Two-day event in Kulmbach brought together international food industry partners to explore trends, applications and innovation opportunities
With its Innovation Days 2026, RAPS once again underlined its role as a co-creation partner to the international food industry. Across two event days in Kulmbach, customers and partners from Germany and across Europe came together to discuss food trends, market requirements and practical innovation approaches for tomorrow’s savoury food solutions.
Designed as an interactive exchange format for customers and partners, the RAPS Innovation Days combined market insights, application expertise and culinary inspiration. The focus was on how future-oriented ingredient solutions can be developed collaboratively – always with consumer needs, market relevance and industrial feasibility in mind.
A platform for exchange, inspiration and practical innovation
The programme opened with market and consumer insights presented by Euromonitor, offering attendees a forward-looking perspective on global product launches and innovation opportunities for the next years. From there, participants moved into six rotating innovation sessions, each dedicated to a key topic shaping the future of the food industry.
Throughout the day, RAPS demonstrated how its technologies, ingredient systems and application expertise help food manufacturers address current market demands. Visitors explored ingredient solutions that combine authentic taste, functionality and processing reliability – from meat and plant-based applications to next-generation snacking concepts, natural flavour profiles enabled by CO₂ extraction, organic and exotic spices and herbs from the BIOVA portfolio and innovative microencapsulation technologies. An exclusive factory tour provided behind-the-scenes insights into how these capabilities are translated into industrial production. Together, the demonstrations highlighted RAPS’ ability to support customers across diverse markets, including meat processing, bakery, dairy, ready meals, sauces and dips, confectionery, retail and many other food industry applications.
“The RAPS Innovation Days are designed to bring customers, markets and application expertise together in a very practical way,” says Dr. Oliver Ebneth, CEO at RAPS. “For us, co-creation means developing solutions collaboratively – based on concrete market requirements, with a clear view of consumer expectations and with the goal of turning insights into successful products.”
Driving market-ready solutions
The Innovation Days were designed to foster collaboration, knowledge exchange and practical inspiration. Through curated tastings, live show cooking, technical presentations and discussions with experts from research & development, category management and sales, participants explored how consumer insights can be translated into commercially successful food concepts.
This combination of market intelligence, culinary expertise and technology-driven ingredient solutions reflects the RAPS approach to innovation. Rather than viewing product development as a linear process, RAPS brings together market trends, application know-how and functional ingredient expertise to develop solutions that address real customer challenges.
“Innovation starts with understanding our customers and the markets they operate in,” says Agneta Hoffmann, CMO at RAPS. “Our role is to translate market insights into practical ingredient solutions that create real value for food manufacturers. By combining deep application expertise with advanced technologies, we enable our customers to bring differentiated products to market faster and shape the future of savoury food innovation.”
With participants from across Europe, the Innovation Days reflected the international nature of today’s food industry and reinforced RAPS’ commitment to collaborative innovation across markets, technologies and food applications.
Innovations in Food (& Beverage) Technology is a quarterly magazine distributed globally in Digital format. www.innovationsfood.com. X: @Innovfoodtech. Instagram: @innovationsinfoodtechnology. Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/terry-prior52
