I RECENTLY gave a keynote on the 2nd Philippine Food and Beverage Manufacturing Summit a few weeks ago. I spoke about the future of the food and beverage industry, and true enough, food innovation has become a buzzword in the current times, and for good reason. With the increasing population and dwindling natural resources, food production has become a major concern, especially in the Philippines, which experiences natural calamities such as typhoons half of the time each year. These calamities affect the supply of goods, and we have experienced these many times in the last couple of months, especially last year. Effectively, achieving sustainability in food production has become a significant challenge. Conversely, it also presents opportunities.
Food innovation is the process of developing better ways to produce, process and distribute food. This can play a critical role in achieving sustainability. To appreciate this, it is important to understand the life cycle of a meal — the process that the food goes through to come up with the meal desired. A typical lifecycle covers the following stages: (1) raw materials extraction; (2) processing; (3) farming; (4) manufacturing; (5) distribution and retail; (6) preparation; and (7) meal processing. In this process, it is important to note that waste is generated and, in some cases, fed back into the ecosystem.
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