Food Matters Live Podcast

Only 4% of UK adults meet the recommended 30 grams of fibre per day. The average intake is 16 grams, which is barely half the target. And this isn't a new problem. It's been consistent for years, across every age group and demographic, with no sign of closing. What makes that statistic more troubling is what sits behind it: most people don't even know what the recommendation is. In this episode of the Food Matters Live podcast, recorded at our London Olympia event, a panel of specialists look at the fibre gap from every angle: policy, science, product development, supply chain and consumer behaviour. We hear from a nutrition researcher from the Danish Agriculture and Food Council, who explains how Denmark's Whole Grain Partnership drove consumption to 63 grams within four years. And we learn why fibre reformulation is technically more complex than it looks. If this has whet your appetite for next year’s Food Matters Live events - you can already register your interest to partner with us in London and Rotterdam. Just head to foodmatterslive.com

A chilli con carne for four people carries a carbon footprint of 6kg. The same meal, made with upcycled sunflower protein and plant-based seasoning, comes in at seventy grams. In this episode of the Food Matters Live podcast, recorded at our London Olympia event, Frank Lantz describes how he came to food innovation from Michelin-trained fine dining. His view is that the food industry is sitting at one of its biggest inflection points in a century, that the conversation about how we grow, cook and eat is overdue, and that chefs who understand flavour from the inside out are better placed than most to solve for it. He talks about the moment he decided to step out of restaurant kitchens and into food innovation, why organic is a proof of concept rather than a marketing badge, and why he believes the brands that make the most sustainable products, without asking the consumer to sacrifice anything, will be the ones that win. If this has whet your appetite for next year’s Food Matters Live events - you can already register your interest to partner with us in London and Rotterdam. Just head to foodmatterslive.com

Salted caramel spent roughly 50 years travelling from a Parisian chocolatier to a British supermarket staple. Nduja took a decade. Kimchi felt like an overnight success, but it wasn't. So when a flavour trend lands on a developer's radar, how do you know whether you're early, right on time, or already too late? The answer, our expert panel suggests, is rarely found in data alone. It lives in the gap between what a trend tracker can tell you and what a developer's gut tells them. And knowing how to triangulate the two is one of the most underrated skills in food innovation. In this episode of the Food Matters Live podcast, recorded at our London Olympia event, we explore how both a major retailer and a multi-brand manufacturer approach the now, next and future framework for flavour trend tracking. Our panel debates the cuisines that have genuinely crossed over and the ones that are still waiting. And they dig into the tension between authenticity and accessibility, the power of the silent ingredient, and why calling something a tortilla instead of a Spanish omelette can be the difference between a product that flies and one that sits. If this has whet your appetite for next year’s Food Matters Live events - you can already register your interest to partner with us in London and Rotterdam. Just head to foodmatterslive.com

Global demand for protein has been rising for sixty years and shows no sign of stopping. But the way we're producing it is running into hard limits, environmental, ethical and economic, at exactly the moment that consumers have decided protein is the most important thing on the label. So where does that leave manufacturers, retailers and innovators trying to navigate a market that wants more protein, cheaper, more sustainably, and still delicious? In this episode of the Food Matters Live podcast, recorded at our London Olympia event, three experts try to answer that question. They discuss overgrazing, marine over-exploitation, and the opportunity in novel proteins. They also talk about how constraints on animal protein are opening a window for plant-based innovation that the industry hasn't had before. And they discuss the future of soy protein, all with one thing front of mind - the products produced need to be attractive to consumers. If this has whet your appetite for next year’s Food Matters Live events - you can already register your interest to partner with us in London and Rotterdam. Just head to foodmatterslive.com

What's the next Dubai chocolate? And more importantly, how do you know whether to back it before it's mainstream, or whether it will ever get there at all? The speed at which flavour trends now travel has fundamentally changed the job of everyone in NPD. What used to take decades can now arrive, peak and fade within a single season. Social media accelerates trends and creates consumer expectations about flavour before a product even hits the shelf. In this episode of the Food Matters Live podcast, recorded at our London Olympia event, five flavour and innovation specialists debate what all of this means in practice. They unpack why flavour is still king, and why the days of designing something that appeals to everybody are effectively over. And they wrestle with the most loaded question in innovation: is the era of the perennial core flavour over, or will the industry always find new ones? If this has whet your appetite for next year’s Food Matters Live events - you can already register your interest to partner with us in London and Rotterdam. Just head to foodmatterslive.com

