A hybrid plant that grows both tomatoes and potatoes, brussels sprouts that taste like sherbert lemon, and pizza that can last for three years are among the innovations to be featured in a new television programme.
The BBC’s Tomorrow’s Food will also take a look at 3D printing technologies for pasta and biscuits, and the development of seaweed-derived alginate pills that can help people who eat fatty foods such as cake to lose weight. According to the British broadcaster, the series, presented by Dara O Briain, will reveal the cutting-edge technologies and produce appearing in farms, supermarkets, kitchens and restaurants around the world.
As the world’s population grows, researchers are coming up with increasingly inventive and ingenious solutions to falling food security, which could transform the way that the world grows, buys and eats its food.
Among the innovations featured is the TomTato, a hybrid plant developed by a Suffolk-based horticultural firm that consists of a tomato vine above the ground and potato plant beneath it. Each plant produces more than 500 tomatoes – sweeter than supermarket varieties, and with just the right acidity – as well as 2kg of potatoes, Thompson & Morgan said.