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Category: Alt Protein

  • When It Comes to Meat Alternatives, These Are the Proteins Consumers Like Best

    plant based meat consumer acceptance
    5 Mins Read

    A new study analysed several plant-based, algae-derived and cultivated protein sources for meat alternatives to find consumers’ favourite ingredients.

    Are you more into pea protein burgers or rice protein nuggets? Or perhaps you’re more likely to bite into a cultivated sausage?

    As food tech opens up possibilities to make meat alternatives with a wide range of ingredients, it can be hard to get the product mix right. What tastes good, and is it healthy and climate-friendly to boot?

    It’s a question that formed the basis of a new survey by ETH Zürich, the public university in the Swiss capital, which asked nearly 2,000 participants from four European countries about their preferred alternative protein sources.

    “Certain protein sources for use in meat alternatives have greater potential in terms of consumer acceptance than others,” the researchers wrote in the Appetite journal.

    “The findings indicate that familiarity and regional culinary traditions influence consumer preferences and should therefore be considered when developing meat alternatives to make them more attractive to consumers,” they added.

    Potatoes emerge as the tastiest source of meat alternatives

    best plant based meat
    Courtesy: Appetite

    Of the countries surveyed in the research, people in Serbia said they eat meat analogues most frequently, with nearly two in five consuming them at least once a week. This is followed by Italy (37%), Germany (24%), and Finland (21%).

    Except for Germany, where consumers eat traditional plant proteins just as frequently, participants in each of the other nations are more drawn to meat alternatives than tofu, falafels, and the like.

    When asked about the preferred protein sources for the best-tasting meat-free products, it was a two-horse race between eggs (most popular in Serbia and Finland) and potato protein (Italy and Germany)

    Rice and pea protein also received high scores in the poll, but the researchers found country-specific differences. For example, almonds were rated highly in Germany and Serbia, lentils in Italy, and oats in Finland. The study ascribed this to “local culinary traditions and exposure, which have been demonstrated to play a crucial role in food acceptance and preferences”.

    Cultivated beef was particularly well-rated by Germans, whose taste expectations for this protein were much higher than most other sources.

    On the flip side, insect protein from crickets received the lowest rating on the taste scale, followed by algae protein. Soy, one of the most common plant protein sources, received a low score in Germany, sunflower seeds in Finland, and rapeseed protein in Italy and Serbia.

    “The fact that these ingredients are widely produced across Europe, and thus well-known to most consumers, suggests that familiarity and exposure do not always lead to high acceptance rates,” the researchers noted.

    They added that the unfavourable attitude towards soy, meanwhile, could be due to factors like negative taste perceptions, associations with GMOs, and limited familiarity.

    Consumers are unconvinced by the health and sustainability of cultivated meat

    best vegan meat alternatives
    Courtesy: Appetite

    The findings around the perceived health and environmental impact of different protein sources were “less clear-cut”, though the scores were generally higher than those for taste.

    Some of the proteins with the highest taste expectations—such as potatoes, peas, lentils, and oats—were also those considered to be the healthiest and most eco-friendly. The study highlighted the uncertainty surrounding the sustainability of cultivated beef, which was among the lowest-rated protein sources on this scale.

    “Participants in Germany and Finland were more critical of the environmental friendliness of protein sources than participants in Italy and Serbia,” the study stated.

    The one area where eggs didn’t do as well as the rest was health. Potatoes stood out as the healthiest meat alternative source for respondents, with peas following closely behind.

    Most consumers highlighted rice protein among the healthiest sources, though Germans ranked it on the lower end. Instead, these consumers viewed almonds, oats, lentils and faba beans as healthier. Further highlighting the country-wide differences, oats scored high in Finland and Serbia too, while Italians viewed almonds and lentils more favourably.

    Rice and soy are viewed as the least healthy plant-based protein sources in Finland, and the same goes for soy in Germany. Across Europe, the ingredient most consistently perceived as less healthy is cultivated beef, highlighting the work this industry needs to do in communicating the benefits of these products.

    “Since cultured meat aims to mimic the sensory properties of meat, this similarity could be perceived as a positive attribute,” the researchers wrote. “However, the acceptance of cultured meat varies across cultures and, in certain countries, the perceived unnaturalness and disgust evoked by cultured meat represent significant barriers.”

    lab grown meat consumer acceptance
    Courtesy: Appetite

    Food tech neophobia affects tofu more than vegan meat

    ETH Zürich’s research further revealed that young Europeans were more likely to consume both traditional plant proteins and modern meat alternatives. In Finland and Serbia, men tend to eat these products more than women (there was no significant difference in Germany or Italy).

    The study also looked at the effect of food tech neophobia, finding that people with low levels of neophobia were more likely to consume tofu, tempeh, and other traditional sources in all countries except Serbia.

    In contrast, food neophobia did not significantly affect the consumption of meat alternatives in Finland, Italy, and Serbia, though it was a significant predictor for the consumption of both traditional and modern plant proteins in Germany.

    This conflicts with previous research showing that neophobia is a barrier to meat analogues with the study’s authors suggesting its greater effect on tofu and falafels could be due to the prevalence of these foods in non-European cuisines. “In contrast, plant-based mince, burgers, and chunks are designed to mimic familiar meat products, thereby potentially reducing the impact of food neophobia.”

    Regardless, the protein source “exerts a significant influence” on consumer acceptance of meat alternatives and must be considered in new product development, the researchers argued.

    “Strategic selection and labelling of already accepted protein sources by product developers and marketers has the potential to enhance the appeal of meat alternatives and facilitate their wider acceptance,” they noted.

    “To achieve broader acceptance, the taste and texture of plant-based meat alternatives must be improved and aligned with consumer preferences.”

    The post When It Comes to Meat Alternatives, These Are the Proteins Consumers Like Best appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Miyoko Schinner Wants You to Get Back in the Kitchen

    miyoko schinner
    8 Mins Read

    Plant-based dairy pioneer Miyoko Schinner takes us behind the scenes of her new cookbook, The Vegan Creamery, which embraces fermentation to take at-home vegan cheese to the next level.

    A decade after her seminal plant-based dairy cookbook, The Homemade Vegan Pantry, Miyoko Schinner is taking things up a notch.

    In September, Ten Speed Press released her seventh recipe book, The Vegan Creamery, which the author has described as “a whole new approach to making everything from milk to cheese to ice cream using all kinds of ingredients”.

    “There are some techniques in there that are unique, haven’t been seen before, and I am not applying for patents,” Schinner had told Green Queen earlier this year, outlining her hope that this would be “the book that launches 10,000 vegan cheese companies”.

    Since her last cookbook in 2021 (dedicated to making plant-based meat at home), the vegan pioneer has had a major career transformation. In 2022, she left the non-dairy company she founded, Miyoko’s Creamery, following legal disputes over trade secrets and IP.

    Schinner has been focusing on Rancho Compasión, the animal sanctuary she opened a decade ago, which educates about 50 kids each week about humanity and the food system. In addition, she has embraced her role as a teacher, hosting cooking classes at culinary schools and online, as well as leading a course on food systems transformation at UC Berkeley.

    Now, the chef and entrepreneur is looking to educate home cooks further with the next generation of homemade plant-based dairy products, with a big focus on fermentation. Some of the recipes include watermelon seed mozzarella, a mung bean halloumi, additive-free butter, vegan ghee, and barista-style milks.

    In a wide-ranging interview with Green Queen, Schinner describes the different ingredients and techniques that power The Vegan Creamery, why it’s the most in-depth cookbook ever written on the subject, her favourite plant-based dairy brands, and whether she misses running Miyoko’s Creamery.

    This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

    Green Queen: Why did you decide to write a cookbook, and why now? Do you feel people still cook as much as they used to?

    the vegan creamery
    Courtesy: Ten Speed Press

    Miyoko Schinner: People certainly don’t cook as much as they used to, but they should. We’ve traded food autonomy for convenience and efficiency, and have ceded control over our diets to corporations.

    So it’s time for people to reclaim their kitchens and understand not only how food comes together, but [also] be the catalysts for creating community and nurturing others through the act of breaking bread together.

    If we are truly interested in creating an equitable, just, and sustainable food system for all, we need to think deeply about how best to go about that.

    Is that through carefully protecting potentially groundbreaking IP for ourselves in order to make money off of it and further consolidating power in our food system in the hands of a few players? Or would it be to try to democratise food and hope that more people can help push the needle along by all participating in it, creating more opportunities for more entrepreneurs, small producers, artisans, and just ordinary people?

    GQ: What can people expect from this book that’s different from your previous works, especially The Homemade Vegan Pantry?

    MS: The Homemade Vegan Pantry was my first effort to take the mystery out of products and foods you’d normally buy in a package, and show people how easily most of them were made at home, more economically, healthfully, and sustainably.

    The Vegan Creamery takes this to new heights in a realm of products that almost never come out of a home, but always in a package – milk, cheese, butter, ice cream and more. It is a deep dive into the science and art of plant milks and their potential, providing a diving board for others to join and jump in and further discoveries in the evolution of plant dairy.

    miyoko's cheese
    Courtesy: Eva Kolenko

    GQ: Can you tell us more about the new ingredients and techniques you’ve discovered for making vegan cheese? How did you come across them?

    MS: I really wanted to understand the behaviour of different plant milks and their potential to behave like animal dairy – not exactly in terms of flavour, but in creating their own category of flavours and textures while being recognisable as ‘cheese’, ‘butter’, etc., and serve a purpose in cuisines across the world where such ingredients were called for.

    For this book, I spent a lot of time on the bench exploring different nuts, seeds, legumes, making milks, seeing how they behaved in various applications, whether or not they would form curds for cheese, whether their fats and proteins would break down during fermentation (lipolysis, proteolysis), etc.

    I believe this may be the most in-depth cookbook written to date on this subject, with not only recipes, but light science around why certain things work or not (if there is another book, I apologise – I am not aware of it).

    I have developed techniques for foods I have not seen before, such as making butter without an emulsifier out of simply three ingredients, or making cheese by actually making curds and whey and pressing and ageing the curds.

    I tried to minimise oils and adjunct ingredients, trying to capitalise on the main ingredients themselves to create the flavours and textures I wanted. For example, while almond milk won’t thicken alone as yoghurt without adjuncts such as starch or gels (found in most commercial yoghurts), I was able to combine it with chickpeas and utilise their natural thickening abilities to create a thick, rich yoghurt, delivering the best of both worlds.

    I also learned that a little coconut oil is essential for the development of blue cheese flavour from Penicillin roqueforti due to its lauric acid component that breaks down in a specific way (the addition of other oils to the base ingredients did not work). I also found ice cream bases that would result in a rich and creamy ice cream without the use of any added oils.

    Interestingly, studying traditional cheesemaking led the way for many of the recipes, including the feta cheese, which is made exactly like dairy feta (without added starches or gels like agar) to yield a firm and crumbly texture.

    miyoko's butter
    Courtesy: Eva Kolenko

    GQ: What makes the best dairy-free ice cream base? What challenges do these ingredients have to solve when replacing specific dairy ingredients?

    MS: Most commercial vegan ice creams rely on coconut milk or oil to render a rich and creamy mouthfeel. I was interested in achieving this without either – I’ve heard many people complain about how coconutty vegan ice creams are, or how high they are in added oils.

    In the book, I provide three simple ice cream bases without added oils that you can use to create your own flavours, although I include many specific recipes as well.

    Watermelon seed milk is a rich, creamy, and neutral base that also delivers protein to your ice cream. The other two bases include a cashew milk with either cooked rice or oats, with the cooked grains helping create that creamy mouthfeel that would otherwise come from the oil.

    GQ: What makes watermelon seeds particularly suitable for alt-dairy?

    MS: While it isn’t suitable for everything, watermelon seed kernels make incredibly milky milk with a mouthfeel akin to full-fat cow’s milk (if made in the right ratios of seeds to water). Due to their high albumin content, they also coagulate upon heating, which means you can make curds from them.

    They are great fun to work with, and have become a base for many of the recipes in the book, from yoghurt to cheese to ice cream.

    GQ: Barista milks are the holy grail of homemade plant-based dairy – how did you go about developing this? What bases work best, and how do you account for acidity and curdling?

    MS: I found that sunflower seed milk foams beautifully. With every milk, I tried heating, foaming, freezing, etc. to see how they performed. Sunflower seed milk was the only one that foamed. On the other hand, hazelnut milk is delicious as a creamer, and I did include a creamer recipe that minimises curdling.

    miyoko
    Courtesy: Eva Kolenko

    GQ: Can you give us some insight into your recipe development process?

    MS: A lot of time “on the bench” (in my kitchen)! I am always watching to see how ingredients behave, and sometimes I get ideas when I’m on a run or in the middle of the night. I get an inspiration, then test, observe, and test again. Sometimes it works on the first go, and sometimes it’s multiple iterations later.

    GQ: Do you miss running Miyoko’s Creamery?

    MS: I don’t. My thinking about food systems has evolved much in the years since, and in many ways, I am grateful for this. We have a big problem to tackle for the animals, humanity, and the planet, and I feel better situated now to do so than if I were running a company.

    GQ: What are your current favourite non-dairy brands/products?

    MS: Truth be told, at this point, I buy almost no products. I make all of my own milks and butters.

    I am fond of many vegan cheeses, however, made by small, artisanal producers the world over. In Italy last year, I discovered a mozzarella by a small company called Dreamfarm that was voluptuous, silky, and delicious. I believe Les Nouveaux Affineurs [in France] was acquired, but their bloomy rinds were excellent as well.

    Generally speaking, the products I’ve found in Italy and France have been of higher quality than the ones coming out of the US.

    vegan cookbook
    Courtesy: Megan Thompson

    GQ: Given everything that’s happened in the last five years in the industry – lack of sales, social media misinformation, political climate denial – what do you think people who want to enact food system change should be doing?

    MS: They should get back into their kitchens and reclaim it. 70% of what we eat comes out of a package, and likely from one of 10 multinational corporations.

    If we want to ensure a healthy, democratic food system going forward, then each of us has to reclaim our kitchens and understand how to make food to feed ourselves and our communities.

    I’m writing a book now on this very subject, on how to take control of your own food system and combat the oligarchy that controls it.

    The post Miyoko Schinner Wants You to Get Back in the Kitchen appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Instagram Hype Leads Subway to Launch Planted Chicken Sandwich in Switzerland

    subway vegan sandwich
    3 Mins Read

    Fast-food giant Subway has collaborated with Swiss plant-based meat leader Planted to develop a new teriyaki sandwich in all its stores nationwide.

    Subway lovers in Switzerland will now be able to get their hands on vegan chicken in their sandwich orders, thanks to the chain’s partnership with Planted.

    The two companies have teamed up to create a plant-based teriyaki chicken sandwich, which is now available at all 52 Subway locations across the country. It will also be featured as the Sub of the Day every Saturday, priced at 6.90 francs ($8.70).

    “This collaboration marks an exciting milestone in making delicious, sustainable proteins even more accessible to everyone, everywhere. Together with Subway Switzerland, we’re proving that plant-based eating can be tasty, satisfying, and better for the planet,” Planted said in an Instagram post.

    A social media comment turned into reality

    It all began with an Instagram comment.

    In May, Switzerland’s highest court ruled that terms like ‘beef’ and ‘chicken’ can no longer be used on plant-based meat product labels in the country.

    The Federal Supreme Court overturned a 2022 decision by the Zurich Administrative Court, which had rejected a cantonal laboratory’s ruling that prevented Planted, the country’s leading meat-free manufacturer, from using terms like ‘Planted chicken’, ‘like chicken’, and ‘like pork’ on its packaging.

    Planted was in the headlines following the decision, and made an Instagram post referencing its displeasure. In the comments section, the Subway Switzerland account made a tongue-in-cheek promise.

    “If we get 10 likes on this comment, we will support @eatplanted by ordering your planted-not-calling-it-chicken-anymore products at Subway,” the fast-food chain wrote.

    The comment ended up garnering nearly 190 likes. And so the collaboration began. The Planted chicken is made from pea protein, pea fibres, rapeseed oil and salt, and it’s fortified with vitamin B12. It contains 24g of protein and over 4g of fibre per 100g, with only 0.6g of saturated fat.

    Subway builds on its plant-based meat legacy

    subway schweiz planted
    Courtesy: Planted

    This is far from Subway’s first foray into meat analogues. It has previously partnered with Beyond Meat in the US and Canada on a plant-based meatball trial, and with The Vegetarian Butcher (now owned by JBS) on a vegan teriyaki steak sub in the UK and Ireland.

    In Asia-Pacific, it rolled out a vegan chicken schnitzel option with Nestlé-owned Harvest Gourmet in Singapore, and a garlic and herb patty with CP Foods’s Meat-Zero in Thailand.

    Its deal with Planted is part of its Swissness strategy to collaborate with local producers, and the plant-based teriyaki chicken sub is the first of a series of upcoming product launches with the brand.

    “The demand for plant-based sandwich fillings is growing,” said Hamza Ayub, CMO of Convenience House, Subway’s franchise manager in Switzerland.

    “We want to meet this need with tasty, varied choices and partner with Swiss companies known for quality, sustainability, and innovation,” he added. “Planted is the perfect partner for this.”

    Planted co-founder Pascal Bieri added: “This partnership is very special to us. A true shift towards a better protein future is only possible if our healthy, sustainable, plant-based proteins are offered side by side with animal meat – and are made accessible to all.

    “Gastronomy partners like Subway play a crucial role here, and we’re excited to show millions of guests together that plant-based is not only better for health, the environment, and animal welfare but also tastes amazing.”

    The post Instagram Hype Leads Subway to Launch Planted Chicken Sandwich in Switzerland appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Less Than 4% of US Media Climate Coverage Mentions Meat & Dairy’s Emissions Toll: New Analysis

    meat climate change
    5 Mins Read

    An analysis of hundreds of online articles from US media shows that less than 4% mention and contextualise the role of meat in climate change. Here’s why.

    Globally, producing meat, dairy and other animal-based foods generates up to a fifth of all greenhouse gas emissions, and takes up 80% of Earth’s agricultural land.

    In fact, according to one study, livestock farming is the leading cause of climate change. The growing appetite for animal proteins is only going to worsen things – according to the UN FAO, per capita demand for these foods is set to grow by 6% over the next decade.

    It’s why over 200 of the world’s leading climate experts say livestock emissions must peak this year and be cut in half by 2030, identifying less meat and dairy consumption and fewer farmed animals as the most effective actions for emissions reduction. Plant-based alternatives, they suggest, should be considered the “best available foods” and prioritised in climate and agrifood policy.

    If you didn’t know any of this, you’re not to blame.

    New analysis by Sentient Media has revealed that only 11% of climate stories in 11 major US outlets mention animal agriculture as a cause of the climate crisis. And of the 940 articles, only 36 (or 3.8%) contextualised the link.

    “Emissions from food are still very underreported,” Jenny Splitter, Sentient Media’s editor-in-chief, tells Green Queen.

    New York Post leads the way, CNN and WSJ lag furthest behind

    climate reporting
    Courtesy: Sentient Media

    Sentient Media assessed stories from the Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, CNN, Guardian, Los Angeles Times, New York Post, New York Times, Reuters, Star Tribune, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post, screening them via detailed criteria.

    Some of the search parameters for stories included “meat”, “dairy”, “livestock”, “chicken farm”, “cattle shelter”, “seafood”, and “fisheries”. Opinion pieces, syndicated stories, and articles that only mentioned climate change in passing were excluded.

    Sentient Media used artificial intelligence to collate the data and then individually reviewed it for accuracy, and found that mining, manufacturing, and energy production (56%) were the most discussed topics in the reporting, followed by fossil fuels (50%) and transportation (34%).

    Livestock farming was the least mentioned subject, despite being responsible for nearly 60% of emissions from the food system, itself the second-largest source of greenhouse gas production (behind fossil fuels).

