Insights from a season on food, health,and innovation conferences

After a quarter filled with conferences such as Vitafoods Europe and Plant FWD, and the International Conference on Food Digestion, surrounded by discussions on superfoods, prebiotics, probiotics, proteins, and functional ingredients, we share our insights. It became hard not to notice a shift in the way we think about what we eat.

Food is evolving.

For decades, food and nutrition occupied opposite ends of the same conversation: one about pleasure and culture, the other about health and science. Today, that distinction is collapsing in ways that reveal both a crisis and an extraordinary opportunity. Across conference halls, scientific presentations, and conversations with innovators, a common theme emerged: nutrition has never been more alive. Consumers, researchers, and manufacturers are increasingly looking beyond taste and convenience to understand how food influences health, wellbeing, and quality of life. In this article we share our insights from a season on food conferences

The Retreat of the Giants

The quiet withdrawal of FMCG multinationals from the food industry is not a sudden shift, it has been simmering for years. But the pace is accelerating. The reasons are structural: the business model that built global food empires – high volume, long shelf life, heavy processing – is incompatible with what consumers increasingly want. Natural, minimally processed, honestly produced food is a sector that resists the efficiencies of industrial scale.

This retreat should be applauded. The space left behind is being filled by smaller producers, artisans, and regional food systems who were never able to compete on price but were always winning on quality. The challenge now is that these producers need to be able to serve a broader public. Support is needed in policy making, in distribution, and in consumer education to reach the scale the market demands.

Rediscovering How to Eat

Centuries-old wisdom is being rediscovered and validated by new scientific research. New insights have brought foundation to what was always known in some cultures: fermented foods can be incredibly beneficial for gut health. Also the importance of eating fibres for the microbiome has received renewed recognition. Where in recent years, the trends were focusing on including proteins in everything, the focus is shifting and ‘fibermaxing’ is now experiencing an upward movement.

Both the commercial and scientific world recognize these themes and have taken action. Product developers and researchers alike are working on the effects of including ingredients such as mycoproteins and legumes into people’s diets. Both ingredients bring some unique qualities to the table: a source of protein that also includes a good amount of dietary fibre. This is not only good for gut health, but also brings interesting benefits in terms of structure and taste.

That the scientific community is working hard on these topics was very clear at the International Conference on Food Digestion: multiple talks highlighted research on plant-based ingredients and mycoproteins, but also the renewed appreciation of the health benefits of indigenous fruits and vegetables.

Feeding a growing world intelligently

The romanticisation of natural food must not become an obstacle to feeding the world. A global population pushing toward ten billion, in a climate that is growing harsher and less predictable, demands more than a return to traditional agriculture. It demands biotechnology.

Precision fermentation, gene editing, drought-resistant crops, and soil microbiome science are not the enemy of natural food, they are its amplification. Nature has been our greatest inspiration; biotechnology allows us to work with it more intelligently, enhancing yield, resilience, and nutritional density without sacrificing integrity. Industry has recognized these opportunities, as was very clear at the Plant FWD conference. There was plenty of attention for precision fermentation of mycoproteins, as well as cellular agriculture for the production of cultivated meat. These ingredients, as well as more ‘traditional’ non-animal protein sources, are  increasingly used in so-called ‘balanced protein’ products. Perhaps one of the most promising categories for making protein consumptions more sustainable.

Regulatory frameworks need to move faster to facilitate this. The science and industry are advancing; the policy environment too often is not.

The supplement explosion: opportunity and minefields

On the other end, the consumer nutrition market is experiencing a boom that is both exciting and problematic. The science of bioactive compounds – specific molecules derived from food, plants, and microorganisms – has advanced remarkably. Certain ingredients genuinely deliver meaningful, evidence-backed health benefits for individuals with specific needs.

When you are managing inflammation, gut dysfunction, metabolic stress, or hormonal imbalance, targeted nutrition can make a material difference. That is not marketing, it is biochemistry. But walk into any pharmacy or health food store today and the picture is overwhelming. Hundreds of products, overlapping claims, wildly varying quality, and a regulatory environment that has not kept pace with either the science or the commercial explosion. The EU’s health claim regulations, introduced in 2006 with the right intentions, restricted many legitimate claims. Yet, the market continues to find ways to imply benefits on the basis of trace ingredients and technicalities. A product with a sniff of vitamin C can still carry language that implies immune defence. Consumers deserve better.

We need a low threshold, fast-moving policy conversation about how to distinguish genuinely substantiated nutritional products frommarketing dressed as science. Regulators, industry, and the scientific community need to work together to create clearer standards, faster review processes, and honest labeling. The hunger for personalized nutrition is real,  the infrastructure to serve it responsibly is lagging.

A simple principle for a complex world

Amid all this complexity, the underlying principle remains remarkably simple: fuel your body daily with real, honest, and safe food. Eat as close to nature as possible. Learn to cook. Understand where your food comes from and what it does inside you. And keep in mind that this does not exclude novel foods! Backed by the appropriate research, innovative food solutions do have a place in a healthy diet. And where your individual health or lifestyle creates genuine gaps, complement that foundation with targeted, well-evidenced nutritional support.

Nature has given us an extraordinary toolkit. Science and technology, applied with integrity, allow us to extend and optimise what nature offers. The challenge, and the opportunity, of this moment is to build a food and nutrition system that honours both.