underutilised carbon sources.

GST’s FHCR™ technology goes a step further by enabling the conversion of diverse side streams into fermentation feedstocks, creating a circular production model that can complement conventional agriculture while delivering the functionality required by the food industry.

Q: Why is Future Food-Tech London an important event for you this year?

A: GST is entering an important phase of industrial scale-up and commercialisation, making Future Food-Tech London particularly timely for us. We are looking forward to meeting food manufacturers, ingredient companies, strategic partners and investors interested in bringing next-generation sustainable fats to market.

With GST exhibiting at the event this year, it is an excellent opportunity for partners to meet our team, learn more about the technology and discuss concrete opportunities for collaboration.

Experience the innovation first-hand

Whether tackling supply chain resilience, enabling healthier products or unlocking new ingredient possibilities, these start-ups demonstrate how science and innovation are opening up new opportunities across the food and beverage industry.

These companies will be showcasing their technologies at Future Food-Tech London, where global food brands, investors and innovators come together to discuss the future of food.

Register now to connect with the people and ideas shaping the next generation of food innovation.