    The New York Post had the biggest share of stories contextualising the environmental impact of animal agriculture (14%), followed by the Star Tribune (11%).

    Meanwhile, meat and dairy farming was mentioned in 16% of the New York Times’s climate stories, 15% in the Los Angeles Times, and 13% in the Boston Globe – although articles contextualising the link were far fewer, at 6%, 2%, and 2%, respectively.

    On the other hand, only 4% of the Wall Street Journal’s climate articles mentioned animal agriculture, and none of them contextualised its impact. No CNN article did so either.

    “Reporting on the climate impact of meat is tricky for a number of reasons – it’s personal and political, and there are fewer researchers working on measuring climate emissions from food as compared to other sources of emissions,” explains Splitter.

    “But there is also an opportunity here. Eating less meat is one of the most effective forms of climate action, yet 74% of Americans think eating less meat would have little or no impact on climate change. Our job as journalists is to inform, and we’ve got an issue here that is ripe for more reporting.”

    meat emissions reporting
    Courtesy: Sentient Media

    Livestock lobby a key driver, but media must highlight ‘bigger picture’

    The attention on meat is solely lacking in the media at a time when consumption needs to fall faster than ever before. Many national dietary guidelines have been updated recently to put an emphasis on plant-based eating, and the US is mulling similar changes in its forthcoming recommendations.

    Despite this, the US saw meat sales rise to all-time highs last year, as the protein craze took hold of the food system. Despite their environmental and health ills, raw milk and beef tallow are back in vogue, with more than a helping hand from health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. Plant-based meat products, derided for being ultra-processed, have witnessed consistent sales declines.

    One major driver behind the lack of reporting on meat’s climate impact is the highly successful livestock lobby. “We know, thanks to documents surfaced by University of Miami researcher Jennifer Jacquet, that the beef industry has been aware of its climate impact since at least 1989, yet worked to downplay that impact to the public,” says Splitter.

    “I see those efforts as helping to create an impression that beef’s climate impact is a matter of debate, when in fact it was a growing body of research showing that most food-related emissions are caused by livestock production.”

    beef checkoff program
    Courtesy: Cattlemen’s Beef Promotion and Research Board

    She doesn’t believe the underreporting on meat has to do with a lack of interest from readers. Rather, she adds, there’s a sense of burnout around topics as polarising as food and climate change.

    “It’s really important to not just fact-check and debunk misinformation but also report stories that engage reader curiosity, like what initiatives for dietary change actually work? What are the limitations? Asking more questions is a good path towards better stories,” she says.

    So how can the media dial up its coverage of livestock’s climate footprint? “One thing larger media outlets can do is to rely more on their beat reporters – in this case, the ones who have experience reporting on where food-related emissions come from,” suggests Splitter.

    “If you are publishing a story on how ‘meat is cool again’ or a similar trend story that is basically about vibes, include accurate information so that readers come away more informed.

    “Another pitfall to avoid is reporting on how a farmer will stay afloat amid rising temperatures without including the bigger picture of what drives food-related emissions and what it will take, according to the research, to mitigate those emissions, including what happens if we don’t do anything at all.

    “That isn’t to say you shouldn’t include farmers – of course you should – but that is one aspect of a more complicated, and more interesting, story.”

    The post Less Than 4% of US Media Climate Coverage Mentions Meat & Dairy’s Emissions Toll: New Analysis appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • No Confusion: Plant-Based Industry Urges EU to Reject ‘Veggie Burger’ Labelling Ban

    vegan labelling eu
    5 Mins Read

    Over 200 companies and organisations have kickstarted a campaign calling on MEPs to reject the proposed ban on the use of meat-like terms on vegan product labels.

    A week before MEPs gather for a plenary vote to ban the use of terms like ‘burger’ and ‘bacon’ on plant-based meat, more than 200 organisations are urging EU policymakers to throw out the proposal.

    Penning an open letter to the EU, the No Confusion campaign is led by animal rights charities, climate organisations, and leading food manufacturers, including Planted, La Vie, and The Vegetarian Butcher (owned by JBS, the world’s largest meat company).

    The petition, which has received nearly 6,000 signatures in less than 48 hours, is in response to two EU proposals that seek to overturn a 2020 vote by the European Parliament, which allowed vegan products to use meat-like denominations.

    The European Commission is looking to restrict the use of 29 terms, like ‘bacon’, ‘chicken’ and ‘beef’, and an amendment by the Parliament proposes extending the ban to words such as ‘burger’, ‘sausage’ and ‘steak’.

    Last month, the EU Parliament’s 49-member agriculture committee voted in favour of a ban, setting the stage for a plenary vote on October 7. If that goes through, it will make it to the trilogue negotiations between the EU Commission, Council and Parliament.

    Critics of the move argue that it puts the EU at odds with one of its fastest-growing industries – Europe is the largest market for plant-based meat globally.

    ‘The current legal framework already provides clarity and transparency for consumers, while additional restrictions would only risk hindering consumers’ trust and stifling food innovation,” said Siska Pottie, secretary-general of the European Alliance for Plant-Based Food, which represents companies like Nestlé, Beyond Meat, and Impossible Foods.

    “We urge policymakers to focus on enabling solutions that allow this sector to thrive, rather than introducing unnecessary barriers,” she added.

    Meat-like labels on plant-based food don’t confuse consumers

    plant based sales europe
    Courtesy: Anay Mridul/Green Queen

    The labelling of plant-based meat has been debated for nearly a decade in the EU, but there were signs that the discourse would come to an end last year, when the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that no member state can prohibit companies from using these terms on vegan product labels.

    That decision noted that such bans can be implemented only if a member state legally defines meat products and descriptive terms first (a lengthy and complex process), and even then, such a ban would only apply to products manufactured within that country. The only other option would be an EU-level ban, which is the goal of the new proposals.

    One of the main reasons cited by supporters of the ban is that labelling meat-free products the same way as meat would cause confusion for EU citizens. But a host of studies have debunked that idea.

    In a large survey by the European Consumer Organisation in 2020, 80% of people said plant-based meat should be allowed to use such terms. And in the 2023 Smart Protein survey, only 9% of citizens from nine member states said they didn’t recognise plant-based meat alternatives.

    In fact, in an opinion published last September, the ECJ’s advocate-general stated that the use of several different names resulting from such a ban could be more confusing for consumers.

    “So if this ban is not about protecting consumers – who is it protecting? Could it be protecting the interests of the meat lobby? It looks like politicians are trying to use EU law to make life harder for innovators and consumers who support change,” the fittingly named No Confusion campaign’s petition reads.

    Remember: the EU has repeatedly delayed green legislation and pandered to the livestock industry, which receives over 80% of the subsidies under the Common Agriculture Policy. In fact, research shows that animal agriculture gets four times as much public funding as the plant-based sector.

    The organisations also argue that a ban would add barriers that restrict competition and innovation instead of supporting growth, while taking away opportunities for farmers who produce raw materials. Plus, it would be a blow to the EU’s sustainability goals too.

    EU-wide ban would hurt consumer choice, economy, and sustainability plans

    plant based meat ban
    Courtesy: Alex Beuss/Adobe Stock

    The EU’s proposal doesn’t just threaten meat-free products. There are talks of potential constraints on fish alternatives and adding further restrictions to the plant-based dairy sector, which is already forbidden from using ‘milk’, ‘cheese’, ‘yoghurt’ and similar terms.

    Plant-Based Foods Europe, a trade association representing companies like Alpro, Oatly and Valsoia, said the ban puts the vegan food industry at a “disproportionate and unjustified disadvantage” and takes away consumers’ freedom of choice.

    “Denomination restrictions will only hinder the EU’s ambitions for strategic resilience, innovation, and clash with the growing consumer demand for plant-based options,” it noted. “Rejecting this amendment will safeguard consumer freedom of choice, strengthen farmers’ livelihoods, and protect European innovation.”

    The proposals came amid increasing pressure from a dozen member states to prevent such designations on plant-based meat products. Experts fear that with a conservative parliament, there’s a significant chance the EU votes in favour of the ban.

    In its open letter, the No Confusion campaign is calling on the EU Commission, Parliament and Council (whose Danish presidency is calling for an EU-wide action plan for plant-based foods) to immediately vote against the proposal on October 7, while immediately and permanently withdrawing the Commission’s version too.

    It’s asking policymakers to uphold the legal precedents set by the Parliament and the ECJ that safeguard transparent labelling, and support innovation, sustainability and healthier diets by promoting a level-playing field.

    “Courts and parliaments have rejected this nonsense before, because it serves no one. Not consumers, not farmers, not innovators, not the planet,” said Planted co-founder Pascal Bieri. “This is not about protecting anyone from ‘confusion’, nor is this about misleading consumers with […] a celery-schnitzel. It’s about protecting an outdated system from progress. And we cannot let that happen quietly.”

    The post No Confusion: Plant-Based Industry Urges EU to Reject ‘Veggie Burger’ Labelling Ban appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Future Food Quick Bites: Vegan ‘Proffee’, Bread Waste Pasta & Slutty Vegan

    vegan protein coffee
    5 Mins Read

    Our weekly column rounds up the latest sustainable food innovation news. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers Gregorys Coffee’s plant protein coffee, Wasted’s upcycled pasta, and a new plant-based meat brand in Thailand.

    New products and launches

    US specialty coffee company Gregorys Coffee is jumping on the ‘proffee’ trend with Protein Buzz, a plant-based protein coffee drink devised with Nuzest‘s pea protein powder. It’s available at all Gregorys stores nationwide.

    gregorys protein coffee
    Courtesy: Gregorys Coffee

    Plant-based milk brand Elmhurst 1925 has launched a three-pack of its Unsweetened Cashew Milk exclusively for Costco. It’s available at the hypermarket’s Los Angeles and Hawaii stores for $13.69.

    Meanwhile, Maïzly‘s original and chocolate corn milks have gained listings in 600 more retailers across the US, including ShopRite, Hannaford, Redner’s, Albertsons United Supermarkets, and Market Street.

    maizly corn milk
    Courtesy: Maïzly

    Nutrition company L-Nutra has rolled out the Prolon L plant protein bar to support muscle health and healthy ageing. Each bar contains 14g of protein from black beans, chickpeas and peas, and the product is initially available in a Chocolate Coated flavour.

    As Hain Celestial pulls Yves Veggie Cuisine products from the market by the end of the year, fellow Canadian brand Gusta is looking to fill the gap with similar offerings starting October, when it will launch vegan deli slices, burger patties, and hash browns.

    gusta plant based
    Courtesy: Gusta

    Speaking of Canada, fast-food chain A&W has introduced a housemade vegan burger to its 1,070 locations nationwide. It’s made from a base of pea protein, soy protein isolate, coconut oil and beet juice concentrate.

    Danish startup Wasted has launched an upcycled caserecce pasta made from bread waste. It is available on its website for 249 Danish kroner ($39) for six 400g packs, and can be shipped across the EU.

    bread waste pasta
    Courtesy: Wasted

    Swiss meat alternative leader Planted has introduced a Crispy range of mycoprotein products in Germany and Austria. The chicken schnitzel, burger and nuggets are available at Rewe, Edeka, Interspar, Eurospar and MPreis, with a wider European rollout in the works.

    Dutch B2B company Schouten Europe has launched a new vegan tuna described as “a significant step forward in both texture and taste”.

    bosh ready meals
    Courtesy: Bosh

    UK plant-based duo Bosh has launched eight vegan ready meals in Tesco stores, spanning pizzas and pasta to curries and noodles.

    And in Thailand, Swees Plant Based Foods has expanded from vegan cheese with the rollout of a new brand of meat alternatives called CleanBean, starting with Beev Steaklets and Chick*n Bites (offering 20-22g of protein and 7-8g of fibre per 100g).

    Company and finance updates

    British oat milk brand Oato has been selected for the 2025 Accelerator Programme by Tesco, the country’s largest supermarket group.

    oato oat milk
    Courtesy: Oato

    Queensland University of Technology‘s Pioneer BioPilot, a pilot-scale fermentation facility in Mackay, has been upgraded with an A$18M ($11.8M) investment from federal and state governments, including Australia’s Food and Beverage Accelerator (FaBA).

    Aussie plant protein startup Harvest B, which is targeting blended meat applications, has raised A$3.5M ($2.3M) in pre-Series A funding, with the state government’s Breakthrough Victoria fund participating in the round.

    harvest b complementary proteins
    Courtesy: Harvest B

    In the Netherlands, the Klerken family, owner of Scelta Mushrooms, has acquired Ecovative Spawn & Substrate from its Dutch subsidiary of US mycelium startup Ecovative. The business is now called OurCelia.

    In the US, Louisville Vegan Jerky Company – maker of the top-selling jerky in Whole Foods – has been taken over by CPG holding company Louisville Brands.

    louisville vegan jerky
    Courtesy: Louiseville Vegan Jerky Company

    Cult-favourite fast-food chain Slutty Vegan has introduced a financing model after months of turbulence, which involved insolvency, an ownership change, and the return of founder and Pinky Cole.

    Research, policy and awards

    Portland, Oregon has been named the best US city for vegans and vegetarians in an analysis by WalletHub, covering 17 metrics. It’s followed by Los Angeles and Austin.

    Vegan Vibrationz, a business owned by twin brothers, has become the first vendor serving exclusively plant-based food in the State Fair of Texas’s 139-year history.

    Speaking of events, Hungary will host its first plant-based conference on November 22. Called the Vegan Summit Budapest, it will feature over 600 participants.

    In New Zealand, the Vegan Society of Aotearoa will host the country’s first-ever Vegan Pastry Awards, with bakeries from across the nation competing for the Supreme Winner title at Auckland’s Crave Café on October 13.

    spins gen z
    Courtesy: Spins

    A report by market research firm Spins has revealed that 29% of millennials and 36% of Gen Zers in the US eat plant-based, much lower than the 53% and 59% focusing on a high-protein diet, respectively.

    When it comes to dog food, plant-based diets have the lowest environmental impact, a new University of Nottingham study has shown.

    pet food climate change
    Courtesy: Pixelshot

    Finally, plant-based protein is a $1.43B market, but its share of the protein powder industry has shrunk by 3.7% since 2022. Pea protein, in particular, is the largest vegan source, according to a new nutrition and weight management report by Informa Markets‘s Nutrition Business Journal.

    Check out last week’s Future Food Quick Bites.

    The post Future Food Quick Bites: Vegan ‘Proffee’, Bread Waste Pasta & Slutty Vegan appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Rising Meat Prices Make Plant-Based Alternatives Cheaper in the UK

    lidl vegan
    4 Mins Read

    The continued price hikes for meat in the UK have created a retail environment where vegan alternatives are at parity or cheaper, according to a new report.

    Amid the investment and sales boom for plant-based meat at the turn of the decade, some industry experts had predicted that these products would begin reaching price parity with conventional meat by 2025.

    They weren’t wrong. New analysis by think tank Green Alliance shows that several vegan alternatives are now priced the same as meat, and some are even cheaper, at the UK’s largest supermarket.

    It comes amid a major hike in meat prices this year. Compared to 2020, the retail cost of beef is 52% higher in 2025. Farmgate prices, meanwhile, have reached record levels, and research shows that meat is one of the primary drivers of food inflation in the UK.

    According to Green Alliance, a kg of meat at Tesco’s online store is £1.18 more expensive than last year, but the average price of plant-based alternatives fell by 14p. And the trend is set to continue.

    “The price of meat in the UK is largely driven by global commodity markets,” it said. “Factors increasing meat prices are unlikely to relent.”

    Why is meat so expensive? And how does it help plant-based products?

    plant based meat price parity
    Courtesy: Green Alliance

    Green Alliance’s report suggested that meat products were cheaper per gram than plant-based versions in every category in 2024, but “this has now changed significantly due to rising meat prices”.

    In fact, bacon is the only product where plant-based prices have increased faster than the animal-derived version. Conventional beef has witnessed the biggest hikes, with the cost up by 33% this year.

    This is why plant-based mince and meatballs are now cheaper per gram than their animal-based counterparts – in fact, it takes £2.15 less to make a family-sized lasagna with vegan mince now.

    Plant-based burgers and chicken nuggets are at price parity. And while vegan pork and chicken products (apart from nuggets) are still more expensive, their animal equivalents are experiencing higher rates of inflation (except bacon), so price parity is closer than it was a year ago.

    plant based meat price
    Courtesy: Green Alliance

    There are a host of factors driving up meat prices, including climate-change-induced droughts in North America, reduced stock intensity and outputs, and sustained consumer demand amid outbreaks of avian flu and African swine fever.

    Green Alliance’s findings showcase the potential of plant-based proteins at a time when one in two Brits is worried about being able to afford food in the next 12 months.

    Separate research shows that a third of UK consumers want to cut back on meat and dairy, primarily due to their high prices (cited by 25% of respondents). Meanwhile, 38% want to increase their plant-based consumption.

    Retailers have found success with affordable ranges of plant-based products. Lidl has seen sales of private-label vegan food shoot up by nearly 700%, exceeding its own expectations. Many products in the Vemondo range are at parity or cheaper than meat and dairy.

    UK government urged to create £30M plant-based innovation fund

    Green Alliance is urging the UK government to reignite the growth of the plant-based meat sector (whose sales dipped by 10% last year) through targeted funding, supply chain development, retail accountability measures and regulatory flexibility.

    “Continued investment is crucial to developing new, tasty, and healthy products that can better compete with meat. Integrating novel components made with precision fermentation and cell cultivation, such as those used for the Impossible Burger, could be critical for the industry.

    The benefits go beyond food security – the greater adoption of plant-based meat products presents advantages to public health, economic development, and the farming sector too.

    meat prices uk
    Courtesy: Green Alliance

    For example, replacing just 20% of weekly meat consumption with vegan alternatives would boost fibre intake by 4% and decrease saturated fat by 2%, without an increase in sugar or salt. And if all oat milk sold in the UK was made with British oats (as is now the case with Alpro), it could increase demand by 7% for oat farmers.

    Green Alliance also found that every £1 invested by the government in plant-based products had stimulated £1.92 of private funding, a greater rate of return than the artificial intelligence sector.

    The UK’s Climate Change Committee has recommended reducing meat intake by 20% by 2035, suggesting that the majority of this (80%) should be replaced by alternative proteins. If that happens, retail sales of plant-based meat would grow sevenfold to reach £2.7B that year.

    Green Alliance is now calling on the UK government to establish a £30M plant-based innovation fund, in partnership with Defra and UK Research & Innovation, to boost the domestic supply chains and enhance the taste, affordability, and nutrition of meat alternatives.

    Additionally, the government should also mandate supermarkets to publicly report on the percentage of plant-based and animal proteins sold, and secure a novel foods exception in the new Sanitary and Phytosanitary deal with the EU to retain the ability to approve precision-fermented and cultivated meat ingredients.

    The post Rising Meat Prices Make Plant-Based Alternatives Cheaper in the UK appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • As Prices Hit Record-Highs, 60% of Americans Are Buying Less Beef

    beef prices
    4 Mins Read

    A majority of Americans are buying less beef or giving it up altogether in response to record-breaking prices, a trend set to continue as costs continue to rise.

    In August, average ground beef prices reached $6.32 per lb in US cities, up by 14% from last 12 months ago. In contrast, the rate of overall inflation was 3%.

    Beef has never been more expensive in the US, breaking the all-time record every month since March. It’s a combination of cattle herd inventories falling to their lowest in 70 years, climate-change-induced droughts destroying grazing pastures, and the soaring demand for animal protein.

    And consumers are feeling the effects. In the last six months, 72% of Americans have noticed that beef has become costlier, according to a 2,200-person survey by Morning Consult and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM).

    The price hikes have led nearly half of the respondents (48%) to reduce the amount of beef they buy, with another 12% giving it up altogether.

