Our team spent four days at McCormick Place with our North American partner NURA, pouring matcha lattes and talking paramylon with formulators from around the world.

IFT FIRST — the Institute of Food Technologists' annual event and expo — ran July 12–15, 2026 at McCormick Place in Chicago. It is the largest gathering of its kind: more than 1,000 exhibitors and over 15,500 food professionals from 80-plus countries. This year the organizers made a structural change worth noting. For the first time, all scientific programming took place directly inside the Expo Hall, across four color-coded theaters with networking space adjacent. You could watch a research presentation and walk fifty feet to the company commercializing it.

For a company that has spent two decades arguing that microalgae belong in mainstream food, that layout was a gift.

We exhibited alongside NURA, our North American ingredient partner. NURA carries OkiOne™, the all-in-one Euglena gracilis superfood, into the U.S. formulation market — and their booth put it directly next to their own CLEARTEIN® clear protein peptide line. Two ingredients, one shared thesis: functional nutrition should not force a trade-off against taste, clarity, or processing performance.

What we put in people's hands

Rather than hand out spec sheets, we handed out a drink.

The Superfood Matcha Latte served at the booth was built on three ingredients: OkiOne™ (0.5 g), FiberEssence® organic prebiotic fiber blend, and beLP-1 postbiotic (heat-treated Lactobacillus plantarum). Per serving: 5 g dietary fiber, 30 billion postbiotic cells, vegan. The sticker on the cup read "Gut feeling? It's matcha."

It worked because it was a good matcha latte first and a functional beverage second. That is the whole argument, compressed into a cup.

The science behind the ingredient

OkiOne™ is derived from Euglena gracilis, a microalga with a genuinely unusual property: no rigid cell wall. Where most plant and algal ingredients require the body to breach a cellulose barrier, Euglena's cell-wall-barrier-free structure gives it roughly 93% digestibility. It carries 59 nutrients and 30–50% paramylon — a β-1,3-glucan that is structurally distinct from the β-glucans found in yeast, oats, or mushrooms.

The clinically studied benefits NURA presents for OkiOne™ cluster around three areas: restful sleep, mood and emotional resilience, and immune defenses. The ingredient carries iGen Non-GMO Tested, GRAS, Kosher, and ASC Farmed Responsibly certifications.

On Tuesday, July 14, NURA USA and Euglena Co. hosted an invitation-only breakfast session, The Science Behind Euglena, in Room S101B. Melissa Riddell, NURA's Director of R&D, and our founder Dr. Kengo Suzuki walked R&D scientists, product developers, and formulators through the clinical research, the functional mechanisms, and the sustainable cultivation story.ｄｓｄ

What we took away

The dominant conversation at IFT FIRST 2026 was not novelty. It was trust — evidence quality, clean labels, transparent sourcing, ingredients a consumer can pronounce. IFT's own 2026 Compensation and Career Path Report, released just before the show, found that the impact of scientific misinformation ranked as the single largest professional concern among food scientists surveyed.

That is a difficult environment for hype. It is a very good environment for an ingredient with 59 nutrients, a clinical file, and a name people can say out loud.

Thank you to the NURA team, and to everyone who stopped by for a matcha.

*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.