German cultivated meat startup Bluu Seafood has teamed up with spice manufacturer Van Hees to create hybrid proteins combining cultured fish cells with plant-based ingredients.
As it awaits regulatory approval in multiple geographies, Germany’s Bluu Seafood has partnered with Van Hees, which makes spice blends and functional ingredients for the food industry, to develop proteins combining cultured fish cells with plant-based ingredients.
The partnership will leverage Van Hees’s technological and culinary expertise and Bluu Seafood’s cultivated fish platform to create customised hybrid seafood products with high sustainability and sensory appeal.
“We see great potential in cultivated fish as part of a sustainable protein supply,” said Robert Becht, managing director of Van Hees. “This cooperation enables us to contribute our innovative strength to a forward-looking segment and actively participate in the transformation of the food system.”
Bluu Seafood latest to embrace hybrid meat
Courtesy: Bluu Seafood
Van Hees has been operating for nearly 75 years, with a presence in over 80 countries. It produces spices, spice blends, processing additives, and marinades for use in a range of meat, sausage and vegan products.
Its collaboration with Bluu Seafood aims to optimise the texture, stability and flavour profile of cultivated meat products. Van Hees is working closely with Aromatech, a long-standing partner that has expertise in the field of flavour technology, and using the expertise of its Food.PreTect competence centre to enhance product safety and prolong shelf life.
Hybrid meat has been touted as the only viable way of commercialising cultivated meat, which suffers from cost and scale bottlenecks, in the near term. Most products that have entered the market have been mixed with plant-based ingredients with a low percentage of cultured animal cells. Some companies, in fact, are manufacturing cultivated fat to add to plant proteins.
This is the same approach taken by Wildtype, the only company to have successfully brought cultivated seafood to market. Its salmon, which is now being served at Portland restaurant Kann, combines fish cells with plant-based ingredients to replicate the structure and texture of conventional Pacific salmon. That said, the cells are the primary ingredient after water in this product.
Bluu Seafood itself is working on both salmon and rainbow trout, and indicated that the collaboration with an established food company like Van Hees is a key step in its path to market readiness.
“Both sides – we at Bluu Seafood as a pioneer in the field of fish cell cultivation and Van Hees as an established and experienced food company – can only benefit from the partnership,” argued Sebastian Rakers, co-founder and co-CEO of the alternative protein firm. “This offers enormous opportunities for the development of delicious yet sustainable foods.”
Targeting cultivated seafood approval in several markets
Courtesy: Wim Jansen/Bluu Seafood
Rakers founded Bluu Seafood with Simon Fabich in 2020 and has made several production and regulatory strides on its way to market.
The company opened Europe’s first dedicated facility for cultivated seafood production in Hamburg last year, sprawling 2,000 sq m and housing fermentation tanks with a capacity of 65 litres. It planned to scale up to the full 2,000 litre capacity this year, allowing it to produce cultivated muscle, fat and tissue cells from Atlantic salmon and rainbow trout in much larger quantities.
Bluu Seafood’s first products will be fish balls and fingers; in the works are prototypes for salmon sashimi and trout fillets. “If the scalability and market conditions are favourable, we will be able to offer cultivated fish at wholesale fish prices in as little as three years,” Rakers told Green Queen last year.
Like most cultivated meat companies, it plans to launch in foodservice first. “At the market entry point, we will only have a very limited number of products available. We will therefore take a careful positioning strategy, and initially work exclusively with well-known restaurants, chefs and influencers,” he said. “Rollout with exclusive retail partners will follow thereafter.”
The startup is pursuing regulatory clearance in Singapore, the US and Europe, though the timelines it expected have been delayed several times. “Considering that the EU approval process with its 27 members is a lot more complex, we will probably focus on European countries outside the EU first – for example, the UK and Switzerland,” Rakers said.
The EU’s novel food framework has been a hot topic in recent weeks. In the newly released life sciences strategy, the EU Commission said it will propose a Biotech Act to overhaul and speed up regulatory approval in the region. These measures would include regulatory sandboxes, better mobilisation of public and private funds, and an AI tool to help companies embed regulatory compliance at the early stages of product development.
“Even with centralised approaches, long authorisation procedures under regulatory frameworks that require pre-market authorisation to ensure safety for human health and the environment can delay market entry of innovative products,” the strategy states. “Efforts should also be made to increase efficiency and to significantly reduce the length of authorisation procedures in the health, medical devices and food areas, to make the EU more attractive in comparison to other regions in the world.”
A new survey shows that a majority of US consumers believe vegan diets are more costly than the Standard American Diet, despite meat being the highest source of spending for 70% of them.
Talk about veganism in a social setting, and complaints about cost are never far away.
And there’s some justification in that – plant-based meat alternatives carry an 82% premium on conventional meat in the US. That’s no surprise, considering the latter is a legacy industry with gigantic scale and government support (both via subsidies and policies).
But veganism is more than just about meat analogues, so by using them as a yardstick for the plant-based diet, they’re missing a trick. Meals built around whole foods are usually far more affordable than those centred on animal proteins, according to Xavier Toledo, a registered dietitian with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM).
The health advocacy group polled 2,200 Americans with Morning Consult to find that 77% of adults say grocery prices are too high at the moment. And when asked what they spend the most money on, 70% of respondents said meat, and another 12% said dairy.
Courtesy: PCRM/Morning Consult
Americans blame meat alternatives for plant-based diet costs
PCRM suggests that Americans are misinformed about the cost of eating a plant-based diet, since 61% of them believe buying groceries for this way of eating is more expensive than the Standard American Diet.
The latter is characterised by the US dietary guidelines as too high in red meat, high-fat dairy, processed and fast foods, refined carbohydrates, added sugars, salt and calories, and too low in fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, lean protein and healthy fats.
The perception of plant-based diets as more expensive rises with age, with baby boomers most likely to think so (67%). The sentiment is more popular among white and rural demographics, too. Surprisingly, though, the lowest-earning Americans in the poll (earning under $50,000 annually) were least likely to think that vegan diets are costlier, with 58% saying so.
When asked which groceries cause plant-based eating to be more expensive, a majority of the participants (60%) pointed to meat alternatives. The aforementioned price gap with conventional meat helps to explain this. It’s also why sales of plant-based meat and seafood have continued to decline in the US, falling by 7% last year.
Courtesy: PCRM/Morning Consult
Separate research shows that if meat-free alternatives are more expensive, Americans’ preference for them falls below 20%, and if they’re priced equally, this increases to 21%. Whereas if vegan alternatives cost about half of a conventional burger, the number of people choosing the former would double. And lowering the price of the plant-based burger by even 10% would result in a 14% increase in sales.
Three in 10 consumers told the pollsters that fruits and vegetables make vegan diets expensive, highlighting the “knowledge gaps about plant-based eating”.
“Centring a plant-based diet on whole, minimally processed foods is one of the most effective ways to not only nourish your body, but also cut grocery costs,” said Toledo. “Simple shifts – like buying produce in season, choosing frozen or canned when it’s more affordable, cooking in batches, and leaning on budget-friendly staples like potatoes, beans, and brown rice – can make a big difference.”
Is veganism really that expensive?
Inflation has hiked grocery prices across the board, whether it’s a Beyond Burger or Perdue chicken. Now, nine in 10 Americans say healthy food has become more expensive, and 62% suggest that prices are now a high priority in their food purchasing decisions.
Moreover, some foods have been hit harder by inflation than others. According to the Pew Research Centre, prices of meat, poultry, fish and eggs saw the fastest hikes of any food category since January 2020, up by more than 36%. The category least affected by inflation? Fruits and vegetables, which are 16% more expensive today.
The egg crisis has been well-documented, with prices breaking records consecutively in the first three months of 2025, and set to rise by another 40% throughout the year. In addition, the cost of fresh chicken rose to levels never seen before this year, crossing $2.06 per lb in March. And milk has remained above the $4 per gallon rate since August 2024, and was up by 5% this April compared to 12 months earlier.
Meanwhile, ground beef prices hit 5.80 per lb in cities in April, the highest since records began 40 years ago. Likewise, the cost of uncooked beef steaks reached an all-time high of $11.12 per lb.
Courtesy: PBFA
SPINS data crunched by the Plant-Based Foods Association found that average retail costs grew across all animal-based food categories in 2024, with eggs registering the largest hike (6%), followed by butter (3%), creamer (3%), and cheese (2%).
Plant-based yoghurt and meat were among the only categories whose price hikes outpaced their animal counterparts. Vegan butter and ice cream were 3% cheaper in 2024 than the year before, while the cost of non-dairy creamers and cheese fell by 1%. And while milk alternatives were 1% more expensive, their price hike was lower than the 2% experienced by cow’s milk.
Meat and dairy are the categories Americans spend their most money on, the PCRM survey showed, while plant-based alternatives only rank in the top two spending categories for 6% of Americans.
Courtesy: PCRM/Morning Consult
Veganism isn’t expensive. Meat and dairy, however, are getting pricier. Replacing them with fruits, vegetables and whole foods can bring major wins for Americans’ wallets.
This was proven by a PCRM study last year, which revealed that a low-fat vegan diet can cut food costs by 19% to $1.80 per day, when compared to the Standard American Diet. These savings were largely attributed to meat and dairy, outweighing the increase spend on vegetables, grains, and even meat alternatives.
While most vegan seafood products qualify as a source of protein, on average, they still lag behind conventional fish, according to a new review.
While many flexitarians turn to seafood in their bid to cut back on meat, the adoption of plant-based fish products remains low.
In the US, vegan alternatives make up just 1% of the overall seafood market. They account for a similar share in the wider plant-based sector too. In Germany, Europe’s largest market for vegan food, sales of alternative seafood fell by 24% last year.
One major reason is nutrition: plant-based seafood is perceived as lacking in protein, omega-3 and several key micronutrients. However, seafood itself poses several health concerns, with ocean pollution raising the risk of antimicrobial resistance, mercury, and microplastics being present in these foods.
Meanwhile, 40% of global fish stocks are overfished, and half are harvested to their limit by trawlers to meet the demand for seafood. So these alternatives are a critical solution for climate mitigation and food security too.
To help address the health concerns around vegan seafood, food awareness organisation ProVeg International has released Out of the Net, a new report analysing the nutritional profile of 100 fish-free products against conventional fish.
Protein and omega-3 sources need diversification
Courtesy: ProVeg International
ProVeg found that a typical cooked fish product contains 18-20g of protein per 100g whereas the average for plant-based alternatives stands at 10g, which is almost half. That said, this number varies greatly across companies and countries, with some products offering over 22g of protein.
In the EU, foods can only be labelled as a “source of protein” if at least 12% of energy comes from the macronutrient. Nearly 80% of vegan fish options meet this criterion despite the gap with conventional seafood. Nevertheless, the strong demand for protein means plant-based options need to boost their content to reach parity with their conventional counterparts.
In countries like Spain and Czechia, all alt-seafood products meet the protein standard, while in the UK, less than half do so. “Although many plant-based fish alternatives provide a solid amount of protein, there is still work to be done in some regions in order to make these products more nutritionally competitive with their animal-based counterparts,” the report states.
To help get there, manufacturers are diversifying the source of alternative proteins for seafood, from soy and wheat to pulses, seaweed, microalgae, and mycoprotein. “By leveraging optimal plant-protein blends and exploring diverse protein sources, plant-based fish alternatives can achieve a protein quality that is comparable to animal-based products,” notes ProVeg.
Courtesy: ProVeg International
Conventional fish is already hailed for its low saturated fat and high omega-3 fatty acid content. The research suggests that plant-based alternatives have a similarly beneficial profile for saturated fat, with most products falling below the EU threshold of 1.5g.
However, only 27% of the vegan fish products in the study listed omega-3 content on their packaging, at an average of 0.75g per 100g (on par with seafood). These fats boost heart and brain health and reduce inflammation, and are especially important for vegans, who are more likely to be deficient.
And even among the minority of products with omega-3, the primary source is alpha-linolenic acid (ALA). “To better replicate the nutritional profile of seafood, plant-based alternatives should consider the inclusion of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA)–for example, by using algae oil as a direct source,” the report recommends.
Vegan seafood lacks in micronutrient fortification
Courtesy: ProVeg International
On average, plant-based seafood contains 1.2g of salt per 100g, above both EU and US thresholds – though it’s important to note that these products don’t need to be seasoned with more salt during cooking, unlike conventional versions.
Another issue? The availability of micronutrients. Fortification is a common strategy in the meat alternatives industry, but not as much for fish alternatives. When it comes to B12, only Spain has more than 50% of products fortified with it – the US, the UK, South Africa and Czechia were found completely lacking.
The same is true for iron in the latter three countries. However, every vegan seafood option in the US is fortified with this micronutrient.
“Government, policymakers, and food producers should collaborate to include fortification as a standard practice when it comes to the formulation of plant-based alternatives to fish, as well as plant-based dairy products,” the report states.
The one area where fish-free seafood shines is fibre, with conventional versions devoid of this nutrient (unless they’re breaded). Vegan alternatives contain 3.57g of fibre per 100g on average.
How the industry and government can improve plant-based seafood
Courtesy: Juicy Marbles
To enhance the overall nutritional credentials of seafood analogues and increase their uptake by consumers, ProVeg laid out several recommendations across sectors.
It’s imperative for producers of vegan seafood products to ensure these foods offer similar protein content and omega-3 levels, while increasing micronutrient fortification. Further, flavour should be central to product development, with umami-rich ingredients like seaweed, soy sauce and mushrooms lending the broth-like savoury notes seafood lovers find appealing.
These efforts can be aided by scientists and researchers, who should focus on matching the nutrition levels of conventional seafood and advancing sensory research. They should further study the long-term health impact and nutrient bioavailability of plant-based seafood, while exploring processing techniques like high-moisture extrusion and 3D printing to improve texture.
Retailers should endeavour to improve the visibility and competitiveness of fish alternatives by placing them in high-footfall areas of the store and pricing them competitively with conventional options. Partnering with brands on in-store tastings and cooking demos can help too.
The report highlights the importance of consumer organisations to build food literacy by educating the public on processing, fortification, reading on-pack labels, and balanced eating.
Finally, governments have a key role to play. They must develop tailored nutritional guidelines for plant-based alternatives, ensure food fortification is a common practice, and include vegan seafood in national dietary guidelines. Policymakers can also run public awareness campaigns to address misconceptions about the category, and implement policies to make these products more accessible and affordable.
“This could include reducing or eliminating value-added tax on these products, providing subsidies to producers, and supporting the development of efficient supply chains,” states the report.
Zus Coffee, now Malaysia’s largest coffee chain, has launched a vegan menu with Southeast Asian plant-based meat startup Green Rebel Foods at over 200 locations.
With a fifth of Malaysians looking to cut back on meat, its largest coffee chain is leaning into that wish with a collaboration with Green Rebel Foods.
Zus Coffee has introduced a vegan ready-to-eat menu using the Indonesian startup’s meat alternatives at over 200 locations in the states of Terengganu, Kelantan and Pahang.
It’s a marriage of two tech-driven startups in Southeast Asia, blending local flavours with food innovation to help Malaysians meet their health goals while lowering their impact on the environment.
Green Rebel bets on Zus Coffee’s growing popularity
Courtesy: Green Rebel Foods
The menu comprises ready-to-eat products that consumers can eat in-store or take home. It spotlights Green Rebel’s mushroom and soy protein, which is the star of all three dishes: a nasi rendang padang, a rendang spaghetti, and a creamy mushroom and truffle pasta, with the latter featuring the brand’s dairy-free cheese.
Its signature meat-free protein solutions are made from the proprietary Rebel Emulsion Technology, which helps recreate the mouthfeel of animal protein via an emulsion of coconut oil, water, and natural plant-based seasonings. The mushroom and soy are mixed with cassava flour, rice flour,r and whole oats.
“We’re proud to partner with a forward-thinking brand like Zus Coffee,” said Max Mandias, co-founder and chief innovation officer of Green Rebel. “Together, we’re not just serving great food, but we’re redefining how Southeast Asians enjoy our cultural dishes while caring for the planet.”
Zus Coffee was founded in 2019 and has grown exponentially with its tech-led approach to specialty coffee. It has highly digitalised operations and had a companion app at launch to facilitate online ordering, takeaway and delivery.
The company collects data on consumers’ tastes and preferences too, using the insights to create new products and improve existing ones. While the uptake of its cashless payment and online ordering approach was slow at first, Covid-19 popularised these soon after.
Zus Coffee has since gone from strength to strength, on the back of an aggressive expansion strategy that has seen its locations jump past 3,300, surpassing even Starbucks. The company has been keen to lower its climate footprint, using biodegradable rice straws, and now with the plant-based menu.
Courtesy: Green Rebel Foods
Malaysia is hungry for plant proteins
The partnership comes as awareness about plant-based food grows in Malaysia. A survey by the Good Food Institute (GFI) APAC last year found that 89% of locals have heard of meat alternatives. That said, less than a fifth (19%) eat it regularly or once a month.
At the same time, 21% of Malaysians said they were looking to limit their meat intake in the upcoming year, with beef (24%) and lamb, pork and mutton (27%) overindexing. For these consumers – as is the case in other Asian countries – health is the biggest driver of this consumption trend, with the top three reasons cited as better cardiovascular health, weight loss, and improved digestion.
This is confirmed by a separate poll by GlobalData from December 2023, where 59% of Malaysians said plant-based meat alternatives are healthier than their conventional counterparts.
The GFI APAC survey also revealed that 66% of Malaysians who had never tried plant-based meat intended to do so in the coming year, while 43% of those who had wanted to increase their intake. And for 40% of consumers, restaurants were the most common way to be introduced to these products, a finding Green Rebel’s partnership with Zus Coffee aligns with well.
Courtesy: Green Rebel Foods
The plant-based meat maker, which has worked with Starbucks in Malaysia before, has been expanding its presence across the region. It recently entered 7-Eleven Philippines as part of in-store dishes and with on-shelf products.
Further, it has commercial partnerships with AirAsia, Tous Le Jours, NTUC FairPrice and Annam Gourmet, with its products available in over 1,200 foodservice locations and more than 300 retail stores across Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Malaysia.
In other plant-based news from Malaysia, Pure Mylk has opened the region’s first dedicated innovation centre for non-dairy milk, featuring R&D labs, sensory testing rooms, a showroom, a training centre, and a full-scale pilot plant for manufacturers.
Our weekly column rounds up the latest sustainable food innovation news. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers Chike Nutrition’s plant protein coffees, a sunflower seed meat alternative, and US physicians’ letter to the government.
New products and launches
US protein beverage powder maker Chike Nutrition has introduced plant-based Toasted Coconut Mocha and Salted Caramel Latte. The two drinks contain 20g of pea and pumpkin seed protein, two shots of espresso and 3g of sugar per 34g serving; they will roll out on its website on July 15 and at Whole Foods Market in September.
Courtesy: Chike Nutrition/Nadiya Senko
US plant-based company Before the Butcher has debuted VegBurg, a line of whole-food veggie burgers designed for foodservice and at-home cooking enthusiasts, combining lentils, zucchini, carrots, quinoa, mushrooms, and more.
Californian frozen food startup Hey!Hunger has unveiled Indian-inspired Tikka Patties made from whole foods and free from isolates, gums and preservatives. The clean-label plant-based product is available at Good Earth, Berkeley Bowl, Rainbow Market, Woodlands, and over 30 independent stores in the state.
Meanwhile, Beyond Meat has become the official Plant-Based Protein Partner of the Premier Lacrosse League, with its products being integrated into team meals and player nutrition programmes across all eight clubs.
Vegan cheese pioneer Miyoko’s Creamery has launched a meltable Oat Milk Taco Blend Seasoned Shreds SKU. It’s available at Erewhon, Nugget Market, Hy-Vee and National Co+op Grocers stores nationwide for $6.99 per 7oz bag.
Courtesy: Daiya/Gulnar/Green Queen
Elsewhere in the plant-based cheese world, Canadian firm Daiya has added Chipotle Cheddar Shreds and Pepper Jack Slices to its oat milk cheese lineup, which can be found at retailers across the US.
Meanwhile, Canadian vegan fast-food chain Odd Burger has teamed up with retailer Vegan Supply to expand the distribution of its CPG line. These products will now be available at all Vegan Supply stores across British Columbia.
Courtesy: Odd Burger
Certification body V-Label LATAM has released Todo Vegan, an iOS and Android app to help users in Latin America search for vegan-certified products more easily and conveniently.
