Our range of available ingredients continues to grow. This time it’s Triton Algae using the amazing power of algae ingredients to enhance the flavour of their dumplings. While they contain “alternative pork filling” I’d love to see them simply market the dumplings as a product in their own right, with no reference to conventional protein products.
What we need to do is to develop Tasty, Easy (to use), Cheap and Healthy (TECH) products that stand on their own two feet. That way they can be appreciated for their own attributes. This narrow focus on product imitation needs to grow to include how we can innovate to produce whole new classes of food that currently don’t exist! My favourite is Steakholder Foods omakase bites, a layered, bite sized cultivated meat/fat product. They’re fundamentally making a form factor that doesn’t exist in an animal!
There’s nothing “magical” about where we currently get our major sources of protein and other nutrients. They’re just an accident of many factors including history, culture and available technologies. Also, none of our current food products, animal, plant or other, are the “ultimate” in flavour; they’re simply the best we know at the moment.
I’m hoping that the supermarkets of 2030 and beyond contain products that are today just a thought bubble in some founder’s brain!