Rohit Kumar is responsible for Researchwire European & North American business. He is an HEC, Paris 2008 MBA and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur 2002 engineering graduate with close to 17 years of experience in business innovation and strategy, business development and client relationship roles. He is working with ResearchWire since 2016 and as a partner, is responsible for the growth of ResearchWire in Europe and North America.
Prior to ResearchWire, Rohit was handling sales strategy and pricing for Syniverse Technologies, a telecom services provider, where he was instrumental for growth in EMEA and India through product innovations, creative pricing and discounting models and executing strategic sales plans.
Rohit is based out of Luxembourg and has been living in Europe for last 12 years. He understands European & North American customers and their needs and ensures that our customers always have a local person to reach out whenever needed.
The pandemic has raised interest levels around start-ups and ventures crafting alternative proteins or plant-based meat substitutes. Shifts in consumer behaviour and growing awareness in alternative-protein sources (owing to health or environmental concerns) are emerging as key reasons for the growth of protein rich food alternatives market today. The food tech sector is growing rapidly and enterprises producing plant-based foods are increasingly leaning on technology, understanding its use in business and assessing its own strength vis-a-vis competition in the market. Popular Hollywood actors and business magnates have also advanced their support to this industry through private investments.
What are Alternative Protein solutions
Alternative food proteins are protein sources that are re-engineered from plants, and a variety of meat substitutes. They encompass everything from food products made from plants (nuts, grains, legumes), algae, fungus (mushrooms), insects and even cultured (lab-grown) meat. Fundamental to addressing food and nutrition security concerns, health issues and changing taste preferences, the world population is gradually shifting to sustainable diets that has low environmental impact and protects the biodiversity for our future generations.
Understanding Emerging Alternative Protein Technology in Food Tech Industry
In the current times, Food tech sector can be distinguished from other industries as a blend of hospitality and agricultural sector that is deploying technology to develop novel ways to design, product, pack and distribute food products by using unique measures to expand their demand in the market. These innovative solutions include agriculture technology, consumer technology, delivery, supply chain solutions and several food-service technologies. This is done with the use of Patent data that can help bootstrap start-ups and growing businesses to determine market trends, identify opportunities and plan their future business growth strategy.
As this sector is growing, assessment of patent filing along with a focus on innovation for other alternative protein technologies becomes very crucial in business development. The protein rich food alternatives can be found in plant-based substitutes for animal products, insect proteins, precision and biomass fermentation, cell-based or lab-grown meat, and molecular farming.
Alternative protein food technology can aim to create ingredients that are added to foods for freshness, preservation, nutritional value, flavour, texture, and appearance.
These additives can include salt, sugar, vinegar, spices, and baking soda to vitamins and minerals to more highly processed ingredients like fat replacers, and dough strengthening agent. Highly processed ingredients that didn’t exist earlier, have been used to create a different texture, flavour and experience that more closely replaces the animal meats. Plant based patties and soy are created to replace meat-based items and have been made to contain large percent of protein that are being used by consumers today.
Greater demand for vegan food products and allergen-free alternatives has led to the utilization of protein-rich foods like chickpeas, oats and fava beans by companies developing plant-based foods. Disruptive technologies such as high moisture extrusion, mechanical fractionation and upcycling are used to increase the sensory properties of plant-based food products.
In 2021, the Alternative Protein Market size exceeded USD 60.45 billion and is expected to grow at an approximate CAGR of 18% between 2022 to 2029.
ResearchWire can provide valuable data to food tech business firms on the key players in the market by assessing patent activity, including geographic differences and market penetration, along with identifying several technologies that have been used so far and highlight those that have saturated the market versus the new technology developments and still-emerging fields that remain ripe for growth and investment. This helps in competitive analysis and technology assessment for a business to grow and succeed.
Know more about Patent Trends
Evidence suggests that the food industry has had the highest number of patents. The filing of patents related to lab-grown meat has rapidly increased since 2016. That indicates its progress and adoption globally.
Patent data is necessary to prepare the Food tech Business Strategy.
It focuses on the following issues related to food businesses and technology development:
* The relationship between patent activity and market trends
* The relative maturity of existing alternative protein technologies in the food market
* Patent filing activity across all technologies in the sector post 2000
* How to assess business opportunities and security risks and threats in the industry
* When to use patent searching in the innovation lifecycle of business
* The benefits of using patent landscape analysis and types of business intelligence software
Researchwire works closely with food tech enterprises to provide Insightful and effective solutions to address their technology roadmap planning and technology development challenges. They work closely to find alternative solutions from diverse domains through innovation supporting methodologies, creative tools and comprehensive and exhaustive search across technologies, industries, geographies and markets.
The company also works closely with IP licensing teams to provide customised patent mining & evaluation services and patent licensing support for patent portfolios of all sizes and diversity. Software analyses Patent data, R&D data, Market data, Product data sheets and Technology blogs to provide a complete picture of the technology development stage.
End to end research and technology analysis has led Researchwire achieve new peaks in this sector and aims to expand its footprint in the immediate horizon.