In the UK, Papa Johns has introduced a new vegan pizza with French plant-based pork brand La Vie. It features vegan ham, jackfruit pepperoni, and non-dairy cheese from Scotland’s Sheese, and costs £12 for a large option.
Courtesy: Papa Johns
Irish brand The Happy Pear has gained a listing at UK online grocer Ocado, which will now stock both chilled and ambient offerings, like hummus, tapenade, dip and snack pots, pesto and granola.
Indian online grocer Country Delight has expanded into the plant-based realm with an oat milk targeted at health-conscious Indians. It’s available in 400ml packs for ₹40 ($0.47).
Courtesy: Jacked Nutrition
In Pakistan, Jacked Nutrition has introduced a vegan brown rice protein powder with 24g of protein and 2g of fibre per 30g scoop. It’s available in chocolate and vanilla flavours.
Company and finance updates
Protein Industries Canada, in collaboration with NRGene Canada, Pulse Genetics, Hensall Co-op, and Yumasoy Foods Ltd, has committed $4.3M to bolster the national specialty soybean market and support the development of plant-based foods.
In Germany, Planet A Foods, the company behind ChoViva cocoa-free chocolate, has been named as a finalist for the prestigious entrepreneurial award, Deutscher Gründerpreis 2025.
Courtesy: Planet A Foods
Planet A Foods has also been recognised as a Rising Star at Manager Magazin and Bain & Company’s Game Changer Award 2025.
In Portugal, four major Lisbon hospitals have committed to offering more plant-based options under ProVeg Portugal‘s Sustainable Meals programme.
Luxembourg-based molecular farming firmMoolec Science has secured a US patent for its Piggy Sooy technology, which produces pork protein directly within soy seeds.
Policy and research developments
Over 130 physicians have penned an open letter to the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Department of Agriculture (USDA), urging the government to prioritise the consumption of legumes as a protein source in the upcoming national dietary guidelines.
Courtesy: Bold Bean Co
The UK’s Food Standards Agency has created a Business Support Service to help companies looking to file regulatory applications for cultivated meat, in its latest move to advance novel food regulation.
Over 60% of Hong Kong’s leading restaurant groups have committed to ending the use of caged eggs across all global operations, according to analysis by non-profit the Lever Foundation.
Courtesy: Luc Vietanh Soto/10 Billion Solutions
The International Institute of Refrigeration has urged all countries to establish National Refrigeration Committees to tackle food security, public health, energy use, and sustainability challenges.
Researchers from Brazil’s Institute of Food Technology and the University of Campinas have worked with Germany’s Fraunhofer IVV Institute to develop a sunflower-seed-based meat alternative.
Courtesy: Unicamp
In a redux of the conversation sparked by The Game Changers documentary, a new study has found that whole-food plant-based diets could lower the risk of erectile dysfunction, compared to animal-based and processed diets.
Finally, another study has revealed that healthy plant-based foods are linked to better heart health, but unhealthy ones are not.
Germany’s Veganz Group has established Mililk FoodTech to unlock hidden business value following a 34% drop in sales last year, and will sell its OrbiFarm subsidiary for €30M ($35M).
Following three years of revenue decline, German plant-based pioneer Veganz Group is eyeing a turnaround with strategic investment and a restructuring of its operations.
The holding company has set up Mililk FoodTech as a new subsidiary to “leverage hidden reserves” within the business, building on its Mililk brand of 2D-printed oat milk. In addition, it has agreed to sell 100% of OrbiFarm GmbH – a private limited company it formed in April, stemming from its indoor farming vertical – to a third party for €30M ($35M) plus an earnout.
These moves have been made in preparation for strategic investments in Q3, with the total volume expected to be between €10-20M ($12-24M), based on a pre-money valuation of €80M ($94M). Following the financing, Veganz will continue to hold a majority stake in Mililk.
Veganz goes global with Mililk expansion
Courtesy: Veganz
Veganz’s 2D-printed milk technology was licensed from US startup Vitiprints in 2022. It prints the oat mass directly after fermentation via a screen printing process on an industrial printer. Drying out the oat base into compact discs requires 94% fewer materials for packaging (compared to the Tetra Paks used for standard oat milks), which is 85% lighter in weight and lowers emissions by 90%.
It has been selling the shelf-stable oat milk sheets since October 2023 under the Mililk brand, and given the technology’s potential to optimise a broad range of foods and beverages, Veganz has decided to diversify its business with the new venture.
Mililk FoodTech will deal with R&D, patents, production, distribution and tech licensing for food manufacturing. Its current focus is centred on plant-based milk, though projects for juices, smoothies and functional drinks are already underway.
Veganz partnered with Döhler Group last year to develop a new process that reduces the number of manufacturing steps and the energy requirements, making production more efficient and cost-effective.
And earlier this year, it signed a deal with Jindilli Beverages (the maker of Milkadamia) to bring its products to North America, Australia and New Zealand. This includes the production of Mililk’s oat and almond milks and its coffee creamer drops, as well as the export and distribution of one-litre Tetra Pak formats for retail and five-litre packs foodservice.
“In view of the enormous market potential for our Mililk technology platform, we are currently only scratching the surface,” said Anja Brachmüller, COO of Veganz and CEO of Mililk FoodTech.
The company predicts the demand for Mililk will reach 30 million litres over the next year, equating to €30M ($35M) in sales, suggesting that this volume is possible due to the significant cost savings its products present.
“In the US, we have already identified a production site that has all the necessary permits and offers enough space to produce more than 60 million litres of our plant-based milk alternatives per year,” noted Brachmüller. This plant is set to be opened in early 2026, with Mililk producing under a licensing model.
Veganz COO and Mililk FoodTech CEO Anja Brachmüller | Courtesy: Veganz
Can OrbiFarm sale and strategic investments help Veganz bounce back?
Veganz’s current facility in Ludwigsfelde only has an annual capacity of three million litres; it’s now being expanded to 11.5 million litres with €1M ($1.2M) of capital expenditure. “In Europe, we also want to establish six new production sites,” Brachmüller said. Once online, these would generate triple-digit revenue growth for the Mililk brand alone.
The expansion will be helped by the upcoming strategic investors and the sale of OrbiFarm, developed over several years with indoor farming tech licensed from the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology. The entity was officially launched just over two months ago, with Veganz initially planning to sell a 25% stake for €10M ($12M) – but now, it has agreed to part with the whole business.
Veganz said the transaction enables strategic partners who are prohibited from investing in subsidiaries of listed companies to become involved, with the proceeds from the sale boosting its liquidity and creating new scope for growth.
“The initial order forecast from North America makes it imperative for long-term investors to come on board so that we can build up production capacity as quickly as possible to meet the high demand,” said Brachmüller.
The firm has raised $24M to date, including an $11M equity round for Mililk’s expansion last year. And earlier this month, it issued a capital increase that would net the business a further $7.5M in gross proceeds.
Graphic by Green Queen
All this comes on the back of several years of decreasing sales, which peaked at €30.4M in 2021. Then, year-on-year sales fell by 22.4% in 2022, 30.5% in 2023, and 34.2% last year, when they totalled €10.8M. The company blamed difficult market conditions, portfolio adjustments, and production delays due to unfinalised financing.
That said, experts expect the company to bounce back this year with €13.2M in sales (representing a 22.5% growth). “In a challenging year 2024, we continued to successfully drive forward the reorganisation of Veganz Group AG and see a further increase in own production sales and an improvement in EBITDA,” Veganz co-founder and CEO Jan Bredack said earlier this year.
“With our five new business units [Veganz, Mililk, Happy Cheeze, Peas on Earth, and OrbiFarm], we are clearly positioned for the future and, assuming financing, will be able to meet the high market demand in 2025,” he added.
Atlantic Natural Foods, the company behind Loma Linda and Tuno, has signed an asset purchase agreement with Philippines-based Century Pacific Food.
Two months after declaring bankruptcy, US legacy plant-based meat player Atlantic Natural Foods has entered into an asset purchase agreement with Filipino food processor Century Pacific Food.
It will allow Atlantic Natural Foods, whose roots date back 135 years, to continue operating after an extended period of uncertainty.
Inflation and tariffs get costs spiralling
Courtesy: Atlantic Natural Foods
While Atlantic Natural Foods was founded in 2008, its portfolio brand Loma Linda has been around since 1890, when it was established by John Harvey Kellogg, the creator of corn flakes and brother of Kellanova founder WK Kellogg.
The New Orleans-based firm bought Loma Linda from what was then known as Kellogg’s in 2014, and has since expanded its brands’ presence to over 25,000 stores in the US, plus 30 other countries.
The company has manufacturing plants in both Nashville, North Carolina, and Bangkok, Thailand; in January 2024, it began transitioning its supply chain to other locations. That effort was accelerated in December, after it withdrew from an acquisition deal with Above Food, which had been in the works for three years.
“This decision reflects a strategic realignment following a comprehensive evaluation of the evolving business landscape,” Atlantic Natural Foods said at the time. “Factors such as the global impact of Covid-19, supply chain disruptions and rising food inflation played a key role.”
Months later, the firm filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, listing $10-50M in assets and $1-10M in liabilities, with 100 to 199 creditors.
“During this period, Atlantic Natural Foods experienced rapid cost escalation with material impact directly related to tariffs on steel (from which our cans are made), grains, spices, along with egg whites and more,” said chairman Doug Hines.
“The restructuring of government tariffs, inflation, price pressures from government and others, labour, insurance – coupled with cybersecurity attacks which have created IT cost to increase three times – showed no relief on the near horizon,” he added.
Atlantic Natural Foods doubles down on Adventist church customer community
Courtesy: Atlantic Natural Foods
The aforementioned challenges forced Atlantic Natural Foods to shutter its US manufacturing site in March and begin shifting production to Century Pacific. It positioned the Philippines as the primary supply location for Loma Linda’s shelf-stable products, targeting Seventh-day Adventists in the country.
The company has a long history with the church. Kellogg was brought up in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and was the owner of the Loma Linda brand until 1990. Its products are considered a staple for those transitioning to a meat-free diet when joining the church.
Atlantic Natural Foods cited supply chain hurdles and a tough business landscape as the driving factors behind its move to restructure operations. “There is simply too much uncertainty right now,” said Hines.
The shift to Century Pacific has been planned for over a year and will allow supply continuity “well into the next generation” under its oversight, infrastructure, production capacities and capital.
Owned by the Po family, Century Pacific was first founded as a food canning company in 1978, and is now a global processor of meat, seafood, dairy, pet food, and plant-based products. Its CEO, Teodoro Po, said the business is already facing the impacts of the tariff war, but it plans to invest in capacity expansion.
“As far as acquisitions are concerned, there are a few bolt-ons, so those are of smaller sizes that we can just bolt on to our existing platforms. So watch this space,” he told the Philippine Star this week.
“The past months have been the most painful business experience in my 50 years in the food industry,” said Hines. “However, our mission to ensure a continuing food source for the Adventist consumer has remained our number one priority, and in that, we can take great pride in being able to ensure a successful future.”
UK firm Multus Biotechnology has unveiled an animal-free media formulation for cultivated meat, allowing companies to eliminate serum from their products.
To ease ethical concerns, optimise production and lower costs, British company Multus Biotechnology has developed an animal-free culture medium to replace fetal bovine serum (FBS) for cultivated meat.
Animal serum contains high amounts of protein, alongside growth factors, hormones, antioxidants, lipids, and other components that replicate a fetal-like state for cell proliferation. It has been used as a key component in cell culture for decades.
The problem? It can contain unknown amounts of thousands of different components and poses the threat of antibacterial contamination. It’s also in short supply and thus highly expensive, and has sparked ethical concerns about the use of fetal animals to produce cultivated meat.
Over the years, many companies have moved away from cultivated meat to use animal-component-free (ACF) media formulations for production. Multus’s latest innovation, developed with the help of artificial intelligence (AI), adds to the list of solutions for producers in this space.
How Multus uses AI to develop serum replacements
Courtesy: Multus Biotechnology
The new serum replacement has been described as the first commercially available ACF media formulation for porcine adipose-derived stem cells. These are multipotent cells that differentiate into fat, bone and cartilage, which makes them valuable for a variety of applications, from food production to regenerative medicine.
Titled Proliferum P, the ACF formulation is said to match or outperform the functionality of FBS, while maintaining critical stemness characteristics and adipogenic differentiation capacity.
Traditionally, media development is expensive, labour-intensive, and slow – it can take two to four years to develop FBS alternatives, which delays product roadmaps. Multus uses AI and automation to speed things up, creating machine learning models and integrating them with high-throughput lab automation systems.
It uses machine learning to screen dozens of potential ingredients for each cell to figure out the specific formulation, and automate media preparation, cell culturing, data collection, and data analysis.
“We’ve built a process that not only accelerates the media development process, but also customises it to specific cell types,” said Soraya Padilla, project lead for Proliferum P.
The technology helped Multus develop Proliferum P in less than six months, while optimising for cost, cell growth and functional performance. This was faster than Proliferum B, a serum replacement for bovine fibroblasts that was created in nine months.
Proliferum P is said to be quality-controlled and scalable, and is available for testing and evaluation by companies working with porcine ASCs to create food and healthcare products.
Serum-free media becoming the norm for cultivated meat
Courtesy: Multus Biotechnology
Multus, which has raised over $14M to date, said the launch represented a “breakthrough in both development speed and performance”, and showcased its platform’s ability to deliver optimal formulations for diverse cell types.
“Our platform doesn’t just allow us to match industry standards – it ensures we continuously raise the bar,” said co-founder and CEO Cai Linton. “With Proliferum P, we’re delivering a superior product to FBS while demonstrating how AI and automation, in the hands of our experienced scientists, can transform biotechnology development timelines.”
It marks the firm’s third product launch in six months. In May, it introduced its food-grade basal media, developed in tandem with global food and feed ingredient companies.
Multus is working with bioprocess optimisation firm New Wave Biotech to create more affordable inputs for cultivated meat makers, as well as with Quest Meat to develop a cell culture ingredients platform as part of a £1M project co-funded by the UK government. And last year, it opened a food-safe media manufacturing facility that can support 500 tonnes of cultivated meat per year.
Efforts to eliminate FBS from cultivated meat production have been growing. Dutch firm Mosa Meat is a pioneer in this space, having removed animal serum from its products in 2019 and later making its serum-free formulation open-source.
Elsewhere, Japanese startup IntegriCulture developed cultivated chicken and duck liver cells using a serum-free medium, and South Korea’s CellMeat and Simple Planet have created serum-free cell culture media too. Meanwhile, Eat Just’s Good Meat won regulatory approval for its serum-free media in Singapore back in 2023.
By replacing animal serum in its cultivated pork production tech, US startup Clever Carnivore has achieved industry-leading media costs of $0.07 per litre. A 2023 industry survey by the Good Food Institute showed the benefits of eliminating ASF formulations, with 74% of companies reporting identical or better results after establishing a cell line in serum-free conditions.
In our interview series, we quiz future food investors about the solutions that excite them the most, their favourite climate-forward restaurant, and what they look for in successful founders.
Felix Leonhardt is a Managing Partner at Oyster Bay Venture Capital.
What future food technologies most excite you?
Sensor technology
Automation and robotics
Software and data (see below)
Fermentation, in all shapes and forms
In 2019, a large German retailer would order products from my previous startup by fax and pay by cheque. The whole supply chain was inefficient and barely digitalised. While in the past six years, some things have changed, this is still far from a data-driven supply chain. Using software and data in a very basic way can unlock a lot of value.
What are three future food verticals you are actively looking at for 2025?
Climate resilient crops
Alternative ingredients
Leveraging data and software to make the value chain smart
What do you consider the food tech sector’s greatest achievement in the past five years?
The fact that we have a vibrant ecosystem. When I started my first startup in the space in 2012, there was no VC investing in the sector. Having an ecosystem where we have some successful exits, some well-performing funds, and obviously also some high-profile failures, is a huge achievement.
If you could wave a magic wand, how would you fix plant-based meat?
I don’t think it needs fixing. Alternative protein will happen – it’s not a matter of sustainability, but rather of economics. It was just overhyped, and lots of companies received funding at crazy valuations.
There are some great alternative protein companies out there right now. It will take a while until the trough of disillusionment is over.
What’s the top trait you look for in a founder?
Resilience, grit, resourcefulness.
The One That Got Away: What is the deal you wish you had gotten into, but didn’t?
There are a couple of great companies in our space where the valuations were too ambitious for us, and so we never got close to offering a term sheet. Yet I’m rooting for their success. If I have to name one, I think Planted is doing a fantastic job.
What do you consider your most successful future food investment so far?
Nesto Software is likely up there. This was an angel investment prior to my joining Oyster Bay.
As Oyster Bay, thankfully, our funds are so far performing well, with several good exits on companies such as Oatly, True Gum, and Air Up.
What has been your most disappointing investment so far?
We don’t badmouth our portfolio. As an angel, I was once invested in Your Super and saw this go to the moon, only to come back down to Earth very quickly.
What do people misunderstand/get wrong most about VC?
That it is the right financing form for most food companies. It is not. The opposite is the case. It’s only a fit for a very small percentage of all companies in the sector.
What is the most ‘future food’ thing you have eaten this month?
Upcycled brewers’ spent grain into barley protein.
Where is your favourite climate-forward restaurant/dish/place to eat anywhere in the world?
Zeik in Hamburg, in our hometown, is a pretty amazing restaurant to try out.
What’s your ‘why’? What motivates you to do what you do?
I broke my neck when I was 17 – I’m very lucky to be able to walk. This knowledge of how fleeting our time on this Earth can be, combined with having two children, drives me to try to use my time and skills to make a difference.
Showing that investing in food can deliver financial returns is a way to enable more and more capital to flow into transforming the food system for the better. And transforming the food system is a key lever to creating a positive future.
French startup Gourmey, which is awaiting regulatory approval for cultivated meat in six markets, is betting on AI to solve the industry’s greatest problem.
Gourmey, the Parisian firm producing foie gras by cultivating duck cells in bioreactors, is leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to address the scale and cost challenges that have long plagued the future food sector.
The startup has partnered with DeepLife, an AI-led cellular digital twin tech company, to develop the world’s first avian digital twin. This is a virtual replica of poultry cells engineered to optimise growth conditions, nutrient density and flavour expression in cultivated meat.
“The digital twin is an AI-powered virtual replica of our cell cultivation process. We train the model using comprehensive ‘omics’ data, such as gene expression and cellular composition, collected throughout the production cycle,” Gourmey co-founder and CEO Nicolas Morin-Forest tells Green Queen.
“By integrating this data with first-principle models of cell metabolism, the digital twin enables us to run thousands of virtual experiments. This helps us identify the optimal feed formulations and bioreactor conditions to maximise yield, minimise resource use, and enhance the sensory qualities of our cultivated meat,” he adds.
“Much like how animal feed impacts the quality of conventional meat, our digital twin helps us precisely tune every aspect of cell nutrition to deliver consistently high-quality products.”
How DeepLife and Gourmey are leveraging AI to lower costs
Courtesy: Sherry Hack
The collaboration is initially centred on cultivated duck and poultry products, and combines DeepLife’s biology simulation engine with Gourmey’s proprietary cell cultivation platform. The goal is to produce cultivated meat on a large scale, at lower costs, and faster.
DeepLife’s systems biology engine simulates and enhances key cellular behaviours, enabling companies to tweak variables like media composition (which tends to be the most expensive part of producing cultivated meat) and metabolic efficiency, ahead of conducting costly wet lab experiments.
“Our goal is to tailor the feed and cultivation conditions to the exact needs of our cells. This optimisation increases yield and reduces feed waste, directly lowering our production costs. Moreover, the composition of the feed has a major influence on the sensory attributes, such as flavour and texture, of the final product,” says Morin-Forest.
“By using digital twin models, we can optimise feed formulations not only to maximise efficiency but also to deliver the highest nutritional and sensory quality. And because we can simulate these changes virtually, we accelerate our R&D cycles and reduce costs associated with traditional trial-and-error.”
The two firms are banking on the potential of an “integrative multi-omics approach” to optimise cultivated meat production. This combines studies of genomes, proteins, transcriptomes and metabolites to offer a powerful framework for characterising and validating cultivated meat at multiple biological levels.
“These approaches can help ensure the stability of cell lines, characterise cellular composition, identify potential allergens, metabolites and other bioactive compounds, and assess the bioavailability of key nutrients,” reads a study by the two companies.
