I’m back from a busy week at World AgriFoodTech and Future FoodTech in London. Returning to the same events year after year is a useful way to take the pulse of the innovation ecosystem: who turns up, how the mood has changed, and what startups and established companies want to talk about.

This year, one element stood out: many startups are looking for partners to bring their innovations to market, while established companies are narrowing their priorities. Here are my main takeaways.

1 – Steady attendance, fewer senior executives. Attendance seemed broadly similar to last year (and compared to previous years, being stable is good news), but I noticed fewer C-level executives. As the AgriFoodTech hype has faded, bringing senior leadership along to meet startups appears to have become less of a priority.

2 – The great divergence between AgTech and FoodTech. A few years ago, food manufacturers and ingredient suppliers showed considerable interest in agricultural innovation, particularly around sustainability and supply chain resilience. There also seemed to be more appetite for collaboration across the value chain. In London this year, my impression was of two increasingly separate ecosystems, with fewer connections between them. This is understandable as companies refocus innovation efforts on their core business, but it risks leaving unexplored opportunities that require collaboration between agriculture and food.

3 – Startups aligned on the race to pre-commercialisation. It was striking that among startups, often competing on pretty similar approaches, most of them were focused on finding pre-commercialisation partners. On the positive side, this tells a story of a very mature ecosystem, ready to scale. On the other hand, it also means that there is still a wave of consolidation to expect as there won’t be a place for all.

4 – GLP-1 and healthy ageing decreasing ambitions? Listening to panels including leading companies, it was interesting to hear that the presentations of what “healthy means” are getting much more cautious than they were only a few months ago. Whether this reflects more realistic expectations or a narrowing of ambitions remains to be seen. It may also leave more room for emerging brands with clearer, bolder consumer propositions.

5 – A wave of upcoming exciting news. Several conversations also pointed to upcoming regulatory and commercial developments. In the next few months, updates, hopefully positive, should create a new wave of appetite for the AgriFoodTech ecosystem.

Among the startups I met, a few themes were particularly visible:

• AgTech: biological solutions, notably technologies to improve their delivery and performance such as microencapsulation, robotics, and AI tools for farm management.
• FoodTech: ingredients for health and functionality, novel ingredients, AI-assisted product development, and reformulation.

On a lighter note, two things caught my attention:

• ZOE’s products were disappearing almost as soon as they were put out.** Beyond enjoying the snacks themselves, I found it interesting to see a brand built around digital nutrition services and content generate so much curiosity around physical food products. It was a small but tangible illustration of how an existing relationship with an audience can support a move into a new category.
• The Boston Dynamics robot left me more uneasy than impressed. Having a camera-equipped, rather military-looking robot dog roaming around the venue was not quite my idea of a demonstration of what “the future of food” should look like.

If you’re wondering what these developments mean for your company, let’s talk. We can help you identify which trends and potential partners deserve your attention, and how they could inform your innovation priorities.