Fizzy milk or crunchy cheese, anyone? The food of the future

Food scientists are battling to overcome dairy and carbs' image problem - but will mealworms and 3D-printed pasta really win consumers back?

A man in skinny jeans and a bow tie is standing by a whiteboard with various buzzwords written on it: empathy, respect, create. He is leading a corporate bonding day for about 20 workers in an airy atrium, and moves over to start playing Bon Jovi's Livin' On A Prayer on a keyboard, imploring staff to dance. "Come on, don't be shy! We need to get the energy going! Grab your partner's hand."

I am just outside Aarhus in Denmark, in the new innovation centre of one of Denmark's oldest food companies: Arla, a dairy cooperative, which started life in the 1880s. The centre, which opened in May this year, aims to have more in common with Legoland - just an hour away in Billund - than with a traditional office. A stream runs through the building, which is almost entirely glass-walled, allowing you to peer into various meeting rooms, laboratories and a dairy-processing plant to one side of the building. Here, close to 5km of pipe runs along the walls above men wearing hairnets, who are sticking a probe into a large block of cheese. A large sign painted on to the wall in English reads: "Arla's Innovative Playground."