Food Matters Live Podcast

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500

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Aug 2026

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About the show

Welcome to the Food Matters Live podcast – where we showcase the innovations, the big ideas, and the visionaries in the food industry. We dig deep, we look to the future and the past, and we question everything we think we know about food. Hit subscribe to make sure you never miss an episode. And find out how you can join the conversation on our website foodmatterslive.com .

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60 recent

August 10, 2026Episode 62215 min

622: What a Michelin chef saw that the food industry didn't

A chilli con carne for four people carries a carbon footprint of 6kg. The same meal, made with upcycled sunflower protein and plant-based seasoning, comes in at seventy grams. In this episode of the Food Matters Live podcast, recorded at our London Olympia event, Frank Lantz describes how he came to food innovation from Michelin-trained fine dining. His view is that the food industry is sitting at one of its biggest inflection points in a century, that the conversation about how we grow, cook and eat is overdue, and that chefs who understand flavour from the inside out are better placed than most to solve for it. He talks about the moment he decided to step out of restaurant kitchens and into food innovation, why organic is a proof of concept rather than a marketing badge, and why he believes the brands that make the most sustainable products, without asking the consumer to sacrifice anything, will be the ones that win.If this has whet your appetite for next year’s Food Matters Live events - you can already register your interest to partner with us in London and Rotterdam. Just head to foodmatterslive.com

August 3, 2026Episode 62147 min

621: Why the UK is a leader in global flavours

Salted caramel spent roughly 50 years travelling from a Parisian chocolatier to a British supermarket staple. Nduja took a decade. Kimchi felt like an overnight success, but it wasn't. So when a flavour trend lands on a developer's radar, how do you know whether you're early, right on time, or already too late?The answer, our expert panel suggests, is rarely found in data alone. It lives in the gap between what a trend tracker can tell you and what a developer's gut tells them. And knowing how to triangulate the two is one of the most underrated skills in food innovation.In this episode of the Food Matters Live podcast, recorded at our London Olympia event, we explore how both a major retailer and a multi-brand manufacturer approach the now, next and future framework for flavour trend tracking.Our panel debates the cuisines that have genuinely crossed over and the ones that are still waiting.And they dig into the tension between authenticity and accessibility, the power of the silent ingredient, and why calling something a tortilla instead of a Spanish omelette can be the difference between a product that flies and one that sits.If this has whet your appetite for next year’s Food Matters Live events - you can already register your interest to partner with us in London and Rotterdam. Just head to foodmatterslive.com

July 27, 2026Episode 62024 min

620: Soy, salmon and sidestreams - where the protein industry is heading

Global demand for protein has been rising for sixty years and shows no sign of stopping. But the way we're producing it is running into hard limits, environmental, ethical and economic, at exactly the moment that consumers have decided protein is the most important thing on the label.So where does that leave manufacturers, retailers and innovators trying to navigate a market that wants more protein, cheaper, more sustainably, and still delicious?In this episode of the Food Matters Live podcast, recorded at our London Olympia event, three experts try to answer that question.They discuss overgrazing, marine over-exploitation, and the opportunity in novel proteins.They also talk about how constraints on animal protein are opening a window for plant-based innovation that the industry hasn't had before.And they discuss the future of soy protein, all with one thing front of mind - the products produced need to be attractive to consumers.If this has whet your appetite for next year’s Food Matters Live events - you can already register your interest to partner with us in London and Rotterdam. Just head to foodmatterslive.com

July 20, 2026Episode 61946 min

619: The algorithm of appetite - where flavour trends are heading next

What's the next Dubai chocolate? And more importantly, how do you know whether to back it before it's mainstream, or whether it will ever get there at all?The speed at which flavour trends now travel has fundamentally changed the job of everyone in NPD. What used to take decades can now arrive, peak and fade within a single season. Social media accelerates trends and creates consumer expectations about flavour before a product even hits the shelf.In this episode of the Food Matters Live podcast, recorded at our London Olympia event, five flavour and innovation specialists debate what all of this means in practice. They unpack why flavour is still king, and why the days of designing something that appeals to everybody are effectively over. And they wrestle with the most loaded question in innovation: is the era of the perennial core flavour over, or will the industry always find new ones?If this has whet your appetite for next year’s Food Matters Live events - you can already register your interest to partner with us in London and Rotterdam. Just head to foodmatterslive.com

July 13, 2026Episode 61825 min

618: Are food industry innovators making the most of AI?

How is AI influencing innovation in the food industry? In this episode of the Food Matters Live podcast, recorded live at our event at Olympia in London, we try to map out the full picture.Our guest speaker is Alberto Prado, former Global Head of R&D Digital & Partnerships at Unilever.Alberto believes the food industry is facing the most volatile, fast-moving, expensive and demanding environment it has ever operated in. But, he argues, the tools it's using to respond are largely unchanged since the 1980s.He maps out the full picture - what AI is already doing inside large FMCG organisations, the five barriers he believes are getting in the way, and why he argues companies that treat AI as infrastructure rather than a feature, will be shaping this industry for the next decade.His argument is that most food businesses are using AI to write better emails and build slightly faster dashboards, while mistaking that for transformation.If this has whet your appetite for next year’s Food Matters Live events - you can already register your interest to partner with us in London and Rotterdam. Just head to foodmatterslive.com

July 6, 2026Episode 61721 min

617: Women's health - what does evidence-based retail actually look like?