“While many techniques can be adapted from pharma-oriented bioprocessing, cultivated meat production presents distinct challenges, including stricter cost constraints on culture media, constraints on the nutritional value of the cultured cells themselves, and a regulatory landscape that differs from that of pharmaceuticals,” it adds.
“Currently, integrative omics strategies are not widely used in novel food risk assessment, due to a lack of validated approaches, although they represent a potential powerful tool to complement risk assessment and regulatory science.”
Price reductions paramount for future of cultivated meat
Courtesy: Sherry Hack
Gourmey’s announcement of its partnership with DeepLife comes a month after a techno-economic analysis revealed that its 5,000-litre bioreactor system can potentially enable it to manufacture cultivated meat for as little as $3.43 per lb.
“Because our cells thrive without proteins or growth factors, we can bring our food-safe feed price down to around 20 cents per litre, just a fraction of what’s typical in the industry,” Morin-Forest explained in an interview with Green Queen at the time.
“This shows that cost-competitive, scalable, and economically viable cultivated meat is now within reach. Bringing costs down enables us to expand access, accelerate adoption, and maximise our positive impact across both premium and commodity protein markets,” he says now.
“Lowering costs is critical for cultivated meat to become a mainstream, sustainable protein,” he adds. According to a 4,000-person survey, three in five Europeans feel cultivated meat will only be successful if it’s affordable for everyone. In fact, nearly half expect it to be cheaper than conventional meat, and only 15% would buy it if it’s more expensive (versus 60% who wouldn’t).
Efforts to do so have been top of mind for companies in the space. Experts suggest that cultivated meat can compete with conventional animal protein at a production cost of $2.92 by 2030. The industry has already lowered this by 99% in the last decade or so.
Over the last year, several startups have achieved breakthroughs on this front. Meatly, which is approved to sell cultivated chicken to pets in the UK, recently reduced culture media costs to $0.30 per litre, which will further be lowered to just $0.02 at industrial scale.
Another cultivated pet food startup, BioCraft Pet Nutrition, has developed a plant-based growth medium that reduces the cost of its ingredient to $2-2.50 per lb. And in Israel, SuperMeat has made several breakthroughs to produce its cultivated chicken for $12 per lb, while Believer Meats has described how its continuous process can potentially produce cultivated chicken for $6 per lb at scale.
And last week, Chicago’s Clever Carnivore announced it has been operating with a media cost of $0.07 at pilot scale for over two years now.
How AI can support filings for regulatory approval
Courtesy: Romain Buisson
Gourmey is pursuing regulatory approval in six markets, including the US, the UK, Switzerland, and the EU, and expects the greenlight in Singapore soon. It is using these AI-led optimisations to inform commercial-scale production and support its regulatory filings.
“AI-powered digital twins provide a deep, data-driven understanding of our cell metabolism and production process. This allows us to demonstrate consistent product quality, traceability, and safety, key requirements for regulatory approval,” explains Morin-Forest.
“By having robust, predictive models, we can more effectively document and verify the nutritional and sensory attributes of our products, which supports our applications with regulators in Europe, the US, and Asia.”
Its partnership with DeepLife comes at a critical juncture for the cultivated meat industry. Seven countries have granted some form of approval for the sale of these proteins, and several others are evaluating applications. Currently, however, you can only buy cultivated meat in three nations (Singapore, Australia and the US).
Meanwhile, in Italy and certain states in the US, politicians have banned the production and sale of cultivated meat, a move many others are trying to replicate. “We believe that consumers should have the freedom to choose foods that align with their values and preferences,” says Morin-Forest. “Rather than restricting choice, we encourage constructive dialogue and science-based regulation to ensure safety, transparency, and trust.”
This is one of the many obstacles to large-scale, cost-competitive production of cultivated meat. And with investors no longer pouring sufficient capital into the industry to tackle these issues, it has prompted Gourmey to leverage their new favourite technology: AI.
“This isn’t just a new biotech innovation – it’s the first step toward a food revolution,” claims DeepLife CO Jonathan Baptista. “And we are delighted to launch this partnership with Gourmey to create the AI-native leader in this emerging market.”
Mumbai-based Prot has released Prot Block, a shelf-stable ingredient offering health-conscious Indians a new format of plant-based protein.
Walk into metropolitan India right now, and you might begin wondering whether you have a protein deficiency.
Protein is everywhere right now, from chocolates and coffee to kulfi and even water. It has given a boost to functional health startups and forced dairy giants like Amul and Mother Dairy to innovate and introduce protein-rich offerings.
Swathes of studies suggest that India has a protein problem—according to one survey, 73% of the country has a deficiency. That said, a separate analysis of household food intakes reveals that the risk of protein deficiency, when adjusted for digestible quality, is low in adults and non-existent in young Indians.
Either way, the protein trend isn’t going anywhere. And in a country with the world’s largest vegetarian population, it’s an opportunity for plant-based companies.
The challenge? Meat alternatives are still ultra-niche, and tofu (often marketed as ‘soy paneer’) is only just emerging into tier 2 cities. The industry’s USP, however, is health and nutrition.
Polling shows that protein and health benefits are the most influential purchase drivers of plant-based meat and dairy in India, even more so than affordability. It’s what spurred the 18% growth of the vegan market between 2021 and 2024.
According to market research firm Ipsos, this value is expected to expand 18-fold in the next decade, with plant proteins “set to be woven into everyday meals and snacks, attracting a wider audience beyond vegans”.
It leaves room for new, innovative products that pack a punch with protein and fibre, all while satisfying the taste buds of a food-loving population.
Not an alternative to tofu or paneer
Courtesy: Prot
Prot, a Mumbai-based startup formerly known as Seaspire, is tapping into the opportunity. It has released Prot Block, a novel format of plant-based protein that isn’t quite a meat alternative or tofu, and holds its own on the culinary and nutrition fronts.
“The motivation for us in developing this product actually came from an unintended blind test, where we just had some test consumers give insights on how they feel about the texture and early iterations of this product without any positioning… [except only] if they were given the option to eat plant protein,” co-founder Varun Gadodia tells Green Queen.
“And this got us a strongly positive early feedback that vegetarian consumers in India and some Western markets are looking for a protein texture that can be incorporated easily in their daily food habits without sounding like any alternative or plant-based meat positioning.”
Indeed, we’re already seeing this shift in Europe, where whole-food options and new formats are taking over the plant-based space. In the UK, Oh So Wholesome’s Veg’chop and This’s Super Superfood both offer protein blocks made from legumes and vegetables. Meanwhile, Austria’s Revo Foods uses mycoprotein to deliver The Prime Cut, which doesn’t mimic meat and is designed for functional nutrition instead.
Prot Block – available in plain and tandoori flavours – contains 15g of protein (on par with tofu) and 10g of fibre per 100g, as well as 7g of fat sourced from coconuts and sunflower. In fact, both the overall and saturated fat content are over three times lower than paneer.
“In the short to medium term, we don’t intend to raise this as a rival of traditional paneer or tofu, but more of an option in the vegetarian protein textures, as consumers don’t really have much to look at and they are looking for options more actively,” suggests Gadodia.
“The commoditisation of soy and paneer in India within a very complex yet mature supply chain has left consumers with a choice paralysis with a cluttered marketplace of paneer, tofu and other soy derivatives,” he adds.
“In order to meet the differentiated positioning, we took the road to break out of that clutter,” he continues. “An allergen-free offering is just another value-added category [in which] we aim to position this product as a counter.”
Prot Block spotlights peas over soy
Courtesy: Prot
Peas are the star ingredient, with the Prot Block comprising textured pea protein and pea protein isolate. Wheat fibre and spices close out the ingredient list.
Using pea protein was a strategic choice to reduce the Asian market’s reliance on soy. “Reinventing the wheel with any soy-derived texture doesn’t compel consumers enough to look over the likes of tofu and tempeh, and soy granules, chunks or chaap (heavily consumed in many parts of India as a vegetarian protein),” Gadodia says.
“The opportunity here is to establish bench standards for wider adoption of pea protein, which unfortunately has remained restricted to the supplement space,” he adds, contends that this will ultimately help lead to improved standards of protein processing and commercialisation.
Prot describes the product as a versatile option suited to both local and international cooking styles, as well as a range of applications, from curries and rice to wraps and barbecue. “But this is just the beginning,” he says.
“We are in the process of some process tweaks in the product, which can get us to position it as an on-the-go snack that can be consumed directly. The hint lies in packed halloumi sticks and cheese sticks,” Gadodia adds. “While the product is pre-cooked during the course of processing and can be consumed raw, we are not positioning this as a use case.”
By offering a shelf-stable format, Prot is tackling a key bottleneck for India’s plant protein sector—the cold supply chain—while offering a long shelf life and potentially mitigating food waste.
Government support is critical to tackling India’s protein deficiency
Courtesy: Prot
The release of the product follows a closed-group pilot with more than 500 fitness enthusiasts, home cooks, and health-conscious, food-savvy early adopters. According to Prot, the feedback on taste, texture, nutrition and usability was “overwhelmingly positive”, underscoring the need for functional, high-protein options in the country.
“India is largely protein-deficient, despite heavy dairy consumption,” says Gadodia. “The environment around plant-based protein as a healthier choice is offering a great stage. However, the motivators are high-protein, allergen-free, affordable, low-cholesterol, in contrast to slow or underperforming categories like plant-based meat alternatives.”
“The low-hanging fruit, even for us, is the audience seeking high-protein offerings and willing to try more value-added products, [whether] out of need or simply boredom,” he says.
“The fact that plant protein products are still a niche is [reflective of] the consumer behaviour in India, which varies between a wide spectrum of cultural differences. While consumption in many regional markets is getting an upgrade with more disposable incomes, when it comes to food, consumers have a taste for traditional offerings,” the Prot co-founder explains.
“Many of these traditional foods already include a good chunk of plant protein derived from lentils, etc., but clean and additive-free packaged foods that solve for convenience are still a white space.”
The government, he believes, has a crucial role to play. Gadodia likens it to the promotion of the millet-based trade: “More formative policies can support the growth of plant-based foods, which need a robust supply chain and processing support to overcome scaling challenges.”
This chimes with calls from other experts, who have urged the government to launch a national plant protein mission to scale the sector and build a dedicated policy framework for plant-based foods.
Prot attracts pre-seed investment
Courtesy: Prot
Prot’s protein block is priced at ₹199 ($2.3) per 200g product. That’s several degrees higher than what Indians pay for paneer and, in many cities, tofu.
Gadodia admits that there’s an initial premium, though he insists that it is “well-gauged to a number that consumers are willing to pay for a value-added and differentiated protein offering that not only serves their need, but also hooks an aspiration to include a new product in their lifestyles”.
“The current pricing is slightly higher than good-quality paneer offerings, yet it’s in a ballpark of what an early consumer is actively looking to spend to find a valuable offering. We have our early consumers who have found the product reasonable,” he says.
“Our pricing strategy has been gauged carefully by understanding the value creation, early customers, unit economics and supply chain costs,” he adds. “Yet we have plans to improve pricing further with greater traction and quick turnaround times that could enable us to improve operational margins.”
Prot Block is currently selling the ingredient on its website and via foodservice. “We have great foodservice partnerships in place with curated menus, kitchen takeovers, etc. taking place to raise consumer awareness, and driving it all to the B2C channel,” says Gadodia.
To boost the startup’s plans, Gadodia and co-founder Shantanu Dhangar are now fundraising. “We have just closed a pre-seed funding round to support our growth plans with Prot Block and our growing presence in the retail and CPG space,” Gadodia says, hinting at an investor announcement in the coming weeks.
In another example of the effort to diversify India’s plant protein sources, plant-based meat brand Blue Tribe Foods – backed by Indian actress Anushka Sharma and cricketer Virat Kohli – has just unveiled Klaw, a brand of protein puffs derived from “supergrains”.
US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has pledged to cut red tape and maintain the country’s biotech leadership, despite the rollback of a Biden-era biomanufacturing mandate.
From MAHA to MABA, the current US administration sure loves an acronym.
Amid his war on pesticides and ultra-processed foods (UPFs), health secretary and former CRISPR investor Robert F Kennedy Jr has announced his intention to “Make American Biotech Accelerate”, as foreign powers gain ground in the sector.
“The mission to Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) includes MABA – Make American Biotech Accelerate,” he tweeted earlier this week. “We’re clearing the path to transform great science into real cures, at lower costs, and better health for the American people. Life science and biotech are at the heart of that.”
The move is in direct contrast with Donald Trump’s executive order that rescinded his predecessor’s actions to advance biomanufacturing, as well as the government’s mass job cuts at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) earlier this year.
But could this biotech focus extend to food tech – and particularly alternative proteins, which have come under threat from state-level bans, a lack of investment, and the UPF discourse?
The mission to Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) includes MABA — Make American Biotech Accelerate.
President Trump showed in his first term what happens when you unlock American science — breakthroughs happen fast.
RFK Jr looks to speed up regulatory approvals with MABA
“President Trump showed in his first term what happens when you unlock American science – breakthroughs happen fast. Now, we’re going to do it again,” said Kennedy.
Within the food tech world, cultivated meat firm Upside Foods previously told Green Queen that “most of the work” it did to get its chicken approved for sale in the US “was under the first Trump administration”. The same goes for Eat Just’s Good Meat, which was simultaneously greenlit by the US Department of Agriculture in June 2023.
When RFK Jr took office, there were suggestions that the regulatory pathway for novel foods could become much more complicated. One close ally indicated that the health secretary was likely to make things much more complicated for startups pursuing FDA approval for cultivated meat.
Courtesy: Win McNamee/Getty Images | Illustration by Green Queen
Shortly after, he moved to eliminate a rule that allowed food and drug makers to self-affirm new ingredients under the FDA’s Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) pathway, calling it a “loophole” exploited by companies.
“If the agency moves toward stricter oversight, it risks stifling innovation in the US, making it harder to bring groundbreaking, sustainable food solutions to market,” Brittany Chibe, co-founder and CEO of Aqua Cultured Foods, told Green Queen in March. Her startup uses biomass fermentation to make seafood analogues, and obtained self-determined GRAS status last year.
Responding to the uncertainty, an FDA official told this publication at the time: “As the FDA continues to support innovation in food technologies, the agency’s priority is the safety of food produced through both innovative and traditional methods. The agency is committed to transparency on our approach to regulating foods made using innovative food technologies.”
“We’re going to make sure that the United States remains the centre of [the] biotech revolution,” he said. “We’re going to try to dismantle the barriers to biotech development and approval, and to make sure that we do everything that we can to support that industry.”
Already this year, Mission Barns and Wildtype have both received the FDA’s go-ahead to sell their cultivated pork and salmon, respectively, making the US the only country to have approved four such products. RFK Jr’s MABA initiative has a chance to extend this leadership, if deployed correctly.
MABA is in contrast with Trump and RFK Jr’s actions
“We know the power of US biotech. It’s time to let it flourish – not tie it up in red tape, misalignment, and a process that gives the edge to foreign interests and large incumbents,” Kennedy’s tweet read.
Indeed, slowing action by the US government has driven increased innovation elsewhere. Singapore has long been a food tech leader (and was the first to clear the sale of cultivated meat), but China has made a wave of strategic advancements and backed alternative proteins to strengthen its biotech leadership.
That has grasped the attention of Republicans, who last year aired their concerns in a letter responding to the director of national intelligence’s annual threat assessment. “Put simply, we cannot allow China to control more of the world’s food supply than it already does. To cede American leadership in the global innovative protein market to foreign adversaries like China is to forfeit the food security of the United States and its allies,” they wrote.
Courtesy: Jose Luis Magana/AP
It’s in line with RFK Jr’s comments to the House this week, where he pointed out how China is “putting huge amounts of money into this space, and it’s important that we do the same thing”.
But money is precisely the problem. Food tech funding has been on the decline, thanks to geopolitical uncertainty, rising costs, Trump’s tariff wars, and the rise of AI. But it’s not just private investors – the US government itself is divesting from the sector.
One of the myriad executive orders signed by Trump upon his return to office rescinded a 2022 action by former President Joe Biden, which sought to advance biotech and biomanufacturing by prioritising R&D funding and streamlining regulation for precision fermentation, cultivated meat, and other novel foods. It led the Department of Defense to invest over $60M in 34 companies, including a host of alternative protein players.
So the president has shied away from biotech innovation – how will that dovetail with RFK Jr’s promise? There’s also another conflict to consider. The health secretary wants to make it easier for biotech companies to secure regulatory approval, but seven states have now banned cultivated meat, and many others are planning to do the same.
Courtesy: Margo Martin
RFK Jr has also railed against UPFs, a classification most alternative proteins fall under. The government is now planning to launch a “bold, edgy” campaign to warn Americans about the health impact of these foods. These products have drawn ire from across the aisle, as well as Kennedy’s nominee for surgeon general, Casey Means, despite nutritionists warning against a blanket rejection of all UPFs.
It remains to be seen what the MABA programme really entails – and how it will sidestep the barriers created by its own proponents.
Our weekly column rounds up the latest sustainable food innovation news. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers Violife’s protein-packed Cheddar alternative, Petaluma’s plant-based dehydrated dog food, and the EU’s vegan labelling war.
New products and launches
Vegan cheese giant Violife has launched Supreme Cheddarton in the UK. It’s a Cheddar alternative with at least 30% less fat and over 9g of plant protein (a rarity for coconut-oil-based cheeses), and is available at all major supermarkets for £2.95 per 200g block.
Courtesy: Violife
British frozen vegan pizza startup One Planet Pizza has revamped its recipe to add a bigger sourdough base, hand-stretched cheese, and more toppings.
Still in the UK, the ongoing heatwave has led to plant-based meat firm Thiswitnessing a 21% hike in sales of its vegan burgers and sausages over the past two weeks.
German ingredient producer Raps has introduced Compound Vegan Roast, a functional solution to enhance the flavour of plant-based roast meat analogues.
Courtesy: Raps
Likewise, French plant-based ingredient supplier Roquette has expanded its Nutralys line with two new textured solutions from wheat and pea protein.
Following its success in the Netherlands, discount retailer Lidl has launched blended burger and mince SKUs with 60% beef and 40% plants in Belgium.
In the UK, meanwhile, Lidl has unveiled high-protein vegan pudding pots in chocolate, caramel and hazelnut flavours under its Vemondo brand. They’re priced at £1.29 per 200g pack, each of which contains 20g of protein.
Courtesy: Unlimeat/Green Queen
South Korean plant-based brand Unlimeat has launched two desserts in the US. The Oat Cream Buns and Hotteok will be sold under the new Bbang label.
Speaking of the US, plant-based chicken makerRebellyous Foods has expanded its offerings with Spicy Kickin’ Nuggets, Tenders and Kickin’ Popcorn, which are now being served in over 390 school districts.
Californian vegan pet food firm Petaluma has introduced the Whole Food Mixer, a dehydrated dog food topper with organic kale, spinach, and antioxidant-rich fruits.
Courtesy: Petaluma
And Indian vegan startup Plant Yum has released a millet-based, protein-packed mango shake premix as part of a new suite of instant drink powders aimed at the health-forward consumer segment.
Company and finance updates
Greek functional dairy-free ice cream maker Plan(e)t Foods has scooped up €1.05M to fuel its product development and expand into other European countries.
Univer Solutions Belgium has expanded the distribution deal between its Foodology division and ingredient giant Ingredion to introduce plant proteins, functional native starches, and a range of stevia sweeteners to the Benelux region.
Courtesy: Proeon
Dutch startup Proeon Foods is scaling up the production of its mung and peanut protein isolates in Pune, India, through funding from Invest International and national government agencies.
Canada’s Burcon NutraScience Corporation, meanwhile, has signed a multi-year deal worth $6.8M to supply a leading provider of clean-label plant-based ingredients from its facility in Galesburg, Illinois. The first year is set to generate at least $1.4M in revenue for the manufacturer, which is set to increase every year.
Swiss giant Nestlé will let go of 80 employees at its Krupka factory in Czechia, representing a fifth of the workforce. The move is in response to slowing demand for plant-based meat products in Europe.
Courtesy: Edinburgh Innovations
The University of Edinburgh is leading the £14M state-backed Carbon-Loop Sustainable Biomanufacturing Hub, which aims to turn carbon-based waste into next-gen pharmaceuticals and cosmetics via microbial fermentation.
Singaporean deep tech startup KosmodeHealth has shut its pilot plant for the production of its upcycled, high-protein W0W Noodle range, and shrunk its team by 80% as it is “trimming to grow”, its founder has announced.
