Israeli startup SuperMeat has revealed how it can cut production costs of its cultivated chicken to under $12 per pound, on par with conventional poultry.
Just shy of its nine-year anniversary, Israeli food tech startup SuperMeat has made several breakthroughs to make its cultivated chicken at the same price as conventional versions.
In a 23-page report released last week, the company detailed how a combination of a highly stable cell line, a fully controlled animal-free media formulation, and rapid differentiation protocols have helped it achieve production costs of $11.8 per lb without depreciation (and $13.4 per lb with depreciation) at a 25,000-litre scale.
These costs are competitive with premium poultry products in the US, a key inflexion point for the startup as it gears itself towards a launch stateside.
“Current sentiment around cultivated meat includes scepticism regarding its scalability and market readiness, with concerns that cultivated meat may be more hype than a viable alternative,” said SuperMeat co-founder and CEO Ido Savir. “Our new report provides proof that with the right technology, there is a commercially viable path to market.”
The breakthroughs enabling SuperMeat to lower production costs
Courtesy: SuperMeat
One of the earliest players in the cultivated meat sector, SuperMeat’s chicken comprises muscle and fat derived from animal cells. It begins its process by growing cell culture in a seeding bioreactor until it reaches high density, before being transferred to an expansion bioreactor.
The startup’s robust cell line – which has “strong self-renewal capabilities” – allows it to reach densities of 80 million cells per ml in just nine days. In a continuous production process, 30-50% of the culture is then transferred to differentiation bioreactors daily for 45 days, where the mass matures into muscle and fat tissue.
“Our lines originated from single-cell clones of embryonic stem cells. SuperMeat refined its ability to closely monitor and select the ideal clones, enabling the production process to rely on resilient clones that can achieve very high densities, and maintain these densities while they keep cycling,” explained CTO Yuval Levy-Peretz.
The muscle is produced in four days and fat in just 24 hours, and the use of embryonic stem cells nearly doubles the weight of these cells, slashing costs by over 40%. These tissues are crucial for delivering the nutritional profile, taste and texture people associate with conventional chicken, but with more efficient pricing when manufactured at scale.
The other breakthrough concerns cell feed, which makes up more than half of the cost of cultivated meat. SuperMeat has developed a high-throughput system that allows it to replace expensive animal-derived ingredients like serum and albumin with more affordable alternatives, resulting in media costs of under 50 cents per litre.
After six days in culture, the cells begin independently producing essential growth factors, enabling the startup to reduce the reduced feeding regimen of only 1.5 vessel volumes per day, which makes the entire process more efficient and cost-effective.
Price parity for cultivated meat front and centre
Once the muscle and fat tissues mature, the meat mass is harvested daily in the form of ground chicken that’s ready to be cooked. SuperMeat’s process requires minimal space and resources and produces three pounds of meat (the same as the yield from one chicken) in just two days, compared to the 42 days it takes to raise and process a chicken.
But when scaled to an industrial facility, it is expected to manufacture 6.7 million pounds (or three million kgs) of cultivated chicken annually – equivalent to around 2.7 million chickens – with 80% less land required. “These breakthroughs deliver the efficiency and yield required to achieve the cost parity of 100% cultivated meat at scale, bringing commercial cultivated meat production within reach,” said co-founder and communications chief Shir Friedman.
Cost is one of the most significant barriers preventing companies from reaching scales large enough to sell cultivated meat, and consumers from buying it once it’s on the market. McKinsey suggests that it’ll take until at least 2030 for these proteins to reach price parity with conventional meat, and that’s despite companies having brought down costs by 99% in less than a decade.
“We see a tremendous opportunity for affordable cultivated chicken meat that supplies the same delicious taste and nutrition as premium chicken, which is a path for consumer and market acceptance and long-term adoption,” said Savir.
The race to make cultivated meat more affordable has been heating up this year. Rehovot-based startup Believer Meats has described how its continuous process can potentially produce cultivated chicken for $6 per lb at scale, while fellow Israeli firm Forsea Foods has reached what it claims is an industry-leading cell density of 300 million cells per ml, making its cultivated unagi cheaper than conventional eel.
Another Israeli company, Ever After Foods, has developed a bioreactor platform that offers a 90% reduction in cultivated meat prices for its B2B clients. And pet food producers Meatly and BioCraft Pet Nutrition have drastically reduced the prices of their culture media.
Courtesy: SuperMeat
It’s also important to note that SuperMeat’s techno-economical analysis centred around cultivated chicken made just from muscle and fat, but most cultivated meat products currently on the market feature a blend of animal cells and plant-based ingredients.
For example, Good Meat’s chicken – the only cultivated meat currently found in supermarkets – has a retail price equivalent to over $20 per pound, but cultivated cells only make up 3% of the product. This demonstrates the potential for SuperMeat to further reduce prices when it eventually enters the market.
California’s Plantible Foods has closed a $30M Series B round to expand production of its duckweed-derived Rubi Protein.
Among the constantly evolving search for nutritionally sound, climate-friendly, palate-appealing foods, a wave of startups is banking on weed.
Specifically, pondweed. Lemna – the free-floating, naturally occurring freshwater aquatic plants also known as duckweed, which combine to form a green carpet on the surface of water – is host to Rubisco, described for decades as the most abundant protein on Earth.
Having been consumed in Southeast Asia for centuries, duckweed has witnessed a rise in popularity in the last decade thanks to the fact that its immense environmental and nutritional benefits. Being aquatic, it doesn’t occupy any farmland or contribute to deforestation, uses 98% less water than soy, contains more micronutrients than many vegetables, has high protein digestibility, and is the fastest-growing plant in the world.
One of the most well-known companies that have commercialised duckweed protein is Plantible Foods, which has just raised $30M in a Series B funding round led by Piva Capital and Siddhi Capital. Additionally, new backers included Betagro Ventures, Cultivate Next (the VC arm of Chipotle Mexican Grill), Nourish Ventures, while Astanor Ventures made a repeat investment.
It takes the Californian startup’s total financing to $57M, and will help it scale up production of its Rubi Protein, which can be used across a breadth of applications, including plant-based meat and baked goods.
Rubi Protein can enhance meat alternatives and baked goods
Courtesy: Plantible Foods
Plantible Foods grows its lemna on controlled aquafarms that allow freshwater to be constantly recycled and refreshed, contributing to a water footprint 10 times lower than soybeans. Once the plants are harvested, they are milled, filtered and dried so that the pure protein in the duckweed’s leaves can be extracted.
The final product is an off-white and odourless protein that can grow anywhere in the world and contains all nine essential amino acids. The ingredient is free from 20 allergens and comprises 85% protein, with a protein digestibility score of 1 (similar to that of beef or eggs).
According to the company, Rubi Protein has a nutritional yield of 70%, much higher than the 27% for beef, with a fraction of the climate footprint. Its aquafarms can be built on non-arable land and prevent fertiliser runoff in freshwater streams, moving water quality and access in surrounding communities.
“At Plantible, we are not simply competing with other proteins; we are setting a new standard for the industry by providing a product that offers superior functional and nutritional properties,” said CEO Tony Martens Fekini, who founded the startup with Maurits van de Ven in 2016.
Rubi Protein has fat-binding properties that reduce the need for saturated fats, can be whipped to stiff peaks in three minutes while outperforming egg whites, acts as an emulsifier for plant-based foods, and boasts thermo-irreversible gelling properties to replace ingredients like methylcellulose.
The company has developed two ingredient blends leveraging the duckweed protein to enhance the texture and functionality of eggless and gluten-free baked goods and meat and dairy alternatives. These products use a combination of Rubi Protein and other commonly used allergen-free ingredients.
Rubi Whisk provides structural integrity, moisture and oil retention properties for foods like lemon tarts, macarons, cookies, pound cakes and breads. Rubi Prime, meanwhile, provide the emulsification and binding benefits of methylcellulose in a way that plant-based meat products like burgers, chicken, sausages, and even whole cuts can be served hot or cold, and with cleaner labels.
Plantible Foods targets tenfold revenue
Courtesy: Plantible Foods
“This funding will enable us to significantly expand our manufacturing capabilities and meet the rapidly growing demand for our Rubi Protein,” said Martens Fekini. The company aims to increase its revenue tenfold over the next year.
Plantible Foods has a 100-acre commercial plant called The Ranchito in West Texas, and has new manufacturing facilities in place to deliver on several multimillion-dollar offtake agreements with large companies. Last year, it partnered with functional ingredients provider ICL Food Specialties to produce the Rovitiras Binding Solution for vegan meat and seafood.
“Plantible’s highly functional protein is solving urgent food industry problems today. Their focus on superior functionality, modular scaled manufacturing, nutritional value and consumer-friendly clean labels convinced us that they have the right team, product, and approach to revolutionize the global food system,” said Steven Finn, co-founder of Siddhi Capital.
He added: “Their technology and vertically integrated manufacturing are already serving customers at scale and will improve supply chain resilience in a sustainable way with impacts reaching far beyond the plant-based alternatives market.”
Duckweed was namechecked as a ‘plant-based aquatic ingredient’ to watch in Whole Foods Market’s food trends predictions for 2025, with the retailer underlining how lemna is in the “early stages of emerging on the scene and boasts a higher protein content than other leafy greens”.
Several other startups are working with duckweed protein too, including Sustainable Planet (UK), GreenOnyx (Israel), MicroTerra (Mexico), DryGro (Kenya), Ful Foods (Pakistan), Rubisco Foods, Rinus & Hans (both Dutch), and Fyto (US).
Tokyo-based startup Integriculture has launched a starter kit to drive innovation and accelerate R&D in the cultivated meat sector.
In a bid to make cultivated meat prototyping easier, Japan’s IntegriCulture has created a starter kit for researchers and startups in the field.
The cellular agriculture specialist argues that producing cell-cultured foods – even at benchtop scale – requires extensive specialised equipment, expertise, and funds. The Cell-Cultured Meat Starter Kit removes these hurdles and simplifies the process.
“The starter kit is designed for researchers, entrepreneurs, and experimenters who are exploring cell farming as a new business or research area,” IntegriCulture CEO Yuki Hanyu told Green Queen. “It provides a complete set of essential tools to help you get started.”
It involves an oxygen-permeable bioreactor – created with manufacturing company Sumitomo Riko as part of IntegriCulture’s CulNet Consortium – as well as several other tools to help make prototypes of cultivated meat.
“The kit significantly reduces the time and cost required to source and test various materials for cell culture. By offering a proven combination of materials and culture methods, the kit helps accelerate research and development,” said Hanyu.
A novel bioreactor for cultivated meat
Courtesy: IntegriCulture
The cultivated meat starter kit includes IMEM1.0 (a base culture medium), iDisper (an agent for cell dissociation), iCoater, (a coating solution for the extracellular matrix), and iFreezer (a solution for cryopreservation).
But the flagship product of the starter kit is the Oxy-thru Cultivator. This novel bioreactor uses Sumitomo Riko’s unique materials and precision moulding technology, and is available in 200ml and 1,000ml sizes (with larger capacities under development). IntegriCulture plans to further design suitable containers and culture methods for each cell type.
“In order to create an environment in which cells can grow, an adequate supply of oxygen is required,” explained Hanyu. “Plastic and glass containers are commonly used for cell culture. Because many of these materials have low gas permeability, oxygen needs to be supplied from a dedicated external device and the medium must be changed frequently to allow cells to grow. This process involves complicated tube connections, which increases the risk of bacterial contamination.
“Because the entire container is made of a material with high gas permeability, oxygen can be supplied from the bottom and sides of the container, and the amount of oxygen in the container can be kept higher than that of conventional products without connection to external devices.
“As a result, the volume of the medium can be increased, leading to an increase in the amount of cells harvested per batch, thus improving productivity. Furthermore, because the material is heat-resistant, autoclave sterilisation is possible.
These features would enable cells to be cultured at higher cell densities while ensuring simple maintenance. “High cell density directly impacts the productivity and cost-efficiency of cultivated meat production,” said Hanyu.
“Oxy-thru Cultivator enables higher cell densities by maintaining optimal oxygen levels throughout the culture process. This increased efficiency allows for larger harvests per batch, ultimately reducing production costs.”
IntegriCulture aims to democratise cellular agriculture
Courtesy: IntegriCulture
According to IntegriCulture, the cellular agriculture starter kit paves the way for a broader range of entities to “engage in rapid prototyping of the nutritional, organoleptic, and other profiles of cell-cultured food products”.
The starter kit is available at different price points, ranging from S$600-1,400 based on the quantities of products, and companies can negotiate the cost for a more expansive kit too.
“By providing a pre-validated set of materials, the kit minimises the trial-and-error phase, saving time and research costs. The simplified setup also reduces the need for additional equipment and expertise, enabling startups to focus on scaling their operations rather than troubleshooting foundational processes,” said Hanyu.
He added: “Previously, limited access to materials and the secrecy surrounding proprietary combinations made it difficult for new entrants to join the field. Our mission is to democratie cell farming, enabling anyone to participate and contribute to the creation of a new food culture and the realisation of an exciting future.”
Hanyu revealed that IntegriCulture will soon release more products from the CulNet Consortium, which will be added to its B2B marketplace, Ocatté Base. It had already announced five new projects under the initiative earlier this year.
IntegriCulture has so far raised $16.4M in equity funding, and received a ¥1.87B ($13.1M) grant from the Japan government to advance the CulNet platform and make its developments open-source. It has also been working with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and the Tokyo Women’s Medical University on a project involving cellular agriculture and cultivated meat production in space.
The starter kit will be displayed at Agri-Food Tech Expo Asia 2024 in Singapore this week (November 19 to 21), and sold on Ocatté Base. “It will become much easier for anyone to start cultivating cells, which what IntegriCulture Inc is about,” Hanyu said.
After a years-long deadlock, Impossible Foods has received a positive safety assessment by the EU for its genetically modified heme ingredient.
Europeans could be eating the Impossible Burger soon, with the California-based company obtaining its second positive safety assessment by the EU’s food regulator this year.
The European Food Safety Authority’s (EFSA) Panel on Genetically Modified Organisms has ruled that Impossible Foods’s use of soy leghemoglobin, an ingredient derived from genetically modified yeast, is “safe for human consumption with regard to the effects of the genetic modification”.
It’s a major milestone for the company’s long road towards entering the EU market, and marks the culmination of a Clock Stop – a period when evaluation is officially stopped pending further information from the company – that had hampered the process since December 2021.
The publication of the EFSA’s opinion will follow a public consultation period before seeking final approval from the EU Commission and its member states.
How Impossible Foods makes its heme protein
Courtesy: Impossible Foods
Impossible Foods uses a yeast strain called Komagataella phaffii (formerly named Pichia pastoris) to produce soy leghemoglobin, an additive that contains the heme protein that gives plant-based beef products the distinct flavour and colour of their conventional counterparts.
The company inserts the DNA from soy plants into genetically engineered yeast, which is then fermented in a manner similar to how Belgian beer is brewed. It then isolates the soy leghemoglobin from the yeast and adds it to its beef lineup, which includes minced meat, burgers, and hot dogs.
The precision-fermented ingredient has been described as the element that makes the Impossible Burger “bleed”. Soy leghemoglobin contains the haem B group, which is responsible for the red colour of uncooked beef. When beef is cooked, it causes the oxidation of iron, resulting in a loss of the red colour.
And when the soy leghemoglobin is heated above 62°C or exposed to low pH environments (like the human stomach), it denatures. This, combined with the release of the haem B group, plays a major role in generating the flavours and aromas associated with cooked animal-derived meat.
Food safety bodies in several countries have deemed the ingredient to be safe for human consumption, allowing the Californian firm to launch its beef alternatives in their markets. The EU has been an outlier, thanks to its stringent novel foods regulation.
But in June, the EFSA Panel on Food Additives and Flavourings issued a positive safety assessment of LegH Prep, a liquid preparation containing the soy leghemoglobin and other ingredients. This, however, was provisional, as it was subject to the assessment from the GMO panel.
EFSA decision to be followed by public consultation period
Courtesy: Impossible Foods
Now, the GMO panel has that Impossible Foods’s ingredient is “safe with respect to potential effects on human health and the environment at the proposed use and use level as far as the impact of the genetic modification is concerned”. The company has suggested a maximum level heme level of 0.8% in its meat analogues, similar to the amount of myoglobin in beef.
The panel added that it did not identify any safety concerns regarding the toxicity and allergenicity of Impossible Foods’s soy leghemoglobin protein, and found no evidence that genetic modification would change the overall allergenicity.
“The agency’s comprehensive, scientific assessment of the safety of soy Leghemoglobin (heme) across two applications reinforces the overall quality and safety of our food, echoing similar approvals from regulators in the United States, Canada, Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand,” an Impossible Foods spokesperson said.
Now, there will be a 30-day consultation period, during which purely scientific comments and questions can be submitted and will need to be addressed by EFSA and the EU Commission. Following that, the Commission will then draft approval decisions to be brought to the 20 Standing Committees, which will discuss and then vote on the draft decisions.
“This week’s positive opinion from the European Food Safety Authority is an important step toward bringing Impossible products to Europe,” the Impossible Foods representative said. “We’re excited to continue our work with EU decision-makers to bring Impossible Foods products to European consumers.”
Pet food with cultivated meat instead of beef fares far better for the planet and its resources, according to a new life-cycle assessment.
As it works to commercialise cultivated pet food, Czech biotech startup Bene Meat Technologies has revealed the environmental benefits its product offers over conventional meat.
It has published the results of a life-cycle assessment (LCA) determining the climate impact of producing cultivated meat for pets. The study found that Bene Meat’s pet food generates at least 84% fewer emissions than beef – depending on how the latter is produced, the difference could be as much as 95%.
It also uses between 80% and 97% less land than beef, with the potential to reduce this even further. And while these numbers were specifically calculated for pet food, the company believes its beef burgers for humans – which it unveiled last month – will perform similarly on the sustainability scale.
Smaller carbon footprint than beef and chicken
Courtesy: Bene Meat Technologies
To conduct the LCA, Bene Meat collaborated with scientists from the Czech Technical University in Prague, focusing on the industrial production of cultivated meat. The analysis was peer-reviewed by University of Nottingham professor Jon McKechnie, who specialises in cost-effective resource utilisation strategies to achieve sustainability goals.
The company claims the LCA is the “most accurate insight” into the climate impacts of manufacturing cultivated meat at an industrial scale so far. McKechnie confirmed that the study followed established standards and key results were presented transparently and adequately.
Bene Meat’s cultivated pet food needs only 3.1 sq metres of land per kg of meat, which includes the growing of all necessary raw materials. For context, beef takes up as much as 120 sq metres, while producing a kg each of pork and poultry requires 7.2 and 6.6 sq metres of land. The company forecasts a further reduction to two sq metres per kg.
Meanwhile, producing it emits 5.28kg of CO2e per kg of meat, and this could be gradually decreased to 3.29kg. This figure includes all necessary raw materials and energy, as well as the impacts of producing all the equipment and other inputs needed for the process. In comparison, beef generates 33-100 kg of CO2e per kg, and chicken is responsible for 10kg of CO2e.
Since the study includes all input materials – which account for over half of all emissions of meat – it implies that the cultivated technology is so optimised and efficient that most of its related emissions occur outside Bene Meat’s facility, at the raw material suppliers, according to production head Petr Bebeníček.
“The uniqueness of our study lies in it being the first conducted and calculated on real production. Bene Meat is pleased with the study results and believes there is potential to further reduce these figures in the future,” Kateřina Dvořák Vašová, media coordinator for Bene Meat, told Green Queen.
The findings chime with the results of other LCAs – a peer-reviewed analysis in 2021 revealed that cultivated beef can lower climate impact by 92%, air pollution by 94%, land use by 95%, and water consumption by 78% compared to conventional beef.
