We picture “food tech” as steaks grown in a lab and powders with unpronounceable names. That misses the point entirely.
Technology has been on our plates since the first fire, the first fermentation, the first preserve. Its goal has never changed: to make food safer, more accessible, more nourishing — without killing the pleasure. Everything else is decoration.
The problem is that we confuse innovation with spectacle. Cultured meat at €40 a kilo makes headlines; it feeds no one. Meanwhile, the real technology moves quietly: making nutrition denser, cutting waste, stabilising an aroma, extending shelf life without needless additives.
My conviction: the food tech that lasts is the kind you don’t notice. Not the kind that gets filmed — the kind that gets eaten.
Colleagues: did your latest innovation serve the product — or the press release?