NEW YORK (May 13, 2016) –Food Loves Tech (FLT), a first-of-its-kind innovation expo created by Edible Manhattan and VaynerLive, in partnership with Audi, will take place June 10–12, 2016, in the heart of Manhattan. FLT’s large-scale daytime immersive installation, under the creative direction of Food Futurist Dr. Irwin Adam Eydelnant and built by experience design partner ICRAVE, will span the entire block of 27th Street in The Waterfront event space between Eleventh and Twelfth Avenue. Attendees will navigate their way through the Field into the City, into the Home, and on to the Horizon as they see, touch, taste and smell how technologies are changing our future. Curatorial advisors on the inaugural program include Ashley Quinn, Ben Leventhal, Brian Frank, Isha Datar, Marcus Samuelsson, Nico Fonseca and Richie Farina.

The VIP Opening Night Reception presented by Audi and the Audi Tri-State dealers, will feature a fireside chat with Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of VaynerMedia, and José Andrés, chef/owner of ThinkFoodGroup and minibar by José Andrés on Friday, June 10th, as they discuss clean cookstoves and the future of food in The Diamond Horseshoe at the Paramount Hotel. The evening will continue with The Audi Experiential Dinner, In the Mouth, by Nicolas Fonseca. As 80 guests gather for the three-course collective supper, they’ll be introduced to a menu based on their own personal food biography and see first hand what it’s like to find new points of reference to taste as one’s most primal relationships to food are told, shared and eaten with the people surrounding them. Guests will bring their memories, forget their manners, chew on their tastes and swallow their stories.

As part of the immersive installation over the weekend will also be the Audi Innovation Lounge, featuring multiple ‘Food Sessions’ per day. These silent discos for your tongue will offer an interactive sound and food experience where you must eat with your heart to get to know your fellow diners. A narrator will guide you and bring your culinary biography to life with each bite.

Innovators showcased throughout the weekend expo will include: 6Sensor Labs, AeroFarms, Bartesian, BeeHex, C-Fu Foods, Edenworks, EXO, Farmbot, Farmer’s Fridge, Gelzen, Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, Grove, Home Grown Cricket Farms, Ingredient 1, Juicebot, June Oven, Loliware, Oliso, One Hop Kitchen, Pryme Vessyl, Seedsheet, Sir Kensington’s and Smarty Pans. An endcap to the installation will be the Food Tech Bazaar with participants including Califia Farms, Eboost, Lavit, Le Fusion and Make my Cake.

In advance of the expo, FLT in partnership with The Food Team @ Google, has also launched the #makefuturefood competition where the food tech community of food innovators, designers, futurists and dreamers are invited to tell us, what is the future of the corporate pantry or workplace food? All organizations, small and large, are challenged with ensuring their staff eats well throughout the workday and the goal of the #makefuturefood challenge is to identify what the ideas, software, hardware and design solutions are that make the business-eating environment better for health, sustainability, productivity and community. Submissions are being accepted through May 22, 2016 at which point the panel of judges will select 10 semifinalists to present on May 31st. One winner will be chosen and invited to showcase at the Food Loves Tech VIP opening night reception on Friday, June 10th.

Determining the semi-finalists and winners will be an esteemed panel of judges including: Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of VaynerMedia, Brian Halweil, Editor-in-Chief of Edible Magazine, Kim Huskey, Americas Food Services Manager, Google, Marcus Samuelsson, Chef and Restaurateur, Dr. Irwin Adam Eydelnant, Creative Scientist, Future Food Studio and Danielle Gould, Founder of Food+Tech Connect.

To buy tickets for Food Loves Tech, visit www.foodlovestech.com, and follow @foodlovestech on Twitter and Facebook for updates. Media partners include FeedFeed and Food+Tech Connect.

For media credentials, submit request to info@foodlovestech.com.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Devon Mosley // agencyIMD, inc.

devon@agencyIMD.com

FIVE WAYS WE’RE TRANSFORMING FOOD PRODUCTION

1. Cellular Agriculture

Not as scary as you think. In fact, the majority of lab-grown food is made using technology that we already use for products we consume every day. The most important part of lab-grown eating is that it addresses the need to develop alternative protein sources. Today, we are consuming animal proteins that require 70% of the earth’s total arable land to produce. The processes for producing meat are often inefficient and, at times, unsafe. Taking the pressure off mass production and diversifying our protein consumption has the potential to do right by our health and our environment. With the effort from organizations like New Harvest, the first forays into these products are coming in the forms of lab-grown meat — Modern Meadow, egg protein replacements — Clara Foods, and animal-free gelatin — Gelzen.

