This post is by Dr Qian Yang, Assistant Professor in Sensory and Consumer Science and Hannah Ford, PhD student in Sensory and Consumer Science. Consumers are influential in determining the success of new products and future food trends. As the market for sustainable food continues to expand, there is a need to understand how consumers’ consumption habits and perceptions are changing. Are consumers consciously moving away from animal derived products? How will protein alternatives support dietary transitions? Young adults’ food choices are of particular interest, as they arguably shape the fut ..read more

This post is by Professor Paul Dyer, Professor of Fungal Biology at the University of Nottingham. Our food system feeds 8 billion people each day, but this comes at ever increasing environmental costs in terms of land, water, greenhouse gas emissions, and biodiversity loss. With the rising global population and soaring demand for protein, there is a clear need for complementary sources of proteins other than meat. Various alternative (‘alt.’) sources have been suggested such as plant-based foodstuffs, so-called ‘single-cell’ proteins from microorganisms grown in fermenters, cultivated meat gr ..read more

This post is by Professor Ian Fisk, Professor of Flavour Science at the University of Nottingham. When we are asked to think of the flavour of meat, we might come up with its characteristic aroma during cooking. However, the overall flavour that we perceive is very complex and is a mix of multiple sensory attributes; its aroma (e.g. roasted smell), its taste (e.g. savoury) in addition to its texture (juiciness, chewiness) and a range of other external factors. These ultimately interact to produce the flavour of meat that many of us learn to enjoy. But to keep enjoying meat as a protein source ..read more

This blog is by Professor Festo Massawe the University of Nottingham Malaysia. The global plant-based proteins market is estimated to reach $162 billion by 2030 (Bloomberg Intelligence, 2021). North America and Europe are the largest markets, with the Asia-Pacific region set to be the fastest growing plant-based protein market in the coming years. The current data on plant-based proteins market largely represent trends in developed countries and not developing countries across the globe, which are at different stages of the nutrition transition. In developed countries, consumers are opting to ..read more

This post is by Jack Bobo, the Nottingham International Centre for Alternative Proteins lead and Director, Food Systems Institute. As our global population continues to grow, so does the demand for food. Agriculture is facing unprecedented challenges, from climate change and resource scarcity to land degradation and biodiversity loss. To meet these challenges, we must explore innovative solutions, and alternative proteins are emerging as a promising avenue to transform our food systems. The Global Agriculture Challenge Land Use and Biodiversity: Expanding agriculture has led to deforestation ..read more

Prof Andy Salter, Future Food Beacon Director 2022-2023 In 2017 the University of Nottingham launched its six ‘Beacons of Excellence’, including the Future Food Beacon. This represented a very different approach by the University to research funding, which directed its own money toward areas in which we already had considerable expertise, and that could be expanded to become globally recognised as a world–leading. Nottingham already had over a century of experience of food-related research which, of course, included the Sutton Bonington Campus, with facilities in crop and livestock productio ..read more

In 2017, the University of Nottingham launched the Future Food Beacon to help address the challenge of sustainably and nutritiously feeding a growing world population. After six years laying the research foundation and building partnerships and a research pipeline, the University is launching the University of Nottingham Food Systems Institute to take an interdisciplinary approach to these challenges and to expand the scope, scale and, most importantly, impact of the research. The establishment of this new Institute comes at a critical moment. The UK’s National Food Strategy notes, “The food ..read more

I recently read a remarkable book called Victorians and Numbers (Goldman, 2022). This tells the story of how a diverse set of academics, campaigners and politicians in Victorian Britain were enthused by the idea of collecting, analysing and visualising data to identify social problems and injustices and to support policies to address them.  Parallel movements in the rest of Europe, led by important figures such as Quetelet from France, were developing similar ideas, and this culminated in a meeting of the International Statistical Congress in London in 1860.  This international ..read more

I’d like to share a story of how my love for Agricultural Sciences developed. I was about 12 years old when I accompanied my parents to our family farm to harvest maize. As we were harvesting, I noticed a number of cobs that were affected by maize Smuts. I did not know the name maize Smuts then, but I observed that it resulted in crop losses. My immediate thought was to understand how this came about, and to find a solution to stop it. After high school, I enrolled for a Bachelor’s degree in Agronomy, and later a Master’s degree in Plant Breeding. After completing my Master’s degree, I joined ..read more

This post is written by Andrew Salter. The Future Food Beacon was launched in 2017 with the aim of ‘working across the food system to explore ways to future proof food security’, with an ambitious strap line of ‘ A world with nutritious food for all’.  This was at a time of increasing recognition that at local, national and global levels, food systems were unsustainable and impacting on both human and planetary health.  At a national level, there was a clear recognition that our current food system was obesogenic and making a major contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. &nbs ..read more