Monkey Picked Coconuts - An Ethical Scandal
For years, the coconut aisle has traded on a halo of tropical purity, hydration, wellness, plant-based goodness. But behind some Thai coconut products sits a practice feeling wildly out of step with 2026 ethics and that is forced monkey labour. According to Foodfacts, pig-tailed macaques are still being captured, chained, and trained to harvest coconuts in parts of Thailand, despite repeated assurances the practice has ended - monkey picked coconuts.
10 hours ago1 min read
Australia 2025 = Provenance, Plant-Forward Eating, and the New Food Identity War
Australia is ending 2025 in full identity-rebuild mode, and food is the battlefield. According to new social and search data from Pureprofile and Quilt.AI, Australian consumers are loudly declaring the future belongs to them, their producers, their ingredients, their provenance lanes, with 81% of trending sentiment fixated on "Australian-made" goods and the cultural comfort of eating from their own backyard.
1 day ago1 min read
Ajinomoto’s Atlr.72 Drops in Singapore Filled with Solein Air-Protein
Italy has its UNESCO cuisine moment, but Japan just slid in with something arguably more disruptive in the form of a dessert made from air. Ajinomoto’s conscious brand Atlr.72 has officially launched Mochelie, a mochi-filled almond tart powered by Solein, the world’s first commercial “protein from air.” It's just hit Singapore shelves in three flavours, and yes, it’s still a pastry, with a carbon footprint reading more like a rounding error.
2 days ago1 min read
Italy's Cuisine Is Now UNESCO-Protected
Italy's cuisine has just been received an accolade even the most passionate nonna might blush over by convincing UNESCO its entire cuisine, the whole sprawling, tomato-splashed, pasta-shaped universe, deserves protection as an intangible cultural treasure. Forget individual dishes. The whole national food identity just got canonised.
3 days ago1 min read
The Global Protein Drink Surge
The global protein drink market is exploding again, not because people are suddenly bodybuilding in their lunch breaks, but because everyday consumers are chasing quick nutrition without the “gym bro” baggage. According to new industry data, the market already sits at US $32 billion and is barrelling toward US $76.5 billion by 2032, powered by wellness culture, plant-based swaps, and the growing obsession with “clean-label energy in a bottle.”
3 days ago1 min read
Tunnel Hill Mushrooms - The Rise of Subterranean Foodcraft
Tunnel Hill Mushrooms might be Australia’s most atmospheric food producer, literally growing the future inside a cold, abandoned Tasmanian train tunnel. In a world obsessed with glasshouses and steel-and-LED vertical farms, this one goes the other way: deep underground. The result? A quiet, almost eerie form of ambient agriculture turning a 19th-century sandstone tunnel into a precision-engineered microclimate for gourmet and medicinal fungi.
4 days ago1 min read
Brad's Air-Dried Vegetable Platform, Not Just Kale
US based, Brad’s isn’t just selling kale chips, they’ve built a whole new air-dried snacking category out of air-dried vegetables. Walk down a Whole Foods aisle and their wall of colour jumps out at you in the form of Veggie Flats, Veggie Chips, Keto Crisps, Snackable Salads, and yes, Crunchy Kale. It’s the clearest example yet of how “whole-veg snacking” is separating itself from the UPF-heavy alternatives dominating grocery shelves.
4 days ago1 min read
It’s All a Matter of Perception (Why ‘Vegan’ Still Trips People Up)
Plant-based food doesn’t have a taste problem, it has a perception problem, and the internet keeps proving it. A recent viral video shows a man raving about a burger, calling it “one of the best ever,” right up until he’s told it’s vegan. It wasn’t, it was beef the whole time, yet the flavour apparently changed instantly.
6 days ago1 min read
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