By Martin Davalos
Food technology offers opportunities to create healthier, more equitable food systems. Industry solutions can benefit food supply, businesses – and provide better experiences for consumers. Gene editing, targeted crop spraying and robot pizza services are among recent exciting developments.
Humans are a creative species and how we eat is no exception. From the light-bulb moment when the first cave-dweller discovered cooking that bison steak added a certain something, we’ve been innovating around food and – at a more basic level – trying to ensure we have enough.
Modern food technology though is still in its infancy. For the nascent industry, 2025 will be an exciting year, I believe. There will be opportunities for investors, producers, restaurant and hospitality sectors, consumers – and global populations.
Impact of technology
Food technology is not simply about food itself. Enabling technologies aim to improve all aspects of the industry, from production to distribution and consumption
The food technology industry took off around 2016, stimulated by consumer demand for healthier eating, a growing global population requiring sustainable food supplies, and climate change (around 30 per cent of greenhouse gases come from the food we eat1).
The above, added to massive strides in technology, will make 2025 an exciting time to innovate, invest – and eat.
Investors
The current market is very investor friendly. Compressed valuations make 2025 a good time to invest.
Furthermore, ‘natural selection’ in the industry has seen less viable products go to the wall whereas innovations with good potential have been resilient.
The industry has grown and learned a lot, making it very interesting to people like me. The global food market is worth over $9 trillion today2. Big food companies have traditionally under-invested in research and development (0.5 per cent of their revenues) compared to businesses in other sectors (for example, pharmaceutical companies typically spend 20 per cent). Recognising the food industry needs to pivot, they have started to spend more on innovation3.
One example is needing to find good alternatives to single-use plastics. Plastics are pervasive in the food sector, cheap and plentiful, but hard to dispose of and harm the environment.
The Trump Factor
The biggest ‘watch this space’ may be political. Regulatory changes in the US, the largest market, and Donald Trump’s nomination of pro-deregulation Robert Kennedy Jr as Health Secretary, make 2025 highly interesting.
Generally, these changes will be good for the industry. Red tape costs food tech companies hugely in money, process and time. This does not mean all regulations will – or should – go away.
Deregulation will, however, make it easier for companies (especially small in size but big on ideas start-ups) to bring solutions to market. Timely solutions can potentially solve, among other issues, sustainable food supply problems and impacts of food on climate change.
Food technology is travelling at very different velocities globally. Cultured meat, for example, approved in the US, is still awaiting EU approval. This may be a wake-up call to the EU and other regulatory bodies4 not to fall behind.
I also foresee more money being invested in improving Europe’s food technology sector in future in response to renewed US protectionism.
Food as Medicine
AI is a key technology increasingly deployed in the food tech industry. ‘Food as medicine’ is one such emerging area.
A company I know, for example, discovers new peptides and validates them using AI. Peptides, basic protein units, have various health benefits such as improving bone density and can be added to a number of foods.
Gene editing is another game-changer using AI that could also have potential for solving food problems in developing countries. Switching off parts of a genome (editing) can render a seed, say, more resistant to pests, increase yield or let crops grow in harsher climates.
Precision Crop Spraying
Precision crop spraying is a new food technology that could benefit farmers and the environment.
Normally, an orange farmer, say, would be forced to spray a whole field even if just a few trees were infested by pests. AI-enabled precision spraying allows farmers to target only the crops affected. Farmers reduce both their own costs and the use of pesticides.
Robot Delivery
Autonomous delivery is another exciting development. Don’t be surprised if a robot shows up bearing your weekly groceries in the near future. The food tech sector, as other sectors, is increasingly capitalising on AI’s immense possibilities here.
In some parts of Scandinavia, the UK and US, robots already deliver pizzas, wine and other foodstuffs5.
This may lead to concerns over human job losses. Though a valid concern, I believe it will complement rather than threaten humans’ roles in the food sector. I live in Madrid where the eating out culture has exploded in recent years.
One of the biggest problems for restaurants and food outlets is finding staff. Autonomous deliveries can potentially meet increased consumer demand and be an answer to personnel shortages.
As with other new technologies, there may be a small amount of push-back in certain areas of food tech – a misunderstanding of gene-editing, say. Gene editing though is a very different technology from the controversial GMO a few decades ago, and could make an immense contribution to increasing food supply.
Food is one of our most basic needs and greatest pleasures. Advances have created exciting opportunities for the food tech industry and for making food systems more equitable, sustainable and responsive.
For this reason, I see food tech is one of the most exciting industries in 2025.
Martin Davalos