How is AI influencing innovation in the food industry? In this episode of the Food Matters Live podcast, recorded live at our event at Olympia in London, we try to map out the full picture. Our guest speaker is Alberto Prado, former Global Head of R&D Digital & Partnerships at Unilever. Alberto believes the food industry is facing the most volatile, fast-moving, expensive and demanding environment it has ever operated in. But, he argues, the tools it's using to respond are largely unchanged since the 1980s. He maps out the full picture - what AI is already doing inside large FMCG organisations, the five barriers he believes are getting in the way, and why he argues companies that treat AI as infrastructure rather than a feature, will be shaping this industry for the next decade. His argument is that most food businesses are using AI to write better emails and build slightly faster dashboards, while mistaking that for transformation. If this has whet your appetite for next year’s Food Matters Live events - you can already register your interest to partner with us in London and Rotterdam. Just head to foodmatterslive.com

When a female consumer walks into a shop asking for help with their hormones, their sleep or their fertility, how confident can they be that what they're sold is actually backed by evidence? It's a question a growing wave of informed, sceptical consumers is now asking louder than ever. In this episode of the Food Matters Live podcast, recorded at our London event in 2026, we have a frank conversation about women’s health and what evidence-based retail actually looks like from the inside. We hear the case made for personalised nutrition - not as a premium niche, but as a genuine public health opportunity - and learn about one of the most quietly significant shifts in women's supplement science: the move from folic acid to methylated folate in prenatal products. If this has whet your appetite for next year’s Food Matters Live events - you can already register your interest to partner with us in London and Rotterdam. Just head to foodmatterslive.com

In this episode, we enter the Flavour and Colour Lab at Food Matters Live London 2026. Five conversations with the companies shaping what food tastes, looks and feels like. From raw material shortages and botanical extracts, to a Dragon's Den success story built on TikTok trends and a bath bomb-shaped meal base that's found its way into Ocado. We find out how the raw material pressures reshaping the flavour industry right now are leading to new product developments. We get the full story behind the bath bomb-shaped meal base that started on TikTok, appeared on Dragon's Den, and just launched in a major supermarket. And how a baking powder that's been around for 175 years, is re-inventing itself. If this has whet your appetite for next year’s Food Matters Live events - you can already register your interest to partner with us in London and Rotterdam. Just head to foodmatterslive.com We would like to clarify that, due to an internal communication error regarding session timings, Tina Faghihi-Hallam from Flavour Bombs was unable to join the live panel discussion at Food Matters Live as scheduled. Tina was present at the event and ready to participate, and her absence from the stage was not due to any fault on her part.

Recorded live on stage at Food Matters Live, at London's Olympia London, this is the session that opened the whole event, and it set the tone perfectly. Food historian Annie Gray and Rob Lowery, VP of Marketing at PepsiCo UK, Ireland and Europe, sit down for a wide-ranging fireside conversation on where consumer food culture has come from, where it's heading, and how to tell the difference between a genuine trend and a flash in the pan. They cover how the health concerns driving food choices today, from protein to gut health, are less new than we think, and what that tells us about what's likely to stick Why personalised nutrition is still accelerating, and what GLP-1 medications are doing to consumer habits and food industry priorities And how fragmented eating patterns, demographic shifts, and the rise of remote working are reshaping the occasions food is designed around Find out about upcoming events at foodmatterslive.com .

In this episode of the Food Matters Live podcast, we explore the NPD Discovery Zone at Food Matters Live in London's Olympia. It's the section of the show floor where the next generation of food ingredients and technology is being shown for the first time. Through four conversations with four companies, we try to answer one question: where will the food of the future actually come from? We learn about turning CO₂ directly into food ingredients, recovering high-protein, high-fibre ingredients from the side-stream of the brewing industry, an automated harvester that recovers broccoli stems left in the field after harvest, and we meet the people behind a food lifecycle management software that brings NPD, finance, and technical teams onto one platform from concept to launch. Food Matters Live brings together the food and drink industry's brightest minds across innovation, sustainability, health, and technology. Find out more and register for upcoming events on our website.

Recorded live on the floor of Food Matters Live at Olympia, London, this episode is a snapshot of the conversations happening right now across the food industry. We catch up with speakers fresh from the stage or on their stand at the event: a food historian making the case for forgotten ingredients, a Michelin-starred chef turning industrial waste into meal kits, a consumer researcher on why flavour will always win, and two researchers pushing back on the way we talk about ultra-processed food. We hear from food historian Annie Grey on what sourdough bread actually tells us about class, why 'authenticity' is a dirty word in food marketing, and the forgotten British ingredients that deserve a comeback Frank Lantz, Michelin-starred chef and founder of Uhhmami on the waste he witnessed in professional kitchens, and why upcycled sunflower protein might be one of the most practical sustainability solutions on the market right now And researchers Chris Bryant and Jules Griffin debate UPF. Food Matters Live brings together the food and drink industry's brightest minds across innovation, sustainability, health, and technology. Find out more and register for upcoming events on our website.

