Innovation Insights: 85 years of food innovation

From wartime rations to lab-grown meat, the last 85 years have been a wild ride for food innovation. What we eat—and how we produce it—has transformed beyond recognition, driven by science, technology and a hunger for a better future. As we chart our course toward the future, it may inspire us to look back on some of the most transformative innovations that shaped the food industry’s modern era.

The World War II era

During the 1940s, Clarence Birdseye created the equipment and processes needed to enable quick freezing at an industrial scale. His ingenuity made it possible to transport and store food for long periods.

Lesson for the next 85 years: By finding inspiration in everything from Inuit preservation techniques to cutting-edge industrial production systems, Birdseye facilitated the creation of the entire frozen foods industry. The influence of this innovation during a period of widespread food insecurity is hard to overstate, and it evolved out of Birdseye’s openness to experimentation and systems thinking—qualities that today’s food innovators should seek to emulate.

The post-war era

The 1950s and ’60s saw the advent of the ‘one-stop-shop’ supermarket and quick-service restaurants. Both models took cues from wartime advancements in logistical efficiency and economies of scale to make food cheaper and more accessible than ever, helping to establish abundance and convenience as key defining values of the contemporary North American lifestyle.

Lesson for the next 85 years: As we move into the future, food innovators should continue to emphasize affordability and accessibility while striving to deliver a greater commitment to health and sustainability so that we can offer consumers a win-win value proposition.

The IT era

On June 26, 1974, at 8:01 a.m., the first universal product code (UPC) on a retail item was scanned at a supermarket in Troy, Ohio. By the end of the 20th century, the UPC system was already living up to its name, enjoying near-universal adoption rates throughout the food sector and beyond. This innovation, so ubiquitous now that we take it for granted, facilitated drastic improvements to inventory control, reductions in food waste and lower distribution costs throughout the entire food value chain.

Lesson for the next 85 years: The success of the UPC system required the vision of innovators like Joe Woodland (who first conceptualized the UPC barcode back in the 1940s), the technical expertise of IT giants like IBM, and the collective buy-in of the diverse and intensely competitive food manufacturing and retail sectors. Its success serves as a reminder that broad and ambitious cross-sector collaboration is not just possible but an essential ingredient in solving the innovation problems that await us.

The sustainability era

In 2013, researchers at the University of Maastricht produced (and ate!) the world’s first lab-grown beef burger. This sparked broad public conversations around sustainable alternatives to animal proteins. It also ushered in a new golden age of food science as work on cellular agriculture, precision fermentation, and plant-based meat analogues quickly began to proliferate.

Lesson for the next 85 years: The 21st century has challenged us to re-examine our relationship with food, given its unique position at the nexus of sustenance, taste, culture, ethics, health and sustainability. Efforts to shift diets to align with a sustainable future will depend largely on our success in creating alternative proteins with the taste, texture and price point that can compete with conventional meat.

The foodtech era

The food landscape is being reshaped by groundbreaking technologies—from artificial intelligence-driven analytics and autonomous foodservice robots to biotech-enabled personalized nutrition and cell-cultivated coffee. Predicting where today’s innovations will take us is no easy task, and history suggests we’ll never get it exactly right. But one thing is certain: as transformative as the last 85 years have been, the next 85 will be even more remarkable.

Dana McCauley is CEO of the Canadian Food Innovation Network, which funds foodtech projects, stimulates collaboration, and fosters a growing community of F&B professionals. Visit www.cfin-rcia.ca to become a member for free.

This column was originally published in the Apr./May. 2025 issue of Food in Canada.