US alternative protein startup NovoNutrients has raised $18M in a Series A funding round ahead of opening its pilot facility, with a renewed focus on humans and pets.
The $18M Series A round was led by Australia’s Woodside Energy and China’s CM Venture Capital, as reported by TechCrunch. It brings all-time investment into NovoNutrients to $27M.
The Californian startup uses microbial fermentation to turn carbon dioxide and hydrogen into protein. While it was initially targeting livestock and fish feed, the company has since added human nutrition to its scope of work as well. And now, it’s moving into the pet space too.
Pilot facility will serve as testbed for gas protein tech
Courtesy: NovoNutrients
Founded in 2017, NovoNutrients uses tailored microbial strains and feeds them on waste streams with different gas mixes. While it can use synthetic biology to improve the microorganisms’ stability and efficient for some products, for more natural offerings, it uses evolution instead.
“Our most relevant strain development is actually the fact that we are able to tailor the strains through natural, non-GMO means to the specific mixed gases that will be available at a particular partner site,” co-founder and CEO David Tze told TechCrunch.
NovoNutrients is among a number of gas fermentation companies, including Finland’s Solar Foods, California-based Air Protein, and Dutch startup Farmless.
But unlike these players, NovoNutrients isn’t using a big tank akin to those found in breweries. It instead relies on thinner looped cylinders, which lowers the amount of energy needed to mix the gases.
Operating a B2B model, NovoNutrients is currently building a pilot plant in the Bay Area, which will use much of the same equipment as a commercial-scale facility in the future. This would make it an important testing ground for its designs and microbial strains.
Expanding on the business model, Tze explained that the company’s financial plan relies on selling microbes as well as licences to build, operate and maintain the facilities. “We would also do marketing and business development for the products,” he added.
Tze believes the pilot facility can produce the data needed to convince investors that a commercial-scale fermenter is worth their money, with the goal of following a “capital-light” approach.
NovoNutrients taps into expanding pet food space
Courtesy: David Tze/LinkedIn
NovoNutrients has been in discussions with pet food manufacturers over the last year, opening up a new potential market for the startup.
“In part, this has been a reaction to the widespread, decreased confidence and interest in alternative proteins for people,” said Tze. “On the other hand, it’s that the pet food sector has been faster to recognise the benefits of alternative protein.”
A five-country survey of 2,500 pet owners this year found that 80% of respondents factor in sustainability when choosing food for their pets, and over half considering plant-based proteins for their climate credentials.
“There are parts of the market where there’s a significant willingness to pay for ingredients including, but not limited to, hypoallergenic,” added Tze.
Alternative pet food has been making the waves recently, whether it’s in the form of positive health studies, funding rounds or regulatory progress. For example, UK startup Meatly is expecting to put its cultivated chicken for cats on shelves imminently.
“Everyone kind of wants to move to a more sustainable food system. Everyone wants healthy food for themselves and their pets. And I think the trends in alternative proteins – and cultivated meat in particular – fit with that perfectly,” Meatly CEO Owen Ensor told Green Queen in a recent interview.
Touching upon the challenges of the alternative pet food sector, The Pack co-founder and CEO Damien Clarkson suggested that the investment decline in the plant-based sector has “made accessing capital for the vast majority of plant-based pet food startups more challenging”. “This is despite all the big pet food companies having a huge commitment to sustainability and a diversification of protein sources,” he told Green Queen.
Explaining how players in this space can succeed, he added: “Alt-protein pet food companies need to operate more like pet food businesses, and less like challenger plant-based startup brands.”
Food tech investor Big Idea Ventures has launched a new vegan seafood company that utilises intellectual property from New Wave Foods, which shut down last year.
Big Idea Ventures (BIV) has incorporated Bayou Best Foods, a new plant-based seafood company that uses IP from the now-defunct New Wave Foods.
The eighth investment out of BIV’s Generation Food Rural Partners (GFRP) Fund, Bayou Bets aims to commercialise the IP with an initial focus on shrimp (slated for a market launch by the end of the year). It plans to extend into other categories in the future as well.
BIV has appointed former Conagra, Perdue Farms and Beyond Meat exec Kelli Wilson as the company’s CEO. “Bayou Best is positioned to be a leader in animal-free seafood manufacturing and distribution, with a strong focus on delivering an eating experience that mimics, in taste and texture, animal-based seafood items,” she said.
Why New Wave Foods ceased operations
Courtesy: New Wave Foods
In November, San Francisco-based New Wave Foods entered into a voluntary assignment for the benefit of the creditors (ABC), an alternative to formal bankruptcy proceedings that involves transferring assets from a debtor to a trust to liquidate them and distribute the proceeds. In effect, the company was “indebted to various creditors” and “unable to pay its debts in full”.
The startup had rolled out its vegan shrimp in US foodservice through a partnership with Dot Foods in 2021, months after closing an $18M Series A fundraiser. “Although we were gaining momentum in 2023 and had secured a major customer for 2024 sales, we couldn’t outrun industry headwinds,” co-founder and CEO Michelle Wolf told AgFunderNews at the time.
Speaking to the publication now, BIV chief investment officer Tom Mastrobuoni said there wasn’t “any one thing” to blame for New Wave Foods’ collapse, but rather “a confluence of events”.
“I think we’ve learned a ton of lessons, which is why we’re bringing in someone with Kelli’s experience to run Bayou Best Foods. At the end of the day, you’re still running a food company, not a tech company that makes food,” he said.
The acquired IP includes “formulations and specific production techniques”, but not any production facilities. To support its market entry, Bayou Best Foods will use co-packers to manufacture its vegan shrimp. “We’re working very closely with BIV partners on innovation and pilot trials and then we will scale up with contract manufacturers,” Wilson told AgFunderNews.
She added: “We’re not using expensive technologies such as twin-screw extrusion; we’re using simple blending and heating and forming followed by freezing and packaging for ready-to-heat products. New Wave’s latest iteration was using mung bean protein [combined with seaweed extracts], but we’re looking at other high-quality protein sources.”
A sea of problems
Courtesy: The Environmental Justice Foundation
In a statement, Wilson outlined the Bayou Best Foods’ mission to “provide a product that can replace shrimp in any traditional menu or dish”, and cater to consumers with seafood allergies and those who are cutting back on shrimp due to health concerns.
A survey by the International Food Information Council (IFIC) this year found that 66% of seafood consumers prioritise nutrition and health, with frequent eaters showing an even higher inclination (78%). But ill health effects from shrimp farming have been under the spotlight, thanks to a combination of overcrowded aquaculture systems, overuse of disinfectants and high susceptibility to diseases stemming from monocultures.
Microplastic pollution, toxic chemical runoff, antibiotic and pesticide use, sea lice, mercury, and overfishing are among a host of issues that are leading to the collapse of global fisheries. Crustaceans like shrimp, meanwhile, account for 22% of the total carbon emissions from fishing, despite making up just 6% of all the tonnage landed.
The species has been vastly affected by climate change too, suffering from population declines, with spawning population only an eighth of what it was in 1908. There has been a collapse in Atlantic shrimp numbers too, thanks to ocean warming. And in the Gulf of Mexico, pink shrimp stand to lose 70% of their habitats by the end of the century.
Meanwhile, illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing of shrimp and prawns amounted to potential economic losses of about $47M annually between 2015 and 2021. In fact, 26.4% of all shrimp fishing activities were potentially illegal and unregulated between 2016 and 2021.
A large global survey by the Marine Stewardship Council recently revealed that 30% of consumers have been eating less seafood in the last two years, with almost half (48%) concerned about overfishing and 35% worried about climate change impacts. More than 80% of people have changed their dietary habits in this period, with 43% doing so for sustainability reasons – it highlights the need for more sustainable alternatives to animal proteins like shrimp.
Bayou Best Foods to license IP as well
Bayou Best Foods CEO Kelli Wilson | Courtesy: Summit Art Creations/New Wave Foods
Mastrobuoni said Bayou Best Foods is primarily focused on foodservice since that’s where the majority of seafood is consumed in the US, “mainly because consumers are afraid of it and don’t really know how to cook it”, and “chefs understand how to work with it”.
“We’re also going to develop a portfolio of products across different species as we want to build a platform company that can leverage multiple technologies in this space, so we’ll also be looking to license IP being developed in universities we’re working with,” he added. “Single-product companies are interesting science projects, but they are not good companies. Companies need differentiated revenue.”
Speaking of revenue, the plant-based meat and seafood industry saw retail sales drop by 12% in 2023, while prices also increased by 9% (compared to a 3% rise for conventional meat and seafood). And within the plant-based analogue world, vegan seafood only makes up 1% of the market share.
“Despite challenging times for the category, there is no denying that we are in a climate emergency and that our oceans are in peril,” Marissa Bronfman, founder of alternative seafood association Future Ocean Foods, told Green Queen in February. “We must ensure that the international venture community continues to fund alternative seafood across plant-based, fermentation and cultivated, if we are to protect our oceans and feed 10 billion people by 2050.”
Bayou Best Foods joins a number of other players developing or selling plant-based shrimp, including HAPPIEE! (Singapore), Vegan Zeastar (the Netherlands), Plant-Based Seafood Co., Aqua Cultured Foods (both US), Boldly Foods (Australia), Thai Union (Thailand), and Steakholder Foods (Israel).
“There are significant environmental, human rights, and fraud issues in the seafood industry. Bayou Best’s products align with the growing demand for sustainable protein options, driven by consumer concerns about seafood sustainability and a desire for animal-free alternatives,” said Emily Linett, director of strategic partnerships of the GFRP Fund.
GFRP is an inception-stage agrifood venture fund backed by members of the Farm Credit System, which partners with leading universities to launch new companies based on IP, brings strategic support from inception, and provides seed-stage and follow-on capital. Its portfolio startups include microbial tech company PlantSustain, cultivated meat solutions developer Nexture Bio, and sustainable active ingredient maker BioCloak, among others.
“This investment furthers GFRP’s mission of launching innovative companies while creating living wage jobs in rural communities,” said Linett.
In our weekly column, we round up the latest news and developments in the alternative protein and sustainable food industry. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers Aldi’s zero-waste pineapples, a Charli XCX-inspired marketing drive, and an open letter to Florida’s policymakers.
New products and launches
In its bid to cut food waste, German discount retailer Aldi is trialling a crownless pineapple in the UK’s Midlands, Yorkshire and North East. The crowns will be used to cultivate next year’s crop or converted into animal feed, saving around 1,4000 tonnes of food manually if rolled out across all stores nationwide.
Courtesy: Field Roast
US plant-based meat brand Field Roast has kicked off a new marketing campaign inspired by Charli XCX‘s new album Brat. The company posted a photo of its sausages in a wrapper modelled after the album cover, asking the singer if this is what she meant when she said it’s a brat summer.
Mycelium meat maker Mush Foods, whose 50Cut innovation is used in blended meat applications, has partnered with New York-based fast-casual chain Fieldtrip for the latter’s new Jerk Meatball Bowl. It combines the mushroom root meat with ground turkey, served over a bed of rice, alongside vegetables and coconut yoghurt.
Californian vegan seafood producer ProFillet has created a prototype of a whole-cut plant-based whitefish that is on par with the nutritional credentials of its conventional counterpart.
Courtesy: Doug McNish/LinkedIn
Following a successful launch in Europe last year, global food giant Bunge has released its BeLeaf PlantBetter butter for food manufacturers and bakers in North America. The spread is made from coconut oil, cocoa butter, rapeseed oil and lecithins.
Meanwhile, dairy-free artisanal cheesemaker Climax Foods‘ blue cheese is now available online grocer Good Eggs.
Also in the alt-dairy sector, US startup Credo Foods has introduced what it claims is the world’s first oat milk spray cheese, which is available on its website (and soon at HEB and Wegmans) in Cheddar and Smoky flavours.
Courtesy: Väcka/Ditaly
Spanish vegan cheese producer Väcka, meanwhile, has teamed up with local pizzeria chain Ditaly for its new La Gazpacha pizza, which uses the former’s melon seed Mözza and nut-based Fraïs with Basil offerings.
In Japan, Misola Foods has launched what it calls the country’s first oat milk, which is suitable for both adults and children, given it matches conventional dairy on calcium (110mg per 100g). It comes in 196g cartons made from recyclable paper, with no straws included. A 24-pack costs ¥5,400 ($33.50).
Fellow Japanese company Spiber – fresh from a $65M fundraise – has inked supply chain partnerships and project deals with Italian mills Marzotto, RD Gruppo Florence, and Filatura Papi Fabio to make materials from its fermentation-derived Brewed Protein.
Courtesy: The Moonbeam Co.
And Singaporean upcycled food startup The Moonbeam Co. has rolled out Kopi Siew Dai Chocolate Chip Cookies made from spent coffee grounds exclusively at the Changi Airport‘s SATS Premier Lounge.
Finance and company updates
The Illinois Fermentation and Agriculture Biomanufacturing (iFAB) Tech Hub, which uses precision fermentation to turn corn and soy into high-value products, has secured a $51M Phase 2 implementation grant via the US Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration. It follows the $680M it received from public and private entities upon its establishment in March.
Denmark’s KMC, which makes potato-based food ingredients, has inaugurated a $14.5M, 5,000 sq m innovation centre to supply ingredients for plant-based foods.
Courtesy: MATR Foods
Fellow Danish company Novo Holdings, the holding company that owns Ozempic and Wegovy maker Novo Nordisk, has made an initial investment in Dutch fungi-based meat company MATR Foods to support its scale-up efforts.
Speaking of Dutch meat analogue makers, there’s change at the helm at The Vegetarian Butcher, with CEO Hugo Verkuil taking a sabbatical. Global commercial director Rutger Rozendaal has been promoted to the top job at the Unilever-owned company.
Courtesy: The Vegetarian Butcher
British entrepreneur Heather Mills, who owns VBites, has acquired plant-based marketplace Alternative Stores, which lists a multitude of vegan products and supports family businesses in launching their own brands.
In more acquisition news, Ahimsa Companies – which recently acquired Wicked Kitchen, the parent company of Good Catch Foods – has bought a plant-based production facility from Gathered Foods, the former owner of Good Catch Foods.
Pulse protein manufacturer Australian Plant Proteins has gone into voluntary administration, with local organisation Food Frontier suggesting that this is a result of a lack of government support for plant proteins, as opposed to an individual company’s failure.
Policy and research developments
Boston-based biotech startup Foray Bioscience, which uses plant cell cultures to make ‘plantless plants’, has closed a $3M seed funding round led by Australia’s ReGen Ventures to expand its predictive platform for plant cell diversity, develop new products, and expand its team.
Germany’s federal court of justice, the Bundesgerichtshof, has ruled that confectionery company Katjes can’t call its fruit gummies ‘climate neutral’. The greenwashing ruling is expected to have a wider impact on food labelling and advertising, with businesses not allowed to use such terms without explaining why.
Courtesy: Katjes
The Vegan Society of Aotearoa and the NZ Vegetarian Society have jointly petitioned the New Zealand government to implement more stringent labelling regulations to prevent confusion stemming from the use of terms like ‘plant-based’ and ‘less dairy’ on products that contain animal ingredients.
How can cultivated meat become more sustainable? The answer may lie in using microalgae as a culture medium to provide glucose, instead of grains like corn and wheat, according to researchers at Tokyo Women’s Medical University‘s Institute of Advanced Biomedical Engineering and Science.
Austria is doubling down on its anti-cultivated-meat stance, railing against the innovation using a study commissioned by the Chamber of Agriculture and Forestry in the Carinthia region finding that 90% of respondents don’t want to eat these proteins, and 82% would support a ban.
Courtesy: Alexander Tengg/Kleine Zeitung
Ahead of the Olympic Games in Paris later this month, welfare group Animal Equality has launched a petition calling for foie gras to be removed from the menu, which has gained over 42,000 signatures. At this year’s event, 60% of food is set to be meat-free.
Finally, with Florida having officially banned cultivated meat last week, Canadian cellular agriculture investor Cult Food Science has written an open letter to the state’s leaders, stating that the “harmful” move relies on “misinformation and trying to slant the public discourse in a negative way”.
NatWest has scaled back its dietary recommendations to users of its banking app after months of lobbying pressure from livestock farmers.
UK bank NatWest has made changes to the carbon footprint tracker on its app, which previously recommended users eat less beef and dairy, after facing backlash from the National Farmers’ Union (NFU).
The app advised Brits to “swap out beef” and “swap to plant-based milk” to lessen their climate impact, but NatWest has now removed these recommendations, instead adding a suggestion to “buy local, British and seasonal produce”.
This is thanks to pressure from the NFU, which welcomed the changes but still expressed disappointment over what it labelled “oversimplified messages” that “do not support British agriculture”.
NFU argument goes against multiple studies
Courtesy: NatWest
The emissions tracker was added to the NatWest app in 2021. But last November, the NFU raised concerns about the diet-related recommendations. Users received a personalised carbon footprint score each month, with the bank (correctly) noting that cutting out red meat and replacing dairy with plant-based milk can help lower their CO2e emissions by 12kg and 6kg, respectively.
Research has shown that a vegan diet can reduce emissions, water pollution and land use by 75% compared to a meat-rich diet. Even if we replace just half of our meat and dairy intake with plant-based analogues, the result would be a 31% reduction in agricultural emissions, 12% decrease in land use, and effectively an end to deforestation.
The NFU, however, argues that the country’s meat and dairy are “among the most sustainable in the world, with UK beef emissions less than half the global average”. However, this fails to accommodate its methane emissions, 48% of which comes from agriculture. The gas – 80 times more potent than carbon – is a byproduct of enteric fermentation from livestock farming, and the decomposition of manure under anaerobic conditions.
“Purely focusing on GHG emissions overlooks these benefits entirely and oversimplifies a nuanced topic,” said David Barton, chair of the NFU’s livestock board. The association specifically asked NatWest to add the recommendation to “buy local, British and seasonal produce”, perpetuating the misconception that locally produced meat is somehow sustainable.
Farm and land use emissions from producing these animal foods are the main culprits – transportation makes up only a fraction of the total. Analysis by Our World in Data shows how buying imported beef from Central America in the UK versus buying local makes barely any difference.
A study by think tank the Green Alliance found that 63% of the UK’s farmland is used to grow food for livestock, but suggested that if significant policy shifts are undertaken to replace over two-thirds of meat and dairy sales with alternative proteins by 2050, it would free up 57% of the UK’s agriculture area.
Additionally, a 2022 report by the WWF asserted that UK farmers must reduce their meat and dairy production by a third in the next decade to meet climate goals. The country has fallen behind on its path to net zero by 2050, although hopes are that the new Labour government will accelerate the transition.
Farmers’ union ‘disappointed’ at remaining plant-forward advice
Courtesy: NatWest
The NFU said red meat and dairy are “recognised as an essential part of a healthy diet”, being rich in protein and calcium, and providing nutrients like iron, zinc and vitamin B12.
This (alongside the sustainability argument) echoes the rhetoric of the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board, which falls under the wing of the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and has been promoting local beef, lamb and dairy at the expense of plant-based foods.
But British doctors have hit back at these claims, labelling them “disingenuous” and “at odds with established scientific evidence on healthy and sustainable diets”. In an open letter, they noted how the WHO classifies red meat as a possible carcinogen, underscored its links with type 2 diabetes, and outlined how it could save the National Health Service millions.
While NatWest removed the beef and dairy recommendations as measures to reduce emissions, it has retained several others that promote a plant-forward diet. This includes “veggie Mondays’, “choosing vegetarian at home”, and “choosing (mostly) plant-based”. It also suggests its users add tofu and lentils as substitutes for meat.
This has left the NFU disappointed. “We understand that the NatWest app is primarily focusing on GHG emissions, but the reality is that when making diet-related recommendations, other factors such as nutrition, environment, and biodiversity must be presented,” said Barton.
“We are continuing our conversations with the bank about the nutritional and biodiversity benefits eating meat provides as currently the app’s tracker only focuses primarily on greenhouse gas emissions,” he added.
“Despite this disappointment, I am pleased to see some changes being made to the ‘carbon tracker’ on its personal banking app, following NFU engagement with NatWest at a senior level over several months.”
NatWest highlights its role as an agricultural lender
Courtesy: Elphège Barthe/NatWest
NatWest’s own climate goals aim for net zero by 2050, with the bank achieving a 23% reduction in scope 3 emissions last year, compared to 2019 levels. But its in-app U-turn should come as no surprise. In its own words, the bank is “one of the largest lenders” to the agriculture sector, where subsidies are directed heavily in favour of livestock farmers.
The UK spends £3B on farming subsidies annually, at least half of which goes to livestock. In the EU, the animal agriculture industry received 1,200 times more public funding than alternative protein startups between 2014 and 2020, with cattle farmers making half their money through these funds, according to a study by Stanford University. “It’s clear that powerful vested interests have exerted political influence to maintain the animal-farming system status quo,” said co-author Eric Lambin.
But it’s not just governments; the private sector has been heavily supportive of the livestock industry. Since the Paris Agreement in 2015, banks and private financiers have provided $615B in credits to the world’s 55 largest livestock companies.
While NatWest says it has committed “£6.7B of funding to support farmers to fund climate and sustainability-related projects”, it has also previously published a ‘myth-busting’ article on its website that includes inputs from meat farmers arguing that livestock is, in fact, sustainable.
