Attending the IFT FIRST Annual Event and Expo is akin to packing an entire year’s worth of professional development, supplier/customer relationship building, new product development, and innovation thinking into four intense days. If you do it right, you’ll leave Chicago exhausted, but inspired by your career, your job, your future, and the important role our profession plays in providing a safe, nutritious, and sustainable food supply. You’ll also arrive back at work with new ideas to share with your management and colleagues. Plus, a stack of business cards from potentially lucrative new business contacts, customers, suppliers, collaborators, and innovators.

We're Back! At the IFT FIRST Annual Event and Expo you’ll have the opportunity to visit over 1,300 supplier booths, representing the largest ingredient and technology Food Expo in the world. See, taste, touch and experience all the new products and services the IFT FIRST exhibitors have to offer. Explore new products, find solutions, and make buying decisions all in the three Food Expo intensive days.

It’s this year’s theme - Hacking the Food Supply: Can We Synthesize a More Sustainable Future?- that will bring together a diverse perspective of front-line scientists and product developers to discuss the potential promises and pitfalls of the future of food. How can we as a food and innovation community find solutions to this important issue? Join us for the debate and dialogue to find out.

As we return to an in-person experience, IFT FIRST will explore this topic through five critical areas that are greatly impacting the global food system including: Novel Technology & Innovation; Sustainability & Climate; Health & Nutrition; Food Safety and Consumer Insights and Education. Whether you have been to an IFT annual event or not, this year promises to be a completely reimagined experience that will amp up the discussion and dialogue through multiple formats with select sessions available in-person and via livestream. 

• Keynote & Featured Sessions
  Dynamic thought leaders and speakers will bring the debate and conversation alive in ways that promise to have your peers and colleagues talking at IFT FIRST and beyond. (In person and live stream).
• On-demand Scientific Presentations  
  As an IFT FIRST attendee, you’ll be able to review a robust library of scientific presentations covering all the five critical areas and guiding questions below. Check back soon for access to these sessions. 
• FIRST Cut Scientific Session Summaries
  These 1-minute pre-recorded sessions provide a high-level overview of all presentations that will be a part of the discussion at IFT FIRST.
• Live Multi-Session Conversations
  Experience live conversations on how the on-demand sessions address guiding questions in the five critical areas that will layer up to the overall theme of IFT FIRST. Below is a sneak peek of the programming and presenters you can expect during the Multi-Sessions conversations. 

While you’re at the event, don’t forget to recharge. Feeding Tomorrow uses the annual event to host one of its largest fundraisers, which benefits its many programs directed at bringing the best and brightest young people into our profession, rewarding the efforts of students in food science, and providing opportunities to leverage the knowledge of our community for the greater good. Attendees and non-attendees alike are able to participate in the Fun Run + Fitness to experience wellness through running, walking, or yoga while supporting important Feeding Tomorrow programs. You can participate both at the event and remotely.