By Jerome Barra

VP, Taste Global Marketing and Business Development, Health Nutrition and Care Unit, dsm-firmenich
Member of the SFNV Executive Committee

Consumers today expect their food to do more than ever. It should help them thrive during every phase of their lives, delight their senses and help protect the planet. But balancing health, taste, and sustainability isn’t just hard. It’s one of the food industry’s defining challenges of our time.

This transformation isn’t about choosing one priority over another. It’s about uniting what is essential, desirable, and sustainable — and doing so at speed. Since the creation of dsm-firmenich almost three years ago, we’ve seen firsthand how these forces are reshaping the food and beverage sector. The lessons learned reflect broader industry shifts, and point to a bigger truth: progress depends on relentless innovation.

Why global diets are transforming

Across the global food ecosystem, one trend in particular stands out. Conscious eating is no longer a niche movement; it is reshaping mainstream expectations. People are making deliberate choices that align with personal values, health goals, and environmental concerns. To meet these expectations, companies need two things: deep insight into what drives these choices and the technical muscle to turn those insights into breakthrough products.

Three priorities dominate this shift:

1. Essential health

Food is increasingly seen as a daily act of self-care. People are more aware than ever of how diet influences long-term health, and governments around the world are tightening regulations on sugar, salt, and saturated fat. Manufacturers are responding by reformulating products to reduce these ingredients while enriching them with fiber, vitamins, and minerals.

2. Desirable taste and texture

The shift towards more plant-based diets has opened new opportunities — and challenges — for food producers. Consumers expect these products to match traditional proteins in taste, texture, and nutrition, pushing companies to explore new ingredients and flavour technologies that make sustainable eating a pleasure, not a compromise.

3. Sustainability

Sustainability is becoming a core design principle across food, beverage, and nutrition portfolios. Producers are reducing reliance on finite resources by prioritising plant-based and fermentation-derived ingredients, which carry a lower environmental footprint than traditional animal sources. Plant-based omega-3 solutions, for example, help protect marine ecosystems by eliminating the need for fish oil while still delivering essential nutrients. Circularity is advancing through upcycled raw materials, and production processes are being optimised to cut energy use and minimise waste.

Fully addressing these priorities requires more than tweaks. It calls for strategic thinking, new tools, and the power of science and technology to accelerate progress.

Forces shaping the next phase of food innovation

Looking ahead, I see three interconnected forces that are set to define the next phase of food innovation:

• Everyday wellbeing: While consumers will keep looking for products that help them feel balanced, energetic, and fulfilled, people are also becoming more educated about how an extra nutritional push can help during certain stages in life – for example, during pregnancy, lactation, aging, and the first 1,000 days of life.
• Preventative health: Societies are shifting from treating illness to maintaining health, placing nutrition and wellbeing at the center of every food and beverage solution.
• Lifespan vitality: The boundaries between food, beauty, and biology are blurring as people seek not only to live longer but to live better.

These trends will also open new opportunities for collaboration between researchers and industry partners, across local and global innovation ecosystems.

How science can bring progress to life

Advances in food science and R&D — two pillars of Switzerland’s innovation ecosystem — are key to creating solutions that unite health, taste, and sustainability. These shifts are already reshaping innovation pipelines.

Here are four ways that I see these trends coming to life in 2026 and beyond.

1. New innovations for brain health, immunity and healthy ageing solutions

Dietary supplements and functional nutrition are expanding rapidly, as consumers seek convenient ways to support brain health, immunity, and healthy aging. Innovations such as plant-based omega-3s, advanced probiotics and new delivery formats like gummies and powders will help integrate wellness into daily routines.

2. Tailored solutions for early-life nutrition

In early-life nutrition, science is helping narrow the gap between formula and the biological gold standard of breast milk. Human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) and tailored maternal nutrition solutions will increasingly support healthier beginnings for both infants and mothers.

3. Increased focus on recovery and independence

For senior adults, preventative healthcare is becoming essential. Nutritional solutions tailored to recovery and independence — combined with formats that improve taste and adherence — are helping improve quality of life.

4. Tackling hidden hunger in vulnerable populations

Globally, fortification initiatives will continue to address hidden hunger in vulnerable populations, ensuring access to essential vitamins and minerals through cross-industry and public-private partnerships.

Together, these opportunities also signal a broader shift: the future of food will not be defined by scientific breakthroughs alone, but by how effectively we collaborate to scale them.

Making good food the easy choice — together.

Feeding a growing population within planetary limits will demand unprecedented collaboration. To thrive, every player in the food ecosystem must ensure products are healthy, sustainable, and enjoyable. Because no matter how responsible a product is, if it doesn’t taste good, it won’t make it off the shelf.

As nutrition becomes a cornerstone of disease prevention, the challenge and opportunity is clear. We need to create convenient and affordable choices that don’t just add years to life, but life to years.

When taste, nutrition and sustainability come together, we can make good food the easy choice — for people, for the planet, and for generations to come.

Hungry for more food for thought?

Valley partner Yumame Foods specialises in creating minimally processed, fungi-based products through natural fermentation. In 2023, they teamed up with fellow Valley partner Agilery to support their first production scale-up and introduce their innovative products to prospective customers. Just two years later, Yumame’s creations have been served in restaurants across Switzerland and landed on the shelves of Coop, the country’s largest retailer. Here’s how this early collaboration helped to get there.

