Trustwell Blog

FoodTech 2020: A Look Ahead at the Trends Impacting the Food Chain This Decade

Written by Admin | Jan 28, 2020 8:00:00 AM

Learn which technologies are shaping the future of the global food supply chain. Read our E-Book on FoodTech trends impacting the industry, and how they can transform food in the next 10 years.

“We are in the midst of a new revolution in food technology. Many believe there will be more changes in food production systems in the next 10 years than there have been in the past 50.”

Frank Yiannas, Deputy Commissioner for Food Policy and Response at the FDA.

Technology adoption in the new millennium has been staggered throughout the food industry, with major technological shifts only beginning to take form. However, regulators are looking towards more advanced forms of consumer protections in 2020, and the public has evolving expectations informed by an increasingly technology-centric quality of life. Industry leaders are also bringing a newfound appetite for innovation and creative technology-based solutions. 

Consumers’ digital literacy is exponentially higher than it was 10 years ago, and the world of venture capital and private equity have turned a keen eye towards the food industry, where the Silicon Valley ethos of “disruption” has started to make waves. One of the biggest recent trends in the food industry is Food Tech itself. The industry is experiencing an unprecedented influx of investment and innovation, both upstream and downstream. According to AgFunder, 2018 was a record-breaking year for global investment of $16.9 billion in AgriFood Tech, a 43% year-over-year increase.

Bleeding edge technology is cropping up from farm to fork—from robotics and autonomous vehicles, to computer vision, predictive models and other forms of machine intelligence, to IoT, sensors and even forms of extended reality. Companies that don’t embrace new technologies will be left behind in many verticals of the food industry. The returns, efficiencies and competitive advantages of embracing new technologies will increase as standards keep pace with innovation and consumer behavior.  

Learn which technologies have penetrated the industry consciousness and are shaping the future of food in the 2020s in our latest E-Book.

FoodTech 2020 E-Book