Powering next-gen ingredients innovation

Future Food-Tech Chicago returns on 15–16 June 2026 as the meeting place for turning food innovation into scalable products, and real commercial outcomes.

Bringing together 400 ingredient providers, investors, founders and food and beverage brands, the summit focuses on the industrial reality of innovation: formulation, manufacturing, cost, and scale across today’s food system.

Over two days, the summit will showcase how the industry is closing supply chain gaps, commercializing novel ingredients, and scaling solutions that meet evolving consumer demands for health, functionality, sustainability, and taste.

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From fermentation‑derived fats and oils to sweetness and cocoa alternatives, and next‑generation beverages designed for metabolic support and GLP‑1 consumers, Chicago is where innovation meets capital and ideas turn into scalable business outcomes.

The program will explore investment priorities, biomanufacturing realities, formulation constraints, regulatory pathways, and go-to-market strategies across dairy alternatives, fats and oils, coffee and cocoa, and function-forward beverages. Join us to answer the question: Which ingredients will define the next five years of food and beverage?

With curated networking and a powerful 1‑1 meeting platform, Future Food‑Tech Chicago is where suppliers, brands, and investors identify high-value opportunities, explore partnerships, and accelerate commercialization.


 

Who Did You Meet in 2025?

The delegate list is packed with senior food-tech visionaries from across innovation ecosystem. See who joined us in Chicago in 2025:

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2026 Advisory Board 

Our Advisory Board in 2026 includes senior executives from leading companies in food, ingredients, and investment. They ensure our agenda tackles real industry challenges and creates genuine value for attendees.

 

2026 Key Themes

The Ingredient Economy

Demand signals, portfolio strategy and the new procurement landscape.

Clean Reformulation Under Pressure

Science, policy and solving functionality loss

Breakthrough Fats, Proteins & Hybrid Systems

Building the next-gen ingredient toolkit

The Race to Replace

Sweeteners, colors, stabilizers & texturizers under intensifying scrutiny

Functional Nutrition for the GLP‑1 Era

Satiety, metabolic health & evidence‑forward innovation

The Biomanufacturing Build-Out

Capacity, infrastructure and regional power map

Precision Fermentation at Commercial Scale

Cost curves, offtake logic, category readiness

Cocoa, Caffeine & Premium Experience

Designing scalable luxury through new ingredient systems

Functional Beverages Evolution

Ingredient innovation, delivery formats and claims

Financing & Partnerships for Scale

Capital selectivity, CVC strategy & cross-border investment flows

AI for Ingredients

Algorithms for formulation acceleration and biotech optimization

Consumer Reality Check

Behavior vs. belief and what wins market channels

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