Fi Europe 2025: Azelis on global street food trends and food innovation
19 Dec 2025 | Azelis
Join Dr. Markus Matuschek, group principal manager & technical director at Azelis, as he discusses how the rise of global street food culture is driving innovation in food labs. He also explores breakthroughs in affordable, indulgent products, the evolution of better-for-you comfort foods, and how the company’s global lab network uncovers future food trends.
Fin Greens first reported from FI Europe 2025 in Paris.
I'm here at the Azales stand with Doctor Marcus Matucek, who is the principal development manager, technical director of food and nutrition for AAA.
Welcome to you.
So can you tell us how is the rise of global street food culture shaping the next wave of innovation in your food and nutrition labs?
It shapes it in this way that we have.
Multinational ideas for street food in a global network where the different regions influence the development in Europe and we see a lot of impact from Asia food coming to us and we also see the The change from the former processed food in retail that there is now more trend to food service meaning street food, so we translate those as azales, those packaged food trends to street food.
OK.
And which technologies or formulation breakthroughs are enable you to create affordable yet indulgent products for today's consumers.
I think breakthroughs are on many different levels.
One is, for example, plant-based proteins that you have now new formulations, so the high moisture extrusion, for example, that gives new product formats, but you have also in terms of taste marking, masking a lot of new developments enabling cocoa reduction, for example.
So on the taste and the texture, there are a lot of new innovations that help us in making new offerings.
How do you see better for innovation evolving within these comfort foods like the ones you are showcasing at this year's event?
At this year's event we showcase better for you in a way we have reduced sugar.
For meeting the trend for lower calorie food.
What we also have is fiber in our products, for example, in this format here which is for the Czech market where we introduce fibers in this category.
And the other idea is to have protein rich food that is, for example, our empanada that we developed this year that is.
Another example and looking forwards, how will Azalis use its lab network to anticipate new flavors, textures, and formats before they hit the mainstream?
That is a good question.
So we do so in interacting on a global basis so that we have the input from Asia, from the Americas to Europe and.
Vice versa, we get connected via our global community of practice call within the tech team, and this is how we capture it and we are always very close with our principals to get their latest innovation.
So for us, for us it's both a technology push and market driven approach.
Thanks for your time today.
