A Taste of Innovation for the Giants of the Food and Beverage Industry

The biggest players of the Food & Beverage Industry are positioned to innovate internally, creating new food concepts through their own well-funded research and development. Increasingly these corporate giants are also expanding their resources outside the company to innovate externally by nurturing smaller, sometimes more cutting-edge food start-ups.

One means for expanding their portfolio of products is inviting creative and successful foodpreneurs to the innovation table, and in some cases, investing in their companies. General Mills, Tyson, Whole Foods, and Kellogg, for example, all offer pitch days and accelerator programs for startups looking for funding and expertise to bring more of their innovative products to market.

Industry leaders who avoid diversifying their product lines to represent growing consumer demand are destined to see their food expired and forgotten on the supermarket shelves. Let’s examine some areas the Food and Beverage Industry can focus their Innovation efforts.

Buying in to what the Market Demands

Consumers today are purchasing foods not just for taste but are also compelled to buy based off other criteria:

-Where and how ingredients are sourced and mindful packaging that are all designed sustainably

-The brand is championed by an underrepresented founder

-The complete, clean ingredient list according to dietary restrictions, social responsibility, or other personal, nutritional preferences

One simple market demand is low sugar food options. Products like PureCane, a zero-calorie sweetener made from sugarcane, or True Made Foods’ condiments that use fruits and vegetable extracts in replacement of sugar are two sweet examples of food innovation.

Learn how our Innovation Search and Management platform can provide new insights and help organize your innovation projects in the Food and Beverage Industry.

Global Agriculture Innovation for a Growing Planet

Due to unpredictable climate events, a change in eating trends, and disturbances in the supply chain for worldwide populations, agriculture demands innovative solutions. AgTech companies are solving for these challenges through new approaches in drone technology and other crop maintenance robotics, gene editing, and disruptive research to increase food production. Among their smart farming focuses are new sources of protein, eliminating pollution in food production, cutting edge technology infrastructure, and overall sustainability for future healthy crop planting.

Here are a few leaders in AgTech Innovation, growing food security for all:

Farmwise Labs, a San Francisco startup utilizing AI and robotics to streamline farm operations through a commercial weeding machine.

Groundwork BioAg is aiding grain farmers in increasing their healthy yields while reducing phosphorus use to minimize local water pollution.

Puris, a crop genetics innovator specializing in non-GMO, organic commercialized North American pea farming, nurturing the pea protein market and designing new food products.

Indeed, healthy diets rely on protein, and it goes beyond traditional animals and plants. Read our previous article about sourcing nutrition from Insect Agriculture in an ever-changing protein market.

What about areas on the planet where farming is exceedingly challenging?  Innovation has a solution for this too. Ideas are generated every day from researchers and scientists in collaboration with industry partners to solve for these problems. For one example, combining hydrogels, solar panels, and spinach seeds, a prototype system of clean energy, water and food production was tested in an arid desert environment. The team was successful in extracting water from the atmosphere, generating electricity, and growing nutritiously dense spinach in rural and dry areas. Expanding this WEC2P technology to other remote areas can drastically alter water and food scarcity problems while enabling growth of much needed localized small scale farming.

Sourcing the Greatest Ingredients

Hungry for more examples? Fast Company has highlighted the 10 most innovative food companies of 2022 that range from emerging technology in farming to new players in the alternative meat industry to a sampling of the tastiest novel snack foods.

If your company is looking to incorporate emerging food and beverage trends or mix in some innovative ingredients to its product lines, consider the power of Technology Scouting to identify advantageous partnerships in ethically sourced raw materials, sustainably conscious start-ups with new production technologies, and global flavor combinations that have widespread appeal.

Standards for Food Traceability and Transparency

Another challenge in the F&B and agriculture industries is food traceability and transparency- the processes and regulations put in place to mitigate potential food recalls and build consumer trust that edible items are produced healthfully and ethically. The Institute of Food Technology (IFT) operates the Global Food Traceability Center a leading authority on this topic.  This organization is credited with creating collaborations between key players in food production to streamline supply chain management using standardized product tracing methods. Raw materials, ingredients, and the products’ lifecycle from farm to fork are recorded, tracked, and verified.

When it comes to safe and healthy food, delivered efficiently, and priced affordably, there are admirable innovators making progress. IFT also sponsors a yearly challenge selecting inspiring innovative solutions that have the potential to transform the food system. Here’s a list of 2021’s award winners who aim to solve huge problems in food scarcity, consumer obesity, and crop sustainability.  Implementing similar methodologies in circularity, coordinated efforts for supply chain improvements, and supporting the growers in beneficial ways will lower costs for the food production companies, reduce food waste, and bring more nutritious and delicious foods to buyers everywhere.

Collaborate to Innovate

How can we help make these innovative ideas and beneficial collaborations possible in the food and beverage industry? Ezassi has the Innovation Management tools to strengthen and enhance your company’s Collaborative Intelligence. Learn more about this important metric for Innovation success in this article by the Harvard Business Review.

Let’s talk about how Ezassi solutions connect the teams that make Innovation possible. 

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