The International Food and Drink Event 2024 has come to a close, with an abundance of major brands like Yoplait, Sears, and Flora attending, it’s hard to make a space for yourself when you’re a start-up company. This year was no exception, but we’ve done the legwork for you and spoken with some of the newcomers to this world of food and drink.
What defined the start-ups at this year’s show? What new and innovative ideas did they bring to the market? Or, was it all just something we’ve seen before, with a facelift hiding the bland, repetitive products underneath?
Some of the major, but expected trends for this new wave of start-ups was sustainability and a focus on limiting waste from their production. Clean and healthy ingredients, but make it accessible. As well as new flavours and tastes from things we all know and love.
As sustainability and eco-friendly practices are at the forefront of conversations within the food and drink industry, it is no wonder our new start-ups were right on the money when using eco-friendly packaging and even creating new ones! Up’N’Mellow, an innovative new start-up soon to be gracing your breakfast tables with their nut-based porridges uses only 100% compostable, recyclable, and biodegradable packaging for their products. Up’N’Mellow provides a range of tasty, nutritious, and convenient porridges from a variety of nut sources to help you eat a balanced breakfast or snack any time of the day. Completely dairy-free and vegan and 100% organic, so they’re great for anyone.
Not happy with just using the current state of eco packaging, Win Win Water has designed its own plastic-free bottle which can biodegrade in just 90 days. Made from a mix of materials including sugar cane and hemp, these bottles can be used for years if reused and then recycled and the waste can be converted into biofuel or even fertilizer. With a stable shelf life of 5 years, there is nothing stopping this brand from revolutionising the plastic industry. Even with such an amazing product already hitting the market, Win Win Water is still working with Liverpool John Moore University to improve and revolutionise this already incredible product even further.
Sustainability isn’t just limited to the box the product arrives in, but the process in which the product is made and the waste produced. Ellouze 1870, a premium olive oil producer not only provide the highest quality olive oil, but does so in a sustainable fashion. Ellouze 1870 pairs traditional farming like hand-picked olives with solar power for the irrigation system and biofuel production using the waste from their farm. This along with employing local talent from their location in Tunisia means they are having an impact not only on the world of olive oil but also the local communities around them.
Farming and sustainability have been something of a topic over the past few years with criticism coming from all sides around the sustainability of some farming practices. Ro-Gro is a family-run farming business that focuses on aeroponics and the benefits that fortified microgreens can reap, while partnering with a more traditional farm to show the benefits of both methods and how they can work together to produce high-quality foods. The Aeroponic method that Ro-Gro employs uses less water and less space than traditional farming but is more suited to small crops like lettuce and micro greens. The lack of a need for pesticides is another significant benefit that Ro-Gro has over some other methods, but the major new product that Ro-Gro unveiled at IFE 2024 was their Vitamin b12 fortified pea shoots. Just a small portion of this new product can give enough vitamin B12 for an adult’s daily needs. The inclusion of fortifications like vitamin B12 is a clear indicator that people are looking for additional benefits from the foods they eat and ensuring they have all the nutritional value they can get.
Clean and healthy eating is becoming more of a focal point when people are choosing their food and drink purchases. This is something that The Keto Elf embodies to the fullest, with simple and tasty crackers that are vegan, contain no common allergens, and as expected, are keto-friendly too! Using only simple and clean ingredients they pack a flavourful basis for all your snacking needs. Whether you need an on-the-go snack or something to dip in your favourite houmous, The Keto Elf has you covered.
Another sweet entry to the start-up scene comes from Coaties and Have a Ball, produced by Gottskar Food. These sweet treats are vegan, oat and date-based no-bake bars and balls that pack a sweet punch without the added sugar. Some of the outstanding flavours that you can find are Mocha, Salted caramel, cinnamon and … Fizzy Cola? Somehow Gottskar Foods has created a no-added-sugar, vegan, date ball that tastes exactly like fizzy cola bottle sweets. Clean and healthy eating doesn’t have to be boring and bland, now it can taste just like sweets!
When we think of clean and healthy living and what that looks like we always turn to greens, vegetables, no sugar, green juices and the like. We don’t think of coffee as being something that we consider to be healthy or something that you can have as part of a balanced and healthy life. Tide has decided to change this rhetoric and bring coffee into the wellness space as more than just a morning beverage. Tide have introduced a range of coffee as their first product line showcasing that caffeine can be a healthy part of any diet and lifestyle. With a range of Nespresso-compatible coffee pods from your full caffeine morning brew to your caffeine-free evening cup and everything in between, you can ensure you’re consuming caffeine with a full understanding of how much you’re consuming. For the future Tide is branching out into coffee+ of which their initial product will contain collagen as an industry first.
With all this talk of how to make food and drinks more sustainable and better for the environment, or very healthy and clean using only simple ingredients, it can be easy to forget an important part of food and drink, the taste. One new start-up that has flavour at the forefront of its mind is Fullerton, a new crisp company that endeavours to bring amazing Caribbean flavours to your snacking pleasure. With 5 flavours inspired by tastes of the Caribbean, from classics like jerk chicken with Scotch bonnet to Mac and cheese and even oxtail, you will find something amazing to enjoy. You won’t have to settle for the usual old cheese and onion and salt and vinegar for much longer with this incredible range of flavours.
Flavour, style, and substance come together in our next new starter 18 Flatbread. Not only does 18 Flatbread use acoustic freezing technology to maintain the integrity of their frozen flatbread they also boast a selection of amazing flavours; like Fig, goat cheese and honey, as well as Cacio e Pepe, and the vegan tomato and oregano. Only taking 3 minutes in the air fryer, you can have an incredible and flavourful snack or meal in no time at all. 18 Flatbread is the perfect combination of remembering food is about flavour as well as understanding that we don’t all have time to make flatbread from scratch, but now you can enjoy it any time of the day straight from your freezer at home.
Rounding out our new start-up show from the IFE 2024 was Chaat-it the spice company embodying flavour in its purest form. This family-run start-up grew from providing hot food at concerts to selling its premium spice mix directly to consumers. With a variety of spice mixes to choose from, you’ll be spoilt for choice!
The new starter pavilion at The International Food and Drink Event 2024 was a showcase of some of the best new products on the market. There are so many great products that are now for sale online and some interesting new technologies within this new market. We look forward to seeing what these new businesses have to offer at next year’s show.
You can find links to all the products mentioned in the article below.
https://www.upnmellow.co.uk/ – Luxury nut based porridge
https://winwinwater.co.uk/ – Biodegradable bottle filled with alkaline water
https://ellouze1870.com/ – Premium olive oil from Tunisia
https://ro-gro.uk/ – Aeroponic grown Microgreens
https://www.theketoelf.com/ – Vegan, Keto crackers
https://coaties.se/ – Oat and date based sweet treats
https://wearetide.com/ – Coffee with wellness in mind
https://fullertonscrisps.com/ – Caribbean inspired crisps
https://www.18flatbread.com/ – Trendy and tasty Flatbread
https://thechefdivine.wixsite.com/chaatit – Finger licking Indian street food
Written by Sam Bradley of the FAB Team
