Anuga Horizon 2050: What will we eat tomorrow?

New impulses for the food industry: The world’s largest trade fair for food and beverages, Anuga Horizon 2050, took a closer look at our menu of the future in its exhibition.

In a globalised world, food trends are increasingly converging. The global food industry is faced with the task of ensuring the supply of high quality food – taking into account a growing population. This development is being driven by health-conscious consumers. By demanding healthy, regionally and organically produced products, the structure of the food industry is changing: away from mass production towards smaller businesses. The Anuga Horizon 2050 exhibition presented the USA as an example for this development: in a market with a value of 681 billion euros, the large US food manufactures lost 22 billion euros in sales to smaller brands between 2011 and 2016.

This is what our nutrition will look like in 2050

In the office, in restaurants, canteens, schools, kindergartens or clinics – in 2050 we mostly eat out. Digital helpers monitor our health and give tips on the best personal diet.

On the menu:

• Plant-based meat alternatives: The market could grow by 25 percent annually and generate 85 billion US dollars by 2030 (source: Report AT Kearney)
• Fermented Food: The fermented food and beverage market is projected to grow to 1.1 billion US dollars by 2024 (Source: Mordor Intelligence 2019)
• Food supplement: in the form of shots, powder or pills based on herbal ingredients such as ginger or turmeric. 8.5 billion US dollars by 2025 (Source: Meticulous Market Research 2018)
• Insects: The market for edible insects is expected to grow to 1.2 billion US dollars by 2023. (Source: Meticulous Market Research 2018)
• Legumes: like chickpeas, lentils, beans. The global legume market was 44.9 billion US dollars in 2017 and is expected to reach 75.8 billion US dollars by 2015. (Source: Hexa Research 2019).

Alternative proteins that do not come from animals are becoming increasingly important. From an ecological and economic point of view, the supply of proteins through animal products is not sustainable. A graph shows how the protein supply will be divided in 2050: 35 percent is artificial meat made in a laboratory, 40 percent comes from animals, 25 percent from plant-based meat substitutes. As early as 2040, the protein supply from animal meat will have fallen by 33 percent compared to today (source: Report by AT Kearney). Insects as protein sources also remain interesting. Compared to beef, which consists of 50 percent proteins, crickets are the winners with a protein content of 60 percent.

Video: The organic answer to the “beyond burger”: The hype around the vegan Beyond Burger is big. But is something similar available in organic? We found it at the Anuga. A video by Katrin Muhl and Horst Fiedler.

The food we eat in 2050 will have to have the following characteristics:

• Healthy: Function foods offer added health benefits, such as probiotic drinks.
• Personalized: Digital devices monitor our health. Sensors under the skin measure our blood values, a fingerprint scan in the supermarket or restaurant provides us with personalized nutritional recommendations.
• Sustainable: Less mass production means less waste. Urban Gardening provides fresh and nutritious food in cities.
• Traceable: Food and ingredients can be traced back to their origin. Businesses must be prepared for full disclosure.

Digitisation to combat food waste

Digitisation and new technologies have a massive impact on the food industry. Artificial intelligence in particular will have a greater influence on production and logistics in the future. Sooner or later, the “Internet of Things” will lead to complex smart farming. The use of Big Data in agriculture will enable a more flexible supply of food. This will also have an impact on the issue of food waste. Today, one third of all food produced worldwide for human consumption goes to waste. Digitisation can counteract this by enabling production to be linked towards actual consumer demand through data-based analyses.

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