The World Bank’s private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation, has also provided at least $1.6B to industrial livestock farming projects since 2017. But in a landmark report in May, the global bank asked countries to redirect subsidies from red meat and dairy to lower-emission foods like fruits, vegetables and poultry. It further encouraged greater adoption of alternative proteins, which represent a low-cost, highly effective solution in mitigating climate change.
“The transition to a low-carbon economy is a topic of interest to many customers and sectors, including farming and agriculture,” NatWest said in a statement. “We will continue to support our customers in their sustainability journeys. The carbon tracker is an optional feature that customers have told us is valuable, but we always listen to stakeholder feedback and continue to look for ways to improve.”
Reinstating its meat and dairy recommendations would be a start.
Singapore’s Umami Bioworks has partnered with two Indian entities as it aims to advance R&D and reach commercial-scale production for its cultivated seafood.
Months after its merger with Shiok Meats, Umami Bioworks is looking to advance the scale-up efforts for its cultivated seafood through two collaborations with organisations in India.
The Singapore-based startup has teamed up with the IKP Knowledge Park’s newly established Centre for Smart Protein and Sustainable Material Innovation in Bengaluru, India, which will be aimed at accelerating research and scalability for its cultivated seafood.
Additionally, it is set to collaborate with the Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology in Chennai to set up an R&D facility at the university’s campus.
“India has a wealth of experienced talent in biomanufacturing and steel production. We saw this combination as among the best-in-class globally, and given the relative proximity to Singapore, it was an obvious choice,” Mihir Pershad, founder and CEO of Umami Bioworks, told Green Queen.
IKP partnership to validate and transfer Umami Bioworks’ tech
Courtesy: Umami Bioworks
As part of the incubation collaboration with the IKP’s alternative protein centre, Umami Bioworks’ India-based team will lead the engineering and validation of its plug-and-play manufacturing hardware, supporting the tech transfer from the demonstration line to customer sites.
“IKP provides a hub for our team to work on this scale-up R&D, including meeting and lab space, and a facilitator to help us connect with the supply chain partners that will enable us to deliver a complete production solution,” explained Pershad.
“The partnership is initially scoped for a year, with opportunities to extend and expand over time. Our end goal is to successfully deliver a production-ready manufacturing system, led by our team in India, that is ready for deployment to customer sites around the world,” he added.
“We are excited about the novel technology platform that they bring to our community of entrepreneurs and founders in their pursuit of growth in the smart protein sector,” IKP Knowledge Park chairman and CEO Deepanwita Chattopadhyay said of Umami Bioworks. “This collaboration will not only accelerate Umami’s growth in India, but will also propel the smart protein ecosystem that we are building in the country.”
The Centre for Smart Protein and Sustainable Material Innovation was established in May, born out of an MoU between IKP Knowledge Park and alternative protein think tank the Good Food Institute (GFI) India. The facility aims to support startups with incubation and product development via access to state-of-the-art equipment, and expert mentorship on the technical, IP, regulatory, marketing and business strategy domains.
“This landmark partnership between Umami Bioworks and IKP’s newly launched centre is a prime example of how India’s booming biotech industry and growing smart protein ecosystem are attracting global players,” said Aiyanna Belliappa, senior innovation and entrepreneurship specialist at GFI India.
“We are confident that this collaboration will pave the way for further innovation and investment in India, ultimately contributing to a safe, secure, and just future for food.”
South India leads the country’s cultivated seafood scene
Courtesy: Umami Bioworks
The partnership comes the same week researchers at the Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology developed prototypes of cultivated seafood using milkfish, grouper, red snapper and tilapia cells. The university is also partnering Umami Bioworks, with Sheela Rani, the institute’s director, telling The New Indian Express that the startup will help “set up a full-fledged facility at the campus to develop more cultures and push for commercial-scale production”.
“We are establishing a collaboration with Sathyabama University to expand our pipeline of marine species cell lines in partnership with their newly established National Facility for Coastal and Marine Research,” Pershad told Green Queen.
“We will be doing collaborative research to establish cell lines from new fish, crustaceans, and other species. This work will include seeking [a] deeper understanding of the fundamental biology of these species to enable first-ever cell lines to be established for some species,” he added.
Sathyabama University has earned authentication from the National Bureau of Fish Genetic Resources, meaning its cultivated meat has no recombinant DNA. It will now pursue statutory approvals from the National Biodiversity Authority, the environment ministry, and the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI).
The latter, in fact, has been working to establish a regulatory framework for cultivated meat and seafood companies to file dossiers for approval. In a regulatory conclave held in New Delhi in April, the FSSAI confirmed its willingness to work with the government’s Department of Biotechnology and Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council to set up a framework.
“The FSSAI can institute a working group on cultivated meat. This working group will be able to recommend strategic priorities for cultivated meat (and inputs such as culture media and cell lines) for the FSSAI to consider for regulatory interventions and a strategy for a dynamic regulatory framework,” wrote Astha Gaur, regulatory policy specialist at GFI India. “Ultimately, instituting a scientific panel on novel smart proteins would ensure progressive rule-making and risk management.”
Umami Bioworks’ partnerships symbolise the fast-growing cultivated meat sector in South India. In January, the ICAR-Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (based in Kochi, Kerela) inked a deal with biotech startup Neat Meatt to develop cultivated fish.
Having raised $2.4M to date, Umami Bioworks has previously outlined its plans of submitting regulatory dossiers in several countries this year. Its merger with Shiok Meats will see it bring cultivated unagi (eel) and white fish (grouper) to the market via hybrid applications.
“We are now in active review with the Singapore Food Agency, including regular engagements to review data and address any questions that arise during their review,” revealed Pershad. “We are also making rapid progress in two other geographies and anticipate being able to share an update in the near future.”
Nestlé has introduced Maggi Rindecarne, a plant-based meat product meant to be blended with conventional beef, in Chile.
The blended meat category continues to expand, with the world’s largest food company now jumping onto the trend with a plant-based ‘meat extender’.
Launched under its Maggi brand, Nestlé’s new innovation is called Rindecarne, and is essentially seasoned soy protein that comes in minced form to pair with animal-derived meat.
Unlike other blended meat products – which lead with taste credentials – Nestlé’s pitch for this offering is affordability. This is outlined by the fact that this meat extender is currently available in Chile, where the wealth gap has been a major contributor to social inequality for years.
Turning two servings into four
Courtesy: Nestlé
The Maggie Rindecarne has a base of soy protein, soy and wheat flours, and sodium glutamate, with natural flavours and other taste agents like garlic, beetroot, paprika, sugar, pepper, salt, and citric acid. It also has canola oil and natural caramel colouring.
Nestlé says the mix of soy and spices allows for a seamless blend of Rindecarne with minced beef in a range of dishes, doubling the amount of servings “at an affordable price”. This message has headlined its marketing around the product too, with social media posts showing how the blended meat can turn two burger patties and two bowls of spaghetti Bolognese into four each.
But while it is doubling down on the affordability aspect, Nestlé isn’t ignoring the importance of taste and health either, noting how a dish prepared with Maggi Rindecarne “retains its nutritional value without compromising on taste”.
Each serving has 5.2g of protein and only 0.4g of fat (with a minimal amount being saturated). The product is described as “versatile and customisable”, and can be used in a range of dishes like burgers, kebabs, meatballs, pastel de choclo and German meat pies, as well as meat toppers and fillings in lasagne, spaghetti Bolognese, and tacos.
“Our team of experts and chefs developed a tailored solution which brings an equivalent amount of protein in an affordable way to consumers in Latin America,” said Swen Rabe, head of Nestlé’s Product and Technology Center for Food.
As Rindecarne is a dried product, it needs to be reconstituted by soaking in water for 15 minutes, and then being added to ground beef. “Our innovation ensures the familiar taste and texture of mincemeat, is shelf-stable and easy to use,” added Rabe.
This isn’t Nestlé’s first innovation that combines plant and animal proteins. In 2022, it piloted a shelf-stable plant protein blend to complement egg dishes in Latin America. And last year, the company developed a blended milk beverage with dairy and soy milk for Central and West Africa.
Blended meat gathers steam
Courtesy: Nestlé
Nestlé’s decision to introduce blended meat in Chile is a shrewd one. The country’s citizens are reducing their animal intake, mainly due to health and cost concerns.
An Ipsos survey in collaboration with local organisation Fundación Veg (formerly Vegetarianos Hoy) found that 75% of Chileans reduced their consumption of red meat last year. Among those who were cutting back on animal products, 31% cited health reasons and 14% blamed high prices.
The importance of the latter has grown over the last few years, with 14% of respondents who haven’t reduced their animal intake saying they’d consider doing so because of their cost, a six-point increase from 2021.
Another poll by the two organisations found that 73% of Chileans would eat plant-based products if they are equal to or better than their animal counterparts on the nutrition front. Likewise, 72% would buy vegan analogues that have similar or lower prices.
Blended meat is being touted as a game-changer for meat reduction efforts. A sensory analysis published last month showed that most plant-based products don’t satisfy omnivores, but the only product that came within one point in average liking of a conventional burger was the Both Burger by 50/50 Foods, which blends beef with an equal amount of vegetables.
The Both Burger’s success can be underlined by the fact that it is now available in Disneyland. It’s among a host of companies offering blended meat: Phil’s Finest has been doing well ever since it found success on Shark Tank (as Misfit Foods), and Mush Foods’ mycelium-based 50Cut is now part of a blended burger by meat purveyor Pat LaFrieda. Perdue Farms’ Chicken Plus range, which combines chicken with The Better Meat Co‘s mycelium meat, has been one of the most successful stories in the space.
The category’s potential has attracted plant-based companies too. Australia’s Harvest B launched its blended meat lineup in April, while UK meat-free market leader Quorn announced last month that it will offer its mycoprotein to foodservice and hospital caterers across the country for use in blended pork and beef dishes.
“Once upon a time, we were effectively competing with the meat industry – only making products that were alternatives to theirs, and encouraging people to switch,” Quorn CEO Marco Bertacca told Green Queen. “We now find ourselves collaborating to offer less-meat options to consumers who are looking to reduce meat consumption, but not eat vegetarian or vegan meals.”
He added: “This represents the majority of people, and so it is a massive opportunity to decarbonise part of the food system and improve public health.”
German discount retailer Lidl has partnered with the World Wildlife Fund to conserve biodiversity, promote planet-friendly diets, and reduce food waste across 31 countries.
One of the world’s largest retailers, Lidl, has entered a five-year, 31-country partnership with global conservation group the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to speed up its sustainability efforts.
The collaboration will focus on making Lidl’s entire value chain more planet-friendly, ensuring greater consumer access to sustainable choices, and building nature-positive business models. The two entities will do so through efforts to create deforestation-free supply chains, engage in advocacy for sustainable diets, and reduce food waste.
“In our role as one of the largest food retailers, we are aware of our responsibility and our influence,” said Christoph Pohl, chief purchasing officer at Lidl International. “We take responsibility with the aim of doing business within planetary boundaries.”
Kirsten Schuijt, director-general of WWF International, added: “Lidl has enormous international leverage to drive sustainable change in the food and retail industry. WWF is proud to accompany Lidl on this journey on which we will both support and challenge the retailer.”
Responsible sourcing on the agenda with EU deforestation laws
Courtesy: Lidl
The link-up comes a year after Lidl GB became the first discount supermarket to sign the WWF’s Retailers’ Commitment for Nature, which is an industry-wide agreement designed to have the climate impact of British shopping baskets by 2030 (from a 2019 baseline).
“The way we produce and consume food and energy is one of the leading drivers of nature loss and climate change,” said Schuijt. “In order to halt and reverse what is the biggest crisis facing humanity today, we need bold and urgent actions towards changing our food and energy systems, and the food and retail sector has a big role to play in driving this change.”
Lidl has been working with the conservation group across individual markets like Austria and Switzerland, and the new partnership is looking to expand the scope of this work globally, with a common goal of enabling shoppers to make more planet-friendly choices.
The partnership will focus on several areas, including conversation and promotion of biodiversity, responsible management of water sources, and environmental protection through science-based climate targets.
Courtesy: Lidl
Responsible sourcing is a major highlight. Working with the WWF, Lidl plans to build and expand traceable, deforestation-free and conversion-free supply chains – this will be key as policymakers begin to clamp down on deforestation, most notably the EU from next year.
Lidl wants to ensure responsible sourcing of “critical raw materials” like palm oil, soy, cocoa, tea, coffee, wood, and paper products – all commodities that fall under the EU’s upcoming legislation, which prohibits imports of any of these items that have links to deforestation. Additionally, fish and seafood are part of the sourcing focus too, as is the safeguarding of fishing grounds and stocks.
“Sustainable management is not only a question of attitude, but also the basis for the future viability of our business model,” said Pohl. “With the support and expertise of WWF, we will now take our commitment to sustainability to the next level. We can only overcome major global challenges such as climate change and nature loss by working together.”
Lidl hones in on dietary shift and food waste goals
Courtesy: Lidl Nederland
Outlined in the agreement are two areas that Lidl has made a lot of progress on and set long-term goals for: sustainable diets and food waste.
The retailer wants to advocate for “more conscious, sustainable diets and consumption” and cut food waste, which are two key tenets of the global fight against the climate crisis. The food system accounts for a third of all emissions, 60% of which comes from meat production. In parallel, food waste is responsible for 8-10% of greenhouse gas emissions, with a majority of that coming from households.
Lidl is well on track to meet its target of halving food waste by 2030 (from 2016 levels), having already reduced it by 43% by 2023. Meanwhile, plant-based foods – which emit half the emissions of meat and dairy – are becoming a more prominent fixture on the retailer’s shelves.
In the UK and Ireland, plant proteins are slowly encroaching upon the share of animal proteins sold, with whole foods and meat analogues making up 15.3% of all proteins sold in 2022/23 (up from 14.4% the year before. Likewise, dairy alternatives went up a percentage point to reach 7.4% of overall dairy sales.
This is part of Lidl GB’s larger effort to increase sales of its private-label meat-free and plant-based milk ranges – under the Vemondo brand – by 400% by the end of the decade, compared to 2020 levels.
Courtesy: Lidl
In the Netherlands, it is one of 11 supermarkets that have pledged to have at least 60% of all proteins sold be plant-based by 2030. Also in this country, it boosted the sales of its own-label meat analogues by 7% after placing them in the meat aisle for six months.
It made the same move in its home market too, with all 3,250 Lidl stores in Germany featuring plant-based dairy and meat next to their conventional counterparts. To encourage further adoption, it lowered the price of all vegan analogues to match animal-derived meat and dairy. The price shift was also carried out in Belgium.
These are major moves from a company that employs over 376,000 employees across 31 countries, and whose parent, the Schwarz Group, made €167.2B in 2023. For Lidl, the WWF partnership will only aim to accelerate its goal to cut scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions – excluding forest, land and agriculture (FLAG) – by 90% by 2050, and FLAG emissions by 72%.
Redefine Meat has released its 3D-printed vegan flank steak in retail stores in the UK and Switzerland, with the Netherlands soon to follow.
Israeli food tech startup Redefine Meat has brought its 3D-printed flank steak to retail locations in Europe, starting with the UK and Switzerland.
It follows a successful foodservice rollout in over nine countries, with the plant-based meat now available at Ocado in the UK and Coop in Switzerland. People in the Netherlands will also be able to buy the flank steak shortly in Jumbo, Albert Heijn and Crisp, while Germany and Italy are set to adopt it too.
“We’ve expanded our Redefine Meat offering to Ocado customers by launching the first premium-quality plant-based steak in the Ocado range,” said Zee Ahmad, senior buyer of frozen food at Ocado. “We’ve been pleased with the performance since the launch in late 2023 and are really happy with the glowing shopper reviews.”
A patented process to deliver superior taste and texture
Courtesy: Redefine Meat/Green Queen
One of Redefine Meat’s flagship products, the whole-cut beef flank steak is positioned as a premium, chef-led product that the brand claims has won plaudits from both industry professionals and consumers of all dietary preferences.
It is part of the Rehovot-based startup’s ‘new-meat’ range, a moniker it uses to differentiate the average plant-based meat from its more high-end version. Launched in 2021, the products are now available in more than 4,000 foodservice locations across Europe, as well as in British, Swiss, French and Dutch retail.
The Redefine Meat Flank Steak is made from a base of wheat, soy and potato protein, complemented by soy and wheat flours, rapeseed oil, cornstarch, natural flavourings, maltodextrin, barley malt, salt, and colourings.
The company employs a patented additive manufacturing process – more commonly known as 3D printing – at its factory in the Netherlands. The technology gives it a meatier flavour and lends the fibrous texture so devoured by meat-eaters.
It has termed the process ‘Plant-Based Tissue Engineering’, a nod to how it disintegrates textured vegetable protein (TVP) into fibres and blends them with a dough made from soy or pea protein isolates. “This approach allows the projection of the meat-like texture of TVP, but in a flexible manner, and in a scalable manner,” the startup explained in a white paper released earlier this year.
“The muscle component is reassembled to mimic the anisotropic fibrous structure of beef, while the fat component is engineered through lipid encapsulation within a hydrocolloid matrix,” it added.
Doing so plays into consumer demand for better taste and texture in plant-based meat. The steak has been endorsed by leading chefs like Marco Pierre-White and Ron Blaauw, while a 10-country survey last year found that taste is the most important aspect of vegan analogues for 53% of Europeans. Globally, the texture of plant-based meat is as important as their conventional counterparts for 75% of consumers, but only about 60% are actually satisfied with it.
Alleviating health and climate concerns
Courtesy: Redefine Meat
Redefine Meat’s steak also speaks to a growing consciousness around health and nutrition. A survey released this week shows that while a pleasurable sensory experience is the top driver of food choices in Europe (chosen by 87% of respondents), health isn’t too far behind (81%). This is the main reason behind Europeans eating less meat too.
The 3D-printed steak is packed with 25g of protein per serving (100g), has 3g of fibre and zero cholesterol. It has a Nutri-Score rating of A, something that is important to many European shoppers. And as plant-based meats go, it also has a relatively clean label.
Plus, there’s the environmental benefit. Over 80% of global consumers say they’ve changed their diet in the last two years, with 43% doing so because of climate concerns. The most common change was a cutback in red meat intake, reported by 39% of people.
Beef is the most polluting food on the planet. But a life-cycle assessment has shown that Redefine Meat’s steak consumes up to 96% less water, uses 98% less use, and emits 91% fewer emissions than a conventional burger.
“When we founded Redefine Meat six years ago, we had a bold and seemingly impossible target of launching a premium-quality steak for mass consumers to buy and cook at home,” said Eshchar Ben-Shitrit, co-founder and CEO of the company.
“Having focused much of our journey to date on refining our products to meet the quality standards of the highest echelons of the culinary world, we’re proud to bring the fruits of this labour directly to consumers through our best-in-class retail partners,” he added.
The retail debut for the flank steak comes months after the company brought its products to 650 new restaurants during Veganuary across Europe, as part of an accelerated expansion drive. Last month, it introduced its lamb kofta mix, pulled beef, pulled pork, burgers, beef mince and bratwurst in German retail via e-tailer Velivery.
Panda Express has brought back the vegan version of its flagship orange chicken with Beyond Meat, a welcome move for the latter’s foodservice struggles.
It took over 7,200 signatures on a 16-month-long petition for Panda Express to realise that enough people wanted its plant-based orange chicken back.
So finally, three years after what became one of the fast-food chain’s most successful regional launches ever, the Beyond Original Orange Chicken has returned to its US menu.
The vegan dish will be available at around 300 Panda Express locations nationwide. Like the first time, this rollout is on a limited-edition basis, although the companies suggest that “if consumer enthusiasm continues, there’s potential for expansion into additional Panda Express restaurants”.
Why Panda Express brought the Beyond Orange chicken back
Courtesy: Panda Express
“Panda Express have discontinued serving the Beyond Meat orange chicken, the only vegan/vegetarian entree option. They have said this was due to the entree being a limited-time item, but the popularity should make them change their minds. Now, millions of people will not be able to have a full meal other than sides at Panda Express. The people are outraged,” read the Change.org petition.
A little history lesson: the orange chicken was first launched at Panda Express in 1987 and quickly became a favourite. It now makes up roughly a third of the chain’s business. Think about that. That’s one dish.
So when the Beyond Original Orange Chicken was introduced, there was a frenzy. On launch day, Panda Express sold 1,300 lbs of the dish in New York City and Southern California. Stores in the latter area actually sold out of the initial rollout within two weeks.
After a national rollout to over 2,300 locations, Panda Express finally ran out of the stock and gradually ended the offering. People were not happy.
“I am vegetarian and I am addicted to this chicken I have been craving it like crazy and it is madness that they don’t have it on the menu anymore,” one fan said on the petition. Another added: “IM VEGAN AND WANT ORANGE CHICKEN.”
“We’ve never received so many social media comments for guests begging for us to bring a dish back,” a Panda Express spokesperson told Fast Company. “It’s our #1 most requested dish on social media.”
Beyond Meat and its foodservice record
Courtesy: Panda Express
The return of the Beyond orange chicken is a certain win for the plant-based meat company. Both the business and the industry it’s in have taken their fair share of knocks in the last couple of years: Beyond Meat has had eight consecutive quarters of losses, while retail sales of plant-based meat fell by 12% in the US last year.
For Beyond Meat, foodservice has always been tricky. We’re here a week after McDonald’s US president said the company had no plans to bring back the McPlant – which uses Beyond Beef – after a trial run failed in “two very different markets” in San Francisco and Dallas.
