Agenda: Advancing Food Innovation to Ensure a Healthy & Sustainable Future

• Whether improving nutrition and health, addressing climate & supply challenges, or creating new taste experiences, what are the latest advancements that will continue to shape and transform the food system?
• How are companies leveraging R&D to ensure a resilient and healthy supply chain in times of instability, both for present day and years to come?
• While taste reigns king, nutrition is a crucial factor for businesses and consumers alike, so what technologies will enhance product development to create delicious and nutritious products that improve health?
• With collaboration as important as ever, how can the sector encourage meaningful partnership to ensure innovations reach price parity and the consumer shelves?

• As GLP-1 solutions become increasingly available in the US and across the globe, what does the current landscape look like? How will the rise of GLP-1 solutions shape the food system and beyond?
• What shifts have already been made in terms of dietary patterns, and what food solutions are available to cater to users during and post GLP-1 usage?
• Where can different food and ingredients be utilized to create natural alternatives to appetite suppressants and weight management?
• How may the linkages between food and pharma become more intertwined, providing nutritious solutions that are preventative and relieve symptoms?
• As the side effects of GLP-1 become more widely understood, what solutions are providing alternatives that limit impacts to muscle retention and bone density?

Breakout Session: Elevating Guilt-Free Snacking with the Latest Better-For-You Solutions

• What role does food processing play in tackling food security, by creating healthier, safer and more affordable foods?
• As innovation and technology advances food production and processing, how does the sector navigate the perception and understanding of processing and differentiate from Ultra Processed Foods?
• What innovations can reduce processing and shorten ingredient lists on pack to provide healthier food?
• How important is the preservation aspect in food processing as a means to tackle food deserts that are increasing in the US and across the globe? What are the latest innovations in shelf-life extension?
• When working to tackle both undernutrition and overnutrition, solutions come at a cost. How does the industry work to find a model that benefits the consumer, the food businesses and healthcare providers, so that the transition to more nutritious food is successful?

From postbiotics and prebiotics to health data platforms and fermented ingredients, Puratos is looking for an innovator to join their quest to revolutionize gut health for a better tomorrow!

The innovation challenge for Future Food-Tech San Francisco 2025 is focused on integrating diverse fibers, micronutrients, and beneficial biotics into everyday nutrition to transform the gut microbiome.

Puratos will outline this year’s challenge on stage, before three finalists present their ideas to the team, who will come together for a short discussion and follow-up questions before a winner is crowned!

• As players across the food system are increasingly curious about AI and implementation is happening at increasing rates, where are the success stories of AI in action? What’s needed to de-mystify AI, and where is it already in action?
• What are the learnings on how AI can impact and optimize food production?
• How can the sector overcome the fear factor that comes with technologies like AI, ML and computational modelling for the food sector?
• What challenges need to be overcome for AI implementation in food to be more mainstream, and what solutions are emerging to do so?

Breakout Session: Advancements in Algae Across the Food Value Chain for a Sustainable Future

• As sustainability goals and targets such as Net Zero get closer, how are companies across the value chain prioritizing the reduction of food loss as one way to lessen climate impacts?
• From cold chain technologies to bio-preservatives, waste valorization to upcycling, what innovations can reduce food waste, improve sustainability and make food fresher, safer and healthier?
• Where are the gaps needing greater attention to tackle the food waste burden, and what are the key challenges in doing so?
• What is needed in terms of policy and investment to ensure food loss is a high priority for organizations?

• What are the latest technologies in the biomanufacturing space that can accelerate the journey to true commercial scale?
• What future innovations could replace bioreactors or limit the capex limitations that come with biomanufacturing?
• Where can innovations like feedstock from waste valorization, AI and computational modelling or advances in cell line development reduce cost, de-risk and improve quality of production?
• Where are the success stories in the sector of scaling from pilot to commercialization, and how did these organizations overcome adversity?

Delegates break into small groups to discuss the most critical issues facing the food-tech industry. Each table is hosted by an industry expert, and delegates can choose the topic most relevant to their business.