Belgian early-stage investor Biotope Ventures has announced the first close of €5M for its Biotope Ventures 2 fund, with an additional €4M set to be raised over the next 12 months to allow the fir to invest in up to 30 early-stage biotech startups.
Research and policy developments
The ‘veggie burger’ debate has cropped up again in the EU, with a group of ministers looking to introduce new rules to ban the use of meaty terms on plant-based products. It comes just months after the EU’s top court rejected a similar effort by France.
Belgium has released its new food-based dietary guidelines, advising citizens to limit unprocessed red meat intake to 300g a week and promoting plant proteins, but there’s a lack of focus on dairy alternatives and sustainability-based recommendations.
Researchers from South Korea have developed a scaffolding technology that can achieve precise marbling textures in cultivated meat. They used self-healing hydrogens that achieve robust, reversible bonding at a neutral pH.
A report by tech forecasting firm GetFocussuggests that cultivated meat technologies are advancing faster than livestock farming, potentially accelerating the path to price parity.
Courtesy: GetFocus
Food awareness organisation ProVeg International has rolled out Future Plates, a catering guide to help large-scale event organisers offer plant-based meals to attendees.
Events and awards
Dutch cultivated pork startup Meatable is continuing its outreach efforts by participating in the Blue Earth Forum at the ongoing London Climate Action Week 2025 (June 21-29).
On International Picnic Day, animal rights charity PETAunveiled a 23-metre-long vegan ham and butter sandwich at Place de la Bastille in partnership with La Vie, to symbolise the 23 million pigs killed for meat each year in France.
Courtesy: Pam Méliee/PETA
World Animal Protection, meanwhile, has launched the first Dine Vegan Nashville event. Running from June 22-28, it will promote vegan dining across the Music City via partnerships with local restaurants.
In Hong Kong, animal welfare organisation Planet for All partnered with cruelty-free beauty pioneer Lush to promote Cage-Free Hong Kong, the city’s first welfare campaign for laying hens.
In the US, organic plant milk brand Mooala‘s Simple Almond Milk has been named the Best Almond Milk in Good Housekeeping’s 2025 Snack Awards and Self Magazine’s 2025 Pantry Awards.
Finally, ClimateCats Studios, the film studio run by the influencer duo Root the Future, has won the Best TV Series 2025 for its upcoming docuseries, Culturally Plant-Based, at the Milan Independent Awards.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has made the state the seventh in the US to ban the sale of cultivated meat. He has also ordered an investigation into ultra-processed foods.
Despite two more companies receiving regulatory approval to sell cultivated proteins in the US this year, the number of states banning these foods continues to rise.
Texas has become the latest state to prohibit the sale, the result of an effort that began in November. SB 261 was one of the 300-plus bills signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott last week, imposing a two-year ban that starts on September 1 this year.
“The offering for sale or sale of cell-cultured protein for human consumption within this state is unlawful and prohibited,” the bill read.
It was backed by the cattle industry, which took a familiar line to its bipartisan passage last month. “The bill prohibits the sale and offer of sale of cell-cultured proteins to prevent Texas consumers from being a science experiment as companies seek to profit from selling cell-cultured protein with no long-term health studies,” said the Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association (TSCRA).
“This bill also pushes back on an agenda by certain radical groups and companies who seek to end traditional animal agriculture,” it added.
Texas takes aim at cultivated meat and ultra-processed foods
Courtesy: Mission Barns
The effort to ban cultivated meat in Texas was spearheaded by Senator Charles Perry, who authored 2023’s SB 664, which successfully restricted how these proteins are labelled.
The bill was read for the first time in February, and eventually passed the Senate with no opposition. In the House, two-thirds of representatives voted in favour, while only a quarter were against the measure. It moved to the governor’s desk last week, and was signed alongside hundreds of bills.
Despite banning their sale, it still outlines how cultivated meat products must be labelled. It necessitates that these foods need to be labelled in a prominent font that’s equal to or larger than the surrounding text, using the terms ‘cell-cultured’, ‘lab-grown’, or “a similar qualifying term or disclaimer intended to clearly communicate to a consumer the contents of the protein”.
“Ranchers across Texas work tirelessly to raise healthy cattle and produce high-quality beef,” TSCRA president Carl Ray Polk Jr said last month. “Our association is grateful for those legislators who voted in support of this legislation and understood the core of this bill, to protect our consumers, the beef industry and animal agriculture.”
As the leading cattle producer in the US, Texas’ impact on the planet is outsized. Beef is the food system’s single-worst polluter, emitting twice as many greenhouse gases as the next product on the list (dark chocolate).
Instead of mitigating the impact of beef, Texas – like many other US states – is exploring ways to protect the industry, which is the third-largest economic generator in the state. It comes amid a wider backdrop of a federal administration that has rallied against what they call “fake meat”, coupled with the rise of the meat-eating manosphere, which led Americans to spend more on meat last year than ever before.
Apart from banning cultivated meat, Abbott signed a bill called Make Texas Healthy Again, aligning with health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr’s MAHA movement. A key focus? To review the impact of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) on human health, keying into a major point of discourse in American food culture.
It chimes with a similar executive order from California Governor Gavin Newsom, and RFK Jr’s opposition to these foods, which include alternative proteins like plant-based and cultivated meat. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is now working to develop a definition of UPFs too.
US both the most receptive and opposed to cultivated meat
These bans have been criticised for limiting consumer choice, stifling innovation, and being anti-competitive. One farmer told the AP that he welcomes cultivated meat producers to “jump into the pool” and try to compete with his Waygu beef, while the North American Meat Institute has suggested that these bans “bills establish a precedent for adopting policies and regulatory requirements that could one day adversely affect the bills’ supporters”.
Even consumers are against these efforts. Every American who tasted Upside Foods’ cultivated chicken ahead of Florida’s move last year opposed political bans on these foods.
States are already facing legal challenges. Florida has been sued by Upside Foods, the first company to receive federal approval to sell cultivated meat in the country, with a judge recently rejecting the state’s request to throw out the case.
And in sharp contrast to the legislative upheaval, the FDA approved two additional companies to sell cultivated meat, with Mission Barns now awaiting the greenlight from the Department of Agriculture for its pork fat, and Wildtype’s salmon already available in a Portland restaurant. These companies have joined Upside Foods and Eat Just’s Good Meat in getting the FDA greenlight.
All this illustrates the contradictory landscape around cultivated meat regulation. While the US is the country with the most attempted (and successful) bans on these proteins, it’s also the one with the most approvals. Over the coming months, more of both are expected.
Snack giant Doritos has teamed up with food tech startup NotCo to launch co-branded vegan products with the iconic Flamin’ Hot flavour in Chile.
Known for its groundbreaking partnerships with food industry giants, Chilean food tech unicorn NotCo has unveiled its latest plant-based products that incorporate a renowned snack flavour.
The startup has collaborated with PepsiCo-owned tortilla chip behemoth Doritos to launch Flamin’ Hot Not Chicken Nuggets, as well as the nacho-cheese-infused NotMayo Doritos.
The result of an eight-month effort, the two products are available in NotCo’s home market of Chile, priced at $4.20 each. “Doritos, to me, is one of those things that you don’t need to be hungry to want one,” said NotCo co-founder and CEO Matias Muchnick.
“The conversation began with a random connection. That quickly led us to a ‘what if?’ (which is the same as a ‘why not’, but reimagined),” he explained. “There were no infinite decks or eternal presentations. There was just a desire to do it. There were guts and common sense to move forward.”
How NotCo and Doritos created the new products
Courtesy: NotCo/Doritos
While the ingredients of either of the new products have not yet been revealed, they bear a resemblance to NotCo’s core products. Its Not Chicken Nuggets are made from a base of flour, sunflower oil, pea and bean protein, wheat gluten, while the original NotMayo contains soybean and sunflower oils, modified starch, spirit vinegar, chickpea flour, and more.
The collaboration blends these innovations with the signature seasonings created by Frito-Lay, the PepsiCo subsidiary that owns Doritos, Cheetos, Lay’s and other snack brands. Flamin’ Hot originally contains a range of spices, cheese, MSG and food dyes, and the classic Doritos cheese flavour combines Cheddar and Romano cheeses with buttermilk, whey concentrate, and a host of spices.
NotCo is known for turning CPG classics vegan, using Giuseppe, its artificial intelligence platform. It sifts through an almost infinite number of combinations to find the most suitable ingredients to replace animal-derived ones, complementing the work of food scientists, chefs, and product developers, from concept creation all the way to the final version of the formula.
“When we sat down with the PepsiCo team, everything moved fast. The first thing was to try something out, and that was our bet – go big or go home,” said Muchnick. “Step one from Giuseppe? A Doritos ice cream sandwich covered in chocolate with Doritos-flavoured ice cream.
“There were several of us at the table, and being a somewhat perceptive person, I noticed the immediate faces of: ‘What the hell did we get ourselves into?’ And rightfully so,” he recalled.
But it was Benjamin Herrera, the marketing director for PepsiCo’s South Cone division, who stepped up and cracked the code. “I stared at him and saw the look on his face that screamed: ‘Holy shit,’ but he didn’t say it,” said Muchnick. “Instead, he smiled provocatively… and said: ‘Let’s go all in.’”
Creating a Doritos-flavoured NotMayo “was too obvious not to do”, argued Muchnick, outlining how it made Doritos “even more Doritos-y”.
“Then we jumped into the Flamin’ Hot craze and, with our collective obsession over Shaq’s reaction on one of YouTube’s most-watched shows, Hot Ones, we said: Not Chicken Nuggets Flamin’ Hot? Why (the fuck) not?” he added.
Courtesy: NotCo/Doritos
NotCo bets on AI tech to recreate more classics
Herrera called the two products “intense, unexpected, daring and built with the best of both worlds: the power of Doritos’ intense and iconic flavour and NotCo’s food technology”.
“This positions us at PepsiCo Southern Cone as a centre of talent and innovation. Because we are a global company, but we think locally in all the markets where we operate,” he said. “Thinking glocal is what allows us to continue surprising and growing.”
The new nuggets and mayo will be produced by NotCo and sold by both brands, and other co-developed products will follow soon.
PepsiCo is far from the only food and beverage leader working with NotCo, either on co-branded items or on tailored product development. Mars, Mondelēz International and Nestlé are all leveraging its AI platform to speed up their R&D and improve products.
“Usually, they need better nutritional labels, [and] more cost-efficient formulations. Regulations are changing all the time. Governments are pushing towards having better products from many aspects,” Karim Pichara, co-founder and CTO of NotCo, told Green Queen in March. “Now, we have several projects with all these companies that are related to reformulation and end-to-end product creation.”
Courtesy: NotCo/Doritos
Most notably, NotCo has formed a joint venture with The Kraft Heinz Company, which sells plant-based versions of classics like the blue-box mac and cheese and Oscar Mayer hot dogs in North America. This month, they released mac and cheese cups and chipotle-flavoured mayo to the market.
The company recently unveiled a new GLP Booster powder for people who have weaned off Ozempic and other weight-loss drugs, or those who can’t or don’t want to use them.
It’s already the largest alternative protein player in Latin America, and has teased more launches over the coming months. “We have a few products with some companies in Latin America, and also in the US and in Europe, where we are building entirely new concepts for them,” said Pichara.
“There are several products – very iconic and famous products – that are going to be rolled out this year with a newer version, and we were the ones that reformulated those,” he added.
Dutch supermarket Albert Heijn has introduced 15 products combining meat and dairy with plant-based ingredients in the largest such rollout of blended proteins yet.
The Netherlands really is going big on blends.
After Lidl and Aldi, Albert Heijn has become the latest supermarket to join the hybrid protein crusade. And it hasn’t just launched a singular burger or mince, the retailer has gone all out with 15 new products combining animals with plants, spanning both meat and milk.
The new range includes semi-skimmed milk, sausages, salami and deli meats, which are blended with ingredients like faba and butter beans, celeriac, and sugar beet fibre. They’re available in stores now, and crucially, are priced the same as their conventional counterparts.
“These products are more than just delicious. They are the future of food – where taste, health, and sustainability go hand in hand,” said Danilla Vegam, global senior VP of health and sustainability at Ahold Delhaize, the retailer’s parent company.
Can blended meat overturn poor plant protein sales?
Courtesy: Albert Heijn/Green Queen
By blending meat with plant-based ingredients, Albert Heijn is targeting both health and sustainability wins. Research shows that swapping just half of our meat consumption with plant-based proteins can lower agricultural emissions by 31% and land use by 12%, and halt deforestation.
Blended meat can be a useful solution, especially as concerns about poor taste and ultra-processing slow the uptake of plant-based meat products. While Ahold Delhaize announced a plant protein strategy at the start of the year, it has since admitted that sales of these products at Albert Heijn have been disappointing.
The supermarket aimed to raise the share of plant proteins sold to 47% in 2024, 50% in 2025, and 60% by the end of the decade. However, the ratio failed to increase in favour of plants last year, instead falling slightly from 44.5% in 2023 to 44.2%.
Courtesy: Nectar
Sensory testing shows that these products are more likely to appeal to meat-eaters and flexitarians than plant-based alternatives. In some cases, they even outperform 100% meat products. That’s likely what convinced Albert Heijn to go all out on blended meat. It is marketing the products as low-fat, and they cost the same or less than conventional meat.
The range includes seven beef products, including hamburgers, minced meat, sausages, and soup balls. They contain 66-76% beef, which is mixed primarily with 21-23% sugar beet fibre, alongside flavourings, preservatives, and starches.
For consumers, the big benefit lies in a lower saturated fat content. The blended burger and soup balls, for instance, contain 44% less saturated fat than their fully animal-derived counterparts. And while they contain slightly less protein, they offer fibre – a macronutrient currently in demand from consumers optimizing for better gut health.
Meanwhile, Albert Heijn has introduced a line of deli sausages blended with plants too. The salami and cervelaat slices are mixed with butter beans and offer a 30% reduction in total fat, while the grilled, cooked, sandwich and roasted minced meat sausages are combined with kohlrabi (helping halve the fat content).
Hybrid milk range targets saturated fat and emissions
Courtesy: Albert Heijn
The hybrid milks were developed by Dutch firm Farm Dairy and Denmark’s PlanetDairy, who recently introduced a three-strong lineup of cow’s milk blended with plant protein to lower saturated fat content and deliver a 20-30% reduction in emissions.
“The first challenge to overcome was taste and appearance. The new milk blend had to look and taste like traditional dairy milk that people are used to,” explained PlanetDairy CTO Paul Cornillon. “Then, of course, it needs to be affordable. So ingredients must be selected carefully. And in between, the team also had to ensure a strong nutrition profile.”
Each round of product development was met with consumer feedback before being presented to Albert Heijn. In the final range, they settled on 60% cow’s milk for the semi-skimmed version, combining it with sunflower oil, faba bean protein, sugar and salt, and fortifying it with vitamins and calcium. The whole milk, meanwhile, contains 70% conventional dairy.
There are several benefits here. By substituting some of the cow’s milk with plant-based ingredients, Albert Heijn is able to minimise the climate footprint of its dairy offerings. And while the blended milks have slightly lower protein (by 12-14%), they drastically reduce the amount of saturated fat by around 70%.
According to the company, they retain the taste of 100% cow’s milk while adding plants to people’s diets – a key ESG and planetary health goal. “The idea of combination products is new and may take some getting used to. But taste tests show that these products are just as tasty as the regular versions,” said Nienke Tjerkstra, VP of health and sustainability at Albert Heijn.
Courtesy: Roland Berger
A recent global survey, meanwhile, suggested that among the 38% of people who don’t buy non-dairy products, 58% showcase the potential to switch if certain needs are met. The biggest problem was unsatisfactory taste or texture, which left 57% of consumers resistant to these products, followed by limited availability (55%) and high prices (37%).
Previous attempts at hybrid dairy have been middling, and existing ranges – like Kerry Group’s Smug Dairy line of cheeses and butter – are much more expensive than conventional dairy (and even some plant-based versions). So pricing the new blended milks at parity is a shrewd move by Albert Heijn.
“This is just the first step. We are already working on our next project together: yoghurt blends,” said PlanetDairy CEO Jakob Skovgaard. This keys into what consumers want: a recent poll found that people are most receptive to hybrid yoghurts and ice creams, though they’re least interested in beverages and milk alternatives.
Albert Heijn’s Tjerkstra remains bullish on the idea. “We’re making it easier to eat plant-based more often, without customers having to compromise on taste or habits. Small changes can make a big difference – for yourself and for the planet,” she said.
Pure Mylk, a Malaysian plant-based dairy firm, has opened an innovation hub to help companies bring dairy-free beverages to market.
Malaysia’s Pure Mylk has opened The Mylky Way in Selangor, described as Southeast Asia’s first dedicated innovation centre for plant-based milk.
Specialising in non-dairy beverage solutions and contract manufacturing for B2B clients, the firm’s new hub features R&D labs, sensory testing rooms, a full-scale pilot plant, a showroom, and a training centre to help companies big and small turn ideas into market-ready products.
“This was never about competition – it’s about collaboration,” said Pure Mylk founder and CEO Marcus Khoo. “Whether you’re a startup or a legacy brand exploring plant-based, we’re here to help bring your vision to life with confidence and consistency.”
Marrying enzyme processing with shelf-stable tech
Courtesy: Pure Mylk
Pure Mylk combines advanced enzymatic processing with aseptic UHT technology to produce shelf-stable plant-based dairy products with clean labels and enhanced taste, texture and nutrition. The new facility incorporates both technologies.
It uses natural enzymes to break down starches and fibre via hydrolysis, enhancing protein stability and texture, and reducing the need for additives like emulsifiers and sugars. The aseptic tech, meanwhile, sterilises beverages to ensure longer shelf life and eschews the need for refrigeration.
The facility has two purpose-built buildings that house its labs, production plant, and other spaces. In the showroom, companies can sample products and receive feedback before bringing them to market, while the training centre aims to upskill aspiring food technologists.
The Mylky Way also features an incubation space for small and medium-sized businesses, and supports flexible partnerships without the financial toll of full in-house production.
By supporting ambient-stable production, the hub reduces the reliance on cold-chain dependency. It further promotes planet-friendly ingredients like oats to key into businesses’ ESG targets and national food security, climate and public health goals.
“From enzymatic breakthroughs to responsible sourcing, everything we do is rooted in science and sustainability,” said Wong Chia Yen, Pure Mylk’s R&D lead. “The Mylky Way levels the playing field – giving local innovators access to the same tools used by global brands.”
Extending Asia’s leadership in plant-based dairy
Courtesy: Pure Mylk
Pure Mylk’s current portfolio spans a wide range of ingredients, from commonly used bases like oats and almonds to the more unique macadamias, pumpkin seeds, and sesame seeds. It is now expanding beyond non-dairy milk with products like vegan yoghurts and functional dairy-free beverages.
The company is working with Danish biotech giant Novonesis, automation leader Siemens, and packaging behemoth Tetra Pak to bring their processing, packaging, and bio-based ingredient expertise to Southeast Asia. This will allow local brands to accelerate product development and boost their supply chains, bringing plant-based dairy innovations to market faster.
Tetra Pak itself has been investing in alternative protein technology of late. It has helped Brazilian chestnut milk startup Cuíca formulate and test its product before entering the market, choose packaging solutions that require no preservatives, and find co-packers. And this week, it opened the New Food Technology Development Centre in Sweden to help commercialise biomass and precision-fermented products.
Pure Mylk will open The Mylky Way up for private tours and discovery sessions in Q3 2025. Moreover, it plans to actively engage in school nutrition programmes and regional food security initiatives to drive food policy and innovation discussions in Southeast Asia.
Courtesy: GFI
And with good reason – over 96% of Asia-Pacific’s vegan food sales came from dairy alternatives in 2024, according to Euromonitor data published by the Good Food Institute. The region recorded $8.6B in retail sales of plant-based dairy, accounting for over a third of the global total – it is by far the largest market for these products.
Research shows that nearly three in 10 Asians consume non-dairy milks, cheeses, yoghurts and more, and globally, poor taste and texture leave 57% of people unsatisfied with the current crop of products. It necessitates the need for innovation hubs like The Mylky Way, which could close the gap between cows and plants.
Canadian whole-cut plant-based meat maker New School Foods has expanded its business structure and diversified from salmon to beef.
Following months of aggressive expansion for its plant-based whole-cut salmon in Canada, New School Foods is now broadening more than just its foodservice footprint.
