Roquette unveils HORIZONS to guide food industry through uncertainty

Roquette has launched HORIZONS, a new foresight platform designed to help food and nutrition businesses navigate long-term uncertainty and prepare for emerging shifts across consumer behavior, regulation, technology and sustainability. Announced on 25 November, the initiative reflected the company’s belief that the food sector required more structured tools to plan beyond short-term trends and manage increasing complexity.

Based in Lille, the plant-based ingredients producer has positioned HORIZONS as a way for manufacturers to translate global signals of change into practical strategies. Roquette said the platform would help users anticipate developments that could reshape the food system over the coming decade, from resource pressures to advances in health and nutrition science.

According to the company, the food industry had entered a period marked by fluctuating consumer expectations, rapid technological innovation, and growing demands for environmental responsibility. Roquette said HORIZONS was built to support companies that needed to make decisions earlier, more confidently and with a stronger sense of how different futures might unfold. The platform combined artificial intelligence, expert interpretation, and scenario planning to identify meaningful signals and extract insights from them.

HORIZONS followed a four-step methodology beginning with broad scanning. Roquette used advanced analytics to collect information across lifestyle changes, policy developments, new technologies, market movements and resource constraints. These signals were then prioritized by impact and likelihood, forming the basis for a series of radars intended to visualize emerging drivers of change.

From there, Roquette’s experts developed scenarios that explored how these drivers could interact under different conditions. The final stage involved converting these scenarios into concrete tools, including ideation materials that companies could integrate into product development or long-term planning. Roquette said these outputs were designed to help manufacturers move from analysis to implementation, supporting both strategic thinking and day-to-day decision-making.

Although AI accelerated the scanning process, Roquette stressed that human expertise remained essential. Specialists reviewed each signal and scenario to ensure it was credible, relevant and usable. The company also collaborated with external partners, including the think tank Hello Tomorrow and EDHEC Business School, to bring additional rigor to the process and validate assumptions.

Sébastien Adelis, Roquette’s Food & Nutrition Global Insights and Digital Planner, said the platform was developed to give the industry greater confidence at a time when the pace of change continued to increase. “HORIZONS is about giving the food industry the confidence to look further ahead and act with clarity today,” he 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. 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.”

One of the platform’s central aims was to help manufacturers bridge macro-level forces with immediate consumer insights. Roquette said companies could use HORIZONS to test strategies against multiple possible futures, making it easier to understand where investments or product pipelines might be vulnerable. The ability to connect long-term drivers with short-term decisions, the company noted, would support more robust planning in areas ranging from regulatory compliance to innovation and market positioning.

At launch, HORIZONS offered online access to selected foresight resources, including industry radars, driver cards, scenarios and ideation materials. Roquette said these tools were designed to spark new thinking about the future of food and to prepare companies for collaborative projects that would allow them to tailor insights to their specific needs.

The company presented the platform as both a strategic resource and a signal of its broader commitment to shaping the future of food. As brands across the sector confronted the combined pressures of sustainability, health expectations and heightened competition, Roquette said the initiative reinforced its role as a partner in long-term planning and innovation.

HORIZONS was introduced at a moment when food and nutrition businesses were searching for ways to manage rising volatility. By offering a structured approach to foresight, Roquette aimed to give companies the ability to act decisively rather than reactively, using data and expert interpretation to turn complexity into opportunity.