Bene Meat working on several cell lines
Courtesy: Bene Meat Technologies
“This LCA study provides the first comprehensive insight into the actual impacts of industrial meat cultivation,” said Miroslav Žilka from the Czech Technical University, who led the LCA.
“Our findings demonstrate that this technology has enormous potential, in terms of environmental impacts, and achieves significantly better results than, for example, traditional beef production,” he explained.
Žila will present more detailed information about the analysis at the International Scientific Conference on Cultured Meat in Maastricht, Netherlands next week. The results will also be published in a scientific journal soon.
Bene Meat has access to a variety of cell lines and currently plans to use different cell lines for pet food and human food, according to Dvořák Vašová. “We aim to begin as a supplier of feedstock in the pet food business,” she said.
The company was the first to register cultivated pet food as an EU feed material last year, though that is separate from the regulatory approval companies require to sell their products. Bene Meat recently submitted an application for its pet food to the US Food and Drug Administration. Currently, only UK startup Meatly is approved to sell cultivated meat for pets (in its home country), which it plans to roll out early next year.
Bene Meat has also managed to successfully store over 5,000 samples in a “cutting-edge” cell bank, and has previously hinted at a “significant update” on its pet food offering “in late 2024 or early 2025”.
“We believe that this study marks a key milestone in understanding the environmental impacts of cultivated meat, and confirms its potential as a sustainable source of protein,” said Tomáš Kubeš, head of strategic projects at Bene Meat.
In feeding trials, half of dogs fed Meatly’s cultivated chicken kept licking the bowl after finishing, and a majority enjoyed it more than their regular diet.
Months after receiving regulatory clearance in the UK, Meatly – the London-based startup making cultivated meat for pets – is inching closer to its market launch.
The company has completed feeding trials for its cultivated chicken, which indicate that the product is safe to eat and palatable for dogs. Meatly has also secured an undisclosed sum in fresh funding, adding to the £3.6M it had raised from investors to date. It includes a follow-on investment from retailer Pets at Home, and participation from new backers DSM-Firmenich Venturing, JamJar, and Joyful Ventures, among others.
The capital will support the startup’s plan to launch with its first brand partner in Q1 2025 – this will be in the form of a dog treat product, though the cost and other commercial decisions are “being figured out at the moment”, co-founder and CEO Owen Ensor told Green Queen.
Dogs like cultivated meat as much (or more) than their regular diets
Courtesy: Meatly
Meatly commissioned two voluntary trials, which were conducted by Treat Therapeutics and featured 31 pet dogs made up of 14 different breeds. The trials involved at-home feeding observations, including surveys with the dog owners to analyse their response to the product and veterinary checks. And a complete diet containing only cultivated chicken and plant-based ingredients was tested.
The first trial was a single-day test where the dogs were provided Meatly’s chicken for both meals of the day. And the second was a two-week controlled trial where a placebo group was fed just a plant-based diet, and selected dogs were given Meatly chicken for seven consecutive days after an adaptation phase.
Dogs were found to enjoy Meatly pet food as much or even more than their normal diet, according to the company. For example, 75% started their meal immediately or within the first few seconds of being presented with it, and 50% continued licking the bowl after completing it. Meanwhile, 75% of owners reported higher enjoyment than their pet’s baseline diet.
The cultivated chicken also improved the palatability of the plant-based placebo diet, and Meatly found no significant adverse effects of feeding cultivated meat over the 134 recorded meals.
“By collaborating with us on these exclusively home-based trials, Meatly have taken a significant step in validating cell-based meat’s relevance for real-world dogs,” said Treat Therapeutics founder Emmanuel Bijaoui. “The positive trial outcomes from a diverse pool of participants consolidate the potential of cultivated meat as a novel ingredient.”
A big year for Meatly – and cultivated pet food
Courtesy: Meatly
The trials “confirm the product’s quality”, Meatly said, following the collection of extensive safety and nutritional analysis data over the last two years. Its cultivated chicken is comparable to conventional versions when it comes to the protein profile, containing all essential amino acids in similar quantities, alongside important fatty acids, minerals and vitamins for pet nutrition.
The funding and feeding trials cap off a milestone year for the startup, which became the first company to receive regulatory approval for cultivated meat in Europe in July, after the UK’s Food Standards Agency, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and the Animal and Plant Health Agency deemed it safe to eat for pets.
Meatly has also created a protein-free culture medium – a mix of nutrients to facilitate the growth of animal cells – that lowers the cost from hundreds of pounds per litre to just £1.
“Protein-free media in biopharma is not kind of new, but in cultivated meat is. And it depends also on the type of cells on the species – some are a bit more challenging than others,” Helder Cruz, Meatly’s co-founder and chief scientific officer, told Green Queen in June. “Depending on the cell types and the species, you can grow them very well, without any protein.”
“We’re incredibly happy with how the trials went. Cultivated meat is still nascent, but we’re very much still working on developing a perfect product for UK pets. But given where we’ve come in the last year, we’re ecstatic with these results today,” Ensor said.
“Dogs will tell you if they don’t like the food you’ve served them – so we’re ecstatic that the pets in this trial enjoy Meatly Chicken even more than we thought they would,” he added. “These results demonstrate that we can feed our pets truly sustainable and kinder meat without compromising on taste or nutritional values.”
Cultivated pet food has had a big year, with Cult Food Science’s conducting feeding trials in the US in pursuit of regulatory approval for its Noochies! brand, Friends & Family Pet Food Co inking two partnerships to launch stateside and in Singapore, BioCraft Pet Nutrition slashing the cost of its growth media, and Bene Meat Technologies releasing a life-cycle assessment showcasing cultivated meat’s superiority to beef.
Artificial intelligence startup Shiru has closed a $16M Series B round to broaden its ingredient portfolio and expand its protein discovery marketplace.
Months after launching an AI-powered protein discovery platform for companies, Californian startup Shiru is already gunning for expansion with a $16M capital injection.
The Series B round was led by longtime investor S2G Ventures, with CPT Capital, Lux Capital, Nourish Ventures, and Meach Cove Capital also participating. It takes the company’s total raised to $36M, and will fuel Shiru’s plans to expand its ingredient portfolio and enhance the ProteinDiscovery.ai marketplace through commercial partnerships and new offerings.
“While we’re starting with proteins, our vision extends far beyond,” said Shiru founder and CEO Jasmine Hume. “ProteinDiscovery.ai is just the beginning. We’re building a comprehensive platform that will revolutionize ingredient discovery across multiple molecular classes, driving innovation that benefits both industry and consumers.”
Shiru eyes wider horizons for protein discovery platform
Courtesy: Shiru
ProteinDiscovery.ai, which came online in May, hosts the world’s largest database of plant-derived and microbial proteins. It enables corporate partners to swiftly identify and test highly functional, natural ingredients.
The platform combines the power of AI with an extensive database of natural protein sequences and automated biochemistry workflows, allowing companies to search discover, pilot and buy from a database of over 33 million molecules ranging from food and agriculture to personal care and advanced materials.
The marketplace “dramatically” reduces R&D and product development costs while accelerating the time to market and increasing the functional capabilities of nature-identical products.
“Our technology dramatically reduces development timelines and costs, empowering R&D teams to revolutionise products, categories and industries through our platform, enabling valuable innovation and competitive advantage,” said Hume.
Shiru’s innovations are fuelled by its Flourish technology, which discovers ingredients and seeds up the development of high-performance sustainable products like vegan casein, sweet proteins, methylcellulose alternatives, or structuring proteins.
The latest funding round will also help expand its product portfolio. It has previously launched OleoPro, a structured fat alternative made from unsaturated oils and a blend of plant proteins called uPro, which mimics animal fats for plant-based meat, dairy and cosmetics applications. The innovation can cut saturated fat content by 80%, and recently received a patent in the US.
Courtesy: Shiru
Artificial intelligence powering the future of food
The company has initiated partnerships with several global leaders. With Griffith Foods, it is looking to to discover, pilot and scale planet-friendly food ingredients, while its collaboration with Ajinomoto Health and Nutrition is centred around developing and scaling up sweet proteins.
The protein discovery platform was last month named by Time Magazine as one of 2024’s Best Inventions. “ProteinDiscovery.ai represents a fundamental shift in how we identify and develop sustainable ingredients,” Hume said in response to the honour. “This recognition affirms our mission to harness AI for creating better, more sustainable products that benefit both industry and our planet.”
Natural proteins represented in a 3D model based on their functional attributes – the bright red cluster is a group of sweet proteins discoverable only by Shiru’s Flourish technology | Courtesy: Shiru
Shiru is among a number of startups harnessing AI to safeguard the future of food in the face of the climate emergency. Irish biotech firm Nuritas, for example, is using precision AI tech to identify and commercialise rare plant-based peptides faster than the industry standard, while vegan cheesemaker Climax Foods employs machine learning to reverse-engineer what makes cheese taste good.
Chilean food tech unicorn NotCo similarly makes use of an AI platform called Giuseppe to match thousands of different plant-based ingredients and find the combinations best suited to replace animal-based foods. The technology powers its plant-based dairy and meat products, as well as the hot dogs, cheeses, and mac and cheese products it has co-produced with The Kraft Heinz Company.
And last month, NotCo partnered with fragrance and flavour giant Cramer to launch an AI-powered fragrance formulator – proving that fields beyond the food industry are also fertile for AI technology startups.
“AI-powered discovery isn’t only the future of ingredient innovation – it’s here today, and we’re eager to expand our capabilities across flavour, skincare and agriculture,” said Hume.
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 a vegan tiramisu collection in Hong Kong, Dave Chang’s cultivated meat podcast episode, and a ‘super yoghurt’.
New products and launches
Good Food Technologies, the Hong Kong company behind Plant Sifu, has partnered with famed Japanese ramen restaurant Menya Musashi. The latter’s Hong Kong menu features a Veggie Chicken Tomato Tsukemen Set and Deep-Fried Veggie Pork Cutlet Teishoku Set, as well as three sides.
Courtesy: Menya Musashi/Plant Sifu
Singaporean oat milk brand Oatbedient is hosting a pop-up at K11 Art Mall in Hong Kong (November 19 to December 2) to celebrate the launch of its Café series in the city. Visitors will get access to discounts and offers on its entire oat milk range.
In similar news, The Cakery, a plant-forward cake shop in Hong Kong, and its vegan sister bakery Maya have teamed up with Singaporean oat milk leader Oatside to introduce a tiramisu collection, which includes a cake, cupcake, overnight oats, and drinks like tiramisu chocolate and a tiramisu Biscoff latte.
Courtesy: The Cakery/Oatside
In the UK, discount retailer Aldi has rolled out an Ultimate No Beef Flank Steak, a private-label whole-cut meat alternative. The vegan beef product isn’t part of its Plant Menu range, but instead will be marketed under its Specially Selected label with a price tag of £6.99 for a two-pack.
British startup The Coconut Collab has launched two new desserts: Choc and Caramel (£1.50 per 110g) and White Choc Pots (£2.95 for four 45g packs). They’re available at Tesco, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s and/or Ocado.
Courtesy: The Coconut Collab
Carbon calculator and labelling startupMy Emissions has unveiled its second product, Company Carbon Footprints, a platform to help food companies measure their emissions more quickly and accurately. It has already been trialled by restaurant chain Wahaca and caterer Simply Lunch.
Armed with a new ambassador in Maya Jama, Swedish pea milk brand Sproud has introduced its Barista Zero SKU, debiting the product at the European Coffee Symposium in Berlin this week.
Courtesy: Sproud/Green Queen
Israeli entrepreneur Ola Baker has launchedEggless, a new company focused on innovating in the plant-based egg space.
Company and finance updates
South African cultivated meat startup Newform Foodshosted its biggest tasting event in Cape Town last week, showcasing its lamb meatballs to visitors.
Courtesy: NewForm Foods
Israeli startup Phyloton, which makes natural food colours from precision fermentation, has received funding from Rich Products Ventures, as well as additional financing from existing investors EIT Food, Arkin Holdings, and Yossi Ackerman (among others).
US-cultivated protein startup Jellatech, whose flagship product is a bioidentical collagen, has opened a 9,000 sq ft facility in Morrisville, North Carolina. It plans to obtain the FDA’s Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) certification by 2026.
Happy Plant Protein, a spinout from the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, has secured €1.8M in a pre-seed funding round led by Nordic Foodtech VC, alongside participation from Butterfly Ventures and Business Finland, to develop and license its patented vegan protein production tech.
Research, policy and events
In India, tempeh producer Tempeh Today, the Freedom Project India and the Netherlands Enterprise have launched the Tempeh for Education project. It involves the use of micro fermentation units to produce up to 100kg of tempeh per week, and the goal is to economically empower women through training and a guaranteed buyback programme.
Courtesy: Tempeh Today
Accor Group, Europe’s largest hospitality company and parent company of hotels like Novotel, Sofitel and Ibis, has announced its goal to introduce plant-based menu options at all of its locations in the coming years. It aligns with its Good Food Feels Great push to make 50% of its menus vegan by 2030.
In Germany, retail giant Rewe Group and fermentation companies Infinite Roots and Formohosted a “political breakfast” at the parliament. The discussion, which featured MP Albert Stegemann, explored how fermentation can help boost food security and lower climate impacts, while also touching upon regulatory sandboxes and farmer collaboration.
Courtesy: Formo
Also in Germany, plant-based shopping baskets are now only 9% pricier than their animal-based counterparts, with own-label milk alternatives now cheaper than dairy, according to a ProVeg Internationalstudy. At Lidl, which has made major sustainability strides this year, buying vegan private-label products is now more wallet-friendly.
At the Technical University of Munich‘s 2024 TFoodS Conference in Singapore, global experts explored alternative proteins and their potential to help the island nation achieve its 30 by 30 food security vision.
Courtesy: TUMCREATE
As Israeli-cultivated meat startup Aleph Farms continues to host tasting events ahead of the launch of its cultivated beef, five out of six chefs say they’d serve the Aleph Cuts product in their restaurants.
Researchers at Australia’s Monash University have created a “super yoghurt” made from sweet lupin beans and oats, which they say rivals both dairy and other plant-based yoghurts on taste, texture and nutrition.
Momofuku founder Dave Changfeatured cultivated meat on his podcast, The Dave Chang Show, interviewing the Good Food Institute‘s Eric Schulze about this future food.
Rehovot-based Forsea Foods has recorded the highest level of cell density in the cultivated meat and seafood industry, helping it achieve costs lower than conventional eel meat.
As it prepares to launch cultivated unagi in Japan in 2026, Forsea Foods has achieved a critical breakthrough in its production process.
The Israeli company’s technology has reached a cell density of over 300 million cells per ml with minimal and precise use of cultured media, which make up the bulk of the costs of cultivated meat. This, the firm says, will allow it to further reduce costs of its planet-friendly version of freshwater eel meat.
Cell density can greatly affect the viability of cells, and how they proliferate and differentiate. Cultivated meat involves growing cells at high densities, which can often dictate when companies harvest the cells after cultivation. For some, developing technologies to produce these proteins at high densities in smaller spaces is key to their market path.
For the majority of startups, cell densities range between 100,000 to 500,000 cells per ml, but larger producers aim for much higher densities, according to alternative protein think tank the Good Food Institute (GFI). Forsea Foods says its breakthrough means it now has the highest cell density in the industry.
How Forsea Foods created cultivated eel meat
Courtesy: Forsea Foods
Forsea Foods is tackling a $4.3B luxury market for eel meat, which commands wholesale prices between $40 and $60 per kg in Japan, the consumer of over 70% of all eel caught globally. The fact that freshwater eel is a critically endangered species that’s hard to breed in captivity makes it a delicacy in the country.
Poaching, illegal trading, breeding troubles and pollution have decimated supplies of the fish, with consumption declining by 63% between 2000 and 2021 in Japan. Overfishing, meanwhile, doesn’t just disrupt eel populations, but also the marine and freshwater ecosystems they inhabit.
The three-year-old startup first showcased its cultivated eel at Saido, a vegan restaurant in Tokyo. The product is grown via Forsea Foods’s proprietary organoid technology, which involves creating the ideal environment for cells to assemble into 3D microtissue structures comprising fat, muscle and connective tissues.
These mimic organ functions and structures, and spontaneously differentiate into edible cells, replacing the natural growth process of tissues in a living animal. The process also bypasses the scaffolding stage (where cells are grown on 3D scaffolds to create structured proteins) and significantly lowers reliance on growth factors, helping it produce cultivated meat in a cost-effective manner.
“The breakthrough to this level of cell density highlights the strength of our organoid technology,” said Forsea Foods co-founder and CTO Moria Shimoni. “It’s a validation of our approach to high-efficiency cultivation of seafood to meet both economic and sustainability goals at scale.”
Roee Nir, the startup’s co-founder and CEO, added: “This is a major milestone for Forsea and validates our vision of making sustainable, high-quality seafood affordable and widely accessible. It also sets a powerful precedent for scaling other cultured seafood products and establishing sustainable alternative supply chains for ecologically sensitive species.”
Preparing for launch in attractive Japanese market
Courtesy: Anatoly Michaello
While cultivated seafood is years away from price parity with conventional eel, the high cell density positions Forsea Foods at the forefront of efforts to lower the production costs of these novel proteins. “Forsea’s organoid technology requires less capital expenditure than other technologies,” explained Nir.
“Achieving this level of cell density with minimal resources will translate to substantial reductions in the unit of economics and will bring cultured seafood production to a cost that is actually below the traditional market price,” he added.
It has completed a proof-of-concept for its continuous harvesting process, and is now aiming to take production to the next phase of commercial scale-up. The company, which is working on six different cell lines, has raised $5.2M in seed financing so far, and intends to launch a Series A funding round soon, which will fund the construction of a commercial pilot plant.
Forsea Foods held a tasting event in Tel Aviv-based restaurant A in June, which convened investors, journalists, food manufacturers, opinion leaders, as well as government representatives. It is now preparing to file regulatory dossiers in Japan, targeting a commercial launch for 2026.
Japan is becoming an increasingly hot destination for alternative protein companies, and has a population where over two in five are willing to try these cultivated meat and seafood products, especially if they’re priced the same or cheaper.
“Officials are making steady progress in developing a novel food regulatory framework. Unlike countries that conduct individual consultations, Japanese officials primarily communicate with industry associations that speak on behalf of alternative protein companies, which fosters better market readiness for the sector as a whole,” Kimiko Hong-Mitsui, interim director of GFI Japan told Green Queen last month.
“Our recent industry survey shows that cultivated meat production is definitely not a one-size-fits-all approach,” Elliot Swartz, principal cultivated meat scientist at the think tank, remarked on Forsea Foods’s development. “It’s encouraging to see positive data from companies showing how different methods can address challenges in cost and scale.”
A few weeks ago, at the Future of Protein Production conference in Amsterdam, thought leaders in sustainability and new protein production methods gathered to explore new pathways for the world’s protein needs.
Industry pioneers Ira Van Eelen from KindEarth.Tech and Ralf Becks from RESPECTfarms, along with Marcelo Beltrão Molento from the Federal University of Parana, held a compelling workshop: envisioning health and sustainability in farming through complementary protein sources.
The conversation covered the significant impact of industrial animal farming on ecosystems, particularly in the Amazon, and introduced RESPECTfarms’ vision: a future where farmers can continue to thrive as food providers and stewards of nature. This innovative approach promotes a future where traditional farmers and alternative protein advocates can collaborate rather than compete, emphasising that bridging these worlds is critical for sustainable food production.
Shifting the narrative around alternative proteins
Courtesy: RESPECTfarms
Historically, alternative protein companies have marketed their products by highlighting the environmental and ethical issues associated with conventional agriculture, often using terms like “slaughter-free” or “animal cruelty-free.” While these messages address genuine concerns, they’ve also unintentionally deepened divides. As workshop participants noted, framing alternative proteins in opposition to traditional agriculture has reinforced an “us vs. them” mentality, risking alienation within the farming community.