Breakout Session: Healthy Aging & Longevity: Solutions for Maintaining a Healthy Lifestyle

• Taste and price are ranked as top demands by consumers, what do they want and need from food, and what should companies prioritize to deliver on these elements?
• The consumer’s connection with food is both emotional and cultural. So how are companies approaching and navigating this relationship?
• What does it take for a product to commercialize and succeed on the shelves? What learnings can retailers share about positioning and branding for improved uptake, and how should companies work with retailers to ensure products reach the masses?
• Whilst companies need to give consumers the products they want, how can the sector create products and ingredients consumers need?

• How are multi-stakeholder partnerships becoming increasingly important for the growth of the food sector and allowing innovation to flourish? What advantages do multi-player collaborations have?
• What are corporates looking for from industry partnerships, and how do they integrate and layer external innovations into their businesses to ensure success?
• How do innovators with a B2B model approach working with others across the value chain? What does the ideal scenario look like and what are the challenges that need to be considered?
• What role do CVC arms play in multi-stakeholder collaboration, and how should start-ups and innovators look to engage with CVC?

• Alternative raw ingredients can play an important role in ensuring sustainable and reliable supply chains, but what is the willingness of uptake from the industry?
• Whether alternatives to sugar, cocoa or fats and oils, what problems can alternatives solve?
• Scaling remains a challenge for food-tech. Which milestones have been reached with alt-raw ingredients and what obstacles remain in the journey to reach price parity?
• How are companies across the value chain collaborating, and how do innovators ensure that they reach offtake agreements with potential partners?

• What are the latest innovations aiding healthier reformulation, tackling levels of sugars, salts and other ingredients?
• Beyond reduction, how are companies looking to inclusion of nutrients and ingredients to improve nutrient density?
• As changes are made to product formulation to improve health outcomes, how are companies in the space addressing the bottlenecks of improving nutritional profiles, from maintaining taste to navigating policy?
• What are the nutritional deficiencies that need addressing, and what bioactives should be incorporated through fortification and other means to provide sustainable nutrition?
• What innovations can allow the industry to better understand the impact of bioactives and micronutrients on health? How can advances improve efficiency, bioavailability and delivery to ensure specific functional health outcomes?

• As scaling challenges continue, where are the breakthroughs happening for the cultivated space?
• What impact can regional biomanufacturing hubs make to provide insights on best practices for cost-effective scaling, looking at bioprocessing upstream and downstream?
• Following the focus on whole-cuts and hybrid products in recent years, what shifts are moving cultivated players to consider B2B models and focus on ingredient inputs? What challenges could the B2B approach circumvent?
• How is the sector working to challenge and overcome recent legislation banning selling cell-cultured products in certain states despite past regulatory successes?

• Where are the gaps when mapping the gut microbiome and how it translates to solve human health?
• What research is needed to further the understanding of the gut microbiome and the ways in which it can impact different need states, such as cognition or immunity?
• How can innovations like biosensors and AI be leveraged to gain data-driven insights to unlock a level of precision and knowledge not yet reached?
• What are the latest developments in biotics, whether pre, pro or post? How are advances in these areas providing specific solutions for healthy aging, women’s health or infant nutrition through the gut microbiome?

With breakthrough solutions tackling challenges from climate, alt-protein formulation to gut health, this year’s Start-Up Arena will see more innovators pitching than ever before! After you’ve cast your votes for the winner of each pitching session, the overall winner for Future Food-Tech’s 2025 Start-Up Arena will be announced on the main stage with a chance to pitch to the delegation.

• From alternative dairy to bioactive ingredients or mycoprotein, what breakthroughs have been made with different fermentation processes that accelerate commercialization?
• How are companies diversifying the ingredients and products they create through fermentation processes to adapt business models to market needs?
• With an increasing amount of self-affirmed GRAS status for fermentation players, what does this mean in practice for scale?
• What technologies are addressing common sector bottlenecks such as infrastructure, cost and capacity, to ensure that price parity is achieved?

• Which areas of the food system is venture capital focused on? What new technologies do they anticipate will be leading the way to a healthy and sustainable future?
• What predictions are there for food investments for 2025, whether investment rounds, IPOs and exits?
• What does the investment landscape look like for early vs later stage? How should early-stage innovators ensure they keep attracting investment?
• The past year has seen more non-dilutive funding from the likes of the USDA and Dept. of Defense, how can this support the scaling transition where VC money lacks? What criteria do companies need to meet to qualify for this kind of financing support?