The Toronto startup has now evolved into NS/TX (New School Textures) Industries, an expanded business that acts as a parent to its R&D and manufacturing divisions, as well as the New School Foods consumer brand.
The move sees the firm expand its portfolio past seafood and into red meat, with NS/TX’s scaffolding process and directional freezing technology able to create not just whole-cut salmon fillets, but also steak and bone-in ribs.
Expanding the business will allow it to operate both as a producer and as a manufacturing partner to other companies looking to experiment and scale up without having to build from the bottom up.
“We have spent the last year scaling up our manufacturing process into an assembly line that can create all of these products, and we decided that we don’t want to reserve this technology for a single brand,” explained founder and CEO Chris Bryson.
“The creation of NS/TX allows us to partner with other brands to develop and manufacture the next generation of alternative protein products.”
NS/TX’s technology is ‘species-agnostic’
Courtesy: NS/TX Industries
Instead of extrusion, a widely used technique in the industry that denatures proteins via heat, NS/TX employs directional freezing to allow products to start raw and cook like conventional meat.
The production method is built around a plant-based scaffolding that mimics animal muscle and connective tissues, with the same diameter, length, strength and behaviour. The layers of tissue are reproduced via a patent-pending injection process and give products a flaky texture.
The scaffold macrostructure can be made into any shape and size, and the texture can be modified by tuning the diameter, length and resistance of the muscle fibres to match any meat type. The pattern and composition of the connective tissue can also be customised, while the multi-layered scaffolds can be infused with “nearly any protein, liquid oil, flavour and colours”, the company explained.
NS/TX has previously described the platform as “species-agnostic”, hinting at its capabilities beyond seafood. Since the scaffolding can be used with plant-based, fermentation-derived or cell-cultivated proteins, it paved the way for the startup to enter B2B co-manufacturing and white-label partnerships.
Courtesy: NS/TX Industries
“Our scaffolding technology has proven to be more flexible than we imagined, and shown that it can be a superior manufacturing alternative to extrusion for red meat as well as seafood applications,” explained Bryson.
The scaffolds can be embedded with plant-based ‘bones’ to emulate steak and ribs, opening up a new avenue for the company. Slovenia’s Juicy Marbles made a splash in 2023 when it launched vegan Baby Ribs with edible bones, which were made from the byproducts of plant protein production.
In addition, NS/TX is utilising waste, finding that the excess material from shaping its whole cuts can form products like ground or flaked meats and fish. “We recently started processing the waste from our cutting process, and turned it into a salmon burger. We soft-launched it last month, and it’s doing super well,” Bryson told Green Queen last month.
Evolved company pulls focus on manufacturing and R&D
Courtesy: NS/TX Industries
Founded in 2021, NS/TX carries out all its R&D, engineering and production at its recently opened 28,000 sq ft facility in Toronto, using off-the-shelf food manufacturing equipment that significantly lowers costs compared to extrusion or cellular agriculture.
This year, the company has signed agreements to bring its whole-cut salmon to over 30 restaurants across Canada, spanning Michelin Guide standouts, boutique hotels, ramen and sushi shops, and emerging chains. It has penned distribution deals with Gordon Food Service, the largest family-operated food distributor in North America, and speciality food purveyor Bondi Produce.
Now, it’s moving into its next phase with the evolved entity, which houses three business units. New Schools Foods is the consumer-facing brand through which it will produce the salmon and beef analogues.
NS/TX R&D will feature a scientific and culinary innovation team that collaborates with other companies to develop custom formulations and products using its technology.
And NS/TX Manufacturing will open up its tech to a wider clientele, working with other food companies to develop and scale private-label, white-label and co-branded offerings. This division will be rolled out over time.
Courtesy: NS/TX Industries
The firm has raised upwards of $19M to date, including via a $6M funding round led by Inter IKEA, the holding company of the furniture giant, last year. That came during the ongoing investment drought for alternative proteins, where startups attracted 27% less capital in 2024 than the year before.
“The 2018-19 era showcased that there is indeed demand for more sustainable foods. We also see that all the time in our sales process. The problem is that there is an R&D and product quality gap, and customer expectations have not been met,” Bryson told Green Queen last month.
“At the end of the day, there needs to be a compelling value proposition for customers, and many products are just not there yet. Through proper investments in R&D and newer production technologies like ours, that can be solved.”
British cultivated pork startup Hoxton Farms has teamed up with Japan’s Mitsui Chemicals in its latest move, spotlighting Asia’s biomanufacturing leadership.
When it comes to cultivated meat, Europe is still playing catch-up thanks to its regulatory framework, leading many startups to look elsewhere. But while the US may be the only country to have approved four of these products for sale, the protein culture wars have left the novel industry vulnerable.
That leaves an Asia-sized opportunity for Europe’s alternative protein leaders, and they’re going all in. Several firms have applied for regulatory approval and struck partnerships to manufacture cultivated meat in the world’s largest continent, thanks to a thriving biomanufacturing ecosystem and an increasingly inviting regulatory landscape.
One of those companies is Hoxton Farms, the London-based producer of cultivated meat. In March, it teamed up with Japanese conglomerate Sumitomo Corporation to commercialise its pork fat ingredient in the country and the wider Asia-Pacific region.
Now, it is doubling down on Japan through a partnership with Mitsui Chemicals, which has joined as an investor in the British startup. They will work together to expand biomanufacturing, cultivated fat, and other cell-based ingredients across Asia-Pacific.
Hoxton Farms and Mitsui Chemicals to develop suite of cell-based ingredients
Courtesy: Hoxton Farms
The collaboration will leverage Hoxton Farms’s technology and Mitsui Chemicals’s manufacturing expertise to accelerate the scale-up and commercialisation of biomanufacturing tech for high-value industries, including food, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and sustainable materials.
Hoxton Farms’s modular bioreactor systems are designed for large-scale cell culture at drastically low costs, paving the way for the manufacturing of a range of bioproducts. Mitsui Chemicals, meanwhile, has decades of experience in chemicals manufacturing, process engineering, and infrastructure development, alongside a portfolio of biomanufacturing-ready materials.
The two companies said they will co-develop and deploy advanced materials that enhance the efficiency, durability and scalability of biomanufacturing systems.
They will start with Hoxton Fat, a lipid derived from cultivated pork cells that offers manufacturers a “drop-in” replacement for unhealthy animal fats and poor-performing plant oils in products like soups, sauces, and even conventional meat. The alliance will further explore opportunities for other cell-cultured and bioengineered products – think cosmetics, cell therapies, or bio-based chemicals.
“Starting with Hoxton Fat, an innovative and delicious ingredient that aligns with the sustainability policy of Mitsui Chemicals Group, we look forward to working together to establish an ecosystem for a wide range of applications and worldwide regions, leveraging our knowledge of materials and manufacturing,” said Shunsuke Fujii, general manager of Mitsui Chemicals’s New Business Incubation Center.
Tapping into Asia’s biomanufacturing leadership
Courtesy: Hoxton Farms
Max Jamilly, co-founder and CEO of Hoxton Farms, said: “As demand for sustainable alternatives grows across industries, we need a new generation of biomanufacturing infrastructure.” The goal of the collaboration is to unlock cross-sector innovation and economic growth in Asia-Pacific and across the world.
Globally, the next-gen biomanufacturing market, which offers low-carbon alternatives to petrochemicals and animal-derived products, was valued at $24B last year, and is expected to nearly triple by 2037. While North America retained the largest share, Asia-Pacific isn’t far behind.
This is thanks to a rise in policies establishing robust local supply chains that lower the reliance on imports and boost the economy. China has already established itself as a biomanufacturing leader, integrating biotech into its Made in China 2025 strategy and the 14th Five-Year Plan (covering 2021 to 2025).
Others are gaining ground too. South Korea’s Bio-Health Industry Promotion Plan looks to enhance its biotech ecosystem via initiatives like the Advanced Biotechnology Initiative and the National Synthetic Biology Initiative (which aims to turn 30% of its manufacturing into the bio-industry within a decade).
Singapore has long been a pioneer of food tech innovation, having been the first country to approve the sale of cultivated meat and gas proteins. The Biologics Pharma Innovation Programme Singapore, meanwhile, aims to boost local manufacturing via a public-private consortium.
Courtesy: Eat Just
Last year, India launched its BioE3 policy with a focus on accelerating tech development and commercialisation by setting up biomanufacturing hubs and biofoundries. Japan, meanwhile, wants to become the most advanced bioeconomy society by 2030, and has announced an $8B fund to support biomanufacturing.
Speaking to Green Queen in March, Jamilly said: “We will file this year in Singapore and the US, followed by UK and other jurisdictions such as Thailand, Japan, Korea, and Australia and New Zealand. We expect to go to market in Singapore first.”
An interview with the author of a new book that exposes how flawed land-use math is derailing climate progress and argues that even eliminating fossil fuels won’t save us unless we fix food production’s massive emissions.
We Are Eating the Earth: The Race to Fix Our Food System and Save Our Climate is the latest book by award-winning journalist and author Michael Grunwald. Its main thesis is that we’re basing our climate decisions on the wrong math when it comes to land use, and that until we solve for this Brazil-sized blind spot, we cannot solve for climate change.
The book is heavy on science, numbers, and policy, which may discourage some, but Grunwald is a gifted storyteller. While he does not offer up any easy answers, Grunwald is a fan of humanity and an admirer of our capacity for world-changing innovation, and the book ends on a hopeful note. Below is an edited and condensed version of my interview with him. For a longer review of the book, see here.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Sonalie Figueiras (Green Queen): What was your plan when you started working on this book about food and climate?
Mike Grunwald: Honestly, I didn’t have one. I was pretty ignorant about the subject, despite being a policy reporter focused on energy and climate. I realised I was missing a huge piece of the puzzle, and I felt someone needed to figure it out, so I guess that would be me. I certainly didn’t know where it would lead.
GQ: Who is this book for? It’s heavy on science and policy, not terribly popular topics for the average Joe and Jane. Did you have a specific audience in mind?
MG: Publishers often tell you to find your “tribe”. The kind of people who are going to be your people, who are going to buy your book. One of the reasons I’m nervous about selling this book is that there isn’t one tribe. There’s going to be something in there that everybody—vegans, climate activists, farmers, foodies—is going to have a problem with.
So I guess this book is for people who are interested in policy, don’t know much about it, and want to learn. I’ve got to plead guilty to putting a lot of science and policy in the book…But I worked really hard to try to make the medicine go down easy, and make it fun and entertaining.
GQ: Let’s talk about the main character. The book focuses on the life and career of Tim Searchinger. Why tell his story?
MG: It happened organically. I’ve known Tim for 25 years. He was an important source for me early in my career. He gave me the tip that led me to write about the Army Corps of Engineers, so he was an important source for me early in my career. I knew him as incredibly honest and fact-driven, but also as someone who can be difficult and has a lot of enemies.
When I was trying to sell the book, someone advised me to have a human element rather than just focusing on abstract issues. Tim became that anchor. When I started looking into food and climate, he was my first call. I realised he had become a leading authority on the intersection of agriculture and climate. His story became central because it quickly became clear this was a story about land use and about “eating the earth.”
Courtesy: Simon & Schuster
GQ: How did you come up with this concept of “eating the earth”?
MG: It came from learning all these statistics, like how two out of every five acres of land on the planet are used for agriculture. And the main reason we’re losing tropical forests is agriculture. I realised that was the core story.
GQ: While the book is mostly about Tim and his journey, you take a detour into the story of Bruce Friedrich, the founder of the Good Food Institute, and the birth of the alternative protein industry for a couple of chapters. How did that happen?
MG: I wanted to tell the whole story about food, agriculture, and climate – the demand side, the supply side, carbon farming, all of it. As you know better than anyone, alternative proteins are a really important part of the food and climate story, and it’s an awesome story. It would have been disingenuous to make it all about Tim, so he disappears from the narrative for a bit. I knew some reviewers might question that, but it felt necessary.
GQ: And from your telling, Tim played a role in connecting Bruce Friedrich with the Bezos Earth Fund, which led to significant investments from Bezos towards three alternative protein research centres in the US, UK and Asia, which was fun to learn about!
MG: Well, I’m just a reporter, but I guess I might have accidentally played a part! [Laughs]. The butterfly wings may have flapped a little bit there.
GQ: Your alt-protein chapters do seem very US-centric, while I would argue it’s a global industry.
MG: That’s fair. The beginning of this tech story was in the US, with people like Bruce Friedrich, Josh Tetrick, Uma Valeti, Pat Brown, and Ethan Brown. I was lucky to attend the GFI Conference in San Francisco in 2019 when there were real conversations about the meat industry potentially disappearing.
Of course, things are happening all over the world, and I can’t cover it all, but I wanted to tell the story of the birth of the sector, which was taking place in the US, so those chapters ended up being more US-centric.
GQ: What are your biggest takeaways from the alt-protein chapters?
MG: What was different about this movement was the idea of trying to sell alt-proteins to non-vegetarians. It wasn’t just for a niche market…So I do feel like those few companies were doing something fundamentally different. I think there was a real story to tell about the start of that. Today, there’s a lot of doom and gloom in the alt-protein world, but I think it’s still a very exciting story.
Courtesy: Michael Grunwald
GQ: Overall, you seem bullish on alt-proteins and hopeful about solutions overall. But the book also acknowledges that progress is slow.
MG: Absolutely. It was important to me not to write a completely negative book. There are dozens of exciting solutions and fascinating people working on them, but none of these solutions has made very much progress yet. [When I started following the alt-protein industry], I was excited about what I was reporting on, but also objective enough to realise some people were being overly optimistic. Some people were predicting the end of animal agriculture by 2035, but that seems unlikely. One of the main messages of the book is that there isn’t just one solution. It’s not an all-or-nothing situation. We’re going to need many solutions. There will be advancements and setbacks.
GQ: You also say Western countries need to eat less meat, but you’re not telling people to stop eating meat entirely. That’s not always a popular message.
MG: No, it isn’t. People often want to hear a simple answer. But it’s about nuance. I believe “better is better than worse.” It’s okay if people make incremental changes. I still eat meat. I cut out beef for a while, but then I went to cattle ranches in Brazil and ate some delicious steak. We’ve been eating meat for millions of years. I think it’s great when people go vegan or vegetarian, but I also think it’s great when people just try to do better. I don’t expect anyone to be perfect.
GQ: That’s interesting. That idea of “perfect” feels very American. As a half-French person, my sense is that Europeans have a more balanced approach, with my French and German friends being very comfortable saying: “I believe in climate action, and also, once in a while, I eat beef.” You see the rise of flexitarianism in Europe, with people reducing their meat consumption but not necessarily going vegan.
MG: I think that’s true. This idea that it’s either black or white seems more American. Europeans tend to have a more balanced approach.
GQ: We do love a silver bullet, and I do think most people are going to ask you: “What’s the one solution, Mike?”
MG: The fact is, even if the rich world reduced beef consumption by 50%—which is extraordinarily ambitious—and let’s say we cut food waste by 50%, which is also really hard, and got rid of biofuels (a ridiculous waste of farmland), we’d still need to raise yields faster over the next 25 years than we did in the last 50. We’d have to make a lot more food with a lot less land. We need to produce more food without using more land.
Efficiency is key for food security and for protecting wildlands. High-yield agriculture is essential for feeding the growing population without destroying more of our planet. We can’t just hand-wave these numbers away and say: “Maybe it won’t get that bad.” We’re on track to deforest another dozen Californias by 2050 if we don’t change. So yeah, we’re going to have to make a lot of changes.
GQ: My sense is that climate people don’t want to hear that no matter what, in the future, we’ll be eating more meat.
MG: Look, the first thing humans do when they’re less poor is eat more meat. It’s silly to pretend otherwise. Consumerism is relevant to climate, but people have to eat. It’s not like fossil fuels, where we can find alternatives. Emissions might be peaking; we can see an energy transition happening. But with food? There are no alternatives. The problem’s getting worse—no positive trends here. We have to roll up our sleeves and get serious.
I can’t give people the simple answer they want, which probably will hurt my book sales and make me a less compelling podcast guest. But this shit is hard.
It’ll take nerds working on niche solutions, plus political, corporate, and behavioural change – none of which is happening now. That’s why I wrote the book. I’m banging my spoon, yelling: “Hey, world, we gotta do something!”
I’m trying a big-tent approach. Industrial ag can learn from regenerative ag, and vice versa. We can honour vegans without demanding universal veganism. Whether your issue is antibiotics, pandemic risk, animal welfare, worker rights, or Big Ag’s terrible politics—all valid. Let’s all try to make things better. We don’t have to agree on everything.
GQ: You wrestle with whether consumers are responsible for the climate. You push back against the popular eco argument – “stop blaming consumers, these are systemic issues” – but also cite Project Drawdown’s list, which says that the top climate actions are wasting less food and eating less meat.
MG: I hate this trend—I wrote about it for Politico during Covid—where it’s uncool to talk about individual action. Headlines like “I work in environmentalism”, “I don’t care if you recycle” or “Going vegan won’t save the world”. The idea is that focusing on personal behaviour makes environmentalists seem like scolds, or worse, does the work of oil companies and Big Meat. But Exxon and Trump aren’t driving your SUV to the mall. McDonald’s and JBS aren’t force-feeding you burgers.
GQ:Though many people live where McDonald’s is cheaper than almost any other food.
MG: Absolutely, and we should fix that. But it’s a bad look for the environmental movement to say: “Climate is an emergency! We’re past 1.5°C – we’re screwed!” and then add: “But your personal emissions don’t matter.” No, it all matters. We need better policy, yes—we must talk about McDonald’s, food systems, and perverse incentives. Too much of my book is about accounting (sorry), because bad climate accounting creates bad incentives.
But you nailed it: eating less beef and wasting less food are good. Beef is far worse than chicken or pork for climate and other reasons. If the average American swapped one beef burger a week for an Impossible Burger, we’d save a Massachusetts-sized chunk of land yearly. I won’t hand-wave individual actions away. They’re not the only thing—ignoring policy is a mistake—but we need better policy, better incentives, and better behaviour. When we fail, we try again.
GQ: That’s fair. Once again, very nuanced. Very tough for people to swallow.
MG: Doesn’t fit on a bumper sticker… [laughs].
GQ:Unlike most non-vegan food-focused climate books and groups, regenerative agriculture does not come off too well in the book. Can you talk more about this?
MG: It’s the ultimate silver bullet narrative: “Farm a little kinder, go back to the old ways, diversify crops, be nice to the soil, and all that atmospheric carbon will magically return to the earth—Kumbaya!” Carbon farming isn’t entirely bullshit, but mostly. Soil carbon is hard to measure, hard to keep in place, and hard to prove you’re not just robbing Peter to pay Paul. Worse, you can’t add significant carbon to soil without adding nitrogen, which has its own climate problems.
The idea that regenerative agriculture will solve climate change? I push back hard. And it’s being pushed by Al Gore, Michael Pollan… And it’s not just the left – Bobby Kennedy, Joe Rogan, plus the Rockefeller Foundation, the UN, and agribusinesses like Danone and General Mills slapping “regenerative” on everything. As a climate solution, it’s wildly oversold.
Look, I’m not just the “industrial ag guy.” The NYT gave my essay [about this] a provocative headline, but yes, we need better industrial ag—not its elimination. My North Star? High-yield agriculture. We must make more food with less land. Factories excel at mass production; factory farms are good at mass food. Sri Lanka tried ditching chemicals cold turkey—yields crashed, and the government fell. Disaster!
That said, I don’t think all regenerative ag is bad. It does improve soil health. In Brazil, I met Bolsonaro-supporting ranchers – definitely not Michael Pollan readers—using regenerative and industrial practices (feedlots, fertilised pastures). They just wanted higher yields. Efficiency and yield are my priorities, which, to some, makes me sound like a corporate shill.
“Factory” is a dirty word. But I’m not a farmer or agronomist. The agroecology crowd argues we haven’t invested enough in organic/regenerative yield research. I’m open to that. Still, yield must be the focus.
GQ: Would you agree that the book is fairly pro-GMO?
MG: Well, at least pro-concept. There’s nothing wrong with them. But I do point out that some claims about their yield benefits are exaggerated.
GQ: Tim offers some climate finance solutions, like air travel taxes and redirecting ag subsidies. How realistic are these?