In an engaging exercise, Becks encouraged participants to write their opinions on whether the future of protein should be “with animals” or “without animals” on paper aeroplanes and throw them to the front of the room. This activity highlighted the binary thinking that often permeates these discussions. The workshop then pushed for a shift in approach: rather than positioning alternative proteins as replacements, there’s potential to present them as “complementary proteins” – new options that coexist alongside traditional sources. “We face a huge challenge in creating a diverse protein mix that can feed tomorrow’s world,” Becks emphasised, “and all protein sources are needed.” This vision of complementary proteins can allow for a full spectrum of choices – animal meat, plant-based meat, and cultivated meat – empowering consumers to decide, while the industry focuses on making all options accessible, enjoyable, and affordable.
Participants then crafted a second paper aeroplane, this time writing down ideas for collaboration that could create a true “common ground” approach. Suggestions ranged from subsidies for farmers transitioning to complementary protein production, to hybrid protein solutions that combine traditional and alternative methods. A shared theme emerged: dialogue and collaboration with farmers, not around them, is key to moving the industry forward. Each idea underscored the belief that constructive, open exchanges can pave the way for a sustainable and inclusive protein future.
Courtesy: RESPECTfarms
Building new business models for a resilient protein ecosystem
For RESPECTfarms, this vision translates into practical steps, such as creating new business models that integrate cultivated meat production within traditional agriculture. Their goal is ambitious: the world’s first cultivated meat farm where meat is grown directly from animal cells, with a vision to help decentralise cultivated meat production. This approach could enable farmers to produce cultivated meat alongside crops or livestock, fostering a system where small farms retain relevance and autonomy.
The current small scale of the cultivated meat industry could be well suited for early adoption by farmers. For many, starting with smaller production volumes – perhaps 500 litres – offers an achievable path to integrating cultivated meat into their existing operations. While larger centralised production methods, like those used by companies such as Mosa Meat (the technology partner for RESPECTfarms), may view this scale as a bottleneck, it may be an ideal entry point for smaller farms. In this sense, the RESPECTfarms project may hold greater short-term potential by providing a model that allows farmers to adopt cultivated meat incrementally while integrating it with traditional business models.
But does cultivated meat resonate with livestock farmers? It depends, noted Van Eelen, on each farmer’s motivation. Many farmers embrace animal farming because it’s a deeply rooted way of life, contributing to food security and supporting their local communities. Cultivated meat production doesn’t necessarily mean they have to abandon these values; rather, it offers an opportunity to produce meat differently, potentially in a way that brings additional economic and environmental benefits.
A balancing act: funding and infrastructure
Creating this shift won’t be easy. Becks noted that Dutch farmers currently receive around €795 million in government subsidies each year – a stark contrast to the €60 million invested in cellular agriculture through the Netherlands’ National Growth Fund. While this funding shows institutional support, it’s just a small fraction of what sustains conventional farming today.
To bridge this gap, Becks emphasised cooperation with existing meat distributors and leveraging their established networks in logistics, cold storage, and retail. Building a new protein ecosystem from scratch isn’t feasible. Instead, working alongside traditional industry players could enable cultivated meat to enter mainstream markets faster and more efficiently.
Courtesy: RESPECTfarms
Involving farmers in the cultivated meat value chain
Research from the Royal Agricultural University reveals that farmers themselves are warming up to the idea of participating in cultivated meat production. By repurposing existing crops and byproducts, like feed wheat for glucose or rapeseed oil meal for amino acids, farmers can supply the cellular agriculture industry with essential ingredients. This dual role allows them to maintain some aspects of livestock farming, while diversifying income streams and reducing reliance on powerful intermediaries that often dominate traditional supply chains.
RESPECTfarms is aiming to optimise its first farm by 2029, and hopes to scale out from there. With a vision to transform 1,000 farms by 2038, RESPECTfarms hopes to spark a global movement.
The challenge lies in making cultivated meat appealing, affordable, and integrated into the existing protein ecosystem. For this to happen, the cultivated meat sector must acknowledge the complexities of farming and seek collaborative solutions rather than adversarial relationships.
Finding common ground
While the discussion highlighted the potential for collaboration, some audience members voiced doubts, questioning whether true synergy is possible given certain non-negotiable values. Nonetheless, there was a shared belief that dialogue is essential. Cultivated and conventional farming communities may not always see eye-to-eye, but building bridges can foster mutual understanding, paving the way for a protein-rich future that respects both tradition and innovation.
In Becks’ words, “We need to find common ground.” The foundation for this new protein future could be built on shared goals: healthier ecosystems, resilient food systems, and, ultimately, a more sustainable world where all sources of protein can coexist and thrive.
Beyond Meat posted revenue growth for the first time in two years in Q3, buoyed by higher prices and a strong performance in Germany. It also teased its new mycelium steak.
After losing year-on-year revenue for nine quarters in a row, Beyond Meat returned to growth in the July-September period this year, boosting its profit margins and cutting losses from Q3 2023.
The Californian business, which has sought to pose itself as a “health company” this year with reformulated meat analogues and new whole-food sausages, recorded $81M in sales in Q3 2024, a 7.6% hike from last year.
This was largely thanks to the company jacking up the prices of its core products by 22% in the US and lowering trade discounts. These changes also helped the plant-based meat giant expand its quarterly margins to 17.7% – this is markedly higher than the 9.6% decline in margins in Q3 last year, and the 14.7% growth in the previous quarter.
And while the company’s volume sales were down by 7% in the third quarter, it saw improvements in year-on-year volume trends in three of its four sales channels, according to CEO Ethan Brown.
In a call with investors, he highlighted the need for Beyond Meat to celebrate and market its production process, announced an expansion of its partnership with Panda Express, and spilt some more details on its upcoming mycelium-based whole-muscle steak.
“The third quarter of 2024 serves as a pivotal quarter in our company’s history,” he said, noting how it seemed the protein markets would continue to be disrupted and pave the way for Beyond Meat to become mainstream after it went public in 2019.
“Turbulence, much of it generated by a concerted campaign supported by incumbent animal protein and pharmaceutical industries, destabilised the slipstream within which we travelled, and we fell from considerable heights,” he added.
“We responded by letting iron sharpen iron. We chose to get stronger, including moving our products along the continuum from relative to absolute health benefits, most notably in our Beyond IV platform and its broad endorsements from leading health institutions, and we got leaner and more focused.”
McDonald’s and Panda Express partnerships drive growth
Courtesy: Panda Express
Beyond Meat’s retail sales in the US rose by 14.6% in Q3 this year, primarily due to a 23% increase in net revenue per pound, as buyer rates for the new Beyond IV products saw an uptick. In foodservice too, net revenues grew by 15.5%, thanks in large part to the company’s reignited collaboration with Panda Express. The Beyond Orange Chicken dish is now available in 600 locations, doubling from its previous footprint.
Internationally, retail revenues were up by 17%, which the company attributed to greater distribution and demand in certain geographies. This was driven by Beyond Meat’s entry into Germany’s refrigerated channel, which it was unable to access due to shelf-life conditions until Q2.
“Having worked several years to meet shelf-life requirements, we are thrilled to now be in German retailers, Germany being one of the strongest plant-based markets in the world,” said Brown. “With a clear caution that it is very early days, we are seeing encouraging initial sell-through in this important market.”
The performance in these three channels reversed the decline in all sales channels in Q2 2024 (compared to the corresponding period a year ago). But the firm’s foodservice sales overseas took a hit, going from a 2.5% decline in Q2 to a 17% decrease in Q3. This was driven by a 22% drop in volume, reflecting “decreased sales of burger and chicken products to a large QSR customer in the EU”, explained COO Lubi Kutua.
However, the July-September period also saw Beyond Meat extend its partnership with the world’s largest restaurant chain, McDonald’s, which introduced Veggie McPlant Nuggets using the El Segundo firm’s vegan chicken at 1,500 stores. The Nuggets are currently planned to be a permanent menu addition, with France joining Austria, Germany, Malta, the Netherlands, Slovenia, the UK, and Ireland going Beyond at McDonald’s,” said Brown.
Beyond Meat aiming to raise funds this year
Courtesy: Beyond Meat
Reflecting its efforts to consolidate its production network, Beyond Meat managed to bring its cost of goods down to its lowest level in over three years ($66.7M). It shrunk net losses by 62% from the same period a year ago ($26.6M), and looking at the year so far, these were down by 37% from the first three quarters of 2023.
The improved performance here came as the company exited from five warehouses in the first half of the year, as part of its strategy to bring manufacturing in-house. This is one of its priorities for the year, alongside the launch of the Beyond IV line of products, the price hikes, lean management practices, and its investment in Europe.
The company, which remains $1.1B in debt, had reportedly been in talks with bondholders to restructure its debt. And it’s now looking to increase its cash reserves before the end of 2024 through an at-the-market offering, which involves selling shares over a period of time instead of all at once).
“We’re not going to, at this point, get into how much we may be looking to raise before the end of the year,” said Kutua. “But… we do intend to put additional liquidity on the balance sheet before the end of the year, and then we’re still looking at a more holistic sort of balance sheet restructuring at some point in the next year.”
Brown added: “You can see a very steep curve moving in the right direction. That’s why we feel so confident about our plan to bring the business into profitability. I can’t say when. I don’t want to imply it’s going to be anytime soon. But that is where we’re headed.”
He predicted full-year revenues of $320-330M, which was at the lower end of the firm’s previous forecasts. If realised, this would represent a 4-7% decrease in annual earnings compared to 2023.
Brown criticises ‘weaponisation’ of processed foods
Courtesy: Beyond Meat/Green Queen
The Q3 earnings are a welcome change for Beyond Meat, which has had a turbulent two years in terms of sales, leading to multiple rounds of job cuts, discontinued product lines, and new health-focused packaging. All this has come amid a wider decline in the market for meat analogues, whose revenues shrunk by 9% in the 52 weeks to July 14, 2024.
Part of this is due to prices and inflation too, whose impact was in full focus after the results of the US presidential election this week. In May, one survey showed that the price premium on plant-based meat deters 53% of Americans from buying it. In another poll published last month, 28% of Americans said high costs were driving them to purchase fewer meat analogues (a sentiment 12% more popular than last year).
Beyond Meat’s pricing strategy is reflective of the overall market for vegan meat, which is 77% more expensive on average than animal protein. Prices for the former were up by 9% in 2023, compared to 3% for the latter. “We have not seen anyone sort of tap out based on pricing,” Brown said. “People do complain about the prices of our products in general, but that’s always been the case.”
He added: “The biggest thing that is dissuading the consumer from our products and plant-based meat is a misperception around the health benefits and around the ingredients, full stop.” It’s why he previously labelled Beyond Meat as a “health and wellness company that makes plant-based meat”, and why it has changed recipes to include fava beans and avocado oil, championed vegetables in the Sun Sausages, and sought certifications from heart and diabetes health associations.
This direction has also prompted the company to delve into the world of mycelium with a clean-label, whole-cut steak fillet, which is set to be launched soon. The product has been in the works for many years under the company’s Rapid and Relentless Innovation programme.
“Beyond Steak Fillet is made with mycelium, a root-like structure found in mushrooms, legume protein, and a limited number of natural ingredients,” said Brown. “I personally love this product not only for its texture and savoury taste but its concise and clean ingredient list, coupled with very high levels of protein contrasted with very low levels of saturated fat.”
Remarking on the ultra-processed food debate, he said: “The weaponisation of the word ‘process’ – a tactic emphasised in the incumbent industry playbook on how to undermine plant-based meat and preserve the status quo – has grown long in the tooth. It is past time we put it to bed.
“We plan to do that by applying generous amounts of sunlight to our own process, educating consumers on how we build meat directly from plants. It’s a clean process. It’s a process that is elegant in its simplicity, and it’s a process that produces better outcomes for the human body and earth.”
Soon to be the EU’s farming commissioner, Cristophe Hansen has called meat “part of a balanced diet”, but admitted that we’re “massively underproducing” plant proteins – not in the way you think, though.
In three weeks, Cristophe Hansen will be confirmed as the European Commission’s new agricultural commissioner. He will have the unenviable task of helping president Ursula von der Leyen’s promise to deliver an agrifood roadmap within the first 100 days of her new mandate.
But in his confirmation hearing on Monday, Hansen appeared to toe the line between cosying up with the livestock lobby and moving the EU towards a more sustainable food system, at times asserting contradictory statements that left more questions than answers.
For instance, he appealed to conservatives when he said lawmakers shouldn’t impose a cutback in meat consumption, but also courted green MEPs by noting the importance of ramping up the production of plant proteins.
His comments come weeks after lobby groups representing farmers asked the Commission to create an EU-wide action plan for plant-based foods by 2026, as part of the Strategic Dialogue on the Future of EU Agriculture. How will Hansen, a farmer’s son, fare in a political operation that has repeatedly failed to deliver on its green policies?
Hansen says it’s ‘tricky’ to impose what people eat
Courtesy: European Parliament
Anna Strolenberg, a Dutch MEP for the Greens, noted how the FAO, the WHO and the IPCC have stressed the importance of dietary shifts, and the Strategic Dialogue agreed with the societal consensus on the topic. “So science and society are clear, now the EU must take action,” she said. “Protein diversification is of strategic importance for the EU.”
She then posed her questions: “Will we bring forward an action plan for plant-based foods as proposed in the Strategic Dialogue? Will this action plan include elements to tackle both consumption and production? And lastly, will you commit to policy actions to reduce our dependency on imported feed?”
Hansen responded that his view of the Strategic Dialogue was a little different, but didn’t delve further into that. “It is very tricky to say and impose top-down who has to eat what,” he offered, suggesting that doing so would be “very dangerous” and create a bigger gulf between the EU and its citizens. “That is not how the European Union should work.”
The Luxembourger added that meat products are part of a balanced diet, but suggested that everything “needs to be consumed in moderation”. “My doctor told me to eat less red meat. That was medical advice to me,” he admitted.
But there was one thing he said he agreed with Strolenberg on. “We are heavily underproducing plant-based proteins in the European Union, and they have at least two benefits,” he said. “They are beneficial for the climate, because they store emissions and are in that sense already very important.”
However, this was a deliberate misdirection, given that the second “benefit” of plant protein he mentioned was to reduce the EU’s reliance on feed imports. So while Strolenberg was talking about plant-based foods for humans, Hansen banged on about producing more soybeans to feed animals, who would then be fed to humans.
“Strengthening the EU’s food security is becoming central for the European Commission and will be a top priority for this new term. A key element of this issue revolves around protein, as the EU is highly dependent on imports for protein feed for its animal agriculture,” Soizic Larcher, EU policy officer at food awareness group ProVeg International, told Green Queen.
“The Commission recently acknowledged that policy and public debate on the EU protein sector needs a comprehensive approach, covering EU plant protein production, supply, and the broader challenges and opportunities in food and feed demand,” she added.
“ProVeg sees the need for a food systems approach that balances sector-wide needs and synergies, focusing on farmers and considering both human food and animal feed demand to find new efficiencies.” Larcher continued, outlining that ProVeg supports the need to reduce dependence on feed imports, but as “part of a broader transformation of the food system” that aligns with the goal of further developing the plant protein sector.
Shifting political environment impeding the protein transition
Graphic by Green Queen
Much of the hearing was about agriculture rather than food, but even then, Hansen didn’t commit to a sweeping change towards the EU’s approach to sustainable farming. He dodged a question about whether the EU should maintain or even increase its farming subsidies for red meat, merely stating that he was optimistic about the Commission’s budget for food promotion in the next financial framework.
The problem is, the EU spends nearly 30% of its Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) budget on agriculture – but 80% of this is directed to livestock farming (and 44% alone goes to feed crops).
This is at least four times higher than what the EU invests in plant-based farming, despite animal proteins providing only 35% of calories and 65% of proteins in the EU, and contributing to 84% of its agricultural emissions. And a recent investigation showed how these subsidies ultimately benefit some of the world’s richest people, at the expense of the farms that are supposed to profit from them.
In his written answers before the hearing, Hansen looked to promote organic farming as a way to greenify the EU’s farming sector. But he said the Commission wouldn’t publish a new framework for sustainable food systems: “Rather than new legislative proposals, we can achieve our objectives by better implementing and enforcing existing legislation while using incentives and new market-based tools to promote change.”
That would be fine if the EU had a good track record of putting its money where its mouth is on green policies. MEPs, working with lobby groups, have managed to stall Farm to Fork reforms, resist Green Deal legislations, and delay the promised ban on caged farming, which has now been put on hold indefinitely and led to a legal complaint against the EU. The CAP’s environmental controls were further weakened this year after intense lobbying efforts.
Hansen also indicated that it was important for the EU to update its protein strategy from 2018 to include plant protein needs more prominently. But he said the Strategic Dialogue report was “rather a vague formulation” and needed to be discussed in greater detail.
ProVeg’s Larcher said the organisation “advocates for a well-balanced plant-based diet” comprising plenty of whole foods. “With the current political environment leaning to the right, we increasingly hear these more conservative narratives and see resistance to recognise the need to transition towards more plant-based diets,” she outlined.
“Many people, including Mr Hansen himself, are aware of the value of reducing meat in their diet, but it will be essential to showcase the multiple benefits of this transition for the EU, for health, food security and the environment, so that it is translated into actual policies.”
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 Oatly’s new barista milk for light-roasted coffee, European precision fermentation developments, and the world’s best vegan chef.
New products and launches
First announced to investors in its 2023 earnings call, Swedish oat milk giant Oatly has rolled out a new version of its barista milk, formulated specifically for light-roasted coffee. The Barista Lighter Taste offering has 2.1% fat content (versus 3% for the regular barista edition) and enables the more nuanced flavour notes of specialty coffee to shine.
Courtesy: Grubby
After delivering over 100,000 dishes together, UK vegan meal kit startup Grubby has extended its partnership with plant-based chef duo Bosh! They have developed a new range of 10 dishes that can be made in under 30 minutes, including Gochujang Tofu Mac & Cheese and Peanut Butter & Tenderstem Udon Soup.
Months after acquiring Swedish mycoprotein startup Mycorena, Belgian animal protein company Veos Group‘s Naplasol has expanded the former’s Promyc line with two new ingredients at the Food Ingredients Europe event in Frankfurt (November 19-21).
Courtesy: Chosen Foods
US avocado oil startup Chosen Foods has debuted a vegan shortening made with just one ingredient: fractionated avocado oil. It’s available online and at Target for $10.99 to $12.99 per 16oz tub.
Fellow US firm the Plant-Based Seafood Co. has added Crispy, Crunchy, Fried Shrimp to its Mind Blown range of vegan seafood products. It’s available online for D2C and foodservice for a limited time.
Seattle-based vegan chicken playerRebellyous Foods has launched a Spicy Kickin’ Patty for K-12 schools, restaurants, and food service providers. It meets the USDA National School Lunch Program’s requirements for two meat/meat alternate credits and offers 1/4 grain credit as well.
Courtesy: Rebellyous Foods
And German startup Ohly, which makes yeast-based bionutrients for the food industry, has expanded its X-Seed product line with new nutrients designed to boost enzyme production.
Company and finance updates
UK vegan confectionery brand Doisy & Dam has been sold by Nurture Brands to organic cocoa company Food Thoughts. The deal will see the formation of an ethical plant-based chocolate offering for home bakery and snacking goods.
Courtesy: Doisy & Dam
Across the Atlantic, vegan baked doughnut maker Drumroll has received a $3M investment from CPG incubator 7 Mile Brands.
The Global Agri-Food Advancement Partnership (GAAP), which supports agrifood companies with funds, incubators and labs, has invested an undisclosed amount in Argentinian molecular farming startup Ergo Bioscience. GAAP will host Ergo in its Saskatoon labs in the coming months to help expand its operations to North America.
