Pulses, Grains and Insect Innovation at Food Matters Live

29 Sep 2016 --- From curry-flavoured mealworms to chickpea pasta, gut-friendly snacks to biscuits and chocolate with no added sugar – discover some of the newest and most exciting food and drink products on the market. The Food Matters Live Product and Ingredients Directories provide an invaluable online resource for buyers, retailers and manufacturers eager to discover what’s likely to hit supermarket shelves.

They also serve as a showcase for the latest products and ingredients that will be on display at this year’s Food Matters Live – and enable visitors to find out more about the innovators behind ‘better for you’ food and drink.

Accessed via the Food Matters Live website, the easy to use directories categorise ingredients into functional, natural clean label, salt and sugar replacers, pulses and grains – while products range from organic, natural and no added sugar to edible insects, free from and functional.

Natural clean label ingredients include: Homecraft pulse flours – protein rich, vegan and gluten free flours made from lentil, pea, chickpea and faba bean sources, and Meatless Fibres, which are used as a raw material ingredient in vegetarian food, or a substitute in processed meat products to improve health, juiciness and sustainability.

For salt and sugar replacers, look no further than NTC Flavours’ range of natural taste modifiers that replace salt, fat, improve Stevia and block acidic and bitter notes – while Belgian company FLINN proves its functional ingredients’ credentials with a Crunchy Micro food coating for frozen poultry nuggets, which maintains crispiness after being heated in a microwave oven.

Under pulses and grains, LCI shows how replacing nuts with toasted corn germ is a cheaper and more nutritious alternative ingredient for cereal bars, while Döhler’s portfolio of liquid and dry cereal and malt extracts improve the taste, colour and freshness of food.

In the Products Directory, Fodify Foods’ no onion or garlic Mexican and Moroccan Spice Pots are some of the latest products on the market specifically for people suffering from IBS and food intolerances.

Other ‘new products’ promoted in the gallery include: Dutch family firm Van Koolen’s range of delicious mushroom dishes that serve as meat replacers, Saile Irish Seaweed Foods’ Organic Kelp Krispies Mix – chocolate bites that don’t even taste like seaweed - and Nutristrength’s Pea Proteins.

Eat Grub’s cricket protein coconut and cacao energy bars fall under the ‘edible insects’ category, along with One Hop Kitchen’s Cricket Bolognese, Jimini’s Fruity Curry Grasshoppers, MicroNutris’ Thyme Flavoured Mealworms and Morphagy’s Whole Roasted Crickets.

Googly Fruit pouches and snacks for children feature in the ‘no added sugar’ section, alongside Coppa della Maga gluten, egg and sugar free Italian ice cream, Oliphen dark chocolate with Stevia & olive fruit polyphenols, Functional Food Company’s IB’Snack and Frill’s frozen smoothie.

Organic drinks include German firm Wostok lemonades, featuring notes of pine needle, pomegranate, pear and rosemary, alongside Juiceman’s cleansing cold-pressed juices - while the ‘organic foods’ include Really Healthy Foods’ Mung Bean Fusilli, Coconoil, My Raw Joy’s vegan chocolate, cookies and crackers, and Creative Nature’s Organic Shelled Hemp Seeds.

Briony Mansell-Lewis, Food Matters Live Director, said: “More than 600 organisations, ranging from global multinational companies to young and emerging enterprises from the UK and internationally will be taking part in the Food Matters Live exhibition. Our online directories give buyers, retailers and manufacturers a taste of the newest ingredients and products coming to market - and a sneak preview of the breadth of Food Matters Live.”

More than 15,000 visitors from across the food and drink industry are expected to attend this year’s Food Matters Live, which is free to attend and takes place on 22-24 November at London’s ExCeL.

Marks & Spencer, Tesco, Waitrose, Premier Foods, John Lewis Food Hall, Asda, Jamie Oliver Ltd, Superdrug and Holland and Barrett and many other retail organizations have already registered.