Food Ingredients Europe 2024 — a quick highlight
Asian style plant-based chicken skewers.
Food Ingredients Europe stands out as the trade’s ultimate event for food and drink ingredients. It has evolved into the largest and most influential gathering of food and drink professionals. This event is where the industry’s leaders — senior decision-makers, directors, managers, and food engineers — come to see the latest innovations in ingredients and cutting-edge technology.
For those who keep the wheels of industry turning, this is the unmissable event of the year. It’s where you gain essential insights, uncover next-level practices, and stay ahead of the toughest challenges and emerging trends. This is a great chance to connect with peers, drive business forward, and for the ingredients companies – an opportunity to solidify their position in the industry.
One highlight of this year’s exhibition, which we heard time and again, is hybrid food products, and their potential to reshape the sustainable food landscape.
As consumer demand for sustainable food grows, the increasing option being presented is that of hybrid products to cater to those seeking environmental benefits without giving up the tastes they love.
I have to write, hybrid is a topic that has been raised before. But hybrids are more than just a compromise this time. Done right, as they when sampling concepts, they offer enhanced flavour, better nutrition, and a lower carbon footprint, making them a very interesting solution for flexitarians and environmentally-conscious eaters.
Consumers will have to learn how to read these products, though. Will they be too complex for them to understand even if the ingredient list could be short?
But hybrids are gaining traction (at FI Europe 2024, certainly) but the challenges they face, and how companies can take advantage of their innovation to get the right flavour, nutrition, and positioning mix to capture this growing market segment is what the sector needs to get right.
Some ideas come and go. This time, it seems that hybrid products are here to stay. It appears a strategic move — and one, I believe, industry is prepared to experiment with, fail with (maybe) but willing to develop a place for hybrid on-shelf. The innovators who lead with flavour and ensure hybrids offer tangible health benefits, without sacrificing on taste, are more likely to capture the attention of a growing flexitarian consumer base. As more companies enter the space, hybrid products could evolve from a niche offering into a staple of the food industry.
- Rodney Jack, editor, Food & Drink Technology.
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