content tagged as Sustainability

Tamar Haspel, Washington Post columnist, moderates a discussion on how shifting diets to more plant-based food might impact the environment. Panelists include: Mary Christ-Erwin, Taylor Wallace, Adam Drewnowski, and Jessica Fanzo.

More and more consumers are gravitating toward increased consumption of plant-based foods, and health and diet research supports the many benefits of doing so.

IFT and the Feeding Tomorrow Foundation have announced a new program called Food Technologists Without Borders to leverage the technical know-how of the IFT community to address critical global food needs.

The IFT17 screening of Food Evolution drew an enthusiastic audience response. The film uses the debate around GMOs to further the dialogue about the role of science in the food system.

Environmental concerns over conventional meat production is stimulating R&D of cultured meat products.

This year’s Scientific Programming will include four Hot Topic sessions—curated, scientific sessions focused on impactful, current trends and issues facing the science of food. 

Clean meat – meat produced through cell culture – has the potential to address all of the most pressing concerns about industrialized animal agriculture, including land use, water consumption, food safety, antibiotic overuse, and animal welfare concerns. The first public demonstration and tasting showcasing clean meat technology occurred in 2013, with a price tag of hundreds of thousands of dollars per pound. In the intervening half-decade, the field has made tremendous progress – both in technological sophistication and in approaching economically feasible price points. As of the 2017 IFT session on clean meat in June of last year, over a half-dozen companies had launched to commercialize clean meat. Since that time a flurry of activity has occurred, including the genesis of several new companies and the influx of significant venture capital and meat industry corporate venture investment. In this session, we will focus on the developments that have occurred in this fast-moving field in the preceding 12 months. Our speakers include an academic with a long track record of rigorous bioprocess design for large-scale animal cell culture; the food policy expert who is spearheading the collaborative effort for clean meat’s regulatory approval; and the CEO of one of the first-established clean meat companies. The session will be opened and moderated by Dr. Liz Specht, senior scientist with the Good Food Institute, to introduce the concept of clean meat for audience members for whom this is a new concept and to put each speaker’s role in the development of this technology in context.

*Our thanks to Axiom for their sponsorship of the Alternative Protein Deep Dive programming*

Today’s consumer seeks greater transparency to all aspects of the food they purchase, including how it is grown or raised. This session will address the similarities between organic, conventional, and biotech food production, and dispel myths between the various agriculture methods. Technologies along the continuum of gene modification will be discussed, including CRISPR gene editing, methodologies used in the Artic Apple, and Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) gene transfer. Real life examples from the family farm will include how the synergies of different farming systems work together toward true sustainability and how farming in sensitive watersheds has more to do with which tools in the toolbox are utilized over which farming system is employed. Attendees will be challenged to ensure their decision-making, policy making, and communications align with science and fact-based information while meeting consumer demand for greater transparency to food production methodology. Too often we believe the answer is one way or another, but multiple methods of agriculture can co-exist in today's dynamic and global food supply to provide choice to consumers.

“Cellular agriculture,” the ability to produce agricultural products, such as meat, eggs, and milk through the use of biotechnology and cell culture and without the use of animals per se, is being touted as the next big breakthrough for ensuring a sustainable, safe, and ethical food supply. Meats produced via cellular agriculture have been given various monikers such as “cultured meats,” “animal-free meats,” “clean meats,” and “lab-grown meats,” to name a few. As this field of research emerges, it is conceivable that these cultured products could become commercially available in the near future. What are some of the regulatory challenges that will be faced by companies wanting to bring these products to market?

The market introduction of products developed via cellular agriculture poses a myriad of questions from a regulatory perspective. For example, what level of regulatory oversight will be needed? How will it be ensured that these products are safe? Will these products have to be nutritionally equivalent to their conventionally-obtained counterparts? How will they be labelled? When genetically modified (GM) foods were first developed and brought to market, existing regulations had to be adapted and new regulations had to be promulgated and, in some jurisdictions, GM foods continue to be contentious. Similar developments are likely to be needed for the commercialization of products obtained via cellular agriculture.

This symposium will begin with an overview of cellular agriculture: what it is, and the methods and technologies used to develop cultured animal products. The stakeholders involved in advancing the research and development of cultured animal products will be shared, in addition to the challenges associated with the progress of research in this area. Whether the existing regulatory framework in the United States for bringing food products to market can be adapted to support the commercialization of cultured animal products will be discussed, in addition to foreseen regulatory challenges.



*Our thanks to Naturex for their sponsorship of the Product Development & Ingredient Innovations track*

This symposium will highlight the latest in cutting edge research and the state of the new industry developing insects as sustainable food ingredients and a family / suite of new commodities for the food industry (protein isolates and extracts, whole insect based ingredients such as cricket powder, oil, fiber, and bioactives, etc.) We will offer information to stake holders on the latest research and technology development in insect farming, processing, functionality evaluation and product development. We will also provide late breaking cutting edge research on insect genomics and transgenic insect development for newer and improved lines of farm raised insects (crickets, mealworms, etc.) for more efficient delivery of nutrient dense insect based food products and disease resistant insects.