After hosting a virtual event last year, Prepared Foods returned to a live event for its 39th annual New Products Conference Sept 13-14. More specifically, you could say we put the “Big D” in R&D by hosting the conference in Dallas.

In addition to retail innovators such as 7-Eleven, Dallas is home to food and beverage processors big and small—including Frito-Lay, LALA US, Keurig Dr. Pepper and Mooala. Many more Texas cities (especially Austin) also are innovation incubators for emerging brands and technologies.

For as much as I enjoyed getting to know Dallas, our event also provides a brief, in-person window for attendees to network and quickly download the state of R&D. With a theme of “Adapt+Develop,” we identified five key topics.

1) Innovation Landscape: Opportunities, Challenges

From its annual global Food & Agribusiness Summit to its own FoodBytes innovation network, Rabobank garners in-depth insights to ingredients markets, the R&D process, emerging new concepts and categories. This year’s opening keynote speaker was Anne Greven, Global Head, F&A Startup Innovation. She reviewed innovation lessons learned in 2020 and 2021; and forecast and profiled new market opportunities and challenges.

Also taking a broad, big picture view in Mintel, a global new product tracking and consumer insights leader. Lynn Dornblaser, Director of Innovation & Insight; and David Jago, Principal Consultant, presented three major trends to define the future of food: health, ethics and technology.

We already knew e-Commerce was thriving before the nation’s COVID pandemic. Since then, online food and beverage grocery sales have skyrocketed. Thrive Market’s Chief Merchandising Officer Jeremiah McElwee addressed NPC attendees to share natural and organic market insights, consumer e-Commerce behavior and how new product innovation helps fuel greater success in this dynamic channel.

SKU is an Austin-based product accelerator that supports smaller companies and provides 12-14 weeks of development and advice from industry mentors. SKU Chief Operating Officer Michelle Breyer led a panel discussion about innovation and emerging companies. Panelists were Brett Christoffel, Founder/CEO, All Y'alls Foods; Chi Nguyen, Founder, CEO, Purpose Tea; and Jessica Spanton, Director of R&D & QRC, Amplify Snack Brands.

2) Better-For-You, Functional Foods & Beverages

PepsiCo has committed to increasing the choice of healthier products within its portfolio. Marianne O’Shea, Vice President-Global Nutrition Science, examined how PepsiCo integrates a healthful evidence based nutrition science approach to product reformulation projects (reducing added sugars, sodium, saturated fat), new product innovation efforts (to include functional benefits) and how it helps promote new novel ingredients and technologies through PepsiCo’s Greenhouse Accelerator project.

3) Sustainability: Where R&D Meets Packaging

As an original member and “Activator” within the US Plastics Pact, Nestlé USA is committed to make 100% of its packaging reusable or recyclable by 2025 and reduce its GHG emissions footprint. Leading its charge to make food and beverage packaging “fit for purpose” is Nestlé US Director of Packaging Chastity McLeod. McLeod used NPC to examine packaging’s critical R&D role in both protecting product—and the planet.

4) Food, Flavor & Form: Top Trends

Matt Okeson, U.S. Head of Growth, Innovation, Research & Development at LALA US (part of Mexico’s Grupo LALA), outlined the fast-growing Hispanic dairy foods market, where LALA competes with its namesake branded yogurts, smoothies, crema, milk and cheeses. Okeson also outlined the business’ other mainline dairy products, corporate plans to double sales and how LALA U.S. has re-energized its innovation program.

Speaking of flavor, perhaps not many people fully understand the important ways that independent restaurants inspire broader and bigger trends involving everything from ingredients to new food and beverage product concepts. At a time when restaurants are re-opening, Mike Kostyo, a “Trendologist” at Datassential, Chicago, examined new ingredient and taste trends (to date) during 2021 and shared a 2022 forecast for what’s next for trend-setting ingredients, foods and drinks.

Prepared Foods also hosted a curated Culinary Crawl in Dallas, a night out on the town to literally taste the trends. Connecting the dots from restaurant to retail were Tuesday presenters Jessica Foust, RDN, vice president of Culinary Innovation & Nutrition at Creative Food Solutions; and Elizabeth Ervin, Account Director at The Food Group.

5) Novel Ingredients: New Plant-based and Alternative Proteins, Cannabis & More

What’s next on the horizon in plant-based and alternative proteins? Forecasting for 2022 and beyond was Stephanie Lind, Founder of Elohi Strategic Advisors. Already an insights leader in plant-based products, Lind led a thought-provoking panel discussion with Shannon Cosentino-Roush, Chief Strategy Officer, Finless Foods Inc.; Cheryl Preyer, Board President, North American Coalition for Insect Agriculture; and Mervyn de Souza, Elohi’s Chief Science Advisor.

Prepared Foods showcased another novel ingredient that’s too big to ignore: cannabis. Market tracker BDSA estimates that food and beverage edibles (including gummies) constitute 15% of total CBD dollar sales sold through retail dispensaries and food and beverage will generate nearly 30% of retail sales by 2025. What do the experts predict when it comes to mainstream market opportunities, cannabis ingredients, product development, labeling, safety and more? Addressing those topics were Larry Levin, IRI Executive Vice President, Market & Shopper Intelligence; and Jessica Lukas, Senior Vice President, Commercial Development, BDSA. PF