The challenge: Making meat alternatives the star of the plate

The global plant-based market is growing steadily, fuelled not only by sustainability concerns but also by shifting consumer expectations. Taste remains the number-one purchase driver for 67% of consumers, far ahead of health or environmental claims. As 53% of consumers say they want to eat more plant-based foods, demand for products that deliver on taste, texture, and nutrition has never been higher.

Yumame Foods saw an opportunity to create products that don’t simply imitate meat, but instead establish a new category of centre-of-the-plate fermented foods — rich in flavour, nutritionally balanced, and highly sustainable.

To meet rising demand, the team needed to scale their flagship recipes from small-batch production to a pilot-scale environment, without compromising quality, flavour complexity, or the integrity of their minimally processed fermentation techniques.

Founder Eliana Zamprogna, an experienced  innovation manager and chemical engineer with deep knowledge  in the food industry, recognised fermentation as a powerful tool for creating clean-label products with naturally developed flavours. But the challenge was twofold:

• Scale up from small-scale to pilot-scale production while preserving product quality.
• Protect proprietary fermentation know-how, all while building local, sustainable supply chains.

This is where collaboration became essential.

The results: A facility, process optimisation and consumer validation

Working closely together, Valley partners Yumame Foods and Agilery delivered three tangible achievements that were strategic for Yumame’s future growth.

1. State-of-the-art fermentation facility
Agilery supported Yumame in designing and setting up a pilot-scale facility tailored to their proprietary fermentation process. This meant translating a lab-scale process into a robust, scalable production environment while ensuring food safety, consistency, and efficient daily operations.

2. Continuous optimisation of processes and supply chains
Together, the teams streamlined procurement, production workflows, and cost structures. This optimisation allowed Yumame to improve batch consistency, reduce production costs, and prepare the groundwork for commercial-scale operations.

3. Consumer validation support
Agilery helped Yumame prepare and execute early-stage tastings and sampling sessions. These insights enabled the team to refine their recipes and confirm market demand well before launch. 

The solution: A collaborative journey toward scale

Throughout the ramp-up phase, Agilery provided operational and technical support, including logistics, shelf-life testing, certification, and staffing. Yumame leveraged Agilery’s in-house experts to ensure all processes met high-quality standards and regulatory requirements.

This early collaboration helped to build the foundation for Yumame’s next growth phase. The company has since established a larger scale facility, strengthened its supply chain, and prepared for broader market entry.

Today, Yumame products are available in Swiss restaurants and on the shelves of Coop, marking a major milestone for the startup and a testament to the power of ecosystem collaboration.

The success factors: A lean, adaptable and collaborative approach 

Both teams highlighted three elements that made the partnership successful:

1. Collaborative Partnership
The close collaboration between Yumame Foods and Agilery created a shared vision and clear understanding of project goals. 

2. Lean Approach
Agilery and Yumame’s aligned, efficiency-focused methodology enabled the company to scale up at higher speed and maintain maximum autonomy.

3. Adaptability and Innovation
Agilery adapted to Yumame’s unique production requirements, ensuring all sustainability and quality objectives were met across every step of the process.

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Valley partner FOOD2050 has partnered with PAN International to help canteens, hospitals, and universities make meals more sustainable and healthier.

FOOD2050’s innovative software enables food-service teams to plan, monitor, and communicate the climate and nutritional impact of every meal. Grounded in the principles of the Planetary Health Diet, the platform already tracks sustainability and meal balance across more than 170 operations in Switzerland, with plans to expand globally.

Through this partnership, PAN International will contribute its medical and nutritional expertise to strengthen FOOD2050’s evolving health-impact model, ensuring dietary data is scientifically validated and aligned with evidence-based nutrition frameworks. Together, the partners aim to make healthy, climate-friendly food choices the easy and transparent option in institutional kitchens worldwide.

“We share a vision of empowering kitchens and consumers with data-driven insights that benefits both people and the planet,” says Kerstin Plehwe, President and CEO of PAN International. “By combining FOOD2050’s innovative technology with PAN’s medical expertise, we can help transform the way health and sustainability are measured and communicated across food systems.”

This shared purpose forms the foundation of the partnership, uniting technology and medical science to make the Planetary Health Diet practical and measurable at scale.

“At FOOD2050, our goal is to help food-service operators make measurable progress
toward the Planetary Health Diet without compromising on quality or practicality,” adds Christian Kramer, CEO and Co-founder of FOOD2050. “Partnering with PAN allows us to refine our health-impact models and ensure they are grounded in medical science, a key step toward linking sustainability and health in everyday meal decisions.”

This collaboration marks the beginning of an exciting journey to bring science-based nutrition and sustainability insights directly to the places where millions of meals are prepared and served each day.

About PAN International

The Physicians Association for Nutrition (PAN International) is a global medical non-profit organisation advancing nutrition in healthcare and medical education. By promoting evidence-based practices of healthy diets for personal and planetary health, PAN works to reduce millions of diet-related deaths. Learn more by visiting our website pan-int.org.

About FOOD2050

FOOD2050 Ltd. is a Swiss technology company driving the transformation of institutional food systems through data and innovation. Its software platform helps canteens, hospitals, and universities plan, monitor, and communicate the climate and nutritional impact of their meals, making sustainable and health-conscious food choices easier for chefs and consumers alike. Operating across more than 170 sites in Switzerland, FOOD2050 works with major universities, corporations, and catering partners to align real-world menus with the principles of the Planetary Health Diet. www.food2050.ch

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