MG: They’re definitely tough sells, politically speaking. Any changes to agriculture are challenging because the industry is powerful everywhere. People hate any tax increases on food products. But, Denmark has passed significant agricultural reforms that incorporate many of these ideas, showing it’s not impossible. Also, governments give huge amounts of money to farmers. If we start adding strings to that money, requiring more sustainable practices, we could make a significant impact. We just need to be careful about it, so farmers aren’t overly impacted in the long run.
GQ: What’s the main takeaway you want people to get from your book?
MG: We need to be pragmatic and find a middle ground. There are extremes on both sides of this issue, and we need common-sense solutions. We have to recognise that there are multiple valid perspectives here and that we have to work together to find solutions. We need higher yields, but also to make agriculture more efficient.
British plant-based milk firm Mighty Drinks has entered administration amid rising costs and fundraising challenges, with its future now hanging on a rescue deal.
Mighty Drinks, the brand that introduced pea milk to the British mainstream, has gone into administration after seven years of operation.
The company appointed Interpath as administrator earlier this week, which said Mighty suffered from rising costs and “fragile consumer confidence” that impeded its scalability and path to profitability. While it looked to explore investment, a lack of options led the company to file for insolvency.
“The plant-based category has shifted dramatically over the last few years. Despite our best efforts to adapt, streamline, and secure new investment, we couldn’t raise what was needed to take the next step,” said Tom Watkins, co-founder and co-CEO of Mighty, who established and ran the startup with his brother Nick.
The decision came on the back of mounting losses for the business, which has raised £8M over the years. Government filings show it lost £12M at the end of 2023, £3.4M more than the year before.
Mighty Drinks a victim of dire investment landscape
Courtesy: Mighty Drinks
While it began as a pea milk company (it was formerly known as Mighty Pea), the firm has since diversified into other ingredient bases too. This included a line of oat milks, a pea protein and oat blend, oat milk powders, and fermentation-derived oat milks that sought to more closely resemble dairy.
Mighty banked on the UK’s growing appetite for non-dairy milk, which is as close to mainstream as any plant-based category has gotten. Last year, 32% of British households bought a non-dairy milk at least once, and 11% did so at least once a month.
However, the category hasn’t been immune to the wider headwinds faced by alternative protein sector. “The Mighty team has created a great product, with an exciting kids milk range set to launch with retailers given the allergen-free benefits of pea protein, and a path to profitability from improved margins and increased volumes,” noted Tom Swiers, food and drink lead at Interpath.
“Unfortunately, however, this has come at a point in the company’s cycle where it required further investment, which was not forthcoming from typical investors in this space, nor was it attractive to typical ‘special situations’ investors given the relatively early stage of the company’s development.”
Indeed, after the 2020-21 boom in alternative protein, investor interest has shrunk more and more every year. Plant-based companies raised only $309M in 2024, a sharp 64% fall from the year before.
“Alternative protein funding has slowed amid this increased investor focus on AI, while elevated interest rates, high production costs, and topline sales declines have also weighed on investment activity,” Daniel Gertner, lead economic and industry analyst at the Good Food Institute, told Green Queen recently.
Interpath’s Swiers added: “There has been an increasing focus on profitability within all aspects of the ‘alt’ category, following the investment boom of a few years ago. It is no longer simply a case of ‘growth as number one priority’.”
Plant-based milk on a rollercoaster ride in the UK
Courtesy: GFI Europe
Mighty’s insolvency comes at a curious time for plant-based dairy in the UK. On paper, retail sales of milk alternatives fell by 2.3% last year, with volumes dropping by 2.6% too. And despite matching the price deductions of cow’s milk (reducing by 3%), plant-based milk is still 69% more expensive on average.
However, it remains a category with broad appeal, especially with product formats like barista milks, which saw a 10.4% growth in volume sales in the UK last year. Oat milk is especially popular, accounting for over half of milk alternative sales in 2024, and witnessing steady volumes compared to the previous year. The overall plant-based segment, meanwhile, made up 11% of all milk sales.
Still, a number of underperforming products have been pulled from British supermarkets. Nestlé \withdrew its Wunda brand of pea milks (a direct competitor to Mighty) two years after launch, while Innocent Drinks made the same decision with its milk alternative range.
Courtesy: Mighty Drinks
Oat milk products weren’t spared either. Oatly took its entire range of ice creams and its Plain Oatgurt off shelves, while Arla discontinued its Jörd line of oat milks earlier this year. And Alpro, meanwhile, pulled its oat-based This Is Not M!lk – which aimed to mimic dairy, much like Mighty’s M.lkology range – from the UK in 2024.
“While ‘This Is Not M!lk’ was designed to create a more familiar dairy milk taste, our UK shopper research showed us that many of our consumers enjoy the taste of oat just as much, if not more so,” Tom Kerr, head of plant-based at Danone UK & Ireland, told Green Queen in March. Still, it is doubling down on its core oat milk lineup, making a multimillion-pound investment to expand the production of the range using British oats.
Meanwhile, other plant-based milk brands have secured investment and successful exits too. British clean-label producer Rude Health was acquired by Finland’s fellow plant-based milk firm Oddlygood, and Swedish pea milk maker Sproud, which counts the UK as a key market, gained investment from Love Island host Maya Jama and pea protein giant Lantmännen.
M&As continue to grab plant-based headlines
Courtesy: Mighty Drinks
“We fought through Brexit, a pandemic, inflation, massive global instability – not to mention the perpetual challenge to go up against some of the biggest FMCG brands in the world who all wanted a slice of the alternative milk category,” noted Watkins.
Mighty is far from the only plant-based startup that has suffered this fate. Since 2024, several firms globally have been forced to cease operations or declare bankruptcy before being rescued, including Akua, Sunfed Meats, Willicroft, Allplants, Wild Earth, and Atlantic Natural Foods.
“Becoming a founder of a VC-backed food and drink business isn’t so much a rollercoaster – it’s strapping yourself to a rocket and hoping you won’t disintegrate on the way to orbit,” said Watkins. “I want to thank every member of staff, investor, customer, and retailer who believed in us and supported the mission over the years.”
Mighty will hope it ends up the same way as businesses like Allplants, Wild Earth, Meatless Farm, VBites and Plant & Bean, which were rescued from the brink.
“We will now work with the company’s stakeholders to explore the options available, including seeking offers for the business and its assets, including the Mighty brand and related intellectual property,” said James Clark, managing director at Interpath and joint administrator of Mighty.
Dutch food tech firm Rival Foods has secured €10M ($11.5M) in funding to scale up its suite of whole-cut plant-based meats, which contain minimal ingredients and high amounts of protein.
If there are three things consumers want from their plant-based meat today, it’s fewer ingredients, lower prices, and better taste and texture.
Dutch startup Rival Foods is attempting to do it all. Using shear-cell technology to replicate animal muscle fibres with plants, its meat alternatives undergo minimal processing while maximising texture and protein.
To expand its technology, the firm has raised €10M ($11.5M) in a Series B funding round led by Dutch pension fund ABP, with participation from Pymwymic and ROM Utrecht Region and follow-on investment from PeakBridge.
“This investment marks a major milestone in our mission to make high-quality plant-based meat mainstream,” said Birgit Dekkers, founder and CEO of Rival Foods. “With the backing of world-class investors, we’re ready to scale fast and reshape the future of protein. We’re called Rival for a reason –we’re here to be one.”
Courtesy: Rival Foods
Rival Foods looks to meet anti-UPF demand
Founded in 2019 as a spinoff from Wageningen University & Research, Rival Foods is among several startups specialising in whole-cut meat alternatives. These products aim to mimic the fibrous texture loved by meat-eaters, addressing a key pain point for plant-based meat.
Sensory testing shows a 38-point gap in texture preference between the average animal and plant-based meat product, with the latter being liked by less than three in 10 omnivores in the US. Another survey found that 22% of Americans are reducing their intake of vegan alternatives due to poor texture.
Elsewhere, 26% of Germans say they’d pay more for a plant-based product if it has the same taste and texture as the food it’s hoping to replace. In the UK, too, 51% of people say taste/texture is the biggest factor driving them away from meat alternatives.
Courtesy: Rival Foods
Whole cuts offer a solution. Rival Foods uses patented shear-cell technology to recreate meat’s fibrous textures. “The process can simply be explained as a pressure cooker with a rotating part, using temperature and rotation to enable deformation and alignment of proteins for fibrous texture creation,” it says on its website.
Its current portfolio includes chicken and beef, which contain a blend of plant proteins alongside water, natural aromas, herbs and spices, and salt. The chicken contains 28g of protein and 0.6g of fibre per 100g, and is available in fillets, blocks and pulled formats. The beef, meanwhile, boasts 26g of protein and 2.5g of fibre per 100g, and comes in chunks and pulled variants.
The additive-free products are specifically designed to address consumer concerns about ultra-processed foods (UPFs). Viewing plant-based meat as overly processed has led many to perceive it as unhealthy, even though experts have warned that the level of processing doesn’t define how nutritious a product is.
“Rival Foods have built something special: a scalable process to turn standard plant proteins into exciting fibrous, meat-like structures. Rival Foods’ products offer a satisfying bite with high protein content and a clean label,” said Lodewijk Meens, senior portfolio manager at ABP Netherlands’s Energy Transition & Biodiversity fund.
Courtesy: Rival Foods
Cost reductions are key for plant-based meat
In the Netherlands, sales of meat analogues fell by 7% in retail, as consumers cooled on centre-of-plate formats like burgers and fillets. Instead, products like mince and strips worked better, possibly because they’re now 6% cheaper per kg.
Part of the reason why Rival Foods raised funds is to double its production capacity at its Geldrop facility, which will help the startup optimise its production costs and reach price parity with conventional meat.
Research shows that if plant-based alternatives are more expensive than meat, their preference falls below 20%, and if they’re priced equally, this increases to 21%. Whereas if vegan alternatives cost about half of a conventional burger, the number of people choosing the former would double. And lowering the price of the plant-based burger by even 10% would result in a 14% increase in sales.
In an interview with Green Queen, PeakBridge founding general partner Nadav Berger said if he had a magic wand to revitalise the plant-based meat sector, he’d make the products “20% cheaper than real meat”. “If it’s a really magic wand? 40% cheaper,” he added. “Texture and flavour are the other keys, but that’s already well on its way. The technology is there.”
Courtesy: Rival Foods
Reacting to Rival Foods’s Series B round, PeakBridge partner and COO Martina Pace echoed the sentiment. “Real success in the alternative protein space demands three tough things to achieve: great taste, texture, and competitive prices. We’re proud to see Rival Foods achieving all three, she said.
The company employs a B2B approach, working with chefs, retailers and brands across Europe to bring plant-based whole cuts to consumers. The new capital will help fuel its international growth, establish new partnerships with major clients, and expand its team.
Whole-cut meat alternatives stand to win
Expansion beyond Europe will only help the brand. In the US, while the overall category saw a 10% decline in annualised sales between 2022 and 2024, whole cuts like steaks, fillets and cutlets experienced a 16% increase.
Conventional whole cuts are also the most popular meat category stateside, regularly consumed by 68% of Americans. For plant-based versions, this drops to 30%, though 44% would consider eating them if these products improve.
Courtesy: GFI
Rival Foods’ successful round is proof that investor appetite for plant-based startups exists, particularly for scalable models that address consumer needs. While this sector saw VC funding fall by 60% last year, investors have continued to back innovative startups in 2025, such as Ecovative ($11M) and Project Eaden ($15.6M).
US food tech startup Clever Carnivore has achieved industry-leading cost reductions for its cultivated pork, which it hopes to begin selling in the country next year.
As companies scramble to lower the production costs of cultivated meat, one Chicago startup has announced several breakthroughs to compete with the price of conventional pork.
Chicago-based Clever Carnivore has brought the cost of its culture media down to $0.07 per litre at pilot scale, sped up the doubling times of its porcine cells, and designed inexpensive bioreactors that could enable its demo facility to reach profitability in its first full year of production.
Typically, cell culture media costs hundreds of dollars per litre, thanks to expensive inputs like bovine serum albumin (BSA) and fetal bovine serum (FBS), as well as growth factors and basal media (like amino acids, vitamins, and glucose).
“Our expertise in media optimisation allows us to replace expensive components like BSA and FBS with carefully chosen alternatives, [and] ensure that we’re using only the absolutely essential components, maximising growth and minimising cost and waste,” CEO Virginia Rangos, who co-founded the startup with CSO Paul Burridge in 2022, tells Green Queen.
Clever Carnivore is now raising a $7M extension to its seed round from 2023 (which also closed at $7M) to focus on new products and regulatory approval. “We have a term sheet in hand and commitments from current investors. We’re beginning concerted outreach to fill out the round,” she says.
In addition, the firm is aiming to secure the regulatory green light from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and credits “pioneers in the space” that have already received approval and made it easier for companies to do so.
“In reviewing their published dossiers, we paid close attention to which data the FDA ultimately asked them to provide, and we’re providing as much information as possible in our initial submission,” Rangos explains. “We project [our] cultivated meat could be available on the market as early as summer 2026.”
How Clever Carnivore achieved industry-best media costs
Courtesy: Clever Carnivore
The bulk of the cost of cultivated meat comes from culture media. Over the last year, several startups have announced milestones to slash media costs, including Gourmey (€0.2/$0.23 per litre) and Meatly (£0.22/$0.30).
Clever Carnivore’s culture media cost – which has been at the $0.07 level for two years now – undercuts its competitors. “That’s what we’re paying today – including our in-house growth factor production, water purification and mixing. We anticipate further reductions as we scale to a production plant with a capacity of thousands of litres,” says Burridge, who has over 20 years of research experience in cell line development and growth media optimisation.
Most companies buy off-the-shelf bottled media or a pre-made powder. To help lower this cost, Clever Carnivore produces its media in-house, mixing it from stocks of vitamins, salts, and amino acids. This eliminates the cost of logistics, as well as the “massive profit margins of commercial media suppliers”, according to Rangos.
“We also make our own growth factors – reducing what would otherwise be the most expensive component of our media to a negligible cost,” she says. These are specifically engineered for optimal performance with enhanced temperature stability and cost-effective production. “Most companies are reliant on external suppliers, and these suppliers charge a premium.”
She adds: “To achieve a profitable, scalable process, cheap media is necessary, but not sufficient. Your media must also provide every resource your cells need to grow quickly and at high density. Our highly optimised media ensures the cells have exactly what they need (and nothing else) at each time point in their development.”
One key aspect is the creation of cell lines that are never exposed to animal-based inputs; instead, they grow in this custom culture medium from the get-go. “It’s incredibly difficult to eliminate FBS or BSA from your media if your cells are ‘used to’ these expensive components. If you take them away from cells that have been exposed to them, their growth rate will plummet,” explains Rangos.
Unlike human nutrition, cells aren’t influenced by the cost or variety of their diet. Once they’re adapted to a medium, they prefer it over others. “Our medium has the bare minimum inputs that cells require, and they thrive in that low-cost medium better than they would in a high-cost medium.”
Innovative bioreactors further drive down costs
Courtesy: Clever Carnivore
Aside from the culture media cost reductions and optimised cell lines, Clever Carnivore’s porcine cells are capable of doubling in less than 14 hours in adherent culture. “We use our media to signal our cells to enter a naturally highly proliferative state,” says Rangos. “We don’t have to use genetic modification to ‘immortalise’ cells, but our cells are still extremely proliferative.”
“With the right process and training, our method is actually much more robust than methods that rely on genetic modification. We can reliably produce new cell lines on demand, whereas methods like spontaneous immortalisation rely on chance mutations that cannot be reliably reproduced.”
The startup is banking on a proprietary bioprocess design to lower costs and increase efficiency. Having low-cost media and numerous bioreactors allows it to run bioprocess experiments at an “unmatched pace” and refine all the parameters contributing to cell growth. “Elements like ideal temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, and bioreactor design make a huge difference in yield,” says Rangos.
A key factor was the use of secondhand bioreactors for benchtop experiments, which the company bought on eBay. The company has since moved to large-scale stainless-steel bioreactors, which form the basis of the process described in the dossier it will submit to the FDA.
“Our goal has always been to submit for approval a process as identical as possible to our production process at full commercial scale, to ensure a streamlined path through approval,” explains Rangos.
The cultivated pork is produced in two 500-litre bioreactors, with a third on the way. The firm has managed to cut costs on these larger-scale tanks considerably by developing a design without expensive components – while they might be standard in biopharma applications, they are unnecessary for cultivated meat production.
It’s additionally working directly with steel fabricators that cater to food manufacturers, instead of ordering off the shelf from standard suppliers that usually serve the biopharma sector.
Clever Carnivore’s other bioprocess innovations include the growth of cells without microcarriers, which are “expensive, yield-limiting components that must be included in the final food product”, and a seed chain design and disaggregation/re-aggregation method that substantially increase yield and shorten the production timeline.
Upside Foods and Eat Just’s journeys paved the way forward
Courtesy: Clever Carnivore
The startup isn’t shy about the fact that it benefitted from being a late entrant to the space. Witnessing early pioneers hit R&D hurdles and various milestones allowed it to avoid common pitfalls.
Rangos notes how Upside Foods and Eat Just – the first two cultivated meat makers to receive regulatory approval in the US – “didn’t have the luxury of waiting to submit a dossier for regulatory review until they had developed a process viable at factory scale”.
“Investors wanted to see that cultivated meat could pass regulatory review, so that was a box they needed to check. We’ve had more flexibility to allow science to drive strategy because pioneers have already proven that cultivated meat can be sold and that consumers will buy it,” she explains.
“We didn’t have to pitch why cultivated meat was important – just that we had viable technology and strategy to get profitable products to market.
“We’re also unusual because – in part due to the personalities of the founders and in part through necessity – we’ve run a very lean operation. The executives take their turns cleaning the bathrooms, our team painted our new facility together, and if the bioprocess team have an idea, Paul is the first to drive over to the hardware store to find a part we can adapt to try it out right away.”
Rangos outlines how early regulatory submissions “took a lot longer to progress” because the government and businesses had to work together to figure out how to evaluate cultivated meat.
“Our path to approval should be relatively smooth because the groundwork for evaluation has already been laid, we’re presenting as much information as possible up front, [and] we’re submitting a process that is identical in all meaningful ways to what we intend to do at factory scale, ensuring we won’t need to complicate the FDA’s workflow by submitting substantive changes for review.”
Complying with the FDA and the US Department of Agriculture’s standards for production facilities is critical. Clever Carnivore is designing its demo plant with a “well-validated process, high-level quality controls, and equipment that is proven and can be amortised under known schedules”, explained Burridge. It features low-cost inputs and equipment, helping the firm keep buildout costs under $4.5M.
VC landscape forces Clever Carnivore to revise fundraising plans
Courtesy: Clever Carnivore
To date, Clever Carnivore has secured $9.1M from investors, most of which came from the seed round that it’s looking to extend now.
“We initially planned to raise a Series A round to build our demonstration facility. Our commercial-scale factory design is composed of modular units of bioreactors and related processing equipment. The demonstration facility is designed to get a complete module up and running, producing profitable cultivated meat and providing final proof of concept for larger-scale facilities.”
That plan would require an $18M raise. The problem is, capital is “tremendously expensive” now, as investors flock away from food tech. After attracting $1.3B in 2021, investment in cultivated meat has dipped dramatically. In 2023, funding fell by 75%, followed by another 40% drop in 2024, reaching just $139M. In fact, in the last three years, this sector has cumulatively raised less money than it did in 2021 alone.
The headwinds have continued in 2025, with Aleph Farms’s $29M round the only sizeable raise for cultivated meat this year. “We’ve revised our initial plan for a Series A raise because cultivated meat valuations are at an all-time low, and many investors are sceptical about the space, due in part to the political climate, and in part to challenges faced by first-gen cultivated meat companies,” says Rangos.
“Many food and ag tech investors made early bets in the space and aren’t looking to make additional cultivated meat investments, and many sustainability or generalist investors are taking a ‘wait and see’ approach to the space right now.
“We decided to pivot to a plan that allows us to raise less and focus on regulatory approval, commercial partnerships, and beginning beef R&D. That said, we’ve received positive feedback and interest from both seasoned alt-protein investors and more generalist funds. We look forward to building our demonstration facility when capital markets are more favourable.”
Taste tests attract consumers and chefs alike
Courtesy: Clever Carnivore
Investors aren’t the only source of positive feedback for Clever Carnivore – consumers and chefs have taken to its cultivated bratwursts, breakfast sausages, hot dogs and meatballs too. This month, it held two tasting events, where it served over 50 bratwursts to rave reviews, according to the startup.
