New Frontiers in Food and drink: putting innovation on a plate will take place at Etc.venues St Pauls, 200 Aldergate, London on Friday June 26, 2015.
Organised by Food Manufacture’s publisher William Reed Business Media, the title has joined sister publications: British Baker, The Grocer and Meat Trades Journal to assemble a visionary line up of speakers. Their aim will be to interpret emerging food and drink trends for a business audience, helping managers to plan their businesses to take advantage of change.
Keynote speaker at the event will be Dr Morgaine Gaye, food futurologist and director of Bellwether: Food Trends, the first food trend research compendium which launched in 2013.
Gaye will identity areas of innovation that could most benefit food and drink businesses, as they cater for increasingly discerning and health-conscious consumers, against a background of calls for more sustainable and ethically-responsible production.
Functional food blends
Looking at food and eating from a social, cultural, economic, trend, branding and geo-political perspective, Gaye has her own product range of functional food blends, which are sold via a number of channels and served in London restaurants.
Food futurology
“In short, as a food futurologist, I explore all the facets of food; future food trends, why we eat what we eat, believe what we believe and what the future of food looks like.”
Dr Morgaine Gaye
In addition to offering consulting to food companies, Gaye works on developing new products and ideas, conducting research on all elements of the eating experience – from mouth-feel to olfactory perception. She also lectures on specific food trends at universities and firms, while developing food-related TV and radio programmes. She is a guest lecturer at Nottingham Trent University and University College London.
“As a food futurologist, I don’t look into crystal balls and predict that the future is filled with tall, dark handsome waiters but I do get to talk about food in all different contexts and capacities …,” said Gaye on her website.
‘What the future looks like’
“Food is a complex topic … and involves society, behaviour, geo-politics, culture, beliefs, history, trends, fads, art, marketing, sensorial perceptions, biology and, well, almost everything,” said Gaye. “In short, as a food futurologist, I explore all the facets of food; future food trends, why we eat what we eat, believe what we believe and what the future of food looks like.”
Two other speakers taking part are Charles Spence, professor of experimental psychology, University of Oxford and professor Arnold van Huis from the Laboratory of Entomology at Wageningen University, Netherlands.
Specialising in multisensory perception, including the sensory perception of food, Spence will tell the audience how neuroscience is changing food design.
Tropical entomologist van Huis will update the audience on the latest thinking on the use of insects in the human food industry. Recent developments have focused both on direct human consumption and the use of insects as animal feed.
More information about the event, including ‘the early bird ticket price’, is available here.