In 2021, Beyond Meat announced a deal with Yum! Brands, the parent company of Pizza Hut, KFC and Taco Bell. It developed vegan chicken nuggets that were trialled and taken off the menu after a couple of months (they returned for another temporary period).
Del Taco took off Beyond Meat from its menu last spring after four years, citing “low sales” (though the partnership has been retained and new options are being explored). Carl’s Jr has also pulled back the number of stores it offers Beyond Meat options in.
So Panda Express’s move is important for Beyond Meat – whose US foodservice sales took a 16% hit last quarter – and encouraging for the plant-based sector, which is going through a consolidation period, according to Andy Jarvis, director of Future of Food at the Bezos Earth Fund, which is pouring $100M into research centres for alternative proteins.
“We’re in this for the long term, to make this succeed over the next two decades,” he told Green Queen in an interview this week. “It’s a tough time for the sector. But it’ll pull through.”
Andy Jarvis, director of the Bezos Earth Fund’s Future of Food programme, talks alternative protein, Asian centre, government bans, VC investments, and stepping away from the us-versus-them mentality.
Since announcing the $1B Future of Food fund at COP28, the Bezos Earth Fund has been in a hurry. It began with a $57M commitment in grants that will help tackle climate change, biodiversity loss and food security, followed by a $100M investment earmarked for three alternative protein centres.
In less than 30 days, it has already opened two of these Centers for Sustainable Protein – one at North Carolina State University, and another at Imperial College London (each received a cash injection of $30M). A third one is set to open in southeast Asia, as reported by Green Queen, in just a few weeks.
The rapid pace of investment has been intentional. Bezos Earth Fund has cited the world’s growing population – a projected 10 billion by 2050 – as an immediate challenge to the food system. Taking action now is critical. “Later is dangerously too late,” as Andy Jarvis, director of the fund’s food programme, has put it.
So, as the Earth Fund continues to pump in tens of millions towards a more resilient food system, Jarvis speaks to Green Queen in a wide-ranging interview to discuss how the team chooses which universities to partner with, alternative protein’s biggest problems, the role of governments in the protein transition, and the involvement of the fund’s founder, Jeff Bezos, and vice-chair Lauren Sánchez.
This interview has been edited for clarity and concision.
Courtesy: Rocío Lower/Bezos Earth Fund
Green Queen: How did you choose the specific universities in the US and the UK? Was there a tender process?
Andy Jarvis: We worked with the Good Food Institute. We started out with dozens of universities on a long list, and we applied a few criteria and landed on 14, from whom we invited proposals. And then we had a pretty rigorous evaluation committee that went through all of those proposals on set criteria that we’d agreed on and gave us recommendations.
Based on those recommendations, we’ve been deploying these grants. So far, the ones that have been announced [are] North Carolina… in the US, Imperial in Europe, and we’ll have a third one in southeast Asia.
GQ: Will the centres be collaborating with each other? How would that work?
AJ: Each of them is designed to stand up on their own in the first place, but at the same time, we are looking to integrate these three [centres]. So, they’re getting to know each other – they didn’t develop these proposals together, but right now… we’re having monthly integration calls, where we’ve put in their hard-wired collaborative efforts that are going to make sure that those centres are talking to each other and responding to emerging opportunities in an integrated way.
The centres will work as both individual centres in their domain in their geography… but at the same time, they’ll be responding to global issues and working together. So if in Europe, we have X demand for something, and we have that capacity in the US, then we’ll link that up as well. So yeah, the idea is that they are going to be very much working as a cluster.
Courtesy: Imperial College
GQ: Are they going to be working with startups too?
AJ: Actually, this is a note for the third centre – we didn’t make as much of a point of this, but for example, in Imperial, there’s $30M from us, but there’s an additional $20M of co-funding coming in from both the university itself, but also from a diverse array of partners and companies around the university.
Everything from 20 to 40 startups, companies, other universities, research institutions, NGOs [are] in the sphere of the centres. Each centre has that quite diverse ecosystem of collaborators.
GQ: What is the ultimate goal? Do you want to create ingredients for manufacturers, and products for the end consumer, or is it primarily a research focus?
AJ: The companies and startups, they’re the ones that develop products, and do all of that heavy lifting. What we want to do is a combination of two things…
[The first is to] move the pre-competitive lineup. What we’ve identified is so many startups are doing duplicative research, they’re doing the same thing with very precious R&D money. You’ll have 20 of these companies doing the same thing. It’s not gonna give them a competitive edge, but it’s a cost. So we want to move the pre-competitive lineup with good open-access research that is going to solve some of those basic problems.
The second is looking at the breakthrough science: what are going to be some of the breakthroughs that will drive our ultimate goal, which is to reduce the price, boost the taste and texture… and improve the health and nutritional benefits. The idea is that this will be managed in a way that’s going to maximise societal benefit. So we default to open-access, so that any company then can license that IP and use it.
That’s the process of what the research will be doing. It needs to be responding to the demand coming from the sector, the sector should be saying: “These are our problems, this is what’s driving costs too high, or this is where we’re struggling with taste or texture,” and the universities go after those problems.
The ultimate aim for us is to reduce price, boost deliciousness, and improve the health benefits. The way we see this, if you do that, you’re driving their market share. So what we’re looking for is that this takes 10-20% of global market share over the next decade or so. And if you have 10% or 20% market share, you’re having planetary-level impacts.
Courtesy: Rocío Lower/Bezos Earth Fund
GQ: You’ve talked about hitting the taste, nutrition and price touchpoints – which do you think is the most important, and why?
AJ: I think [Leon co-founder and government advisor] Henry Dimbleby put it perfectly. He said as a professional restauranteur, it’s very hard to convince someone to purchase something that is more expensive and tastes worse. That’s a very hard value proposition for a consumer.
So the way we see it is, you have to hit all of these things. And obviously, we’re interested in the sustainability angle of this, but you’ll have no sustainability impact, unless the price and the taste are on parity – that’s an absolute necessity. Otherwise, it’s just more products for vegetarians and vegans. What we need is something that is going to be attractive as a value proposition to carnivores. For that, it needs to cost the same or less, then it needs to taste just as good or better. That’s the bottom line.
GQ: Impossible Foods CEO Peter McGuinness has talked about how plant-based was launched incorrectly, and that the climate argument no longer resonates with consumers. Do you think there’s still room for companies to lead with the climate?
Courtesy: Impossible Foods
AJ: Climate is an impact that you will have, but it’s not the primary one. And it’s certainly not the one that is going to sell a product – people won’t buy based on sustainability. All of the poll data globally shows the first concern is price… and up there equally is deliciousness. Third is health and nutrition, and perceived impacts on that… and somewhere along the long tail of other things is sustainability.
Yes, there’s a portion of the population that is interested in that and it’s smaller – the vast majority of people are not looking at that. And so, you nail the first three, right? That’s what we’re trying to do.
GQ: Can you talk more about how you are allocating the $100M commitment? Any particular organisations you are supporting?
AJ: The $100M is our current commitment we have, and we’re staying true to that and delivering it. The two announcements so far, take us to $60M of that, and you can do the maths, there’s another one coming. And there’s another [ancillary] grant we haven’t announced yet, but basically, over the next three months, you’ll see the whole $100M committed. It’s all focused on these Centers for Sustainable Protein.
GQ: Bezos Earth Fund has heavily invested in alternative proteins at a time when VCs have largely deserted the sector. Why do you think funding has declined, and what has made you keep faith?
Courtesy: GFI
AJ: I think it was a boom and bust cycle. The expectations on the sector were just way too high. And it was too much, too fast, the venture capital that flowed into the sector. Time will tell how good it was for the sector, but I think the expectations that were provided for that – that we’re going to have products on the shelves that these serial carnivores will be buying in the next five years – haven’t checked out.
There was a little bit too much ‘hopium’ on the menu there. This is early in the journey, right? I always just bring it down to the ground – in all time, $16B has flowed into the sector. It sounds like a big number. But it’s a tiny number. For example, if you look at agricultural subsidies around the world, it’s $700B. $200B goes into animal agriculture subsidies. That’s every year – and $16B of investment into alternative proteins is just a tiny amount. Really.
So yes, venture capital went in probably with unreal expectations in terms of time and profit, and right now, it’s pulling out because the promises weren’t kept, the companies haven’t delivered, and consumers haven’t been buying.
We see that as a flash in the pan, though… What we’ve identified is that venture capital helped create a lot of buzz and progress on certain things, but the sector skipped the beat and didn’t invest in foundational R&D and knowledge, which is going to be a much stronger base upon which to build a real industry.
That’s why we’ve gone back to basics a little bit. Let’s get that open-access R&D in place. And if you look at any major innovation around the world – look at the curves of solar panels and investment and penetration. They go through these big growth periods, and then they go through consolidation. We’re just in a consolidation [period for alternative proteins]. We’re in this for the long term, to make this succeed over the next two decades. It’s a tough time for the sector. But it’ll pull through.
GQ: Since you brought up subsidies, I want to talk a little about alternative protein policy. Upside Foods just held a tasting in Miami before Florida banned it. What’s your view on these bans, and how do you think they hurt the industry? Do you think more of these are going to happen, or it’s going to flatline after the election?
Courtesy: Upside Foods
AJ: Predicting politics is a dangerous game. But first of all, this is an innovation area of enormous potential and new economic opportunity, and [this] should have open innovation. The second instance, though, is that this topic has become very polarised in debates about cultivated meat.
I put some of the blame in the hyperbole that was created during the pandemic, that this is going to displace livestock, this is going to end industrial farming, and you won’t have any cows on the planet in 10 years’ time – you know, that kind of talk has been very dangerous and damaging for the sector, and it’s exactly what we should not be saying.
We’re heading towards 10 billion people, we have 50% growth in demand, and if you can complement animal-sourced foods with a double-digit percentage of the market with alternative proteins, you’re having enormous impacts. So we shouldn’t be talking about displacing.
And all of this policy response that’s coming, for example, in Florida, is protectionism. It’s a measure to protect what they perceive as a threat to farming. And it’s a non-threat, it just shouldn’t be seen as that… What we need is for farmers to be producing sustainably. We invest also in livestock – there are enormous opportunities to reduce emissions to produce animals in a high-welfare state, and to be sustainable. That should be supported and encouraged, and we should be looking at alternatives.
If you depolarise this conversation, then there’s no need for these kinds of legislative actions. That’s the way we see it: you need open innovation, and you need to recognise that 10 billion people is a huge market, and there’s space for multiple options in delivering that.
Courtesy: Rebecca Kirkland/Bezos Earth Fund
GQ: How do you depolarise when these legislations and proposals are built on misinformation and unawareness? And is that going to be part of your research focus?
AJ: We’re not investing in dealing with misinformation. We’re investing in building evidence and science and delivering the innovation, and letting that speak for itself.
I think there’s a story to be told about how plant-based meats are all produced by farmers – that ‘plant base’ is grown by someone, and those people are farmers. Fermented products – whether it’s precision fermentation, biomass fermentation, you name it – they’re using sugars and all sorts of inputs that are farmed products.
Even cultivated [meat] – everyone gets kind of very nervous about cultivated, that it’s lab-grown thinking, that it’s completely detached from farming. Well, the [culture] media are sugars, and all sorts of minerals and things that are coming from crops, and they’re farm goods.
So this is not an anti-farmer sector; this is a sector that is using foreign products in new ways. And generally using farmed products that are more profitable and highly sustainable in the way they’re produced – many legumes and things like that. This is not an either-or, this is not farmers, or non-farmed products: these are all farmed products, and they’re just produced by different means.
That’s the narrative we need to be having – creating a bit more of a nuance, [and] stepping back from this ‘you or us’ mentality. There is an enormous demand for protein in the future. 50% growth – there is no way we can deliver that with a business-as-usual approach. So we need to think about making livestock more sustainable and the things we need to do there. And we need to be thinking about how these alternative proteins are complementary proteins that can also play their role.
Courtesy: International Conservation Caucus Foundation
GQ: How important do you think policy is, and what can governments do to accelerate the protein transition?
AJ: Policy is obviously enormously important. The regulatory environment for many of these things is also make-or-break. That needs to be worked out.
We’ve talked about the venture capital, and that going away – what we want is for governments to step up and support the sector, and give it a chance. The level of funding coming from governments into the sector is not at all representative of the importance that [alternative proteins] have in the future.
Many governments are interested in it and would like to do things, but the polarisation makes it a political issue, and it shouldn’t be a political issue. This should be an issue about ensuring the long-term future of food security and food prices and availability of healthy, delicious, nutritious options. Governments needs to step up. They should be supporting research, and enabling the regulatory environment.
We also need the private sector to step up… For example, Lidl Netherlands’ [growth in plant-based meat sales after putting them in the meat aisle] is an example of leadership coming from the private sector, and it just shows when you do actually start levelling the playing field, the results happen. That’s our call, to level the playing field. If you’re providing enormous subsidies for animal agriculture, provide subsidies and government support to the alternative protein sector as well.
GQ: You told Green Queen that your third location will be in Southeast Asia. Can you tell us anything else about it?
AJ: The only thing that’s out there is [it’s in] southeast Asia. We’re looking at potentially saying something about it sometime end of August or early September.
And just to say about the two sensors that we’ve already launched: NC State was kind of a focus on biomanufacturing, Imperial is looking at engineering biology. We’re looking for each of these centres to take on its own kind of flavour of approach and focus, and be complementary. So you can expect something complementary in the next one.
GQ: It’s called the Bezos Earth Fund. How involved is Jeff Bezos, and how involved is [Bezos’ fiancée and the fund’s vice-chair] Lauren Sanchéz?
AJ: Super engaged. You’ve seen them on stage. You can see all of these interviews that they’ve done, and speeches. Obviously, this is a new-ish area for Jeff, we’re still young and on this journey. They’re incredibly engaged in exploring this domain of work.
Courtesy: Bezos Earth Fund
GQ: Finally, this is a $1B commitment. What other food system verticals are you looking at?
AJ: Our marching orders at the moment are to accelerate and focus on sustainable protein. The way we see it, you can’t fix climate without looking at food, and you can’t fix food without looking at protein.
So we’re laser-focused on sustainable protein at the moment. We may, between now and 2030, look at some other topics. And we continue to work very actively in the sector as a whole, advocating for the transformation of food systems, and the broad changes that are needed. It’s not only going to be fixed with sustainable protein, it’s going to be fixed with many different things.
We were instrumental in a lot of the work in Dubai on food at COP28, the Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems, and Climate Action, all these kinds of things. We see that as the global architecture of food system transformation that needs to be enabled. But then I think, you know, every foundation, every philanthropy, every organisation, every NGO needs to play a role in their domain to deliver that. And so right now, sustainable protein is where we’re putting the grants and putting our focus.
Meatly CEO Owen Ensor and CSO Helder Cruz take us behind the scenes of the UK’s regulatory process for cultivated meat, and reveal that it will start with dog food first.
As the UK speeds up its novel foods regulation process, Meatly is on the brink of what would be the first regulatory approval for the sale of cultivated meat in all of Europe.
But the London-based startup isn’t making food for humans – instead, it’s producing cultivated chicken for pets. In March, it was reported that the company was expecting to get the greenlight in about three months with tinned cat food co-created with fellow British company Omni.
Meatly (formerly Good Dog Food) has since changed direction for its first product launch, as its co-founders Owen Ensor and Helder Cruz tell me in a wide-ranging conversation.
Ahead of the company’s debut on UK shelves, its team goes behind the scenes of the regulatory process, explains why a protein-free culture medium is the key to affordable cultivated meat, outlines the importance of humanising cultivated meat, and illustrates why hybrid meat is the way to go.
How the UK’s regulatory process works
Courtesy: Meatly
Since its inception in 2022, most of the time has been spent on R&D and getting operations running. But one thing that was important to Meatly engaging with the regulatory authorities right from the beginning “to explain to them what we’re doing, and what approaches might make [the] most sense”.
“The pathway wasn’t entirely clear. And we’ve helped kind of clarify that and work with regulators to establish that,” says CEO Ensor.
He explains that there are two different phases for novel food approvals in the UK. “There’s the stage with the Food Standards Agency, where you need to understand whether this’ll be an additive or feed material. And then there’s a process with Defra, which is the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs,” he says. “And with that, it’s about animal byproducts, legislation, which risk category this is in, and how your facility should be treated.
Meatly has been in consultation with the FSA for 18 months, and clarified that its pet food ingredient is a feed material with no genetic modification. As for the animal byproducts approval from Defra, that dossier was filed in August 2023.
There was a bit of controversy about feed materials after Czech cultivated pet food startup Bene Meat had listed its product on the EU Feed Materials Register in November. It was initially misconstrued as an official regulatory approval, but what it meant was that the startup’s product was now officially classified as a feed material.
The FSA’s regulatory overhaul and upcoming UK election
Courtesy: Food Standards Agency
The UK retained EU regulations post-Brexit, but is now finally breaking away and speeding up its own process. The FSA is now set to announce a sliding-scale mechanism for novel foods approval that will take into account products’ track record internationally.
“We’ve been engaging the FSA very closely, with a big scientific contingent in the FSA coming and visiting our lab. And they’re very supportive of what we’re doing and other people in the industry are doing,” says Ensor.
“They’re looking to create this sandbox – so get central government funding to really commit to a cultivated meat pathway. I think that will really help. I think they’re being very intentional and careful about how they legislate and regulate cultivated meat, which is great to see them putting that thought in.
“I think all the cultivated meat for human food companies are just kind of waiting for a clear pathway. And it might still take a bit of time for them to establish that. But it’s great to see how engaged and enthusiastic they are being about it… You see biotech as a key strand in the UK government’s economic strategy, and so I think that will continue.”
On that subject, the UK this Thursday will head to the ballots to vote in its national election, with the Labour Party expected to form a government for the first time in 14 years. Does the election impact Meatly’s regulatory process at all?
“I don’t think so. I think we’re far enough down the line that the pathway has been established. And we’re now in the more nitty gritty aspects of site inspections and that kind of stuff,” Ensore suggests. “I think the long-term trends transcend daily politics. Everyone kind of wants to move to a more sustainable food system. Everyone wants healthy food for themselves and their pets.
“And I think the trends in alternative proteins – and cultivated meat in particular – fit with that perfectly. And so I don’t expect any major hiccups.”
When pressed on the timeline for approval, then, Ensor says Meatly hoped to be cleared around the election, whether that’s “weeks before or weeks after”. “I have a strong confidence level [that] it will be this summer… whether it’s July, whether it strays into early August, I hope it doesn’t go beyond that. But I think that’s the window,” he tells me.
A protein-free media for cheaper cultivated meat
Courtesy: Harriet Constable/Meatly
One of the major bottlenecks of cultivated meat is the cost associated with producing it. Meatly claimed to have slashed this significantly by developing a protein-free culture medium for its pet food. While these media usually costs hundreds of pound (and make up the most expensive part of cultivated meat production), the British company brought it down to £1 ($1.25).
“Protein-free media in biopharma is not kind of new, but in cultivated meat is,” says Cruz, who is Meatly’s chief scientific officer. “And it depends also on the type of cells on the species – some are a bit more challenging than others.” From the beginning, Meatly had an objective to ensure that everything it does is “realisable, cost-effective, and food-safe.
“We had the experience of working with protein-free media before, although – I don’t want to be negative – there’s lots of noise around the media and the cells and so on. But depending on the cell types and the species, you can grow them very well, without any protein.”
He adds that growth factors aren’t going to become 1,000 times cheaper to make cultivated meat really affordable, which is what prompted Meatly to take this approach.
This has lots of advantages when it comes to cost and quality controls, explains Cruz. “But in the composition of the cells, not so much,” he adds, touching upon the nutrition aspect. “Of course, we can always play with some nutrients, but not necessarily proteins, to finetune the composition – like fatty acids, some amino acids and so on.”
But the functions of proteins that are absent from the medium can be replaced by small molecules that are safe and affordable, he says.
“We’ve done a lot of nutritional analysis, safety analysis on the product,” Onser chimes in. “It shows as a very similar nutritional profile to chicken breast and has all of the essential amino acids, fatty acids, minerals and vitamins that cats and dogs need to thrive.”
Meatly to begin with cultivated dog food
Courtesy: Meatly
Asked if the new culture medium could open up a potential revenue stream as a licensor, Ensor said: Media is notoriously challenging to patent and protect from an IP perspective, because it’s very difficult to prove someone’s using the same media and quite easy to circumnavigate, which are two challenging aspects.
“We have other kinds of key IP pillars that we might look to licence sooner than the media. Down the line, we’ll look to licence a full factory solution, using ourselves and the equipment and processes that we’ve developed.”
Does changing the growth media also affect how quickly cultivated meat can be made? “When you start developing media, cells sometimes slow down a little bit, but you need to adapt them. So it’s all about the execution. And the time it takes at the end, the performance is the same as in expensive media,” says Cruz.
Meatly is now solely producing with the protein-free media in its bioreactors. Currently, it’s producing between five to 10 kgs per month – this capacity is 50 times what it was 18 months ago. And although still not mass-production level, this is enough to begin testing the cultivated chicken in pet food formulations.
While the startup has already shipped samples to partners who are creating prototypes and conducting initial production runs with the previous culture medium, any fresh biomass created for Meatly’s product launch will be with the protein-free version.