“We’ve spoken to conventional meat advocates who candidly told us they ‘wanted to hate’ our product,” recalls Ramos. “But when presented with a product that cooks and tastes just like the sausage they’ve always loved, they quickly became intrigued.”
Aside from taste, consumers have expressed appreciation for its value proposition – think meat free from steroids, antibiotics or GMOs, a secure food supply chain with domestic production, and expanded options that will keep products on shelves amid shortages and price inflation for conventional meat.
“We’re very interested in partnering with existing conventional meat and restaurant chain brands. We know we’re asking consumers to try something new, and we think presenting Clever Carnivore’s cultivated meat for the first time under a label consumers recognise and trust will go a long way toward getting consumers to try the product.”
The nutritional profile will only help expand the appeal, with the cultivated pork exhibiting similar amino acid profiles and nutritional values to conventional versions. “Our prototype products incorporate a plant-based fat. Our cultivated pork delivers the ‘meaty’ flavour, allowing us to use plant-based fats and reap the nutritional benefits of plant-based vs animal fats.”
Why Clever Carnivore is targeting processed cultivated meat
Courtesy: Clever Carnivore
Clever Carnivore is among a number of companies working on cultivated pork, offering alternatives to products that the WHO has deemed carcinogenic, like sausages and hot dogs. These include Mission Barns (already approved by the FDA), Meatable, Mewery, and Magic Valley.
The decision to focus on processed pork instead of whole cuts was driven by “a combination of scientific considerations, budgetary constraints, and strategic market positioning”.
“Producing whole cuts requires more time in the bioreactors – you need to swap the media and allow cells time to form tissues. Transition to a specialty bioreactor for added tissue development might also be necessary,” says Rangos.
“We’ve progressed to this point with only $9M in investment so far. To use resources as efficiently as possible and to avoid overstretching our team, we decided to focus our R&D on pork before other meat and on formed products before whole cuts,” she adds. “We like the idea of debuting accessible products – cultivated meat not as a luxury, but as a high-quality, reasonably priced staple.”
That being said, its process does make it feasible to develop whole cuts someday. “Getting there will require additional time and money, and we believe it’s important to bring competitively priced and compelling products to market as soon as possible,” she says.
Aside from pork, Clever Carnivore’s expertise in mammalian cell biology and bioprocess enables it to fast-track other mammalian species through its R&D pipeline. “Our next priority is beef, but we’re also interested in working on lamb to expand our appeal to international markets where pork and beef are less popular.”
Sydney-based Vow received regulatory approval to sell cultivated meat in Australia and New Zealand, which will begin appearing on restaurant menus in the coming weeks.
Australians will soon be able to order cultivated meat from restaurant menus, following the country’s first approval of these novel proteins.
The joint food safety regulator of Australia and New Zealand has amended its Food Standards Code following a multi-year assessment of Vow’s cultured quail, allowing the startup to sell its innovation in eateries and supermarkets across the two countries.
It followed the preliminary approval granted by Food Standards Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ) in March, when its board had finalised the required food code changes, as first reported by Green Queen. They were then under review by food ministers across the two countries, before culminating in the approval decision for Vow.
Speaking to Green Queen in April, co-founder and CEO George Peppou had confirmed the company would launch in Australia first, via “high-end restaurants and elevated fast-casual concepts first, followed by retail partnerships later in the year”.
Now, the firm has announced that its cultured Japanese quail – sold under the Forged brand in concepts like parfait and foie gras – will debut at dozens of restaurants within weeks, including Bottarga and The Lincoln in Melbourne, and Nel, The Waratah, and Kitchen by Mike in Sydney.
“This isn’t about replacing the meats we know and love. It’s about trying something entirely new – something that can only exist because of how it’s made. For chefs, that’s incredibly exciting. But for all of us, it’s a huge opportunity,” said Mike McEnearney, owner and executive chef at Kitchen by Mike.
He has signed on as the first Australian ambassador of Forged, and will showcase its cultivated meat at the soon-to-open 1Hotel in Melbourne too. “The future always lies in bold ideas that seem impossible at first, but are rooted in real innovation – the kind that drives culture forward,” he added.
FSANZ approval could speed up future applications
Courtesy: Vow
Vow is already one of the leading cultivated meat players globally, becoming the only startup to be approved to sell in three geographies.
It first secured the greenlight in Singapore last year, where its quail has rolled out at a growing list of venues since, including Two Men Bagel House, Mirko Febbrile’s Somma, and sustainability-forward bar Fura. According to the company, it is posting a 200% month-over-month growth in the city-state. Now, it can be sold in Australia and New Zealand too.
In its approval decision, FSANZ confirmed that Vow’s cultured quail will be mixed with other ingredients – as is the norm for cultivated meat – to produce dishes in restaurants and foodservice establishments, and end products for supermarkets.
It further noted that the product cannot be included in “special purpose foods” like sports foods, infant formula, or food for special medical purposes without additional pre-market assessments.
And in the amended code, FSANZ clarified that these proteins must be labelled as “cell-cultured” or “cell-cultivated” on packaging, if it’s “represented in words, images or both as being from the animal” from which the food is sourced.
“FSANZ has now successfully developed a dedicated regulatory pathway for cell-cultured foods, opting to introduce two new standards for Cell-Cultured Foods rather than relying on the existing Novel Foods Framework. This establishes ANZ as only the second jurisdiction globally (after the US) to adopt a bespoke regulatory process for cell-cultured meat,” explained Kim Tonnet, head of regulatory affairs at Cellular Agriculture Australia.
“This move will make the requirements clear and defined for future applicants, reducing uncertainty and delays, and thereby streamlining the approval process. In a really positive step, FSANZ also indicated that future applications under these standards may benefit from faster and more cost-effective assessments,” she added.
Vow hits production milestone with largest-ever cultivated meat
Courtesy: Vow
To make its cultivated meat, Vow uses a small selection of cells from a Japanese quail and places them in a nutrient-rich broth, which is transferred into fermentation tanks that recreate the conditions inside a quail’s body and allow the cells to grow and multiply naturally. The meat is ready for harvest in 79 days, when it is separated from the broth and incorporated into delicacies like parfait and foie gras.
“Flavour is everything to us – it’s the reason Forged exists. We’re crafting meats that aren’t just rich and complex, but downright irresistible,” said Peppou. “Many [chefs] describe the product’s signature umami depth and silky, melt-in-your-mouth texture as unlike anything they’ve worked with before.”
The startup has raised $55M to date, entering the market with a smaller outlay than others that have received approval, including Upside Foods ($608M), Eat Just ($270M), Aleph Farms ($147M), Wildtype ($120M) and Mission Barns ($60M).
The FSANZ’s initial approval had come weeks after Vow cut back 30% of its workforce, a decision that stemmed from a longer-than-expected timeline for regulatory clearance, but one Peppou described as coming from a “position of strength as the industry leader, not a position of weakness”.
The company has hit several production milestones in recent months. Its cell cultivation capacity has extended to 35,000 litres within its second factory, which it says was 20 to 50 times cheaper to build than competitors. It operates the largest food-grade cell culture bioreactor at 20,000 litres, and claims to have completed the largest cultivated meat harvest in history (538 kg) last month.
By the end of the year, Vow expects to reach a production capability of up to 900 kg per harvest, scaling to 10,800 kg monthly or 130,000 kg annually. Longer-term improvements that make use of the full factory capacity will allow it to eventually surpass 20,000 kg a month.
A ‘momentum shift’ away from the US?
Courtesy: Vow
“Meat has never been more popular, especially in Asian markets that import top-quality proteins from down under. The challenge is that conventional production methods are highly inefficient: we currently feed up to 100 calories to a cow to produce just one calorie of beef,” said Mirte Gosker, managing director of alternative protein think tank the Good Food Institute.
“Sustainably satisfying rising meat demand will require scaling up additional forms of protein production that can complement the traditional farming methods Australia is renowned for,” she added.
“Australia’s public embrace of cellular agriculture could enable local food producers to sell healthy and delicious cultivated proteins through existing agricultural distribution networks and add substantial new revenue streams to their ledgers. It also sets the stage for greater international regulatory harmonisation, which has the potential to unlock export opportunities across the world’s most populous region.”
Globally, six other companies have received some form of regulatory clearance to sell cultivated meat, including Eat Just (in Singapore and the US), Upside Foods, Mission Barns and Wildtype (all in the US), Aleph Farms (in Israel), and Meatly (in the UK). Regulators in the EU, Switzerland and Thailand are evaluating applications too.
Vow’s success over the last 18 months comes as “momentum shifts away from the US”, according to the company, which appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert for its viral woolly mammoth meatball stunt in 2023. Cultivated meat has become entrenched in the culture wars, with six states having banned these proteins from being sold or produced.
Meanwhile, investment in cultivated meat has also continued to fall, by 75% in 2023 and another 40% in 2024. In the last three years, startups in this category have cumulatively raised less money than they did in 2021 alone.
Currently, Wildtype and Vow are the only two companies actively selling cultivated meat in restaurants, highlighting the scale and commercialisation challenges faced by many startups. Vow’s cultured quail, however, will soon be served in over 50 venues, showcasing the true potential of the sector.
“With an expanding network of restaurants in Singapore continuing to serve Forged just 14 months after launch, the appetite for what’s next is already clear,” said Peppou. “This is a new category of food that hasn’t just been accepted – it’s been embraced. And if that’s any signal, Australia’s just getting started.”
Our weekly column rounds up the latest sustainable food innovation news. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers a host of protein lattes, Better Nature’s tempeh rollouts, and Meatable’s presentation at a Wall Street Journal forum.
New products and launches
New York-based Laird Superfood has released an instant protein latte powder with 10g of plant protein per serving. It combines pea, hemp and pumpkin seed protein with mushroom extracts, coconut MCTs and Aquamin. It retails for $19 per six servings and is available on its website and at Sprouts Farmers Market nationwide.
Likewise, plant-based milk brand Califia Farms has introduced a ready-to-drink protein vanilla almond latte, offering 10g of pea protein per serving. It can be found at Target stores for $5.29 per 40z bottle.
In similar news, Indian fitness and lifestyle brand HRX – co-owned by Bollywood actor Hrithik Roshan – has unveiled a line of oat milk protein shakes, starting with a chocolate flavour (with 25g of plant protein per 100ml), ahead of introducing vanilla, cold coffee and lighter chocolate variants.
Courtesy: HRX
Still in India, Néktar Bakerymakes vegan desserts and viennoiseries, and will open a cloud location this month in the city of Pune.
Back in the US, the owners of Salt Lake City’s Vertical Diner have inaugurated a new plant-based deli, with a menu featuring sandwiches, burgers, bowls, pastries, and more.
Courtesy: Better Nature
Elsewhere, British tempeh brandBetter Nature has rolled out its organic tempeh into around 150 additional Asda stores, and added a new Mediterranean-flavoured block to its lineup, which is available on Ocado for £3 per 220g pack.
Beyond Meat, meanwhile, has introduced its jalapeño-flavoured burger to 317 Asda stores in the UK, in addition to bringing its original burger to 350 of the retailer’s sites.
Courtesy: Beyond Meat
And Danish mycelium meat maker Tempty Foods has brought its Spicy Korean Sticks to 7-Eleven Denmark stores. The product was created through 7-Eleven’s Innovation Corner competition last year.
Company and finance updates
Dutch cultivated meat producer Meatable was present at the Wall Street Journal’s Global Food Forum event in Chicago (June 16), where CEO Jeff Tripician spoke on how cultivated meat can complement conventional agriculture and boost global food security.
Fresh from hosting a cultivated meat tasting in the New South Wales parliament, Australia’s Magic Valley is raising A$3M ($1.9M) to build its first manufacturing facility (which is expected to cost A$5M, or $3.3M) and produce 500 tonnes of product per year.
Planted, the Swiss plant-based meat maker, has opened its new production facility in Bavaria, Germany, featuring “state-of-the-art fermentation technology”, which the company says will double its manufacturing capacity.
Courtesy: Magic Valley
Agriculture giant the Groan Group has signed a strategic partnership with plant-based ingredient maker Aminola to accelerate and expand the use of sustainable ingredients in the human food, pet food and aquafeed sectors.
British plant-based ingredient maker Novo Farina has ceased trading, with its former managing director citing “market factors and ever-increasing cost challenges”.
AgFunder News reports that Yasir Abdul, the executive behind InvenTel, the company known for ‘As Seen on TV’ infomercials, has surfaced as the unexpected potential buyer of Meati, a fungi-based alternative meat company. The acquisition is being pursued through an entity named Meati Holdings, with Ryan Bethencourt, CEO of Wild Earth and an early-stage alt-protein investor, providing support during the transition.
Courtesy: Little Island
In New Zealand, plant-based dairy and ice cream firm Little Island has entered liquidation after 15 years in operation.
Luxembourg-based Moulins de Kleinbettingen has installed its second production line for plant proteins with a total investment of nearly €20M in its plant-based business, doubling its initial capacity and making co-manufacturing deals more flexible.
In Sweden, Stockeld Dreamery and Jävligt Gott have openedLabbet, a food tech hub equipped with a kitchen, lab spaces and offices for small and growing businesses.
Courtesy: Jävligt Gott
Similarly, Malaysia’s Pure Mylk has opened The Mylky Way in Kuala Lumpur, which is Southeast Asia’s first end-to-end innovation hub for plant-based milk and beverages. It aims to support companies small and big with product formulation, testing, and scaleable production.
Research, policy and awards
A Canadian-American study shows that a low-fat vegan diet can reduce moderate to severe hot flashes by 92% after women hit menopause, while also losing 16 times more weight than the control group.
UK coalition Plant-Based Universities is convening over 200 students for a Plant-Based Universities Europe Camp in August.
Bruce Friedrich, founder and president of alternative protein think tank the Good Food Institute,has been appointed to the Board of Advisors of EAT, the global food systems transformation non-profit.
Strategic consultancy Mission Plant has compiled a list of job boards and resources for folks looking for positions in the alternative protein industry.
Courtesy: Institute for Organic Farming
Research by the Institute for Organic Farming (commissioned by the WWF) has revealed that a vegan diet is the cheapest expensive for a family of four in Austria, saving €225 per month compared to an omnivore diet.
Finally, Hélène Briand, co-founder of French precision fermentation startup Verley (formerly Bon Vivant), won the Female Founder Challenge at Vivatech in Paris.
Israeli 3D-printed meat maker Redefine Meat has introduced a new product line with dramatic reductions in saturated fat and methylcellulose use.
To capture Europeans’ interest in the category, Redefine Meat has unveiled a new class of plant-based meat products centred on enhanced nutrition and flavour.
Among the first of its next-generation products are a reformulated burger and beef mince, which feature improvements in saturated fat content, protein levels, and taste and texture.
The move aims to address evolving consumer preferences in terms of nutrition and sensory appeal, and dissatisfaction with the current crop of meat analogues, which have suffered from poor sales as ultra-processing concerns come to the fore.
“With our next-generation products, we’re now able to offer the premium-quality taste our customers enjoy, while delivering the nutritional values sought after by health-conscious audiences,” said Eshchar Ben-Shitrit, co-founder and CEO of Redefine Meat.
New products outperform previous iterations on taste and nutrition
One of the best-known plant-based companies, Redefine Meat markets its 3D-printed products as New Meat, with a diverse range of beef, pork and lamb alternatives in formats like pulled, mince, sausages, burgers, and whole cuts. Endorsed by Michelin-starred chefs like Marco Pierre White, they can be found at over 4,000 foodservice locations in 10 countries, plus retailers in several European markets.
The new burger and mince products build on this existing portfolio, and now fulfil the nutritional requirements for a Nutri-Score rating of A, the highest possible score. They join its beef flank, pulled pork and pulled beef SKUs in meeting that standard.
Courtesy: Redefine Meat
Redefine Meat achieved this through an 80-90% decrease in saturated fats compared to the previous iteration of the 3D-printed burger and beef mince, an increase in protein per 100g (from 11g to 14-16g), and a reduction in methylcellulose content to less than 2%.
Additionally, the company says it has unlocked a “new quality benchmark” for taste and texture with an even meatier profile, a conclusion derived from collaboration and sensory tasting with meat experts, chefs, and consumers.
Redefine Meat’s products undergo a patented additive manufacturing process – more commonly known as 3D printing – which helps it better replicate the taste of meat and texture of animal muscle fibres. The process disintegrates textured vegetable protein into fibres and blends them with a dough made from soy or pea protein isolates.
Plus, it uses AI and machine learning to optimise its products, allowing it to prototype, test and commercialise new products significantly faster than existing production processes, the company explained.
Redefine Meat hopes to allay taste and UPF doubts
“Our unique taste-first approach is at the heart of all product development, understanding that taste continues to be the biggest barrier to repeat buying for many flexitarians and meat lovers,” said Ben-Shitrit.
“While many other plant-based products continue to fall short in this area, our next-generation products build upon our premium-quality legacy to deliver an even meatier taste approved by our chef partners and rigorous consumer testing.”
Courtesy: GFI Europe
Indeed, polling shows that while some consumers in Germany and the UK are reducing their meat intake due to shifting taste preferences, animal proteins are still much higher on the flavour scale. Hitting the right tasting notes is critical: a survey of 7,800 Europeans last year revealed that taste is the most important factor when it comes to their daily food choices, cited by 87% of respondents.
The new products are being rolled out at retailers in the Netherlands, Germany and France, continuing Redefine Meat’s efforts to expand across Europe. For Veganuary this year, it signed deals with more than 30 companies in the UK, where its foodservice sales nearly doubled in 2024.
While plant-based meat enjoyed an increase in sales in Germany and France last year, the same couldn’t be said of the UK and Netherlands, where consumers have flocked to whole-food proteins and are choosing mince and strips over burgers, respectively.
Retail sales of plant-based food in the UK in 2024 | Courtesy: GFI Europe
Many consumers perceive plant-based meat as overly processed and as a result, unhealthy, though experts have warned that the level of processing doesn’t define how nutritious a product is, and studies have shown that these products match animal-derived meat on protein, while providing far more fibre and less saturated fat.
Touching upon this discourse, Ben-Shitrit said: “While misinformation around ultra-processed foods (UPFs) continues to spread, it’s important to understand the difference between good and bad UPFs. It’s clear that crisps or chocolate bars are not the same as our products, which deliver high levels of protein, vitamins and fibre, without cholesterol.”
He added: “We recognise that nutrition is playing an increasingly important role in consumer buying habits. With our next-generation products, we’re now able to offer the premium-quality taste our customers enjoy, while delivering the nutritional values sought after by health-conscious audiences.”
Owen Ensor, co-founder and CEO of British cultivated pet food startup Meatly, on why political bans shouldn’t deter investors from the alternative protein ecosystem.
There is a dark cloud of local bans in the US and labelling disputes alongside this exciting industry progress. However, we need to have a perspective on these and look at what is actually going on.
In the last few years, many governments have funded, approved, or supported cultivated meat. By contrast, cell-cultivated meat has been banned in a handful of right-wing US states. The balance of debate is clear – there is great technical progress, and almost all governments are backing this innovative product.
So we need to ask ourselves: why are we giving these bans so much attention?
Even the meat industry is against the bans
Courtesy: Meatly
This negative coverage is driven largely by right-leaning political factions, attempting to cast this innovative food technology as the latest battleground in the ever-escalating culture wars. Alarmist language, such as accusations of “global elite authoritarianism“, has been deployed to fuel opposition, particularly in ultra-conservative strongholds.
To date, six US states have banned cultivated meat. At the same time, bans in other regions have been attempted, including Romania, where the bill is stuck in the legislature and is unlikely to proceed, and Italy, where a proposed ban contravenes EU law.
To my knowledge, cultivated meat is the first food ever to be banned before even being on sale, and for political reasons. These bans are purely to appeal to a hard right-wing electorate in certain states. The US meat lobby doesn’t even want cultivated meat banned.
The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association recently stated: “Telling Americans what they can and cannot buy at the grocery store does not align with NCBA’s policy book or our conservative values… and setting a precedent that the federal government can remove a product from the shelves completely is not wise for the cattle industry, when we have no idea who might be sitting in the White House or in Congress 10 years from now.”
The global excitement for cultivated meat
Courtesy: Meatly
Looking beyond these bans, we get a clearer, more genuine understanding of the development and excitement of this industry.