    If beef continues to become more expensive, as has been predicted, 72% of Americans would consider buying less of it, and 48% would remove it from their grocery lists.

    Gen Z most likely to keep buying beef – but also plant-based meat

    beef prices survey
    Courtesy: PCRM/Morning Consult

    The poll, conducted in early September, revealed that with the knowledge of rising beef prices, 69% of Americans would consider buying less of it next time they go to the supermarket. That intention rises with age, from 65% of Gen Zers and millennials to 67% of Gen Xers and 75% of baby boomers.

    Interestingly, 43% of Americans would think about skipping beef altogether in their next visit to the store, though the trends are reversed here, with Gen Z consumers most likely to say this (46%) and boomers the least (40%).

    In the long term, 68% of Gen Zers and millennials would buy less beef if prices continue to rise, which is echoed by around three-quarters of Gen Xers and boomers. And seven in 10 Americans would rather purchase another type of meat if beef keeps getting more expensive – men (72%) are more likely to say this than women (68%).

    When it comes to plant-based proteins, only 7% of Americans have resorted to buying these products in response to high beef prices, but 35% will consider doing so on their next trip to the grocery store. If the cost of beef continues to climb, this would rise to 37% in the long run.

    While Gen Z Americans may be less willing to reduce beef consumption than other demographics, they’re also the most open to plant proteins – over half of them (52%) would think about buying vegan products if beef prices keep rising, versus just 19% of boomers.

    “We believe this signals the future of food production, with more healthful plant proteins replacing the inefficient and environmentally costly production of meat,” Anna Herby, a nutrition education specialist at PCRM, tells Green Queen.

    An opportunity for plant-based proteins

    plant based meat price
    Courtesy: PCRM/Morning Consult

    PCRM asked the survey participants about the most convincing factors to switch to plant-based proteins, and high beef prices were by far the top reason, cited by 58%.

    Meat shortages, either as a result of screwworm outbreaks in cattle in Mexico or shrinking cattle herds, were chosen by 47% of Americans as reasons to shift to plant proteins instead.

    Meanwhile, 46% of Americans are concerned about the health implications of eating beef – the high saturated fat and cholesterol content, combined with the lack of fibre, has linked red meat to conditions like heart disease, cancer, and type 2 diabetes.

    For 44% of consumers, turning to plant proteins is appealing due to meat shortages caused by the deportation of slaughterhouse workers.

    “In Nebraska, a slaughterhouse recently experienced an immigration raid, and given that there are other incidents, the current administration’s immigration policies could lead to a shortage of slaughterhouse workers,” says Herby.

    “Producing plant protein requires fewer workers. Overall, it’s much more efficient to raise food for people to eat directly rather than hire workers to raise crops to feed to cattle and then employ another set of (mostly immigrant workers) to slaughter the cattle,” she adds.

    Finally, in a finding that will pique the interest of plant-based meat producers, 44% of Americans would buy these proteins instead of beef if they’re cheaper (as of 2024, the average price gap stood at 14%), and 41% would do so if they tasted better – some already do.

    The post As Prices Hit Record-Highs, 60% of Americans Are Buying Less Beef appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Alpro Bets on Young Europeans Amid ‘Excellent’ Growth in Plant-Based Milk & Yoghurt Sales

    alpro
    8 Mins Read

    Plant-based dairy leader Alpro has witnessed sales of both its milk and yoghurt alternatives grow this year, as it focuses on young consumers and new sensory experiences.

    It’s been eight years since Danone acquired Alpro in a $12.5B takeover of organic food producer WhiteWave. In the years since, Alpro has become the leading brand for both Danone and the plant-based dairy market in Europe.

    Guillaume Millet, the European VP of plant-based food for Danone, calls it a “massive asset” for the French giant to have its arms in both the legacy and plant-based dairy sectors, noting that both are equally strategically important.

    Danone, he tells Green Queen, has offered “a lot of support”, starting from R&D: “I have all the top scientists from Danone working on the plant-based category when it comes to fermentation, for example. We are accelerating in plant-based yoghurts, which is very much a core area of expertise for Danone.”

    He adds: “In terms of money, funds, advertising and so on, we are equally – if not more – helped than other categories. So I think that it’s a major priority for Danone.”

    How Alpro’s plant-based milk and yoghurts are driving growth

    alpro sales
    Courtesy: Alpro

    Financially, this year has been “excellent” for Alpro. “In Europe, we’re growing [by] high single digits, and we are gaining market share under two categories,” says Millet.

    “For plant-based beverages, we are leaders, and gaining market share significantly, both in retail and away-from-home coffee shops,” he adds. “The major acceleration this year is especially coming from plant-based yoghurts, where we grew by double digits.”

    Alpro holds 54% of the share in Europe’s vegan yoghurt market now, a three-point increase from last year, and these products make up 40% of its retail value.

    Millet says one of its best-performing markets is Spain, which he claims has one of the highest per-capita consumption rates for milk alternatives globally. “We have just, again, become market leaders in [non-dairy milk] beverages. And in plant-based yoghurts, we’re accelerating like never before, growing at 30% and already the market leader [with a 65% share],” he highlights.

    It’s why Spain is the brand’s fastest-growing market, although the UK remains its biggest. Where can it do better? “There are plenty of opportunities in France,” he says. “That’s probably the market where we still have the biggest potential. With the size of Danone in France, we are still under-indexing. It’s not that it’s not performing, but it’s the biggest opportunity.”

    He continues: “So now we are accelerating a lot, but still, the potential is big. We can probably triple or quadruple the size that we have.”

    Come for the health benefits, stay for the taste

    plant based milk sales
    Courtesy: Alpro

    In 2023, Alpro unveiled a packaging refresh that put the ingredients, taste descriptors, and health claims front and centre.

    “It worked very well,” says Millet, noting that it helped reconnect the brand with younger consumers. “We saw an acceleration of our market share and penetration among Gen Z and Gen Alpha. It’s really linked to this new appeal.”

    It especially worked on its yoghurts, where the taste barrier is a bit higher. Non-vegans who felt the products weren’t for them began embracing them and finding them tasty. “We have one of the highest repeat rates in the [overall] yoghurt category,” says Millet.

    It does seem that Alpro’s marketing hinges on health as a gateway for consumers and taste to keep them coming back. “We’ve started to add nutrients to make sure that there is no excuse, and taste reformulation is ongoing, so that they are always the best in the market,” says Millet. “If you crack taste and health, you’re a rockstar.”

    Indeed, a major barrier to entry to the plant-based category is the perception that consuming these products would mean missing out on certain key nutrients. This is what led to Alpro’s new 5 Essential Nutrients range, for which it partnered with Swedish popstar Zara Larsson.

    “It’s one of the reasons we reviewed what we provide with our products, to see what we need to dial up, in communication and product, to make sure that consumers don’t miss any [nutrients] or misunderstand what we deliver,” says Millet.

    Europeans face a greater risk of developing an iodine deficiency (especially if they’re fully vegan), prompting calls from the WHO to fortify plant-based milks with the mineral. Alpro’s own research shows that around a third of consumers are concerned about a lack of iodine and vitamin D intake in their diet.

    Depending on the formulation, products in the 5 Essential Nutrients range contain a blend of plant protein, calcium, iodine, and vitamins B2, B6, B12, D2, and E.

    Why Alpro launched a kid-centric range

    alpro kids milk
    Courtesy: Alpro

    In July, Alpro forayed further into child nutrition with a kid-centric range of low-sugar milk and yoghurt alternatives in the UK, responding to research that showed ‘less sugar’ and ‘no added sugars’ are important nutritional benefits in products for 71% of parents.

    According to Millet, parents who had kids with intolerances and allergies, or just wanted more options, felt there was a gap in the non-dairy market for children. Alpro ended up receiving scores of requests from customers to design kid-specific products.

    “The new generation, they want to have options, and we want to make sure that those consumers are used to the taste of plant-based and can really switch between plant-based and dairy proteins,” he says.

    “Kids had no option so far – either dairy or nothing,” he adds, although several ‘Growing Up’ milk alternatives are available in the UK, including Alpro’s own. The kids’ range, however, is “healthier than most of the ones on the market”, according to him, and will be expanded to other European markets eventually.

    How’s it performing so far? “We just launched two or three months ago, so [right] now, we are above our expectations. So starting very well, super happy,” says Millet.

    “The name of the game is the repeat [purchases], and just making sure that the first trial stays and becomes a habit. And for that, we need just a little bit more time to make sure we are having success.”

    New categories in the works, though not cheese or hybrids

    alpro oat milk
    Courtesy: Alpro

    So what does the future look like for Alpro? Could we see the brand expand into new categories?

    “The priority is still to grow where we are: win on beverages, win on yoghurts first,” outlines Millet. “And then yes, we are looking at other segments that are close by.”

    He suggests that Alpro has a “very strong pipeline of innovation” and is working on other categories and launches on a regular basis. However, he rules out a move into vegan cheese.

    “We don’t want to go to something that is too far away. We’re just trying to see how we can expand progressively. But we don’t want to go to segments that we don’t really master at all,” he explains.

    Another category Alpro will stay away from is blended proteins, with brands now combining dairy with plant-based ingredients in milk, cheese, and butter products.

    “All the serious dairy producers are looking at that. From the dairy angle, I think it makes a lot of sense to start blending with a more sustainable protein base. And now consumer acceptance is starting to rise,” says Millet.

    However, he adds, there’s no proven success of these products, despite many attempts. Labelling is a challenge too – consumers may not be drawn to the term ‘hybrid’. For Danone, blended dairy isn’t a priority right now.

    Young consumers ‘speak plant-based faster than their mother tongue’

    alpro yogurt
    Courtesy: Alpro

    Looking at the larger picture, Millet believes the vegan dairy industry has a bright future in store, thanks to younger generations who are “plant-based-native” from the get-go.

    “They speak plant-based faster than they speak their mother tongue,” says Millet. But though he remains “fully confident” about the category’s success, he outlines that these consumers also want more out of these products.

    “They want to have clean labels. They really want to understand the benefits. They want to make sure that the products are full of nutrients. And, probably the main point, that they bring a new, different sensory experience,” he says.

    Plant-based alternatives began by trying to imitate the sensory attributes of animal proteins. But the industry needs to go beyond that and offer healthy products with additional sensory benefits. This is why Alpro is focusing on its core ingredients like oats and almonds, which aren’t meant to mimic dairy milk, and why it pulled the This Is Not Milk product from the UK this year, Millet confirms.

    The EU could vote to ban the use of meat-like terms on vegan alternatives this year, replicating its existing legislation for non-dairy products. Millet calls it a “sad battle” between the plant-based and animal protein worlds.

    “This really is totally useless,” he says, suggesting that it isn’t the way to safeguard either of the categories. “It’s defocusing [them] from what they need to try to achieve: delivering better products that bring value.”

    Millet reveals that while the non-dairy labelling ban has had no impact on Alpro’s sales, it has created a lot of complexity and triggered costs for the plant-based sector. “It really is not good for the industry, not good for consumers, not good for anyone,” he says.

    “It could be really great if we spark this discussion and stop [the ban] to make sure that consumers are not being fooled.”

    The post Alpro Bets on Young Europeans Amid ‘Excellent’ Growth in Plant-Based Milk & Yoghurt Sales appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Beyond Meat Stock Sinks to All-Time After Proposal Wipe Off $800M of Debt

    beyond meat debt
    3 Mins Read

    US plant-based giant has proposed an exchange offer for convertible bonds to eliminate over $800M of debt, sending its stock to a record low.

    Beyond Meat’s shares plunged to $1.23, a 36% drop, on Monday, the lowest in its six-year history as a public company.

    The vegan meat giant’s stock was down by nearly 82% from 12 months ago, following the announcement of an exchange offer that would wipe out more than $800M of the company’s debt.

    It comes after a turbulent couple of years for the Californian firm, which saw revenues drop by 15% in the first half of the year, and was forced to deny a wave of bankruptcy rumours last month.

    Nearly half of Beyond Meat’s creditors agree to debt restructuring

    beyond meat stock
    Courtesy: Nasdaq

    Beyond Meat is currently $1.15B in debt, thanks to 0% convertible notes that will mature in 2027. But under the new exchange offer, this would be swapped for higher-interest 7% notes that are due in 2030, plus stock shares.

    The new debt arrangement will only take effect if 85% of the company’s holders agree to swap. So far, 47% have done so, amounting to $203M of new bonds and 325 million shares of Beyond Meat stock. Other creditors have until October 28 to accept the proposal (those who do before October 10 will receive a premium).

    The deal, called payment in kind, will allow Beyond Meat to pay interest with additional debt (at a rate of 9.5% per year) instead of in cash.

    “As we continue our business transformation, we have simultaneously worked to strengthen our balance sheet and are today pleased to announce that we are launching an exchange offer for our existing convertible notes,” said Beyond Meat founder and CEO Ethan Brown.

    “The exchange offer is intended to significantly reduce leverage and extend maturity, two outcomes that meaningfully support our long-term vision of being the global plant protein company,” he added.

    Layoffs, low sales and brand identity plague Beyond Meat

    beyond meat rebrand
    Courtesy: Beyond Meat/Green Queen

    The move is Beyond Meat’s latest attempt to turn its fortunes around. The company recorded its lowest quarterly revenue in Q1 2025, reaching $69M. It also secured $100M in debt financing from Unprocessed Foods, a subsidiary of Ahimsa Foundation, a non-profit advancing plant-based diets.

    The firm has blamed its poor sales performance on softening demand and reduced distribution in US retail, and low sales of its burger products to restaurants internationally. Overall sales of plant-based meat plunged by 7% in the US last year, as concerns around pricing and ultra-processing have driven consumers away.

    In February, Beyond Meat announced that it would lay off 9% of its global workforce, or 64 employees, which included all its staff in China, where it has suspended operations. And last month, it said it would let go of 44 employees in North America, though it isn’t clear if this is part of the same job cuts as above, or an additional round of layoffs.

    It has also hired John Boken, managing director of corporate restructuring consultancy AlixPartners, as its interim chief transformation officer. The aim is to drive its operational footprint into the current revenue environment and improve margin to become EBITDA-positive within the second half of 2026.

    Moreover, the company is dropping the word ‘Meat’ from its name to focus on traditional plant proteins. Its next product, Beyond Ground, features just four ingredients – fava bean protein, potato protein, water and psyllium husk – and isn’t intended to mimic meat.

    It remains to be seen whether Beyond Meat can convince 85% of its holders to take up the debt resructuring offer. Regardless, the move has raised some alarm bells and sent its stock crashing down. Can it dig itself out of the hole?

    The post Beyond Meat Stock Sinks to All-Time After Proposal Wipe Off $800M of Debt appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Turkey’s Itz Nutz Raises $535,000 to Expand Cashew-Based Dairy Alternatives

    turkey vegan
    4 Mins Read

    Turkish food tech startup Itz Nutz, known for its cashew yoghurts and cheeses, has bagged $535,000 in investment to develop new products and expand distribution.

    Looking to take its line of plant-based dairy alternatives global, Turkey’s Itz Nutz has secured $530,000 in a new funding round.

    The capital infusion was led by ŞirketOrtağım and seasoned entrepreneur Mehmet Betil, who is a member of the angel investor network. It will help the Istanbul-based startup expand its product range and distribution.

    “This investment will not only expand our production capacity, but also accelerate our efforts to develop new products, expand internationally, and popularise plant-based nutrition through B2B partnerships,” said co-founder Ayşenur Yıldırım.

    “The global food industry is rapidly transforming. Brands focused on health, sustainability, and ethical values will shape the future. Itz Nutz is one of the strongest representatives of this transformation emerging from Turkey,” noted Betil.

    Itz Nutz looks to spread its non-dairy footprint

    itz nutz yoğurt
    Courtesy: Itz Nutz

    Yıldırım, a paediatrician and nutritionist, founded Itz Nutz with her husband Aytaç in 2018, beginning with a line of additive-free cashew yoghurts.

    Today, it offers a range of cashew-based dairy alternatives, including cream cheeses, fermented hard cheeses, and butter. Itz Nutz’s lineup further includes several flavours of cashew butter.

    The company combines traditional fermentation with modern food tech, and has found listings in retailers like Migros, Eataly, Macrocenter, and Boldy. It also produces white-label dairy alternatives for Metro, and as part of its B2B operations, supplies wholesale products to airline caterer Do&Co (part-owned by Turkish Airlines).

    Armed with the fresh capital, Its Nutz will now look to accelerate its R&D efforts and develop new cashew-based dairy alternatives, as well as expand the Itz Nutz Kidz line for babies and young children (this currently comprises two cream cheeses and a cashew butter).

    The funding will additionally help the startup expand its presence via B2B partnerships with hotels and restaurants, as well as increased listings with retailers. Plus, Itz Nutz is looking to go international by exploring export channels for its yoghurts and cheeses.

    “When we founded Itz Nutz, our goal was to make healthy and environmentally friendly nutrition accessible to everyone. Seeing that we are now in the kitchens of thousands of consumers is empowering,” Yıldırım said.

    “We believe Itz Nutz will become a strong brand both in Türkiye and globally in the coming period,” said Betil. “Our investment decision was driven by the brand’s innovative capabilities, agility, and the visionary leadership of its founders.”

    Turkey’s divisive labelling laws for plant-based dairy

    itz nutz
    Courtesy: Itz Nutz

    Anecdotal and statistical evidence suggests that plant-based food consumption is Turkey, with health and product safety being the top drivers. When it comes to product labels, low-fat, animal welfare, and functional ingredients are key for vegan cheese.

    The issue for brands like Itz Nutz is that they’re not allowed to use dairy-related terms on vegan alternatives, as outlined by the Turkish Food Codex Labeling and Consumer Information Guide, which was updated last year.

    Dairy is deep-rooted in the country’s culture – yoghurt, for example, originated in Anatolia, the peninsula comprising most of Turkey’s area. Experts say the industry carries strong lobbying influence, arguing that these terms “could mislead consumers into expecting nutritional equivalence” from non-dairy products.

    The restrictions on what can be written on packaging are among the strictest in the world – the new Food Codex states that plant-based milk can’t even use the phrase “does not contain milk”.

    “The dairy sector represents a substantial share of the agricultural economy, and this cultural and economic weight has translated into strong protections for terms like ‘milk,’ ‘cheese,’ and ‘yoghurt’,” Elif Güngör Reis, a food tech expert and IP board member at the Istanbul Arel University, told Green Queen last November.

    “As consumer awareness grows, these regulations might evolve, but for now, the distinction underscores the unique role of dairy in Turkish culture,” she added.

    That said, the legislation now recognises vegan cheese alternatives as separate, autonomous products from their conventional counterparts. Further, the overseeing commission has cleared the way for companies to manufacture, import and export non-dairy cheese, which would support Itz Nutz’s post-investment business plan.

    The post Turkey’s Itz Nutz Raises $535,000 to Expand Cashew-Based Dairy Alternatives appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Approved by A Barista Champion, Indonesia’s Arummi Bags $2M to Expand Cashew Milk

    arummi cashew milk barista
    5 Mins Read

    Indonesian plant-based startup Arummi has raised $2M in seed funding to expand the distribution of its cashew milk line nationally and across Southeast Asia.

    Arummi, a Jakarta-based producer of cashew milk, has secured $2M in financing from international investors to scale up its operation.

    The round was led by Singaporean VC firm Beenext, Korea Investment Partners (the VC arm of one of South Korea’s largest private financial groups), and Switzerland-based Fondation Botnar.

    “The funds are going toward scaling distribution, deepening brand awareness, and product development to expand our range over time,” CEO Nacitta Kanyandara, who co-founded Arummi with Raja Abdalla in 2022, tells Green Queen.

    The firm is banking on Indonesia’s standing as one of the world’s top cashew producers. Most cashew farms in the country are owned by smallholders, so the nut is vital to the local economy.

