Fi Europe 2025 Innovation Awards: Winners span plant-based fats to cocoa traceability

Fi Europe has announced the winners of its 2025 Innovation Awards, recognizing breakthrough solutions across six categories at a ceremony marking the event’s 30th edition in Paris.

From a record 177 submissions — a 22% increase from 2024’s 145 entries — the awards spotlighted technologies addressing major industry challenges, from clean label dairy alternatives to manufacturing efficiency and supply chain transparency.

The six winners were selected from 23 finalists by an 11-member expert panel led by Prof. Colin Dennis, chair of the board of trustees at IFIS. All finalists presented their innovations on Monday in Paris, France, with winners revealed at the Fi Europe Celebration and Awards ceremony yesterday. 

Dairy Alternative Innovation: The Time-Travelling Milkman

The Time-Travelling Milkman won for Oleocream, a plant-based dairy fat derived from oleosomes — natural oil droplets found in sunflower seeds.

The Dutch food tech start-up’s patented extraction process preserves the native structure of oleosomes, which are surrounded by a protein-phospholipid membrane that mimics dairy fat globules. This delivers the creaminess associated with dairy fats without saturated fats.

“Oleocream is based on natural oleosomes, tiny oil droplets found in sunflower seeds that are surrounded by a protein-phospholipid membrane,” Tasso Skerletidis, sales manager at The Time-Travelling Milkman, tells Food Ingredients First. “These structures are nature’s own emulsions and remarkably similar to dairy fat globules.”

Oleocream functions as a one-to-one replacer for dairy cream in applications including fermentation, high-heat processing, and low-acidity products such as cream cheese, sauces, and desserts.

The ingredient addresses a persistent gap in plant-based alternatives, where many products fall short on mouthfeel and texture due to the lack of proper fat structure.

Food Manufacturing Innovation: Tetra Pak

Tetra Pak’s Air Jet Cleaning system for powder handling equipment won for its efficiency and food safety advances.

Twenty three finalists were judged by an expert panel yesterday evening.Unlike conventional clean-in-place systems that use liquids, the technology employs high-speed compressed air jets combined with vacuum extraction to remove powder residues from internal surfaces without opening equipment. This maintains a sealed environment and eliminates moisture-related microbial growth risks.

“Manual cleaning is still common practice, but it requires opening the equipment, creating dust clouds that spread into the surrounding area and trigger additional cleaning,” a Tetra Pak spokesperson tells us. “Food safety is another critical concern: every time equipment is opened for manual intervention, hygiene risks increase.”

Cleaning time is reduced from 90 minutes to 30 minutes per cycle, resulting in annual savings of €44,000 to €50,000 (US$46,000 – US$58,000), depending on operator wages and cleaning frequency. The system also enables faster recipe changeovers and improves hygiene standards by eliminating dust clouds created during manual cleaning.

Future Foodtech Innovation: AKA Food

AKA Food secured the award for its Intelligence Platform for Application Development, which uses artificial intelligence to streamline product innovation.

The platform addresses a persistent challenge for experienced food technologists: accessing decades of accumulated knowledge. Tomer Green, from AKA Food, tells us that experts with 30 years of experience have completed around 300 projects across different areas but struggle to recall past failures or successes.

“If you have 30 years of experience, you don’t remember what failed three years ago on another formulation that you did,” he says. “But if you had a very easy way to map your knowledge, and you can access the previous history just by searching — what similar projects did I already do? What did I fail there, and what worked there? — It really removes the cold start, even for the experts.”

Green highlights a generational divide in food technology workflows. “The young, up-and-coming food technologists are eager for something new, for these AI tools,” he says. “They use GPT, they are trying and playing around with a lot of AI, and they are asking themselves, ‘Why am I using GPT for everything?’ But for my work, I’m using Excel, which is like in the 70s. It’s an industry waiting to be disrupted.”The nominated products address some of the biggest production and supply chain challenges in the industry.

The platform integrates critical data sources and empowers application development professionals to generate innovative concepts, product prototypes, and solutions in response to customer briefs, supporting faster time-to-market for new ingredients and applications.

Health Innovation: ADM

ADM won for Lactobacillus Gasseri CP2305, a postbiotic strain targeting mental health through the gut-brain axis.

The strain has been scientifically validated for its effects on stress reduction and sleep quality, addressing growing consumer interest in nutrition-mediated brain health. The ingredient expands ADM’s health portfolio into cognitive and emotional wellness applications.

Plant-Based Innovation: ICL Food Specialties

ICL Food Specialties took the award for Rovitaris SprouTx, a textured soy protein that leverages germination to overcome traditional sensory challenges.

“We are excited to offer an innovative and exceptional soy protein without the characteristic “beany” or bitter taste, to help formulators create better tasting, better performing plant-based meat and seafood products,” says Rado Sporka, VP of the Food Specialties commercial business for ICL.

The sprouting process reduces off-flavors while enhancing umami taste, improving fibrous texture, optimizing nutrition, and shortening hydration time compared with conventional textured proteins. This addresses a longstanding barrier to soy protein adoption in plant-based products.

Sustainability Innovation: ofi

ofi’s Cocoa Compass initiative won for its comprehensive approach to supply chain traceability and farmer support.

The program, launched in 2019, uses tools including the AtSource platform, carbon stock monitoring, and a cocoa farmer income tool to deliver enhanced transparency. It supports deforestation monitoring, greenhouse gas impact modeling, and detailed origin data — aligning with regulatory drivers like the EU Deforestation Regulation.

“The granularity of our data, coupled with our extensive footprint on the ground in origin countries and strong relationships with farmers, means we can continue to move the needle with collaborators,” says Tejinder Singh Saraon, ofi Cocoa managing director and CEO.

According to 2022 data, over 30,000 farmers in ofi’s cocoa supply chain were estimated to earn a living income, demonstrating measurable progress toward the program’s challenging 2030 targets.

With additional reporting by Joshua Poole at Fi Europe 2025 in Paris, France