Where food technologies are concerned, all roads will be leading to San Francisco in March of this year for the Future Food Tech conference.
But while the event is always seen as a venue for presenting fresh innovations to industry practitioners, the 2022 conference is set to play up the concepts of sustainable eating and production thanks to several vegan speakers who will be taking to the stage.
Royalty Takes Up the Cudgels for Vegan Investing
A member of the Saudi royal family and an entrepreneur in his own right will be joining executives from several plant-based food companies to discuss the implications of sustainability and the advantages of switching to a more plant-dominant diet in the near future.
Prince Khaled bin Alwaleed, co-owner of vegan journalism outlet Plant-Based News, is set to be part of an investors’ panel that will discuss how investments focused on sustainability stand to become profitable, along with the use of emergent technologies like Web 3.0 and the cryptocurrency sector when it comes to financing food-centric endeavors.
The prince will be joined by IndieBio chief technological officer Pae Wu, Lux Capital partner Deena Shakir, and Pontifax managing partner Philip Erlanger.
A Stellar Lineup
But Prince Khaled is not the only advocate for plant-based foods speaking at the event. The chief executive officers of several prominent and emergent brands will also be in attendance.
To date, the roster includes CEOs from Eat Just, Evo Foods, Libre Foods, Meati Foods, Remilk, Sundial Foods, and V2 Food. Likewise, representatives from several alt-poultry brands will be holding a cook-off featuring their companies products to be followed by an open forum with the audience.
Other companies participating in the event include Cargill, Danone, The Kellogg Company, social media giant Meta, Pepsico, and Tyson Ventures.
Sustainability in Modern Food Production
Key topics for the sustainability aspect of the conference include health and nutrition, solutions to mitigate or end food waste in production, the global goal of transitioning to a net-zero economy, as well as the development of alternative protein.
The alternative protein talks will touch upon the production and consumption of plant-based meats, along with processed meat alternatives crafted via the fermentation and culturing of vegetable protein. While panelists on the topic will be discussing both current and emergent technologies in the field, they will also address specific areas for improvement, such as making more nutritious and palatable dairy substitutes and viable solutions for creating plant-based seafood.
