The way we think about food is changing, and so is the way we eat. Whether it’s down to environmental, dietary or ethical concerns, many of today’s food innovations are geared towards finding alternatives to meat and dairy. There are also tech teams working to create more sustainable, future-proof food products. From lab-grown ‘meat’ and chicken-less nuggets to the latest plant milks, these are the amazing food innovations making their way to our tables.

It looks like a salmon burger and tastes like a salmon burger, but this juicy patty is actually made from kōji, a fungus prized for its umami flavour and used as a fermenting agent for soy sauce, miso and sake. The creators won a 2017 competition at UC Berkeley Alt: Meat Lab in California and launched the burgers, along with other alternative faux fish and seafood including tuna and lobster, via their company Prime Roots in 2020.

Toast Ale has come up with a clever way to use up leftover bread and make some lovely beer in the process. The British company sources surplus bread, including scraps and crusts leftover from packaged sandwiches and artisan loaves unsold by bakeries, to create its ales. The bread is toasted into large croutons ready for the brewing process, while profits are poured into food waste organisation Feedback. Toast even teamed up with bread giants Warburtons to make a special brew made with surplus crumpets.

Alcohol-free beer has stepped up a few gears and is starting to actually taste like the real stuff. British brewery Brewdog’s range, including Nanny State and Punk AF, is brewed with the same care as its other ales, slashing alcohol content by reducing the amount of gluten in the finished product. US company Athletic Brewing was the first dedicated exclusively to producing alcohol-free craft beers, developing a more nuanced approach to reducing the ABV at various stages of the fermenting process.

New York-based company Farther Farms has developed a technology that could revolutionise the way food is stored and distributed. Harnessing carbon dioxide, they’ve found a way to naturally pasteurise food without the need for freezing, refrigeration or artificial preservatives, extending the shelf life of fresh produce and reducing energy used in processing and distribution by around 70%. They’ve so far used it to create food products including the ‘never-frozen’ French fry, which has a 60-day shelf life.

Burgers may have been the first priority in the burgeoning fake meat market, but the focus is now shifting to other meats including pork. Impossible Pork and Impossible Sausage – the first new products since the company’s revolutionary Impossible Burger launched in 2016 – were introduced in 2020. The plant-based pork is designed to be used in any recipe calling for the ground meat, with less fat and calories, and no cholesterol.

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Vegan alternatives to egg are becoming hugely popular, with California company JUST Egg one of the biggest in the market. Its main ingredient is mung bean, which provides protein and gives it a convincingly eggy texture, while onion, carrots and turmeric are used to add flavour and a golden yellow colour. The absence of cholesterol and the fact it’s more sustainable than hen eggs have contributed to its success. It’s sold in bottles and as omelette-like folds.

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Some people love everything about garlic. Some hate everything about garlic. Many more love the taste and the way it adds depth of taste to many dishes – but can’t stand its tendency to linger on the breath. Garlidoux is firmly aimed towards those in the latter category. The Lebanon-based company uses hand-picked garlic and fermenting techniques to produce an odourless product. It’s currently available as a paste that can be used in any recipes calling for garlic, with other forms in the works.

The race is on to create convincingly crispy on the outside, tender on the outside, plant-based ‘chicken’ nuggets, with several companies launching and/or working to perfect their ready-to-dip offerings. One of those is the brilliantly named Nuggs, which launched in 2019 and has attracted huge investment from McCain Foods. Rebellyous Foods has its plant-based nuggets in various food outlets in Seattle and Washington, while Kellogg’s MorningStar Farms has launched Chik’n Nuggets as part of its Incogmeato range.

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Hard seltzers like White Claw and Truly have been pretty popular in the US for some time and are starting to trickle into other markets too, with brands like Budweiser and Smirnoff getting in on the act. They’re effectively alcoholic, flavoured waters that tend to be lighter, more refreshing and lower in calories than many other booze options. Hard seltzer is actually made in the same way as beer but using sugarcane as a base instead of grain, so it’s gluten-free too.

There are few things more comforting on a chilly day than wrapping your hands around a steaming mug of hot… mushroom. Mushrooms are set to be one of the biggest ingredients of the next few years when it comes to creating plant-based alternative meats and, it seems, hot ‘chocolate’. Laird Superfood is leading the charge with its recent launch of hot chocolate with nutrient-rich "functional mushrooms". The powdered fungi extract doesn’t impart flavour but boosts the health benefits of the drink, which also contains cacao powder, cinnamon and powdered coconut milk.

Icelandic yogurt brand Siggi’s – known for its traditional skyr – has created a new vegan range. Rather than one dairy alternative like almond or oat, the yogurts use a blend of coconut, macadamia nut and pea protein to make a satisfyingly creamy base for delicious flavours like vanilla and cinnamon, berries and mango. It’s also higher in protein and lower in sugar than most dairy yogurts.

This one is still TBC and will be very much dependent on country and state-wide laws, but ice cream giant Ben & Jerry’s has been poised to bring a CBD-infused tub to the market since spring 2019. The company has said it's ready to launch once America’s regulatory body, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), allows it. The ice cream would be infused with CBD (cannabidiol, extracted from the hemp plant) sourced from Vermont, the company’s home state.

