Cell-cultured coffee: Food tech firm eyes Asia for large-scale launch to combat supply chain woes
Cell-cultured coffee could address pricing, quality, and other supply chain inefficiencies in Asia, said Singapore foodtech firm Another Food.
The firm has been leveraging plant cell culture to optimise coffee production, significantly shortening the harvest cycle.
It aims to produce a harvest every 14 days – roughly 20 times faster than traditional farming.
“A small coffee farm typically produces around 800 kilograms of coffee per year. Using our technology, we could scale up to 15 to 20 tonnes annually,” said CEO Stéphane Chen.
Five major trends set to shape APAC food and beverage industry growth in 2025
This story from back in January took a closer look at five of the top trends that looked set to have a major impact on the growth of the Asia Pacific food and beverage industry in 2025.
These ranged from affordability and accessibility which took centre stage, as well as alternative protein rejigs, better-for-you’s continued growth across various sectors and more.
‘Alt product, not alt protein’: Meatable eyes global stage beyond Betagro investment
Cultivated meat firm Meatable has partnered with conventional protein producers, including investment from Thai giant Betagro, in order to enter the international stage.
The Dutch firm highlighted a markedly different growth strategy compared to many cultivated meat firms in the market, shying away from building its own infrastructure or plants and instead looking to integrate itself into the existing supply chains of traditional meat companies.
“We have to understand that these companies are already comfortable with meat, and what they need to accept cultivated meat is the assurance that we are not out to change what they are doing but instead offering a different source of meat for them whilst still letting them maintain control over the process,” Meatable CEO Jeff Tripician told us.
MILO at 75: Exclusive behind-the-scenes look at iconic Nestlé brand
This year, FoodNavigator-Asia took a deep dive into how Nestlé’s MILO is made with rare behind-the-scenes access and exclusive insights
MILO is arguably Nestle’s most well-known and successful brand in Asia, with the iconic chocolate malt drink considered to be a breakfast staple in many markets across the region.
For the first time in MILO’s 75-year history in Singapore, Nestlé opened its doors for industry players to get a closer look at the region’s most-beloved malt drink this year.
“MILO has always been focused on taking simple agricultural ingredients and applying the science and magic to transform it into variations of the nutritious drink everyone knows and loves,” head of Nestlé R&D Singapore Guglielmo Bonora said.
Philippines faces rice price instability amid global unrest
Philippines’ move to halt rice price cuts and tariff hikes amid global unrest fuelled uncertainty and rising costs in the country, causing a great deal of debate this year.
Rice is the major food commodity in most Asian countries, including the Philippines which is also one of the world’s major importers.
Over the past year, local supply dipped due to the effects of El Nino as well as a rice export ban by major supplier India to manage its own rice supply needs.
Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. announced a major drop in rice import duties from the regular 35% to 15% last year in order to attract more rice imports, but aftr the potential supply crisis has passed, calls emerged to have tariffs increased again.
“Unchecked rice imports are harming local farmers,” Nueva Ecija Representative Rossana Vergara told the Philippines Congress.
Theabrownin: 3 must-knows about new ‘Nobel Prize-worthy’ ingredient
Theabrownin has been touted by Chinese food scientists as a ‘direct route to the Nobel Prize’.
Theabrownin is a bioactive compound found in pu-erh tea, a traditional beverage with a specific brown tinge that has long been consumed in the Chinese market.
In recent years, mounting research into pu-erh tea and its theabrownin has revealed a treasure trove of functional beverage innovation opportunities.
BLACKPINK Jisoo-recommended tomato chips expands flavours, packaging
Fashion Food tomato chips, made viral by BLACKPINK’s Jisoo in 2023, launched bold new flavours and packaging this year to grow their social media snack success.
The Thai-based snacking firm struck gold when popular K-pop star Jisoo, of girl group BLACKPINK fame, posted an Instagram story with the tomato chips that almost instantly went viral.
“We were grateful to Jisoo for liking our tomato chips – we still don’t really know how it happened that it went so viral [as there wasn’t a formal collaboration], but are very pleased with the outcome,” Fashion Food international sales manager Pisit Tiaworapakin told us.
Functional beer: The next wave in craft brewing innovation
From low-carb to probiotics, craft beers are going all out to create novel, functional options and attract a whole new set of conscious consumers
Beer is not usually equated with healthier beverages or functional innovation, but with the health and wellness trend firmly afoot among consumers, many brewers are moving to develop options in line with this trend.
Craft brewers in particular have embraced this trend of functional beers, with many usually starting off by removing ‘unhealthy’ components such as carbohydrates or alcohol.
“It is much easier for craft breweries to work on developing functional beers as we can access the necessary ingredients and make tweaks to the recipes much more quickly than mainstream breweries,” Thailand-based Full Moon Breweries Founding Partner and Head Brewer Sukij Thipatima told us.
Zepto food scandal exposes India quick commerce risks
Zepto’s Mumbai hub exposed major hygiene lapses in a major scandal this year, revealing weak food safety enforcement and cold chain gaps in India’s booming quick commerce sector.
The race for speed and convenience has been at the core of food safety concerns in India’s quick commerce sector, with experts calling for stricter enforcement and greater supplier accountability.
This was highlighted after the Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration (FDA) inspected Zepto’s Mumbai facility on 31 May this year, uncovering fungal growth in foods and products stored on wet filthy floors.
The findings cast a spotlight on the food safety risks that may be overlooked in the pursuit of ultra-fast delivery by quick commerce platforms, which have rapidly transformed India’s retail landscape.
Food safety vs sustainability: Will industry have to choose?
The final outcome of age-old tensions between food safety and sustainability will shape the future of the food industry.
One of the most-debated food industry topics in recent years has been around the use of plastic: On the one hand, sustainability-conscious consumers are concerned about the environmental impacts of these, but on the other the food industry has yet to find an alternative that is cheap and safe enough to replace it.
So although the concepts of food safety and sustainability are not diametrically opposed to one another, the current state of technology means that prioritising one is likely to come at the expense of the other – a dilemma that seems to have no solution yet.
“The area of plastic use is a prime example of these contrasting priorities,” Australian Institute of Food Science and Technology (AIFST) scientific advisor Deon Mahoney told us.
