Unilever Food Solutions (UFS) mounted an hour-long activation that previewed the future of food, welcoming excited foodies of different nationalities and palates who flocked to this year’s Worldchefs Congress & Expo 2024, held at the Marina Bay Sands, Singapore last October 21st.
Anchored on the theme of Culinary Infinity, the UFS activation took place on a segmented infinity-shaped table reflecting the infinite possibilities of the future: Four quadrants represented four of the eight trends identified in the UFS Future Menus Report 2024.
The Culinary Infinity: Unilever Food Solutions Chefs prepare to lead the exploration of the Future Menus reports trends through taste. From L-R: Chef Jiraroj “Pop” Navanukroh (Executive Chef, UFS Thailand), Chef Kenneth Cacho (Executive Chef, UFS Philippines), Chef Eric Chua (Executive Chef, UFS Singapore, Vietnam, and Cambodia, and Future Platform Chef Lead of Southeast Asia), and Chef Gun Gun Handayana (Executive Chef, UFS Indonesia)
The journey to and of the future is a free-for-all, which is reflected in the culinary journey that each attendee went on. While there is no set order of the quadrants to visit and immerse in, it’s only in completing the Culinary Infinity that a complete and exciting vision and flavor of the future will be fully formed.
This said journey was made more exciting and enlivened through a creative interpretation of how attendees will explore the nooks and crannies of each “trend terrain.” Mirroring the burst that’s to be expected in menu items under Flavour Shock, Tempura with Matcha Sauce, Chocolate with Golden Egg Powder, and Truffle Ball Fermented Cassava were served on lava rocks and glossy obsidian.
The Local Abundance terrain is a forager’s bounty, showing what’s possible if we plunge into the future with sustainability in mind and on our plates. Attendees even got to “forage” a certain portion of the exhibit, sourcing such ingredients as candlenuts, tamarinds. galangal, fingerroots and taking away a shared sense of responsibility in taking care of our planet as we also nourish ourselves.
On the other, very real side of the sustainability conversation, attendees transformed from foragers into alchemists as the Low-Waste Menus trend took on the guise of a barren desert landscape which served as their provocation on how to transform what is “unusable” at a glance but is actually a trove of flavorful possibilities.
In the Modernised Comfort Food terrain, the future is equal parts familiar and uncharted, and there’s much to explore and experiment with whichever side you start with. Attendees were armed with nostalgia for creature comforts in their childhood kitchens as well as a taste for adventure as they forayed through flavors old and new.
“We hope that a collective key takeaway is that yes, the future of food could go so many ways–possibly infinite–and that’s not daunting at all. In fact, the innumerable possibilities are exactly why our industry should be excited to sink our teeth into the future,” Vangie Hu, Regional Marketing Director, UFS Southeast Asia noted. “We hope UFS’s hour at the Worldchefs Congress whetted your appetite for a culinary adventure–we gladly offer up the UFS Future Menus Report to sate your hunger for more.”