2. 3D Farming

Not all of us understand the difference between hydroponics, aeroponics and aquaponics, but technologies pushing each of these growing techniques are producing better and healthier produce in a faster, safer and more efficient way closer to home. Hydroponics is the cultivation of plants without soil in a mineral-rich solution, aeroponics technologies grow plants in air under mists of nutrients, while aquaponics combines hydroponics with aquaculture — the raising of aquatic animals such as fish. When we transform our farms into vertical structures, we reduce the footprints needed to feed our cities. When we bring these farms into our cities, we reduce the footprint of transporting food around the globe. Large-scale operations are steadily coming online fuelled by businesses like EdenWorks and Aerofarms. These technologies not only have the potential to transform how food is grown, but also can be tuned to produce the tastiest of produce.

3. Entomophagy

That’s right. We’re talking about eating insects. Some of the more popular ones are crickets and mealworms, but there thousands to choose from. This isn’t all that new, as people have been eating insects since early humanity, but now we’re realizing that feeding our cities with insect protein has the potential to transform the impact we have on our environment. Crickets require far less feed than traditional protein sources: six times less than cattle, four times less than sheep, and two times less than pigs and chickens. With these benefits, the United Nations has determined insects are an important solution to feeding the planet as our global population increases to 9 billion in 2050. In the meantime, insect farms are growing in the U.S. — particularly in the south — and insect proteins are finding their way into everything from from protein bars by EXO and pasta sauce by One Hop Kitchen, to reimagined tofu by C-fu.

4. 3D Printing

The on-demand printing revolution has definitely put out its fair share of Yoda heads, but just like printing in plastic has found a use in customized product creation and rapid prototyping, printing food is gaining traction. The novelty products were needed for the development of the basic technologies needed to extrude food products into 3D formats producing beautiful sugar structures, impossible chocolate formations, and customized pancakes. Now the technology is positioned to make inroads into nutrient customization, complex product construction, and even transform the way astronauts prepare food in space. We’re looking to companies like BeeHex, Natural Machines and 3D Systems to continue pushing the boundaries in printed food.

5. AgTech

At the end of the day, the majority of our food comes from the earth and farmers need the technologies to allow them to keep pace with the rapidly changing food market. Agriculture is seeing the impact of tech investment with the creation of drones for crop monitoring — senseFly, automated robots for crop maintenance — RowBot and CNC technologies for seeding and addressing individual plants — FarmBot. These technologies combine not only to better inform farmers on the condition of their crops, but also to give them a new generation of automated tools to farm 24/7.

*Get a peek at how food and technology will work together to revolutionize what we eat, how we eat, and where we eat at Food Loves Tech, June 11–12th at the Waterfront in NYC.

On the Future of Food Production was originally published in foodofthefuture on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

BRINGING FLT TO LIFE

Food Loves Tech is a first-of-its-kind immersive experience telling the story of tomorrow’s food.

With the opportunity to create Food Loves Tech, the responsibility to tell the story of our rapidly transforming food environment in a genuine and accessible way has come as well. Over the last ten months, we have worked closely with our partners — from startups and thought leaders to designers and Fortune 500 companies — to develop a program representative of the broad spectrum of change.

The result of this effort has been the evolution of Food Loves Tech, a public-facing portal into the future of food through technology. We have designed an exciting series of immersive installations across 20,000+ square feet that explore the spaces where technology is transforming our eating environment: in the field, in the home, in the city, and on the horizon. With this effort, we are building a platform that bridges communities, industries, and media to expand the efforts being made in every aspect of food and technology.

WHY FOOD? WHY TECHNOLOGY? WHY NOW?

In an incredible way, individuals from every walk of life and discipline are transforming the way we think about food, make food, and we experience food. The system-wide disruption that has been growing across the United States and the rest of the world is being driven by a real demand for change and the need to get good food on our tables in a sustainable and conscious way.

