If you joined us at the incredible third annual Food’s Future Summit, you’ll have caught a glimpse into some of the groundbreaking innovations and inventions that aim to shape our food’s future. We covered a lot of ground over two days, diving into weighty topics surrounding dining trends, technological advancements, industry predictions and much more.
Since its inception in 2017, the Summit has become a preferred platform for launches and announcements of new projects and products. This year was no exception, with many products debuting for the first time in Asia and, in some cases, the world.
Here are some of the incredibly exciting, industry-disrupting launches and announcements that took place at the Food’s Future Summit 2019:
1. Avant Meats
Chef Tom Burney with his Avant Meats fish maw ball
Avant Meats is a Hong Kong–based company that has done something truly mind-blowing – they’ve created the world’s first cell-cultured fish maw. Fish maw (dried swim bladder) is a prized ingredient in Chinese soups and is often expensive and increasingly hard to find owing to the endangerment of the two fish species most often used for the bladders. At the Summit, Avant Meats founder Carrie Chan supplied the fish maw, grown here in Hong Kong at their Science and Technology Parks laboratory. Tom Burney, the founder of Invisible Kitchen and the Foodie Forks 2019 Readers’ Choice Food Hero, was thrilled to get his hands on this precious ingredient and prepare it for the first public tasting. Chef Burney turned the fish maw into a puffy and crunchy fish ball, with the fish maw acting as its glutinous centre. After tasting the lab-grown ingredient, Elaine Siu of the Good Food Institute stated, “The cultivated fish maw tasted exactly like it should – like fish maw. I did not expect anything else. It’s from the same cells after all!”
Read our interview with Avant Meats founder Carrie Chan here.
2. Fama’s Kitchen
“Selfish” tuna poke bowls courtesy of Fama’s Kitchen
Larry Tang has been one of Hong Kong’s leading figures in the movement towards sustainability and conscious consumption since 2013. For Tang’s efforts, we awarded him the title of Foodie Forks 2019 Editors’ Choice Food Hero. Tang was inspired by this award to seek out other food heroes, which led to the launch of his revolutionary Fama’s Kitchen. This is a brand-new cloud-based virtual restaurant concept that gives aspiring health-focused chefs a way to get their food to market without all the risk. There are now six new virtual restaurants available on foodpanda – all of which promote sustainability, local produce, organic foods and wellness. Guests who stayed until the very end of the Summit got a taste of these new restaurant concepts at the closing reception.
Read more about Fama’s Kitchen
3. The Next Alternative Meats
Attendees got to taste-test new alternative meats
By now pretty much everyone has tried the Beyond and Impossible burgers – so what’s next for alternative meats? Social venture giant Green Monday supplied us with tastings and insights into the latest and greatest meat-free creations. CEO and founder David Yeung personally introduced us to the Beyond Breakfast Sausage patty (launched for the first time in Asia at the Summit), Heura chicken (unbelievably authentic in taste and texture) and Alpha chicken nuggets (who doesn’t love a guilt-free chicken nugg?)
4. Good Idea Sparkling Water
Summit attendees enjoying a refreshing beverage at the Innovation Showcase
Another one of Asia’s firsts came in the form of a lightly sparkling beverage. Good Idea comes from the brilliant minds who brought us popular milk alternative Oatly. This range of zero-calorie sparkling water has subtle fruity flavours and is calorie free and made with amino acids and chromium; these ingredients help to balance your blood sugar. At the Summit, guests were able to sip on cans of Good Idea during lunch and snack times to avoid that post-meal slump. Oatly creator Rickard Öste and his team were on hand to explain how their new products aim to enhance the nutritional benefits of everyday foods.
5. HakkoBako
Enlightened Edibles: Putting the “Super” in Food panel
Now, this was an announcement that not even we saw coming! Amongst the fantastic panellists on our Enlightened Edibles: Putting the “Super” in Food panel were Tommy Leung and Rickard Öste (mentioned above). Leung first spoke at the 2018 Summit, representing his company GAFELL – a food factory making meals for Hong Kong’s leading hotels, restaurants and supermarkets. When we first heard about Leung’s new project, HakkoBako – a smart fermentation device company – we knew it would soon be a game-changer in the restaurant industry. Fermentation is a complicated process, but HakkoBako’s device (which is the first of its kind) could make the process simple and therefore open it up to large-scale use. We weren’t the only ones to recognise the potential in Leung’s innovation. During the panel, Leung announced that, after meeting only the night before, Öste would become an investor in HakkoBako.
RELATED: Read our update on what’s happening with HakkoBako
There’s nothing we love more than seeing our community grow, with great minds working together towards a better food’s future.