South Korea-based food-tech startup FutureSense is the winner of the 2026 APAC Global Food Tech Awards (GFTA), which features start-ups that showcase how their technology could impact the food system.
FutureSense’s winning product is Food4Chain, a traceability platform that quantifies food loss and associated costs in real time, helping businesses identify inefficiencies and gain greater visibility into their supply chains.
The other finalists in the Top 3 from Australia and Taiwan focused on regulatory compliance and plant-based functional ingredients respectively.
Finallists target regulatory compliance and functional ingredients
Australia’s Produxiom Systems garnered a Top 3 finallist spot with a cloud-based platform designed to help food businesses navigate regulatory requirements by flagging potential compliance risks and guiding product development.
“Produxiom was born to streamline the entire process of regulatory compliance, helping food and beverage companies tackle the complexity of food regulatory standards and thus reducing administrative burden for them to launch their products to market, Produxiom CEO Tali Lederman said at the APAC GFTA awards announcement ceremony at the APAC Agrifood Innovation Summit in Singapore.
“It has been structured to reference various international standards from Australia’s Food Standards Code, the US FDA and European standards, so it is transferable across various markets.”
Lederman presenting at the 2026 APAC GFTAs announcement ceremony in Singapore (ALAN NG/William Reed)
Taiwan-based Oxperial BioHealth was the other Top 3 finallist, recognised for its approach to plant-based functional ingredients. Its EVOLVE technology uses low-temperature extraction to preserve plant bioactives, while its patented GPDT formulation technology is designed to harness the response of selected plant compounds, including chlorophyll derivatives, to visible light, said co-founder Dr Daniel Chen.
“The gap we saw was simple: the functional ingredients market is full of products, but many rely on adding more ingredients rather than improving how those ingredients are processed and formulated,” Dr Chen said.
He added that botanical compounds can vary in quality and functional performance depending on how they are extracted, preserved and combined, creating consistency challenges for manufacturers and consumers.
“Oxperial was founded to address this by moving from an ingredient-led approach to a mechanism-led approach,” Dr Chen said.
Oxperial’s approach shifts the focus from asking “What else can we add?” to improving how existing plant compounds are extracted and formulated.
Dr Chen describes this approach as “Photodynamic Nutrition” and hopes to expand the technology into international markets.
He believes that winning the Global Food Tech Awards can help him achieve his growth plans.
“Being named a GFTA APAC finallist is a big milestone for us. Having our work recognised by an independent panel of food, science and innovation experts gives us external validation and helps build trust with distributors, retailers, partners and investors as we expand beyond APAC,” Dr Chen said.
He added that the recognition could open up new partnerships and markets while supporting further research and development across different product formats.
Read more about the APAC Global Food Tech Awards 2026 finalists here.