Chipotle is the top US restaurant chain when it comes to plant-based options and meat reduction policies, according to a report by World Animal Protection that ranks 23 major companies on these metrics. McDonald’s, Wendy’s and chicken chains like KFC and Popeyes received a failing grade.
In Chicago, PlantX‘s XMarket Food Hall – the largest vegan food court in the Midwest – has closed after a year of operations.
Since opening in Berlin this April, the fully plant-based Rewe store has been welcoming 5,500 visitors every week.
Speaking of Berlin, fermentation-derived dairy startup Formo has kickstarted its first out-of-home marketing campaign.
Courtesy: Formo/LinkedIn
Also in Germany, the federal food and agriculture ministry has invested €400,000 in sausage producer Metten Fleischwaren‘s project to develop a blended sausage with mycoprotein and meat.
Meanwhile, Dutch meat giant Nutreco has opened what it claims is the world’s first facility dedicated to food-grade powder production for cell feed, in an inauguration event attended by several cultivated meat companies.
Courtesy: Nutreco
New Zealand startup Daisy Lab, which makes precision-fermented dairy proteins, has partnered with two dairy processors to supply its plug-and-play technology for large-scale production of bioidentical proteins.
Speaking of precision fermentation, French player Bon Vivant has released a life-cycle assessment that shows its animal-whey protein cuts greenhouse gas emissions by 72%, reduces water use by 81%, and requires 99% less land compared to conventional dairy.
Courtesy: Bon Vivant
In further news from this industry, Belgian precision fermentation startup Paleo and Austrian 3D-printed seafood producerRevo Foods have received a €2.2M grant from the EU’s Eureka Eurostars programme to develop animal-free myoglobin for vegan salmon.
British peanut butter maker ManiLife has invested over £1M in a new 13,5000 sq ft manufacturing facility that can store up to 15 million jars of peanut butter. Raising £500,000 to fund the move, the factory is set to begin production in early 2025.
Courtesy: The Better Meat Co
Californian mycelium startup The Better Meat Co has received its patent from the US Patent and Trade Office, which covers its innovative shelf-stable mycoprotein production process, methods of sizing and separating mycelium particles, and million process to turn the dry mycleium into a powder.
Policy developments and awards
In the UK, conservation agency the National Trust will make menus at its 300 food and drink outlets at least 50% plant-based, after 75% of its 2.6 million members voted in favour of the move to speed up its path to net zero. Around 40% of its existing catering options are plant-based.
Alternative protein think tank the Good Food Institute has been recognised as one of Giving Green‘s top six climate impact charities globally for the third year running. It has recommended philanthropists to provide $2.1M in grants to the charity, contributing to its ongoing three-year raise of $125M.
Luxembourgish chef Steve Lentz has won the Best Vegan Chef title at the Global Chefs Challenge, who won over judges with a vegan foie gras and a cabbage-based dessert.
By replacing 50% of meat with plant-based proteins, Thailand could lower emissions by nearly 80%, while adding over a million jobs and boosting food security in the process.
Thailand could become a “kitchen of the future” with an emphasis on less meat and more plants, which would bring climate wins alongside a stronger national economy.
That’s if the country reduces meat intake by half and replaces it with plant-based proteins, according to a new report by Asia Research and Engagement for Madre Brava.
Between now and 2050, Thailand’s per capita meat and seafood consumption is on track to increase by nearly a third. That would mean increased production and expansion of intensive livestock and aquaculture both domestically and internationally, since the country’s animal food production relies heavily upon imported feed crops like maize and soy.
It would also end up using larger amounts of farmland and producing higher greenhouse gas emissions, going against Thailand’s climate goals – its second nationally determined contribution (NDC) to the Paris Agreement covers agriculture as a key focus sector, setting an unconditional emissions reduction target of 30% by 2030.
And in 2021, the government announced the Bio-Circular-Green economy as a component of the national economic strategy, with a focus on producing high-value, climate-friendly products that require fewer resources. The agrifood industry was one of four strategic sectors identified, and this is aligned with the government’s Future Food concept to transform Thailand into a global hub for sustainable, innovative food.
To showcase the potential of dietary change, the research looked at three scenarios – business as usual (BAU), a 30% switch from meat and seafood to plant proteins, and a 50% shift – and found that the latter presents outsized economic and environmental benefits to Thailand, and is the only way for the country to avoid breaching the climate-safety threshold (zero deforestation by 2025 and a 72% cut in emissions by 2050) set by international experts.
A 50% switch to plant proteins better for the planet and the economy
Courtesy: Madre Brava
According to the report, a 180% rise in meat consumption since 1990 has nearly doubled the amount of land used for livestock production. In the BAU scenario, where people continue to eat more meat, the amount of land needed to meet this demand would rise to 6.15 million hectares in 2050 (a 42% increase from 2020).
But if plants make up 30% of Thailand’s protein supply by 2050, this increase would be limited to 13.5%. The 50% scenario is the only one where the demand for land is eased to 3.98 million hectares (a 7% decrease from current trends.
Similarly, if things stay as they are, the country’s greenhouse gas emissions will rise by 14.7% to reach nearly 45 million tonnes by 2050, a figure four times higher than the climate safety threshold. Even with several best-case mitigation scenarios – like a 30% reduction in enteric fermentation, manure emissions and feed emissions, alongside 20% lower food waste and a move towards a 100% clean energy target – emissions would still be above this threshold.
Plant proteins are required to achieve further reductions, since they are less emission-intensive than animal-based foods. The 50% scenario is the only one that stays within the climate safety threshold after 2050, resulting in a 79% drop in greenhouse gas emissions to reach 9.35 million tonnes of CO2e.
One of the major concerns around protein shifts is the impact on farmers and agricultural workers. The study found that while a 50% switch to plant-based proteins would lead to the loss of 900,000 animal husbandry jobs, the production of food-grade soybeans and plant proteins would instead create over two million new jobs. The net job creation would, therefore, be 1.15 million.
“The 50% scenario not only creates many more jobs, but also enables greater self-sufficiency for raw materials, and less reliance on animal feed imports,” the authors wrote.
They added that government subsidies and structural support enable the growth of the Thai livestock sector, with virtually no public sector investment in plant protein yet. In the 50% scenario, though, both government and private financing could help yield ฿1.3T ($36.6B) in economic value by reducing the reliance on imports. This would make Thailand more self-sufficient as well.
“Thailand is increasingly seeing the devastating consequences of climate change, consequences which will only intensify in the coming years,” said Madre Brava’s Thailand director, Wichayapat Piromsan. “Our country has a chance not only to make a strong bid to become the world’s kitchen for years to come, but to massively reduce the impact of our valuable protein sector on the climate.”
Courtesy: Madre Brava
How stakeholders can enable the protein shift
The report chimes with previous analysis by Asia Research and Engagement, which stated that 30% of Thailand’s protein supply should come from alternative proteins if it is to decarbonise.
But this new study shows that only a 50% switch would truly keep Thailand on its path to net-zero. To get there, the Thai government needs to level the playing field between plant and animal proteins, which could involve carbon taxes on meat (à la Denmark) to incentivise sales of vegan food.
Policymakers should also ensure that government events feature plant-rich meals and consider offering more of these options in public canteens, including schools, hospitals and administrative buildings. The report further urged lawmakers to develop pathways with financial support and capacity-building programs for farmers to switch to plant-based crop production. Removing restrictions on labelling would help too.
Supermarkets and foodservice operators can play a role too. The former should set targets to increase the share of plant protein sales (mirroring trends in Europe) – lowering prices to eliminate the affordability barrier for plant-based foods, displaying them more prominently alongside meat, and providing information about preparation, nutritional content and health benefits would help retailers do so.
Caterers and foodservice companies, meanwhile, should increase the number of plant-based items, display these options alongside regular menus, and offer them at the same price as conventional meat.
Finally, food manufacturers should incorporate protein diversification strategies into their wider climate targets, and invest in R&D to make these proteins “tastier, less processed, more nutritious and more affordable”, with a view to cater for both exports as well as the domestic market.
Courtesy: Madre Brava
Thai consumers are willing to make dietary changes, as Madre Brava’s research showed earlier this year. Two-thirds of respondents to its survey said they would reduce or stop eating meat in the next two years, with 44% wishing to replace it with traditional plant proteins, and 39% with novel alternatives.
“There are clear levers to pull here to ensure Thailand makes the most of this opportunity but it needs to happen now,” said Wichayapat. “Otherwise we risk getting left behind by the coming global shift in protein production.”
Luxury hotel group Four Seasons has teamed up with Israel’s Oshi to put its plant-based whole-cut salmon on the menu at MKT Restaurant and Bar in San Francisco.
Showcasing the potential of plant-based seafood to adorn high-end restaurant menus, Four Seasons – one of the world’s best-known luxury hotel operators – has partnered with Oshi, an Israeli startup that makes a whole-cut salmon analogue from fermented fungi, algae, soy protein and a blend of vegetable oils.
At Four Seasons Hotel San Francisco’s MKT Restaurant and Bar, executive chef Kevin Tanaka will introduce the vegan salmon on the menu, in a move touted as part of the hotel group’s “ongoing commitment to sustainable luxury”.
“We’re honoured to work with Four Seasons to introduce plant-based salmon to their guests,” says Oshi co-founder and CEO Ofek Ron. “Chef Tanaka’s expertise and creativity are the perfect match for Oshi’s product, and we’re excited to be part of this shift towards more sustainable dining experiences.”
Oshi salmon to roll out at several Four Seasons hotels
Courtesy: Oshi
Oshi, which rebranded from Plantish in 2023, hopes to tap into the signature taste and texture of salmon, but without the climate and health concerns (think the presence of mercury and antibiotics, and the impact of overfishing).
To do so, it uses a blend of mycoprotein, soy protein, algal and vegetable oils, and rice flour that is put through a proprietary modular layering technology. This involves incorporating fats between layers of plant proteins and algae extracts to create a whole-muscle structure similar to conventional salmon.
Ron, who founded the startup with Ariel Szklanny, Ron Sicsic and Hila Elimelech in 2021, confirmed that Oshi recently received approval for its patents. The team moved operations from Israel to the US late last year, owing to a more receptive regulatory environment for mycelium, and set up a co-manufacturing production facility stateside.
The salmon has been rolled out at a number of restaurants across the US this year, including Urban Vegan Kitchen, Mercury Bar West, and Neat in New York City, V-Spot Food in New Hope, DVASH in Boca Raton, and BeeWali’s Vegan AF in Los Angeles.
But part of Oshi’s foodservice plan was to target the luxury market, which it is kickstarting with the Four Seasons collaboration. “We first connected with Four Seasons chefs at the National Restaurant Association Show in Chicago, where they had the chance to experience our product firsthand,” Ron tells Green Queen. “Our distribution partner, Royal Hawaiian Seafood, introduced Oshi to their team, and from there, the collaboration began.”
It’s a shrewd move considering that food is amongst the most popular luxury items consumers want to spend more on. A YouGov poll in 2023 found that more than one in four Americans (27%) were looking to buy luxury meat and produce over the next 12 months.
Meanwhile, a recent global survey by the Marine Stewardship Council found that 30% of people have been eating less seafood in the last two years, as nearly half (48%) are concerned about overfishing and 35% are worried about climate change impacts. At the same time, over 80% of people have changed their dietary habits in this period, and 43% are doing so for sustainability reasons.
While the MKT will be the first Four Seasons restaurant to introduce Oshi’s vegan salmon, it won’t be the last, with expansion to other locations planned for 2025.
“Oshi’s salmon has an authentic texture and flavour that beautifully complements our offerings here at MKT,” said Tanaka. “I’m excited to work with such a high-quality, sustainable product, giving our guests a delicious way to enjoy seafood without the environmental impact. We look forward to presenting Oshi in a variety of dishes that highlight its versatility.”
Treading rough waters for alternative seafood
Courtesy: Oshi
“Our focus is on expanding into luxury hotels, corporate kitchens, and casual restaurants across the US,” says Ron. “By 2025, we’re planning to launch our plant-based salmon in retail and begin a pilot in the EU.” Oshi will further launch a new product in early 2025, which it will reveal next month.
Apart from the partnership with Royal Hawaiian Seafood, it has also linked up with distributors like ACE Naturals, Earthly Gourmet and Webstaurant Store, which will enable Oshi to supply its products to more foodservice clients across the US.
The company has so far secured $14.5M, most recently closing a bridge funding round. It is planning to fundraise further in 2025. “I believe that as alternative protein becomes more mainstream, funding will naturally align with the growing demand for sustainable options,” he says.
Alternative proteins saw funding fall by 44%, and for plant-based and cultivated protein startups, the numbers are even worse this year. Companies dealing with fermentation (like Oshi), however, have bagged nearly 30% more investment in the first three quarters of this year than they did in all of 2023.
Meanwhile, sales of plant-based meat and seafood fell by 12% last year. But vegan seafood takes up just 1% of the overall seafood share in the US, and several companies – like Akua, Ordinary Seafood and New Wave Foods – have shut down over the last year, underscoring the tough market landscape.
“The alternative seafood market is still in its early stages, unlike alternative meat, which has decades of consumer familiarity. Brands like Tofurky and Gardein paved the way, and now Oshi is helping drive growth in the alt-seafood category with whole-cut options that make up over 70% of the traditional fish market,” says Ron.
“We’re seeing strong interest from major clients who are considering plant-based options for the first time, and consumer awareness of the health and environmental concerns around fish consumption is rising, which will help grow the category.”
“Change starts here,” Ira Van Eelen, co-founder at KindEarth.Tech and RESPECTfarms noted on the opening day of the Future of Protein Production Amsterdam 2024. With over 500 delegates, 45 exhibitors, and two packed days of panels, keynotes, and workshops, the event was a deep dive into the future of sustainable food production.
Green Queen was there to witness the cutting-edge ideas shaping this future and hear from the innovators, regulators, and entrepreneurs leading the charge. Here’s what we learned about the shifts reshaping alternative proteins – and why they matter.
1) Processing, not products
The event showcased a shift from end products to enabling technology, highlighting a new focus on scaling production. As the industry moves from lab to large-scale, managing costs while optimising processes has become the biggest challenge – especially as most companies are working to cut costs as they do so. Many companies are operating more cautiously now that food tech is no longer the trendy sector du jour, spending less on their own Capex and instead seeking external solutions – like ERIDIA’s nanosecond pulsed electric field technology, or Ziemann Holvrieka’s massive, industrial-grade tanks.
And, for several companies, the end goal isn’t necessarily to serve consumers. Robin Simsa highlighted this perfectly when he shared that Revo Foods’ longer-term aim is to supply its unique 3D printing technology to other producers, but first has to prove that it works with products in the market – hence the company’s ongoing retail partnerships with the likes of REWE, BILLA, SPAR and EDEKA. This shift from consumer-facing products to process-oriented B2B solutions could mark a key change in the alt-protein industry.
2) New media for cellular agriculture
To meet the high costs and volume needs of cell-based production, several companies are developing innovative, low-cost media. Susanne Wiegel, Head of Alternative Protein Program at Nutreco, predicted that, by 2040, the cell ag industry’s media needs will “leapfrog from niche production to commodity-scale demand”.
With its first dedicated cell feed powder plant in Boxmeer, Nutreco is creating high-volume, low-cost, food-grade media that it sees as critical for the future of cellular agriculture. Newcastle University spinout MarraBio is developing ultra-stable, low-cost alternatives to the extracellular matrix and growth factor proteins used in cultivated meat production, and Belgian startup FlyBlast is using black soldier flies to create human insulin, view a view to then creating bovine and porcine insulin, so removing the cost and ‘ick factor’ barrier of human insulin for cultivated meat production.
3) Leveraging AI to scale production
It’s becoming clear that AI could help to optimise everything from ingredient selection to production processes, supporting alt protein companies to reduce costs and improve their scalability. Sam Tucker from OpenPaws described it as “enabling smarter decision-making at every stage.” Sebastian Blum of Beckman Coulter Life Sciences emphasised that AI can improve bioprocesses in unprecedented ways—a claim demonstrated by Multus, which uses machine learning to optimise media formulations, making their production more efficient and affordable.
Tucker also outlined that, in the longer term, AI could enhance collaboration across sectors, bringing together innovators, regulators, and producers to strengthen the sustainable food ecosystem. In fact, a panel led by Thomas Cresswell of Melt&Marble concluded that the next decade will see AI-driven production processes playing a central role in shaping new protein technologies.
Courtesy: The Future of Protein Production
4) Meeting consumer expectations with personal benefits
There was a strong message throughout the event that consumer interest in alt-proteins centres more on personal benefits than environmental impact. Head of Corporate Social Responsibility at Sodexo Netherlands, Marloes van der Have, explained that in their foodservice facilities consumers are making choices based on financial triggers, not necessarily the environment. “While some may have an ideal view about looking after the environment, when it comes to it, it’s much more about personal benefit – so taste, health, and cost – than the bigger picture of climate impact.”
The emphasis on personal benefit over environmental impact is a valuable insight for industry leaders. Aligning consumer messaging with what truly resonates—taste, health, and cost—could redefine how alternative proteins are marketed, helping the sector grow without losing sight of its ultimate sustainability goals.
5) Tech for taste and texture
While health drives consumer interest in plant-based eating, taste is what seals the deal, according to Catherine Caro, Global Diet & Health Manager at Unilever. This insight is central to development at The Vegetarian Butcher.
Robin Simsa talked about Revo Foods’ 3D Food Structuring Tech, which allows it to produce unique, flaky, and juicy textures, while Dr Lily Nur Sulaiman, Senior Research Scientist at THIS, also shared insights into the company’s mission to deliver nutritious and delicious plant-based food while tackling the common barriers around health and protein quality. THIS uses high-protein ingredients like concentrates and isolates, mixing protein sources to enhance the amino acid score, and its protein extraction processes are designed to improve protein digestibility by removing anti-nutrients.
6) Doing tastings the right way
At some point, all novel food companies will host public tastings (like Vital Meat just did in Singapore). Van Eelen underlined just how important it is to do them the right way – after all, these lay the groundwork for broader consumer acceptance. That is, by avoiding elements that could distract from the product people are there to taste (too much breading, strong herbs, overpowering spices), by allowing people to enjoy food together, as they would in a restaurant, and by honouring the chef in the process. “People believe in chefs, and what they can do. Don’t hide them at the back or make them wait for journalists or a lab tour. Make them the star of the show, and so the food will become the star of the show.”
Courtesy: The Future of Protein Production
7) Shifting the narrative: mindset matters
Some of the speakers and panellists suggested that alt proteins launched with the wrong pitch; there was too much noise about the morals and the environment, when instead the focus should be on the food and potential European sovereignty for novel technology. As Anna Handschuh, Founder and Managing Director at Future Affairs, put it: “Being right doesn’t mean you win.” Instead, understanding “what business you are actually in” and crafting compelling narratives that resonate with consumers to drive the widespread adoption of alternative proteins are important here.
8) Collaboration is key
BlueNalu founder Lou Cooperhouse asked: “What if 1+1=3? Then perhaps 1+1+1 could equal 7 or maybe 9.” Being greater than the sum of our parts was the thread that pulled together the whole conference, and the realisation that, as the industry matures and recalibrates through difficult times, working together will become the rule, not the exception. The sentiment of collective effort resonated across companies and sectors, with partnerships like that between Formo and Those Vegan Cowboys serving as examples of how collaboration and open innovation can accelerate scaling.
This collaboration could even extend to regulatory bodies. Cedric Verstraeten, CEO at revyve, stated that, when it comes to regulations: future of protein production “There is no EU,” describing how the different countries’ attitudes and approaches to novel foods are in no way unified – let alone across the world. Perhaps the industry should advocate for internationally accepted standards and categorisations; after all, a unified approach to approvals could only serve to speed up the process and inspire consumer trust.
