Plant-based milk or meat that is not made from animal protein no longer surprises consumers as much as it used to.
No more second-rate food
Sergey Korolev, CEO and co-founder of justfood
The first food difference of the future that unites at onceseveral trends mean flexibility. It will manifest itself more and more in literally everything: in the methods of delivery, in its speed, in how the service adjusts to you and takes into account your preferences. The product will get closer and closer to the consumer. The client should be as comfortable as possible, there can be no restrictions. Next is the problem of the service to make it profitable for the business as well. The second point is the increasingly loyal attitude of consumers towards ready-made food. If earlier there was a desire to order only food "from under the knife", now more and more people make a choice in favor of filling their refrigerator with boxes of ready-made food. The attitude towards freezing has also changed, especially in Russia. All over the world, there have long been separate frozen food stores with which people fill the refrigerator for months in advance. Until recently, we were more skeptical about this, but today ready-made and / or frozen food is finally no longer considered "second-class food".
In addition, the food of the future will definitely bepersonalized - the diet will be selected for a specific consumer, his wishes and preferences. What does he like and dislike? What are the limitations? What does the service know about the client? Another trend that will only grow in the future is the unified customer path. If traditionally retail is about sales in a supermarket, and a restaurant is about cooked dishes, then the future belongs to a single service where you can buy groceries, order a set of ready-made meals, or choose a dish from the chef prepared “from under the knife”. There will be an increasing consolidation of the customer journey within a single service and / or brand. And finally, locality. The infrastructure will come closer and closer to the client: it will be local and distributed - many small warehouses, fast delivery, flexible order management.
If we talk about promising startups, then howstrangely enough, I would name projects from related areas. First of all, this is bioniq, a subscription service for selling vitamins. This project is very closely related to nutrition, and it will clearly be somewhere near the topic of food. Also, I would follow the iFarm project, which deals with vertical farms. From foodtech itself, interesting things are done by "Kitchen in the area". And, of course, justfood - this year we are preparing a lot of new things in terms of service flexibility and personalization.
Vegetable sausages and the DNA diet
Andrey Zyuzin, Managing Partner, Fuel for Growth Fund, FoodNet NTI Market Expert
Foodtech shows strong growth:food technology companies received $16.3 billion in investment in 2020, up from $10.17 billion in 2019. Today, 48% of investments in food tech go to food delivery services and only 10% to companies developing next-generation food and beverage products. However, this trend will change in the near future - an increase in attracted investments will be demonstrated by companies specializing in the development of food products in an unconventional way.
A growing number of healthy lifestyle supporters and flexitarianshas already led to an increase in demand for herbal products and, accordingly, to an increase in the number of producers. Today, in almost every coffee shop, we can find various alternatives to milk: soy, almond, coconut and others. In addition, cheeses, cutlets, sausages and other vegetable products appear on the shelves. In the next 10 years, such alternative products will account for about 50% of the assortment of stores. In this segment, there is already competition between developments from the USA, Israel and Russia.
One of the most promising areas in food technologyassociated with reliance on a scientific basis in nutrition. More and more people are now taking DNA and microbiome tests to determine their susceptibility to allergies to various foods. For example, the startup DayTwo has already developed an algorithmic diet with food recommendations based on a personal analysis of the intestinal microbiome. According to our research, more than half of the Russians surveyed are ready to give up their usual food right now if a doctor, based on analyzes or a genetic test, suggests a new nutritional system - while for 38% it is important that this be scientifically proven.
Interesting food tech startups thatwatch out, I would highlight the American company Perfect Day, which raised $ 300 million for the production of alternative milk proteins, as well as the Chilean company NotCo, which raised more than $ 85 million to bring its products to the American market - milk, ice cream, mayonnaise and vegetable-based meat. ingredients. Interestingly, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos took part in the financing, and the company's valuation exceeded a billion dollars.
Proteins from the air
Olga Zinovieva, Founder and CEO of Elementaree
The food of the future will definitely respond togrowing demand for individualization. Already today, the popularity of both selecting nutrition based on a person’s known preferences and limitations, and through the objectification of data - all kinds of tests that can be taken directly without leaving home - is growing. Moreover, personalization moves in three directions: you can customize the entire menu for yourself (as happens in Elementaree), you can select specific products taking into account your condition or desired goal (for example, myAir makes anti-stress bars depending on the results of a questionnaire), or you can choose additions to food (as offered, for example, by the Care/of service). Personalizing nutrition in many ways brings food and medicine closer together, helping people stay healthy through food.
In addition, the future of food lies in varioustechnologies for solving the problem of protein deficiency. I think everyone already knows Beyond meat. They are just the tip of the iceberg on the road to discovering new ways to produce cheap and eco-friendly proteins. There are other technologies here - for example, proteins from the air. Air Protein closed its Round A for more than $ 20 million this year. They want to find a way to make commercial proteins directly from airborne particles, and thus contribute to solving the problem of population growth while maintaining the size of the territory and reducing emissions. CO2.
It will become more and more important to be able tokeep track of everything "to the field". Data is rapidly entering the food industry, and over time, consumers will be able to trace the entire path of their food, which is especially true for the mid-range and premium segments. This opens up space for IT startups to let consumers know everything about their food. This also includes all technologies that can improve efficiency within agriculture and production, enriching processes with data.
Kitchen robotization and sustainable packaging
Alexander Mutovin, co-founder of "Much Salmon"
Now in the foodtech market, I would single out three largetrend. First, the development of dark kitchen platforms with the creation of powerful new virtual restaurant brands. Second, the trend is to integrate grocery delivery and ready-to-eat meals into a single application. Thirdly, the emergence of technologies for the production of new food - for example, vegetable meat or proteins from insects. In the near future, we will surely see many such projects in restaurants. And by 2035, according to experts, vegetable meat may completely replace natural meat.
In the near future, the speed of food delivery will beremain a key parameter for the development of the foodtech industry. In addition, special attention will be paid to the environmental friendliness of packaging - this trend associated with conscious consumption can already be seen.
In order to understand where foodtech is going, you needkeep an eye on startups that are really developing tech - such as vertical farms, alternative meats and proteins. The big boom is likely to come from robotization of cooking processes and the introduction of machine learning to control cooking and the development of dark kitchen networks.
The new food culture will not only affectwhat we eat, but, of course, will affect human health. The transition to plant-based proteins and healthy food will allow us to fight serious chronic diseases, heal people nationwide and defeat hunger in the face of the growing population of the Earth.
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