Food is shifting faster than boardrooms can react.
GLP-1 weight loss drugs are reshaping baskets. Challenger brands are stretching categories in unexpected ways. Regulators are tightening climate and disclosure rules. Retailers and suppliers have to make decisions while the ground keeps moving.
Businesses that thrive will see disruption as a way to grow, not just something to guard against. The best signals come from people willing to try things, learn quickly and rethink how food is grown, made and sold.
Key innovators to watch
I saw that first-hand last week at Waitrose HQ, where suppliers came together to explore supply chain disruption and the trends shaping the next decade.
Wildfarmed stood out. By rebuilding supply chains around regenerative agriculture and forging direct farmer partnerships it has turned provenance into a competitive advantage. That is strength built on trust and system thinking, not marketing spin.
Whitworths shows a similar mindset. Drawing on its reputation in fruit and nut sourcing, it launched walnut mince, backed by insight and knowledge from the British Nutrition Foundation, moving early into the wholefood protein market. That is how deep product knowledge becomes a platform for growth.
Premier Foods’ purchase of Merchant Gourmet underlines the same point. By bringing pulses and grains into its portfolio, Premier saw that the quickest growth now comes from stretching trusted brands into healthy convenient formats.
Big bets pay off
The market evidence confirms the pattern. Circana reports that value sales from distinctive new products in UK food and drink fell 28 % in 2024, yet those launches still delivered a disproportionate share of category growth. Kantar, in its latest available analysis, finds that more than 40 % of branded growth comes from new product development. Fewer companies are taking big bets, but the ones that do are shaping where the market goes. The risk is real, but so is the reward.
This is the mindset that separates leaders from laggards. Robust businesses build on operating models rather than defend single categories. They move early with credibility. They create incentives that reward experimentation. They design for quick learning so they can scale what works before regulation or consumer behaviour forces their hand. They focus on the problem to solve, not the product to protect.
Turning individual success into system change needs collective effort. That is where Future Food Movement plays its part. Our network has doubled in size over the past year and more than a total of 1,000 leaders since our inception have taken part in programmes that turn ambition into action.
In recent months we have hosted industry working sessions on regenerative sourcing and supply-chain decarbonisation, helping senior teams translate ideas into pilots and investment decisions. Each week we bring together retailers, manufacturers, investors, farmers and NGOs to share insight and test new ideas that strengthen supply chains and unlock new categories.
Strength today is the real ESG test. It depends on trust and transparency as much as speed to market. Companies that wait for regulation to force change risk losing both margin and market relevance.
Enduring growth is not built in headlines. It lives in operating models, in partnerships that span the value chain and in the trust that comes from openness. Innovators have shown what is possible. The challenge now is whether big food will use disruption to power the next era of sustainable growth or watch others take the lead.
About the author
Louis Bedwell is the Business unit lead at the Future Food Movement. He joined the organisation in 2024 and supports the business in scaling its membership across the food industry.
The Future Food Movement exists to support food companies in closing the climate skills gap and has reached more than one million people, supporting companies like Sainsbury’s, Greencore, SSP, and many others.
Bedwell previously served as managing director of the industry’s leading innovation accelerator, where he met with more than 1,500 purpose-led start-ups each year and helped market leaders invest in emerging technologies and innovations.