Jasper Snoek from Fair Capital Impact Fund provided an investor’s perspective, highlighting how blended financing models can help companies scale in a capital-intensive environment. He stressed the need for building strong coalitions that transcend political divisions to drive real progress in alternative proteins. The message was clear: shared resources and knowledge will be crucial in driving progress.
This theme of collaboration resonated throughout the event, suggesting that the future of protein production might be a collective effort where joint innovation creates exponential growth.
After all, as Those Vegan Cowboys’ Will van den Tweel put it: “It’s impossible for one player to capture what is a $1 trillion dairy market. Together, we are better.”
Time Magazine has recognised a cultivated meat technology as one of the year’s best inventions, alongside lab-grown cotton and an AI platform for functional plant-based ingredients.
As further proof of the technology’s potential for safeguarding the future of the planet and its food supply, cultivated meat has been recognised as one of the top inventions of the year.
Time Magazine’s list of the Best Inventions of 2024 comprises 200 innovations “changing how we live, work, play, and think about what’s possible”, and covers everything from consumer electronics and beauty to food, gaming and medical care.
It’s a tradition that dates back two decades, and is built on nominations from both Time’s editors and correspondents globally. Each contender is judged on factors like originality, efficacy, ambition, and impact.
This year, the list includes Dutch startup Meatable’s cultivated pork technology, Boston-based Galy’s lab-grown cotton, and Californian firm Brightseed’s AI-led Forager platform.
Courtesy: Jo Whaley/Time
Meatable recognised for world’s fastest cultivated meat tech
Meatable was chosen for Time’s Best Invention list because of its proprietary Opti-ox technology, which allows it to produce cultivated meat in just four days, faster than any other company in the space.
Within the industry, it’s common for producers to use immortalised cell lines, but these need to be altered to multiply indefinitely. Meatable’s technology, however, uses pluripotent stem cells (PSCs), which have the natural ability to multiply continuously and rapidly.
While it can be challenging to change PSCs into more specialised cells like muscle or fat, combining them with the Opti-ox technology enables the Dutch startup to produce fully differentiated muscle and fat cells in just four days. This is then combined with a perfusion process that allows Meatable to work in a continuous cycle and generate very high cell densities, increasing productivity and making it easier to scale up the process.
“We’re deeply honoured to be recognised by Time for our Opti-ox technology, which we believe is at the forefront of the cultivated meat revolution,” said Daan Luining, co-founder and chief innovation officer of Meatable.
Courtesy: Meatable
“With our planet’s resources under increasing pressure and demand for meat only growing, it’s evident that our current food system is unsustainable,” he added. “This acknowledgement from TIME is a tremendous validation of our approach, and of our incredible team working day and night to make this happen.”
Meatable is currently working with regulators in six countries to get its cultivated pork approved for sale, with authorisation in Singapore expected in the first quarter of 2025, as CEO Jeff Tripician revealed to Green Queen last month.
The startup is aiming to raise a Series C round around the $35M mark to add to the $95M it has secured from investors since it was founded six years ago. It will host a large tasting event in Singapore next February with investors, the company’s board and meat companies interested in incorporating the cultivated pork in their products.
“I see us moving with pretty good speed through 2025,” Tripician said, indicating that Meatable would use its Singapore application to file dossiers in countries that largely follow the same process. “At the end, I would be very disappointed in our team if we don’t have approval in five, six countries by this time or the end of next year,” he added.
Lab-grown cotton and plant-based compounds join Time’s Best Inventions list
Courtesy: Galy
Meatable wasn’t the only cellular agriculture company present on the Time Best Inventions of 2024 list. Galy may not be working on food, but it’s using a similar technique to grow bioidentical cotton, minus the huge amount of water, chemicals, or deforestation.
Galy takes cotton cells and cultivates them in large bioreactors by feeding them sugar. Once they’ve proliferated to the required volumes, it selectively activates and deactivates genes in the cells, transforming them into cotton fibre. The process is 10 times faster and 500 times more productive than conventional cotton farming, uses 99% less water, takes up 97% less land, and emits 77% less CO2.
“Cellular agriculture offers the best way to address environmental challenges at scale while producing a material with the same characteristics as traditional cotton,” Galy co-founder Luciano Bueno told Time. “With all due respect to agriculture, we believe we can produce the same thing in a lab facility, better.”
The startup recently secured $33M in a Series B round led by Bill Gates’s Breakthrough Energy Ventures, taking its total raised to $65M. It hasn’t been commercialised yet, but it counts H&M Group and Inditex (the parent company of Zara, Bershka, Stradivarius and more) as investors, and has secured agreements with several industry leaders, including health and pharma giant Suzuran Medical.
Courtesy: Brightseed
Another company working in the realm of future food is Brightseed, which was recognised by Time for its proprietary AI platform Forager. This helps it discover bioactive compounds found within plants to deliver health ingredients for functional food, beverages, supplements and specialised nutrition companies.
Brightseed, which closed a $68M Series B round in 2022, has assembled the largest library of natural mall molecule compounds anywhere in the world (with over seven million already), linking them to potential health benefits and allowing food companies – like Danone and Blue Diamond – to understand their bioactives and optimise their products accordingly.
“This recognition from TIME is a tremendous honour,” said Brightseed co-founder and CEO Jim Flatt. “Forager marks a significant technical breakthrough, enhancing our ability to explore nature for insights and ingredients that transform our diet into targeted tools for health and longevity. Together with our customers and partners, we look forward to delivering a new class of powerful and sustainable health innovations for consumers worldwide.”
This isn’t the first instance of Time recognising alternative protein and future food companies in its Best Innovations list. Since 2020, Impossible Foods‘s pork analogue, Perfect Day’s precision-fermented whey protein, Upside Foods and Good Meat‘s cultivated chicken products, and MeliBio‘s bee-free honey tech have all appeared on the list.
Research efforts for alternative proteins like plant-based and cultivated meat received €290M in funding last year, just as the number of studies on the topic proliferated.
The only way for alternative proteins to reach the mainstream is through advancing research into ingredients, technologies, and consumer needs.
So it’s an encouraging sign that 2023 saw record sums of money (€290M) granted to researchers in Europe exploring plant-based, cultivated, and fermentation-derived proteins.
Additionally, over a quarter (26%) of all alternative protein research published in Europe came out in 2023, totalling 472. Since 2010, the UK has produced the most amount of research on future food, publishing 255 papers, followed by Germany (243) and the Netherlands (199).
This is based on analysis by the Good Food Institute (GFI) Europe, which suggested that the findings signpost the region’s massive potential, but also underline that the field remains in its infancy and at risk of being held back due to a lack of international collaboration, an inconsistent approach to funding, and key technical areas being overlooked.
How research funding for alternative protein was distributed
Courtesy: GFI Europe
Within Europe, the EU collectively pumped in €252M for future food research, half of which was invested in 2023 and early 2024, chiefly from its Horizon Europe programme.
But when it came to individual countries, Denmark led the way with €96M, spearheading the Nordic nations’ leadership with alternative proteins. Collectively, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland invested a fifth of Europe’s total.
The UK was second on the list, with €90M invested in research, thanks to the establishment of a network of research hubs by state agency UK Research and Innovation.
Plant-based protein studies commanded the most funding (39%), followed by cross-cutting research that featured a combination of alternative protein pillars (31%). Meanwhile, 21% of these funds went into fermentation, and a tenth were dedicated solely to cultivated meat.
Meat was the most popular target end product for these publications, being the focus of 65% of research investments in 2023. Dairy was next with 16%, while seafood research projects received 8% of the share. That said, governments and funding institutions are increasingly embracing cultivated meat research, and public investments into fermentation are expected to surpass €100M for the first time this year.
The Netherlands topped in the cultivated meat segment with €67M invested, strengthening its foothold as a cultivated meat leader in Europe. It became the first EU country to approve and host public tastings for these proteins. Finland, meanwhile, put the most money into fermentation research (€54M).
Some of the headline commitments include the €38M set aside for alternative proteins in Germany’s federal budget, the European Innovation Council’s €50M investment for precision-fermented and algae-based foods, and the Dutch government’s €60M commitment for a cellular agriculture ecosystem.
With more major investments expected in the second half of this year – like the €27M invested in Bezos Earth Fund‘s Center for Sustainable Protein in London – 2024 is on track to equal or even surpass 2023’s record as the highest investment year, making it five straight years of increasing research funding.
European research urged to ramp up international collaboration
Courtesy: GFI Europe
The outlook for the alternative protein publishing system is much the same, with plant-based proteins the focus of 64% of publications in 2023. Unlike the funding environment, cross-pillar research publications were low (8%), trumped by cultivated meat (13%) and fermentation (16%).
But European researchers working on alternative proteins have been collaborating internationally to a much lower degree than the continent’s average, with only 39% of studies co-authored by colleagues from outside Europe, versus the 56% average for the EU and 64% for the UK.
GFI Europe highlights the potential for these researchers to have a global impact, since existing papers have accumulated thousands of citations in 144 countries, particularly India, the US and China.
Meanwhile, research into cultivated and fermentation-derived proteins remains underdeveloped, with the number of papers fluctuating and even falling in certain years. Studies into the technical advancements needed to commercialise alternative proteins also only scratch the surface, with many key areas – like designing fermenters for cultivated meat scale-up, reducing downstream processing costs for precision fermentation, and developing functional ingredients for plant-based meat – remaining underfunded.
While this highlights the nascency of these fields, GFI Europe argues that these technology areas should be prioritised in future investment, with new mechanisms that enable greater collaboration to solve the major challenges of cellular agriculture.
The report also suggests that the research community is “quite fragmented” and needs to achieve a higher degree of integration and cohesion, underlining the need for greater support to stimulate and sustain cross-border, interdisciplinary research.
At the same time, regional disparity is a challenge for this sector, with considerable differences found in the research output and career opportunities in different European countries. “Governments in underrepresented countries should explore mechanisms through which they can stimulate greater research activity in alternative proteins to capitalise on the follow-on economic benefits of innovation,” the report reads.
“This report puts Europe’s alternative protein research under the microscope, finding a rapidly growing field offering exciting opportunities – but also an inconsistent approach to funding and an urgent need to build a more coherent network,” said Stella Child, research and grants manager at GFI Europe.
She added: “To capitalise on this growing expertise and make sure innovations developed by European scientists can be commercialised here, governments and funding bodies must create more opportunities for alternative protein scientists to collaborate and provide dedicated funding to boost research in overlooked areas.”
Americans should eat less red meat and more plant-based protein, according to scientists advising the US government on its upcoming update of dietary guidelines.
If you follow the EAT-Lancet Commission’s Planetary Health Diet, you’d know that you should limit your consumption of beef, pork and lamb to 11 lbs a year. If you can’t give up red meat, that’s the maximum amount it recommends you eat to protect the health of both yourself and the planet we live on.
But in the US, people consume 107 lbs of red meat every year, according to USDA projections, which is an amount nearly 10 times higher than Planetary Health Diet suggests.
This is a problem for several reasons. When it comes to pollution from food production, beef is as bad as it gets. There’s also not enough land or water to feed a global population that would be approaching 10 billion by 2050. And red meat, contrary to what many advocates claim, does more bad for you than good, with links to cardiovascular disease, obesity, type 2 diabetes, cancer, and other diseases.
It’s why the EAT-Lancet Commission is urging people to reduce red meat intake by 90% and follow a primarily plant-based diet. It’s also why more and more countries are adopting similar measures in their national dietary guidelines.
The US is hoping to do the same. Scientific experts drafting recommendations to the government for the next national dietary guidelines are calling for a shift away from red meat and a greater emphasis on plant proteins.
But this has already sparked furore from meat producers and meat-eating consumers, setting the stage for an intense tussle over the final guidelines, which are due to be unveiled late next year.
Draft US dietary guidelines promote plant proteins over meat
Graphic by Green Queen
The US revises its dietary guidelines every five years, with the forthcoming update covering the 2025-30 period. While they don’t necessarily have a heavy influence on how individual Americans eat, they do have important implications for school lunches, the food companies make, and public health efforts.
So far, the guidelines have recommended limiting saturated fat – which is present in high volumes in steak, burgers and processed meat – but have kept away from the red meat debate.
That may be changing now. In the seventh and final meeting of the 20-person Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, experts have drafted recommendations to cut back on red and processed meat, both of which have been classed as carcinogenic by the World Health Organization.
The scientists are instead calling for a shift to a more plant-forward way of eating, as the Wall Street Journal reports, with an emphasis on vegetables, fruits, legumes, whole grains, nuts, fish and seafood, low- and non-fat dairy, and unsaturated fats.
The committee has also proposed changes to the protein food group in an effort to deprioritise meat. This would see peas, beans and lentils move from the vegetable to the protein category, and be listed above meat, poultry, eggs and seafood to “align with evidence to encourage plant sources of protein foods”. Soy products, nuts and seeds would also be listed above animal proteins.
The suggestions were supported by a majority of the experts, and nobody said the existing guidelines should be preserved. Angela Odoms-Young, vice-chair of the committee, also said beans, peas, and lentils should be a separate category, a proposal backed by several committee members.
“Behaviorally, I think there is sort of a branding crisis when it comes to protein – thinking automatically meat,” Deirdre Tobias, an assistant professor at Harvard University’s Department of Nutrition and a committee member, said during the meeting. “And if there are more plant sources of proteins in the protein category that could help overcome that, you know, mislabeling or misnomer or misinformation by having it more prominently.”
She added: “I also think that that’s where we would probably offer more flexibility – where we would have an increase in plant-based. That’s going to be increasing beans, peas, and lentils at the expense of some of those other meat products, right? Not so much to displace vegetables that are in the vegetable category.”
Recommendations met with backlash, but are much-needed
Courtesy: National Institutes of Health
The draft recommendations were met with immediate and fierce backlash from members of the meat industry. Ethan Lane, VP of government affairs at the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, called the committee meeting “one of the most out-of-touch, impractical, and elitist conversations in the history of this process”. “We would laugh at the suggestion that beans, peas, and lentils are going to replace lean red meat and fill all the nutrient gaps Americans are facing if it weren’t such a dangerous and deceptive idea,” he added.
And it’s not just industry stakeholders. Some Americans seem to be angry too. “They can have my red meat when they pry it from my cold dead fingers dripping in medium rare hamburger juice,” wrote one reader on the Wall Street Journal’s comments section.
“This ‘recommendation’ is coming from those who want to control you. Just one more facet in their plan. Control the food. Control the currency (digital). Control the news. We need to put a complete stop on ‘dietary recommendations’,” wrote another. “Cows are not destroying our environment – the mono-crops are. Wake up.”
The problem is, cows are most definitely destroying the environment. As mentioned above, beef is the most carbon-intensive food on the planet, and lamb and mutton aren’t too far behind. Within the US, too, red meat is responsible for a third of total greenhouse gas emissions from the food system.
But it’s no surprise that some people believe beef is not bad for the planet. Polling shows that 40% of Americans don’t think consuming less red meat would help lower emissions, while a separate survey found that 74% of Americans don’t link meat-eating with climate change. And a survey by Gallup has revealed that the number of vegans in the US has reached a 10-year-low.
Courtesy: Nutrients
Despite three-quarters of US consumers finding plant proteins healthy, compared to 39% who think the same for animal protein, the number of people who reported eating more red meat rose from 13% in 2020 to 19% in 2022. Likewise, fewer Americans are reducing their red meat intake too.
This may be because 59% of them believe eating meat is just part of “the American way of life”, according to a 2021 poll found. But experts have repeatedly implored the nation to cut back on these highly polluting foods. However, with just 12% of Americans responsible for half of the country’s meat consumption, certain groups – like men and those on the carnivore diet – would need to take much more drastic action than others.
The dietary guidelines committee has received nearly 10,000 comments during this process, the most it has ever been subject to. Its report still needs to be finalised before being sent to the US Department of Agriculture and Department of Health and Human Services, which is expected in December.
Following that, the public will have 60 days to submit comments, and the agencies will take everything into consideration and release the official guidelines by the end of 2025. It’s no guarantee that these proposals will be taken up by the government – in the 2020 edition, the committee recommended significant cuts to added sugar and alcohol limits, but the policymakers rejected these proposals.
But an endorsement of plant proteins would be a major climate and public health win for the US, building on the momentum set by several European countries that have revised national dietary recommendations to skew towards plant-based food, including Germany, Austria, and Norway.
Finnish vegan company Oddlygood, a spin-off of dairy giant Valio, has acquired British plant-based milk brand Rude Health.
One of the UK’s most well-known brands in the vegan space, Rude Health, has been bought by Oddlygood, the Finnish plant-based food company majority-owned by dairy leader Valio.
The terms of the transaction – which was two years in the making – were undisclosed, but Rude Health was valued at £70M ($91M) when it sold a 10% stake to PepsiCo in 2020. And in the year to March 2024, it reported a revenue of £23.8M/$31M (a 25% hike), with pre-tax profit jumping from £8,000 ($10,400) to £101,000 ($131,300).
Founders Camilla and Nick Barnard are expected to make a seven-figure sum from the sale, having owned just over 50% of the business before the deal.
The acquisition will not affect Rude Health’s 30-strong workforce in the short term, and the team will continue to operate from the UK and be led by CEO Tim Smith. Camilla, meanwhile, will work for Oddlygrood as a brand consultant two days a month, according to the Times.
“The Rude Health brand has grown beyond anything I could imagine to become a household name. Now is the right time to find a partner who can help take it to the next stage of success and Oddlygood shares so many values and the ambition to make this possible,” she said.
“Rude Health is one of the biggest success stories in British plant-based food. It’s nothing less than impressive the way the team has grown its product range alongside such a distinctive and well-thought-of brand to deliver commercial success,” added Oddlygood CEO Niko Vuorenmaa.
Courtesy: Rude Health
Oddlygood strengthens UK foothold with Rude Health deal
Rude Health was founded nearly two decades ago with just over £4,000 in cash, and has grown into one of the UK’s leading plant-based brands. It has a wide range of plant-based milk products, alongside cereal and snack ranges, that can be found in all major UK retailers and in over 40 countries. The company also runs a café in London, and is on course to deliver €33M ($35.7M) in revenue in 2024-25.
Its new parent company, meanwhile, has been around since 2018, spinning off from Valio three years later with a range of oat-based dairy alternatives, including milks, cheeses and yoghurts. Oddlygood has since expanded to countries across Europe, and is expecting a turnover close to €50M ($54M) this year.
It launched its desserts in the UK in June 2023, followed by a rollout of its plant-based milks earlier this year. The takeover of Rude Health comes just a year after Oddlygood acquired fellow Nordic dairy-free brand Planti, and is a marker of the business’s expansion strategy.
“Our ambition is to become one of the leading plant-based companies in the UK and Europe and this acquisition will help accelerate this, but key to its success is the strong alignment between Rude Health and Oddlygood,” said Vuorenmaa.
That can be seen in both companies’ commitment to sustainability. Oddlygood’s oat milks, for example, use all of the oat flour, meaning that nothing is filtered out after being combined with water and other ingredients, minimising waste at its factories. Rude Health, meanwhile, is among the top three food and drink B Corp brands in the UK, with a score of 120.7 (from a maximum of 250).
Rude Health will continue to manufacture its products and look to use the R&D facilities owned by Valio, while the deal will help Oddlygood establish a UK base and support its expansion plans.
“Joining forces with Oddlygood opens up new opportunities for growth and innovation, and our shared missions around taste, quality and the crucial role of plant-based food and drink make this a natural fit,” said Smith. “We’re looking forward to working together and leveraging our strengths and making the healthy choice a celebration (not a sacrifice) for our customers. It’s an exciting new chapter for the brand and the team.”
Courtesy: Rude Health
Plant-based milk sales recovering in the UK
The transaction is the latest in a growing list of mergers and acquisitions in the plant-based (and the wider food) sector. The number of M&A deals in the food and drink industry grew by a third in Q2 this year, compared to the same period in 2023.