Hormel Foods, the company behind Spam, worked with nutritionists, dieticians and specialists to develop its Vital Cuisine range to help cancer patients by providing foods with the nutrients they need most. The ready meals, protein powders and nutrition shakes aim to help with issues of weight loss, lethargy and muscle weakness, targeted towards those going through cancer treatment or recovery, as well as people suffering dysphagia or malnutrition.

So-called ‘functional’ foods that come with added health benefits in the form of probiotics or extra vitamins are set to be huge. Apart from Hormel’s range for cancer sufferers, several other companies have launched wellness-boosting foods or are working on creating new ranges, many of them marketed towards older customers. French company Cerelab, for example, has created a brioche enriched with protein and energy to help improve the health of nursing home residents.

Could a sticker help slash food waste? Perhaps, if it’s this specific sticker. US start-up StixFresh has produced stickers that can extend the freshness of many fruits and vegetables by up to a fortnight – just by being slapped on the surface. The coating, with beeswax and other natural ingredients, creates a protective layer around the fruit. The product has been awarded a GRAS (‘generally considered as safe’) rating by the FDA.

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Basics are being given a boost with new ingredients and versions that cater for different dietary needs. Low-carb pasta, for example. Palmini is made using 100% hearts of palm, a vegetable harvested from the inner cores of palm trees, creating a convincing gluten-free substitute for regular pasta in taste and texture. Other pasta revelations include Lizza, a linseed-based pasta with 85% less carbohydrates than the standard stuff.

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Another company advancing the alternative-protein market is Paris-based Algama, which is working on transforming micro-algae into a food source that’s more sustainable than meat and dairy, and tastes delicious. The food tech specialists have already launched a spirulina-based drink called SPRINGWAVE and works with brands – including The Good Spoon which makes mayonnaise substitutes – to help them develop vegan versions of their products.

As the popularity of plant-based dairy alternatives continues to grow, so too does the search for the next coconut/oat/almond milk. Food technology firm Swebol Biotech, a collaboration between university teams based in Sweden and Bolivia, has developed the first quinoa milk, Quiny. It uses quinoa grown by farmers near La Paz in Bolivia and is sold as both a liquid milk substitute and as a powder that can be exported more easily and has a longer shelf life. The company has also launched a sugar-free chocolate milk.

Chickpea milk – not to be confused with pea milk made with yellow split peas – has also entered the dairy-free battle to be the next oat milk. Israeli start-up ChickP is among those to latch on to the potential of these little yellow legumes and has developed a patented chickpea protein with a neutral taste that can be used in milk and other dairy products like yogurt. Its non-offensive flavour, smooth texture and high-protein content could see this become the next big (non-dairy) thing.

California start-up Perfect Day claims to have invented the first real dairy proteins made without animals, using microflora and a fermentation process to replicate milk fats. The so-called synthetic dairy market – a side leap from plant-based milks – goes further to recreate the proteins and texture of conventional cows' milk. The company has received significant funding for and interest in its cheese, yogurt, ice cream and milk, so they could soon become a familiar sight in grocery stores.

From intensely flavoured fruit strips to mushrooms and jackfruit dried at peak freshness to preserve taste and nutrients, the latest innovations in jerky are plant-based. Some are also designed to mimic the taste and texture of traditional meat jerky. North Carolina–based Improved Nature teamed up with Perky Jerky to launch a vegan version of their meat snacks, while Krave – a subsidiary of Hershey’s Amplify Snack Brands – is launching vegan Smoked Chipotle and Korean BBQ jerkies.

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The Impossible Burger – a plant-based patty that browns and ‘bleeds’ in the centre just like ground beef – has been one of the biggest food stories of the past few years, and the fake meat market is set to become more advanced and nuanced. The burger’s creator, Impossible Foods, continues to dominate with the launch of Burger King’s Impossible Whopper and its roll-out in grocery stores. Rival company Beyond Meat is set to launch an improved version of its Beyond Burger, with an enhanced meaty flavour, in early 2021.

Vegan bacon – or ‘facon’ – has come a long way since the crumbly, rather cardboard-like sprinkles of the past. Experimentation with new ingredients and techniques has led to a new generation of crisp, salty and deliciously savoury rashers that work beautifully in BLTs or just as a companion to eggs (or egg alternatives). Prime Roots, the US company that launched a range of fish and seafood alternatives made with the fungus kōji, has used the same techniques to create a fake bacon that crisps up with a rich umami flavour.

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Air Protein launched in late 2019 based around the idea of creating meat “from the air we breathe”. The company is working on creating sustainable chicken, seafood, beef and other products by utilising air-based protein. The technique uses fermentation vessels that can convert gases to a protein-rich powder a little like flour. This isn’t actually a completely new idea. It was researched by NASA scientists in the 1960s as a way to make food for astronauts, though it was shelved without ever being developed.

One of the biggest areas of innovation in the fast food industry is the development of plant-based options. And no launch has been more anticipated than the McDonald's vegan burger. The McPlant has been three years in the making and after trials in Canada in 2020, it's being released in select UK restaurants from the end of September 2021, with a view to a nationwide rollout in 2022. The burger features a plant-based patty co-developed with Beyond Meat, vegan cheese made with pea protein and vegan sauce, as well as fresh onion, pickles, lettuce and tomato.

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