Prepared Foods editors looked for cocoa ingredient alternatives during this year’s Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) annual expo. Interestingly, one solution came from a seemingly unlikely source on the show floor: POM Wonderful Specialty Ingredients. Following is a conversation with POM Wonderful’s Jason Horvath, sales manager for Specialty Ingredients. 

In 2025, consumers will increasingly view food as part of their overall wellness routine. They expect meals to support not just physical health but also mental well-being and mood enhancement. This shift continues to drive the desire for functional foods—think beverages fortified with adaptogens, snacks rich in prebiotics/probiotics, and nutrient-dense meal replacements.

""Our annual trends report helps us not only understand the needs of our shoppers, but ensures we're exciting them by curating our shelves with the most fresh, innovative and local products,” said Fresh Thyme Market president Liz Zolcak. “Our shoppers are savvy, so it's important they know innovation is at our core and we can help them discover new products – often before they're available anywhere else in the Midwest."

Tractor Beam is now open for submissions of short stories and graphic novellas that explore how regenerative agriculture, soil science, and earth-centered practices can shape the future. 

The program invited cross-functional employee teams to submit projects completed during Conagra's fiscal years 2023 and 2024. Each submission was evaluated by a panel of peers, with the final winners selected by the company's sustainability leaders.

Prepared Foods talks sustainability with packaging designer Tom Newmaster, owner and partner at FORCEpkg, Lancaster, Pa.

The challenge is hosted by IFT and funded and initiated by the Seeding The Future Foundation. In its first three years, it has attracted over 2,400 submissions from teams of scientists, engineers, innovators, entrepreneurs, and multidisciplinary teams across non-governmental organizations (NGOs), non-profits, social enterprises, universities, research institutions as well as small and emerging for-profit enterprises.

By leveraging Einride's offering of connected electric trucks, charging infrastructure and digital freight platform that optimizes operations with data-driven insights, PepsiCo aims to reduce its Scope 3 emissions.

The final packaging contains at least 60% UCO-based bio-renewable polymer material, which is part of SABIC’s TRUCIRCLE™ portfolio. Oerlemans Plastics member of OPACKGROUP, a specialized manufacturer of flexible films and packaging, converts these polymers to a multilayer PE film for Lamb Weston’s pre-fried frozen potato products.

Prior to sharing our outlook for 2025, we wanted to review the predictions we made for 2024 to determine what we got right and what might not have fully taken shape. Here, we've collected capsule information for each section of our 2024 Predictions, in areas such as sustainability, foodservice and global flavors.