in this episode, we’re bringing together four of the most compelling talks from our archive, each focused on a different aspect of the same issue - sustainability in food production. We hear about a breathing cultivation system that captures carbon dioxide from any industrial source and converts it directly into microalgae-based food ingredients. We get into the science of upcycling food, that’s ingredients that would otherwise leave the food system entirely, given a second life in something people actually buy and eat. And we get into the detail of the food industry's net zero targets, what they are and how to get there. it’s clear there’s still work to do across the whole food chain. None of this is solved. But all of it is moving, and faster than the headlines often suggest.

This episode brings together four conversations on the topic of GLP-1 the science, the market data, the human impact, and the long-term strategic picture. We hear from scientists, market strategists, clinicians and food innovators on what GLP-1 actually means for the food industry, and what it means for the people eating differently because of it. Some market data suggests households on GLP-1 medications are spending 6% less on food overall. The consumer segment using these drugs in the UK is already roughly the same size as the vegan and vegetarian market. How the food industry responds to this disruptive influence remains an open question, although serious moves are already being made.

When did healthy become synonymous with sacrifice? And is that finally starting to change? Consumer expectations have shifted dramatically. Protein-enriched yoghurts, fibre-packed snacks and gut health dairy products are no longer niche, they're mainstream. But the challenge of giving consumers what they want is no small one. In this episode of the Food Matters Live podcast, made in partnership with AGRANA Fruit , we unpack both the trends and the technical realities behind functional nutrition in dairy, ice cream and beverages. We explore the concept of permissible indulgence, the technical challenge of creating fruit concentrates that maintain their flavour in the final product, and why clean label isn't just about removing E-numbers. AGRANA Fruit will be at Food Matters Live in London on 3rd and 4th June. Visit foodmatterslive.com to register . AGRANA Fruit AGRANA Fruit offers a wide range of creative and innovative solutions for the food and beverage industry. The fruit solutions deliver high quality fruit, which is expertly prepared to be used in the dairy, ice cream, bakery, food service and beverage industries. Our product range includes fruit preparations, brown flavor preparations, preparations with inclusions, cereals, grains & seeds, savory preparations, sauces & toppings, syrups & smoothie bases, and frozen fruits. We have a truly global presence with 26 production sites on all continents. AGRANA Fruit’s product development work incorporates the latest global nutritional and health trends. AGRANA Fruit is part of the AGRANA Group - an internationally oriented Austrian company which converts agricultural raw materials into high-quality foods and numerous industrial intermediate products.

For every manufacturer trying to reduce saturated fat, cut sugar or lower their carbon footprint, there's a version of the same conversation: yes, but will it still taste right? That question is where most reformulation projects live or die. The pressure on food manufacturers has never been more multidirectional. HFSS compliance, sustainability targets, cost of living, supply chain volatility, fluctuating cocoa prices - and through all of it, the non-negotiable that overrides everything else: if it doesn't taste good, no one will buy it twice. The question is how to take things out without taking away what consumers love? In this episode of the Food Matters Live podcast, made in partnership with AAK , we explore what "less is more" actually looks like in practice. And we learn about some extraordinary solutions. From a butter replacer with a carbon footprint one eighth that of butter, to products designed specifically to reduce unplanned downtime on confectionery lines. AAK will be at Food Matters Live in London on June 3rd and 4th June. AAK AAK are experts in plant-based oils and fats, the value-adding ingredients in many products people love to consume. They make these products better tasting, healthier, and more sustainable. At the heart of AAK’s offer is Customer Co-Development, combining their desire to understand what Making Better Happen™ means for each customer, with the unique flexibility of their production assets, and deep knowledge of products and industries, including Chocolate & Confectionery, Bakery, Dairy, Plant-based Foods, Special Nutrition, Foodservice, and Personal Care. Meet AAK at Food Matters Live in Ascot and Dublin where they will be showcasing their innovative ingredient solutions in their technical tasting and insight session.

Protein has been one of the dominant stories in food and drink for years, but the conversation has moved on. It's no longer just about adding protein, now it's about being deliberate: where it comes from, how it functions, and what it actually delivers. Plant protein sits right at the heart of that shift, and that’s the focus of this episode of the Food Matters Live podcast, made in partnership with Bunge . But not all plant proteins are created equal. Choosing the right one for your formulation requires a much more targeted approach than it once did. So which proteins deserve the food industry's attention right now, and why? Bunge At Bunge (NYSE: BG), our purpose is to connect farmers to consumers to deliver essential food, feed and fuel to the world. As a premier agribusiness solutions provider, our team of 37,000 dedicated employees partner with farmers across the globe to move agricultural commodities from where they’re grown to where they’re needed - in faster, smarter, and more efficient ways. We are a world leader in grain origination, storage, distribution, oilseed processing and refining, offering a broad portfolio of plant-based oils, fats, and proteins.