    Further, Arummi aims to address the high prevalence of lactose intolerance (representing over two-thirds of children and older adults) and the growing interest in plant-based milk (over seven in 10 consume these products once every fortnight).

    arummi cashew milk ingredients
    Courtesy: Arummi

    A cashew milk endorsed by the World Barista Champion

    “Each region has its own ‘hero’ plant-based milk ingredient: soy in China, almond in the US, oat in Europe,” notes Kanyandara. “In Asia-Pacific, which produces more than 60% of the world’s cashews, cashew is the natural choice. It’s familiar in local diets, naturally creamy, and well-suited for the region. Over time, this local advantage also supports our goal of making plant-based milk more accessible.”

    Arummi’s current range comprises a classic cashew milk and a barista edition. The former contains 6% cashews, emulsifiers and stabilisers, synthetic cashew and vanilla flavourings, and a vitamin and mineral premix. The barista version, meanwhile, has 5.5% cashews, plus sugar, salt, and some of the aforementioned additives.

    Is the startup concerned that the long ingredient lists may deter clean-label-seeking consumers? “We’re always improving our products, including simplifying ingredients where possible while maintaining quality,” says Kanyandara. “All of our products are BPOM-approved, Halal-certified, and go through strict quality control, so consumers can be confident in what they’re drinking.”

    Though the protein content is low (1g per 100g), Arummi’s real USP is in the micronutrient mix in the classic flavour, which offers 45% of the daily recommended intake of vitamin B2 and E, 35% of vitamin B9 and D, 30% of calcium, and 20% of vitamin B12 per serving.

    As for the barista milk, Arummi has roped in Mikael Jasin, the 2024 World Barista Champion, as its brand ambassador, working with him on the R&D to ensure the product works well in coffee and tea, the two main vehicles of milk consumption in Southeast Asia.

    “In fact, it was used in his winning routine at the 2024 World Barista Championship. That level of recognition speaks to the quality of our product and its ability to meet the highest global standards,” says Kanyandara.

    arummi cashew milk founder
    Courtesy: Arummi

    Arummi works with co-manufacturers in Indonesia, with its current capacity able to support distribution across 10 cities and having the flexibility to scale as demand grows. This also helps it keep costs low.

    “Our 200ml pack retails at Rp9,900 (60 cents) and our one-litre pack at Rp39,000 ($2.30), positioned competitively within the plant-based milk category,” she says. “Thanks to regional sourcing and scale efficiencies, we see a clear path toward reaching price parity with dairy.”

    Arummi expects a strong 2025 after sales tripled last year

    The company’s products are already available in more than 650 retail stores and 3,000 coffee shops and restaurants. To date, it has sold over 750,000 litres of its cashew milks.

    Armed with the fresh capital, it is now eyeing further expansion. “Right now, our priority is Indonesia, where dairy alternatives are still in an early stage. In the long run, we see strong potential across Southeast Asia given the region’s close ties to cashew production and consumption,” outlines Kanyandara.

    “Our focus remains on making cashew milk the hero product. At the same time, we’re exploring product development opportunities that build on cashew’s strengths and meet everyday consumer needs,” she adds.

    Its $2M raise comes amid the most dire landscape for food tech investment in a decade. Last year, funding for plant-based food startups fell by 64% in 2024, reaching $309M. That trend has continued, with these companies receiving just $180M in the first six months of 2025, $100M of which came from a single debt financing deal for Beyond Meat.

    arummi cashew milk
    Courtesy: Arummi

    So how did Arummi convince investors to back its cashew milk? “Our pitch was rooted in both the market potential and our execution. More than 70% of Indonesians and Asians are lactose-intolerant, yet dairy is still the default,” explains Kanyandara.

    “There’s a massive opportunity to provide a locally relevant, affordable alternative. We’ve stayed focused on one product and clear about our vision, and we’re fortunate to have partnered with investors who believe in that vision.”

    It didn’t hurt that Arummi’s revenue skyrocketed too. “We’ve seen strong momentum. Our sales more than tripled between 2023 and 2024, and 2025 is shaping up to be another strong growth year. What’s exciting is that this is driven by a single product, with growth coming from velocity and repeat purchases,” the CEO reveals.

    Over the next 12 months, Arummi plans to strengthen its retail presence, expand café partnerships, and improve its supply chain efficiency. “In five years, we see Arummi as the leading plant-based dairy brand in Southeast Asia – proof that a local ingredient can go global,” she says.

    The post Approved by A Barista Champion, Indonesia’s Arummi Bags $2M to Expand Cashew Milk appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Aleph Farms CEO on Cultivated Meat Launch & Regulatory Plans for UAE & EU

    aleph farms
    9 Mins Read

    Aleph Farms CEO Didier Toubia on why the cultivated meat firm hasn’t launched yet, its plans for the UAE, its ongoing fundraise, and comparisons with the dotcom bubble.

    It has been 21 months since Aleph Farms was approved to sell cultivated beef in Israel, 15 months since it laid off 30% of its staff, and six months since it raised $7.5M in the first closing of a fresh funding round.

    A rollercoaster would be a good way to describe the startup’s previous two years, which included regulatory applications in Switzerland, the UK, and Thailand, and a $21.5M via a SAFE that converted earlier this year.

    It is one of the longest-standing cultivated meat companies around. Whether cultivated meat is a technology trigger, at its peak of inflated expectations, or under the current trough of disillusionment in the Gartner hype cycle, Aleph Farms has been there for the whole ride.

    Now, the industry is fast-approaching the next stage: the slope of enlightenment. Aiming to lead the way is what co-founder and CEO Didier Toubia calls “Aleph Farms 2.0”.

    “Aleph Farms today is very different from the Aleph Farms of 2021-22,” he tells me. “We implemented a lot of changes… to make sure that Aleph Farms is actually in the best position to lead this new category for cultivated meat.”

    In 2023, the model of the cultivated meat industry was to go big and fast—expand scale at all costs and launch as quickly as possible. As capital costs increased and investors became more risk-averse, Aleph Farms began focusing on profitability instead by becoming leaner and more capital-efficient.

    “We have paused our investments in large plants and big facilities, and postponed our launch to really take the time first to reduce our costs, improve the scalability of our platform, and build the foundations right before we expand,” says Toubia.

    He adds that the layoffs last year were part of this – today, the firm has around 40 employees. Moreover, it has decided to recede from the US, instead prioritising smaller markets with lower volumes first. This would help reach profitability faster, which in turn would make it easier to raise money.

    Regulatory updates and plans for UAE and EU

    uk cultivated meat
    Courtesy: Aleph Farms

    Toubia says Aleph Farms is likely the most advanced company in the regulatory approval processes in Switzerland and the UK (where at least four others have filed). In the latter country, the firm is part of the Food Standards Agency’s (FSA) regulatory sandbox, and was the first to reach the ‘validation’ and ‘suitability’ phases, leaving it three steps away from approval.

    “The FSA in the UK is very professional, and I think they’ve really taken to this issue proactively,” he says. “There are good chances that they would actually be the next to prove a cultivated meat product. Of course, I hope it will be Aleph Farms. But, you know, any approval is good for the industry.”

    The startup’s filing in Singapore predates these applications. The city-state was the first to clear cultivated meat for sale (back in 2020), and has since issued another approval. Aleph Farms – like a dozen or two others, according to Toubia – is still awaiting a decision.

    “It has been delayed for a bunch of reasons,” he says. “After being the first country to approve cultivated meat at the time, they really want to make sure that they are not perceived as a country where it is easy to get approvals.”

    The raft of applications has put a strain too. Toubia believes many companies that have filed for approval don’t actually intend to conduct business in Singapore – they just thought it would be easy to get clearance.

    “We do see Singapore as a hub for Asia,” he argues. “We’re big believers in Singapore. We believe that the potential is great and that it’s a great footprint for us in Asia. So we remain very committed and excited about the opportunity in Singapore.”

    Further, Toubia reveals that Aleph Farms plans to pursue regulatory approval in the EU (where two companies have already filed), as well as the UAE, which would be an entirely new region of focus for cultivated meat.

    “We have a strong agenda in terms of food security at Aleph Farms, which is raising a lot of interest, essentially because of the geopolitical tensions, tariffs and disruptions of supply chains globally, especially for animal proteins,” he explains.

    Aleph Farms optimises tech and production strategy

    aleph farms facility
    Aleph Farms operates a 65,000 sq ft facility in Rehovot, Israel | Courtesy: Amit Goren/Aleph Farms

    Speaking of approvals, when Aleph Farms earned the green light in Israel, it was contingent upon clearing a Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) inspection for its production facility. That is still pending, though the company has transferred its production onto its new “platform 1.2”.

    This is an optimised, simplified version of its initial tech, with faster timelines, greater efficiency, and fewer steps. “We are now in the process of completing the GMP and all the other certifications to be able to start producing commercially with this new platform,” says Toubia.

    “We want to make sure that when we launch, we have continuity in the delivery of products,” he adds. “We’ve seen in the industry that sometimes, launching a product which is very expensive, not available, then pulling it back from the market is actually doing more harm than good.”

    A recent independent analysis showed that Aleph Farms’s cultivated steak could be produced at $6.45 per lb and sold in wholesale for $12.25, generating annual net profits of $78.5M. With further process enhancement, the cost of goods sold could fall to just $4.08 per lb.

    The firm operates a 65,000 sq ft plant in Rehovot, Israel (with a capacity to initially produce 10 tonnes of cultivated steak annually),  has signed a co-manufacturing deal with Singapore’s ESCO Aster, and is building a factory in Thailand with biotech firms BBGI and Fermbox Bio.

    Moreover, this month, Aleph Farms teamed up with The Cultured Hub, a biotech facility situated in The Valley in Kemptthal, Switzerland, to produce cultivated meat. It’s meant to be a regional hub that serves as a “cornerstone” for expanding capacity in Europe.

    “We’re walking the talk, building and setting up production capacities closer to our markets, and taking operations out of Israel. It also demonstrates the feasibility of our strategy for relying on partners for production,” says Toubia. “The plan with The Cultured Hub is to use the existing plant in the capital, but also to further explore opportunities to operate additional, larger-scale plants, with a focus on Europe.”

    Where would these be located? “It could be, of course, in Switzerland, but [we’re] also looking at opportunities in the UK and in Eastern Europe.”

    ‘Indulgent like beef, healthy like chicken breast’

    lab grown meat approved
    Courtesy: Aleph Farms

    It’s not just the production process that Aleph Farms is fine-tuning. “We’ve also done a lot of work on the product itself,” says Toubia. “I think that it’s important to get the product right, at the right price and to the right consumer – more important than the technology itself.”

    He continues: “That’s something that sometimes other cultivated meat companies are not necessarily spending enough time on. There’s a lot of focus on technology and not necessarily on getting the product right.

    “People will not buy a product just because it’s a cool product made by an advanced technology. Aleph Farms is the only company cleared today [to sell] cultivated beef products with natural cells – not immortalised, not GMO – as whole cuts.”

    The firm’s first product is a Black Angus Petit Steak, and it’s working on a thicker steak too. “We’ve done a lot of work to really focus on trends for proteins… providing an optimised nutritional profile for the product that’s high in protein, low in calories and fat, high in micronutrients, to really target this segment of the market,” he says.

    Another trend that’s amplified of late (thanks to the rise of GLP-1 drugs) is healthy indulgence. “A lot of people today want to eat less, but want the portions to be both indulgent and tasty and healthy at the same time,” he explains.

    “And today, beef is considered indulgent and tasty, but not as healthy, for instance, as chicken breast, just because it’s heavier to digest, and richer in calories, fat, and cholesterol. Our goal is to deliver a new product that is healthy like a chicken breast, but indulgent like a beef fillet.”

    Toubia says this is a new niche that would appeal to several consumer groups: “We need to make sure we’re targeting a segment large enough to really drive scale-up and traction in the market.”

    Aleph Farms looking to raise up to $25M by year-end

    aleph farms eyal shani
    Courtesy: Aleph Farms

    To date, Aleph Farms has raised $147M, including the $29M it announced from the SAFE conversion and new funding. Now, it’s working on a second closing of the latter round by the end of the year, targeting a cumulative raise of $20-25M (including the $7.5M from March).

    “The refocus away from scale into building a profitable business also implies a plan where we intend to raise much less money than the plans we had in 2021-22, because today, investors really want to see capital efficiency,” says Toubia.

    “They want companies with less capital to reach more significant milestones and become profitable. So relying on external partners for the production is also where to minimise all direct investment in capex and equipment.”

    Aleph Farms has a three-phase plan to maintain its leadership in the industry. The first stage is centred on growth foundations, with the business aiming to launch products with restaurant partners in Israel and Singapore by 2027, as well as achieving positive gross margins.

    The second phase focuses on profitability between 2027 and 2028, and involves expansion in Asia-Pacific and the EU, building capacity, and garnering government support and offtake agreements.

    It’s only after 2028, in the third phase, that Aleph will go all-in on scale. The company aims to launch in the US and Japan, while introducing new products and entering premium retail stores.

    Cultivated meat akin to the dotcom bubble

    lab grown beef
    Courtesy: Aleph Farms

    Toubia compares the cultivated meat sector to the dotcom bubble of the late 90s. “We saw a lot of companies raising a lot of money and valuations going to the sky. A lot of junk and not very good companies were funded, with a strong focus at the time on scale and gaining a user base, rather than focusing on profit,” he recalls.

    Then came the crash, with the value of the Nasdaq index sinking by 78%. “Companies were able to really rethink their business and their focus on building real, profitable businesses,” he says. Those who did – Apple, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft among them – emerged from the slump and own the market today.

    “It’s not a perfect analogy, but the same process is happening with complementary proteins,” he says. In 2020-21, a lot of money flowed into the space, but capital in this sector has shrunk alarmingly in the years since.

    “After this excess of 2020, we’ve seen an opposite kind of excessive situation where, in 2023-24, many investors stopped completely investing in the space,” he explains. “Today, we’ve started seeing a kind of a rebound of the sector, which is much more rational and focused on… analysis of the fundamentals of the companies.

    “In the next five years, we see a smaller group of companies really emerging as the category leaders. And those companies would be the ones which understand the market and the consumer, which are developing the right product at the right price for the right consumers, which are going to maintain the costs and focus on operational efficiency,” says Toubia.

    “I believe Aleph Farms will be part of those few leaders emerging from the last two years of downturn.”

    The post Aleph Farms CEO on Cultivated Meat Launch & Regulatory Plans for UAE & EU appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Future Food Quick Bites: Stranger Things, Walnut Mince & Veganuary Poll

    babybel stranger things
    4 Mins Read

    Our weekly column rounds up the latest sustainable food innovation news. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers Bel Group’s Stranger Things-inspired vegan cheese, Planta’s return, and Veganuary’s six-month poll.

    New products and launches

    French dairy giant Bel Group has partnered with Netflix to launch a spicy vegan version of its Babybel cheese, called Hellfire, in the UK to mark the final season of Stranger Things. It’s available at Sainsbury’s and Morrisons for £2.45 per 120g pack.

    stranger things hellfire
    Courtesy: Bel/Nikolay Popov/Getty Images

    UK firm Whitworths has introduced a walnut-based minced meat alternative, calling it the country’s “first unprocessed meat-free mince”. The Nutty Kitchen Supermince comes in original, Indian, Italian and Mexican flavours, and will be available on its website and on Ocado.

    Meanwhile, plant-based leader Beyond Meat has launched its steak pieces in nearly 250 Sainsbury’s stores and on Ocado.

    In London, legacy vegan restaurant Mildreds has partnered with ready meal player Grubby to offer some of its signature dishes for at-home cooking, including kiri hodi, bokkeumbap, and a Korean fried chicken burger. The limited-edition menu will launch on October 2.

    milreds grubby
    Courtesy: Mildreds/Grubby

    British oat milk startup Moma has launched four new products targeting flavour and functional trends. These include a pistachio oat milk, a salted maple and hazelnut oat milk, a ready-to-drink chai latte, and an immunity-support oat milk with five essential micronutrients. The former two are available at Morrisons and Waitrose, and the latter two will launch at Waitrose on October 12.

    Also in the UK, dairy-free dessert brand The Coconut Collab has released Pistachio Pots at Morrisons and on Ocado, with more retailers to follow next month. They’re available for £2.95 per four-pack of 45g pots.

    Dutch producer Schouten Europe has unveiled a new vegan sausage with an “innovative” animal fat replacer and plant-based casing, which it will exhibit at the Anuga fair in Cologne (October 4-8).

    cultivated meat lca
    Courtesy: Bene Meat Technologies

    And Czech pet food firm Bene Meat Technologies has launched a Try & Share programme for pet parents to trial its cultivated meat dog treats in the EU.

    Company and finance developments

    Germany’s Planethic Group (formerly Veganz Group) has decided to acquire IP Innovation Partners Technology to optimise costs and boost its 2D-printing expertise – it markets oat milk sheets under the Milik brand.

    veganz mililk
    Courtesy: Veganz

    Canadian mycelium protein startup Maia Farms has received C$1.75M ($1.27M) in funding from Genome British Columbia’s Industry Innovation Fund.

    Brazilian mycoprotein player Typcal has been accepted into the Biotope incubator, through which it will receive €350,000 ($412,000) in financial support.

    Meanwhile, US startup CoryPro Ingredients, which creates proteins from guar gum industry sidestreams, has signed a deal with Mexican guar gum producer Polymerals to establish a guar protein processing facility in Torreón, Mexico.

    planta acquisition
    Courtesy: Planta

    After being rescued from bankruptcy this month, US vegan sushi chain Planta has announced that eight of its 18 locations will continue operating.

    Future-Proof Group Media has acquired the Cultured Meat Symposium to its global portfolio of alternative protein events, with the first joint conference set for February.

    Israeli food tech player Steakholder Foods has agreed to take over digital dyeing tech company Twine Solutions to add to its existing 3D-printing solutions.

    steakholder foods 3d printing
    Courtesy: Steakholder Foods

    In the UK, Dave Sparrow has left his role as CEO of Vegan Food Group, the parent company of VFC, Meatless Farm, Clive’s Purely Plants, and Tofutown.

    Research and awards

    French cultivated meat player Gourmey has been selected by the European Innovation Council (EIC) to join its EIC Scaling Club accelerator programme.

    lab grown foie gras
    Courtesy: Sherry Hack

    Caroline Cotto, director of sensory research agency Nectar, has been named on the 2025 Grist 50 list of climate leaders shaping a sustainable future.

    Australian precision fermentation firm All G‘s animal-free lactoferrin, LFX, has exhibited several skin benefits in pre-clinical testing, including reduced inflammatory cytokines, stronger collagen-1 protein production, and lower beta-galactosidase activity.

    veganuary statistics
    Courtesy: Veganuary

    Finally, Veganuary‘s six-month follow-up survey found that a third are still vegan, and another third are eating 75% less meat and dairy. Moreover, three in five reported improvements to general health.

    Check out last week’s Future Food Quick Bites.

    The post Future Food Quick Bites: Stranger Things, Walnut Mince & Veganuary Poll appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Plant-Based Startups This & Omami Launch Chickpea Tofu in UK

    this chickpea tofu
    3 Mins Read

    British plant-based startup This is extending its whole-food focus with the launch of a Burmese-style chickpea tofu in partnership with Germany’s Omami.

    Plant-based startups This and Omami have joined forces to roll out the first chickpea tofu available in mainstream UK supermarkets.

    The move marks This’s first foray into the tofu category (albeit with a different base ingredient), and Omami’s entry into the British market.

    The This is Omami Chickpea Tofu product is an extension of This’s recent focus on whole-food plant-based proteins that go beyond its meat-mimicking formats. It is available at Sainsbury’s and Ocado in lightly seasoned and chilli-spiced flavours for £2.95 per 200g, with a wider rollout set for next month.

