To give you a great browsing experience free of charge, this site uses cookies. Cookies help us personalize content and ads, provide social media features, track your preferences, and analyze traffic. Forbes may share this information with its advertising, analytics, and social media partners, who may use it with information you have provided to them in connection with their services. But, amongst Brexit and Trump, is a reasonably rosy bright future for how we feed ourselves. Almost every expert I spoke to researching this article had nothing but positive predictions for the future of our food. Of course, many of the ideas about which direction the food industry is going are possibilities. Typically, technology — and its hero-complex stricken entrepreneurs — are on the case. But what will the future of food really look like? Robot Bees and Underground Farms Parts of the farming industry have already begun to rise to the challenge. A number of food producers have begun to use more sustainable methods. These include vertical farming, where plants are grown in water rather than soil, is already in limited use in some parts of the US. Other ideas include mechanising daily farming routines, to increase productivity whilst reducing labour costs. This is in response to an increasing concern about the declining population of bees — down to pesticides, invasive species, habitat loss and climate change — which has serious implications for agricultural pollination. Our world population is becoming increasingly urban, which means a rapidly changing ecosystem: future farming means not only using new methods, but taking place in new locations. Cannabis cornflakes The actual food produced will undergo some dramatic changes, too. Grisly, blood-splattered abattoirs will be replaced by nerds in white jackets and test tubes. The Californian start-up, has already created a 100% plant-based but meat-tasting burger. Meanwhile and are set to be the next culinary trend and superfood ingredient respectively. But are people actually going to eat these weird and wonderful products? Using a variety of sensors and algorithms smart ovens and pans will detect what the food is and then cook it to perfection. Paying more for the recipe than the ingredients, which raises the fascinating prospect of an illegally downloaded dinner. The final piece of the puzzle is the best bit. As Raithatha points out, food is now another form of entertainment. Samsung has to push the integration of VR into the restaurant scene. Instead experiences will be an important part of consumption: stimulating multiple senses at once with VR headsets and holographic restaurants that transport you to Tokyo as you eat sushi, which will improve the taste of the food. Meanwhile robot waiters, drone Deliveroo, nutritious food-replacement sludge and derma patches that deliver nutrients through the skin, like , will be the ultimate in easy cuisine. And, in the future, the dreaded C-word, convenience, might not be a byword for harmful environment unfriendly food factories. But instead, fast, sustainable and clever food production.
