Food Matters Live Podcast · Food Matters Live

Forecasting the future of flavour innovation

·48 min·2 clips

Matt Orlando's 7-Eleven cookies, made from a byproduct, were labelled "this isn't chocolate" and tasted convincingly like it.

1. Food Matters Live Podcast records a live session in Dublin in November 2025 on which flavour trends define the 2020s and which ingredients will shape menus by 2030. 2. Anthony Zahra hosts five chefs: Derek Conlon of Kepak, Stephen Humphreys of Vacheran (90 London sites), Rory Boyce of Aramark Sports and Entertainment, Audrey Crone of Unilever Food Solutions, and Michael Kilkey of mycoprotein maker Enough. 3. The panel's thesis is that chefs act as "translators" (Crone's word) who turn fads into affordable products, with flavour trends spanning Korean food, nostalgia and gut health. 4. Conlon says Korean food defined 2025 because it reached ubiquity, citing children singing "Golden" from K-pop Demon Hunters, and recalls a 2014 bulgogi sauce brief for Costco. 5. Crone describes "borderless cuisine" from Unilever's Future Menus Trends Report, such as an arancini with an Asian twist, while Kilkey says hot honey has moved from pizza drizzle to many categories because sweetness makes chilli heat more accessible. 6. Humphreys names koji and mushrooms for gut health, mentioning Silo's koji farm in Hackney Wick, and Kilkey predicts fermented proteins will rise, with brands testing hybrid mince at 10%, 20% or 30% alternative protein. 7. Boyce plans to replace up to 30% of red meat with mushroom at his stadium and has removed gelatine from menus in favour of seaweed, while Conlon proposes collagen peptides such as Nextida to blunt blood-glucose spikes for people coming off GLP-1 drugs. 8. Crone relays Matt Orlando's 7-Eleven cookies made from a byproduct and labelled "this isn't chocolate", and the panel debates whether plant-based products should mimic meat, with Kilkey noting that nearly every plant-based burger uses methylcellulose. 9. Humphreys describes a potter who spent eight years developing plates from glass bottles fired at 900 degrees rather than 1,800, and Kilkey describes feeding 130 people from a food truck in Turin and a blind test of hybrid mince with 120 tasters in Wageningen. 10. Suited to food developers, chefs and retail buyers tracking ingredient trends.

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