    Omami brings its chickpea tofu expertise to the UK

    chickpea tofu
    Courtesy: This

    While tofu is now bought by nearly 9% of British households, the market is almost entirely comprised of Chinese-style soybean tofu.

    Burmese tofu, which is made from chickpeas and has a different texture to its soy-derived counterpart, is confined to a minuscule number of artisan brands and restaurant dishes.

    The yellow-hued protein has a bouncy, jelly-like consistency, and is firm enough to hold its shape when sliced. It can be crisped on the outside while retaining a creamy texture on the inside. And traditionally, it’s used in dishes like Burmese tofu salad, twice-fried fritters, curries, and deep-fried crackers.

    This and Omami’s version is inspired by Burmese tofu, but the recipe has some twists. Their lightly seasoned tofu contains 75% chickpeas, which are mixed with firming agents, salt, sugar, rapeseed oil, pumpkin seeds, cornstarch, wheat, oats, and black pepper.

    The chilli-spiced tofu, meanwhile, is gluten-free, with no wheat, oats or pumpkin seeds, and some added spices and chilli. The range has 14-15g of protein and around 2g of fibre per 100g, and just 0.7g of saturated fat.

    They will both be available in Tesco from October 6, while the lightly seasoned version will appear on Waitrose shelves from October 15.

    Omami is owned by The New Originals Company, which is Europe’s largest tofu manufacturer. In Germany, the brand already retails a wide range of chickpea tofu products, with its black pepper variety bearing resemblance to the lightly seasoned tofu it has launched in the UK with This.

    This doubles down on plant-based whole foods

    this is omami chickpea tofu
    Courtesy: This

    “This is going to be the best tofu on the market, game-changing taste and next-level texture,” claimed This CEO Mark Cuddigan.

    “We’re obsessed at This with making plant-based food that tastes delicious and delivers on nutrition too. Our new chickpea-based tofu does exactly that and will hopefully change the way people think about tofu. Plus, there’s also zero fuss – no marinating, no prep, no blandness. Just chop, cook, and enjoy.”

    The lightly seasoned tofu block, with a black pepper and salt marinade, can be used for any cuisine, while the spicy chickpea tofu is best-suited to Asian and Mexican meals, including curries and tofu tacos.

    “We’re thrilled about this partnership with This. It’s a perfect match of two innovative companies that share the same vision – revolutionising the plant-based market by creating products that truly excite consumers with exceptional taste and nutrition,” said Omami CEO Christina Hammerschmid.

    “We’re delighted that people in Britain will soon be cooking and enjoying Omami’s deliciously marinated chickpea tofu,” she added.

    The launch comes a week after This rolled out a plant-based beef pastrami and two new SKUs under the This is Super Superfood range it unveiled in the spring. The latter line is part of an effort to offer new standalone formats of whole-food plant proteins that don’t set out to replicate meat.

    It came after sales of meat analogues fell by 10% in UK supermarkets last year, as ultra-processing fears pushed Brits towards traditional plant proteins like tofu and beans. And half of them want to further change their diets by eating less meat and dairy and/or more plant-based foods.

    The post Plant-Based Startups This & Omami Launch Chickpea Tofu in UK appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • How Plant-Based Milk Brands Can Win Back Consumers

    plant based milk consumers
    4 Mins Read

    A new survey has found that over half of Brits who have stopped drinking plant-based milk are willing to return to the category – here’s how brands can win them back.

    Many people may have stopped drinking non-dairy milk recently, but it doesn’t mean they’re done with the category.

    That’s the gist of a new survey by Oddlygood, the Finnish plant-based milk company that bought UK-based Rude Health last year. It polled 2,000 Brits, categorising them as non-users, lapsed consumers or infrequent drinkers (less than twice a month), and asked if they’d come back.

    Among the second group – those who have given up these products in the last 12 months – more than half (53%) said they would. In fact, three in five (62%) remain positive about plant-based milk, a welcome sign for a category that saw sales contract by 3% between January 2024 and 2025.

    “After years of rapid growth, plant-based drinks have entered a natural phase of consolidation,” Oddlygood CEO Niko Vuorenmaa tells Green Queen.

    “Our research shows this slowdown isn’t about rejection – it’s about unmet expectations. Consumers want great taste, clear benefits, and products that feel worth the price,” he explains. “When those expectations aren’t met, they step back – but they haven’t given up on the category.”

    Lapsed consumers need credible on-pack health assurances

    plant based milk consumption
    Courtesy: Oddlygood

    The survey uncovered “particularly strong” opportunities to win back lapsed users, a predominantly young group (half are under 35 years of age).

    There was one clear takeaway from the results: health is top of consumers’ minds. While 58% of lapsed consumers say they understand the health benefits of oat milk and the like, clear and accredited on-pack health information would draw 28% back towards these products, making it the most influential driver. Taste and price, at 26% each, aren’t far behind.

    Lapsed consumers are still open-minded,” says Vuorenmaa. “The key is rebuilding trust. That means delivering on quality, communicating nutrition clearly and confidently, and giving them reasons to enjoy plant-based again through flavour innovation and consistency. It’s about showing them that plant-based can be delicious, exciting, and worth their investment.”

    Infrequent users exhibited similar motivations, with clear on-pack health details attracting 33% of them, followed by confidence that plant-based milks contain natural ingredients (27%). In contrast, taste is the top factor that would entice people who’ve never tried these products (cited by 22%), followed by price (19%).

    Recent research by the Good Food Institute Europe revealed that a third of consumers want to cut back on animal proteins, and 38% want to increase their plant-based consumption. High costs (25%) and health concerns (24%) are the primary factors driving Brits away from meat and dairy, followed by changing taste preferences (19%).

    The Oddlygood poll found that taste and health are also key barriers to the consumption of vegan yoghurts and desserts, and quality concerns are more pronounced for these formats than milk alternatives.

    Over a fifth (22%) of lapsed users feel they’re paying more for an inferior product, and a similar share believe non-dairy versions taste artificial or too bland. Addressing their quality perceptions is key to bringing these consumers back, according to Oddlygood.

    Coconut milk could be the surprising draw for non-users

    rude health
    Courtesy: Oddlygood

    “Real growth won’t come from preaching to the converted, but from engaging the consumers outside the category,” says Vuorenmaa. While lapsed users need reassurance, non-users need persuasion.

    “For lapsed users, the job is to rebuild confidence by focusing on quality, consistency and transparency – giving them a reason to rejoin the category,” he explains. “For non-users, it’s about bold, creative communication that challenges outdated perceptions of taste and functionality. Brands can’t do that alone – this is where collaboration across the industry becomes vital.”

    Though oat milk is by far the most popular milk alternative in the UK, the option that appeals most to non-users is actually coconut milk (13%). Oddlygood, which spun off from dairy giant Valio in 2018, argues that this remains an “untapped entry point” into the category – indeed, coconut milk only made up 5% of the category’s sales last year.

    “Coconut is familiar, delivers indulgent taste, and works well in both hot drinks and cooking. For non-users, this approachability is massively important,” Vuorenmaa highlights, adding that Rude Health’s organic coconut milk is its top-selling SKU and the number-one coconut product in the category.

    Nearly a third (32%) of British households bought a plant-based milk product in 2024, up from the previous two years. It is the largest segment of the country’s plant-based sector, and also accounts for nearly 7% of the overall dairy market. Barista-style milks have been particularly successful, witnessing a 10% uptick in sales. So the numbers show the category remains strong and retains potential.

    Rude Health itself has seen strong momentum after its acquisition in October 2024, outperforming the category with 22% growth. “That tells us that there’s real consumer appetite for brands that deliver flavour, transparency and a strong identity,” says Vuorenmaa.

    “Oddlygood continues to grow globally at over 40% year-on-year,” he adds. “2025 has been a pivotal year as we bring Rude Health into the Oddlygood Group family – together, we’re better positioned than ever to drive category growth, engage new consumers and raise the bar on taste and quality across Europe.”

    The post How Plant-Based Milk Brands Can Win Back Consumers appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Nxtfood Raises $58M in Europe’s Largest Plant-Based Meat Funding Round in 2025

    nxtfood
    4 Mins Read

    French plant-based meat maker Nxtfood, known for its Accro brand, has secured €49M ($58M) after tripling its revenue last year.

    While capital flows into alternative proteins continue to shrink, Nxtfood, the French vegan startup behind the Accro brand of meat alternatives, has gone against the grain.

    It has raised €49M ($58M) in fresh funding from existing backers Creadev and Roquette Ventures, and new investors Clay Capital and IRD Invest (Groupe IRD).

    It represents the largest investment in plant-based meat in Europe since 2022, and takes the firm’s total raised to $70M. The capital will be used to triple Nxtfood’s production capacity and expand into new markets, as it aims to become profitable in the next 12 to 18 months.

    “This record fundraising is a true vote of confidence,” said Nxtfood CEO Renaud Saïsset. “But beyond the numbers, I want to salute the outstanding work of our team: it is thanks to their energy, their rigour, and their creativity that we have reached this decisive milestone. Together, we carry a clear ambition: to make Accro the driving force of the plant-based transition in France and in Europe.”

    Nxtfood bucks plant-based investment trends

    accro
    Courtesy: Nxtfood

    Founded in 2019 by Thierry Maroye, Nxtfood is based in the Hauts-de-France region and creates meat alternatives from locally produced wheat and pea proteins.

    It sells over 20 products across multiple categories, spanning chicken fillets, slices and nuggets, pork sausage and bacon, beef mince, meatballs and burgers, cold cuts, as well as appetisers and ready meals.

    These products are available in all major supermarkets and over 10,000 foodservice outlets. And having tripled its revenue in 2024, Nxtfood claims it is the fastest-growing plant-based meat startup in France.

    That no doubt helped the firm secure the second-largest round for plant-based proteins in 2025 (behind Beyond Meat’s $100M debt financing), and Europe’s biggest since Planted’s $72M Series B round three years ago, in an otherwise dire investment landscape. Plant-based companies raised just $309M last year (a 64% decline), and by the first half of 2025, they had only brought in $180M.

    Nxtfood’s success has also attracted new investors to the category, with Clay Capital making its first investment in plant-based meat.

    “We have long observed the plant-based meat market with caution, looking for the right alignment between product, strategy, and team,” said Clay Capital founder and managing partner Matthieu Vermersch.

    “With Nxtfood, we have found a company that combines operational excellence at scale, European ambition, and a clear path to profitability – a challenge that few players in this sector are able to meet today,” he added.

    Nxtfood looks to expand across Europe and double profits

    plant based meat funding
    Courtesy: Nxtfood

    Building on its growth last year, Nxtfood is now aiming to double its revenues in 2025. It will use the funds to expand its production site in Vitry-en-Artois, tripling its footprint to 12,000 sq m.

    The company will also strengthen its R&D into wet extrusion, and advance marketing through the Accro brand in France and B2B and co-manufacturing opportunities in Europe, starting with Germany, Italy and the Benelux region.

    “We are proud of this new milestone for Nxtfood, whose industrial future is now fully aligned with its commercial performance,” said Baptiste Gormand, senior investment director at Creadev. “The arrival of Clay Capital and IRD Invest further strengthens an already solid governance, alongside the Roquette family, and [is] capable of supporting the company’s European ambition.”

    Nxtfood’s sales success is reflective of the overall vegan market in France, which saw a 9% hike in sales in 2024. Sales of chilled plant-based meat products alone were up by 15.5%, reaching €155.7M (behind only milk alternatives). At the same time, meat intake has fallen by 6% over the last two decades.

    The company’s focus on locally grown wheat and peas would likely also have caught investors’ attention. In July, as part of its National Strategy for Plant Proteins, France’s agriculture and food sovereignty ministry invested €11.7M into 10 companies working to reduce reliance on imported plant proteins and develop a range of local products.

    This aligns with the 35% of French residents who rate legumes and pulses among the richest sources of protein, and the two-thirds who eat foods like beans, grains, lentils and wheat weekly. For a third of these consumers, nutritional benefits are the major driver behind the increase in consumption.

    That said, the sales success and government investment have also been contrasted with France’s efforts to inhibit the growth of the plant-based sector. Its food safety agency has recommended a ban on soy-based products in mass catering environments by invoking long-debunked health concerns, while its ministers are once again behind an EU-wide measure to ban the use of meat-like terms on plant-based product labels.

    The post Nxtfood Raises $58M in Europe’s Largest Plant-Based Meat Funding Round in 2025 appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • After Meat & Dairy, Seafood Becomes the Latest Blended Protein Innovation

    hybrid salmon
    4 Mins Read

    Dutch firm Vegan Visboer has expanded beyond animal-free offerings with a new blended salmon offering, combining the fish with mycoprotein and plants.

    Blended proteins are on an unstoppable streak, and the Netherlands is at the heart of the race.

    Lidl, Aldi and Albert Heijn have all released private-label products blending meat with plants, and the latter has also brought out two hybrid milk SKUs.

    Now, one Dutch startup is taking the idea further with a first-of-its-kind product, extending the blended protein portfolio to seafood.

    Based in Zwolle, Vegan Visboer (Vegan Fisherman) has unveiled a hybrid salmon fillet in collaboration with aquaculture company Tiptopp, which produces probiotics for feed and processes industry sidestreams.

    Vegan Visboer tackles Norwegian salmon sidestreams

    hybrid seafood
    Courtesy: Vegan Visboer

    Vegan Visboer already sells a range of plant-based seafood products, including fish fillets, nuggets, burgers and shrimp croquettes. But its move into blended proteins marks a departure from what its brand name promises.

    Its new innovation, manufactured at Kramer Fish in Urk, comprises 54% Norwegian salmon from sidestreams that “normally never reach consumers’ plates”.

    The rest of the ingredients include textured mycoprotein, textured rice flour, potato starch, bamboo fibre, rapeseed oil, salt, and paprika extract.

    “For many consumers, the step to go fully plant-based is still too big. Our Hybrid Salmon Fillet bridges that gap: the familiar taste of salmon, combined with the benefits of plant-based innovation,” the company said.

    It suggested that the product was developed with the intention of reducing the business’s carbon footprint, although adding a seafood product to an entirely vegan range isn’t exactly best practice on the environmental front. Rather, the fillet – as is the case with other blended meats – will help lower the climate impact of the seafood industry.

    Norwegian salmon is notorious for being overly dependent on global fish feed supplies – the sector’s feed footprint makes up 2.5% of global marine fisheries catch, and the forage fish targeted by the industry contain key micronutrients that are critical to healthy populations in West Africa, leading to experts accusing the sector of ‘food colonialism’.

    Globally, too, farmed salmon consumes 44% of the world’s fish oil, despite only accounting for 4.5% of seafood production by the aquaculture industry.

    To navigate this, Vegan Visboer works with Tiptopp to remove the salmon left over from filleting, and uses this residual flow to extract its ingredients and flavours. It then adds hypoallergenic rice grains to help bridge the gap between the fish and plant-based ingredients.

    Are blended proteins the answer to alt-seafood’s problems?

    vegan visboer
    Courtesy: Vegan Visboer

    Europeans are still reluctant to go fully plant-based. Less than one in five (18%) avoid animal products in their diet, and when asked what changes they’d like to make in their eating patterns, 12% wish to increase their intake of meat and dairy.

    At the same time, two in five actively avoid processed foods, a category that includes plant-based seafood as well as processed conventional fish products. Plus, 51% of Europeans want to eat healthier, versus just 9% who want to prioritise sustainability.

    “By combining the best of both worlds, we retain the authentic taste and nutritional value while still taking a step towards plant-based,” Vegan Visboer stated.

    “The ‘convenience generation’ is the future: health, sustainability, and food safety are more important than ever before. This generation is growing up with plant-based alternatives and is very conscious about making informed choices,” it added.

    The move is the latest marker of the embattled plant-based seafood industry. These products represent just 1% of both the vegan meat market and overall seafood sales. Over the last year, several alternative seafood startups have closed, including France’s Olala! and Dutch startups Upstream Foods and Vegan Finest Foods. In the US, celeb-favourite vegan sushi chain Planta filed for bankruptcy this summer and was recently acquired by a VC group for $7.8M.

    And despite consumers viewing fish as a healthier, more sustainable alternative to other meats, plant-based versions can still be lacking in protein and omega-3s. Vegan Visboer’s blended salmon contains 14g of protein and 2.5g of fibre per 100g, and is rich in minerals like selenium, magnesium and potassium, and omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids.

    The firm plans to appeal to a broad target group, including flexitarians, eco-conscious consumers, and conventional fish lovers. It will debut the hybrid salmon fillet at Gastvrij Rotterdam and Anuga in Cologne, with a rollout set for January.

    Consumers have already taken to blended meat, with omnivores and flexitarians finding some of these products better than their conventional counterparts – will seafood have the same effect?

    The post After Meat & Dairy, Seafood Becomes the Latest Blended Protein Innovation appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Future Food Quick Bites: Mushroom Broth, Planta & Aquafaba Powder

    lion's mane mushroom broth
    5 Mins Read

    Our weekly column rounds up the latest sustainable food innovation news. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers Two River’s lion’s mane broth, Planta’s acquisition, and animal-free egg legal battles.

    New products and launches

    US startup Two River has launched the country’s first Lion’s Mane Mushroom Broth into Sprouts Farmers Market stores nationwide – with an emphatic approval from mushroom king Derek Sarno.

    two river lion's mane broth
    Courtesy: Two River

    Also in the US, fast-food chain Just Poké has added Impact Tuna‘s plant-based raw tuna to the menu of all its 29 locations in Washington state.

    British tempeh leader Better Nature has made its way into the Nordics, starting with ICA Gruppen and Coop Sverige in Sweden.

    better nature tempeh
    Courtesy: Better Nature

    Kallø, the natural foods brand owned by Ecotone, has entered the UK dairy alternatives segment with protein-boosted and gluten-free oat milks – the former contains 2.5g of protein per 100ml, and the latter just three ingredients.

    Swedish pea milk brand Sproud has launched a new billboard campaign in the UK with Love Island host Maya Jama, who is an investor and brand ambassador.

    sproud maya jama
    Courtesy: Sproud

    To take advantage of Paris’s September weather, Danone has kickstarted Alpro Sundayz, which include a brunch using its non-dairy products and an open-air DJ set in the evening. It will run at Frivole restaurant every Sunday this month.

    And in Singapore, Nurasa, the sustainable food innovation platform owned by Temasek, has joined forces with Cremer Sustainable Foods and Quality Meat to launch Q Protein, a range of blended meat products, this month. The inaugural products include beef patties, beef stir fry, and minced beef and chicken.

    Company and finance updates

    In Miami, celeb-favourite vegan chain Planta has been acquired out of bankruptcy by former investor Anchorage Capital Group in an $7.8M deal.

    planta acquisition
    Courtesy: Planta

    Events organiser Emerald X has postponed its Plant Based World Expo Europe, due to take place in London in November, indefinitely.

    Over in India, meat delivery company Licious has shuttered its plant-based meat platform, Uncrave, ahead of a planned IPO next year.

    india lab grown meat
    Courtesy: Biokraft Foods

    In some positive alternative protein news from the subcontinent, Mumbai-based cultivated meat firm Biokraft Foods has secured ₹2 crore ($225,000) in pre-seed funding by GVFL to speed up R&D and prepare for regulatory approval.

    Finally Foods, an Israeli AI-led firm producing casein protein in potatoes via molecular farming, has raised $1.2M in a funding round led by beverage giant CBC Group, which has also signed a commercial agreement with the startup.

    pacifico foodlabs
    Courtesy: Pacifico Foodlabs

    German startup Pacifico Biolabs, which makes fermentation-derived seafood alternatives, has secured €680,000 in public funding to further develop its mycelium technology.

