From Fixes to Fundamentals: What FiE 2025 Taught Us About the Future of Functionality

Back from Paris and still processing? So are we.

This year’s Food Ingredients Europe didn’t just showcase the latest plant-based launches, it signalled a real shift in how the industry is thinking about functionality, flavour, and formulation.

There’s a growing realisation that many of the biggest plant-based challenges can’t be solved with surface-level fixes, they need to be addressed at the molecular level. And that’s exactly where enzymes are starting to shine.

Here’s what stood out at FiE 2025, and why we believe enzyme technology is becoming one of the most powerful levers in food innovation.

The New Ingredient Brief: Smarter, Not Just Simpler

The clean-label movement is evolving. It’s no longer about stripping out every unfamiliar ingredient, it’s about designing ingredients that do more with less. The expectation is now:

✔ Fewer additives

✔ Better performance

✔ Clearer labels

That’s a hard brief for many plant-based ingredients, especially those with structural gaps, flavour off-notes, or poor solubility. What we saw at FiE was a shift toward ingredient systems that are built to perform from the inside out.

Enzymes are leading that charge. Whether through targeted proteolysis to improve solubility, or using flavour-enhancing hydrolysis to unlock natural umami, the best solutions are those that start with the raw material and work forward, not just add on top.

Flavour Is Still the Dealbreaker

Despite a lot of progress, taste is still where many plant-based products lose consumers. At FiE, there was a clear appetite for natural, label-friendly flavour solutions and more than a few frustrated formulators looking to get rid of yeast extracts, masking agents, and flavour enhancers.

This is where enzymatic flavour development is turning heads. By unlocking glutamic acid, aspartic acid, and flavour-active peptides from within the protein itself, enzymes are enabling brands to build savoury flavour from the ground up, with no added flavourings.

It’s not just clean label, it’s cleaner formulation logic.

Not Just Protein Content - Protein Behaviour

Another shift we saw? A more nuanced view of plant protein quality. It’s no longer about crude protein percentages — it’s about how those proteins behave in processing, in the mouth, and in the body.

That’s pushing interest in:

• Improving solubility at lower pH (critical for plant-based drinks)
• Enhancing water-holding and binding in structured products
• Releasing bioavailable peptides and BCAAs for nutritional performance

Enzyme systems like those in our PlantPro™ portfolio are being used to fine-tune these parameters, with hydrolysates tailored to the product, processing conditions, and nutritional targets.

The Rise of Application-Led Design

We noticed something encouraging this year: fewer “one-size-fits-all” solutions, more precision engineering. Product developers aren’t looking for generic enzyme blends — they want targeted systems that work with oat, mung, fava, or chickpea in a specific matrix.

At FiE, we had detailed conversations around:

• Pre-treatment of proteins for improved extrusion performance
• Enzyme-compatible processing for barista-style oat drinks
• Enhancing emulsification or foaming in hybrid protein systems

The future isn’t just about innovation — it’s about integration. And enzymes are helping bridge the gap between ingredient science and product success.

Enzymes as Efficiency Tools in Sustainable Processing

Finally, sustainability was everywhere, but not just in carbon claims. Attendees were looking at the efficiency of processing, the value of side-streams, and how to get more from every crop.

Enzymes featured prominently in discussions around:

• Upcycling waste streams into functional ingredients
• Reducing processing intensity (time, temperature, energy)
• Increasing extraction yields and product consistency

There’s a quiet shift happening: enzymes are no longer seen as minor aids, but as key enablers of sustainable ingredient production at scale.