Food Matters Live 2025: Agrana’s innovation focus at “Tastes of Better”

Ahead of an appearance at the industry-defining Food Matters Live, Rotterdam, event, Agrana, a leading player in ingredient solutions, offers an exclusive preview of the innovations it will unveil through the “Tastes of Better” showcase.

This pre-event Q&A with Melanie Sturm, global marketing manager, explores how Agrana is actively helping food and beverage manufacturers accelerate product development and meet the surging consumer “need for new.”

Agrana’s Tastes of Better experience promises a multi-sensory journey through flavour, texture, and occasion-based innovation — what can VIP attendees expect to see, taste, and take away from your showcase this year?

VIP attendees of Tastes of Better can expect an immersive journey to various festive occasions around the world awakening all their senses in the Agrana suite. They will be able to taste savoury snacks, yogurts, ice creams, desserts, baked goods and beverages – all tailored to occasions like Austrian Christmas market, Chinese New Year or the upcoming World Cup 2026 in North America.

As we have highlighted in our podcast episode, the “need for new” is accelerating product development in the food and beverage space. Consumers want more variety than ever and are intrigued by seasonal or special occasion offers. In our sessions we take food and beverage manufacturers on a journey showing them fast and yet exciting ways to expand their portfolio and tap into key occasions with innovations like these.

From indulgent fruit inclusions to clean-label formulations, what specific solutions is Agrana delivering to help manufacturers overcome development challenges without compromising on consumer appeal?

We are a “glocal” partner for our customers. We combine global reach and network for sourcing, market and trend insights with local adaptation and execution of the product development to fit consumer needs, taste preferences and regulatory requirements.

Preparations are a vehicle to enhance the taste, texture, and colour experience as well as the nutritional profile of products while at the same time reducing complexity in the production processes of the manufacturer. With our formulation expertise we can help food and beverage players with a broad range of development challenges:

• Clean label formulations
• Multi-sensory experiences
• Balancing indulgence and health
• Functionally enriched products tailored to various health benefits (beauty, fitness, relaxation, etc.)
• Plant-based solutions with a balanced nutritional or a fully indulgent profile and many more

You’ve emphasised texture as a frontier of indulgence — how is Agrana leveraging this across categories like dairy, bakery, and beverages to meet the rising demand for experiential eating?

We like to say in Agrana: “taste is king, texture is the queen”. The consumption of food and beverage products is a multi-sensory experience, where taste and texture are firmly interlinked with each other.

Our preparations can be a vehicle to bring nearly limitless texture innovation to dairy, bakery and beverages. To give some examples, we can support our partners with solutions like:

• Light and airy whipped solutions in form of mousse or foam: to be applied as a top layer on yogurts or as frothing bases for foams on top of cold beverages – perfectly suitable for permissible indulgence positioning
• Mouthfeel enhancement of dairy and dairy alternatives: with our preparations we can help stabilise and enrich the sensory profile of the base – to elevate the sensory and nutritional profile of dairy and dairy alternatives
• Superior fruit experiences: with our heritage and expertise in sourcing and processing fruits, we can deliver a premium fruit experience with recognisable and pleasant fruit pieces in yogurts or ice creams – for a premium and authentic fruit experience
• Crunchy textures with preparations with inclusions: combined with fruity or indulgent flavours, we can bring a broad range of inclusions like chocolate pieces, nata de coco, cake and biscuit inclusions, popping pearls or nuts and seeds aseptically to final products – many options also suitable for vegan offerings.

With global consumers seeking both adventure and authenticity, what category insights or trend signals are you most excited to share at Food Matters Live, and how are they shaping Agrana’s innovation pipeline?

We are showcasing how to speed up the innovation process by tapping into the “need for new” from consumers. Seasonal and festive occasion editions have been part of the food and beverage market for many years but are gaining momentum now. They offer opportunities to refresh and update portfolios in an exciting way.

We are thrilled to take the Tastes of Better attendees in our suite on a multi-sensory journey to different parts of the world.