Future of Food, a major new exhibition examining how science can help us find more sustainable ways to grow, produce and eat food, is to open at the Science Museum from 24 July 2025 to 4 January 2026. Featuring over 100 historic and contemporary objects that highlight major food milestones, the exhibition will include 3,500-year-old fermented sourdough bread, the first Quorn burger and the first beef steak grown outside a cow.
The exhibition invites visitors to explore the complex and interconnected stories behind the foods we consume. From complete meals in powder form to community cookery schools, Future of Food will explore how our everyday consumption – from what we eat to how we shop and cook – can lead to more sustainable food production. The exhibition will showcase insightful human stories of farmers, scientists and community leaders connected to sustainable food production and consumption across the globe and reveal how our current food practices impact the climate, nature, and society.
On entering the exhibition visitors will discover the stories behind everyday foods – from potatoes and corn to margarine and McNuggets® – uncovering the history, use and environmental impact of these familiar foods. The exhibition will highlight how science enabled growing global populations to be better fed in the 20th century, examining the ideas and technologies that transformed farming – such as the invention of synthetic fertilisers, pesticides and increasing yields – but have left a challenging legacy, contributing to exploitation of the sea, intensive factory farming and monoculture crops. Both human ingenuity and our ecological vulnerability will be illustrated through objects on display including a fragile potato leaf, one of the few surviving specimens collected during the Irish potato famine, and Fritz Haber’s sample of liquid ammonia, one of the most significant scientific inventions of the 20th century that helped feed billions through the creation of synthetic nitrogen fertiliser.
L: The first beef steak grown outside a cow. From cells to steak, the process took just 4 weeks. © Science Museum Group; R: AquAdvantage salmon. These were siblings raised on a fish farm. The top, larger salmon was genetically modified to grow faster. © Science Museum Group.
After setting the scene, the exhibition will invite visitors to explore potential routes to a more sustainable future of food, revealing new scientific ideas and technologies, from cellular agriculture to agroecology and sustainable fishing, that may support future sustainable food production.
Visitors will explore the exciting biotechnologies that could transform how food is produced, creating more planet-friendly and climate-adapted alternatives to animal products and crops. An ancient Egyptian loaf of bread will introduce humanity’s oldest biotechnology, fermentation, which is today being used to create sustainable versions of palm oil and dairy, made from microbes. Cell-grown meat and fish, including the first beef steak grown outside a cow, will also be displayed alongside genetically engineered animals and crops such as a bird flu-resistant chicken and fertiliser-free barley.
From peering into the hidden world of soil life beneath our feet to uncovering inspiring stories of agroecology across the globe, visitors will also be invited to explore the history and future of ecological food production, discovering how ecology is being applied to food production to farm and fish while also supporting the natural world. On display will be a pioneering method of controlling pests with plants in Africa and an installation recreating a community-led regenerative seaweed and shellfish farm in Pembrokeshire. Stories of scientific and community efforts to conserve the genetic diversity of foods will also be told, from Norway’s ice-cold seed vaults to seed-swapping ceremonies in the Amazon and across the UK, highlighting wild and heritage plant varieties with climate resilience.
The exhibition will also invite visitors to consider the impact of the food we buy, cook and eat. Visitors can delve into debates around local food systems and global food trade, including topics such as seasonality, supply chains, sustainable protein and food traceability. The exhibition will look at how blockchain technology could help shopping become more transparent; highlight community food projects, from organic food subsidy schemes in Cardiff to community kitchens in Peru, and showcase insect-based foods like cricket burgers in development in Europe.
L: Potato leaf from Ireland, 1847. This fragile leaf is one of the few surviving specimens collected during the Irish Potato Famine. © Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; R: Ancient bread, about 1500 BCE. This small loaf, found in the tomb of an Egyptian queen, is over 3500 years old. Image courtesy of Petrie Museum of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology, UCL © Mary Hinkley 2025 / UC34324.
Bringing together ideas from both biotechnology and ecology, a large multiplayer interactive game will invite visitors to play together and create their own future for food. Selecting from a variety of food production methods explored in the exhibition, visitors’ choices will be projected onto a colourful land and seascape revealing how their decisions impact climate, nature and food production. Visitors will be able to watch as the choices of all those playing shape the imagined world in front of them.
Sir Ian Blatchford, Director and Chief Executive of the Science Museum Group, said: ‘Our Future of Food exhibition is not just about what we eat, but also about how we produce, consume and connect with food. Our food systems need to change if we are to better nourish people and the planet, and the Science Museum is uniquely placed to engage audiences with this complex topic and showcase potential scientific innovations and solutions to the challenges we face.’
