Food Matters Live Podcast 582: Managing competing trends in food innovation
Oct 27, 2025
Tim Ingmeyer, Head of global R&D at Plattís Global, balances taste, permissibility and sustainability in mass-market brands. Diane Camp, culinary and trends lead at Sodexo, translates trends into large-scale menus. They discuss precision fermentation, traditional and global fermentation techniques, GLP-1 impacts, biometric data and insurers, cocoa supply risks, blended products and how format and experience shape acceptance.
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Engineering Biology Is Reshaping Ingredient Creation
- Engineering biology and precision fermentation are driving new, sustainable functional ingredients that can replace additives and improve taste and texture.
- Rodrigo's Bessel Center works on increasing titers, yields and productivities and developing biomass fermentation to make nature-identical molecules more functional and scalable.
Functional Claims Collide With Clean Label Demands
- Functional food claims (immunity, mood, sleep) are rising while clean label and UPF concerns push brands to find natural-sounding solutions.
- Abby highlights using perceived-natural ingredients like turmeric, honey and citrus to signal immunity benefits.
Permissibility Has Replaced Taste As The Only Filter
- Permissibility now includes taste, nutritional profile, clean label concerns and sustainability alongside traditional taste-first thinking.
- Tim says R&D must juggle all these trends simultaneously to deliver products that still provide joy.