In the last three months alone, UK snacking brand Deliciously Ella was sold to Hero Group, tofu maker The Tofoo Co was acquired by Comitis Capital, Swedish mycoprotein startup Mycorena was taken over by Naplasol after filing for bankruptcy, Nuggs was purchased by Ahimsa Companies, the Aussie Plant Based Co was bought by Smart Foods a week after entering liquidation.
“In the context of flat or declining category demand, consolidation, and M&As are vital for rapid growth in the plant-based sector. These strategies allow companies to scale, innovate, and navigate through resilience challenges more effectively,” Matthew Glover, co-founder of holding company Vegan Food Group (which has acquired three plant-based brands in the last 18 months) told Green Queen in February.
“Both Oddlygood and Rude Health have complementary portfolios, target audiences and capabilities which will enable us to grow the business,” Vuorenmaa says of this latest M&A deal. “What we’ve achieved with Oddlygood in such little time is down to the expertise and passion of our team. We’ll focus the same attention and care to Rude Health and look forward to collaborating with their team.”
Courtesy: GFI Europe
Milk alternatives are the most popular plant-based category in the UK, accounting for 43% of its market share last year and consumed by 35% of households across the country, according to Circana data crunched by the Good Food Institute (GFI) Europe.
But the sales value of these products flatlined (up by only 0.8%) in 2023, driven by a 9% rise in costs since January 2022. It means plant-based milk is 67% more expensive than dairy on average. Meanwhile, both unit and volume sales of milk alternatives dropped by 9% last year. However, this decline may be levelling off, with weekly unit sales falling by only 1.4% in early 2024.
“Our analysis finds that lower prices and higher quality can power the growth of these more sustainable options, so policymakers and manufacturers should continue to invest in innovation and infrastructure to develop tastier, more affordable products capable of building a diversified, resilient and healthy European food system,” Helen Breewood, research and resource manager at GFI Europe, said last week.
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 Beyond Meat’s European exploits, a big week for plant-based milk in the US, and cultivated seafood’s national TV debut in Japan.
New products and launches
Plant-based giant Beyond Meat has partnered with foodservice operator SSP Group to bring the Beyond Burger to UK airports and train stations. It is available at 13 locations, including The Camden Bar & Kitchen at London Stansted and Brigg & Stow at Bristol Airport, and will be rolled out at another six in December.
Courtesy: Beyond Meat/SSP
Beyond Meat is also delivering on its promised expansion in Germany, expanding from freezers into the chilled aisles of Edeka, which now stocks burgers, hack (mince), sausages, and more.
Speaking of Bristol, local favourite VeBurger is opening a second location on Whiteladies Road in Clifton. It will give away 100 free vegan burgers on day one.
Across the Atlantic, Slutty Vegan‘s location in Birmingham, Atlanta is reopening months after it was temporarily shut, but this time under new ownership. Company founder Pinky Cole has gifted the restaurant to its former general manager Reatta Hall, a local resident who has been at the company for three years.
London-based Grounded has brought its clean-label plant protein milkshakes to the US, with Whole Foods Market carrying its chocolate and mint-chocolate variants in 150 stores across both coasts.
Courtesy: Rebbl
In more milkshake news, Californian functional beverage maker Rebbl has launched a line of vegan protein shakes with 26g of protein per bottle. They are powered by EverPro, an upcycled barley protein developed by AB InBev’s EverGrain, and come in chocolate, vanilla, and cookies and creme flavours.
Californian juicer manufacturer Nama has unveiled its M1 Plant-Based Milk Maker, which can produce “barista-quality milk” in under two minutes, alongside infused oils, soups and flavoured waters. It’s available in North America for $400.
Courtesy: Nama
On the opposite coast, New York-based Edenesque has introduced its debut line of “chef-crafted” milk alternatives, featuring unsweetened and barista oat milks, and a barista pistachio-cashew milk.
Also in New York, Elmhurst 1925 has released a limited-edition OatNog for the holiday season, made from a base of oats and cashews.
Courtesy: Silk
Another US alt-dairy launch comes from Danone-owned Silk, which has rolled out an oat milk for kids aged five and over with 8g of protein per serving, alongside DHA omega-3, choline, and prebiotics.
In Italy, vegan cheesemakerDreamfarm has expanded its lineup with a new almond and cashew ricotta, which is currently available exclusively at Esselunga ahead of an EU-wide launch.
Courtesy: Dreamfarm
And Australian firm Pectin 360 has teamed up with The Original Juice Company to transform food waste into pectin and fibre. The two will set up a pilot plant with an undisclosed research and commercialisation entity, with the aim of saving over 10,000 tonnes of citrus peels and apple pomace waste annually.
Company and finance updates
In Canada, Modern Plant-Based Foods has acquired vegan pet food startup AnimalKind, marking its expansion beyond human food products.
Courtesy: AnimalKind
French firm C&DAC has brought in €1.6M ($1.7M) from Yeast, ILP Group, and Alsace Business Angels to speed up the development of its fermented legume-based flour for the plant-based industry.
Polish food waste platform Foodsi, which allows restaurants and stores to sell discounted surplus food, has raised €1.2M ($1.3M) in a seed extension, taking its round’s total value to €2.5M ($2.7M).
US biomanufacturing firm Liberation Labs has secured a $3.5M investment to support the ongoing construction of its large-scale precision fermentation facility in Richmond, Indiana. It comes ahead of its Series A round, which is expected to close at $37.5M.
Courtesy: Liberation Labs
Also in the precision fermentation realm, Chicago’s Hydrosome Labs – whose H2O technology can double yields and decrease production time by up to 25% – has bagged $3.7M to scale up operations to improve nutrient uptake in skincare and provide enhanced hydration in performance drinks.
German dairy giant Hochland, which has been around for almost 100 years, has joined Food Fermentation Europe, a coalition of companies aiming to advance regulatory approvals of novel fermentation-derived proteins.
In sadder news, molecular farming startup Tiamat Sciences has announced that it ceased operations a few months ago, a decision it attributed to “financial constraints”. As of last year, it had raised $5M in total funding.
Courtesy: Meatable/Green Queen
Dutch cultivated pork startup Meatable, Chilean biotech firm Sticta Biologicals, and the University of Chile‘s Center for Mathematical Modeling have been awarded a research grant by the Good Food Institute to develop a precise and genome-scale metabolic model of porcine cells.
Finnish state investor Business Finland has granted €10M ($10.8M) in R&D funding to FoodID and FinBioFAB for projects to create alternative proteins and materials, which have been accepted into the Global Centers research programme led by the US National Science Foundation. Participating collaborators include Onego Bio, Enifer, Fazer, MeEat, and others.
The US Department of Agriculture has announced $1.5B in grants for 92 partnership projects to advance nature conservation and climate-smart agriculture, as part of the Inflation Reduction Act and the Farm Bill.
Courtesy: Melbourne City FC
Hong Kong-based alt-dairy giant Vitasoy has agreed to be a shirt sponsor for A-League club Melbourne City FC. The brand’s logo will appear on the men’s team’s training shirt and shorts for the 2024-25 season, alongside LED signage at AAMI Park.
Alternative protein advocacy group ProVeg International has opened an outpost in Brazil, its first office in South America. It comes months after it set up an office in Portugal.
Policy and research developments
New York startup Pureture, which has been working on a vegan casein alternative, has developed a yeast-based protein with a complete amino acid profile to match the muscle recovery and growth attributes of casein and whey.
Courtesy: Pureture
The China National Center for Food Safety Risk Assessment has released new safety assessment materials for GMOs used in food processing trials, a regulatory step that can help commercialise precision-fermented foods in the country.
Further progress for precision fermentation comes from the Netherlands, whose House of Representatives has voted in favour of allowing public tastings of foods made from this technology. The agriculture ministry will now consult with stakeholders on the motion’s contents.
Courtesy:
Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry
Researchers in the US have created a prototype of cultivated pork grown on a new scaffold: kafirin proteins isolated from red sorghum grain.
The City of West Hollywood, California has unanimously voted to endorse the Plant Based Treaty, calling on the federal administration and other national governments to negotiate a Global Plant Based Treaty.
Courtesy: Oato
PETA UK has announced the winners of its Vegan Food Awards 2024, with La Fauxmagerie, Oato, Strong Roots, One Planet Pizza, and Lurpak among those receiving honours.
Yelp, meanwhile, has published its list of the best 100 vegan restaurants in the US, based on user reviews. Lil’ Vegerie in Redondo Beach, California bagged the top spot.
Courtesy: Yelp
Finally, cultivated seafood has made it to Japanese TV, with actor Keita Machidaexplaining the concept on featuring on an episode of Manga Artist Ienaga’s Complex Society Redefined.
US food tech startup Chunk Foods is rolling out its whole-cut vegan steak products at independent retailers, before a wider launch in 2025.
Chunk Foods, which makes plant-based steak products that replicate the whole muscle structure of beef, is making its retail debut in the US.
It is introducing four cuts of its vegan steak that lean into consumer demand for high-protein and clean-label options, containing eight ingredients (plus fortifications) and up to 37g of protein per serving.
“We are focusing on local and independent grocers in Los Angeles and New York City as part of our initial retail strategy,” founder and CEO Amos Golan tells Green Queen.
“These retailers align with our goal of engaging with communities that are passionate about high-quality, plant-based options. E-commerce will follow in late November, with plans to expand to national retailers in 2025.”
Asked what supermarkets could stock the steak SKUs next year, he says: “We are currently in discussions with Whole Foods, Sprouts, Wegmans, HEB, and several other national retailers.”
Appealing to consumers with high-protein, clean-label meat analogues
Courtesy: Chunk Foods
Golan founded the startup in 2020, targeting what many have described as the “holy grail” of meat analogues: whole-muscle cuts.
Chunk Foods’s USP lies in its solid-state fermentation tech, through which it creates its cultured soy protein base for the steaks (made from defatted soy flour, soy protein isolate, and wheat gluten.
The startup took a foodservice-first approach for its initial launch, appearing on the menus of New York establishments like Coletta, Anixi, The Butcher’s Daughter, Leonardo DiCaprio-backed chain Neat, and Pastrami Queen.
It has also established a partnership with the Florida-based restaurant group Talk of the Town, having launched into Charley’s Steak House in Orlando last year. Last December, it headlined a culinary experience at Art Basel Miami Beach, as part of a Philly cheesesteak.
Chunk Steak is in Philadelphia too, appearing in a short rib ragu at Monster Vegan. And it has an ongoing partnership with popular fast-food chain Slutty Vegan and its sister establishment Bar Vegan.
These collaborations have proved to be a testament to the whole-cut steak’s pedigree, which won the Plant Based Meat Product of the Year honour at the 2023 AgTech Breakthrough Awards.
Among the products being launched in retail are 4oz fillets ($8.99 for a two-pack) and a pulled format ($7.99 per 8oz pack), both of which contain 25g of protein per serving. There’s also a steakhouse cut ($9.99 per 6oz), which delivers a whopping 37g of protein, and a 10oz slab with 31g of protein ($12.99).
The prices of these products are on the higher side, at a time when inflation continues to squeeze consumer budgets and price becomes an increasingly important purchase driver.
“We are confident in our value proposition,” says Golan. “While price is undoubtedly a critical factor for consumers today, we believe that offering delicious, whole-cut plant-based alternatives that deliver on taste and texture will resonate with shoppers seeking quality and convenience in their food choices.”
He adds: “We’ve been mindful in positioning our pricing to remain competitive within the plant-based category and traditional beef products.”
Chunk Foods enters a stagnating retail market for meat alternatives
Courtesy: Chunk Foods
Chunk Foods’s move into retail comes during a sustained decline in sales of meat analogues. In 2023, these products suffered from a 12% drop in revenue compared to the year before. And this year, too, sales were down by 9% in the year ending July 2024.
So for any meat alternative brand to enter the grocery sector right now is a bit of a risk. “Despite the broader market challenges, there is still strong demand for high-quality, healthy, and delicious plant-based products,” argues Golan.
“We’ve received significant interest from consumers and retailers alike, which has been a driving factor in our decision to enter the retail space,” he adds. “Our clean-label, high-protein whole-cuts offer a unique edge in the market, and we believe the timing is right to bring something new and exciting to the retail landscape.”
Asked how companies in the space can turn things around, he believes delivering on consumers’ expectations for taste, texture and nutrition is critical. The industry needs to focus on making plant-based foods more approachable and satisfying, and that’s exactly what we’re doing at Chunk Foods,” he suggests.
“Continued education about nutritious plant-based options, clearer product differentiation, and better storytelling about the benefits of our clean label products will help reinvigorate the category.”
Last year, Chunk Foods completed the construction of what it says is one of the world’s largest factories of its kind. It has also teamed up with plant protein company Better Balance to create new whole-cut meat analogues for the Mexican market.
And to date, it has raised $24M in funding (including a $7.5M round earlier this year). Golan confirms that the business is well-capitalised for now, so it isn’t actively fundraising. “Over the next year, we’re focused on our retail expansion,” he says of the company’s immediate plans. (It is also working on pork, lamb and poultry alternatives.)
“Additionally, we’ll continue to grow our presence in foodservice, with new partnerships and menu innovations,” he continues. “There’s also a lot of excitement around an e-commerce partnership, which will launch by late November, allowing us to reach more consumers directly.”
In a detailed opinion, the EU Commission has rejected the evidence provided by Hungary to justify banning cultivated meat, alongside a number of other member states.
At the EU’s Agriculture and Fisheries (Agrifish) Council meeting in July, the Hungarian presidency called for efforts to “protect” Europe’s culinary traditions from novel foods like cultivated meat. It was a move welcomed by Italy and Austria, which (along with France) led a similar effort at the council’s January meeting.
Essentially, what Hungary was proposing was a ban on cultivated meat, which Italy had become the first country to introduce last year. France and Romania have floated similar proposals in their parliament too.
But in a detailed opinion published by the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm has opposed these legislative attempts, throwing doubt on Hungary and other countries’ proposed restrictions, as well as Italy’s ban.
Commenting specifically on the Hungarian proposal, the EU Commission noted that all novel foods are subject to the European Food Safety Authority’s (EFSA) pre-market authorisation process. If approved, the product is placed on the EU-wide novel food list. But since no cultivated meat company has received the greenlight in the region so far – the first application was filed in July by France’s Gourmey – a ban is “unnecessary”.
“The prohibition to market it results from Union law and applies to all the Union territory,” the Commission stated.
“The scientific assessment to be performed by EFSA within the procedure for the authorisation of novel foods is aimed to ensure that foods to be placed on the EU market are safe and do not present risk for human health,” it added.
“A ban is therefore unjustified, since it could pre-empt the harmonised authorisation procedure for novel foods at EU level, which includes a scientific assessment by EFSA.”
EU Commission opinion puts cultivated meat bans in jeopardy
Courtesy: Mosa Meat
The EU Commission’s comment was in response to a Technical Regulations Information System (TRIS) notification submitted by Hungary – this is a procedure aimed at preventing the creation of barriers to the free movement of goods among member states.
“In addition to the protection of human health and the environment, the sustainable production of agriculture and the preservation of the traditional rural way of life justify the introduction of regulation,” the TRIS notification read, suggesting that it is unclear how the safety of cellular agriculture can be guaranteed (although that is exactly what the EFSA does).
“Traditional livestock-based meat production is of paramount importance for the future of the domestic food economy, in particular the sustainability of food production and the retaining power of the countryside,” it continued. “Increased production of laboratory-grown meat can have an adverse impact on the agricultural sector and rural living conditions as a whole.”
Italy had already sparked some controversy with its TRIS notifications earlier. The process allows fellow member states to give their opinion on bills that can hinder the EU free market, before it is approved by the country. Italy withdrew its first note attempting to ban cultivated meat, knowing it would have been rejected by the bloc.
But it still went ahead and banned cultivated meat anyway – potentially unlawfully – before presenting a second TRIS notification, which the EU closed because the law was already in place.
To avoid this mess, Hungary did not implement the ban before the Commission and member states got a chance to voice their opinions.
“The Hungarian proposal clashes with the principles of European law, just as would have happened with the Italian law if it had complied with the TRIS procedure,” explained Francesca Gallelli, public affairs consultant at the Good Food Institute Europe. “Both bans are unfounded, as they are not based on scientific evidence, especially considering that cultivated meat is not yet available to European consumers.”
She added: “The Italian law is also potentially unenforceable since it was notified to the European Union after being approved, in violation of the TRIS procedure.”
Across the Atlantic, a host of states in the US are attempting to restrict cultivated meat too, including Arizona, Illinois, Kentucky, Nebraska, Iowa, Michigan, New York, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Two states – Florida and Alabama – have already banned it.
Member states step up in favour of cultivated meat
Courtesy: Meatable/Green Queen
Hungary’s explanation for the attempted ban wasn’t just rejected by the EU Commission’s assessment of the TRIS notification, but also by several member states.
Sweden noted that the reasons justifying the move to ban cultivated meat because it’s harmful to human health were “unacceptable”, highlighting that Hungary hasn’t provided any risk evaluations or demonstrated that these products might threaten human or planetary health.
The Czech Republic also disagreed with the proposal, citing the obstacles to the EU free market and outlining its support for the “development of innovations in food technologies, including laboratory-grown meat”. It stressed the need to “respect the existing EU legal framework”.
Another country against the ban was Lithuania, which posted a detailed opinion that also underscored the potential of alternative proteins. The country pointed out how the global population will peak by 2080 and demand much higher amounts of protein. “The development of the alternative protein industry will generate new, high value-added jobs and promote the integration of businesses into international value chains and the export of high value-added food products,” it said.
Lithuania’s response added: “Given that countries such as the US, Israel, and Singapore already allow the sale of these products, it is important that the EU remains competitive in the development of these technologies and dictates the conditions for regulation and standards globally.”
Finally, the Netherlands – a cultivated meat leader in Europe – expressed doubt that an “absolute ban” is proportionate to any issues presented by these proteins, and believed that the policy objective can be achieved in “an alternative, less far-reaching way, without introducing a ban on a product that has not yet been placed on the market”.
It presented another case against the ban: cultivated meat can economically benefit farmers. “The possibility of in-vitro meat production on a farm has been investigated and found feasible, and in the Netherlands, livestock farmers have already come forward who want to investigate how this production can be achieved on their farm,” it said.
“Stimulating this development can therefore also ensure the preservation of the agricultural sector and make it futureproof, thus providing an alternative way to achieve the Hungarian goals.”
Hungary now has until mid-January 2025 to respond to the issues raised. The EU Commission has also warned that if the country doesn’t comply with the obligations or goes ahead with the ban without taking these objections into account, it could take the matter to the European Court of Justice.
Despite the industry’s headwinds, retail sales of plant-based food in six major European markets increased by 5.5%, and lower prices can help bring a windfall for companies in this space.
There have been a few too many doomsday-like headlines about the plant-based world in recent months, adding to a divisive narrative that the industry’s best days were behind it.
The reality is, in the US, all but four categories in the vegan sector saw sales plummet last year. And in Europe, retail sales of meat and dairy analogues collectively increased in 2023 compared to the previous year.
This is according to analysis of previously unpublished Circana data by the Good Food Institute (GFI) Europe, which found that in are athe six largest European economies – Germany, the UK, France, Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands – the sales value of plant-based food rose by 5.5% in 2023, reaching €5.4B. At the same time, the volume of sales measured by weight also grew by 3.5%.
“Europe’s plant-based sector has continued to make headway despite a difficult few years for the wider food industry,” said Helen Breewood, research and resource manager at GFI Europe.
“Plant-based meat and dairy are becoming mainstream options in many European countries, emerging plant-based categories are growing, and some products are beginning to compete with their animal-based counterparts on price.”