    Smaqo, a Swedish startup by former Mycorena founder Ramkumar Nair, has closed its first round of funding. It was led by Good Startup and will help it accelerate the launch of mycoprotein-based blended meat to supermarkets.

    perfat technologies
    Courtesy: Perfat Technologies

    Finnish firm Perfat Technologies, which has developed an oleogel technology to transform liquid plant oils into solid fats that work like saturated fats, has raised €2.5M ($2.9M) in Series A funding. It will use the capital to scale up production and launch a fibre-reinforced gelled vegetable oil.

    Meanwhile, Romania’s Terra Wave has bagged €1.2M ($1.4M) in an EU innovation grant to advance its fungi-derived fermented proteins for the meat, plant-based and pet food industries.

    odd burger us
    Courtesy: Odd Burger

    Canadian plant-based fast-food chain Odd Burger has secured C$2.5M ($1.8M) in equity financing from Rockcliffe Capital.

    Japanese snack maker Calbee Group has acquired a majority stake in US tofu producer Hodo to expand its international footprint. The deal also saw Japanese tofu giant Sagamiya Foods Co take a minority stake in the startup.

    hodo tofu
    Courtesy: Hodo

    Checkerspot, a producer of precision-fermented fats and oils, has appointed J Casey Lippmeier as its CTO. He previously held senior roles at DSM and Conagen.

    At the Los Angeles Dodgers vs San Francisco Giants MLB game on September 12, Impossible Foods held a 99 in 9 challenge, pitting competitive eater Joey Chestnut against a fan to eat 99 vegan nuggets in nine innings. Chestnut ended up wolfing down 275 nuggets in seven innings.

    impossible foods joey chestnut
    Courtesy: Impossible Foods

    A host of future food companies have been selected in the second cohort of Mars and Unreasonable Group‘s annual Unreasonable Food accelerator, including precision fermentation firms Standing Ovation, Oobli and Pow.bio, rubisco protein producer Plantible Foods, and molecular farming startup Alpino Bio.

    Policy and awards

    There’s an ongoing scramble in the world of precision-fermented eggs. Finnish startup Onego Bio has sued Californian producer The Every Company to invalidate a key patent granted to the latter in the US, accusing it of fraud. At the same time, the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland (which Onego Bio spun off from) has challenged one of Every’s patents in Europe.

    the every co
    Courtesy: The Every Company

    Speaking of molecular farming, Luxembourg-based Moolec Science has received regulatory approval for its safflower GLASO technology in Argentina, through which it produces a GLA-enriched specialty safflower oil.

    Meanwhile, Finland’s Solar Foods has submitted a Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) notification to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in pursuit of a ‘no questions’ letter for its gas-fermented Solein protein.

    solein protein
    Courtesy: Solar Foods

    US food tech startup California Cultured has filed an industry-first patent for the production of cell-based cocoa butter.

    Finally, fresh from its US approval, Australian precision-fermented fat maker Nourish Ingredients has been named Overall FoodTech Company of the Year at the 2025 AgTech Breakthrough Awards.

    Check out last week’s Future Food Quick Bites.

    The post Future Food Quick Bites: Mushroom Broth, Planta & Aquafaba Powder appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Belgium’s Supermarkets Are the Latest to Champion Blended Meat

    colruyt group hybride vlees
    4 Mins Read

    Belgium’s largest supermarket chain, Colruyt Group, has introduced a new blended beef mince product, following similar launches from Lidl, Albert Heijn and Aldi this year.

    Europe’s retailers are betting the farm on blended meat.

    The Netherlands has led the way, with three major supermarket chains rolling out blended meat and milk products over the last year. Now, its neighbour is joining the race.

    Since May, three retailers have unveiled blended meat products, and to great success. Colruyt Group, the country’s largest, trialled three sausages with 38% plants for the BBQ season, Lidl brought out blended burgers and beef, Albert Heijn debuted the Swapburger with 27% tomato and sugar beet fibre, and Aldi introduced a mince product with 40% plant protein.

    Now, Colruyt and Lidl are both doubling down on the concept, adding more products to their lineups to meet Belgians’ appetite for blended proteins.

    Colruyt’s blended meat push part of ‘protein split’ goal

    colruyt blended meat
    Courtesy: Colruyt Group

    Last week, Colruyt announced that it had begun offering blended beef mince at the butcher’s counter of its Colruyt Lowest Prices and Okay stores in Belgium, combining 60% beef with 40% fava bean flour.

    The move helps reduce the reliance on animal protein without compromising on taste or texture, and boosts fibre while lowering saturated fat and dietary cholesterol.

    “We are starting with a new range of plant-enriched meat for customers who consciously want to reduce their meat consumption. The range was developed and produced internally thanks to collaboration between our different departments,” said Pascal Dekelver, meat division manager at Colruyt Lowest Prices.

    “Our goal is to offer 60% proteins from plant sources and 40% from animal sources by 2028. With this, we want to contribute to the protein shift and to Colruyt Group’s Green Deal commitment,” he added.

    This is why Colruyt described its decision to place the blended meat in the butcher’s section, calling it a “good intermediate step for consumers who want to eat more plant-based food or simply want to try something new, while also being mindful of health and the environment”.

    The supermarket group, which introduced own-label vegan brand Boni Plan’t this year, added that some consumers still view plant-based meat as being “too far removed” from the experience conventional meat provides.

    “We want to reduce the ecological footprint of food by encouraging our customers to gradually consume fewer animal proteins and more often opt for plant-based alternatives, the production of which has a lower environmental impact,” said Dekelver.

    Colruyt isn’t just stopping here. Next month, it will launch sausages where 25% of the beef and pork will be replaced by mushrooms and seaweed, and hamburgers with 25% pumpkin.

    Blended beef makes up a third of Lidl’s mince sales

    lidl hybride vlees
    Courtesy: Lidl

    Lidl, already a retail leader in the protein transition, trialled a new hybrid cheeseburger in Belgium last month, on the back of a successful launch of its blended meat category in the summer.

    The discounter said one in four burgers sold since June has been a blended patty made from 60% beef and 40% plant protein. The figures are even more encouraging for beef mince, with the blended version making up a third of all sales.

    According to Lidl, these sales represent savings of nearly 190kg of carbon emissions per store per week, with a large factor behind the products’ success being their prominent in-store placement.

    “When it comes to eating less meat, many people still think in terms of all or nothing. That’s precisely why we’re so proud of this new and growing range. We want to inspire people in an accessible way to choose a more sustainable alternative,” said Lidl spokesperson Isabelle Colbrandt.

    Ines Verschaeve, head of sustainable purchasing policy at Lidl Belgium and Luxembourg, added: “Consumers are still free to choose, but thanks to an ever-increasing range of plant-based proteins, whole-grain products, and fruits and vegetables, they can more easily make more sustainable choices. This hybrid meat range is a concrete and excellent example of this.”

    Lidl has pledged to replace 20% of its current meat and dairy sales with plant-based proteins by 2030, and has been joined by several other supermarkets in this ‘protein split’ pledge. Albert Heijn’s parent company, Ahold Delhaize, is aiming to raise the share of plant proteins sold to 47% in 2024, 50% in 2025, and 60% by the end of the decade, matching Colruyt’s goal in Belgium.

    Albert Heijn sells 15 blended protein products in the Netherlands now, including two hybrid milks, and Lidl and Aldi have introduced beef mince and burgers with 40% plants.

    And this week, German canteen Speisemanufaktur Adlershof is offering a range of blended meat dishes combining beef with koji protein from Nosh.bio, whose ultimate focus is on B2B partnerships with manufacturers and retailers.

    The post Belgium’s Supermarkets Are the Latest to Champion Blended Meat appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Iconic Indian Fast-Food Chain Haldiram’s Adds Plant-Based Meat to Menu

    haldiram vegan
    3 Mins Read

    Haldiram’s, one of India’s largest food companies, has teamed up with plant protein player GoodDot to put its soy-based meat alternative on its menu.

    One of India’s most popular restaurant chains is embracing plant proteins, opening up access to tens of millions of vegetarian customers.

    Haldiram’s, which has been around since 1937, has partnered with Udaipur-based GoodDot to add its soya chaap – a staple soy-based meat alternative in India – to its menu.

    The meat-free product will feature in Haldiram’s tandoori platter at all its stores in the national capital region, which encompasses the cities of Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida, Faridabad, Ghaziabad, and more.

    Haldiram’s bet on plant-based is a big deal

    haldirams gooddot
    Courtesy: Haldiram’s

    Founded in 2016, GoodDot is one of India’s earliest and most well-established plant-based meat players, with a product range spanning mutton-style bites, chicken-like chunks, BBQ tikkas, biryani, and even an egg-free scramble.

    Its shelf-stable soya chaap is made from soybean flour, wheat protein, whole wheat and refined wheat flours, and gram flour. It contains 15.4g of protein and 3.5g of fibre per 100g, with zero cholesterol and only 0.2g of fat.

    The ready-to-use product can be used in a variety of recipes, from curries and kebabs to stir-fries and salads, and caters to Indians looking for clean-label, additive-free protein options.

    Having raised $7M in funding to date, GoodDot has expanded its offerings to international markets too, including the US, Canada, Australia, Singapore, and the UAE (among others). It also operates a spin-off foodservice business, GoodDo, with 15 locations across Mumbai and Udaipur.

    Haldiram’s, meanwhile, began as a CPG company making confectionery and snacks, before expanding into a fully vegetarian restaurant chain that has become a household name among Indians both at home and abroad. Last year, its revenues surpassed $1.5B.

    The food giant exports to 80 countries, including Singapore, whose state-owned investor Temasek took a 10% stake in the business earlier this year. The deal valued Haldiram’s at $10B.

    “Soya chaap is one of the most crowded and competitive categories in India’s food space. Everyone sells it, from small stalls to big restaurants,” said GoodDot co-founder and CEO Abhishek Sinha. “And yet, when the country’s food giant […] chose GoodDot Soya Chaap, we are beyond thrilled.”

    gooddot soya chaap
    Courtesy: GoodDot

    Local dishes and affordability can win over consumers

    Research shows that low awareness and common misconceptions about plant-based meat have led to a lack of demand in restaurants, but chefs, restaurateurs and industry leaders suggest that these products need to be integrated into local cuisines to help position them as tasty and indulgent offerings on foodservice menus.

    This year, 37% of Indians said they were looking to add more plant-based proteins to their diets. And despite only 11% having given plant-based meat a go, more Indians want to increase their intake of these products (43%) than conventional meat (36%). In fact, two in five want to reduce the amount of meat they eat.

    Protein content and health are the most influential drivers of plant-based food consumption in the country- however, affordability is among the biggest barriers. Haldiram’s is known for its accessible prices and local cuisine, so GoodDot’s partnership with the chain fits right into these trends.

    It’s not the only major restaurant chain that is betting on meat-free protein in India. In July, McDonald’s announced the launch of its Protein Plus range, which adds 5g of soy, pea, and whey protein per ₹25 ($0.29) slice to any burger. It’s available in all of its outlets in West and South India.

    Meanwhile, plant proteins have also received a boost from the government. In the upcoming reform of its Goods and Services Tax, plant-based milk and texturised vegetable proteins (a common ingredient in meat analogues) will see their tax rate reduced from 12-18% to 5%, on par with milk beverages, butter, ghee, cheese, and sausages.

    The post Iconic Indian Fast-Food Chain Haldiram’s Adds Plant-Based Meat to Menu appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Something for Everyone: UK Plant-Based Firm This Expands Meat Alternative & Whole-Food Lines

    this super superfood
    4 Mins Read

    British vegan startup This has added a deli meat SKU while expanding the whole-food-championing This is Super Superfood line it launched earlier this year.

    As sales of plant-based meat continue to weaken, some of the industry’s leading innovators are taking different approaches to arrest the slide.

    In the US, for example, Beyond Meat is dropping ‘Meat’ from its brand to offer products centred on traditional plant proteins, and Impossible Foods is mulling a move into the explosive blended meat category.

    These companies are looking to appeal either to flexitarians who want clean-label plant proteins without the ultra-processed tag, or meat-eaters who don’t want to give up meat but are open to reducing it.

    In the UK, one startup is targeting both these consumer sets. London-based This, which made its name on quirky branding and its vegan chicken, unveiled a This is Super Superfood line in April, comprising a new product format that embraced whole foods and eschewed the meat-mimicking philosophy.

    Designed as a competitor to tofu and tempeh, the range began with a plant protein block and lemon-and-herb pieces made from fava bean protein, shiitake mushrooms, a range of seeds, and vegetables.

    The Super Superfood lineup wasn’t a replacement of its meat alternative lineup; rather, it’s an extension. “We still make the best plant-based meat alternatives, but now we’re giving consumers more options,” said Cuddigan.

    Staying true to that promise, the startup has now launched three new products across the meat alternative and whole-food categories, targeting both weekday lunches and party-ready charcuterie boards.

    This introduces vegan pastrami and Super Superfood bites

    this is super superfood
    Courtesy: This

    The new meat alternative is the brand’s latest deli counter innovation. Following the May launch of its ready-to-eat deli chicken slices is This Isn’t Beef Pastrami, a pack of smoked wheat and pea protein slices.

    This has nearly 32g of protein per 100g, with 3g of fibre and 10g of fat (9g of which is saturated). Each 70g pack contains three portions and is priced at £2.95. The pastrami alternative is described as having a smoky, rich flavour and tender texture, and is available at Morrisons, followed by Sainsbury’s later this month.

    This’s other new launches come under the Super Superfood line. The Super Veg Protein Bites are the range’s first frozen SKU, and are aimed towards time-strapped work-from-home professionals and health-conscious families.

    They comprise a base of peas and pea protein (each 11%) with spinach, potatoes, carrots, rapeseed oil and a seasoning mix dominated by lemon oil and basil. These are encased in a multigrain crumb, and contain 14g of protein and 3g of fibre per 100g (the saturated fat content is minuscule here). The Veg Protein Bites are in Tesco’s freezers at £3.50 per 240g pack.

    Finally, This has rolled out Super Superfood Breaded Pieces, featuring 49% rehydrated shiitake mushrooms, 12% fava bean protein, a mix of seeds, seasonings, and multigrain breaded coating.

    These can be added to curries, stir-fries and salads, and pack 14g of protein, 4g of fibre, and less than 1g of saturated fat per 100g, with an added omega-3 boost. They’re available in the chilled section at Sainsbury’s for £3 per 180g pack.

    UK’s appetite for plants persists

    this isn't chicken
    Courtesy: This

    “Our goal has always been to create delicious and nutritious plant-based products, and with our new Pastrami, Super Veg bites and breaded Super Superfood, we’re giving foodies new options,” said Cuddigan.

    “We can’t wait for people to try them, whether they’re looking for meaty alternatives or tasty veg-packed products to cook with,” he added.

    This’s move beyond meat analogues came as sales of these products fell by 10% in UK supermarkets last year, as ultra-processing fears pushed Brits towards traditional plant proteins like tofu and beans.

    Despite three in five consumers being willing to cut back on meat, the share of those who eat it at least five times a week rose from 43% in 2022 to 50% in 2024. At the same time, half of them want to further change their diets by eating less meat and dairy (33%) and/or more plant-based foods (38%).

    Still, the UK remains the second-largest market for plant-based food in Europe, and 9% of Brits are either vegan, vegetarian or pescatarian, while another 31% identify as flexitarians. This itself has bucked the trend, enjoying a 5.6% hike in turnover in 2024, totalling £18.2M. It also cut its losses nearly in half, from £11.3M in 2023 to £6.1M last year.

    This is not the only UK company to take on meat alternatives, tofu and tempeh with a new format of plant proteins. The same week it launched the Super Superfood range, Oh So Wholesome rolled out Veg’chop, a range of cubes made from red lentils, quinoa, yellow split peas, mushrooms, seeds, and more plants.

    The post Something for Everyone: UK Plant-Based Firm This Expands Meat Alternative & Whole-Food Lines appeared first on Green Queen.

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  • Meala Targets Egg Crisis with One-Ingredient Pea Protein Replacer

    meala foodtech
    4 Mins Read

    Israeli startup Meala has debuted a pea protein powder that can replicate the multifunctionality of eggs in baked goods, offering a solution to the avian-flu-induced crisis.

    With egg prices reaching an all-time high in the US and a decade-long high in Europe, food manufacturers have been left scrambling.

    The demand for eggs has sharply increased, but anticipated price corrections have led some producers of powdered eggs to delay purchases, causing a supply gap. Combine that with the wider impact of food prices amid Europe’s cost-of-living crisis, and it’s a perfect storm.

    Plant-based liquid egg products like Just Egg have seen sales soar in the US, with many bakeries switching to the mung-bean-based alternative. Now, Israel’s Meala Foodtech is aiming to replicate that success for the CPG bakery space with a single-ingredient egg replacer that has already garnered a distribution deal in Europe.

    Called Groundbreaker, the pea protein innovation offers the same gelling, binding, emulsifying and foaming attributes of eggs – minus the chicken or the price volatilities.

    “Our innovative texturising protein enables the baking industry to significantly derisk production,” said Tali Feldman-Sivan, co-founder and chief business officer of Meala. “Producers can stabilise costs, reduce exposure to price volatility, and avoid supply chain disruptions.”

    A little goes a long way with Meala’s pea protein

    meala groundbreaker
    Courtesy: Details Studio

    Founded in 2021 by Feldman-Sivan, CTO Liran Gruda, and CEO Hadar Ekhoiz-Razmovich, Meala specialises in texturising plant proteins to enhance the taste, texture and nutritional value of a host of foods, while keeping costs low.

    These solutions are designed as alternatives to ingredients like eggs and methylcellulose, which are common in the manufacturing industry, but have become problematic amid supply issues and the demand for clean-label formulations.

    “Our proteins are produced through a proprietary process that elevates pea protein into highly functional ingredients. This process is green, environmentally friendly, efficient, and scalable – it avoids chemical modification or heavy processing,” Ekhoiz-Razmovich told Green Queen.

    “This way, we preserve the natural nutritional qualities of the pea while unlocking multifunctional properties such as binding, gelling, foaming, and emulsifying,” he added.

    Groundbreaker is described as a clean-label, allergen-free ingredient with “excellent water-holding capacity”. It can be used in sweet applications like pound cakes, sponge cakes, brioches, pancakes, and pre-made cake mixes, as well as in savoury foods.

    “Our protein is highly functional, with a low inclusion rate,” Ekhoiz-Razmovich noted. “Only a small amount is needed in formulations to deliver great functionality. This efficiency can deliver significant savings – up to 30% cost reduction compared to eggs in applications like muffins.”

    Meala in talks with global companies for Groundbreaker

    egg replacer
    Courtesy: Details Studio

    The pea protein ingredient is offered to manufacturers in a powdered format, which makes logistics, storage, and handling “simpler and more efficient”, the CEO said.

    Groundbreaker has already attracted interest from multiple companies, including packaged baked goods manufacturers and commercial cake mix producers supplying both retailers and bakeries.

    Meala recently also entered a strategic partnership with a leading global ingredients maker based in Europe. The collaboration is built on an investment as well as a marketing and distribution agreement, and will open up a new, broad distribution network for Groundbaker.

    “We’re producing at a scale that supports our current commercial activities, and we’re actively expanding capacity to meet growing demand,” highlighted Ekhoiz-Razmovich. “Our production is based in Europe, close to our customers through trusted manufacturing partners.”

    He revealed that Meala has secured $8M in investment to date, and is about to open its next fundraising round soon. Plus, its solutions go beyond replacing eggs in baked goods. “Our first product for savoury applications launched in Europe a few months ago in partnership with DSM-Firmenich,” he said.

    The Vertis PB Pea ingredient is designed to replace modified binders like hydrocolloids to make cleaner-label meat alternatives. “We have a strong pipeline of texturising solutions for the food industry, and this is just the beginning,” said Ekhoiz-Razmovich.

    Meala is among a number of food tech startups offering innovative solutions to replace eggs in bakery products and plant-based meats. Eat Just, maker of Just Egg, launched a one-ingredient mung protein powder that doubles as an egg alternative.

