Nine futuristic food ideas that already exist

Forget silver meal-replacement pills and roast dinners served through a tube. The real future of food may involve laser-wielding robots, skyscrapers full of lettuce and grapes enjoying the protection of an invisible raincoat.

World Food Day takes place on 16 October each year, encouraging people around the globe to think about hunger, nutrition and the future of our food systems. Its 2026 theme, “Innovate today. Nourish tomorrow”, celebrates forward-thinking ideas alongside traditional knowledge and home-grown ingenuity.

Of course, no single gadget is going to solve every food-related problem. But from keeping vegetables fresher for longer to helping crops survive dry conditions, these nine innovations suggest that the future of food could be cleverer, less wasteful and considerably more interesting.

Agricultural robots are being developed that use cameras and artificial intelligence to tell the difference between a crop and an unwanted plant. Once a weed has been identified, some machines can target it individually using a laser, heat or a tiny, precise dose of weedkiller.

The idea is to avoid treating an entire field when only particular plants need attention. Robots are also being designed to monitor crops, plant seeds and pick delicate fruit.

Vertical farms grow crops on stacked layers, often inside warehouses or other controlled environments. Instead of spreading lettuces across acres of countryside, growers can arrange them upwards beneath carefully managed lights.

These systems can make efficient use of space and allow crops to be grown close to towns and cities. Because temperature, water and light can be controlled, production is also less dependent on the season or whatever the weather has decided to do that week.

Vertical farming still has challenges, particularly the cost and energy needed to run indoor systems. It’s unlikely to replace conventional farms, and nobody is currently proposing a tower block full of wheat. For herbs, salads and certain vegetables, however, farming upwards could become part of the mix.

Scientists and food companies are developing thin, edible coatings that can be applied to fruit and vegetables. Often made using plant-based materials, these coatings create a protective layer that helps slow moisture loss, ripening and spoilage.

In other words, they give fresh produce a little more time before it turns from “perfectly ripe” to “mysterious brown object at the back of the fruit bowl”.

European research projects have explored coatings made from ingredients including plant proteins, natural polysaccharides and aloe vera. As well as extending freshness, some coatings could reduce the need for plastic packaging.

An invisible, edible coat may sound like something from a children’s story, but it could be a useful tool for cutting food and packaging waste.

Growing food is only part of the challenge. It also needs to stay fresh long enough to be sold and eaten.

In places without dependable electricity, farmers, fishing folk and market traders may have limited access to refrigeration. That can leave fruit, vegetables, fish and dairy products vulnerable to spoiling soon after they are produced.

Solar-powered cold rooms use energy from the sun to provide off-grid refrigeration. Some operate on a pay-as-you-store basis, allowing smaller producers to rent the amount of chilled space they need rather than buying an entire system.

It’s not the flashiest innovation on this list. Yet helping good food survive the journey from producer to plate could make an enormous difference to livelihoods and local food supplies.

Plants can’t pick up their roots and move somewhere with better weather. Researchers and farmers are therefore working on crops that are better able to handle heat, dry spells and unpredictable rainfall.

This can involve breeding improved varieties of familiar crops, protecting diverse local seed varieties or introducing foods that naturally require less water.

Drought-tolerant varieties are being developed and tested in crops including maize, sweet potatoes and legumes. In some regions, farmers are also exploring resilient foods such as millet, sorghum and quinoa.

These crops are not indestructible, sadly. But choosing plants suited to changing local conditions can help reduce the risk of an entire harvest failing when rain is scarce.

Researchers and businesses are developing films, coatings and containers using materials extracted from seaweed. Depending on how they are made, these products may be biodegradable, compostable or even edible.

Seaweed grows without needing farmland, and some varieties grow quickly. That makes it an intriguing raw material for replacing at least some of the plastic currently used around food and drink.

It won’t make every piece of packaging disappear overnight. Products still need to keep food safe, survive transport and cope with moisture. Nevertheless, seaweed-based films and coatings are already moving beyond the “wouldn’t it be funny if…” stage.

Artificial intelligence has been asked to write poems, generate pictures and tell people which film they are thinking of based on three extremely vague clues. It’s also being put to work on a rather more pressing problem: getting food where it needs to be.

AI tools can analyse information about demand, prices, stock levels, transport, weather and delivery routes. This can help organisations decide where food should be purchased, stored and sent.

The United Nations World Food Programme, for example, uses AI-supported tools to monitor food insecurity and plan parts of its supply chain. Its SCOUT system helps teams consider factors including prices, transport costs, lead times and access restrictions when planning food deliveries.

Better predictions can’t remove every delay or shortage. They could, however, help organisations act earlier, make better use of supplies and avoid food sitting in the wrong warehouse while it is urgently needed somewhere else.

Food manufacturing creates large quantities of perfectly usable by-products: fruit skins, vegetable pulp, spent grains, olive pomace, grape residue and all sorts of other material with deeply unglamorous names.

Instead of treating these “side streams” as waste, researchers are finding ways to turn them into flours, flavourings, fibres, proteins and other useful ingredients. Fruit and vegetable leftovers, for instance, can be fermented or processed into ingredients for bakery products, snack bars and plant-based foods.

This approach is often called upcycling. It recognises that the bit left behind after making one food may still have nutritional or practical value.

Innovation doesn’t always mean inventing a machine with blinking lights.

Farmers and indigenous communities have developed ways of growing, preserving and sharing food over thousands of years. These include cultivating diverse crops together, saving locally adapted seeds, fermenting foods, rotating crops and managing water according to detailed knowledge of the landscape.

Modern science can help study, support and adapt these practices, while digital tools can make it easier to record information, monitor conditions and share knowledge. The important point is that new technology should work with the people who understand their local food systems - not barge in and announce that everything must now be controlled by an app.

FAO’s World Food Day message specifically recognises the value of combining forward-thinking solutions with traditional knowledge.