Here are our five major takeaways from GFI Europe’s analysis of vegan food sales in Europe.
Alt-milk remains king
Courtesy: GFI Europe
Like the rest of the world, plant-based milk has remained the largest category in Europe, accounting for 41% of all sales in 2023. This was facilitated by a 7% hike in sales value, reaching €2.2B. Unit sales also grew by 4.7%, and product volumes were up by 5.2%.
Germany is the largest plant-based milk market, netting €805M in sales value (a 37% share). This is explained by the shrinking price gap between milk alternatives and conventional dairy, which was down from 35% in 2021 to just 3% in 2023. If the VAT on the former (19%) was the same as the latter (7%), price parity would have already been achieved.
Meat analogues are second on the list with a 37% share of Europe’s vegan sales. Between 2022 and 2023, the sales value of these products was up by 3.2%, reaching €2B, while units were steady and volumes declined.
Germany retains top spot for plant-based
Courtesy: GFI Europe
The land of bratwurst was already the largest in Europe, and it continued to dominate, taking up 40% of the market (€2.2B) among the countries analysed.
Despite being the most profitable nation for plant-based milk producers, Germany bucks the continental trend by selling more meat analogues than alt-dairy. This is because it is also the largest market for meat-free products, accounting for nearly half (46%) of all sales.
The number of households these products are reaching is also rising steadily, if gradually – plant-based milk penetrated 37.4% of households last year (versus 33.8% in 2021), and milk alternatives were bought by 36.5% (up from 36.3% two years prior).
The UK is next on the list in terms of market size, with sales reaching €942M. It was followed by France (€648M), Italy (€641M), Netherlands (€452M) and Spain (€309M).
Where sales declined, the slump may be over
Courtesy: GFI Europe
In only two markets did plant-based products perform worse in 2023 than the year before: the UK and the Netherlands. The former saw sales decline by 2.8% (with a larger 10% drop in volume), while in the latter, volume sales were down by 5%, with units dipping by 1%.
However, there are signs that this slowdown started to level off in 2023 and the early months of this year. For starters, the sales value of plant-based products in the Netherlands actually grew by 1%, and volumes have shown a slight rebound after two years of decline.
In the UK, weekly unit sales of meat analogues fell by 7% in early 2024, compared to a 12% decrease last year. And plant-based milk experienced a 1% decline in unit sales per week this year, versus 9% in 2023. And just this week, discount retailer Lidl announced it is tripling its own-label plant-based offering after seeing demand grow by 12% last year.
Europeans love non-dairy cheese and cream
Retail sales of vegan cheese in Europe from 2022-23 | Courtesy: GFI Europe
Two categories that shone last year were cream and cheese alternatives. Vegan cheese, taking up 3.6% of the total share, was the fastest-growing product in Spain, France and Italy, and plant-based cream (comprising 2.6% of the market) experienced the quickest growth in Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK.
The latter made 24% more money in 2023, representing the highest sales hike of any category, albeit being a much smaller category than vegan milk, meat, and yoghurt.
On the other hand, plant-based desserts (-3%), non-dairy ice cream (-8%), and vegan ready meals (-10% in France, Germany and the UK) have witnessed drop-offs, which GFI Europe ascribed to cost-of-living pressures that led shoppers to cut back on non-essential and convenience items.
Price parity is priceless
Courtesy: GFI Europe
A major finding of the analysis was that with certain products and in certain markets, the price gap between animal proteins and their vegan versions has closed – and this has been associated with better sales.
For example, branded dairy-free creams are cheaper than their conventional counterparts in Germany and the UK, spurring a 23% sales hike in the latter. In fact, private-label plant-based milk costs an average of €1.12 per litre, 13% cheaper than own-label dairy milk (€1.30).
Likewise, higher prices mean middling sales. With volume sales of plant-based meat down, manufacturers need to develop products that meet consumer expectations on both taste and price.
So finding ways to lower prices is key to the success of plant-based meat and dairy in Europe. “Our analysis finds that lower prices and higher quality can power the growth of these more sustainable options, so policymakers and manufacturers should continue to invest in innovation and infrastructure to develop tastier, more affordable products capable of building a diversified, resilient and healthy European food system,” said Breewood.
Americans are attracted to meat analogues mainly for their health benefits, but to overcome the sales slump, plant-based companies must offer better-tasting and cheaper products.
The health halo created by meat producers is fluttering. People are now actively moving away from animal proteins as they realise the burdens they put on the human body – after all, red and processed meat have been labelled carcinogens by the WHO, adding to their contribution to heart disease, diabetes and obesity risks.
Plant-based meat, of course, provides a viable alternative. And in the last year, there has been a notable shift in this industry’s marketing playbook. Climate change, the reason why most companies say they exist, is no longer the top message anymore. Now, it’s health first.
And this is an intentional effort. For Americans, health is now the top reason to shift from animal proteins to plant-based analogues. Despite their sales dwindling over the last couple of years, consumers remain interested in vegan meat products because they believe they are better for their personal health and don’t pose disease risks.
That said, there remains a large gap in purchase drivers and barriers – some households have decreased their consumption of plant-based meat due to their taste or texture and higher prices.
This is according to a new study by Kroger, the Plant Based Foods Institute (PBFI), and 84.51°, which revealed that flexitarians are gradually reducing their spending on animal proteins for the fourth year in a row. The Plant-Based Migration Analysis analysed the behaviour of over seven million US households in 2022-23 and carried out a survey this year to provide a blueprint for retailers to expand their vegan offering and drive the category’s growth.
“Despite economic challenges in the past few years, we continue to see that shoppers have remained engaged and interested in plant-based foods,” said Linette Kwon, data and consumer insights analyst at the Plant Based Foods Association, the site organisation of PBFI.
Health attitudes mirror plant-based brand messaging
The research revealed that 48% of US shoppers think plant-based foods are healthier than animal proteins and 45% want to eat less meat and dairy due to personal health concerns, the latter sentiment representing a 7% rise since 2023. Meanwhile, 29% of Americans are also concerned about the presence of antibiotics and hormones in conventional meat.
Three in 10 respondents say they’re enthused by the greater availability of plant-based products, and their climate credentials. And 28% want to eat fewer animal proteins because of their rising costs – beef prices reached record highs last month. In fact, the number of consumers concerned about the price of meat has grown by 9% since last year.
On the other hand, a third of Americans (32%) have been buying fewer plant-based products because they don’t like how they taste, highlighting a key hurdle for manufacturers in the space. The same percentage of people moving away from animal proteins due to high costs are deterred from plant-based options for budgetary reasons (28%), a 12% rise from 2023.
While only 14% dislike the nutritional profile, 23% feel there are fewer vegan products in-store, and 16% were dismayed by the decreased amount of convenience options like ready meals. Meanwhile, 19% have trouble finding them in the store.
“Making plant-based foods more affordable, improving the taste/texture, offering greater variety and providing more nutritional benefits would make them more likely to purchase plant-based foods,” the report says.
“It’s not necessarily that sustainability has become less important, but we have to meet our consumers where they are. Health is a major driver when it comes to purchasing plant-based food,” Sherene Jagla, chief demand officer at Impossible Foods, told Green Queen this week. “It’s important that we’re educating consumers about the nutritional value of our products so they can understand how it might fit into their lifestyles.”
Sales are still down, and improvements are crucial
In line with sales data, milk alternatives seem to be the most popular plant-based product. More than a third (37%) of Americans are drinking more alt-milk now, and in place of dairy. Around a quarter are doing the same with frozen meat analogues (26%), refrigerated vegan meat, yoghurt, and frozen meals (24% each).
The share is slightly lower for vegan cheese (18%)- it has jumped by 7% from last year. “Shoppers who are increasing their spend on plant-based milk, cheese, and fresh meat are actively decreasing their spend in corresponding animal-based categories,” the report states. “This indicates their dedication to making a switch to more plant-based foods.”
Julie Emmett, VP of marketplace development at PBFA, said the research showcases evidence of a protein transition for a variety of reasons: “Retailers can use this extensive research to develop merchandising and marketing strategies for long-term growth.”
In Europe, this shift is already in motion. Lidl and Ahold Delhaize are aiming to become the first supermarket groups to set sales goals in line with their climate ambitions by setting ‘protein split’ targets, which involve increasing the share of plant-based food sales while decreasing animal protein sales. The WWF last week published a methodology for retailers to measure protein sales, urging them to make 74% of all food sold plant-based.
The PBFI report recommends manufacturers and retailers optimise pricing and promotion strategies to make plant-based foods more affordable to a wider group of consumers and improve the taste and texture of products while offering unique items and cleaner labels.
They also write that making vegan food easy to find in-store and online is critical, and can be helped by digital and in-store signage. In addition, the report says companies should provide recipe inspiration and education about the health benefits of these products to pique consumer interest.
These measures are important when you consider the continued struggles of plant-based meat, whose sales fell by 12% in 2023, according to SPINS data crunched by the Good Food Institute. This decline has not been stemmed, with meat alternatives down by 9% in the year ending July, per Circana. And since 2020, the number of alt-meat brands has shrunk by 28%, from 116 to 83.
Prices of vegan meat and seafood also swelled by 9% in 2023, compared to 3% for their conventional counterparts – this meant there was a 77% price premium on the former. But consumers haven’t permanently turned away from these products. Cutting prices will attract more of them back, as was evidenced by Lidl’s trial in the Netherlands.
“As the challenges of price and findability improve, we believe different plant-based categories will have many more opportunities to better reach shoppers,” said Kwon.
Meatable’s Jeff Tripician on his journey from meat industry veteran to cultivated meat CEO, why these proteins should be more expensive, the company’s upcoming Series C round, and its global regulatory plans.
“It’s just a very practical conversation,” says Jeff Tripician. The current demand for eight billion people is taxing the food system. You have rising emissions, alarming rates of soil degradation, a huge amount of freshwater used to feed and grow animals that we eat.
“What do you do 25 years from now, when [the demand for meat] is 70% bigger, there are two billion more people, and developing countries eating more?” he asks. “Hell, that’s why I joined this.”
The ‘this’ Tripician is referring to is Meatable, the Dutch startup making cultivated meat. He joined as CEO in May, taking over from co-founder Krijn de Nood (who remains on the board). His appointment was a marker of the company’s plans to expand in the US, leveraging his decades-long experience as a meat industry executive.
“I was part of the meat industry. I’ve run these companies, and I don’t have an answer to that question,” Tripician, who has worked at Perdue Farms and Grass Fed Foods, tells me. “I don’t know if cultivated meat is the perfect answer, [but] I know that it has huge positives.”
It can do in 12 days what takes a pig eight months, or a cow two to three years. There’s minimal waste, a fraction of the land and water use, and a dramatic reduction in emissions. “It does a lot of things, and it does it at once, at scale, and at a price that’s reasonable,” suggests Tripician.
“In our case, the taste is so close to conventional pork that if you use it as an ingredient, like a sausage, or in a taco, burrito, or meatball, you cannot tell the difference. Because it’s real meat, it comes from real pig cells.
“So you sit there. You go: ‘If this isn’t the answer, I would like to know what is.’ And you hear nothing. The meat industry goes: ‘Well, we’ve already invested in all of this, so we’ll just continue to push.’ If they’re successful, they further stress the planet. If they’re unsuccessful, they don’t have enough meat to feed the planet. Which is worse?”
Cultivated meat appeals to tech-savvy Gen Z
Courtesy: Meatable/Green Queen
Tripician the company has had a “big change” in approach: “The role of Meatable is to help meat companies gain access to more meat. We’re a supplier to them. We show them the technology. We transfer the technology so they can do what they do. They take raw material – meat – they turn it into food, and they sell it. We now provide them with some of the meat. Very simple.”
Meatable conducted a survey of 500 chefs in the US, 60% of whom said they’d put its cultivated pork on the menu, alongside the message and the brand name. It then polled thousands of consumers – while older ones were more apprehensive, younger Americans were excited.
In Tripician’s mind, there are two ways meat companies (this includes plant-based) can cater to the growing protein demand. The first involves combining a plant-based product – which “just doesn’t taste as good” – with a percentage of cultivated cells. This hybrid route is what’s currently being taken by most cultivated meat startups right now.
The problem here is that “there’s a younger consumer that says food is supposed to do more than provide calories and nutrition”. Indeed, taste is the most important purchase driver for nearly three-quarters of Gen Zers in the US.
That’s where the second approach comes in. “You take your conventional product, add in some Meatable, and now some of that is helping make it a better place. I think that’s a route that would work, and it’s cost-effective at that size.”
He points out how younger Americans are holding sustainability dearer than perhaps older generations do. Their purchasing power is massive, and they’re not afraid to switch to a different brand if it doesn’t meet their ethical needs.
“So if the meat industry wants to help itself, they should say: ‘I’ll put some of those things on the shelf with my name on it, not Meatable’s name, and have those consumers go: ‘Great!’” says Tripician.
“We saw it with plant-based,” he adds. “People tried it, didn’t really buy it again, it fell off dramatically. That’s fixed simply with a taste. Change the taste, change the texture. We tested that at about a 25-30% blend. For an average person, you could not tell the difference between that and a 100% pork product.”
‘I won’t tell billion-dollar meat companies what to do’
Courtesy: Meatable
Meatable has been using similar rations for its tastings. The company held two events in Singapore last year, and one at its Leiden headquarters in the Netherlands in April – this was the first on EU soil.
“We try to keep investors and government agencies and so on, just give them a chance [to try], because they can’t go buy it yet. Really, Singapore is the only place that’s embraced it – we do regular tastings there,” says Tripician.
“It brings the media into the discussion and parties that can influence positive outcomes. It was really well received. We continue to do them in other places, with other people… What we’re talking about at the end of it is: this is food, how do you feel about it?”
Meatable has a large tasting event coming up in February with investors, the board and meat companies that are interested in trying to figure out how to feed 10 billion people by 2050 with fewer resources at hand.
As for how much cultivated meat clients want to add to their product, Meatable leaves it up to them. The startup can show them different recipes, whether that’s a mix with pea or soy protein, or even a vegetable patty with butternut squash, carrots and mushrooms. “You can blend other things in here that have high nutritional value, no sugar added, all kinds of health benefits.”
“It’s really up to the business, meat company, grocery store, restaurant,” says Tripician. “So if you’re a meat company – Impossible, Cargill, JBS, whoever it is – and you go: ‘You run plants, you bring in livestock, you harvest, you fabricate, you turn it into food, put it in cold storage, put on a truck, you sell to restaurants and grocery stores.’
“All we’re going to do is say: ‘We’ll give you the technology, so you can have the equipment in your plant to make cultivated meat.’”
Tripician doesn’t want to change what meat producers do. “I’m not going to tell a $15B company how to make their product. I’m going to say: ‘I can get you raw material at a competitive price in 12 days, guaranteed, regardless of whether, regardless of feed prices, regardless of pandemics or diseases like avian or swine flu, regardless of all of that hailstorm, none of that matters.”
He continues: “When they go to their customers, they would be able to say: ‘Look, you seem like a progressive chef. You’ve got the younger people, they’re all on their iPhones… Do you think a product like this would make sense?’”
Meatable looks to collaborate with fellow cultivated meat producers
Courtesy: Meatable/Green Queen
One of the defining features of Meatable’s business is its production process, which was recently updated to halve the manufacturing time to just four days. This is made by its Opti-ox technology, which allows it to make products by isolating a single animal cell, without the need for fetal bovine serum.
The process uses pluripotent stem cells (PSCs), which – unlike immortalised cell lines that need to be altered to multiply indefinitely – have the natural ability to continue multiplying, and do so rapidly. This is coupled with a perfusion process that allows the startup to work in a continuous cycle to generate very high cell densities and produce fully differentiated muscle and fat cells faster than any competitor.
The company moved to its Leiden facility in November 2023, which houses 200-litre bioreactors (with the potential of expanding to 500 litres). It has also partnered with Singapore’s ESCO Aster, the world’s first approved contract manufacturing facility for cultivated meat, and plant protein manufacturer Love Handle.
But scaling up to meat industry levels is an immense challenge that has troubled even the most well-capitalised companies in the space. Tripician, for his part, doesn’t want to own a pilot plant. “We’re going to go to people that are our colleagues, and we’re going to say to them: ‘You figured this out. Why don’t we work together?’” he says.
Meatable is reaching out to cultivated meat pioneers in Australia, Europe, the UK and elsewhere to collaborate. “I want to use their pilot plant. I want to use the things they know, so that when we figure it out, we obviously benefit. And so do they. There’s more than enough demand for a bunch of us to be successful.
“Because – this isn’t going to shock anybody – what happens if, five years from now, the technology changes and the equipment’s different, you have to redo all the equipment. I don’t own any equipment. I don’t want to own any equipment.”
Cultivated meat ‘should not be at price parity’
Courtesy: Meatable
One key advantage of scaling up is that it will bring costs down, which is critical if cultivated meat is to reach the masses one day. The sector has managed to lower costs by 99% in the last decade, but McKinsey suggests it will take at least until 2030 for these proteins to reach price parity with meat.
Tripician, however, doesn’t believe cultivated meat should cost the same as its industrially farmed counterpart. “I think it should be a little bit of a premium,” he says. “As an industry steward, if it gets to parity, then farmers and ranchers are at risk, because it would be the same price, and I want them to be at a little bit lower, so that their businesses are always strong.”
He adds: “And if you’re going to ask a meat company to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in plants and facilities, they better make a little bit more money.”
But where does that leave the consumer? Tripician points out that between 6-23% of the dairy, produce, egg and bakery industries are made of premium-priced items. “These are 100-billion-dollar industries just in the US. If those can be that penetrated, then you would think the same premium on meat would be equally effective.”
He puts it in the same bracket as organic meat, which can be 70-75% higher than commodity meat. “It’s more, but it’s an amount people pay for,” he feels, forecasting such prices for cultivated meat in the next two to three years. “After that, it will come down more, a slow glide down.”
Targeting a Series C raise in the $30M ballpark
Courtesy: GFI
To date, Meatable has raised $95M from investors, and that’s excluding grants like the €7.6M pumped in by the Netherlands Enterprise Agency under its Innovation Credit programme last month. But the company is now working on a “modest” Series C raise, which would close at around the $350 mark (similar to its Series B round last year).
It’s part of the startup’s asset-light approach – it’s not building a plant, and it’s not competing with the rest of the industry in terms of production, distribution, sales, and the like. Lately, investors have cooled on cultivated meat – as they have on the wider food tech sector – though the downward spiral may be ending.
“They hate the asset-heavy thing,” Tripician says of venture capitalists. “They’ve lost a lot of money, or think they’re going to lose a lot of money in that. Because it’ll be very, very difficult for a pilot plant in cultivated meat to ever make money… We’re not pursuing that.
Meatable has enough runway for around 18 months, but the Series C would buy the company more time. “We’re fine, but I want to have more than fine, and I think that’s smart to say to an investor,” its CEO says.
“Look, if you believe we’re on the right path and the science and the IP and all that’s there, and our business model is going to be successful, can you invest an amount that will get us through this time?” he says when asked what his pitch to investors would be. “I know the meat companies will be buying licenses from us, building plants, and entering the marketplace over the next five years.”
He reveals that the business is doing a “soft launch” for existing investors, who might satisfy the capital requirements. But the round would be open from January 2025, with the aim of closing it by the end of spring.
Meatable expects regulatory approval in multiple countries next year
Courtesy: Meatable
Each of Meatable’s seven business hubs services the countries around it. For example, its Asian base is in Singapore, the first country to approve cultivated meat, and one that is currently evaluating Meatable’s application too.
“We’ve got meat companies there that know there’s regulatory approval, or there will be, within 12 to 18 months,” says Tripician. “That’s where it’s going to gain traction, and then we’ll follow.”
