The plant-based diet movement has significantly upshifted modern eating habits and choices, thus gearing up the trends of vegetarianism, veganism & flexitarians, to name few. The broadening exploration towards hedonic & eudemonic well-being driven by the pursuit of sustainable sources uptick the transformations positively across continents.
Taylor’s University, a leader in food studies in Malaysia, collaborated with Singapore Temasek Polytechnic on ‘Plant-based Foods: The Green Revolution for a Sustainable World’ for the exciting two-day programme. The education and industry leaders shared their in-depth knowledge, experience, and expertise through plant-based talks, culinary workshops and panel discussions. This event was divulged and engaged with innovative trends, issues such as acceptance amongst consumers, challenges faced by stakeholders, nutritional matter, food safety and security gaps that will shape the future of plant-based diets. All these timely topics was examined during the specially curated panel discussion and a students’ dialogue segment during the event.
The webinar series deliberated the current plant-based food hype with more than 50% of registered participants comprising of industry stakeholders. The speaker series featured 3 renowned professional representatives from Malaysia, Singapore and the United States of America. They were Ms. Chong Nyet Chin, Director, Food Safety & Quality, NTUC Fairprice Co-operative Limited, Singapore; Ms. Tracy Lim, Regional Technical Developer, Roquette, Singapore and Mr. Justin Kanthak, Segment Sales & Business Development Director of Griffith Foods, America and Board Industry Advisor at Research Chefs Association. The invited speakers shared their insights on the plant-based trends from their region that focused on the origins of the fast-growing phenomenon of plant-based food and what we can expect in the near future.
Apart from plant-based sources, the speakers also presented other growing alternatives including cell base and/or insects as adjacent markets. The highlight of the day featured Taylor’s Culinology® students’ Research Chef Association (RCA) winning products showcase. The winning product ‘Protein Alternative Menu for School Meals’ in Atlanta was presented by NiCo Team; and ACE Team showcased their winning product named ‘Baoger’ and ‘Amazing Bowl’ made with plant-based sources.
‘Plant-based Hype: Retain or Restrain?’ was the focus of an awesome panel discussion to deliberate on the current plant-based food phenomenon. Specifically, the challenges on safety and nutritional gaps associated with plant-based food were addressed by renowned experts with expertise from food safety to food nutrition and industry representatives from customer development experts to product specialists.
The session was overwhelmed with participants’ questions, demonstrating their desire to discover more about the plant-based phenomenon. Vividly, the webinar series wrapped up with a student dialogue session between Taylor’s Culinology® students and Temasek Polytechnic’s students. Both groups of students clearly clicked with one another, despite the physical distance. They enjoyed the delightful interaction, which was witnessed by sharing their diverse experiences ranging from study to campus life.