Consumers are changing. What they want from their food and why is shifting fast. For manufacturers, keeping up means understanding not just the trends but the forces driving them. For food manufacturers, the pressures stacking up right now can feel contradictory. Consumers want food that's healthier, but they won't compromise on taste. They also want products to be more affordable, but their expectations for quality and provenance are rising. And all of this with a backdrop of disruptive influences such as GLP-1 drugs and geo-political tensions. In this episode of the Food Matters Live podcast, made in partnership with BENEO and Meatless, we explore how intelligent ingredient choices can help manufacturers navigate all of it at once. BENEO and Meatless will be at Food Matters Live in London on 3rd and 4th June. Visit foodmatterslive.com to register. BENEO BENEO is your global partner in catering to the latest trends and developments in the food and feed industry. They aim to contribute to better nutrition and health. And with local branches all over the world, you always have a competent expert to talk to. Consumers actively choose foods that contribute to their well-being. Even more, products that match their individual lifestyles are on trend. As the demand for convenient and easy to prepare food continues, the expectations on nutrition also continue to grow. To name just a few, these include the reduction of sugar and fat without compromising on taste and texture, increased dietary fibre intake, plus a need for healthier weight and energy management. Meet Beneo in Ascot to discover their ingredient solutions in their technical tasting and insight sessions. Meatless Meatless produces 100% plant-based textured products which are used by the vegetarian and vegan industry as an ingredient in excellent vegetarian and vegan food such as sausages, burgers and many others. We provide a range of textured products based on natural plant-based whole foods like rice, pea, quinoa, wheat, and fava bean. Our white rice fibres are superior for applications like analog white fish or analog processed chicken. Our products are also used as a substitute for fat or meat in processed meat products to improve health and sustainability performances. Meatless is low processed and made of pure natural wholefood raw materials and contains no artificial binders, preservatives, colouring agents, or flavour enhancers. We provide viable high-quality solutions for the food industry.

How does a trending flavour make it from a TikTok video to a supermarket shelf? And how do you tell the difference between a trend worth backing and one that will be gone in six weeks? The food industry has never had more data to work with, and never found it harder to know which signals actually matter. In this episode of the Food Matters Live podcast, recorded at our Ascot event, our panel of trends experts debate how to read the signals and act on them. They explore third culture cuisine, what really happened to the plant-based meat boom, and how animal protein is quietly reinventing itself through better welfare standards, artisanal cuts and the culinary rediscovery of dark meat.

GLP-1 drugs have been dominating health headlines for some time. But the bigger story may be what we still don't know. What if you want to leverage on your own GLP-1 production? What are your options and should you do it? GLP-1 is a hormone the body already produces, and that biological reality opens up a significant opportunity for the food and supplement industry to play a meaningful role in in glucose management, its “rollercoaster” and its implications for (even) healthy consumers, long before and long after a prescription is involved. In this episode of the Food Matters Live podcast, made in partnership with Rousselot, we explore the science of glucose management, who it matters to, why it matters now, and where the real innovation opportunities lie. Rousselot Rousselot is the global leader in collagen peptides solutions, supported by over 20 years of scientific research. By translating advanced collagen science into innovative health and nutrition solutions, Rousselot combines cutting-edge operations and expertise to help customers create world-class products.

No parent wants their child to miss out, and from day one that often means paying close attention to what goes on their plate - sometimes with more anxiety than confidence. So what's actually keeping parents up at night? What shapes their choices, what ends up in the shopping basket, and what would they do differently given the chance? In this episode of the Food Matters Live podcast, made in partnership with FrieslandCampina Ingredients (FCI), we go looking for answers. FCI has carried out a study, covering eleven countries with vastly different cultures, approaches to food, and ideas about what healthy eating actually looks like. We unpack their findings and explore what they signal for food manufacturers trying to reach this audience in a meaningful way. FrieslandCampina Ingredients FrieslandCampina Ingredients is a global leader in proteins and prebiotics, addressing the growing need for innovative nutritional solutions to the world’s health and well-being challenges. Its drive is to get the right ingredients to you so you can create highly nutritious, sustainable applications for consumers with special dietary needs and preferences. So they can get the most out of life, always. Parent company, FrieslandCampina, daily provides millions of consumers throughout the world with dairy products containing valuable nutrients from milk.