Over the past few years, food technology has seen an upsurge in innovation. In areas like precision fermentation and cultivated meat, start-ups have proliferated, patents have multiplied, and production has often become more efficient, despite ongoing challenges in the sectors.

But these are not the only areas in which food tech is innovating. In 2025, a whole plethora of technologies will be coming to the fore.

The future of plant-based foods, according to Floor Buitelaar, managing partner at strategy consultancy Bright Green Partners, will be shaped by the reaction against processing among consumers. A ‘less processed’ trend would be bad news for areas such as cultivated meat, for example.

With this in mind, she predicted that the industry may step away from protein isolates, and back towards protein concentrates. “Even though the protein quantity is a little bit lower, you also have a better story to tell because it’s less processed,” she suggested.

One area that is showing significant signs of growth, however, is fermentation. “Almost all of the projects we’ve done in 2024 were related to fermentation in some way or the other, whether it was precision fermentation in dairy and eggs, to biomass fermentation, to enzymatic conversion and fermentation. The whole biotech/fermentation boom is huge and I definitely expect to [continue to see it] in 2025.” The reason for this boom, she suggested, is “the potential of how this can be applied into the various activities of an organisation.”

According to Kim Odhner, co-founder and managing partner at Unovis Asset Management, the meat alternatives industry is moving away from direct meat replacements. “In 2025, I expect that the food industry will continue its pivot from focusing heavily on direct meat replacements, such as plant-based burgers or cultured meats, to investing in high-value strategic ingredients with applications across food, nutraceuticals, and functional foods.”

For example, it will focus on emerging technologies such as metabolic engineering (using microorganism like yeast or bacteria to produce nutrients, vitamins or flavour-enhancing compounds), synthetic biology (programming microbes to produce certain types of proteins, which may be used to replace animal-derived proteins) and transgenics (inserting genes into microorganisms or plants to express desired traits).

This trend is being driven because these techniques are “enabling the production of ingredients tailored to address diverse nutritional and functional needs. This shift is being driven by several factors, including operational challenges facing the meat replacers - achieving cost-effective scaling, improving taste and texture, etc. - and a growing consumer focus on health and nutrition.” A spokesperson from EIT Food agreed, saying that molecular farming and synthetic biology will enable “the creation of ingredients that are more sustainable and health focused.”

However, because of its long-term nature, Buitelaar does not see molecular farming as a major part of 2025’s food tech trends.

Like Buitelaar, Odhner and EIT have also predicted the continuing prominence of precision fermentation.

3D printing could also drive upscaling within the area of plant-based, suggested a spokesperson for EIT Food. This will enable more customisable production as well.

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