Page 22 - Food&Drink Jan-Feb 2022 magazine

TRENDS FORECAST 2022
Our post-
pandemic
food future
The continuing pandemic has fundamentally changed so many things we once took for granted and accelerated certain technologies. Futurist Tony Hunter looks at what this means for the future of food?
IN the recently released book Aftershocks and Opportunities 2: Navigating the Next Horizon, my chapter, Five Technologies Shaping the Post-Pandemic Future of Food, looks at the disruptive role of technology, how it advances exponentially, and how it can address flaws in the food system exposed by the pandemic. From this I have developed my TECHXponential concept, exploring this new horizon of food as technology.
The 2020-21 pandemic has irrevocably changed our world. But what could the legacy of the pandemic be for the very future of the food, beverage, and agri-food industries?
SHAPING THE FUTURE
There are many developments shaping the future of food, ranging from natural farming approaches, advances in agricultural science, and precision agriculture, through to technology developments, better use of data analytics, and innovations in food processing.
I want to focus in on the future potential of five critical and
continues and that they are still central to the future food agenda. In practice, product sales are surging for alternative proteins and microbiome-based gut health solutions; genomics and synthetic biology are being combined to fight the virus and generate valuable new insights; the cellular agriculture research agenda has been largely unaffected; and venture capital investment in agri-foodtech continues largely unabated.
Despite continuing disruption, these signals suggest that the fundamental long-term trajectory for these technologies in the food, beverage, and agri-food industries remains unchanged or has in some cases been accelerated.
As the world seeks to recover from the pandemic and stabilise food supplies, let’s explore the potential development paths of these emerging technology fields and possible industry impacts over the two to five-year time frame.
When looking at that horizon, the major lesson food manufacturers need to learn
22 | Food&Drink business | January-February 2022 | www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au
“ ...the major lesson food manufacturers need to learn from the current crisis is the extreme vulnerability of currently high labour industries...”
exponentially advancing technologies that were already exerting a growing influence on the future of food pre-pandemic: genomics, the microbiome, cellular agriculture, alternative proteins, and synthetic biology.
These could have an even greater impact in the coming years as we seek to tackle issues and risks made starkly apparent during the crisis including hunger and food security, food sovereignty, cost, waste, supply chain vulnerabilities, quality, reliability, environmental impacts, and sustainability.
So, the legitimate question arises as to what were the knock-on effects of the pandemic on these technologies in relation to the future of food?
Looking at the recent signals of change in these technologies suggests that their development
from the current crisis is the extreme vulnerability of currently high labour industries during a microbial pandemic. We have seen the conventional meat sector close entire factories, potentially causing major protein shortages.
Thousands of tons of vegetables around the world have been ploughed back into thesoilorlefttorotduetoa lack of labour and hospitality sector disruption.
In the dairy sector, milk was poured down the drain as conventional industries with long lead times and little control on supply were unable to react quickly to market changes.
Automation across the food supply chain, which may have seemed too expensive in 2019, could increasingly look like a good idea in 2022 and beyond.