Posted on Jun 11, 2019
As a small company from a small country, it is easy to be invisible among the behemoth food companies that have taken up stands at the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) Expo and annual conference. This invisibility could be a metaphor for the role of the consumer in the food chain, because they also appear to be absent, which makes a lot of sense. This is an event for food technologists, by food technologists, and some of the technologies on display could frighten a few consumers
Posted on May 22, 2019
Getting your hands dirty has become the euphemism for doing dirty work – something that is unpleasant, unpopular or (in the Hollywood sense) illegal. But, getting one’s hands dirty is exactly what we need to happen for quality food production. This post is not dedicated to how unpopular such activities are instead we dig deep on the issue of whether soil is important (spoiler alert: it is) and what we should be doing to protect it.
Posted on May 13, 2019
Often it is sitting confined and cramped on an airline, where out of sheer boredom (and a desire to forget your surroundings) you flip through the inflight magazine. Usually, these offerings are jam-packed with advertisements and photos of glamourous people doing what glamourous people do, but recently, to my joy, I came across a two-page spread on The Future of Food.
Posted on May 09, 2019
For those of us who don’t drool at the sound of a porterhouse sizzling, we may have become resigned to the fact that plant based proteins were the only future option and, while I have tried (and been delighted) by many of the available options, it did seem a rather bleak food future. I was aware that fish stocks were depleting due to overfishing and pollution, and that the ability to control what other nations did on the high seas meant that there was very little hope for a global fish recovery.
Posted on May 07, 2019
Dark matter – that stuff of sci-fi movies and doomsday cults has a place in the food system, who knew?
Posted on May 06, 2019
It is fair to say that I was somewhat ambivalent about returning to Seeds and Chips for another year. Having attended the event last year, I had vacillated between enthusiastic awe and bouts of despondency. The event is nothing short of spectacular – past US presidents (and a couple of potential US presidential contenders) have attended, royalty speaks, bands play, and it is an ideal platform for encouraging innovation and collaboration.
Posted on May 05, 2019
Standing on the side of the road, in around 30°C heat (86°F), selling pineapples, was an inspiring tropical fruit orchardist. His story was simple – he produced exceptional fruit and wanted to share it with his customers, he was tired of selling to the large companies that shipped his superior product out of state and, in return, supplied his state with inferior, imported products.
Posted on Apr 30, 2019
The roach coaches of yesteryear have enjoyed a resurgence. Peddling a wide variety of cuisine, they now form part of most large urban landscapes, but, unlike the earlier versions, modern food trucks are subject to a number of rules and regulations designed to protect consumers, existing food businesses, and truck owners.
Posted on Apr 23, 2019
If the science or food community were to come up with a name for the ‘clean label’ movement, it is likely that it would have been a clunky acronym or long-winded scientific-jargon encased beast. But, the thing about the ‘clean label’ movement is that it is consumer-led; and the simplicity of the name reflects both that and the intention of the movement. A bit of an explanation is required in order to comprehend what is understood by the term ‘clean label’.
