UK Food Tech Industry

Companies whose activity is developing a commercial product that can be a technology-native platform, application, or digital service enabling consumers to discover, plan, track, or manage their food and nutrition choices including recipe and meal planning apps, personalised nutrition platforms, consumer food and restaurant discovery services, retail food scanning and checkout technology,

Companies developing commercial product that is a technology platform, marketplace, or management system enabling the ordering, logistics, and last-mile delivery of food from restaurants, grocers, or food producers to consumers or businesses including restaurant and multi-aggregator order management systems, white-label online ordering and delivery platforms, employee and corporate meal delivery platforms, dark kitchen management technology, and delivery analytics and performance management tools sold to food service operators.

Companies whose commercial product includes a technology platform, instrument, device, or service that detects, monitors, or verifies food safety, quality, provenance, or regulatory compliance throughout the food production and supply chain including food safety management software, contamination detection and rapid testing technology, machine vision and inspection systems for food production, supply chain transparency and traceability platforms, UV disinfection and hygiene technology, food quality instrumentation, active packaging and shelf-life monitoring, and cold chain monitoring systems.

Companies whose commercial product is a platform, system, or technology designed to prevent, measure, redistribute, or recover food waste including waste prevention and tracking software for kitchens and food service operators, surplus redistribution and resale platforms connecting businesses with charities or discounted consumers, and equipment or systems built specifically for processing and recovering food waste streams.

Companies whose core commercial value rests on a novel or proprietary technology for producing food ingredients, proteins, fats or finished foods through biotechnology, cellular agriculture, fermentation (precision or biomass), or other novel biological or advanced food-science processing together with the specialist enabling technologies and inputs that make those production methods possible.It includes technologies such as precision fermentation, biomass fermentation (mycoprotein and mycelium), cell-cultivated products, and biotech-enabled plant, insect, seaweed and algae proteins plus novel fats, fermentation- or bioprocess-derived flavour, sensory and functional ingredients, novel protein-functionalisation science, and emerging methods (molecular farming, gas/carbon-to-protein fermentation) as they commercialise. It also includes the cellular-agriculture and fermentation value chain developed specifically for these foods.

Companies that provide technology to help restaurants, pubs, cafes, bars, and other food-service venues run their day-to-day operations from taking payments and managing orders to running the kitchen and organising staff, tables, and stock. This includes EPOS and point-of-sale systems, workforce and rota scheduling tools, supply and inventory or procurement software for hospitality kitchens, kitchen display systems (KDS) and back-of-house management technology, and table management or hospitality analytics platforms.