When a female consumer walks into a shop asking for help with their hormones, their sleep or their fertility, how confident can they be that what they're sold is actually backed by evidence?It's a question a growing wave of informed, sceptical consumers is now asking louder than ever.In this episode of the Food Matters Live podcast, recorded at our London event in 2026, we have a frank conversation about women’s health and what evidence-based retail actually looks like from the inside. We hear the case made for personalised nutrition - not as a premium niche, but as a genuine public health opportunity - and learn about one of the most quietly significant shifts in women's supplement science: the move from folic acid to methylated folate in prenatal products.If this has whet your appetite for next year’s Food Matters Live events - you can already register your interest to partner with us in London and Rotterdam. Just head to foodmatterslive.com

June 29, 2026Episode 61633 min

616: Swicy, clean label, and the TikTok effect: Inside the Flavour & Colour Lab at Food Matters Live

In this episode, we enter the Flavour and Colour Lab at Food Matters Live London 2026.Five conversations with the companies shaping what food tastes, looks and feels like. From raw material shortages and botanical extracts, to a Dragon's Den success story built on TikTok trends and a bath bomb-shaped meal base that's found its way into Ocado.We find out how the raw material pressures reshaping the flavour industry right now are leading to new product developments.We get the full story behind the bath bomb-shaped meal base that started on TikTok, appeared on Dragon's Den, and just launched in a major supermarket. And how a baking powder that's been around for 175 years, is re-inventing itself.If this has whet your appetite for next year’s Food Matters Live events - you can already register your interest to partner with us in London and Rotterdam. Just head to foodmatterslive.comWe would like to clarify that, due to an internal communication error regarding session timings, Tina Faghihi-Hallam from Flavour Bombs was unable to join the live panel discussion at Food Matters Live as scheduled. Tina was present at the event and ready to participate, and her absence from the stage was not due to any fault on her part.

June 22, 2026Episode 61527 min

615: Food Historian Annie Gray and PepsiCo's Rob Lowery on trends, health and the modern consumer

Recorded live on stage at Food Matters Live, at London's Olympia London, this is the session that opened the whole event, and it set the tone perfectly.Food historian Annie Gray and Rob Lowery, VP of Marketing at PepsiCo UK, Ireland and Europe, sit down for a wide-ranging fireside conversation on where consumer food culture has come from, where it's heading, and how to tell the difference between a genuine trend and a flash in the pan.They cover how the health concerns driving food choices today, from protein to gut health, are less new than we think, and what that tells us about what's likely to stickWhy personalised nutrition is still accelerating, and what GLP-1 medications are doing to consumer habits and food industry prioritiesAnd how fragmented eating patterns, demographic shifts, and the rise of remote working are reshaping the occasions food is designed aroundFind out about upcoming events at foodmatterslive.com.

June 15, 2026Episode 61420 min

614: 'Food tech Is the new fintech' - and other things we heard in the NPD Discovery Zone

In this episode of the Food Matters Live podcast, we explore the NPD Discovery Zone at Food Matters Live in London's Olympia.It's the section of the show floor where the next generation of food ingredients and technology is being shown for the first time. Through four conversations with four companies, we try to answer one question: where will the food of the future actually come from?We learn about turning CO₂ directly into food ingredients, recovering high-protein, high-fibre ingredients from the side-stream of the brewing industry, an automated harvester that recovers broccoli stems left in the field after harvest, and we meet the people behind a food lifecycle management software that brings NPD, finance, and technical teams onto one platform from concept to launch. Food Matters Live brings together the food and drink industry's brightest minds across innovation, sustainability, health, and technology. Find out more and register for upcoming events on our website.

June 8, 2026Episode 61320 min

613: Food Matters Live London 2026: The conversations shaping what we eat

Recorded live on the floor of Food Matters Live at Olympia, London, this episode is a snapshot of the conversations happening right now across the food industry.We catch up with speakers fresh from the stage or on their stand at the event: a food historian making the case for forgotten ingredients, a Michelin-starred chef turning industrial waste into meal kits, a consumer researcher on why flavour will always win, and two researchers pushing back on the way we talk about ultra-processed food.We hear from food historian Annie Grey on what sourdough bread actually tells us about class, why 'authenticity' is a dirty word in food marketing, and the forgotten British ingredients that deserve a comebackFrank Lantz, Michelin-starred chef and founder of Uhhmami on the waste he witnessed in professional kitchens, and why upcycled sunflower protein might be one of the most practical sustainability solutions on the market right nowAnd researchers Chris Bryant and Jules Griffin debate UPF.Food Matters Live brings together the food and drink industry's brightest minds across innovation, sustainability, health, and technology. Find out more and register for upcoming events on our website.