AI, healthier food alternatives dominate in Future Food Asia Award Top 10 finalist list

Future Food Asia is an annual event organised by investment consultancy firm ID Capital in Singapore, comprising an in-depth conference on the future of food as well as the awarding of the coveted FFA Award.

According to the firm, this year saw over 150 applicants from over 25 countries, which were vetted through by a jury to leave the top 10 finallists listed below:

Notably, artificial intelligence (AI) has made a big appearance in this list with Singapore’s Aquaeasy and China’s Changqingtang3d both leveraging expertise in this area to develop their technologies.

This showcases the growing importance of AI in the agrifoodtech space, with wide spread use across various sectors of the industry, e.g. Aquaeasy’s use in shrimp farming and Changqingtang3d’s use of this to craft personalized meals for seniors in less than 10 minutes.

Healthier food alternatives were also showcased prominently in this list - Hong Kong’s Meat the Next made it onboard with its TIGA Milk, the world’s first tiger nut oat milk; whereas South Korea’s Mush& developed a proprietary mushroom mycelium platform to deliver customisable mycoprotein ingedients.

Other examples include China’s 0calab with an enzymatic process to cut sugar in fruit juices, and Thailand’s MODGUT which is at the forefront of ASEAN’s Microbiome-Driven Food Revolution.

The other finallists are Singapore’s BioDefense which has developed bio-based tech to extend the freshness of meat and seafood; India’s Faunatech has a handheld agri diagnostic platform to detect herd diseases at an early stage; Japan’s TOWING with tech to transition soil to organic fertiliser, and Singapore’s Verta Bioenergy which converts chicken manure into cheaper, cleaner biomass pellets.

All finallists will be making their pitches at the FFA event in Singapore this May 21 to 22, with an eye on the US$100,000 award.

Major themes

ID Capital Founder Isabelle Decitre added that this year’s FFA is expected to highlight and discuss several key themes in the food sector today, from geopolitic impacts to nature-based solutions.

“Geopolitics is reshaping supply chains and rewriting the playbook, “ she said.

“Within the agrifoodtech sector, we see biomanufacturng emerging as the next battleground per se for economic independence, and are excited to discuss what this would mean for the global food system as well as Asia’s role in this shift.

“We also have seen alternative protein hype really overshadowing other critical innovations previously, and this year we want to broaden the lens and focus on nature-based solutions again - this means refocusing on solutions rooted in ecology and not just efficiency, as that is what it will take to restore a planet-friendly food system.”