Currently, it has cells of one species, which can be an ingredient for both cat and dog food. “We’re seeing very good results, very similar performance,” says Ensor. Speaking of which, when Meatly’s impending approval was first announced, it was meant to be a cat food product that would cost £1.50 per 150g can. But now, the company will first roll out dog food instead.
“We’ll see whether we want to launch additional products after that,” he says. “We might just stick with the dog food.” Asked about the cat food product, he adds: “It depends on the manufacturing capacity… That’s part of the product development and prototyping we’re doing at the moment, deciding which we launch with, and how much emphasis we put on either of them, or both.”
This will likely feature a different partner than Omni, and while the CEO wouldn’t be drawn on a name, it is “one of the UK’s leading dog food brands”, he offers.
Hybrid meat shows a lot of promise
Courtesy: Annette Shaff
Currently, most cultivated meat that has been served to customers or taste-testers has been a hybrid product combining cultivated animal cells and plant-based ingredients, in an effort to tackle the scale-up challenges and lower the costs.
This was illustrated best by Eat Just (the world’s first startup to be allowed to sell cultivated meat), which debuted a new version of its Good Meat chicken in retail in Singapore. This edition had 3% cultivated cells, compared to 60-70% for its previous chicken (which was sold in foodservice).
Meatly’s cultivated dog food will be hybrid too. “What you find typically in pet foods, the meat content… depending on the brand, is typically in that 20-30% window. We’ll probably start slightly lower just because of limited supply,” suggests Ensor.
“But even at lower inclusion rates, that has a great palatability impact. So acceptance of the food is increased, it adds some of those key nutrients, and we can advertise it as having chicken in the recipe.”
One of Meatly’s key partners has been Pets At Home, the UK’s leading pet retailer, which invested in its last fundraising round. “They’re incredibly forward-thinking and focused on what the future of this industry looks like,” Ensor explains. “We’re not currently looking for other retail partnerships in the UK, because Pets At Home is the pinnacle.”
Looking internationally, the brand is exploring collaborations in North America too, currently conducting R&D with a pet food manufacturer there. It may look at retail agreements too, but Meatly doesn’t expect to launch in the region at least for the next 18 months, mainly due to production reasons. “We’re just kind of building those R&D relationships where we can have strategic players that we might want to work with in the future,” says Ensor.
Alongside North America, the EU is another market Meatly is keeping an eye on, but where it heads next will be “largely dictated by regulatory barriers”. “North America is likely to be most attractive – so both Canada and the US – to probably go there next, and then come back across to the EU. Once hopefully, there’s a bit more of a streamlined process established there.”
Meatly to close Series A fundraise soon
Courtesy: Meatly/Canva AI/Green Queen
Meatly has raised £3.6M to date, much lower than many of its counterparts across the world. The startup is now raising a Series A round – but it comes after a year where investment in cultivated meat dipped by 74%. And in the first quarter of 2024, only $12M was injected into startups in this sector.
“We’ll be closing [the Series A] the summer,” says Ensor. But it won’t be a huge raise. “We want to continue to show that there is a low capex, fast way to commercialise profitable cultivated meat, and so we’re not looking at monster fundraisers.
“We’ll use that to continue our R&D efforts. And really, you know, there’s a lot of information out there about cultivated meat. But when you boil it down, there are a couple of key factors, which are your media cost, your yield, and your capex costs. This additional capital will continue to focus on those and basically minimising the cost base as much as possible before we start scaling up.
“As we look at the industry, that’s kind of what we describe as ‘wave one’ companies, which are those that raise a lot of capital, went very hard on scaling fast, but have hit roadblocks with that. And then ‘wave two’ companies, like Vow, us, who have raised less capital and found creative routes to find a low-cost, fast way to scale.”
Tackling consumer acceptance
Courtesy: MDPI
Ensor notes that while surveys have shown consumers to have an interest in cultivated meat – a third of Brits were open to trying it even in 2022 – there are some hurdles to overcome.
“No one has ever really explained to a consumer what this is, how it’s made and what the benefits are. There is an education step and an explanation step,” he says. “Whenever we’ve explained to people that this is a safe, healthy, sustainable and kind way of feeding us and our pets, and [that] we don’t use antibiotics or steroids or hormones, there’s no contamination risk, there’s no GMOs involved – that goes a long way to providing people reassurance.”
Ensor continues: “We’re not going to convince everyone [from] day one. It is a process, but we have all the information, we can make clearly make those points to people, and I hope that they will be receptive to that. And again, I think these trends of wanting to move to a healthy, sustainable and kind food system transcend people’s politics or perspectives.”
Is the consumer messaging something Meatly will be focusing on with the new capital and its packaging “We’re not gonna have significant capital towards that. We’re a B2B player, so the specific packaging and messaging will depend on the manufacturer,” outlines Ensor. “But certainly, we’ll want to emphasise those points.”
He points to how cultivated meat has become part of the culture wars in the US (where two states have banned it), with politicians painting a picture of people in lab coats and talking about the “global elite”.
Ensor says: “One of the other things we’re thinking about doing is just humanising cultivated me more… from an individual perspective and why we’re passionate and excited about it.”
In our weekly column, we round up the latest news and developments in the alternative protein and sustainable food industry. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers 7Up’s new vegan sauces, a bunch of plant-based milk facilities, and layoffs at Ginkgo Bioworks.
New products and launches
Soft-drink brand 7Up has introduced a three-strong lineup of vegan BBQ sauces in the UK: a Zesty Mayo, a Zesty Hot Sauce, and a Tangy Salad Dressing. The limited-edition range is only available at several pop-up locations across the country.
Courtesy: 7Up
UK natural foods company Kallø has added three organic tomato-based dips to its portfolio in lentil, olive and spicy variants, which are available on Ocado for £3 per 135g jar,
Indonesian plant-based meat leader Green Rebel has launched Korean BBQ slices in its home market, as well as Malaysia. The frozen product contains zero trans fat, and is made from a base of soy and wheat protein.
Indian vegan startup Plantaway has unveiled a chicken fillet SKU made with pea protein. It boasts 19g of protein per pack of two, and is available on its e-store and Swiggy and Zomato in select cities for ₹399 ($4.78).
Courtesy: Plantaway
In the US, Crafty Counter has launched its vegan Deviled WunderEggs at Whole Foods locations nationwide. Each pack comes with a ready-to-mix filling sachet made with Fabalish Foods‘ aquafaba mayo.
In Healdsburg, California, chefs Kyle Connaughton and Daniel Humm of three-Michelin-starred restaurants SingleThread and Eleven Madison Park, respectively, will host a 10-course, fully plant-based dinner featuring local produce. Reservations start at an eye-popping $486 per person.
Oatly has inked a multi-year sponsorship deal with US cycling team EF Pro Cycling, which will see the oat milk giant become the Official Performance Partner of the women’s and men’s teams, as well as the title sponsor of the former (which will be known as EF-Oatly-Cannondale). The training camps of the team – which is currently at the Tour de France – will now be called Oatly Performance Camps.
Courtesy: Violife
Meanwhile, vegan cheese giant Violife has released what it says is Canada’s first dairy-free cream cheese block. The Creamy Block is available at retailers nationwide, including Save-On-Foods and Longo’s, and will continue to be rolled out at select Loblaws banner stores.
Chilean food tech startup NotCo has introduced a line of vegan protein shakes in Brazil, with flavours including banana pancakes with cinnamon, strawberry with dates, as well as chocolate, coffee caramel, and vanilla with coconut.
And in Europe, Slovenian whole-cut plant-based meat maker Juicy Marbles has secured a foodservice listing with MTNV in Germany for a revamped version of its controversial ribs (which feature edible bones).
Finance and company updates
Two years after announcing the move, Lactalis – the world’s largest dairy company – has reopened a former dairy manufacturing plant in Sudbury, Canada as a plant-based milk factory for its new brandEnjoy.
Courtesy: Enjoy
SunOpta – the food supplier behind plant-based milk dairy brands Dream, Sown and West Life – has invested $26M in a new oat milk facility in Modesto, California. The second-largest expansion in company history, it will allow SunOpta to increase the production of oat milk bases for milk, yoghurts and ice creams by 60%.
In more manufacturing news, New Zealand oat milk maker Otis has opened a purpose-built facility in East Auckland, allowing the company to finally move production locally after five years of operations in Sweden.
Following a 37 million kroner ($5.3M) grant – which includes state funding – Danish food company Palsgaard is seeking partners to participate in its Plant-based Ingredients for Egg Replacers (PIER) project to develop vegan alternatives to fresh and dried egg ingredients, in partnership with Aarhus University and R&D firm Nexus.
Courtesy: Palsgaard
The UC Berkeley Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology (SCET) has received a two-year grant worth $800,000 from Open Philanthropy, which will support programmes under its Alternative Meats Lab, where student researchers will explore sustainable food solutions.
NASDAQ-listed synthetic biology firm Ginkgo Bioworks – the parent company of Motif Foodworks – has initiated a round of layoffs, with 35% of its workforce expected to be let go by June 2025. The move is expected to cost the company $12M, and it further plans to consolidate its facilities.
Speaking of public listings, Canada’s Above Food is now trading on the NASDAQ following a merger with Bite Acquisition Corp, days after it acquired Spanish plant-based meat brand Brotalia (trading as Foody’s).
Courtesy: Sant’Anna School
In Italy, the Sant’Anna School and its Institute of Plant Sciences will contribute to an ongoing two-year-long project funded by the Ministry of University and Research-European Union to boost the production of plant proteins like beans, peas, chickpeas, lentils, etc.
In Singapore, Cellivate Technologies – a startup making cell-based solutions for cultivated meat, leather and cosmetics – nabbed the biggest investment on Channel News Asia‘s reality show The Big Spark, with S$4.15M ($3.05M) in potential funding from five VCs.
Policy and research developments
A judge in Oklahoma has ruled that the Plant Based Foods Association has no standing to challenge a vegan meat labelling law, stating that the organisation failed to show that its members – including Tofurky – face a credible prosecution threat, because the Meat Consumer Protection Act only applies to those who sell meat.
Meanwhile, following a change in consumption taxes this April, plant-based milk sales declined by 7% in the Netherlands. The new law increased the VAT on milk alternatives, but not conventional milk, which meant the former has become 12 cents more expensive, while the latter is now four cents cheaper.
Graphic by Green Queen
Also in the Netherlands, two more supermarkets – SPAR and Picnic – have joined animal rights organisation Wakker Dier‘s pledge to have half of all proteins sold be plant-based by 2025, with the share increasing to 60% by the end of the decade.
A YouGovsurvey on behalf of the Good Food Institute Europe has revealed that 68% of Italians believe plant-based companies should be able to use meat-related terms on product packaging. It follows Italy’s announcement that it was reconsidering its labelling ban, which was imposed alongside its cultivated meat ban in November.
Finally, after all the brouhaha about plant-based meat, UPFs and heart health recently, a new review has found that when directly compared to animal-based meat, vegan analogues consistently lower cardiovascular disease risks.
Californian cultivated chicken maker Upside Foods has conducted a round of layoffs as it looks to overcome financial and legislative obstacles.
Leading cultivated meat company Upside Foods – one of only two to be approved for sale in the US – has made some cutbacks to its workforce, citing “political, regulatory and macroeconomic headwinds”.
First reported by Wired, Upside Foods co-founder and CEO Uma Valeti told employees in an email that 26 people would depart the startup, and that the executive and leadership teams would be restructured to “reduce top-heavy structures”.
“Our focus must now narrow to a tighter set of priorities that pave the way for our product launches in the next two years,” Valeti wrote. “We need to deliver on the work that remains, especially on critical milestones that are yet to be hit or are delayed.”
The development comes days after Upside Foods held a public tasting for its cultivated chicken in Miami, in response to Florida’s then-impending ban on cultivated meat within state borders. The legislation came into effect on Monday, making it a second-degree misdemeanour to manufacture, transport, commercialise or sell these proteins.
The event featured a “public offer to engage with the governor and the government of Florida to learn about and experience cultivated meat at a place of their choice”, according to Valeti.
“Uncertainty related to political, regulatory and macroeconomic headwinds requires us to be even more deliberate and conscious with our focus and resources,” Valeti wrote in the email. A host of US states are considering restrictions on cultivated meat – a week after Florida’s ban, Alabama followed through with its own.
A rollercoaster year for Upside Foods
Courtesy: Upside Foods
This is the second round of layoffs made by Upside Foods this year, with the Californian startup making “selective role eliminations” and “other changes” impacting 16 people in February.
“Upside is focused on our next chapter of scale and commercialisation. To stay agile in the face of an uncertain macroeconomic environment and preserve the resources needed to reach our milestones, we made the difficult decision to eliminate a number of positions,” interim head of communications Melissa Musiker told Wired.
“We’re deeply grateful for the hard work, commitment, and dedication of our departing team members and remain steadfast in our mission to bring cultivated meat to the world,” she added.
The last 12 months have been a rollercoaster period for Upside Foods, which is among the best-funded startups in the cultivated meat industry, having raised $608M to date. The company became the first to serve cultivated meat in the US through a partnership with Bar Crenn in California – that partnership has since ended, but Upside Foods is now focusing on serving its chicken at public events.
The company broke ground on a commercial-scale facility in September last year, but decided to pause construction in February to focus on its existing pilot plant instead.
Courtesy: Upside Foods
It has also been the subject of a swarm of negative press, most notably in Bloomberg, which published a scathing story about Upside Foods and the cultivated meat sector, but made a number of misleading and inaccurate claims and failed to address a lot of the progress made by the industry.
In response, the alternative protein startup outlined how Bloomberg “ignored our repeated requests (and blog post)” that stated its whole-textured tissue is not ready to scale in the near term. The company’s debut product was a whole-cut chicken, but it is now focusing on commercialising suspension products, which include chicken nuggets, pâtés and other ground meats.
But Upside Foods’ move to adjust its strategy is a good sign, according to Steve Molino, principal at impact investment firm Clear Current Capital (which is not an investor in Upside Foods). “Too often we see companies wait until it’s too late to make difficult changes,” he told Wired.
In a statement sent to Green Queen, Valeti said: “We are being proactive, as Steve Molino said. We are laser-focused on getting to scale. I am happy my statements were written there without twisting them.”
Cultivated meat rocked by financial and political trials
Courtesy: GFI
The latest round of layoffs follows similar trends across the cultivated meat industry. Last month, it was reported that Israel’s Aleph Farms – another leading startup that has been approved to sell cultivated meat – let go of 30% of its local workforce.
“As we transition towards larger-scale production and commercialisation, we are maintaining R&D and production in Israel while expanding globally through co-manufacturers, in line with our capital-efficient and asset-light approach. We are adapting our organisation to align with this next growth phase,” an Aleph Farms spokesperson told Green Queen, reflecting Upside Foods’ reasons for the layoffs.
In California, cultivated seafood producer Finless Foods had similarly carried out two rounds of layoffs in less than 12 months, while Omeat stripped back its employee count by 80%, with its founder stepping down as CEO amid allegations of creating a hostile work culture.
This all comes amid a sharp decline in the venture capital flowing into cultivated meat. Last year, investments were down by 75%, as part of a wider dip in food tech and overall VC funding. The sector hasn’t recovered yet, with the first quarter of this year seeing only $12M being pumped into cultivated meat startups (5% of the $226M invested last year).
This is why AgFunder has earmarked cultivated meat as a “category to watch” this year. This has been exacerbated by the legislative challenges in a critical political year when half the world will vote – before Florida, Italy banned cultivated meat, with France and other European countries mulling similar laws.
With the far-right gains in the EU elections (and now France), and the recent boosts to climate-sceptic Donald Trump’s US presidential candidacy, the impact of policy on alternative proteins may yet cut deeper. Upside Foods itself fought back with its Miami tasting – but even there, the meat lobby was out to keep up its misinformation campaign. Valeti described it as a “protest truck parked outside unsuccessfully trying to detour folks in line”.
And of course the shills are right outside to make sure their competition is strangled in the cradle. pic.twitter.com/QEq2NNPPKa
These hurdles have also forced some companies to cease operations. Cultivated pork startup New Age Eats shut down in March 2023, and hybrid meat startup SciFi Foods began selling off its assets last month.
“The funding environment is as closed as I’ve ever seen, so only a select few in the cultivated space will be able to keep pushing for progress,” warned Molino, suggesting that there could be more closures in the sector this year
Crowdfunding backers of UK plant-based meat maker THIS have reacted furiously to a significant drop in the business’s valuation, following its £20M Series C round last month.
In 2022, when THIS closed its Series B fundraise, it was valued at £150M. But its Series C round – which saw private equity firm Planet First Partners invest a further £20M in the business – decreased this valuation 67% to £50M.
As part of the deal, £12M was set aside for THIS’s growth, while the remaining £8M was taken off the table by founders Andy Shovel and Pete Sharman, as well as some of its earliest shareholders.
This has angered crowd investors who have injected £13.4M into the company over three rounds, who criticised the move on a Seedrs discussion board, according to the Grocer. They said the plant-based meat manufacturer wasn’t allowing them to trade shares publicly on the crowdfunding platform’s secondary market.
THIS, which claims to be the UK’s fastest-growing meat analogue company, announced the details of the financials in a letter sent to crowd investors by Shovel, Sharman and new CEO Mark Cuddigan.
It revealed that the share price negotiated for the Series C round was £28.73, representing a 71% dip from the £98.63 price before the latest raise. To date, the company has secured £50M in funding from institutional and crowdfunding investors, including BGF, Backed VC, FiveSeasons Ventures, Idinvest Partners, Manta RayVentures, Seedcamp, ITV and footballer Chris Smalling (among others).
THIS’s valuation suffers from ‘extremely difficult’ investment market
Courtesy: THIS/Green Queen
On Seeders, THIS’s indicative valuation – based on the company’s share price – stood at £171.6M before the Series C round. This was an increase from the £150M valuation set when THIS raised £8M from over 3,000 crowd backers in 2022 (as part of its Series B round).
In anticipation of the Series C, crowd investors pumped in another £1.4M in a convertible round earlier this year, with loan notes converting to equity. But the letter to Seedrs investors confirmed that now, the pre-money valuation is £50M, which, “on the face of it, isn’t great for those investors who participated in those [earlier] rounds”.
“Our earliest investors and founders did sell some shares at this round at a significant discount versus the ‘primary’ money that went into the company, to lower the overall entry price of our lead investor without increasing the dilution for all existing shareholders,” Shovel told the Grocer.
“To be clear, if the business had been able to take the full total as a ‘primary’ investment into the company, all existing shareholders would have experienced significantly more dilution. Therefore, we believe that selling some discounted secondary was the best option for shareholders, as well as our incoming investor, whilst importantly setting the company up for the next exciting stage of growth.”
The letter pointed to an “extremely difficult” investment market for food and drink businesses to explain why the valuation was lower. Food tech financing nosedived by 61% in 2023, amid a wider dip in VC funding – for plant-based companies, this fell by 24%. And across the UK, overall Series C valuations were down. by 77% year-on-year, with plant-based startups faring even worse and some forced to shut down before being sold for “virtually nothing”, the letter stated.
THIS’s executive team argued that the Series C was a positive development for all shareholders, since the company is now “really well capitalised”. “We have enough cash to take us all the way to net profit in a year or so,” they wrote in the letter. While gross margins were 0% until recently, they’re now “growing strongly”, with plans to reach 30% or more in the next 12 months.
“In spite of us kicking off the fundraise in very good time, it took far longer than expected to find the investment, so our cash runway was running quite low. We had around two to three months before we would have had worryingly low cash reserves, at the time of closing this round.”
THIS co-founders Andy Shovel and Pete Sharman | Courtesy: THIS
Despite the letter’s arguments, crowd investors complained about the deal. “Shockingly bad human behaviour” was one backer’s consensus. “This doesn’t happen with private companies that raise money directly from investors as the founders have more accountability and less autonomy. Andy and Pete should be really ashamed,” they wrote.
In response, Shovel said the valuation was decided upon after a “quite long and thorough” process involving hundreds of investors. “Once we entered into negotiations with Planet First Partners, the valuation was negotiated on for some time, but given the tough fundraising market, there was not that much competitive pressure to drive the price up,” he said.
Shovel and Sharman have retained an 18% stake in the business they founded in 2019. Since then, they have invested £100,000 of their savings into THIS.
“There is zero chance of us ever trying to shortchange our crowd investors, many (really a lot) of our friends and family are investors across multiple Seedrs rounds, and, in any case, Seedrs investors are aligned in terms of share class with various large institutional investors,” said Shovel. “So, there are various checks and balances in place to ensure that the Seedrs investors’ interests are looked after.”
He added: “Our £50m pre-money valuation is a symptom of how much interest (or lack of) the investment market had in our company at this investment round – not poor financial governance. We are unfortunately unable to influence the macro-economic factors, which have led to an average of 77% decline in Series C valuations across growth-stage companies in the UK.”
“As it stands, we have made sure that the company is well funded and can support its growth in the coming years, and we’ve installed a top-tier management team, have achieved outstanding growth from £0 to £20m+ annual sales in four-and-a-half years, and are now closing in on net profitability. I’m hoping that we have governed the company responsibly and effectively, based on that progress.”
With a superfood in the pipeline, THIS aims for profitability in 2025
Courtesy: THIS
Addressing the £8M of secondary funding, Shovel said this only arose because Planet First would agree to a very low valuation for THIS at first, and so the team’s investment bankers advised offering the secondary sale at around an 18% discount to lower the entry price and keep the headline valuation at £50M.
