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Plant-based ingredients company Roquette has unveiled Horizons, a new foresight platform designed to help food and nutrition businesses anticipate change and navigate uncertainty.

The food and beverage industry operates in a fast-changing environment marked by evolving consumer expectations, regulations and technological disruption.

Amid these changes, fuelled by factors such as the growing urgency of sustainability, Roquette noted that F&B companies need insights that go beyond the short-term to help them prepare for the future.

The Horizons platform aims to provide structured support to businesses within the food industry, combining AI-driven scanning with expert analysis to detect emerging signals, prioritise the most critical drivers and develop scenarios to guide long-term strategy and innovation.

It follows a four-step process that begins with scanning for signals of change – spanning lifestyle shifts, regulations, technologies, market dynamics and resource management. These signals are transformed into radars and prioritised according to their likelihood and potential impact.

Roquette’s experts then construct scenarios that explore how the future may unfold under certain conditions. The final step translates these scenarios into tangible resources, such as ideation tools that provide guidance for future-proof strategies.

Each signal and scenario is validated by specialists to ensure outputs are credible and actionable. Involvement from external partners, including think tank Hello Tomorrow and EDHC Business School, strengthen the scanning phase and help to ensure relevance.

Horizons bridges macro drivers with consumer insights to help users connect long-term forces of change with immediate market realities. Through this, manufacturers can anticipate regulatory and consumer shifts, reduce uncertainty by stress-testing strategies across multiple potential futures, and fast-track innovation cycles.

The platform also establishes a framework for resilience in volatile times, Roquette said, helping businesses to act ‘decisively rather than reactively’.

Horizons is launching with online access to selected foresight resources, including a ‘strategic toolbox’ of industry radars, driver cards, scenarios and ideation materials. These are designed to spark new ways of thinking about the future of food, leading to tailored co-creation projects if desired.

Sébastien Adelis, food and nutrition global insights and digital planner at Roquette, said: “Our industry is being reshaped by shifting consumer expectations, new health priorities, regulatory pressures and breakthrough technologies. The challenge is not simply keeping pace with these changes but anticipating what they will mean.”

He added: “By combining advanced analytics with the expertise of our teams worldwide, Horizons transforms uncertainty into clear direction, enabling our partners to accelerate innovation, build resilience and shape a more sustainable future”.