Why food? This one’s easy. Everyone eats. Food is a universal connector understood across the boundaries of language, culture, age, and geography. The accessibility of food and the need for food to sustain our societies makes it the responsibility of every individual to contribute to the ecosystem in one way or another.

Why technology? Never before have we seen accessibility to new tech as we do today. From open-source platforms allowing us to hack all objects in the world around us, to massive private investments into all technology sectors, the timing is perfect to drive technological change at an unprecedented rate.

Why now? Food and technology have evolved together since the early days of humanity. Starting with the simple technological innovation of cooking with fire, humans instigated a rapid evolution of our brain development that has brought us to today. If we understand what food did for us, then we can quickly begin to comprehend how the next level of food innovation will transform the way we will exist tomorrow.

BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER

We want you to taste, touch, see, smell, and hear the technologies that are carrying us into next-generation eating. Each installation is designed to educate, engage, and delight whether you are into food, into technology or anywhere in between. We want you to meet the makers and get inspired by the world of food. Interactive installations in 3D Farming will demonstrate the differences between hydroponics, aquaponics and aeroponics. You’ll be putting on a lab coat to learn and make lab-grown meat in the Alt-Protein Lab. The Start-Up Kitchen will get your hands dirty using the latest technologies on the market to change the way we cook and interact with food. Home Grown will showcase ways you can produce food at home, whether it’s small-scale aquaponics or miniature cricket farms. New-Gen Vending will showcase vending machines and robotics from tomorrow. 3D Eating will get you making 3D-printed food while Data-Drive Eating will get you making food in new ways. And that is just the beginning.

The incredible team at Food Loves Tech has worked tirelessly bringing this experience to life and is excited to have you join us to be a part of our future of food. See you at The Waterfront NYC on June 11–12, 2016!

Food Loves Tech (FLT), a first-of-its-kind innovation expo, will take place June 10–12, 2016, in the heart of Manhattan at The Waterfront. A creation of Edible Manhattan, Gary Vaynerchuk’s VaynerLive and under the creative direction of Food Futurist Dr. Irwin Adam Eydelnant of Future Food Studio, FLT will be arranged as a series of large-scale exhibits and immersive installations, technology tastings, leadership panels and dining experiences. The experience design will be created by New York-based studio iCrave.

“Food Loves Tech will allow the public to taste and touch, and see and smell, how technology is transforming our food chain. And to understand what it means for our future.”

— Brian Halweil, Editor in Chief of Edible Manhattan, Edible Brooklyn, Edible East End, and Edible Long Island, all part of the national network of Edible magazines.

The official opening reception will be hosted by LDV Hospitality at The Diamond Horseshoe, located at the Paramount Hotel in Midtown.

You’ll be given your own personalized food ID by food discovery and sharing app Ingredient1. The daytime expo, beginning on Saturday, will be arranged as four large-scale exhibits with selected workshops, showcasing a different food environment:

Home: The center of our eating culture attracts technological innovations in the kitchen and the ways we buy, cook and eat at home. Technology partner Grove will feature the “Grove Ecosystem,” an intelligent indoor gardening system that efficiently grows organic fruits and veggies year‐round.

City: You’ll be guided through the playground for healthy food delivery, corporate catering, vertical agriculture and further innovations (such as Juicebot) which make it easier for city-dwellers to make healthy choices.

Farming: “How we can boost ecological performance, support sustainability and feed a growing population?” The question on the mind of every farmer of this generation. Explore what this looks like today and in the years ahead.

Frontier: Curatorial Partner Isha Datar of New Harvest joins us in an exploration of “next-generation” eating. As we look to transform the way we approach food, from what we eat to how we make it, the future holds a vast array of opportunities from lab-grown meat to nutritionally complete beverage products.

On Saturday and Sunday, you can visit the Tech Tasting Bazaar and join in the Future Food Panel, where a series of entrepreneurs, chefs, restaurateurs, purveyors, culinary authors and notables will speak. The panel will be in collaboration with Danielle Gould, founder of Food + Tech Connect and Brian Frank, the founder of the first venture capital firm focused on food and tech space.

FoodTank, the voice of the global food activist movement and founder Danielle Nierenberg, has joined as a media partner for Food Loves Tech in addition to Edible.

Tickets will go fast — get yours today by clicking here. For future news updates, visit www.FoodLovesTech.com and find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. Trust us, we’re not done yet! We’ll see you in June.