“Whilst the earliest investors are okay with selling some of their shares at that valuation, Pete and I weren’t thrilled about offloading c.35% of our shares at such a low valuation,” said Shovel. “But on balance, we’ve been working for the best part of a decade, and it was definitely beneficial for the company and its other shareholders for us to go ahead with it, so we did.”
He continued: “The idea that it’s some money-making ruse for us is absurd. It’s the lowest valuation the company has seen in years.”
Shovel added that offering shares on the Seedrs secondary market could have affected the employee share scheme valuation in the eyes of HMRC (the UK’s revenue and customs office). “Any of us who are annoyed by the lower valuation simply hasn’t had any exposure to what’s gone on in the growth-stage investment market since 2022. It’s just tough out there,” he said.
“I would finally stress that funding round valuations may go up or down and serve up less or more dilution for us all, but the only valuation that really counts as far as I’m concerned is the one at a potential exit event in the future.”
“Either way, I strongly refute any nonsense claims that Pete or I have acted without integrity at any point. Thankfully, it seems that most investors on Seedrs have comprehended that the lower valuation is a symptom of a changed funding environment.”
Targeting profitability by 2025, THIS is the third-largest meat analogue company in the UK, with revenues up by nearly 50% last year, reaching £19M. The company has streamlined its operations, consolidating its production from 17 sites to just three.
Cuddigan – who Shovel endorsed as an “outstanding” person to lead THIS to over £100M in profitable sales in the future – has hinted at the company’s product development plans, telling Sifted that it was working on a tofu-life plant-based superfood that can be used as an ingredient in several ways, and has more nutritional value than anything currently available on the market.~
An often insurmountable price barrier is keeping many people from buying plant-based alternatives to beef, pork, and chicken.
By Ayurella Horn-Muller
Isobelle McClements was 13 when she came home from school and told her parents she was going vegan. Reading one book that delved into meat processing was all it took to convince her it was time for a lifestyle upheaval. The logistics of seamlessly feeding a family is a big reason her parents followed suit.
That was a decade ago. Nowadays, the freezer often stocks plant-based meatballs, sausages, or nuggets. When dining out, a faux burger sometimes makes the cut. Her father, David Julian McClements, is a food scientist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who studies how to make such things healthier and tastier.
Still, everyone in the family prefers to prepare meat-free fare using fresh fruits and veggies, whole grains, and other ingredients. They can afford the more planet-friendly options now common in grocery stores, but have the time and means to make them from scratch. Most people, of course, can’t do either of those things, which presents an impediment to broader adoption of beef, pork, and chicken alternatives that could help the nation hit its climate targets.
“Finding good quality ingredients [and] being able to bring them all together and combine them into something that tastes great but is also affordable, healthy, and sustainable is very, very challenging,” McClements said.
Pound for pound, plant-based mock meats cost an average 77 percent more than their conventional counterparts. These proteins are typically heavily processed as they’re manufactured from things like soy and pea protein. “That’s partly why it’s so expensive.”
Who buys plant-based meat?
Courtesy: PBFA
When thinking about who is buying these pricey proteins, an affluent, urban, Tesla-driving white woman who has sworn off all animal products might come to mind. The high tax bracket often rings true, but the rest of that mental picture is a trite misconception. Even the idea that it’s only vegans or vegetarians buying these products isn’t entirely the case.
Young and non-white consumers are the most likely to eat plant-based meats, according to a May 2024 survey commissioned by alt-meat advocacy nonprofit the Good Food Institute. Roughly 38 percent of Gen Z and 35 percent of Millennials report dining on such alternatives at least once a month, which is around twice the number of Gen Xers and Baby Boomers doing so. About one-third of Black and Latino consumers regularly eat meat substitutes, compared to one-fourth of white consumers. And just 2.79 percent of households toss only plant-based proteins into the shopping cart. Almost 95 percent of them buy the real deal as well.
Income is where the most striking disparities lie. US households with an income approaching $100,000 are most likely to purchase plant-based alternatives, but most of those making less than $45,000 rarely do. One reason is federal assistance like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, often provides too little financial help to make them affordable.
“It’s just a question of cost, and if that is going to be feasible for them, to make sure they make it through the month,” said Parker Gilkesson Davis, a senior analyst at the Center for Law and Social Policy who studies nutrition and poverty.
About 12.5 percent of Americans are enrolled in SNAP, which provides a monthly benefit based on income, family size and certain expenses. In April 2023, the average benefit was $181.72 for a single person or $343 for a household. Making that last is a challenge when food prices have climbed 25 percent in four years. Those who work to reduce hunger argue that safety nets like SNAP have failed to keep pace with inflation, dietary shifts, and all the ways climate change impacts the food supply chain. When low-income residents struggle to purchase meat with food stamps, it reinforces the fact that costlier plant-based alternatives are only for the affluent.
“SNAP has already fallen short in terms of supporting traditional diets, so adding other non-traditional items may be even more difficult,” she said. “There are a lot of lower-income people who do want to consider non-traditional protein products or meats, but these products are more expensive, and so we have to account for that.”
Lower volumes don’t help the price tag
Courtesy: GFI
Of the plant-based meats, beef substitutes have the smallest premium at 20 percent more per pound than the real thing. That’s because they have been around the longest, relatively speaking — hamburger analogues arrived about 15 years ago. Beef also tends to cost more than other meats (and has been getting pricier as climate change impacts herd sizes), which makes the financial jump to its plant-based versions smaller.
And yet even those who can afford the alternatives seem to be cooling on them amid concerns about their sustainability, nutritional value, and even their taste and texture. The $8.1 billion fake meat industry, which experienced soaring sales during the pandemic as the supply chain for conventional meats collapsed, struggled last year. The industry’s sales volumes dropped 9 percent between 2022 and 2023, with a 2 percent decline in revenue.
Glynn Tonsor, an agricultural economist at Kansas State University, manages the Meat Demand Monitor, a database that surveys the meat-buying habits of consumers monthly. The trend he’s seeing suggests that changing eating habits might have something to do with the market decline. In May, plant-based patties held 2 percent of the retail market and 4 percent of the food service market, which is respectively half and a quarter of the market portion they controlled in May of 2021, Tonsor said.
Dwindling volumes don’t help prices, either. Conventional meats are commodities that have been sold at a vast scale for more than a century through a well-established and robust supply chain, with the benefit of government subsidies. All of that keeps costs down.
“Right now, plant-based meat products are not commodities, so that means that plant-based brands tend to sell lower volumes,” said Daniel Gertner, a business analyst at Good Food Institute. “They might, with those lower volumes, in certain cases make higher net profits, but then much of that profit is reinvested into things like overhead, research and development, [and] marketing. With any nascent category, there’s this need to just build the infrastructure from the ground up.”
“The food we’re eating is one-third of global emissions. And if you look at where that comes from, half of it is coming from animal-sourced foods, from livestock. So it’s a huge piece of the emissions puzzle,” said Andy Jarvis, director at the fund.
In an effort to solve that puzzle, the fund has earmarked $100 million toward the creation of three research centers — the first of which opened last month at North Carolina State University — focused on sustainable protein alternatives like plant-based products, precision fermentation, and cultivated meat.
But the largest hurdle to making plant-based proteins a more viable alternative for everyone is the U.S. government’s deep investment in the status quo. Washington spends up to $38 billion subsidizing the meat and dairy industries each year, a move that keeps prices artificially low. Meanwhile, nations around the world have invested a grand total of little more than $1 billion in the alternative protein industry.
“There’s no surprise that it’s not at price parity, when you certainly don’t have a level playing field on the government support,” said Jarvis.
Barring a major federal intervention, one akin to the financial support that catalyzed explosive growth in renewable energy, getting plant-based meats to a point where they can compete with conventional counterparts will take quite some time. Until that happens, it won’t matter if plant-based chicken tastes just like the real thing. Only when it’s more affordable will more people be able to make a major lifestyle change, much like the McClements household once did.
This article by Ayurella Horn-Muller was originally published on Grist. It is republished here as part of the global journalism collaboration Covering Climate Now.
In three days, selling cultivated meat will be a felony in Florida – to celebrate food freedom, though, Upside Foods served its chicken at a pre-ban party in Miami.
On Thursday evening, at a rooftop in Miami, Upside Foods served customers some forbidden chicken.
Forbidden, that is, from Monday, July 1, when Florida’s ban on cultivated meat comes into effect. Announced in May by the liberal-elite-hating mayor Ron DeSantis, the law will make a second-degree misdemeanour to manufacture, transport, commercialise or sell cultivated meat.
“Take your fake lab-grown meat elsewhere. We’re not doing that in the state of Florida,” said DeSantis.
But just to show Floridians what their state is forcing them to miss out on, Upside Foods took its meat straight to its capital. The pre-ban event featured recipes from Miami chef, restauranteur and TV personality Mika Leon, with drinks from mixologist Gio Gutierrez.
Courtesy: Upside Foods
The tasting was free of charge, which Upside Foods said was the first time cultivated meat has been offered to the public at no cost. This was deliberate. “We wanted to give as many people as possible the opportunity to taste cultivated meat in Florida before it’s banned,” the company’s COO, Amy Chen, told Green Queen.
The first-come, first-served event fed cultivated chicken to around 100 people, giving them the last “taste of freedom” before these novel proteins are officially prohibited in the state.
“The goal of this pop-up event is to provide Floridians with the opportunity to taste cultivated meat before it’s banned,” said Chen. “What’s more, we strongly believe that cultivated meat is an important part of our food future in Miami, Florida, and beyond. This event aims to celebrate and advocate for food freedom, innovation, and Florida’s potential to contribute to a growing industry and help shape the future of food.”
So how did Upside Foods present its chicken? Leon cooked up tostadas with the chicken made a la Plancha con Sazón, topping a corn tostada and accompanying avocado, chipotle crema, beet sprouts, and fresh lime zest.
“Chef Mika leans heavily into her Cuban roots and Miami culinary favourites to create beautiful, delicious, seasonal dishes and honour Caribbean traditions,” said Chen. “For our event, she used that lens to create a variety of vegetarian offerings in addition to her UPSIDE Chicken Tostada with house-made Sazón, avocado, and crema.”
Additionally, her restaurant Caje Caliente also catered some dishes. “Having had the opportunity to work with UPSIDE’s cultivated chicken, I can attest that their products are delicious,” said Leon.
“From appearance to aroma and taste, their products provide the same experience you’d expect from chicken. As a chef, I love the idea of preserving the foods we love while using innovation to figure out ways to create a better future of food,” she added.
What’s next for Upside Foods?
Courtesy: UPSIDE Foods/Canva AI/Green Queen
The event was co-hosted by the Brick and Timber Collective, a leading real estate company with properties in Miami, San Francisco and Los Angeles. “The state’s ban on cultivated meat is short-sighted and damaging to its tech ecosystem,” said Jesse Feldman, a partner at the firm.
“This policy not only affects cultivated meat but also stifles progress in biotech, life sciences, and other innovative industries that can thrive here. Opposing such policies is crucial to protect Florida and Miami as vibrant tech hubs,” he added.
Upside Foods co-founder and CEO Uma Valeti agreed. “This law disregards food safety experts, limits consumer choice, and stifles American innovation. It’s a setback for progress, job creation, and Florida’s potential in a new industry,” he said. “We believe in a future where everyone has access to delicious food options, and this event is our way of showcasing what’s possible.”
Courtesy: Upside Foods
A host of other states are deliberating restrictions on cultivated meat, from Arizona, Texas and Tennessee in the south, to Nebraska in the midwest and Wisconsin in the Great Lakes. Chen noted that any legislation that “discriminates against cultivated meat” is “disappointing”, whether it’s a ban, defamatory labelling (calling it ‘lab-grown meat’, for example), or research limitations.
“We hope that the Florida legislature will revisit and reverse this legislation in their next session. Either way, these bans are unconstitutional, and we’re confident that the courts will ultimately restore food freedom for Floridians,” she said.
A week after DeSantis signed the bill in Florida, Alabama followed through with its own ban, threatening $500 in fines and up to three months in jail if you manufacture, sell or distribute cultivated meat. This will take effect on October 1. Asked if Upside Foods intends to host a similar public tasting in Alabama, Chen said: “Nothing is planned at the moment.”
Apart from the legislative mess, cultivated meat has also had its fair share of financial challenges, following a steep 75% dip in investment, reaching $226M in 2023. As of Q1 2024, startups in the space have only raised $12M. Upside Foods itself decided to pause construction on the commercial-scale facility it announced in September, laying off some employees to double investment in its existing pilot plant instead.
“The next chapter for us is focused on scale and commercialisation,” Chen said. Hinting at the future, she added: “We’re looking forward to bringing our next-generation products to market, pending regulatory clearance, and are excited that more consumers will have the chance to experience the future of food.”
A group of lawmakers have reintroduced the REAL Meat Act, this time targeting federal investment in the cultivated meat industry.
In the House Representatives, a group of politicians have co-sponsored a bill that would prohibit the US government from investing in cultivated meat.
It is the latest version of the Real Marketing Edible Artificials Truthfully Act – or the REAL Meat Act – which has been introduced by Ohio representative Warren Davidson.
The draft legislation targets cultivated meat, specifically federal support of these proteins. “Fake cell-cultured meat not only poses a health risk to the human body, but it also threatens the livelihoods of America’s hard-working ranchers, livestock farmers, and butchers,” Davidson said in a statement, invoking a familiar rhetoric and escalating the misinformation about the health credentials of cultivated meat.
“Congress must act to ensure US taxpayers are not footing the bill for this inferior, experimental product,” he added.
Bill would prohibit low-income families from accessing cultivated meat
Courtesy: John Minchillo/AP
The REAL Meat Act was first introduced in 2019 by Nebraska senator Deb Fischer, which aimed to mandate the use of the word ‘imitation’ on plant-based meat labels, alongside a statement that indicated the products don’t contain meat. A companion bill was brought in the House by Kansas’s Roger Marshall.
Those bills went nowhere, but the act was reintroduced by Fischer last year. It has since been read twice by the Senate and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
Now, Davidson has reintroduced the Real Meat Act in the House, which is controlled by the Republican Party. HR 8757 is supported by eight other lawmakers in the House, all of whom belong to the GOP: Kevin Hern, Matt Rosendale, Greg Steube, Harriet Hageman, Jim Baird, Ronny Jackson, Thomas Massie and Keith Self.
The bill aims to prohibit federal funding for the research and advancement, promotion, advertisement, and production of cultivated meat. If passed, the legislation would also prevent these foods from being part of federal nutrition programmes like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) for low-income families.
The REAL Meat Act of 2024 has been referred to the House Committee on Agriculture now. It is reminiscent of the Fair and Accurate Ingredient Representation on Labels Act introduced by Marshall earlier this year, which seeks to restrict how alternative protein products are labelled.
Cultivated meat in the election-year culture wars
Courtesy: UPSIDE Foods/Canva AI
Davidson’s bill is the latest in a series of legislations and proposals designed to curtail the progress of cultivated meat in the US, which was approved for sale last year after rigorous food safety testing by the FDA and the USDA.
Only last month, Florida became the first state to ban the production and sale of cultivated meat within its borders, a move that was swiftly followed by Alabama a week later. Similar proposals are being debated in Arizona, Wisconsin, Texas, Nebraska and Tennessee.
The general messaging around most of these bills has been one of protecting farmers, though it really serves to protect the interests of the industrial meat sector. It is smallholder farmers that stand to face the most severe impacts of climate change, a global issue foods like cultivated meat – whose emissions, water consumption and land use are fractional compared to conventional meat – are trying to curtail.
These attacks against cultivated meat have ramped up over the last few months, and the timing doesn’t feel coincidental. We’re just over four months from the national election, and alternative protein has become part of the culture wars in American political discourse. The rhetoric surrounding cultivated meat builds on the fact that 15% of US citizens don’t believe climate change is real, and that 74% don’t associate meat with global heating.
The White House has been supportive of cultivated meat. The Biden-Harris administration signed an executive order in 2022 to promote biomanufacturing and biotech, which involved “cultivating alternative food sources”. And last year, alternative proteins were included in chapters from the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Energy in a national biotech report. The USDA, meanwhile, poured in $10M in grants to open the National Institute of Cellular Agriculture at Tufts University.
Even the meat industry has been against bans like the ones issued by Florida and Alabama. The North American Meat Institute, the country’s oldest and largest trade association (representing 95% of the US’s meat output, has argued that such legislation “limits consumer choice” and denies people “access to food options”.
“Some of America’s largest meat companies have been early investors in cultivated meat,” Sean Edgett, chief legal officer at Upside Foods – one of two companies who have commercialised cultivated chicken in the US – told Green Queen after Florida’s ban, calling it a “protectionist policy for entrenched interests” that “violates free market principles and limits consumer choice”.
He suggested Florida’s bill “ignores food safety experts and science, stifles consumer choice, and hinders American innovation”. The same could be said of the REAL Meat Act.
Quorn Foods is entering the blended meat category as part of foodservice and hospital offerings – its CEO Marco Bertacca explains why the mycoprotein giant is doing so.
British meat-free leader Quorn Foods’ mycoprotein will be mixed with conventional meat as part of a new line of blended meat products for foodservice operators, including at the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) hospitals.
The supplier will provide its fungi-based protein to catering companies, which will combine it with beef and pork to develop staples like burgers and sausages. As part of Quorn’s evolution from a business that sought to “help a few people eat no meat” to one that “helps everyone eat less meat”, the blended meat products will be available before the end of the year.
As first reported by the Grocer, neither the finished products nor the menus will feature the Quorn brand name, instead containing a reference to the use of mycoprotein. The Monde Nissin-owned alternative protein giant’s involvement ends at the supply stage.
Blended meat has been around for a while, and its popularity has risen sharply over the last 12 months, with a host of startups coming up with their own products or providing plant- or fungi-based ingredients to established players in the meat industry.
However, this marks a major shift in the space: Quorn is a legacy brand and the market leader in the UK’s meatless category, but its sales – like the wider industry – have been suffering. To diversify and rejuvenate its offerings, the company launched its Marlow Ingredients division last year to supply mycoprotein to makers of meat and dairy analogues.
Now, it is taking a step further with the blended meat move, aiming straight for the UK’s burgeoning flexitarian population, which accounts for between 14-25% of the total. “If we can bring new people on the meat reduction journey with us, no matter which way they join, then that is only a good thing for the health of people and the planet,” Quorn CEO Marco Bertacca tells Green Queen.
“To create the change the planet needs, we have to find new ways to reduce meat consumption,” he adds, noting that the new blended meat products are “about providing solutions for everyone”.
Quorn’s blended meat holds multi-pronged benefits for the NHS
Courtesy: Department of Health and Social Care
Bertacca argues that the reduction in meat and dairy isn’t happening fast enough, or with enough scale. The UK’s Climate Change Committee says animal consumption needs to be cut by 20% by 2030, although activists are urging as much as a 70% decline.
“Our mycoprotein can help solve two global problems – climate change and human obesity,” he says, suggesting that blended meat is just one example of Quorn’s updated mandate. The idea is to replace 100% core meat items on the menu with the mycoprotein blends.
“We are still in the development stages of our catering partnerships, but we are working with one of the largest catering companies in the world and their production partners, and the opportunity will see us feed millions of consumers every day with these options,” says Bertacca.
A major example is the NHS, the UK’s biggest employer, and one that feeds thousands of patients every day. “The multiple benefits this will deliver: fewer carbon emissions going into the atmosphere, as well as less saturated fat, less cholesterol, and more fibre going into their patients’ and employees’ diets,” he explains. “It is vital that we offer the right choices to patients and staff within a healthcare setting, serving great, nutritious food.”
One modelling study shows that a ‘plant-based by default’ approach could save the NHS £74M annually, with significant household savings too if patients are supported in making dietary shifts. Similar research by the Office of Health Economics estimated that if England were to adopt a completely plant-based diet, the NHS would see a net benefit of up to £18.8B a year.
Targeting flexitarians and contending with the climate
Courtesy: Nectar
A sensory analysis published earlier this week showed that most plant-based products don’t satisfy omnivores (or flexitarians), except for chicken nuggets. But the only product that came within one point in average liking of a conventional burger was the Both Burger by 50/50 Foods, which blends beef with an equal amount of vegetables.
“Taste is a primary purchase driver for all food products. If blended meats can offer better taste profiles for omnivores today, they have a significant role to play in the protein transition,” Caroline Cotto, director of Nectar – which carried out the research – told Green Queen.
“Once upon a time, we were effectively competing with the meat industry – only making products that were alternatives to theirs, and encouraging people to switch. Of course, we still offer these products, but as human knowledge has evolved, businesses are evolving, including ours,” says Quorn’s Bertacca.
“We now find ourselves collaborating to offer less-meat options to consumers who are looking to reduce meat consumption, but not eat vegetarian or vegan meals. This represents the majority of people, and so it is a massive opportunity to decarbonise part of the food system and improve public health,” he adds.
Blended meats can have a sizeable impact on emissions reduction. Research shows that replacing just half of our meat consumption with plant-based can lower agricultural and land use emissions by 31%, and effectively halt deforestation. Australian startup Harvest B, which unveiled its blended meat lineup in April, says its products have a 46% lower carbon footprint than conventional meat.
Quorn says its mycoprotein generates 55 times fewer emisisons than beef, and 13 times fewer than pork. “Serving food to millions of people every day means the scale of the opportunity is huge. This will significantly reduce the carbon footprint of their menus, and so help them achieve their climate targets,” states Bertacca.
