Prospects for Enhancing the Innovative Potential of Food Industry Enterprises in Ensuring Food Security

Food security remains one of the most critical global development challenges, and innovation in the food industry is increasingly recognized as a key driver for its achievement. This study examines the prospects for enhancing the innovative potential of food industry enterprises as a strategic pathway to ensuring food security, with a focus on transition economies, particularly Uzbekistan. Descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and SWOT-based synthesis were applied to identify key gaps and opportunities.  Findings reveal that food industry enterprises in Uzbekistan allocate only 2.3–4.1% of revenues to R&D, significantly below the OECD average of 6.8%. Enterprises with higher innovation intensity demonstrated 23% greater product diversification, 31% lower post-harvest losses, and 18% higher export revenue. Technology adoption barriers include limited skilled personnel (identified by 74% of respondents), insufficient financing (68%), and weak academia–industry linkages (61%). The study proposes a five-pillar innovation framework tailored to food industry enterprises in transition economies, integrating digital transformation, institutional capacity building, open innovation ecosystems, green technology adoption, and regulatory harmonization. Implementation of this framework is projected to increase enterprise food security contribution indices by 35–42% over a five-year horizon.