Track III: Health-Driven Innovation: From Science to Consumer Trends

• Clean-Label Solutions for Plant-Based Foods - Dr. Panagiotis Voudouris, Wageningen Food & Biobased Research

The increasing demand for plant-based foods is driven by sustainability and health considerations. Yet, for wider consumer adoption, products must meet expectations for taste, texture, and nutritional quality. Plant proteins often exhibit lower techno-functional properties compared to animal-derived ones, leading manufacturers to rely on additives such as modified starches or hydrocolloids to achieve desired textures. These additions result in long and unfamiliar ingredient lists, contributing to consumer concerns about perceiving such plant-based products as non-“clean label” or even as ultra-processed. Although the term “clean label” lacks a universal definition, it broadly refers to foods made with simple, familiar, and natural ingredients.

The Clean Label Solutions for Structuring Plant-based Foods project addressed these challenges by developing strategies to exploit the inherent functional potential of plant proteins across a range of product categories, including liquids (plant-based beverages), semi-solids (yoghurt and cheese alternatives), and solid foods (meat analogues). Using commercially available ingredients, the project generated both fundamental scientific insights and industrially relevant practical solutions that enable improved structuring and other techno-functional properties of plant-based foods without reliance on complex additives.

Through close collaboration with industrial partners from across the supply chain—equipment manufacturers, ingredient suppliers, enzyme developers, flavour houses, and consumer food producers—the project delivered new processing approaches and model formulations. These approaches are tailored to a vast variety of plant-based protein sources. These outcomes support the design of clean-label, plant-based foods with enhanced sensory quality, particularly in structure and texture, while maintaining consumer appeal.

• Nutritional Benefits, Texture, and Purposeful Processing - Dr. Christophe Schmitt, Nestlé 
• Food4Metabolic Health: The Biggest Food System Transformation Since the Industrial Revolution - Christina Senn-Jakobsen, Swiss Food & Nutrition Valley

The Metabolic Revolution - Why the food system faces its biggest transformation opportunity since the Industrial Revolution

Rising rates of obesity, diabetes and other metabolic diseases are creating one of the greatest societal and economic challenges of our time — but also one of the biggest opportunities for innovation.

In this talk, Christina Senn-Jakobsen explores how metabolic health is reshaping the future of food, creating new opportunities for entrepreneurs, industry, science, governments, employers and citizens alike.

The session will highlight why solving metabolic health requires systemic change and ecosystem collaboration across the entire value chain — from agriculture and food production to retail, healthcare, policy and consumer environments.

Through real-world examples, the talk will showcase where innovation is already driving change, where the system is still falling short, and what it will take to build food systems designed not only for efficiency and sustainability — but for long, healthy and productive lives.