“The potential is huge for our customers. We are supporting them by providing Quorn to create lower environmental impact menus than they currently serve.”
Taste credentials could help blended meat – and alternative proteins
Courtesy: Quorn
Earlier attempts – like Tyson Foods’ Raised & Rooted or Aldi’s BBQ Flexitarian Burger – failed to put blended meat on the map. There were multiple reasons behind this: the labelling was all wrong, the taste wasn’t satisfactory enough, and the timing just wasn’t right.
Recent innovations are looking more promising. 50/50 Foods’ Both Burger is now on the menu at Disneyland, Phil’s Finest has been progressing well for years, after finding success on Shark Tank (under its former name Misfit Foods), and Mush Foods’ mycelium-based 50Cut is now part of a blended burger developed by meat purveyor Pat LaFrieda.
One of the most successful products in this space is Perdue Farms’ Chicken Plus range, which combines chicken with The Better Meat Co‘s mycelium meat. “When you look at Perdue’s offering, it talks about getting kids to eat veggies without having to sneak it in. They are clear on their target market – parents who are dying to figure out how to get their kids to eat vegetables – state a clear value proposition, and stay true to the format and offering their target market wants and needs,” Steve Molino, principal at Florida VC firm Clear Current Capital, told Green Queen last year.
Even McDonald’s chicken nuggets technically fall under the blended meat category. “Assuming that blended companies can create products that taste good, it will simply come down to traditional food business fundamentals,” Molino added.
This is what Bertacca alludes to as well. “There have been attempts to make products like burgers and sausages with a blend of meat and plant-based ingredients like soya and pea protein, but the products have not delivered,” he says. “The partners we are working with tell us that Quorn is by far the best meat alternative for this application, because of our unique mycoprotein and its meat-like texture.”
Alternative proteins have had it tough in the last couple of years, with a downturn in investment, a decline in sales, and an uptick in misinformation. Could blended meat renew enthusiasm for the category, and push more people to eat less meat, and eventually more plant-based? That would certainly be Quorn’s goal.
“Yes, the category, like many others, has seen a slowdown, but we must not forget that comes against the backdrop of many consecutive years of incredible growth in meat-free eating,” Bertacca points out.
“Now is the time to start talking about the solutions we can achieve together as an industry, rather than focusing on the challenges.”
In our weekly column, we round up the latest news and developments in the alternative protein and sustainable food industry. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers Little Spoon’s partnership with Oatly, a spate of government investments into alternative proteins, and a Ted Talk about cultivated meat.
New products and launches
US vegan startup Brooklyn Delhi, which makes vegan Indian pantry staples, has debuted at Whole Foods nationwide with four of its products: sweet potato coconut dal, red bean rajma masala, black bean butter masala, and chickpea tikka masala.
Courtesy: Brooklyn Delhi
New York startup Blackbird Foods has released has expanded its range of vegan wings with two new flavours – tangy and smoky Texas BBQ and sweet and spicy Thai Chili.
Also based in New York, kids nutrition brand Little Spoon has unveiled two limited-edition smoothies in partnership with Oatly. The Apple Cinnamon Swirl and Peach Berry Bliss flavours will debut on June 25 on the former’s website.
Califia Farms has launched Complete Kids, a multi-ingredient milk for children featuring 8g of protein per serving from peas, chickpeas and fava beans. It’s available at Target for $5.99.
In more alt-dairy news, Elmhurst 1925 has rolled out a line of cashew creamers, which it describes as an industry-first. Available in sweet cream, cinnamon churro, caramel brûlée and unsweetened flavours, they can be used for coffee as well as cooking applications, and are available on its website and at Sprouts.
Courtesy: Elmhurst 1925
UK vegan artisanal cheese brand Julienne Bruno has launched into Ocado’s flash delivery service Zoom, shortly after its Superstraccia won Gold at the Free From Food awards.
On July 2, US vegan restaurant chain Plant Powered Fast Food will launch a limited-edition American BBQ rib sandwich, The Ribby, across its 10 locations. It features a jackfruit meat patty, BBQ sauce, onions and pickles.
Germany’s Endori has announced that its vegan Chicken Natural product has now been permanently added to the menu of Italian restaurant chain L’Osteria. It means customers can choose to use the pea protein and broad bean chicken as a topping across its 170 restaurants in nine countries.
Fellow German company Rügenwalder Mühle has reformulated its vegan Mühlen Salami, and updated the recipes of its entire salami range to remove methylcellulose.
Courtesy: Made With Plants
And Australian vegan startup Made With Plants has expanded distribution for its plant-based bacon, chicken, ham, and grated mozzarella into more than 500 Coles stores nationwide.
Policy and finance developments
Canadian economic cluster Protein Industries Canada has announced a new project to optimise and use locally grown pea and fava bean protein ingredients, in partnership with Lovingly Made Flour Mills, TMRW Foods and Dutton Farms.
The government of Brussels has awarded a €400,000 ($429,000) subsidy to Maastricht-based plant protein producer Dutch Structuring Technologies, which will use the capital to quintuple production capacity to 1,000 kg per hour.
The Israeli Innovation Authority has invested nearly 1.5M shekels (about $400,000) into microalgae protein maker Brevel, which will support its R&D efforts on its next product, functional lipids for food applications.
Courtesy: Brevel
Another microalgae tech company, France’s Fermentalg, has raised €12.8M ($13.7M) to accelerate sales of its natural colourants and omega-3 ingredients and development of its alternative protein and lipid products., with European precision fermentation leader HuvePharma becoming a reference shareholder.
In more precision fermentation news, Singapore’s National Research Foundation has awarded a $14.8M grant to the city-state’s Illinois Advanced Research Center, an affiliate centre of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in the US, to develop a Centre for Precision Fermentation and Sustainability.
South African biotech startup Immobazyme has secured R24.5M ($1.35M) to scale up its production capacity for precision-fermented proteins.
UK vegan company Allplants has raised £1.8M ($2.3M) and launched its frozen meals into foodservice through a partnership with leading wholesaler Bidfood.
In Australia, member of parliament Lisa Baker has released a new report recommending the Western Australia government create a working group for food systems transformation, with a focus on supporting alternative proteins through investment, policies and regulation.
Courtesy: Algae Cooking Club
Over in the US, five months since launch, Algae Cooking Club has slashed the price of its algal cooking oil by 20%. It has made its way into over 150 retail stores and experienced sales growth of 50% month-over-month.
Research and manufacturing updates
Cultivated steaks, burgers, tuna and lobsters could replace Sunday roasts and fish and chips on British plates by 2054, according to research by FixOurFood and the University of York for UK grocer The Co-op‘s Responsible Retailing Report.
French extrusion specialist Clextral has introduced a patented Galaxy Texturisation Technology for plant protein extrusion, which can produce softer, more flexible textures for whole-cut meat analogues.
Courtesy: Clextral
Sproudz is new innovation hub established in Bern, Switzerland, which offers startups space and facilities for rent to develop plant-based products. Vegan companies BakeryBakery and Outlawz Food – which helped develop the concept – are already on board.
The Good Food Institute India has released the fourth report in its series of guides for alternative protein companies to navigate the country’s regulatory landscape. This edition focuses on the labelling and display requirements for pre-packaged foods.
Finally, is cultivated meat the future of food? That’s the question Upside Foods co-founder Uma Valeti explores in his Ted Talk for the Ted Countdown 2024 Dilemma Series.
A month after it unveiled the first Center for Sustainable Protein in North Carolina, the Bezos Earth Fund has opened its second alternative protein hub at Imperial College London.
The Bezos Earth Fund is making good on its alternative protein promise, opening the second of its Centers for Sustainable Protein, this time outside the US.
Housed at Imperial College London, the hub spans seven academic departments at the university, and is infused with a $30M investment over five years.
The Center for Sustainable Protein in London will advance research into precision fermentation, cultivated meat, bioprocessing and automation, nutrition, and AI and machine learning. This intelligence will be deployed towards innovative, evidence-based solutions through the commercialisation of alternative protein products that are not just planet-friendly, but also nutritious, delicious, and affordable.
It comes less than a month after the Earth Fund set up its first such centre at North Carolina State University, also through a five-year, $30M grant. It’s part of the fund’s $1B Future of Food Program, which involved the initial $60M investment in the alternative protein hubs – this has now been extended to $100M. Andy Jarvis, director of the fund’s Future of Food Program, revealed to Green Queen that a third centre will be opened in southeast Asia.
Courtesy: Yau Ming Low/iStock
Imperial Center for Sustainable Protein to use engineering biology
Animal agriculture accounts for up to 20% of global emissions, and meat production alone is responsible for releasing twice as many greenhouse gases into the atmosphere as plant-based foods. And despite taking up 77% of all agricultural land, the livestock industry only supplies only 18% of the world’s calories and 37% of its protein.
The Bezos Earth Fund highlights this disparity to explain how humans need to increasingly adopt alternative proteins, given the world will have 10 billion of us by 2050. It mentions the rise of plant-based foods, the progress made by the fermentation sector, and the potential of cultivated meat as examples of promising solutions.
“Food security is one of the biggest challenges facing humanity,” said Hugh Brady, president of Imperial College London. “For a sustainable future, we need to ensure that people across the world can be fed adequately and nutritiously with minimal impact on biodiversity, climate and our wider natural environment.”
But the widespread adoption of these proteins is dependent on quality and cost improvements, as well as a more efficient use of energy. The Bezos Earth Fund argues that to aid the protein transformation, other components need to be produced more sustainably and efficiently too, such as fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, and compounds responsible for flavour, aroma and colour.
To do so, it is championing engineering biology, which applies engineering concepts to design, build and produce cells and products. The Center for Sustainable Protein will use a mix of rational and AI-guided engineering strategies with automation at biofoundries – where cells are turned into mini-factories to produce useful products – to scale up new bio-based processes.
“Later is dangerously too late if we’re to think about growing our world’s protein sources,” said Jarvis. “Imperial College London has led pioneering efforts in the field of engineering biology, perfectly positioning the university to advance sustainable protein options that will satisfy the growing global masses.”
Courtesy: Imperial College London
Collaborating with multiple institutes globally
The European alternative protein centre at Imperial College will have three spokes in the UK, and three abroad, with more than 76 international partners to advance research, innovation and commercialisation.
The UK spokes are grouped under members of the Cellular Agriculture Manufacturing Hub at UCL and Aberystwyth University; the Food Centre at Reading University; and the Growing Kent & Medway consortium involving the National Institute of Agricultural Botany and the Universities of Kent and Greenwich.
Meanwhile, the international spokes pokes are hosted by the Technical University of Denmark (Biosustain), Tufts University (Centre for Cellular Agriculture), and the National University of Singapore.
“Imperial has the leading-edge research, innovation, partnerships and convening power to advance global food systems,” said Andrew Steer, president and CEO of the Bezos Earth Fund. He pointed to the expanding population to implore it is “time to rethink” how we grow and eat food. “This work will help ensure that our future includes more protein options – and that they taste great, are nutritious and come at low cost.”
The Imperial College protein centre will also encapsulate other institutes and facilities to translate discoveries into real-world applications and educate the next generation of bioengineers. These include the Centre for Synthetic Biology, SybiCITE, and the Centre for Translational Nutrition & Food Research, which has partnerships with Nestlé, Unilever, Quorn and Waitrose, among others.
“The Center’s ethos is that bioengineered solutions can – and should – be both planet and people-positive. Imperial is uniquely positioned to harness the potential of engineering biology to accelerate the alt-protein revolution and transform global food systems,” said Rodrigo Ledesma-Amaro from the department of bioengineering at Imperial College, who is the director of the new Center for Sustainable Proteins.
Alternative proteins could ‘define the future’
The Bezos Earth Fund was launched in 2020 through a $10B grant by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, one of the wealthiest individuals in the world. Last year, the fund committed $1B towards a transformation of the food system. The first investment came during COP28 in December, allocating $57M in food-related grants to tackle the threats of climate change and biodiversity loss and preserve food security.
It was in March that the fund’s vice-chair Lauren Sánchez (who is engaged to Bezos), announced the intention to set up the alternative protein centres. “We need to invent our way out of climate change. And we’re going to do it,” she told an audience at the the Aspen Ideas: Climate conference in Miami.
The idea is to host the hubs in universities “at the cutting edge of science and technology related to sustainable protein”, according to Jarvis. These institutes are creating breakthrough research to make alternative portions cheaper, tastier and healthier.
“They should be responding to industry needs, solving emerging problems, and investing in game-changing new ideas which have transformational potential to bring about step changes for the sector. And the best bit is that should all be open-access – the knowledge generated can be used by anyone to ensure broad impact,” he said.
Courtesy: Bezos Earth Fund
The North Carolina State University centre, for example, will advance the research, creation, and commercialisation of new technologies, provide training for the emerging industry workforce, and gauge consumers’ protein preferences.
Jarvis said a third centre will announced in a few weeks. “The Bezos Earth Fund’s Future of Food Program is working to transform food and agricultural systems to feed a growing population without degrading the planet,” he stated. “With this kind of firm R&D foundation in place, I believe sustainable protein will be set to properly play [its] part in the future of food. It might even come to define that future.”
Imperial College was at the centre of controversy earlier this month, when a study conducted by its researchers on ultra-processed foods mislabelled plant-based meats as unhealthy.
Most plant-based meats underperform on the taste front for omnivores, and blended meat could be a potential game-changer, detailed sensory analysis has found.
Vegan meat analogues need to be spicier, smokier, sweeter, darker, juicer, and bolder to sway omnivores away from conventional burgers, sausages, bacon and other meat products, according to the results from sensory testing by Nectar, a new initiative focused on taste-based protein transition.
Its inaugural Taste of the Industry report is based on insights from 1,150 American meat-eaters who participated in sensory panels evaluating 15 taste attributes for 54 plant-based meat products across five categories between June and August last year.
These were burgers, hot dogs, bacon, chicken tenders, and chicken nuggets, and Nectar found that while some leading plant-based products are ready for mainstream adoption, most brands fell short.
Each product was tested against an animal-based benchmark – and nuggets were the only category where plant-based versions outperformed their conventional counterparts. Impossible Foods, MorningStar Farms, Quorn, Rebellyous Foods and Simulate were the top taste performers here.
“By championing great-tasting products, empowering brands and consumers with data-driven insights, and fostering partnerships across the industry, Nectar’s launch heralds a new era of innovation and collaboration in the alternative protein space,” said Max Elder, managing director of non-profit Food Systems Innovation, which established Nectar last month.
The burger opportunity
Courtesy: Nectar
While burgers are perhaps the most popular plant-based category in terms of the number of options on the market, there’s a big satisfaction gap here. After evaluating nine vegan and blended (a mix of conventional meat and plant-based ingredients) commercially available burgers, the researchers found that 78% of omnivores rated conventional burgers as ‘somewhat like’, ‘like’ or ‘like very much’, versus just 37% for the average plant-based burger.
The leading vegan burger performed slightly better across these metrics (55%), but it was clear that the average plant-based options can improve. “The biggest opportunity for plant-based burger brands is to develop bolder flavour profiles,” says Caroline Cotto, director of Nectar. “The most significant differences in consumer preference between plant-based and animal burgers were in flavour rather than texture or appearance.”
She adds: “Consumers also want plant-based burgers to be ‘meatier’ (spicier, smokier, saltier, sweeter, darker, and juicier), with 45% of participants finding plant-based burgers as not meaty enough. ‘Meatiness’ had a larger impact on overall liking than any other trait.”
Blended meat could be a key pathway to plant-based
Courtesy: Nectar
One of the most striking findings was the impression of blended meat products. The leading product in this category – 50/50 Foods’ Both burger – outperformed the plant-based leader, and was the only patty that performed within one point in average liking of the conventional burger.
The blended burger made from 50% beef and 50% vegetables was rated as ‘somewhat like’, ‘like’ or ‘like very much’ by 69% of consumers, while the leading vegan patty was liked by 55%. That said, blended products are still closer in liking to plant-based burgers than animal-derived beef patties.
“Omnivores preferred the appearance and flavour of the blended burger. Survey respondents found the best-performing plant-based burger lacked the desired levels of spiciness, smokiness, sweetness, and saltiness compared to the blended burger,” says Cotto. “Taste is a primary purchase driver for all food products. If blended meats can offer better taste profiles for omnivores today, they have a significant role to play in the protein transition.”
She adds that the blended burger’s success has prompted Nectar to initiate “the world’s largest public sensory analysis of blended meats”. Testing around 40 products across eight formats, the research will explore the optimal plant-animal ratio, the best plant-based ingredients, the best channels to promote the category, and potentially better names. It will be out this autumn.
Plant-based nuggets are at parity
Courtesy: Nectar
Chicken nuggets are the most disliked of all animal products analysed, with more than a quarter of omnivores (27%) disliking the conventional versions. Plant-based products have successfully disrupted this space, with both the average vegan nugget and market leaders performing better than animal-derived nuggets.
While 53% of omnivores liked conventional chicken nuggets, 70% were satisfied with the leading vegan nugget. In fact, 54% liked the average plant-based nugget as well. Flavour is key here, though for product development teams, meatiness and consistency should be top of mind.
“While we can’t reveal the best-performing nugget brand, we can share that the top performers within one point of the animal-based benchmark included Impossible, MorningStar Farms, Quorn, Rebellyous Foods, and Simulate (in alphabetical order),” reveals Cotto.
“These products stood out for their superior flavour, which was most central to overall liking. Generally, breaded and fried plant-based meat categories receive higher ratings than non-breaded and fried categories,” she explains.
“Omnivores appreciate the flavour of plant-based nuggets but see room for improvement in meatiness and consistency. Brands should enhance juiciness [and] saltiness, and address mildness to ensure their products outperform all animal nuggets, not just the benchmark used in the study.”
Hot dogs: a white space for leading brands
Courtesy: Nectar
There’s a lot of room for improvement for vegan hot dogs, which represent the least-liked plant-based meat category in the Taste of the Industry report. Only 22% of meat-eaters liked the market-leading animal-free hot dog, compared to 55-75% for the rest of the products (chicken tenders were the most liked). In comparison, 92% said they liked conventional hot dogs (and 19% liked the average plant-based offering).
The gap existed across all sensory attributes, representing major opportunities across flavour, texture and appearance. But there is a caveat, according to Cotto. “The hot dog category has evolved significantly since last fall. Brands like Impossible, Oscar Mayer and others have introduced hot dog products that were not part of this study,” she says.
“To emerge as category leaders, brands should aim for bolder flavours (meatier, juicier, sweeter, spicier, smokier) while avoiding overcorrection – being too salty, for example, has a greater negative impact on overall liking than being not salty enough,” adds Cotto.
Meanwhile, vegan bacon could also do with improvements. Although Hooray Foods’ rice- and pea-based version actually came within one point of average liking with animal-derived bacon, the company ceased operations within a month after the taste tests were concluded.
“Plant-based bacon struggles with appearance, consistency, and flavour,” states Cotto. “To surpass animal bacon in taste, brands should focus on enhancing meatiness, making the product less mild, and increasing crispiness. Currently, plant-based bacon is often considered too soft and chewy, while animal bacon is seen as too crispy.”
The health-nutrition disparity
Courtesy: Nectar
The research further explored omnivores’ broader sentiments about plant-based foods, with 84% agreeing that eating more vegan meals reduces animal farming (only 5% disagreed with this statement). Similarly, 77% believe plant-based products are better for the environment, though 16% are unsure about this – previous research has shown that Americans fail to associate eating meat with climate change.
Health, meanwhile, has been the major buzzword around plant-based meat recently. It’s a factor that has become increasingly important for consumers, and something that has made leading brands change the way they market their products. Based on Nectar’s research, you can see why: while 80% of omnivores believe plant-based products are better for their health, only 55% find them to be more nutritious.
Cotto has an inkling as to why that is (although this hasn’t been tested). “Consumers think about health in terms of [a] holistic diet (i.e. plant-based diet is healthy) and… consumers think about nutrition at a product level,” she says. “Our takeaway from this is that plant-based meat companies should focus on broader health positioning when marketing their products and lean into messaging that shows plant-based products are part of a healthy diet and lifestyle.”
The takeaways for product developers
Courtesy: Impossible Foods
The report shows how there are several major hurdles for plant-based meat to overcome. “Nectar believes there isn’t a single primary barrier for the plant-based meat category, but rather a variety of market, channel, and consumer needs. We also believe great taste is essential for mainstream adoption of plant-based meats,” says Cotto.
“Our Taste of the Industry 2024 indicates that while the average satisfaction with plant-based meat is low, some leading products perform well, showing the potential for improving taste profiles across the board,” she adds.
The progress being made by companies can already be seen with the example of the hot dogs. Since completing the trial in August, Impossible Foods and Oscar Mayer have both unveiled vegan versions, as Cotto mentions above. The first step in propelling the taste of plant-based meats to the next level is having robust, category-level data to guide technological development,” she says.
“While Nectar is technologically agnostic, we focus on identifying sensory gaps between plant-based products and their animal-based analogues, then share that data with stakeholders to drive sensory innovation,” she adds, outlining new flavour and texture innovations as “particularly exciting”.
Nectar’s aim is to provide pre-competitive support for product development. “Our initial research indicates a positive outlook for the protein transition: while the average plant-based product may not yet be widely liked, leading products are appealing to a significant portion of the market,” reiterates Cotto.