    Others, like Revyve, ProteinDistillery, and Yeastup, are upcycling brewer’s yeast (a byproduct of beer brewing) to make egg replacers for a range of applications, including baked goods and meat and dairy alternatives.

    The post Meala Targets Egg Crisis with One-Ingredient Pea Protein Replacer appeared first on Green Queen.

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  • Can Blending Koji Protein with Beef Help Flexitarians Eat Less Meat?

    blended meat
    4 Mins Read

    German food tech player Nosh.bio has launched a blended beef mince product, combining meat with its koji protein.

    As blended meat engulfs Europe’s protein sector, one German startup is betting on an ancient fungus to expand the category.

    Nosh.bio is mixing its fermented koji protein with conventional beef for a new blended mince product, which is positioned as a B2B ingredient for manufacturers, retailers and foodservice operators.

    Koji is the national fungus of Japan and powers foods like miso, shoyu and mirin, but its use as an alternative protein ingredient has been on the rise of late, from Prime Roots’s deli meats to Imagindairy’s cow-free dairy protein.

    Nosh.bio’s koji protein is debuting at Berlin canteen Speisemanufaktur Adlershof on September 15, where it will feature in a range of dishes for one week.

    “Consumers are looking for food that is both delicious and better for the planet. A hybrid approach lets us deliver the full beef taste and texture people expect, while significantly lowering the environmental footprint,” Nosh.bio co-founder and CEO Tim Fronzek told Green Queen.

    Koji protein delivers on cost, climate and health

    nosh bio
    Courtesy: Nosh.bio

    Founded in 2022 by Fronzek and CTO Felipe Lino, Nosh.bio uses biomass fermentation to turn fungal biomass into single-ingredient meat analogues. The startup suggests that its tech platform is highly efficient and cost-effective, delivering alternative proteins with taste, texture and health benefits.

    Its fermentation process uses agricultural side streams to feed the microbes and can be carried out in existing fermentation facilities, enabling fast scale-up and keeping downstream prices low. In fact, last year, it retrofitted a former brewery in Dresden to repurpose it into a commercial-scale facility that can produce 1,000 tonnes of protein annually.

    The koji protein is described as highly versatile with applications ranging from meat, seafood and dairy alternatives to confectionery and bakery products. It eschews the need for texturisers and stabilisers in meat analogues, while retaining a juicy texture.

    Last year, it partnered with Zur Mühlen Group, a subsidiary of German meat giant Tönnies Group, to roll out Koji Chunks, a single-ingredient meat analogue to appeal to Europe’s clean-label demand.

    Now, it has taken the blended meat approach to cater to the continent’s flexitarian population. In Germany alone, two in five people identify as flexitarians, and a third of consumers want to cut back on meat. The latter shift is driven by changing taste preferences (cited by 26% of Germans), the high prices of animal protein (23%), and health concerns (19%).

    In addition, the protein will attract eco-conscious eaters. Its production emits 91% fewer greenhouse gases than conventional meat, requires more than 99% less land, and consumes 99% less water.

    “Our koji protein brings clean-label functionality, improved nutrition, and a drastic reduction in land, water, and carbon use compared to beef. It’s a pragmatic way for flexitarians and omnivores to cut their meat intake without compromising on enjoyment,” said Fronzek.

    “Our ingredient has reached cost parity with beef. That’s a breakthrough at a time when beef prices remain high and volatile across Europe,” he added. “Because we retrofitted existing fermentation capacity and run a lean process, we can keep production costs low. This allows our hybrid mince to be competitively priced while still offering a better nutritional and sustainability profile.”

    Nosh.bio eyes retail opportunity for blended meat

    nosh bio
    Courtesy: Nosh.bio

    For the public showcase, Nosh.bio’s blended meat will be available in dishes like burgers, meatballs, and lasagna. “The base hybrid mince is simply beef blended with our koji protein – it’s a drop-in solution for kitchen operations. Inclusion typically ranges [from] 25-35% koji protein, depending on the cuisine,” said Fronzek. “The final ingredient list depends on the dish/application.”

    By combining beef with koji, Nosh.bio adds a source of fibre and an extra hit of complete protein. “We can expect between 13-15% fewer calories in the hybrid product compared with conventional beef. Also, the protein content per 100 kcal remains the same,” he explained. “On top of that, we add 1g of prebiotic fibres, which are important for maintaining a healthy gut, per 100g of minced beef, and the product has around 20-30%+ less saturated fat and cholesterol.”

    The restaurant partnership is designed to gather real-world feedback on flavour, texture and overall performance, as well as demonstrate the ingredient’s versatility, amid Nosh.bio’s efforts to land B2B deals.

    “Our main focus remains on producers and retail through our B2B commercial partnerships; in parallel, we’ll expand into additional restaurants and food service. We’re already working with leading partners, and we’ll expand into additional markets where we have both supply readiness and strong partner pull,” said Fronzek.

    “We already have the capacity to produce several tons per day, with an output that is higher than a cow’s worth of weight per hour. We plan to expand this capacity several-fold in the following months, since the infrastructure is already installed.”

    Blended meat has been recognised as a way to help meat-eaters cut back on animal protein without quitting cold turkey – in the process, it reduces both emissions and intake of saturated fat. Europe has been a hub of major activity, spearheaded by retailers like Lidl, Aldi, and Albert Heijn.

    And with retailers pledging to lower the ratio of animal protein sold, Nosh.bio is eyeing this space with a modern twist on an ancient food source.

    The post Can Blending Koji Protein with Beef Help Flexitarians Eat Less Meat? appeared first on Green Queen.

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  • Aleph Farms Sets Sights on Europe with Cultivated Beef Facility in Switzerland

    aleph farms switzerland
    4 Mins Read

    Israeli food tech pioneer Aleph Farms has struck a deal to produce its cultivated meat in Europe, setting up at The Cultured Hub facility in Kemptthal.

    As it awaits regulatory approval in Switzerland, Aleph Farms has chosen the canton of Zurich as the European production hub for its cultivated beef.

    The Israeli startup has teamed up with The Cultured Hub, a biotech facility situated in The Valley in Kemptthal, opened last year by retail giant Migros, flavour specialist Givaudan, and equipment manufacturer Bühler Group.

    The move is part of Aleph Farms’s localised production strategy, and marks a key milestone for its international expansion. It’s also an extension of the firm’s six-year-long strategic partnership with Migros, which supported the firm’s regulatory application to the Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office in 2023.

    “Our collaboration with The Cultured Hub builds on years of joint work to advance the regulatory and operational readiness of cultivated meat in Switzerland,” said Aleph Farms co-founder and CEO Didier Toubia.

    How Aleph Farms is charting its global footprint

    aleph farms facility
    Aleph Farms operates a 65,000 square foot facility in Rehovot, Israel. Courtesy: Amit Goren/Aleph Farms

    Aleph Farms’s signature offering is the Petit Steak, a hybrid meat product combining non-modified, non-immortalised cells of a premium Black Angus cow with a plant protein matrix made of soy and wheat.

    The firm has already received regulatory clearance in Israel, though this was contingent on the company clearing a Good Manufacturing Practices inspection for its production facility, on which there has been no public update yet.

    Additionally, it has filed for approval in Singapore, the UK, Thailand, and Switzerland, and is engaged in advanced pre-submission consultations in countries including the US. It plans to eventually expand into Japan, South Korea, Australia, China, and Hong Kong too.

    This strategy would give way to a complex supply chain, so setting up facilities in local hotspots would help Aleph Farms streamline its manufacturing and distribution. It currently operates a 65,000 sq ft plant in Rehovot, Israel (with a capacity to initially produce 10 tonnes of cultivated steak annually), and has acquired another factory in Modi’in.

    Elsewhere, the startup has signed a co-manufacturing deal with Singapore’s ESCO Aster (the first approved cultivated meat facility globally), and is building a factory in Thailand with biotech firms BBGI and Fermbox Bio.

    The Swiss facility is an extension of this approach, and will allow Aleph Farms to create a long-term partnership framework for production in the canton of Zurich, with the potential for future expansion into other European markets.

    Aleph Farms will prepare for commercial launch with Swiss facility

    the cultured hub
    The Cultured Hub is located in The Valley business park | Courtesy: The Valley

    Opened in December, The Cultured Hub aims to speed up the development and commercialisation of cellular agriculture products. It’s equipped with advanced production development labs, as well as cell culture and fermentation capabilities and equipment.

    The hub can host three companies at a time, which can work simultaneously in fully separated suites. Producers can scale up from small lab experiments to 1,000-litre pilot operations without investing in expensive assets or diluting equity. This helps accelerate market entry by saving time and resources, and allowing the entities to focus on creating the optimal food products at competitive costs.

    “We believe the future of food depends on cross-industry collaboration to create impact at scale,” said Fabio Campanile, chairman of The Cultured Hub and head of science and tech at Givaudan. “We are confident that we can provide the infrastructure, services, and networks needed to bring great new products to market by combining Aleph’s innovation and expertise with our platform.”

    The establishment of Aleph Farms’s Swiss operations is supported by the regional administration. “The company strengthens Zurich’s position as a hub for innovation and brings fresh momentum to the growing Zurich food ecosystem, which includes the Food Hub in Wädenswil and nearly 11,000 businesses across the canton,” said Carmen Walker Späh, the canton’s economic affairs councillor.

    According to Aleph Farms, the collaboration supports the startup’s goal of decentralising production and boosting Switzerland’s domestic meat supply – currently, 20% of its beef is imported. It will further help the startup prepare for its commercial launch through relevant distribution channels, once it’s cleared to sell.

    “This partnership allows us to execute our global strategy in the best possible way – one that is both capital-efficient and deeply embedded in the local market,” said Toubia.

    It comes months after the firm secured $29M in the first closing of a larger funding round, taking its total investment to nearly $150M. And last week, an independent analysis showed that Aleph Farms’s steak could be produced at $6.45 per lb and sold in wholesale for $12.25, generating annual net profits of $78.5M. With further process enhancement, the cost of goods sold could fall to just $4.08 per lb.

    The post Aleph Farms Sets Sights on Europe with Cultivated Beef Facility in Switzerland appeared first on Green Queen.

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  • Why Upside Foods & Wildtype Are Suing Texas for Its Cultivated Meat Ban

    lab grown meat texas
    7 Mins Read

    A day after Texas’s ban on cultivated meat came into force, two food tech startups sued the state for its decision. Their legal team explains why.

    When Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed a law to ban cultivated meat in the state, companies had just over two months before it went into effect.

    In that period, Wildtype, a US startup approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to sell cultivated salmon nationwide, debuted its product at Otoko, an omakase restaurant in Austin known for its blend of Tokyo-style sushi and Kyoto-style kaiseki.

    “Farm-raised salmon creates so much pollution, so it’s not sustainable. You want to enjoy seafood long-term, so Wildtype’s good because you don’t have to kill the fish anymore,” chef-owner Yoshi Okai said. “It’s something new. It’s awesome.”

    The eatery was one of Wildtype’s first launch partners, alongside outposts in Oregon, California, Washington, and Colorado. “We had selected Otoko and chef Yoshi Okai for a number of reasons, many months before this ban was floated in Texas,” co-founder and CEO Justin Kolbeck tells Green Queen.

    “Following our launch in July, we had planned to build on our momentum in Austin by making Wildtype available to a number of seafood restaurants across Texas, including in Dallas and Houston, but this bill closed those markets to us,” he says.

    Before Texas’s ban was even discussed by policymakers, Upside Foods – a cultivated meat startup approved to sell both by the FDA and the US Department of Agriculture – sold limited amounts of its first chicken product at a “well-attended private event” during the 2024 South by Southwest conference in Austin.

    “The company is preparing for a larger-scale commercial launch of its new chicken products in the coming months,” says Upside Foods general counsel Myra Pasek. “Texas businesses – both restaurants and grocery stores – have expressed serious interest in selling Upside chicken in Texas. With the ban in effect, these sales would be prohibited.”

    These missed opportunities have driven Wildtype and Upside Foods to join forces with the Institute for Justice to file a lawsuit in the US District Court for the Western District of Texas, alleging that the state’s SB 261 is “unconstitutional”.

    wildtype salmon where to buy
    Wildtype was selling its cultivated salmon at Yoshi Okai’s Otoko restaurant in Austin before Texas’s ban | Courtesy: Wildtype

    What clauses is Texas allegedly violating?

    In the legal complaint, the Institute for Justice noted that the law wasn’t passed to protect the health and safety of consumers, since it allows the distribution of cultivated meat as long as it isn’t sold.

    “Instead, SB 261 was enacted to stifle the growth of the cultivated meat industry to protect Texas’s conventional agricultural industry from innovative competition that is exclusively based outside of Texas,” it said.

    It argues that Texas’s ban violates the Commerce and Supremacy Clauses of the US Constitution. Under the former’s dormant clause, the federal government has exclusive power to regulate interstate commerce, with states having limited power to interfere. It’s designed to prohibit economic protectionism that benefits in-state interests.

    The Supremacy Clause, meanwhile, makes the Constitution and federal laws the highest law of the land. The decisions by two federal departments to allow Wildtype and Upside Foods to sell products in the interstate market supersede any contrary state laws.

    “Texas’s law is unconstitutional because it was enacted for the purpose, and has the effect, of protecting in-state economic interests from out-of-state competition. That sort of discrimination violates the Commerce Clause,” explains Paul Sherman, senior attorney at the Institute for Justice.

    “Second, as to Upside, Texas’s law is preempted by federal law. The Poultry Product Inspection Act prohibits states from imposing rules on the permissible ingredients in poultry products – or the manner in which they’re produced – that differ from or exceed federal standards,” he notes.

    “The USDA has given Upside the green light to manufacture chicken products from cultivated cells. Texas has said Upside can’t sell products containing cultivated cells. That’s not allowed.”

    florida bans lab grown meat
    Courtesy: Kevin Martin Galante/Upside Foods

    Texas’s cultivated meat ban is ‘pure economic protectionism’

    Texas is one of seven states to have banned cultivated meat. Florida was the first, and was at the end of a similar lawsuit brought by the Institute for Justice on behalf of Upside Foods last year. Alabama, Mississippi, Montana, Indiana, and Nebraska have also outlawed the sale of cultivated meat.

    So why choose Texas for the lawsuit instead of the others? “Texas is the second most populous state in the country. It’s an important market,” says Sherman. “And it’s one in which both Wildtype and Upside have distributed their products. A victory there would send a strong signal to other states that this sort of economic protectionism will not stand.”

    He confirms that the Institute for Justice is “monitoring legislative activity in all the states and will certainly consider filing other lawsuits if necessary”.

    All the states that have banned cultivated meat are led by Republican governors, and surveys have shown that cultivated meat acceptance skews lower among Americans who vote red. But Wildtype’s Kolbeck doesn’t think such legislation is driven by partisan politics.

    “This is pure economic protectionism,” he says. “There were countless points made during deliberations on this bill about protecting Texas ranchers. The complaint filed by the Institute for Justice provides examples. This law is all about keeping competition out of Texas. Wildtype was collateral damage.”

    Indeed, Texas is the top meat producer in the US – last year, it churned out 4.5 billion lbs of beef. The industry is the third-largest economic generator in the state. And in the run-up to the bill’s signing, SB 261’s sponsor, Senator Charles Perry, said the introduction of cultivated meat “could disrupt traditional livestock markets, affecting rural communities and family farms”.

    Likewise, Stan Gerdes, the bill’s lead sponsor in the House, said: “The goal of this bill is to protect our agriculture industry.”

    wildtype salmon
    Courtesy: Wildtype

    What happens next?

    The Institute for Justice isn’t stopping here. “We will be filing a motion for preliminary injunction asking the court to allow Wildtype and UPSIDE to continue selling their products in Texas while the case moves forward,” says Sherman “Our hope is that we can have a ruling on that before the end of the year.”

    It attempted a similar move in Florida, though a judge rejected the preliminary injunction, cancelling Upside Foods’s scheduled appearances at Art Basel and the South Beach Wine and Food Festival, and postponing its planned product launch at a restaurant in the state in early 2025.

    “Although the Florida court rejected our preemption claim, its reasoning was based on a misunderstanding of how the federal law works. Briefly, the court believed that state and federal requirements had to conflict, but the federal law prohibits even non-conflicting state requirements,” says Sherman.

    “Meanwhile, the [Texas] government is likely to file a motion to dismiss the case. We defeated a motion to dismiss in our Florida challenge, and we’re confident we can defeat one here,” he adds. “We have strong arguments. The district court in our Florida lawsuit has already held that the government will have a heavy burden to justify the law on our Commerce Clause claim.”

    lab grown meat lawsuit
    Wildtype co-founders Aryé Elfenbein and Justin Kolbeck | Courtesy: Wildtype

    Apart from harming cultivated meat producers’ financial dealings, Kolbeck suggests that the ban has a wider effect on public perception. “In addition to shutting down one of the very first places cultivated seafood was available for sale, proponents of the bill made misrepresentations about cultivated foods during deliberations, all of which harmed the reputation of our emerging industry,” he says.

    The case has been assigned to Judge Alan Albright, who Sherman says is known for moving cases quickly: “Our hope is we’ll have a ruling from the trial court on the merits no later than summer next year.” 

    Asked for an update on the Florida case, Sherman adds: “We’ll be having an argument in the 11th Circuit on November 3 about whether the trial court erred when it denied Upside’s motion for a preliminary injunction. Besides that, we’re moving forward with discovery in the trial court.”

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  • Exclusive: Mission Barns Launches Cultivated Pork in World-First Dinner

    mission barns
    6 Mins Read

    Californian startup Mission Barns sold its cultivated pork for the first time at a dinner in San Francisco, with dishes featuring its meatballs and bacon.

    On Tuesday evening in San Francisco’s Sunset District, a small group of diners gathered for the first sale of cultivated pork anywhere in the world.

    Food tech firm Mission Barns held the exclusive dinner at Fiorella, weeks after securing approval from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) for its cultivated pork fat. The event was the first of three pop-up dinners, convening six industry leaders and one sweepstakes winner.

    Fiorella served Mission Barns’s meatballs with Italian herbs and chilli, as well as in a Sicilian-inspired dish with raisins and pignoli, a creation of chef-owner Brandon Gillis. Diners also tried its Applewood-smoked bacon, which is layered with the startup’s cultivated fat.

    lab grown pork
    Courtesy: Mission Barns

    “We put our full trust in Fiorella and chef Brandon, who has deep experience working with the best local, seasonal ingredients in a farm-to-table Italian style,” Mission Barns CEO Cecilia Chang tells Green Queen.

    “After we walked him through our products, he created a menu that showcases them in true Fiorella fashion,” she says. “One highlight is his take on our meatball – he broke it apart, seasoned it with classic Sicilian ingredients like currants and pine nuts, and reformed it into something entirely new, while still letting our cultivated pork shine.”

    Chang recently took over from Eitan Fischer as CEO to lead the company into its next phase of growth, with Fischer still actively involved as founder and board member.

    The inaugural dinner will be followed by another event on September 24, where eight guests chosen from the public will be invited to try the cultivated pork dishes.

    What goes into Mission Barns’s meatballs?

    mission barns bacon
    Courtesy: Mission Barns

    Founded in 2018, Mission Barns uses belly fat cells from American Yorkshire pigs and grows them in bioreactors to make its Mission Fat. This fat is then mixed with plant-based ingredients to make meatballs, bacon, and more.

    This hybrid approach allows the startup to keep costs from soaring too high. And since fat is the primary flavour carrier in food, even a little bit goes a long way in replicating conventional meat.

    “The great thing about our cultivated fat ingredient is that we’ve found even at low inclusion rates (i.e., single-digit percentages), there’s a really noticeable improvement on taste and mouthfeel, and our products have been able to match conventional meat on blind taste tests with consumers,” says Chang.