Globally, there is a growing consensus in some of the world’s largest economies that cultivated meat and other cell-cultivated food solutions hold the keys to bolstering food security and creating a food system which supports sustainable farming.
Several markets across the globe – including the US, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Austria, and Singapore – have already granted regulatory clearance for cultivated meat for either human or pet consumption. A Trump appointee has also signed off on the most recent US approvals.
These nations and regions, spanning diverse political landscapes and geographical locations, have undertaken rigorous safety assessments and concluded that cultivated meat is a viable and safe food source. This crucial step of regulatory approval signals a fundamental acceptance of the technology and paves the way for its integration into a sustainable food system.
But that’s not all. The financial backing for cultivated meat research and development paints an even broader picture of commitment to this new food industry. A remarkable 22 countries, encompassing virtually every major global economy, have actively funded cultivated meat initiatives.
This extensive list includes nations such as Canada, China, Norway, Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Israel, France, Germany, Poland, Spain, India, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Brazil, in addition to those with regulatory approvals.
It’s clear that while a handful of regions grapple with politically motivated bans, the overwhelming global direction of travel points firmly towards acceptance and support.
A trillion-dollar opportunity
Courtesy: Jack Lawson/Meatly
Such widespread investment and attention underscore a deep-seated understanding of the potential benefits that cultivated meat offers across a spectrum of critical areas, beyond just tackling the substantial emissions behind industrial animal agriculture.
The biggest benefit is an economic one. The global meat market is worth $1.55T, and global demand for meat continues to grow. Countries that can get ahead on cultivated meat and other cellular agriculture technologies are looking at a major economic win, creating local industries that can feed people sustainably while creating jobs and generating revenue.
Cultivated meat will also boost food security, not threaten it. This innovation can help produce sustainable meat in high volumes, while farmers can focus on high-quality, high-value regeneratively farmed meat. These proteins can also shorten supply chains and make nations less dependent on imported meat. This will have knock-on benefits for human health, where a reliance on industrial agriculture will limit the use of antibiotics and the risk of spread of zoonotic diseases such as avian flu.
That’s why, when a handful of conservative US states push back with politically motivated bans, it feels increasingly out of sync with this broader global momentum and more like an attempt to stifle innovation and limit consumer choice. The sole outcome of this is that the future of food is passed from the US to Europe and Asia.
It’s clear that by focusing on these bans, we obscure the significant progress being made globally, the substantial investments being channelled into the sector, and the growing recognition of its crucial role in building a more sustainable and secure food future.
What this means for the industry
Graphic by Green Queen
For cultivated meat companies, the advice is simple: stay focused.
The world is vast, and almost all regions actively support and encourage the development and commercialisation of cultivated meat. Direct your attention, resources, and efforts towards these receptive markets. Engage with governments and regulatory bodies that understand the value proposition and are committed to fostering innovation. The long-term trajectory is undeniably positive, and short-term political noise should not derail strategic goals.
For investors, the message is equally resolute: recognise the global landscape.
The commitment to cultivated meat is not confined to a few progressive enclaves; it has widespread support, embraced by major economies and forward-thinking governments worldwide. We’ve had VCs say they will not invest because of the ‘geopolitical debate’. It’s really staggering to hear a global VC fund is making investment decisions based on what a provincial hard-right legislator is doing.
Let’s be very clear: you can build an exceptionally profitable, high-return business outside of Alabama… in fact, you can build an exceptional business outside of the US.
The potential for significant returns and the opportunity to contribute to a more sustainable future remains, with the global support for cultivated meat providing a robust foundation for long-term growth and success. Now is actually the ideal time to be investing, given the suppressed valuations that the current debate has created.
The direction of travel is clear. Governments around the world realise the environmental, health, economic, security, and ethical potential of cultivated meat, as well as the value in allowing consumers and the free market to decide which safe products should be sold. It’s time we started having this define the political conversation around cultivated meat.
Impossible Foods CEO Peter McGuinness has suggested that the plant-based giant could enter the blended meat space to entice more flexitarians.
In 2024, nearly every American household that bought a vegan burger also purchased conventional meat, highlighting how exclusively plant-based eating is still niche.
Meat alternative makers’ target consumer is neither vegan nor omnivore – instead, it’s somewhere in between. “Approximately over a hundred million US people fit the broad term of flexitarians. They are cross-eating,” suggests one industry leader.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Impossible Foods CEO Peter McGuinness made the case for why flexitarians are the brand’s biggest growth opportunity. “Capturing a sizable portion of flexitarians could quadruple Impossible Foods’ revenue in a short period,” he claimed.
It’s a loosely defined term, as McGuinness himself admitted: some lean vegetarian and occasionally eat meat, others consume 50/50 plant-based and conventional meat.
“That’s a huge market,” he said, nodding to the rise of blended meat. “To get this category going, I may do a hybrid burger that’s 50% beef.”
Is it a concrete plan, or just a thought for the future? For one of the industry’s most well-known companies to suddenly embrace the very thing it exists to displace will certainly raise some eyebrows. There is logic behind the idea, though, especially if done right.
Why plant-based meat is giving way to blended proteins
Courtesy: GFI
As the name suggests, blended meat (some prefer the term ‘balanced protein’) involves combining animal-derived meat with plant-based ingredients, whether those are vegetables or vegan proteins.
The idea isn’t new, but has taken off over the last couple of years as consumers cool on 100% plant-based meats that cost more than animal meat and don’t always meet their taste expectations. Last year, for example, retail sales of meat alternatives fell by 7% in the US, continuing a downward spiral that began in 2021.
Americans have gripes about the flavour, price and nutrition of plant-based meat. These products are still 82% more expensive than conventional meat. Further, concerns about health are fuelled by the ultra-processed food backlash and, as many have pointed out, successful misinformation campaigns from the meat industry.
Impossible Foods itself has hit back at misinformation with an online health hub and a renewed marketing strategy that targets meat-eaters, though these efforts haven’t had the intended effect. “Our spend wasn’t efficient because we tried to move immovables,” McGuinness told the Wall Street Journal. “We’ll do another campaign – but be much more targeted to where flexitarians live and shop.”
Courtesy: Impossible Foods
So: blended meat. Everyone from Nestlé and Purdue Farms to Aldi and Disneyland has entered this space. The idea is to displace some, not all, of the meat with plant-based ingredients in a manner that enhances taste while offering better health outcomes (think more fibre and less saturated fat). And while not advertised, it has a big impact on the planet too.
It’s what makes plant-based meat so important. Using animals as an intermediary to eat plants is an inefficient use of our resources and livestock agriculture is highly problematic from a climate point of view. Research shows that even replacing half of your meat consumption can reduce agriculture and land use emissions by 31% and water use by 12%, while doubling climate benefits.
Still, Impossible Foods’s approach has already attracted critiques. “Flexitarians don’t need their plant-based meals to mimic meat. On the days they opt for a meatless meal, they’re not necessarily craving imitation. They’re seeking something veggie-forward, clean, and nutrient-dense – real food that satisfies on its own terms,” argued Kerry Song in a social media post. Song is the CEO of Abbot’s, a veggie burgers and vegan chicken CPG company, which has a popular mince made from pea protein and porcini mushrooms.
“Impossible built a brand on saving the planet… and now they’re casually talking about blending real beef into their products to chase profits? That’s not disruption, that’s deception,” said Jason Rosenbaum, the co-CEO of whole food veggie burger brand Actual Veggies, which last year launched a product containing dairy cheese.
Impossible Foods must do blended meat right
Courtesy: Nectar
Here’s what may be driving Impossible Foods’s interest in blended meat: flexitarians dig it. Sensory testing shows that these consumers find blends more appealing than plant-based alternatives. In some cases, they even outperform 100% meat products: alternative protein sensory research non-profit Nectar found that four blended meat products either match or surpass conventional meat on taste.
Notably, separate research from Nectar shows that while most plant-based meat brands fall short, Impossible Foods is among the outliers. Six of its products won a Tasty Award (four more than anybody else), signifying that more than half of omnivores say they taste the same or better than animal protein.
McGuinness, however, says his company’s beef is still not superior to the conventional version, suggesting it would take “two to three” more iterations before it gets there. He reiterated his belief that there are “too many companies” in the meat alternative space, and revealed that profitability is likely years away (while touching upon the idea of an IPO).
Courtesy: Impossible Foods/Green Queen
If Impossible Foods does begin offering blended meat, it has to do it right. If the company adds meat and sells blended products under its own portfolio, it could mar the positioning it has carefully crafted over the past decade.
One possible way forward? Act as a supplier for existing meat producers, the way companies like Quorn have done. Substituting a percentage of beef with Impossible Foods’ plant-based version will bring wins for the climate and the bottom line of all parties involved. Australia’s Fable Food has done so with great success. Its blend-ready shiitake mushroom products led to a 50% revenue growth in 2024, with even better results forecast this year.
The reality is, despite the hullabaloo, plant-based meats aren’t going anywhere. Concurrently, meat sales have never been higher in the US, and blended meat continues to grow as a category for flexitarians. By lending its plant protein to meat makers, Impossible Foods – already the second-largest plant-based meat company in the US, behind Morningstar Farms – could get a larger slice of the pie.
While some Americans still have complaints about the taste and texture of blended meat, that outlines both the challenge and opportunity for leading brands. Can Impossible Foods get it right?
In our interview series, we quiz future food investors about the solutions that excite them the most, their favourite climate-forward restaurant, and what they look for in successful founders.
Silla Scheepens is a General Partner at Future Food Fund.
What future food technologies most excite you?
Generally speaking, we’re excited by agrifood tech innovations that help keep our food system within planetary boundaries.
From AI-driven seed-breeding, biological crop inputs and protection to yield forecasting, low-emission food or preventing food waste – if it helps us grow more with less, whilst reducing waste and regenerating ecosystems, we’re paying attention.
What are three future food verticals you are actively looking at for 2025?
Allow me to squeeze in four:
Seed breeding and climate-resilient crops: AI-powered seed-breeding platforms that deliver climate-resilient crops with higher yields and lower input dependency.
Biological inputs and crop protection: Nature-based solutions that reduce reliance on chemical fertilisers and pesticides, improving soil health and biodiversity.
Circular food systems: Tackling food waste, packaging and nutrient leakage by valorising what’s already in the system. It’s about doing more with less.
On-field intelligence and impact monitoring (MRV): Tools that help farmers make better decisions and validate environmental outcomes, from satellite-based yield forecasting to AI-driven irrigation or carbon tracking.
Each of these verticals contributes directly to restoring balance within planetary boundaries such as climate, water use, biodiversity, and biogeochemical flows.
What do you consider the food tech sector’s greatest achievement in the past five years?
The biggest shift is that the food system is now understood as central to the climate and biodiversity challenge. That systems view is starting to shape real innovation, in science, policy and finance. The momentum is here, even if it comes with headwinds and tailwinds: sometimes faster, sometimes slower, depending on regulation, consumer appetite or macro trends.
But overall, the awareness is growing. Now it’s time to match that with serious investment. Public funding for the food transition needs to be on par with what we’ve seen in the energy transition.
If you could wave a magic wand, how would you fix plant-based meat?
We’d stop treating it as B2B tech and start treating it as what it is: food. It deserves its own category: driven by taste, nutrition (think protein, fibre, gut health) and relevance.
At the same time, we need to level the playing field. Current meat products don’t account for the environmental damage they cause. With impact-based accounting and fair taxation, the good stuff becomes the obvious and better choice.
What’s the top trait you look for in a founder?
Clarity. In vision, in communication and in decision-making. Agrifood tech founders deal with long cycles and very complex systems. The ones who can tell a clear story, stay focused and act with conviction tend to have a better chance of succeeding.
The One That Got Away: What is the deal you wish you had gotten into, but didn’t?
Soil Capital. They were ahead of the curve in linking regenerative agriculture to measurable climate outcomes – not via offsetting, but through insetting within food value chains. Their farmer-first, outcome-based model reflects exactly where we see the future of agrifood going.
At the time, we were still exploring the carbon space in agriculture. Looking back, they were already building what the market now demands.
What do you consider your most successful future food investment so far?
Ask us again in 7 years!
That said, we’re optimistic about several themes – from biologicals to food waste valorisation and MRV-based models. These aren’t point solutions; they target the root causes of environmental pressure in the food system and provide for a sustainable business case.
What has been your most disappointing investment so far?
We’re not disappointed in startups – the challenges are real and pivots are part of the process. But some verticals (for example, hardware and heavy indoor farming) haven’t lived up to the early hype. It’s a reminder of the fact that a novelty doesn’t equal scale.
What do people misunderstand/get wrong most about VC?
That it’s fast and we only get to pick the winners. In impact VC, especially in agrifood tech, it’s long-term work. You’re in it to help founders build through complexity and uncertainty. It’s strategy, not speed, and the biggest returns are usually in system change.
What is the most ‘future food’ thing you have eaten this month?
There’s a sample box on its way to us with cocoa-free, fermentation-based chocolate. No tropical land use, no deforestation. A future-proof indulgence we’re really looking forward to.
Where is your favourite climate-forward restaurant/dish/place to eat anywhere in the world?
Big fan of food, especially when an ordinary legume or vegetable gets turned into something spectacular. There’s something special about places that use whole, seasonal produce with care and creativity. That’s where sustainability meets joy.
What’s your ‘why’? What motivates you to do what you do?
I always joke that I’m a climate activist disguised as an impact investor, just without the tattoos. Whether it’s restoring biodiversity or greening a city street, I’m driven by solutions that bring us back within planetary boundaries. Sometimes that’s big and systemic, sometimes small and local. But if it moves us in the right direction, I’m in.
Retail sales of plant-based food in Europe grew by 2% in 2024, thanks in large part to inexpensive private-label offerings from supermarkets.
Over the last year, a wave of retailers in Europe has pledged to increase the share of plant proteins sold in their stores. To do so, some have fine-tuned their lineups to meet consumer preferences, some have put meat alternatives in the meat section, and some have slashed prices to make them cheaper than animal proteins.
The impact has been tangible. The double-digit growth in low-cost vegan food from supermarkets’ private labels has spurred the category’s rise in several key European markets, Circana data released by the Good Food Institute (GFI) Europe shows.
Value sales of six categories reached €4.7B in the region’s six largest markets in 2024, up slightly by 1.7% from 2023. Meanwhile, volumes rose by 4.5% and units by 4.3% year-on-year.
Own-label products drove volume growth in Germany, Italy, France and Spain between 2022 and 2024. That said, people in the UK still exhibited an affinity for branded products, and their counterparts in the Netherlands embraced meat alternatives that could be added to existing recipes, despite a drop in volumes.
“It’s great to see that Europe’s plant-based retail market remains resilient, with increasing sales volumes across four major countries last year. These foods are becoming ever more mainstream as retailers invest in more affordable products,” said Helen Breewood, senior market and consumer insights manager at GFI Europe. “However, the ongoing success of more expensive products in some categories shows that price is not the only factor.”
Here’s a country-by-country breakdown of plant-based sales in European retail.
Germany benefits from price parity
Courtesy: GFI Europe
In Europe’s largest market, value sales of plant-based food grew by 1.5% in 2024, reaching €1.68B. This levelling off reflects falling prices, given that sales volume was up by 7% during the same period. Germany also had the highest per capita spend (€19.92) in 2024.
The country saw sales rise across meat analogues (4%), plant-based milk (3.5%), and non-dairy cream (3.5%), though seafood (-24%) and cheese (-16%) suffered from major declines.
The overall performance was a result of the lower prices of plant-based alternatives, with many dairy-free milks now on par with cow’s milk, and vegan cream 5% cheaper than the conventional version.
This itself is driven by private-label offerings: Lidl spearheaded the shift by achieving price parity for its Vemondo line. While sales of branded products fell by 0.4% in 2024, private-label offerings witnessed a 5.5% hike.
Further, 37% of German households bought plant-based milk at least once last year, and 32% purchased a meat alternative, in line with the previous two years.
UK embraces tofu over veggie burgers
Courtesy: GFI Europe
Despite a 4% drop in sales and a 3% dip in volumes, the UK held its position as the second-largest plant-based market in Europe with a value of €1.07B.
Even though they’re more expensive, branded products were more resilient than private-label options: sales of the former declined by 3%, compared to a 12% decline for the latter. Several innovative companies bucked the trend with significant growth. This suggests that Brits value taste and quality more than price (which is still critical), and may point to the need for better own-label vegan products.
The sales value of meat alternatives fell hard (-10%), with household penetration dropping by four percentage points (reaching 31.5%). Still, their volumes were five times higher than that of veggie burgers, showing the “continued importance to consumers of alternatives that look, taste and cook like meat”, GFI Europe said.
Separately, the volume of tofu sold was 10% higher in January 2025 than 12 months prior, possibly due to its affordability and tempeh and seitan also enjoyed an 85% hike (albeit from a tiny base). In the ensuing months, products like Oh So Wholesome’s Veg’chop and This’s Super Superfood have rolled out in a bid to rival both meat analogues and tofu.
“The relative performance of these foods in percentage terms may be a response to widespread media concern over ultra-processed foods in the UK, although the absolute increase in uptake of tofu, tempeh and seitan was far smaller than the corresponding drop in plant-based meat sales,” the report noted.
Italy goes big on vegan cheese
Courtesy: GFI Europe
In the home of mozzarella and parmesan, sales of plant-based cheese doubled between 2022 and 2024, thanks to a rise in branded products.
It wasn’t just cheese that witnessed growth. Three other categories performed better in 2024 than the year before: meat analogues (a 15% growth), milk (3%), and yoghurt (2%). The overall market was valued at €639M, with only plant-based cream suffering a drop in sales.
That being said, vegan cheese was an outlier, as high inflation in Italy’s food sector led to a strong growth of affordable private-label plant-based products, whose sales were up by 16% last year. In comparison, sales of branded offerings grew more modestly, at 3.5%.
France happy to spend on better-tasting brands
Courtesy: GFI Europe
The country that lost its attempt to restrict the use of terms like ‘veggie burger’ saw growth in all five plant-based categories analysed by GFI Europe, led by cheese (19%) and chilled meat (15.5%). The overall market recorded €537M in sales, a 9% increase from 2023.
Private-label products dominated the growth with an 11% hike in sales value, compared to an 8% rise for branded offerings. Supermarket ranges were particularly important for plant-based milk, the largest segment in the country.
Own-label brands were particularly important in the plant-based milk and drinks category, overtaking the sales of branded options and undercutting their price by 30% on average.
At the same time, the relatively expensive branded products gained market share in the vegan meat and yoghurt segments, and made up the majority of sales for plant-based cheese. This suggests that consumers are strongly driven by the taste and quality of animal-free products, not just their cost.
Spain increased adoption of plant-based milk
Courtesy: GFI Europe
Plant-based meat was the only category that underperformed in Spain last year, where overall sales of vegan food grew by 6.5% to reach €491M. Still, meat analogues only fell by 1.5%. On the other hand, plant-based yoghurt enjoyed a 21% increase in value sales, cheese grew by 8%, and milk by 5%.
Plant-based milk, in particular, has made major strides, making up nearly 10% of all milk sold in Spain in 2024. Household penetration climbed from 42% to 46% between 2022 and 2024. The success is down to the cost reductions achieved by milk alternatives, thanks in large part to cheaper private-label options.
When looking at sales value alone, the gulf between the sales growth in own-label (5%) and branded products (8%) isn’t that high, but volume sales show a different picture. In terms of weight, plant-based items sold 3% more in Spanish supermarkets last year and private-label products shot up by 13%.
Netherlands chooses pieces over whole cuts
Courtesy: GFI Europe
The Netherlands was the only other market apart from the UK that suffered a decline in overall sales of plant-based food in 2024, which plunged by 6% to reach €288M.
This was punctuated by a decline in value sales across all categories analysed, with meat analogues hit hardest (-7%), followed by cheese (6%) and milk (5.5%). Still, the Dutch spent more per person (€15.78) than all countries bar Germany.
According to GFI Europe, the 6% fall in volume sales of plant-based milk stemmed from significantly lower sales of chilled options – sales of ambient versions were stable. This is due to a rise in prices of chilled milk alternatives, against a levelling off of shelf-stable product prices.
Centre-of-plate meat alternatives like burgers and fillets suffered from a decline, but products more likely to be used as part of home-cooked recipes (like mince or strips) remained relatively resilient.
“There is a huge potential market for sustainable and healthy plant-based foods, and companies have a real opportunity to reach more people by developing tastier, nutritious and affordable products that can fit into their lifestyles,” said Breewood.