“This suggests that with further R&D investments, taste profiles can be improved across the board. Plant-based brands should not hesitate to develop bolder taste profiles to close the taste gap with animal-based products.”
Dutch alternative protein startup Revyve is launching a powdered egg substitute made from spent brewer’s yeast to enhance plant-based meat formulations.
Revyve will debut its latest microbial protein innovation at next month’s IFT First Expo in Chicago (July 14-17), using upcycled brewer’s yeast (a beer industry byproduct) to make an egg replacer.
The ingredient boasts the same binding and emulsification qualities eggs possess, but aims to remove the supply chain volatility, animal abuse, price fluctuations, and allergy risks associated with conventional eggs.
The non-GMO vegan egg substitute comes in a powdered format, and like the rest of Revyve’s ingredients, it’s labelled as “yeast protein”. The product is intended as a clean-label alternative to E-numbers – artificial additives as well as naturally occurring substances added to CPG products for textural functionality, such as methylcellulose – for use in plant-based foods like meat analogues.
But for any product to replace eggs effectively, it needs to compete on costs. Revyve says its egg replacer is at price parity with chicken eggs, thanks to its patented tech. “We reap the typical functionality benefits of microbial and fermented protein, but by working with yeast – which is widely available as a co-product – we don’t use any fermentation,” CEO Cedric Verstraeten tells Green Queen. “This way we can minimise capex requirements and production costs.”
Giving burgers their shape, sizzle and colour
Courtesy: Alessa Joseph
Revyve relies on what is virtually an endless supply of yeast (given the vast amount of beer produced annually), and this eschews the need to grow any of its own biomass.
“First, we wash the yeast with an optimised set of operations, to make sure we remove all beer and brewing-related off-notes,” explains Verstraeten. “Then we use our proprietary gentle process to micro-mill the yeast and separate the valuable protein and fibre to optimise firming, gelling and foaming capabilities.”
Co-founder and CTO Edgar Suarez Garcia suggests that the company’s USP lies in this “unique combination of functional proteins and fibres”. “Manufacturers appreciate that when paired with other ingredients, Revyve can eliminate the need for methylcellulose, which has numerous functional and labelling downsides,” he says.
“We have taken yeast functionality to the next level. Products manufactured with Revyve single-ingredient yeast proteins take on true-to-form textures. Revyve offers exceptional heat-set gelling, binding and emulsification,” he adds.
Reserach has highlighted the importance of texture and mouthfeel for meat analogues. A 2022 survey by certification body V-Label found that the texture of plant-based meats is as important as their conventional counterparts for 75% of consumers, but only about 60% were actually satisfied with the former.
“When burger producers ask how Revyve performs, we explain that it behaves like egg whites,” says Suarez Garcia. “When cooked in a patty mixture, Revyve becomes firm yet springy, forming a binding network around the other ingredients.”
He continues: “Burgers retain water and oil at hot and cold temperatures; they brown and sizzle on the grill and hold their shape when flipped and sandwiched in a bun.”
Verstraeten suggests that Revyve’s egg replacer will appeal to manufacturers looking for nutritious, affordable alternatives to eggs to up their products’ eco credentials, and those on the hunt for clean-label replacements to chemical additives for texturising.
Revyve’s egg replacer stands out from ‘low-functioning’ plant proteins
Courtesy: Revyve
There are already a ton of plant-based egg replacement powders on the market, but Verstraeten believes Revyve’s use of yeast protein – which enables it to offer the same functionality as eggs – sets it apart. “Plant proteins typically have low functionality, so plant-based egg replacers usually require a mix of ingredients and additives to mimic the functionality. By working with yeast protein, we can achieve this with a single ingredient,” he explains.
Some of Revyve’s customers have already launched products using its ingredient in the burger segment, but the egg substitute can be used for foods beyond patties too. “Our high-performance product can be used in a versatile range of applications including nuggets, dairy products and baked goods,” says Verstraeten.
The startup is now working on CPG products with its egg replacer in the sauces, appetisers and bakery segments, which are slated for launch in the second part of the year.
While there are multiple products from independent producers on the market already, scaling up its production will allow Revyve to support large manufacturers as well. “We have demonstrated our process at industrial scale, and are currently building a large-scale commercial production, which will start up later this year,” reveals the CEO.
The facility is its key priority over the next 12 months, with the aim of “making Revyve a key ingredient across the food industry”. Concurrently, the company is also raising capital for its next scale-up milestone, which “will expand our capacity further and allow us to reach positive cashflows”. Last month, it secured €8M in new financing to support its growth.
A number of businesses are making proteins from spent brewer’s yeast. Germany’s ProteinDistillery uses biomass fermentation to turn the beer byproduct into egg-white-like ingredient Prew:tein, and France’s Yeasty has discovered a way to remove the bitterness from brewer’s yeast, producing a flour for alternative protein, pet food, and nutrition products.
Meanwhile, Belgian beverage giant AB InBev – the world’s largest beer manufacturer and parent company of Budweiser, Stella Artois and Michelob – is also developing alternative proteins from spent brewer’s grain.
Andre Menezes, founder and former CEO of plant-based meat maker Tindle Foods, explores the vegan industry’s rollercoaster period post-pandemic, and where it’s headed next.
In the world of startups and innovation, few sectors have seen as much fervour and enthusiasm as the plant-based food industry did between 2018 and 2022. What started as a movement to utilise food technology to craft alternatives to animal-based products quickly became a beacon of hope for sustainability, health, and profitability. However, as we look back at the trajectory of this industry, it’s evident that the journey has been far from straightforward.
The initial challenge faced by pioneers in this space was developing the technology to replicate the attributes consumers seek in animal products. While early iterations of plant-based offerings fell short, the landscape rapidly evolved, with companies investing millions to refine products like ground beef, burger patties, and nuggets to near-indistinguishable levels from their animal counterparts. This technological leap paved the way for what seemed like an inevitable march toward dominance in a trillion-dollar market.
As companies geared up for scale, investors poured in capital, and the industry experienced exponential growth. However, amidst the excitement and optimism, a surprising stagnation emerged. Despite projections of continued exponential growth, the numbers began to plateau. Demand, which once seemed insatiable, showed signs of tapering off after a stellar 2020.
Courtesy: Andre Menezes
The sentiment shift in 2022 was seismic. Interest rates rose, sales figures stalled, and industry giants struggled to meet expectations. What was once hailed as the future of food suddenly faced headwinds from critics, misinformation campaigns, and attacks from established incumbents. The narrative around plant-based meat shifted, and what was once seen as revolutionary technology became labelled as a passing fad.
Yet, amidst the gloom, there are lessons to be learned and opportunities to be seized. One thing that’s become clear in hindsight is that consumer adoption is more nuanced than initially presumed. While sustainability and animal welfare resonate with a segment of the population, it’s not enough to sustain the exponential growth envisioned by investors.
What led to the plant-based downturn
The crux of the matter lies in the very foundation of the industry’s rise. It wasn’t driven by an inherent, sustained demand from consumers but rather by a surge in awareness and curiosity. While this initial spark led to a bump in trial purchases, it failed to establish a solid foundation of ongoing demand.
Crucially, the sector neglected to ask a fundamental question: are consumers genuinely motivated to reduce meat consumption when making purchasing decisions? The reality is that only a small segment of the population—comprising vegans, vegetarians, sustainability advocates, and health-conscious individuals—actively seeks meat alternatives. This segment, however passionate, is insufficient to sustain the massive growth anticipated by investors and industry stakeholders.
Courtesy: Dig Insights
Health emerged as a significant driver behind the adoption of plant-based diets. Concerns over cholesterol levels and the perceived health risks associated with red meat prompted many to explore plant-based alternatives. But this very emphasis on health also made the industry vulnerable to attack.
Enterprises, threatened by the burgeoning plant-based movement, launched aggressive campaigns questioning the health benefits of plant-based products. From scrutinizing ingredients to casting doubt on manufacturing processes, these efforts sought to undermine the perceived health advantages of plant-based alternatives.
The convergence of these factors – lack of sustained demand, limited consumer motivation beyond a niche segment, and targeted attacks on health claims – contributed to the industry’s downturn. As interest rates rose, sales figures stagnated, and industry titans struggled to meet expectations, the narrative around plant-based meat shifted dramatically.
The opportunities for founders and investors
Courtesy: Beyond Meat
The downturn of 2023 served as a stark reality check, prompting companies to reassess their strategies and investors to reevaluate their portfolios. Yet, amidst the challenges lies an opportunity for introspection and adaptation. By focusing on addressing genuine consumer needs, fortifying health claims, and cultivating sustainable demand, the plant-based food industry can chart a course toward resilience and resurgence.
The path forward requires a sober reassessment of strategies and a focus on fundamentals. Consolidation is inevitable, and profitable players with at least $100M in annual revenue are the ones best positioned to survive (and even benefit) from the status quo. In this dire context, retaining talent will become increasingly difficult as talents will increasingly become anxious about the prospects of the industry and subsequently their potential gains.
Ultimately, the success of the plant-based food industry is not just a matter of profit but a necessity for the health of our planet. As we confront the challenges ahead, it’s imperative that founders, investors, and industry leaders collaborate to ensure the longevity and viability of this vital sector. Only then can we realize the full potential of plant-based foods as a sustainable and ethical alternative for the future.
Beyond Meat has extended its Beyond IV platform to include its sausage lineup, alongside an online recipe book in collaboration with the American Heart Association.
Californian plant-based leader Beyond Meat has introduced the fourth iteration of its sausage lineup, which features a cleaner ingredient list, less saturated fat, and slightly more protein.
The sausages are part of the Beyond IV platform introduced in February, which saw the brand overhaul the recipes for its plant-based beef mince and burger, eschewing coconut and canola oils and adding avocado oil instead. The move came as the company upped its nutrition focus, in response to slowing sales, evolving consumer needs, and misinformation about the health impacts of meat analogues.
Now, its two flavours of sausages – Brat Original and Hot Italian – have joined the list, also featuring avocado oil and a host of nutritional improvements. A Mild Italian-Style flavour is slated for launch this summer, which will likely replace the Sweet Italian Style in the current Beyond Sausage range.
The new sausages are being positioned as having “enhances flavour and a meatier texture” alongside their health credentials, addressing the three key consumer pain points when it comes to plant-based meat.
Complementing the launch is a new online cookbook called Serve Love, which features 30 recipes certified by the American Heart Association’s (AHA) Heart-Check programme, and was announced by Beyond Meat CEO Ethan Brown to investors in the company’s latest earnings call. It was there that he’d also revealed that a new heart-healthy product launch was on the cards this year.
Better-performing than conventional sausages
Courtesy: Beyond Meat
The new Beyond Sausages have a number of health enhancements. They have 66% less saturated fat per serving (2g for the new sausages vs 6g for the old), slightly more protein (17g vs 16g), 9% less sodium (530mg vs 480mg for the Hot Italian flavour), and over 12% fewer calories (210 vs 240).
Like all of Beyond Meat’s product launches this year – the reformulated mince, burger and crumbles – the sausages also carry accreditation from the American Diabetes Association’s Better Choices for Life programme.
“The new Beyond Sausage is incredibly juicy, meaty, and delicious, and I love that it’s made with heart-healthy avocado oil, helping to lower the saturated fat to just 2g per link,” said Joy Bauer, renowned dietitian and nutrition advisor to Beyond Meat. “Plus, it has less sodium than the previous version and features a simplified ingredient list. Beyond Meat is truly pioneering the future of superior plant-based meat products.”
While the ingredient list may have been simplified, the new sausages still contain between 26 and 28 ingredients (minus the casing). That said, most of the composition is dominated by six ingredients – water, pea protein, avocado oil, rice protein, natural flavours, and methylcellulose – with the rest appearing in concentrations of 2% or less.
The Hot Italian sausage also carries the Clean Label Project certification, which was part of its latest beef products too. However, the initiative is more focused on screening products for environmental toxins and ingredient quality than the actual number of ingredients.
That said, the new links are still much better for you than conventional pork sausages, given they contain over 66% less saturated fat, up to 43% less sodium, and over 30% fewer calories (based on USDA data). The Beyond sausages also contain an equivalent amount of protein (17g vs 18.5g for a pork link).
Early testing has been favourable for the new sausages. “Consumers love the new Beyond Sausage, even preferring the taste over our previous version,” a Beyond Meat spokesperson told Green Queen. “It’s easy to make something taste good, it’s much harder to make it taste good and be healthier, and we’re really proud of everything we accomplished with the new Beyond Sausage.”
New cookbook comes ahead of marketing campaign
Courtesy: Beyond Meat
The plant-based sausages are rolling out in new gold packaging at retailers across the US, and were launched in Love County, Oklahoma via an event where Beyond Meat served recipes from its new cookbook. This is a collaboration between the company’s in-house culinary team and Bauer.
Brown teased the recipe book in the earnings call last month, where much of the discussion revolved around the company’s pivot towards focusing on the health credentials of its products. The CEO explained that Beyond Meat’s product development process relies upon a framework called FAAT, “for flavour, aroma, appearance, and texture, while driving improvements in nutrition, cost, and other considerations”.
He said the team “delivered a home run and improved sensory experience with a nutritional build – so impressive that it goes to market with a host of important validations”.
The cookbook contains recipes ranging from small plates and soups to bowls, burgers, and noodles. Some highlights include Vietnamese spring rolls with Beyond Steak, a Philly cheesesteak, mushroom bolognese with Beyond Crumbles, Beyond Beef tostadas, and paella with the new Beyond Sausage.
The recipes meet the AHA’s strict nutrition requirements around calories, saturated fat, sodium and added sugar. “Health is a top driver to the plant-based meat category, and we’re proud to deliver on that expectation with a growing portfolio of products that are not only absolutely delicious but that offer significant nutritional benefits,” said Beyond Meat CMO Akerho Oghoghomeh.
The plant-based meat giant will continue to serve the Love County community with activations and programmes including a partnership with the local food bank.
Customer feedback ‘positive’ for health-forward Beyond IV products
The Beyond IV lineup | Courtesy: Beyond Meat/Green Queen
Beyond Meat has registered sales declines for eight consecutive quarters, but slightly exceeded analysts’ expectations in the first quarter of this year. The company remains optimistic, reiterating its full-year net revenue forecast of $315-345M. “We really do believe that we are at the early stages of a terrific and pivotal year for Beyond Meat,” said Brown, who is banking on the Beyond IV lineup to turn its fortunes around.
Asked how the new offerings are performing, the company representative said: “We’ve been getting a lot of positive response and feedback from consumers, as well as from the health and nutrition community on our new Beyond IV products. It’s exciting to see the new products roll into supermarkets nationwide just in time for the summer grilling season.”
Later this summer, the company is expected to launch an “impactful and significant” marketing drive to promote its fourth-generation products. “We believe – as do the nutritionists, institutions and dietitians standing behind Beyond IV – that we offer consumers a delicious yet powerful choice that can help them and their loved ones with healthier lives,” Brown said last month.
For the rest of the year, health seems to be the prime focus for Beyond Meat, as highlighted by its spokesperson, who told Green Queen: “We are excited to continue introducing our tastiest and most nutritious products yet that have garnered the support of the leading health organisations while also continuing to educate consumers on the health benefits of our products.”
Thailand’s food safety regulator has published draft regulations suggesting bans on meat- and dairy-related terms for plant-based analogues.
Plant-based meat and cheese products could face crippling labelling bans in Thailand if the draft regulations by its Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are passed.
The government agency is tackling what it says is a dearth of supervision and guidelines surrounding alternative proteins with a series of proposed measures for these foods. It has established a special research team to study how novel foods are regulated overseas to inform and develop its own legislation and standards.
“At present, alternative protein products are seeing popularity amongst consumers and there are many such items on the market, but the control and supervision of the safety aspect of these in Thailand still has no clear direction,” the FDA said, according to FoodNavigator.
“We are embarking on a study of the current production and imports of alternative protein products in the country, and studying the related regulations [to apply this knowledge] in the development of regulations and standards in Thailand,” it added. “This will start with analysis of the plant-based protein sector in Thailand [before moving to] other alternative proteins such as insect-based, cultivated meat or fermentation.”
As part of its draft regulations for plant-based foods, the Thai FDA has proposed a ban on certain meat- and cheese-related terms for vegan analogues.
‘Plant-based mince’ okay, but ‘plant-based beef mince’ not
Courtesy: More Meat
“First of all, product naming must be specified in the Thai language – additional English language labelling will be allowed, but this must be consistent with the vocabulary used in the Thai language naming,” the FDA said.
It suggested that plant-based meat producers can use names that correspond with the physical characteristics of the product. For example, ‘nuggets’, ‘tenders’, ‘mince’, ‘fillets’, ‘patties’, ‘sausages’, ‘bacon’, ‘pepperoni’, ‘chunks’, ‘roast’, etc. are all fair game – so long as they’re followed by terms that make it clear they’re plant-based (such as ‘from plants’ or ‘from soy/pea’, and so on).
These guidelines extend to certain alt-dairy products too. This means on-pack labels like ‘cheese analogue’, ‘almond milk’, ‘plant-based nuggets’, ‘soybean nuggets’ or ‘burgers made from almonds’ would all be legal.
“However, words that will cause consumers confusion or to misunderstand the product to be made from meat will not be allowed on the labels,” the agency added. This means terms like ‘meat’ or ‘meat product’, those specifying the type of animal (such as ‘beef’, ‘pork’ or ‘chicken’), and other descriptors like ‘Angus’, Wagyu’ and even ‘clean meat’ would be prohibited.
Essentially, ‘plant-based nuggets’ would be allowed, but ‘plant-based chicken nuggets’ would not.
Likewise, while terms like ‘soy milk mixed with nuts’ (if it has multiple plant sources) and ‘7-grain plant milk blend’ would be legal as well, words that “do not correspond to facts or are deemed ambiguous” would be banned.
“The term ‘dairy-free milk’ is not a real noun and cannot accurately describe plant-based milk alternatives, hence will not be allowed,” the FDA’s draft regulations read. “Manufacturers are also not allowed to use names generally understood to be unique to certain dairy products such as ‘Cheddar’ or ‘Mozzarella’, or phrases that indicate equivalence with conventional dairy products such as ‘yoghurt-style’ or ‘Cheddar-like’.
“Furthermore, any terms related to specific process names for the conventional dairy sector such as ‘whole’ or ‘skimmed’ for milk and ‘mature’ for cheese, will not be allowed.”
Thailand’s proposed regulations are outdated
Courtesy: Thai Union
The draft regulations also state that all plant-based products would need to display nutritional values of the food on labels, including energy values, micronutrients, and claims relating to ingredients that may affect consumer health directly or indirectly.
The FDA’s proposal would also prohibit companies from using images, symbols or any pictorial marks that suggest the product is of animal origin, either on the front or back of the packaging label. “Pictures that showcase the characteristics of the product will be allowed – so images of nuggets or burgers will be allowed, but not a picture of a pig or cow, even if the packaging also carries a ‘meat-free’ label,” it said.
The draft regulations entered a public consultation period that ended on June 7. It’s the latest episode in the long-running saga of restrictive regulations for plant-based meat and dairy products globally. These bans are often lobbied for by livestock interest groups, with consumer confusion a commonly cited concern.
But studies have shown this isn’t the case, with most consumers knowing the difference between plant-based and animal-derived proteins. Plant-based companies like Tofurky, Miyoko’s Creamery, Planted, Oatly and NotCo have all won legal battles over product labelling.
So Thailand’s proposed regulations seem ill-timed, and outdated. In actuality, its FDA should be paving the way for novel foods to thrive in the market, considering that two-thirds of Thai consumers plan to stop eating meat in the next two years, and only 9% say they wouldn’t consume alternative proteins in that period, according to a 1,500-person survey by Madre Brava.
In fact, 40% of consumers in Thailand are willing to swap half their meat intake with alternative proteins, and 70% support a reduced tax on the latter. “If the government has a policy to seriously support the production of plant-based protein and alternative protein, both for domestic consumption and export, it would be able to correspond with the direction of both the domestic and export markets,” said Jacques-Chai Chomthongdi, Southeast Asia director at Madre Brava.
Massachusetts-based plant-based meat company Tender Food has raised $11M in a Series A funding round, and secured a contract with local vegetarian QSR chain Clover Food Lab.
Tender’s Series A investment was led by Rhapsody Venture Partners, with Lowercarbon Capital and Safar Partners returning alongside new investors Claridge Partners and Nor’easter Ventures. It brings the startup’s total capital raised to $23M, following a $12M seed round in 2022.
The funds will help Tender expand its production capacity at its new facility to millions of lbs, commercialise its first products at scale, lower manufacturing costs even further, and develop new meat products.
Additionally, they will be used to meet the demands of meatless fast-food chain Clover Food Lab, which is Tender’s latest foodservice customer, having introduced the latter’s meat analogues in all 13 of its restaurants (situated around the Boston area) in May.
Formerly known as Boston Meats, Tender’s plant-based meat stands out for the way it’s produced – it leverages a fibre-spinning technology licensed from Harvard University, which it spun off from in 2020.
Akin to how cotton candy is made, plant protein fibres are spun to create structured cuts of meat, which results in what the startup calls “hyperrealistic, nutritious, affordable” meat analogues like beef short rib, pulled pork, chicken breast, and crab.
The startup suggests that its meat analogue range “leapfrogs” current market-leading products by the likes of Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat.