    For example, the meatballs contain a base of pea protein and Mission Fat (which will appear on the label as a composition of purified water, cell-cultivated pork fat cells, and kosher salt).

    These are complemented by coconut oil, textured pea protein, Italian seasoning, and methylcellulose. In addition, the meatballs contain less than 2% of natural flavours and colours, sodium gluconate, salt, potato starch, red wine vinegar, lactic acid, xanthan gum, and liquid seasoning.

    Mission Barns is one of several startups taking the cultivated fat route. Hoxton Farms, Steakholder Foods, Genuine Taste, and Mosa Meat are doing the same – the latter has filed for regulatory approval in several geographies, including the EU, the UK, and Switzerland.

    lab grown meat restaurant
    Courtesy: Mission Barns

    Restaurant rollout is a gateway for B2B strategy

    At Fiorella, Gillis was “blown away” by the cultivated pork fat. “It had that same rich, savoury depth you get from traditional pork, but with a much smaller footprint,” he recalls. “Working with them on this launch lets us create dishes that are both familiar and groundbreaking.”

    As part of its launch strategy, Mission Barns has been working with front-of-house teams to help engage and educate diners. “At our restaurant, we’re always looking for ways to honour tradition while embracing innovation,” says Isabella Hare, a server at Fiorella.

    “Partnering with Mission Barns allows us to introduce our guests to a groundbreaking ingredient that’s not only delicious but also more sustainable for the future of food,” she adds.

    lab grown pork
    Courtesy: Mission Barns

    The three pop-up dinners had always been intended as a limited in-market test to gauge consumer response and gather valuable feedback, according to Chang.

    “While we’re excited to continue exploring opportunities with Fiorella and other chefs, our long-term strategy has always been B2B: licensing our technology so food partners and manufacturers can produce cultivated products at scale. These early sales and insights serve as proof points for potential partners,” she says.

    “We are having conversations with chefs and restaurants across several US cities,” she notes, but adds: “In the near term, our focus remains on scaling our bioreactor platform rather than expanding restaurant distribution.”

    The firm has designed a novel bioreactor technology that marks a departure from the single-cell suspension tanks of the biopharma sector, enabling more efficient, scalable, and cheaper production.

    mission barns funding
    Courtesy: Mission Barns

    Cultivated meat bans ‘limit choice and economic opportunity’

    Aside from its restaurant rollout, Mission Barns has announced a listing with Sprouts Farmers Market, which will make it the first cultivated meat product to be sold in a US supermarket.

    In July, Chang told Green Queen that the company expects to roll out its meatballs at the retailer’s Oakland locations in Q3. “We’re working closely with Sprouts on timing, but we aren’t announcing specific rollout dates just yet,” she says now. “What we can share is that consumers in the Bay Area will be among the first in the country to find Mission Barns cultivated pork on grocery shelves.”

    Though its current focus is on the US, Mission Barns is keeping an eye on markets that align with the US regulatory process, like Singapore and other Asian countries. It has secured $60 million in funding to date, and will now attempt to raise more capital to support commercial scale-up, strategic licensing, and global expansion.

    “We are raising enough to fund our scale-up work for the next few years,” says Chang. “As everyone knows, the fundraising landscape for cultivated meat is a tough one right now.”

    Indeed, in 2023, funding for cultivated meat startups fell by 75%, followed by another 40% drop in 2024, reaching just $137M. And in the first half of this year, this total dropped even further to $35M.

    mission barns
    Courtesy: Mission Barns

    What will convince investors to bet on Mission Barns? “We have a differentiated approach focused on cultivated fat as a low-inclusion-rate flavouring ingredient, and our novel patented bioreactor has broad applications for products outside of just food – so that’s a really attractive point for investors,” highlights Chang.

    It has been a big year for cultivated meat in the US. Aside from Mission Barns, Wildtype and Believer Meats have both also received a ‘no questions’ letter from the Food and Drug Administration – Wildtype’s salmon is already being served in several restaurants now (as seafood isn’t regulated by the USDA). At the same time, seven states have now banned cultivated meat, with Florida and Texas being sued for their decisions.

    “We believe consumers should have the right to choose safe, delicious, healthy products that are approved by US regulators (in our case, the FDA and the USDA),” says Chang. “The bans are unfortunate because they limit choice, innovation, and economic opportunity in those states. That said, they haven’t slowed our plans – we’re focusing on states where cultivated meat is welcomed, starting here in California.”

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  • Exclusive: Carnéa Enters the Blended Meat Fray With A Michelin-Starred Twist

    carnea
    6 Mins Read

    Parendi Birdie’s Texas startup Carnéa has emerged from stealth with a range of chef-crafted blended meats that beat Tyson’s products in taste tests.

    In 2023, Parendi Birdie left her role as head of brand strategy at cultivated meat firm Mission Barns to focus on Asentia, a new venture that is blending animal protein with plants.

    “We’re combining the meat we know and crave with the plant-powered benefits we want more of to create inspired, enhanced protein with more flavour, juiciness and nutrients,” she told Green Queen at the time.

    Two years, two more co-founders, a whole lot of R&D, and a name change later, Birdie is ready to unleash her innovations on the world.

    Now called Carnéa Meat Co, the Houston-based startup is being spearheaded by Birdie (who is the CEO), former Impossible Foods executive Eric Hedstrand (chief commercial officer), and chief innovation officer Tom Lynch (the former head R&D chef at two-Michelin-starred restaurant 42 Grams and one of Beyond Meat’s earliest food technologists).

    When Birdie spoke to Green Queen in 2023, blended meat wasn’t a new idea, but it was nowhere near as widespread as it is today. Now, with Carnéa, she says she’s introducing products that she says are unlike anything on the market. Think truffle mushroom meatballs; a Black Angus, roast shallot and shiitake burger; bourbon-bacon and artichoke sausages; and BBQ-braised brisket with jackfruit – with inclusion rates ranging from 50% to two-thirds.

    “There’s a huge, untapped market of people who want to eat plant-forward, but are frustrated by current products,” she says, citing how 72% of Americans want to eat more plants but not go fully vegan. “A third of the country has tried plant-based meat. It’s pretty simple: many of us want to eat better without giving up meat.”

    Carnéa’s blended sausage beats Tyson’s 100% meat

    carnea meat co
    Courtesy: Carnéa Meat Co

    Reflecting on the rebrand, Birdie says Asentia was never intended to be the startup’s consumer-facing name in the first place. It partnered with a global branding agency and worked closely with its advisory board (who’ve worked for Apple, Tesla, Starbucks, Tyson and Cargill) to build a “bold, evocative, and distinctive brand platform that commands attention on the shelf”.

    “The identity features rich, warm colours and soulful elements that mirror our products – full of richness, passion, and depth – raising the bar for what meat can be and adding dimension where ordinary meat falls flat,” she says. “The brand connects on an emotional level, tapping into the ‘second brain’ – our gut – to spark those instant, visceral reactions.”

    That hits the nail on the head. Meat-eating is tied to emotion. In 2021, an Ipsos poll revealed that 59% of consumers believed eating meat is the American way of life, and 52% felt that those advocating for cutting meat intake are trying to control what the public eats.

    Such perceptions have only grown in the years since. Last year, meat sales reached an all-time high, and cultivated meat got caught in political crosshairs with a host of (mostly Republican-leaning) states putting restrictions on the labelling or sale of alternative proteins. Retail sales of plant-based meat, meanwhile, dropped by 7% in 2024.

    blended meat
    Courtesy: Nectar

    To counter this shift, companies big and small are taking a bite of the blended meat pie, including Nestlé, Kraft Heinz, Quorn, Aldi, and even Disneyland. Sensory testing has shown that these “balanced proteins” are more likely to appeal to meat-eaters and flexitarians than plant-based alternatives. In some cases, they even outperform 100% meat products.

    “Balanced proteins offer the authentic taste of meat with the plant-powered benefits we want more of. This, coupled with the cultural and psychological familiarity of meat, is a winning combination for widespread, daily adoption,” says Birdie.

    Carnéa conducted its own taste tests at food events and farmers’ markets in Texas. “Twice as many people preferred ours over a leading Tyson 100% pork sausage – and these were big meat-eating Texans,” she reveals.

    “When they learned the sausage they loved was made with plant-forward ingredients, they were amazed. Many said it felt like the best of both worlds: a way to eat healthier without sacrifice.”

    Alternative protein industry ‘must think outside the box’

    asentia
    Courtesy: Carnéa Meat Co

    So how did Carnéa manage to outperform a 100% meat product from Tyson (whose own attempt at blended meat failed)?

    “It takes sophisticated food science to pull this off successfully,” says Birdie. “A key part of our ‘secret sauce’ is our fermentation process, which enzymatically breaks down proteins into savoury amino acids, fats into aromatic fatty acids, and carbohydrates into simple sugars. This enhances the Maillard reaction, creating rich, caramelised flavours, and exceptional juiciness that keeps people coming back for more.”

    Despite offering better environmental metrics – swapping 50% of meat with plants can cut agriculture emissions by 31% and double climate benefits – blended meat is still criticised for the use of animal products, especially those that are factory-farmed.

    “Our industry must evolve. We must become smarter, stronger and more connected to our consumers. We need to listen intently and think outside the box in order to win,” argues Birdie.

    “When I envision a truly sustainable, sensible food system…it’s hard to see a realistic path forward without balanced proteins playing a crucial role. My excitement is less about the short-term benefits of the category, and more about its unique ability to create an environment where the entire alternative protein sector can thrive.

    “What excites me most are the meaningful partnerships we can forge with conventional meat giants, and how these collaborations will enable us to accelerate the creation of a sustainable food system. Our vision is big, and our goal is to be a catalytic force driving change, not merely to be along for the ride.”

    Carnéa’s blended proteins are priced in line with premium meat

    carnea blended meat
    Courtesy: Carnéa Meat Co

    Any successful alternative protein product must have a price point that doesn’t ward off shoppers. In today’s climate, this applies to meat too, which is suffering from record-high prices globally.

    “Our team brings a combined 25 years in the alternative protein industry, and one thing is clear: to truly win and create massive impact, products must be priced accessibly,” says Bidie. “We’re committed to building a healthy, sustainable business, so we’re not dependent on raising hundreds of millions.”

    She adds: “From day one, we’ve developed products that are gross-margin-positive. We’re launching with pricing in line with premium meat, with clear plans to reach price parity with conventional meat.

    “While this is a nuanced and strategic decision for every company, in our case, some SKUs are already able to undercut their 100% meat counterparts, thanks to the lower cost of our strategic vegetable components.“

    Carnéa has penned a deal with a “top-tier co-manufacturer” that also produces for Costco and H-E-B. “Their state-of-the-art, USDA-inspected facility has already completed successful production runs of our products, proving we can scale while maintaining the sensory qualities that set us apart,” says Birdie.

    It isn’t the only startup blending meat with vegetables instead of plant or microbial proteins. For example, 50/50 Foods sells the Both Burger, pairing Angus Beef with roasted mushrooms, caramelised onions, cauliflower and broccoli. And Phil’s Finest makes blended beef mince and sausages with a host of vegetables.

    But the enthusiasm for Carnéa’s products has been “so strong that several leaders from the world’s most successful food companies have personally invested” in it, according to Birdie (who did not disclose the total capital her startup has raised). “With standout taste, scalable manufacturing, accessible pricing, a world-class team, and unrivalled nutrition, we believe we have all the ingredients for long-term success,” she says.

    The post Exclusive: Carnéa Enters the Blended Meat Fray With A Michelin-Starred Twist appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Iceland’s ORF Genetics Gets $5.8M to Advance Cultivated Meat via Molecular Farming

    orf genetics
    3 Mins Read

    Food tech startup ORF Genetics has raised €5M ($5.8M) in a new funding round to scale up production of specialised proteins key to cultivated meat.

    Icelandic firm ORF Genetics has secured €5M ($5.8M) in funding to advance and scale up its cultivated meat capabilities.

    The investment round saw participation from both existing and new shareholders, and will help the startup significantly scale up its capacity to produce specialised proteins via molecular farming. These proteins are key components for cultivated meat manufacturing.

    “We are at a pivotal moment,” said CEO Berglind Rán Ólafsdóttir. “This funding ensures that ORF can meet the imminent surge in commercial opportunities and supports the company’s next growth phase.”

    How ORF Genetics makes growth factors with barley

    orf genetics funding
    Courtesy: ORF Genetics

    ORF Genetics’s base technology leverages molecular farming, through which companies modify the cells of plants (instead of microbes or animals, as is the case in cultivated proteins or precision fermentation) to enable them to replicate animal proteins, which can be harvested from leaves or other plant tissues.

    Its unique expression system is called Orfeus, which uses barley as a vehicle for large-scale production of recombinant animal and human proteins. The startup identifies the genetic code for the target protein, which is cloned into a highly optimised expression vector called GrainVec.

    In a process mediated by bacteria, immature barley embryos undergo tissue culture in a carefully optimised medium, which then grow into strong, bioengineered plantlets with a well-developed root system.

    These are then transferred into a supporting matrix in small pots, in a controlled growth chamber. After a well-defined period, these plantlets are transferred into an automatic hydroponic conveyor belt cultivation system until they are ready for harvest.

    ORF Genetics chooses the highest-expressing barley lines (based on target protein levels in the barley seed extract), which are expanded further into a final selection of the best-yielding lines.

    ORF Genetics plans extension of funding round

    cultivated meat growth factors
    Courtesy: ORF Genetics

    The Orfeus platform has allowed the firm to develop a portfolio of growth factors, including Mesokine, its range for cultivated meat. Each product is a defined barley seed extract that contains endotoxin-free growth factors from cows, pigs, birds and marine species. They also contain selected barley proteins to stabilise them, prolong their lifetime, and enhance their bioactivity.

    ORF Genetics notes that Mesokine has become a trusted brand among key players in the cultivated meat space. One of its most notable customers is Australia’s Vow, whose cultured quail is made from the Icelandic firm’s growth factors, and is being sold at restaurants in Singapore and Australia.

    Further, it’s working with South Korea-based SeaWith, which is hoping to receive regulatory approval and launch cultivated seafood in its home country by the end of the year. The two companies hosted a public tasting for cultivated shellfish meat at the Iceland Ocean Cluster this February, in an event attended by First Gentleman Björn Skúlason and agrifood minister Hanna Katrín Friðriksson.

    Now, ORF Genetics is aiming to supercharge the production of Mesokine, with plans to expand capacity by 14-fold by 2027, and by a factor of 10,000 by 2032.

    To help with this effort, it’s extending its funding round with a goal of raising €7M. “We plan to expand the round by the end of October and welcome new investors to join us in building a company that holds a key position in a market with tremendous growth potential,” said Berglind Rán.

    ORF Genetics is among several companies innovating with molecular farming, including Moolec Science, Alpine Bio, PoLoPo, Mozza, Miruku, Tiamat Sciences, Bright Biotech, and NewMoo.

    The post Iceland’s ORF Genetics Gets $5.8M to Advance Cultivated Meat via Molecular Farming appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • FDA Proposes Rule to End ‘Self-Affirmed’ GRAS Rule in 2026

    fda self gras
    5 Mins Read

    The US Food and Drug Administration has added a proposed rule to its spring 2026 agenda that would eliminate the current provision of companies self-affirming their ingredients as safe.

    Following through on health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr’s directive in March, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has proposed a new rule that could throw the food tech world into chaos.

    The regulatory body has suggested an amendment to the Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) rule in its Unified Agenda for spring 2026. The agenda outlines the regulatory and deregulatory actions planned by federal agencies within the next year.

    The proposal would force companies to submit GRAS notices for food ingredients for FDA review, eliminating the self-affirmation process that many companies currently use to enter the market. The latter pathway allows manufacturers to independently determine their ingredients as safe for use, which RFK Jr has called the provision a “loophole”.

    He pledged to revise the GRAS rule to “provide transparency to consumers, help get our nation’s food supply back on track by ensuring that ingredients being introduced into foods are safe, and ultimately Make America Healthy Again”.

    The move will have major repercussions for the food tech world, but may face challenges in Congress and in court.

    What is the self-affirmed GRAS rule?

    enifer gras
    Courtesy: Enifer

    The GRAS rule was created by Congress in 1958, with the self-affirmation provision introduced in 1972. This pathway doesn’t legally require FDA review – instead, companies only need to conduct a safety assessment by a scientific panel, which can include both internal and external experts.

    Since producers choosing this pathway don’t need to notify the FDA or disclose the information publicly, they can maintain confidentiality around proprietary information and trade secrets. It’s also a cheaper, easier, and faster way to get to market – the FDA only evaluates around 75 GRAS notices a year, and the mean time for each approval is over 160 days.

    Critics, including Kennedy, argue that this allows food companies to make their own safety assessments independently of the FDA.

    “For far too long, ingredient manufacturers and sponsors have exploited a loophole that has allowed new ingredients and chemicals, often with unknown safety data, to be introduced into the US food supply without notification to the FDA or the public,” the health secretary said earlier this year.

    This is why many producers choose to go through the full GRAS notification process. “Over the years, we’ve already had the chance to work with some of these companies and see the extremely rigorous and lengthy internal evaluation processes they have in place – and you want to make their lives as easy as possible if you want to make it onto their approved suppliers lists,” Simo Ellilä, CEO of Enifer, told Green Queen this week, after securing self-affirmed GRAS status for its mycoprotein ingredient.

    GRAS notification is much more rigorous and requires the submission of a host of comments, including both positive and negative reviews and studies of a company’s ingredients. If approved, the FDA sends a ‘no questions’ letter, deeming the ingredient safe for sale – this is seen as a more transparent process with publicly available data and breeds both market and consumer confidence.

    What is the FDA’s proposed rule?

    solar foods fda
    Courtesy: Solar Foods

    Under the proposed rule, companies would be required to submit GRAS notices and await FDA approval before they can sell novel ingredients in the US.

    It would spell out the process under which the agency would determine a substance to not be GRAS, and clarify that the FDA maintains and updates its publicly available GRAS notice inventory.

    Crucially, it would not affect ingredients that are already determined as GRAS. “Food substances that are listed or affirmed as GRAS for the intended use by regulation, or for which [the] FDA has already issued a ‘no questions letter’ on its GRAS notice inventory, would be exempted,” the proposal reads.

    This would be a major sigh of relief for food tech startups, many of whom have been selling their innovations after following the self-affirmed GRAS pathway. These companies may choose to begin the GRAS notification process anyway, to clear away all doubts with clients and customers.

    How will this affect food tech companies?

    nourish ingredients gras
    Courtesy: Nourish Ingredients

    The move carries a host of implications. When RFK Jr first floated the idea, the Department of Health and Human Services said it would “explore ways legislation can completely close the GRAS loophole”. This is because the FDA does not have the statutory authority to make GRAS notifications mandatory, so if it goes ahead with the rule, this could invite legal challenges and concerns in Congress.

    On a business level, fermentation firms will be the hardest hit, as they rely on the self-determination rule most in the alternative protein sector.

    If approved, the rule will likely send food producers into a scramble to self-affirm their ingredients as safe before it comes into effect, since they won’t be subject to a mandatory notification. But any new ingredients not determined as GRAS by this time would face much lengthier approval timelines, so we could see a sizeable gap in future food products entering the market.

    “If there is a significant increase in GRAS notifications submitted to the FDA by mandate, without increasing funding and resources, review timelines will likely suffer,” Tony Pavel, a partner at Keller and Heckman LLP and an executive board member of the Precision Fermentation Alliance, told Green Queen in March.

    “Currently, manufacturers may assess certain manufacturing changes or improvements without necessitating a filing with the FDA. If this flexibility is lost, there will potentially be significant additional burdens on the industry, as it iterates products through continuous improvement processes.”

    The post FDA Proposes Rule to End ‘Self-Affirmed’ GRAS Rule in 2026 appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.