Chocolate, sugar, and pasta are just some of the ingredients that can currently be 3D printed to create edible food products. After years of development, 3D printing’s ability to quickly produce complex, lightweight, and robust structures has provided the culinary world with yet another creative tool. What is 3D-printed food? Additive manufacturing (AM), more commonly known as 3D printing, refers to the process of joining materials to make three-dimensional objects, usually layer-by-layer. Fused deposition modelling (FDM) is the simplest, cheapest, and most popular AM technology and is by far ..read more

For many, festive periods represent a time for tradition. However, in a rapidly changing world characterized by economic, environmental, and demographic shifts, many age-old practices will likely need to roll with the winds of change. This means that the turkey’s pride of place at the Christmas dinner table may not be guaranteed in the years to come. Increasing public awareness of environmental problems is sowing the seeds of change when it comes to consumer preferences. For example, a GlobalData survey in Q3 2022 revealed that 68% of global consumers felt that a product being ‘sustainable or ..read more

Covid-19, war and inflation have resulted in six in ten (61%) global shoppers being extremely or quite concerned about their personal financial situation (GlobalData 2022 Q2 global consumer survey) and cheaper, private label options are going to gain in popularity across the year, as price hikes push branded products out of consumer’s budgets. GlobalData’s UK Monthly Retail Tracker (June) has revealed that 35% of shoppers respond to higher food & grocery prices by picking up cheaper products at the same retailer. This shift in shopping habits is causing retailers to invest and expand their ..read more

Meat is big business. Global Data forecasts that the meat industry’s value will rise to almost $1.5 trillion by 2025, with an annual volume of more than 120 billion kilos. But our meat consumption has a huge environmental cost. In the face of the climate crisis, the industry is on the cusp of a sustainable lab-grown revolution. One solution might well be to grow our own meat. Cultured meat is not a steak that enjoys Stravinsky, but is a hugely exciting prospect nevertheless. Grown in vitro from animal cells, lab-grown meat could cut greenhouse emissions and water pollution, avoid the need for ..read more

Mondelez International launched a special Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate pack to tap into the Malaysian tradition of having “kuih raya”, or bite-sized sweet treats, during the month of Ramadan and Eid festivities. The campaign, tagged “Kuih Raya Dari Hati” (kui raya from the heart), encourages Malaysian households to bake kui raya at home, using Cadbury milk chocolate, instead of buying the market variety. The limited-edition 160g packs, available from March through May 2022, are wrapped with baking sheets that double as printed baking templates, instructions, and recipes for baking kuih raya wi ..read more

While primarily a humanitarian crisis, the Ukraine-Russia conflict is expected to also impact food sectors severely in the coming months. Pre-conflict, the bakery and cereal sector should have expected a healthy growth in value across the forecast period, with annual year-on-year growth of around 4% to 6% and an overall gain of $167bn over 2020 to 2025. However, this is likely to change in light of the invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine is a producer of wheat, maize, barley, rye, potatoes and buckwheat and, together with Russia, it supplies nearly a quarter of global wheat, with Egypt being a key Uk ..read more

The $500m venture financing of Impossible Foods was the food industry’s top venture financing deal as total deals worth $884.2m were announced globally in November 2021, according to GlobalData’s deals database. Embed this chart Embed this chart into your website Copy and paste the image source into your website to display the chart. The value marked an increase of 126.1% over the previous month of $391.03m and a rise of 114.5% when compared with the last 12-month average, which stood at $412.15m. Comparing venture financing deals value in different regions of the globe, North America he ..read more

Total food industry M&A deals worth $2bn were announced globally in November 2021, led by Kozosushi’s $550m acquisition of Meat Crest, according to GlobalData’s deals database. Embed this chart Embed this chart into your website Copy and paste the image source into your website to display the chart. The value marked an increase of 122.8% over the previous month of $893.36m and a drop of 2.9% when compared with the last 12-month average, which stood at $2.05bn. Comparing M&A deals value in different regions of the globe, Asia-Pacific held the top position, with total announced dea ..read more

Concept: Israeli security startup Karamba Security (Karamba) has unveiled IoT and automotive security platform to secure connected vehicles and IoT devices. Its embedded security solution, the ‘XGuard platform,’ can automatically encapsulate an IoT device and prevent attempts made to disrupt its intended functionality. Karamba’s software protects connected devices throughout their lifecycles, from development through production, without any hardware or R&D change requirements. Nature of Disruption: XGuard suite provides self-protection against remote code execution and malware deployments ..read more

Concept: Spanish Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) spin-off Inrobics Social Robotics has rolled out a new robotic device to provide motor and cognitive rehabilitation services for use at health centers and homes. The device leverages AI to help people with functional and neurological limitations hence, improving their quality of life. Inrobics was created using research results from the University’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering. Nature of Disruption: The robotic device’s platform provides motor and cognitive rehabilitation services. The platform consists of fo ..read more