The history of civilisation has been one of humankind taking ownership of the natural environment and reshaping it for our benefit. Taking basic food security for granted has been a fixture of 21st-century living in the developed world. The better off enjoy a globe-spanning choice of ingredients and cuisines.
Today’s city dwellers can access a mesmerising range of food brands and formats. Tech advancement has led to a crescendo of new product development, leveraging novel and newly popularised foods and new ways of making food.
The Asia Pacific, for instance, is a hotbed for alternative protein startups, with record investments of US$312 million flowing into the sector as of 2021 across categories including cultured meat, plant-based meat and dairy alternatives, and insect protein.
Singapore has emerged as a key hub of innovation and finance of new foods, scoring one of the highest levels of Agrifoodtech capital funding. The city-state recently climbed up 10 spots to 8th in the global startup ecosystem rankings.
As a land and resource-scarce state relying on the vibrancy of its people and living environment for success, achieving resilient food systems and more healthy and sustainable diets are key national priorities. Hence Singapore’s “30-by-30” effort to strengthen the nation’s food security and the Healthier SG initiative helping Singaporeans lead healthier lifestyles. Singapore has also been an early mover and standard setter in advancing sustainability and “Green Growth” in the face of intensifying climate change and environmental degradation.
Also Read: Singapore’s food services in 2023: Trends, challenges, and opportunities
Tech will be a key enabler to achieving such food security, wellness, and sustainability goals across Asia and worldwide. Investment and innovation will advance and harness tech to shape the future of food, transforming options for food production, accessing nutrition, and how food consumption is shaped and experienced.
Deliveroo’s recently launched Snack to the Future report explored these themes, visualising possibilities for food delivery in the context of the food culture and systems in 2040.
Bespoke diets catered to unique biological needs
Technology is set to revolutionise how we eat, with people able to enjoy food that is both healthier for them and less impactful on the environment. Think consumers opting for local, sustainably sourced, and nutritious foods and accessing bespoke diets suited to their unique needs, powered by advances in Artificial Intelligence and other technologies.
As scientific knowledge of integrated body systems and how to quantify them in real-time advances, we could also leverage information captured from an individual’s gut microbiome, metabolome, and genome and use food science and technology to translate the findings into bespoke nutritional and gastronomic solutions for each eater. “Breathprint” technology may be able to detect compounds in one’s exhaled air and provide information about one’s health that can also inform their dietary choices.
“Me-ganism” – an emerging trend cited in Deliveroo’s report – refers to a diet catered to individuals’ unique needs and powered by AI technology. This could become the diet of the future via a personalised AI system that gathers data about individuals’ lifestyles, including sleep, exercise, heart rate and hormones, to provide customised meal recommendations.
With the Personalised Nutrition industry projected to reach SG$86.5 billion by 2040, there are many opportunities for companies to hyper-personalise the food people enjoy in the future.
Building a self-sufficient Singapore amid climate change
Deliveroo’s report also delves into the wider industry shift towards innovations supporting more local food production. By 2040, new forms and national and corporate strategies for resilient nutrition could be the norm as environmental changes and overpopulation contribute to food shortages and supply chain disruptions that trigger instability and hardship across parts of the world.
“Climate-smart agriculture” techniques that adapt and shield food production from rising climate pressures are arising. A key strategy will be diversification beyond the overly concentrated and hence vulnerable range of plant and animal species in today’s mainstream agriculture.
Overlooked indigenous plant varieties with resilient and nutritive traits will be rediscovered and scaled. Think petai, jackfruit, cowpea, arrowroot, azuki bean, buckwheat, amaranth, and a range of yams, pulses, and beans.
To adapt to the climate challenge, all parts of the food value chain need to support more sustainable, nutritious food production right where it is consumed. Governments, investors, startups and corporate innovators should continue to enhance the range and competitiveness of urban farming platforms and solutions.
Food processors, retailers and the food service sector must give consumers the options and awareness to eat locally and can advance farm-to-table collaborations and innovations. Regulatory enablement harnessing a robust scientific base is especially key for the viability and scaling of novel foods such as cultured meat.
Also Read: Feeding the future: Innovation, entrepreneurship, and the rise of food tech in Asia
The role of food delivery services in the future of food
Adjacent industries such as food delivery also need to simultaneously transform their offerings to be more personalised and sustainable. With Personalised AI, advanced meal delivery services could have sophisticated AI-driven diagnostic tools that cater to people’s lifestyle needs, with predictive approaches that can automate people’s food orders based on their preferences and needs and perhaps incentivise them to lead healthier lifestyles.
Being in a food paradise like Singapore also affords food delivery platforms an ever-expanding plethora of meals to offer customers. With new technologies, food delivery platforms will be able to access customers’ health data – with due consent and safeguards – to recommend meal choices best aligned with their preferences and nutritional needs.
Food delivery companies will need to take definitive steps to cater to customers of the future and make this vision of personalised, convenient, and immersive deliveries a reality. Winning today involves listening to customers and catering nimbly to both mass and premium markets. Winning tomorrow means looking to the future beyond what customers can conceive of today and being the first and best to meet them there with the best new value, offerings, and resilient reliability.
Looking ahead to 2040, there are many challenges to global food security, not the least the pressures of climate change, which today’s food system has played a part in creating. The scaling of transformative new technologies and business models “from farm to fork” will be crucial. Seen together, the possibilities to realise sustainable, healthy, and fulfilling food lifestyles for tomorrow are awesome and exciting. The food industry, innovators, investors, and governments all have key roles to play.
But the critical step will be for consumers to gain awareness and take ownership of their roles as “food citizens” of the world. A sustainable food system is more than one click away, but begins with more intentional and informed food choices in delivery and beyond that embrace wellness for ourselves, all people, and the planet.
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