Better food is possible. And we know how

Cleaner labels. Circular technologies. Products that perform on the production line and sell from the shelf. This is not a vision statement, it is what we do every day, and the science is always first.

Consumer trust in food is eroding. Ultra-processed products are under scrutiny, from researchers, regulators, retailers, and most importantly from the people actually buying food. The producers who will win the next decade are those building products that are cleaner, more transparent, and nutritionally optimised without sacrificing the taste, texture, convenience and visual appeal that make a product sell.

The challenge is sharpest where consumer demand is growing fastest, for example with plant-based products where texture and taste still underdeliver on expectation, and high-protein formats where clean label and functionality pull in opposite directions. That opportunity is not equally distributed. The gap between producers with the infrastructure to develop better products and those without is structural, and it is growing. Closing it is less about budget and more about access to the right expertise at the right moment.

Building products that are cleaner, more transparent, and commercially viable does not come from swapping one ingredient for another. It comes from science applied at the design stage, before the brief becomes a prototype and the prototype becomes a production trial. Sustainability and commercial viability have to be designed in together from day one, because retrofitting either one later is expensive, slow, and usually unsuccessful. Reconciling science, manufacturing reality, and commercial outcome is exactly what Vivatra does, for brands, manufacturers, processors, and HoReCa suppliers across the Balkans and EU.

What we do

We develop food and beverage products from brief to initial prototype in 2-4 weeks, through to full specification and production-ready formulation. Our clients are manufacturers and brands who want better products and need the R&D infrastructure to build them, without the overhead of maintaining it in-house. We work across confectionery, frozen foods, sauces and condiments, dairy, plant-based, dry and ambient, and HoReCa categories, where clean label and performance are often in direct conflict.

Most food innovation fails not because the intention was wrong, but because the science, technology, and commercial reality were not reconciled early enough. A clean label promise built without understanding the food system creates a texture problem at scale-up or a taste problem during shelf life. A circular ingredient introduced without process validation creates a production problem on the line or a compliance issue downstream. A nutritionally improved product that ignores taste or cost creates a problem at the shelf. By the time any of these surface, the launch window is gone and the development budget is spent.

We treat clean label and sustainability as technical constraints from day one. Every formulation decision is evaluated against scientific evidence, what the production line will actually tolerate, what the consumer will accept, and what the margin structure will support.

In a recent project, a HoReCa supplier needed a fruit preparation range free from synthetic stabilisers while reducing sugar. We reformulated using a circular apple fibre technology, a co-product of existing fruit processing, that replaced the stabiliser function, held texture through processing and shelf life, and worked within existing equipment. The same ingredient, applied to a dry children's snack, acted as a natural anti-caking agent and fibre source, delivering a cleaner label, better functionality and significantly stronger retail performance than the original product. The similar principle has since been applied across ambient sauces, plant-based milk reformulations, dairy applications, and a traditional preserved vegetable product scaled to a convenient format.

Cleaner labels. Circular technology. Zero line changes. No cost increase. Better product.



PDE: the infrastructure behind the work

Most of what makes a winning product never gets written down. It lives in the heads of the R&D team, the production manager who knows what the line will and won't tolerate, the technologist who remembers why a reformulation failed three years ago and why garlic needs to be sliced, never chopped, to get that particular flavour.

Our Product Design Engine is a proprietary, domain-trained platform that structures the kind of knowledge that can be structured: ingredient behaviour, process parameters, validated formulations, cross-checking it against scientific evidence, regulatory requirements, and predictive models. Feasibility, regulatory screening, shelf life, specification drafting: structured, traceable, and faster than starting from scratch. What that time buys is deeply human work. The formulation decisions that turn a technically correct product into one consumers return to without being able to explain why are made by the food scientist, not the platform. PDE is currently available in early access exclusively to Vivatra partners.

The bottom line

Consumer expectations and regulatory pressure on food quality are moving in one direction. The producers building better products now are establishing the portfolio and process advantage that is difficult to close later. The science exists to do it. The question is whether the right people are applying it at the right moment. Better food is possible. We know how. And you don't need an in-house R&D team to get there.

If you're building a product that needs to be better, cleaner, or both, reach out at office@vivatra.io

Jovana Tomić Poepelt is the founder and director of Vivatra d.o.o., with over a decade of experience leading teams in product development across markets. Vivatra specialises in clean label formulation, circular ingredient technology, and sustainable product design for manufacturers and brands.