“Consumers are largely disappointed with plant-based meat products in the market – they’re too expensive, they don’t taste good, and are mostly limited to burgers and sausages with long, unrecognisable ingredient lists,” said Christophe Chantre, co-founder and CEO of Tender.
“We need new technologies to address these challenges and drive meaningful adoption in this category, which is crucial for decarbonising our food system. Our technology allows us to create healthy products that taste great, have the structure and feel of animal meat and are much cheaper to produce.”
The startup’s patented technology aims to replace the extrusion processes traditionally seen in plant-based meat, and ultimately animal agriculture. “Our production costs are already low today and we have barely started scaling,” Chantre added. “Offering products that compete with animal meat on price is critical for this industry to grow.”
Tender strengthens leadership while exploring hybrid meat
Courtesy: Clover Food Lab
Tender’s vegan meat and seafood products have been featured in restaurants and universities around the Boston area, including Saus Boston, Wusong Tiki Bar, and the Olin College of Engineering.
Clover Food Lab will feature the Tender fried chicken and pork as toppings on its bowls. “We’re a popular vegetarian chain, so, as you can imagine, we try a lot of new plant-based products. Tender’s stood out from the start – it’s innovative, it’s tasty, it’s a great addition to our grain bowls and salads,” said Chris Anderson, senior VP at Clover Food Lab. “And most importantly, we’re hearing lots of positive feedback from our customers – 90% of whom are meat-eaters.”
To advance its mission to decarbonise the food system, Tender has also received a grant worth nearly $1M from the US National Science Foundation for R&D into hybrid meat (a combination of cultivated meat and plant-based ingredients). The startup will collaborate with the Kaplan Lab at the Tufts University Center for Cellular Agriculture to explore if cells can enhance the flavours, aroma and nutrition of its plant-based meats, and whether hybrid products are commercially viable.
Moreover, Tender recently appointed former Oatly North America president Mike Messersmith to its board of directors. Messersmith oversaw the oat milk giant’s US launch in 2017 and built its brand from the ground up in the region, and Tender aims to use his industry experience to help accelerate its own commercialisation plans.
It isn’t the only company using fibre-spinning technology for alternative proteins – Germany’s Project Eaden is doing the same. Research has highlighted the importance of texture in plant-based meat. A global survey in 2022 found that while meat analogues’ texture is as important as conventional alternatives for 75% of consumers, only about 60% were actually satisfied with it.
And a recent US poll found that only 16% of Americans would purchase plant-based meat products for their taste and texture attributes. In restaurant settings too, texture is the second-biggest reason deterring consumers from choosing meat analogues, chosen by 42% of respondents.
Climate-focused food tech companies in Europe raised $2B last year, making up 58% of global investment in the sector and surpassing the US for the first time.
European food tech startups focused on climate change solutions attracted $2B in investments last year, overtaking the US for the first time. Despite a global downturn in VC funding, funding in this sector matched the levels of 2022, when European companies raised $2.1B.
This is according to the annual Food for Climate report by early-stage VC firm FoodLabs and investment database Dealroom, which assessed over 1,200 climate-centric food startups across 40 segments to explore the state of the sustainable food & agtech ecosystem in Europe. The analysis suggests that European food tech companies made up 58% of global funding in the industry, much higher than the US (around 36%).
Courtesy: FoodLabs/Dealroom
The agtech sector made up $1B of this sum, thanks in large part to increased interest in sustainable fertilisers – Atlas Agro alone raised $325M for its renewable fertilisers. Regenerative agriculture startups secured $581M overall, focusing on climate-resilient crops and microbial solutions.
“To address some of Europe’s most pressing challenges, we urgently need to finance and support innovative food solutions that help us adapt to a changing climate and mitigate its effects, while securing our food supply,” said Christophe F Maire, founding partner at FoodLabs.
Fermentation startups and alt-cocoa on the up in Europe
In 2023, European alternative protein startups raised $365M, led by plant-based companies. However, the real stars of the analysis were fermentation startups, which experienced a 12-fold increase since 2020 to reach $76M in investments last year.
And this year, fermented protein players have raised at least $12M, becoming the third most-funded segment in Europe’s alternative protein sector, ahead of plant-based startups. Specifically, mycelium protein has really taken off in 2024.
Courtesy: FoodLabs/Dealroom
Maire expects fermentation startups to continue to remain dominant for the next two to three years. “Driven by the growing maturity of the space, many startups are turning to grownups and raising growth rounds for commercialisation at Series B stage and beyond,” he told Green Queen. “We also see products that are inherently superior to plant-based approaches in terms of taste and texture, and are close to price parity.”
Meanwhile, meat analogues are by far the most attractive protein segment for investors, making up over 70% of investments in Europe last year. Their supremacy is expected to continue this year, with a projected share of 56%. Alternative dairy startups, however, have witnessed a sharp decline, going from 60% of the sector’s capital injections in 2020 to a forecast of less than 1% for 2024.
These figures have been impacted by the rise in egg substitutes (projected to make up nearly 30% of alternative protein funding this year) and alternative fats and oils (13%). Startups tackling the cocoa and coffee industries also gained a lot of ground, in response to surging prices and climate concerns.
Courtesy: FoodLabs/Dealroom
Alternative cocoa players received $69M in 2023 (doubling the capital from the year before). “The space has been overlooked, but is gaining prominence for three key reasons,” Maire said. These include the environmental impact (dark chocolate is the second most polluting food group, mainly due to land use); ethical considerations (given the incidence of child labour in the value chain); and price fluctuations (cocoa prices reached an all-time high this year).
“We believe that the emerging bioeconomy and scientific breakthroughs have the potential to solve some of the biggest food and climate issues,” said Patrick Noller, general partner at FoodLabs. “Many companies are pioneering efficient, cost-effective, and eco-friendly proteins and alternative ingredients through precision fermentation, biomass fermentation, molecular farming, and cell culture.”
France leads investments, but removing regulatory barriers is key
Apart from alternative proteins, European food waste startups attracted $138M in funding last year, a 20% increase on 2022. Meanwhile, sustainable packaging companies received $70M (a 46% year-on-year hike), and biomaterial producers raised $41M (a 238% increase).
Overall, the climate-focused food tech sector was the second-best performing category across European industries in 2023, representing just a 2% decline in investments, behind only the energy industry (which saw a 16% hike). On average, the continent witnessed a 37% drop in VC financing.
Courtesy: FoodLabs/Dealroom
The UK leads the way as a climate-food tech hub, home to 18% of the sector’s startups in Europe. This is followed by the Netherlands (14%), and France and Germany (12% each). However, French companies received the most capital ($416M), and that’s after a 29% dip from 2022. Switzerland ($354M) and the UK ($239M) were next on the list, with impressive gains made by the former, as well as countries like Belgium, Norway and Iceland.
In terms of who is putting the money in, the EU-backed European Innovation Council Fund has been the most active pre-seed investor since 2016, making 33 investments in the climate-centric food tech space. This is closely followed by the Blue Horizon Corporation (30) and state-owned bank Bpifrance (26). Likewise, Belgium’s Astanor Ventures (18) and France’s Demeter Partners (17) are the top investors when it comes to Series A+ rounds.
But in spite of the positives of 2023, projections for 2024 suggest a return to pre-pandemic levels ($1.1B), with the US expected to overtake Europe again. This is primarily due to the absence of mega-rounds like Atlas Agro’s. “The global venture [capital] industry is still in transition after the outlier years of 2020-21, a shift in monetary policy and higher interest rates,” said Maire. “We don’t expect global investment to increase in 2024, but we do expect a return to baseline.”
Courtesy: FoodLabs/Dealroom
Startups will also have to contend with a reshuffled EU parliament, with the far-right’s rise raising fears about the bloc’s climate ambitions. “The EU already does a tremendous job of funding innovation through many direct and indirect programmes,” explained Maire. “However, it could simplify and standardise some of the regulatory hurdles – for example, for alternative protein companies.”
Israeli biotech firm Ever After Foods has secured $10M to accelerate the growth of its bioreactor platform that allows cultivated meat producers to scale up manufacturing while driving down costs.
Ever After Foods has received $10M from strategic investors in the EU and the US to support its scalability platform for cultivated meat, which offers a cost-effective and highly efficient manufacturing solution for producers.
The funding round includes a second investment from Israeli cellular agriculture company Pluri and the Tnuva Group (the country’s largest food company), which formed Ever After Foods as a joint venture in 2022.
“The current investment round in Ever After Foods is led by new global partners, and includes Tnuva’s renewed commitment as well. We believe this validates Pluri’s strategy and underscores the quality of our technology and solutions,” said Pluri CEO and president Yaky Yanay.
Making more efficient cultivated meat at low costs
Courtesy: Ever After Foods
Formerly called Plurinuva, Ever After Foods has exclusive licencing rights to use Pluri’s technology and intellectual property to develop, manufacture and commercialise cultivated meat. It is starting with beef and poultry cells, but the latest investment has extended the licence to include seafood as well.
The startup launched its bioreactor platform last year, with the ability to produce 10kg of cultivated meat mass with just a 10-litre tank at the time. Since then, however, it says it has “swiftly advanced” its technology and manufacturing platform, demonstrating the natural production of muscle and fat tissues for various animal cells, hitting the taste and texture touchpoints so crucial to consumers.
This tech enables Ever After Foods to offer a 90% reduction in costs for its B2B clients, compared to “the second-best technology in the field”. Moreover, the bioreactors yield up to six times more protein and 700 times more lipids from each cell, offering better flavour and nutritional value.
The cell cultivation process is also much, much lighter on the planet than industrially raised livestock, boasting 93% less air pollution, 95% less land, and 94% less water.
“Ever After Foods’ unique and innovative production platform empowered the change to our business model. The shift to a technology enabler will allow us to serve more players in the value chain,” said Ever After Foods CEO Eyal Rosenthal.
“Securing funding from new global partners is a testament to our team’s tireless dedication to solving the primary production barriers for the next step toward a more sustainable meat industry. In addition to the funding, working with new partners in the space will deepen our industry network and speed up our expansion into international markets as we drive the next era of scalable cultivated meat production.”
Tackling the cost and scale hurdles
Courtesy: GFI Israel
Scalability and costs are two of the most pressing challenges holding back the progress of the cultivated meat industry. One investor told Reuters that these products need to reach manufacturing costs of $2.92 per pound to be price-competitive with conventional meat. But while companies have managed to bring down these costs by 99% in less than a decade, analysis by McKinsey suggests it will still take until 2030 for these proteins to become as cheap as conventional meat.
This is a problem both locally and internationally. “Scaling up manufacturing for Israeli startups is challenging due to infrastructure costs, mirroring challenges encountered by startups worldwide,” Alla Voldman, VP of strategy and policy at industry think tank the Good Food Institute Israel, told Green Queen last month.
“Consequently, most new Israeli startups tend to focus more on business-to-business (B2B) solutions, aiming to fill these industry gaps and overcome scalability obstacles,” she added.
McKinsey further notes that cultivated meat companies would need over 17 times the fermentation capacity that currently exists in the global pharmaceutical industry to meet the growth demands of the industry. Responding to this need, in Israel, contract development and manufacturing organisations that have traditionally served pharmaceutical companies have now begun to expand to the cultivated meat sector.
To address the cost challenge, government agency the Israel Innovation Authority established a research consortium in 2022, comprising 14 companies and 10 academic labs equipped with an $18M investment to develop cost-effective methods to produce cultivated meat.
Israel is one of only three countries to approve the sale of cultivated meat, greenlighting local startup Aleph Farms‘ application in January. The country has made food tech one of its top five priority R&D areas, and attracted 10% of all VC funding ($1.2B) in the alternative protein sector in the last decade.
By 2030, the industry is expected to produce 10,000 additional jobs (a third of which would be manufacturing roles), have more than 200 companies and over a dozen manufacturing facilities, and contribute $2.5B to Israel’s economy through exports, local wages, corporate taxes, and more.
In our weekly column, we round up the latest news and developments in the alternative protein and sustainable food industry. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers Upside Foods’ cultivated meat tasting in Florida, a fermented sweetener from upcycled fruits, and Impossible Foods’ patent dispute with Motif FoodWorks.
New products and launches
Californian cultivated meat giant Upside Foods is fighting back against Florida’s ban on these novel proteins with a public tasting event in Miami on June 27, four days before the law comes into effect.
Courtesy: Upside Foods
It has been a big week for Californian precision-fermented egg producer The Every Company. After forming the Fermy brand with Landish Foods for beverage mixes, it announced a partnership with Spain’s Grupo Palacios, which will incorporate the animal-free egg in its Spanish omelettes.
More news from California: nut-free spread maker Voyage Foods‘ peanut and hazelnut butter innovations are now available in bulk sizes on Amazon to support the needs of foodservice operators.
Plant-based dairy pioneer Miyoko’s Creamery has launched two new versions of its oat milk butter in Garlic Parm and Cinnamon Brown Sugar flavours, which are priced at $4.99 per 6oz tub at Whole Foods.
Courtesy: Miyoko’s Creamery
Dutch plant-based ingredient company Fooditive Group has introduced a low-calorie, sustainable sugar substitute called Keto-Fructose in the US. It’s made from upcycled apples and pears via a fermentation process, which is now undergoing FDA GRAS assessment.
In the Netherlands itself, retail giant Jumbo has replaced gelatin with plant-based alternatives in all its fresh pastries. The renewed lineup is now available at all 700 locations in the Netherlands and Belgium.
In search for plant-based M&M’s? UK vegan chocolatier Mummy Meegz has rolled out dairy-free M’z Gems in chocolate and peanut flavours, joining its range of alternatives to classics like Cadbury’s Creme Eggs and Freddo bars.
Courtesy: Mummy Meegz
Swiss plant-based meat company Planted has entered the foodservice market in the Middle East, with its products being featured on menus of certain UAE restaurants. It now plans to expand into hotels.
Fellow German company Billie Green has debuted a plant-based mortadella range in classic, garden herb, and cherry pepper flavours.
Courtesy: Billie Green
And in Singapore, oat milk startup Oatside has expanded its ready-to-drink coffee line with Caramel Macchiato and Mocha flavours, which will be available at NTUC FairPrice, Don Don Donki, Shopee and other retailers from Friday at S$1.80 per pack.
Finance and company updates
Canadian plant-based producer Phytokana Ingredients has announced that it’s initiating a C$38M ($27.7M) Series C investment round, just as it introduced a new 70% faba bean protein concentrate that provides emulsification and gelling properties to vegan meat formulations.
Australian plant-based startup The Leaf Protein Co has brought in $850,000 in pre-seed funding to develop nutritional additives for food applications with rubisco protein.
Courtesy: The Leaf Protein Co
Mycoprotein giant Quorn has added egg white to the three new flavours of its previously vegan Sweet Chilli Mini Fillets, with no plant-based variants of the snack available.
Fellow mycoprotein player Mycorena, meanwhile, has discontinued its large-scale factory project for one of its core ingredients to focus on a long-term circular upcycling production model, citing an “unfavourable investment climate” and an unsuccessful Series B fundraising effort.
Israeli cultivated meat producer Believer Meats has signed an MoU with Abu Dhabi’s brand-newAgriFood Growth and Water Abundance cluster to establish research opportunities, pursue regulatory advancements, and explore commercial facilities.
Courtesy: Believer Meats
Global investor network FAIRR and Tufts University have released a Protein and Nutrition Factsheet for investors to gain more knowledge about sustainable nutrition, the scientific evidence of the health impacts of different proteins, and the risks and opportunities involved with the protein supply chain.
Also at Tufts University, the Center for Cellular Agriculture has received an “unprecedented investment” from the institute to hire five new dedicated cellular agriculture professors.
Policy and event news
Impossible Foods has been dealt a blow in its legal battle with Motif FoodWorks over precision-fermented heme proteins. The US Patent and Trademark Appeal Board has invalidated one of the former’s patents, which covers a plant-based “ground beef-like food product” that “results in the production of at least two volatile compounds which have a beef-associated aroma” when cooked.
In Spain, a coalition of over 20 seafood producers is accusing plant-based seafood companies of misleading consumers via their product labelling. The companies, which include Apromar, Interfish and Conxemar, intend to join SAFE Food Advocacy Europe to lobby for stricter regulations on vegan seafood, citing “unfair competition”.
UK biotech firm Sun Bear Biofuture has announced that its precision-fermented alternative to palm oil is safe to eat, with independent research showing its product outperforming conventional palm oil on flavour.
German food trade show Anuga has announced a new event for alternative proteins in 2025. Called Anuga Alternatives, it will feature cultivated, plant-based and fermentation-derived proteins, alongside ingredients like algae, mushrooms and insects.
Israeli alternative protein companies Imagindairy and Wanda Fish have been selected as the 2024 Global Technology Pioneers by the World Economic Forum.
Finally, UK plant-based meat startup THIS has partnered with former England footballer John Barnes, to release THIS Is The One, a new parody track for Euro 2024, which features vegan food at stadiums across Germany.
UK plant-based meat startup THIS has raised £20M ($25.4M) in a Series C funding round to expand its product range and drive profitability on its core offerings.
THIS, the London-based producer of meat analogues, has closed a £20M Series C round led by European impact investor Planet First Partners.
The financing involved a combination of primary and secondary equity financing, and brings total investment into the startup to £35M ($44.5M). Its previous investors include BGF, Backed VC, FiveSeasons Ventures, Idinvest Partners, Manta RayVentures, Seedcamp, ITV and footballer Chris Smalling (among others).
The development comes just as THIS’s ready-to-eat Chicken and Bacon Wrap (exclusive to WH Smith) was recalled in connection with the E. coli outbreak in the UK, which has affected more than 200 Brits. The Food Standards Agency said the recall was a “precautionary step” and that E. coli “has not been detected in the product”.
THIS drives Planet First Partners’ sustainability push
Courtesy: THIS
THIS will use its latest investment to accelerate growth in its home market and roll out new product lines that cater to “evolving consumer health preferences”. In the UK, health is the main driver of plant-based meat consumption, with 39% of Brits saying so in a survey last year. This focus was highlighted in its TV campaign with food critic Grace Dent in October.
The company will also continue to boost profitability on its core products, which include chicken, beef, pork and lamb analogues. Its growth strategy will be led by new CEO Mark Cuddigan (formerly of Ella’s Kitchen), who took over from founders Andy Shovel and Pete Sharman in February (both remain involved in the business).
“We are excited to welcome Planet First Partners into the THIS family,” said Cuddigan. “Our partnership will be key as we continue to lead a revolution through our plant-based food to protect animals and the environment, growing brand love to become market leaders in the UK.”
It marks the first investment through Planet First Partners’ Farm 2 Fork vertical, which aims to support planet-friendly agriculture and food systems, and complements previous investments in green energy and sustainable cities. It’s spearheaded by executive chairman Frédéric de Mévius, who also founded Verlinvest, an investment vehicle that built brands like Oatly and Vita Coco.
The find is classified under Article 9 of the EU’s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation, which stipulates sustainability is the primary objective for portfolio companies. Its capital injection into THIS will see it take two seats on the board, and contribute to the increased adoption of plant-based diets, helping prevent the conversion of biodiversity-rich landscapes and release land for ecosystem restoration.
“We believe the company is uniquely placed to capitalise on growing consumer preferences for sustainable and healthy food alternatives, whilst supporting the environment,” said de Mévius. “I am personally excited to put my experience as a consumer investor behind a sustainable brand that is totally aligned with our fund’s sustainability objectives and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.”
THIS is working on tofu-like superfood
Courtesy: THIS
The Series C round follows a year of rapid expansion for THIS, which claims to be the fastest-growing plant-based meat brand in the UK. Its sales were up by 46.6% last year, and volumes rose by 66.6%, according to NielsenIQ data for the Grocer’s Top Products survey, reaching annualised revenue of £24M ($30.5M).
The company says it is the third-largest meat analogue brand in the UK, and has witnessed strong repeat sales in the Big Six supermarkets (Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Morrisons, Aldi and Lidl). While it became famous for its vegan chicken pieces, it has continued to introduce new lines in the last few years. This year alone, it has launched vegan chicken thighs, chicken breast, chicken shawarma, frozen beef mince, as well as skin-on chicken wings in collaboration with BrewDog.
THIS has also streamlined its operations, consolidating its production from 17 sites to just three. This involved combining its lab and office spaces into one London site, with production facilities in Northern Ireland and Rochester, England. It is additionally making operational enhancements to improve its gross margins each quarter.
“In terms of our profitability, the team has transformed the business in the last 12 months,” Cuddigan told Sifted last month. “We have transformed our margin, but we need to go much further to become a sustainable business.” The business is aiming to have its first profitable quarter this year.
The UK saw retail sales in the larger meat-free category dip by £38.4M ($48.8M) last year. But the country’s largest grocer, Tesco, reported a 20% hike in sales of plant-based steaks and chicken breasts since the start of 2024, with purchases of meat-free burgers increasing by 10% compared to 2023. Even traditional plant proteins like tofu and tempeh grew by 20%.
Speaking of, Cuddigan has hinted at the new products in the pipeline for THIS, telling Sifted that THIS is developing a plant-based ‘superfood’ for consumers to use as an ingredient in a number of ways – akin to tofu, but with more nutritional value than anything currently available on the market.
“As consumer awareness of environmental and ethical concerns surrounding meat consumption grows, we’re seeing continued interest in plant-based products, particularly with a lean towards health-focused choices and an ingredients list people recognise,” he said.