He adds: “I flew out and sat with the Singapore Food Agency. Their thinking – this is an American saying this – far exceeds ours as far as coordination between ministries of government, the Economic Development Board… and the private industry [goes]… Now, they also have a different background. We are not food insecure – they are. The US doesn’t have that pressure, and [Singapore] is a small country, but the coordination was truly impressive.
“They’re helping with staff. They’re helping open doors, and that’s the model. If countries go: ‘Our water is a problem, our soil is a problem’ – maybe it’s not food insecurity, you have other issues – then you should be facilitating solutions, not rejecting.”
Tripician reveals that Meatable is currently filing dossiers in six countries. “The Singapore regulatory approval process is largely welcomed. Several other countries out in Asia look to Singapore and say: ‘Well, we pretty much follow that.’ It’s not 100%, it’s not guaranteed, but it’s very alike,” he says.
“So we’re perfecting it with Singapore, and then we’re just taking it and saying to the other countries: ‘Here’s what we have. What do you need to see that’s a little different?’” he adds. “Some of them are saying nothing. Others are going: ‘Well, we could use a little more data here or a little more information there,’ and we go: ‘Absolutely.’”
Once the Singapore approval comes through – which Tripician expects by Q1 2025 (“we’re just a little short on the explanation, not the science” – Meatable will use that to get authorisation in a host of other countries. The UK’s Food Standards Agency has announced its intention to use a framework for international cooperation for novel food approvals too, a partnership likely to include Singapore.
“I see us moving with pretty good speed through 2025,” predicts Tripician. “At the end, I would be very disappointed in our team if we don’t have approval in five, six countries by this time or the end of next year.”
The EU is ‘leading with science, not a fear of change’
Courtesy: Meatable
What about things closer to home? So far, the EU has only received one application – from France’s Gourmey – thanks to the make-up of its existing novel food regulation. The complexity and timelines have led homegrown startups (like Meatable) to look internationally for launch plans.
“Countries and areas have their own hurdles, the things they care about, and it’s up to companies to navigate that. It’s not up to [EU members] to change their mind,” says Tripician. “We’ve been working with them in a way that we’re leading with science, not the fear of change.”
He believes the EU is taking a “very methodical” approach to the regulation of cultivated meat and other novel foods, and is now questioning the barriers it previously put up.
“If the product is safe, and you have bigger problems – climate change, feeding your people, soil, use of land – do you really want to use all of that land to raise feed? Or do you want to convert it to feeding people?,” asks Tripician. “Those are internal conversations, but they’ve been very supportive.”
Cultivated meat bans ‘anger’ Meatable CEO
Courtesy: Ron DeSantis/Twitter
As for Tripician’s own home country, a wave of states have been attempting to restrict this industry – Florida and Alabama have already banned cultivated meat”, with the former currently facing a lawsuit for the decision. “As an American, it angers me,” Tripician says.
“They don’t have a better idea, but they’re going to shut this down,” he adds. State politicians are suggesting that cultivated meat could be bad for farmers and ranchers. “That’s just un-American. We’re supposed to pick what we want, as long as it’s safe, not supposed to have someone tell us what to do.”
He appeals to state governors, calling them “smart people” who are “trying to do the right thing”. “I would ask them the same question we started with: if you don’t like cultivated meat for whatever reason – probably political, because farmers and ranchers vote – what’s your answer for five, 10, 15, 20, 25 years from now?” he wonders.
“We already have 10% of the global population going to bed hungry every single night. What’s that number going to be? Is it going to be your kids, your grandkids, your nephews, your nieces, your neighbours? What’s your answer?”
He adds: “I think if you’re not part of the solution, my god, please don’t be part of the problem. Just get out of the way. Let the FDA and USDA do their job. They’re really good at it. If it’s a problem, they’ll stop it.”
Drawing on his experience as a “meat guy”, he believes that farmers won’t be hurt by the success of cultivated meat as an industry. “Farmers and ranchers are the best stewards of the land. Nobody cares more about the quality of the land than them and the livestock they treat with respect. They don’t want to do anything bad to them, but if they’re running out of meat, then everyone’s going to push them for more,” he says.
Cultivated meat can take some of that pressure off. The livestock farmers and producers wouldn’t be impacted negatively if cultivated meat grew at a reasonable rate – one that they decide, based on how much they want to include in their formulations.
“The meat companies then could say: ‘Now I have enough meat, I can feed the people, and that meat doesn’t destroy soil, water or air. It doesn’t do the harm,’” says Tripician. “How does that puzzle not fit together?”
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 a new oat milk dessert brand, Next Level Burger’s holiday feast, and price parity for plant-based milk.
New products and launches
Discount retailer Aldi has introduced its largest vegan Christmas range in the UK, including a plant-based version of its footlong pig in blanket, a sprouted gratin, a nut roast, a brie and butternut wellington, and a dairy-free cheese board.
Courtesy: Aldi UK
Fish-free seafood maker Aqua Cultured Foods has landed on the menu of Chicago eatery Mama Delia, owned by Michelin-starred chef Marcos Campos Sanchez. The dish, called Atún Crudo, features the vegan raw tuna topped with a fried egg and potato strings.
If you’re after oat milk desserts, Kaiser is a new brand by Canadian oat farmer Nathan Kaiser. The company has introduced a bunch of ice cream tubs and bars, all but one of which are vegan. They’re available at select grocers in Quebec and will enter the Greater Toronto Area later this year, before a national rollout in 2025.
Courtesy: Kaiser
Oatly has signed a multi-year deal with UK café chain Black Sheep Coffee, which will serve its barista oat milk as the default dairy alternative across its 100 stores.
Mushroom meat maker Myco has struck a deal with Brakes, the UK’s largest wholesaler, to supply burgers, sausages and mince – made from vertically farmed oyster mushrooms – to the latter’s 20,000+ clients.
Courtesy: Myco
And vegan fast-casual chain Next Level Burger and its subsidiary Veggie Grill have introduced a take-home Holiday Feast menu, which features its Holiday Harvest wellington and five sides. Each $130 set feeds four to six people and requires a 72-hour notice, with the option to add dessert.
Company and financial updates
Swiss cultivated meat startup Sallea, which has created edible scaffolds for manufacturers to produce whole-cut meat and seafood from animal cells, has raised $2.6M in a funding round led by Founderful.
Courtesy: Sallea
London-based New Wave Biotech has won the €20,000 EIT Food Accelerator Network Tech Validation Award to validate its technology with research organisation CPI. It has created an AI-powered software to help precision fermentation companies optimise their downstream processing.
Fellow UK company Vegan Food Group has sold the Weisbaum production facility it acquired in the takeover of Tofutown earlier this year to another German tofu producer, New Originals Company. It will allow the firm to focus on scaling up at its larger plant in Lüneburg.
Courtesy: Vegan Food Group
At British meat-free brand Gosh Foods, sales decreased by 7% in 2023, mostly from declines in Europe, with pre-tax losses widening from £1.3M to £3M.
Meanwhile, Framptons, another UK plant-based company, has reported a profit of £1M for the financial year ending April 2024, overturning a £3.7M loss from the previous year. It comes after its acquisition by German investment firm Profura. The manufacturer launched the Wessex Oat Company in July.
Courtesy: Framptons
Dutch crop solutions provider AgroSpheres has closed a $37M Series B round to scale up its AgriCell technology, which protects active ingredients in pesticides from environmental pressures, and bring its biopesticides to market.
Also in the Netherlands, Qorium, led by Mosa Meat founder and cultivated meat pioneer Mark Post, has produced a 35x35cm sample of cultivated leather using a newly scaled-up tissue bioreactor.
Courtesy: Qorium
Massachusetts continues to invest in the future of food, awarding $2.1M to the Tufts University Center for Cellular Agriculture to establish the Foodtech Engineering for Alternative Sustainable Technologies (FEAST) centre, which will advance cultivated meat R&D.
Agricultural giant Royal Cosun has invested $3.5M in Planetary to scale up the development of cost-effective ingredients derived from fermentation, convert the former’s feedstock into mycoprotein ingredients, and create new applications for plant-based food.
Policy, research and awards
The Vegan Society’s VEG 1 Baby & Toddler supplement, a liquid multivitamin for children aged six months to four years, has won a three-star rating in the supplement category of the 2024 Nourish Awards.
Courtesy: The Vegan Society
In the Netherlands, plant-based milk is almost at price parity at Lidl (where dairy is only six cents cheaper) and Aldi (a 16-cent difference), according to research by animal rights organisation Wakker Dier.
Japanese researchers have conducted a life-cycle assessment of IntegriCulture’s serum-free, food-grade culture media for cultivated meat, revealing that electricity, animal inputs and single-use items like “lab consumables” were the main emissions hotspots.
Courtesy: Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology
Finally, is our brain chemistry to blame for the climate crisis? That’s the perspective of a new white paper, which suggests that humans are hardwired to desire status (which translates to material wealth and consumption), and dopamine continually craves greater rewards.
Plant-based meat pioneer Impossible Foods has launched a Health Hub to battle misinformation about the industry, and has attained a new health certification for its Lite Beef.
In recent months, Peter McGuinness has been very vocal about one thing: the climate argument for plant-based food just doesn’t fly with consumers right now.
These events led fellow Californian company Beyond Meat, one of Impossible Foods’s chief rivals, to lean all into health – it revamped its products and recipes to be more nutritionally sound, shook up the packaging to put health attributes front and centre, and backed it with a marketing campaign and cookbook. It now poses itself as a “health company”.
Impossible Foods, for its own part, refreshed its brand identity and product packaging earlier this year too, bringing taste and health descriptors to the fore. These efforts underscore the shifting needs of the American consumer: the flavour and nutrition of food, alongside price, are now the biggest drivers of consumption.
The number of Americans who think plant-based meat is better for their health is the same as those who don’t, and for six in 10 people, health is the biggest motivator for them to eat more vegan meat.
Now, Impossible Foods is doubling down against criticisms levelled by the meat industry and its interest groups – that plant-based meat is ultra-processed and therefore bad for you – with a new Health Hub.
Diving deep into myth-busting
“We have to meet our consumers where they are, and health is one of the top reasons why they choose plant-based,” McGuinness said in a statement. “It’s important that we as an industry are educating consumers on the many benefits of plant-based meat and how it can fit into everyday life.”
The Health Hub, housed on its website, is designed to better educate consumers about the nutritional benefits of plant-based meat via a centralised virtual resource.
It features detailed nutritional information about every ingredient used in its products, alongside side-by-side comparisons with conventional beef, chicken and sausages, and deep-dives from Impossible Foods’s health and nutrition team on subjects like soy and fibre.
The company explains how, for example, cultured dextrose stops food from spoiling and is also found in dairy products and pork sausages, why it chooses to use coconut and sunflower oils, what its signature heme ingredient does, and how methylcellulose – commonly used in ice creams, sauces, baked goods, etc. – holds its meats together.
Addressing the ultra-processed question, Impossible Foods provides some important context. “Almost everything we eat is processed in some way,” it points out. “For example: blending, mixing, cooking, or baking are all “processes” that change a food from its raw, natural state. Our products are made by mixing carefully selected ingredients derived from plants or by fermentation, to create something unique and delicious.”
The Health Hub also features a section dedicated to debunking myths about plant-based products. This includes claims like “you should only eat foods with ingredients that you can pronounce” (a response to an infamous attack ad against Impossible Foods a few years ago), “processed foods lack nutrition”, and “eating soy is going to give me man boobs”.
One criticism it tackles is the sodium content – Impossible Beef has nearly five times as much sodium as conventional 80/20 beef mince. But, the company points out, “raw animal meat is naturally low in sodium”, which is why “animal meat is usually salted when cooking”. And even then, the Impossible Beef makes up only 16% of the daily recommended sodium intake by the USDA.
Impossible Foods gets new health certification for Lite Beef
In addition to the launch of the Health Hub, Impossible Foods’s Lite Beef – an alternative to 90/10 lean beef – has satisfied the guidelines set by the American Diabetes Association’s Better Choices for Life programme.
The announcement, made at the HLTH 2024 event in Las Vegas today and a week ahead of Diabetes Awareness Month, follows the product’s ‘heart-healthy’ certification by the American Heart Association (AHA) a year ago. The two accreditations speak to two leading diseases in the US – heart disease is the leading cause of death, while diabetes affects nearly 12% of the population.
“Working with trusted organizations like the American Diabetes Association and the American Heart Association helps us clearly demonstrate how products like Impossible Lite Beef are healthy options for people who want to find easy ways to make better choices,” said McGuinness.
To further highlight the health benefits of its products, the Impossible Foods Health Hub features five new recipes certified by the AHA’s Heart-Check initiative. These include BBQ pineapple and chimchurri-avocado burgers, a southwest taco salad, a miso beef soba bowl, and sheet pan meatballs – all using the Lite Ground Beef.
To solidify the nutritional claims, the Health Hub contains insights from several nutritionists who serve on the company’s health and nutrition council. “So many people struggle to figure out how to eat more plant-based foods because learning to cook new meals and overhauling your plate can feel intimidating. Impossible meat makes it easy to gain momentum and add diversity to your diet while enjoying the foods you already know and love,” said Kaytee Hadley, a functional medicine dietitian.
“We don’t believe in a single dietary regimen for health. Rather, we promote diets that prioritise nutrient density, a variety of foods from the different food groups, and the enjoyment of a good meal,” the company says.
“That’s why we strive to formulate our products specifically to be delicious, versatile, and full of key nutrients, all while imposing a far lower environmental impact compared with meat from animals. But we don’t just want to replace meat from animals, we want to make it better.”
Californian startups Friends & Family Pet Food Company and Novel Farms are co-developing cultivated meat for pets, and are already engaging with regulators.
Friends & Family Pet Food Company, the newly launched startup focused on alternative pet food, has announced a second collaboration to produce cultivated meat for cats and dogs.
The Berkeley startup is collaborating with Oakland-based cultivated meat producer Novel Farms, which has a range of cell lines to make products like quail, chicken, pork and mouse meat. It complements Friends & Family’s partnership with Singapore’s Umami Bioworks to create cultivated seafood for cats, which was announced in July.
Friends & Family and Novel Foods are in the testing and prototyping stages right now to determine which meats they want to focus on, but have earmarked a 2025 launch for the product line, co-founder and CEO Joshua Errett tells Green Queen.
The target market is the San Francisco Bay Area, and to reach these consumers and their pets, Friends & Family has begun engaging with the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM), which regulates animal feed ingredients and pet food in the US.
“Just like all food, pet food is a meat-focused industry that could use some innovation,” says Errett. “Our collaboration-heavy, asset-light approach has the potential to change pet food forever.”
He adds: “Novel Farms is a great partner for us as they check all the boxes. We will work together to make customised pet nutrition for cats and dogs.”
A business model built on tech and collaboration
Friends & Family CEO Joshua Errett with Novel Farms CEO Michelle Lu | Courtesy: Friends & Family Pet Food Company
Errett, who has years of experience in cultivated meat and alternative pet food, established the startup last year with pet industry veteran and COO Jonny Cruz, and veterinarian and chief science officer Sarah Dodd.
The company has developed a proprietary pet food platform with freeze-drying technology to help cultivated meat producers get to market. “Our model is to partner with talented scientists, research facilities and bioscience companies that are creating cultivated ingredients,” explains Errett.
“We especially look for ingredients that are sought-after by pet food consumers. The ingredients and technology also have to be scalable – we want to build an iconic pet brand, and to do that, we need commercial-scale ingredients. And we create a path to market for these ingredients.”
The partnership with Novel Farms is the second among several others in the works, and will see its cultivated animal ingredients be incorporated into Friends & Family’s “shelf-ready foods” for dogs and cats.
“My vision is that Friends & Family is the masterbrand, and each product line we create will have its own branded identity,” outlines Errett. “Think of it like a house-of-brands strategy. This will allow us to showcase these amazing ingredients individually, and tailor each ingredient for a specific category of pet food.”
He adds: “For instance, we can make food for puppies, and cultivate the meat in that product line to have higher calcium, more protein, more phosphorus and other nutrients that puppies need.”
Michelle Lu, founder and CEO of Novel Farms, says: “Cultivated pet food makes perfect sense as an entry point for getting cultivated products to market. As Novel Farms prepares for our own market entry in the next year, pet food is a high-impact strategic target for us.”
Cultivated meat firms must make consumers the focal point
A prototype of the cultivated fish treats being developed by Friends & Family and Umami Bioworks | Courtesy: Friends & Family Pet Food Co.
Errett says Friends & Family’s pet food platform can help extend the ingredient, lower the cost and enhance the nutrition of the final product: “Part of our mission is to bring cultivated meat and fish to the consumer; to prove there’s demand. We can only do that if the cost is reasonable to the average pet food consumer.”
The resulting pet food will likely not be 100% cultivated meat – instead, it would be mixed with plant-based ingredients to create hybrid meat, which is the path most cultivated meat producers for humans have also taken. “We’ll aim for the highest inclusion rate we can,” says Errett.
He previously revealed that the cultivated seafood being developed with Umami Bioworks will have up to 10% fish cells upon launch, with an aim to get to 25-30% eventually. Asked how that partnership is going, Errett praised Umami Bioworks’s team as “true visionaries in not only cultivated technology, but in food”. “Things are moving along with that partnership,” he says, hinting at an update soon.
Umami Bioworks has also been in touch with the CVM with Friends & Family Pet Food, with the startups previously indicating a launch for Q1 2025.
Friends & Family is the applicant for the pet food being created with Novel Farms. “Each time we go through the regulatory process, our next application becomes stronger,” says Errett. “That’s stronger in terms of what data we need, but also the relationship we’re building with our contacts at the CVM.”
While politicians in several US states are attempting to restrict cultivated meat – Florida and Alabama have already banned it – the USDA and the FDA have both found these products to be safe, leading to the launch of Upside Foods‘s and Good Meat‘s chicken products. But consumers (and investors) remain on the fence: a global survey found that a third of pet owners are willing to try cultivated meat themselves, but nearly half would feed it to their furry friends.
“Cultivated meat and seafood companies will only be successful if they can create products that consumers love. Not simply one-to-one replacements for what’s currently out there, but products that provide true value to the end customer,” says Errett.
“I believe this is something every cultivated meat and seafood company needs to think about – even if you are B2B, somewhere along the line there will always be a C: the consumer. And you have to understand what that consumer wants. That’s why we are working closely with all our bioscience partners, to customise cultivated meat and seafood nutrition to bring the most value possible to pets.”
French cultivated chicken startup Vital Meat showcased its ingredient in a public tasting in Singapore, where it expects regulatory approval “very soon”.
With a market launch on the horizon, Vital Meat organised a cultivated meat event in a Singapore restaurant to give consumers a taste of its future-friendly ingredient.
The Nantes-based startup teamed up with Hue, a modern Thai eatery owned by chef Neo Jun Hao, for the tasting, which featured three dishes championing Singaporean culture.
“Hue will be one of our launch partners, and we’re currently in discussions with several other restaurants and food players,” Vital Meat CEO Etienne Duthoit told Green Queen.
It marks the “first step” towards the company’s commercial launch, having filed a regulatory dossier to the Singapore Food Agency in November 2023. “The regulatory process in Singapore has been moving smoothly, and we’re confident in its progress,” Duthoit noted. “We remain hopeful for approval by the end of the year.”
The company’s regulatory expert Claude Rescan added: “We are going through the questions and answers process with scientific experts from SFA and so far, the discussion is very smooth and is going well.”
Cultivated chicken dishes impress diners
Courtesy: Vital Meat
Vital Meat uses pharmaceutical technology to turn cells from fertilised chicken eggs into a cultivated meat ingredient, which it will supply to manufacturers and restaurants to combine with plant-based ingredients for hybrid meat.
For the tasting at Hue, Jun Hao curated three dishes to celebrate local flavours and palates. Diners were treated to cultivated chicken skin chips, a golden, crispy snack; handmade ravioli filled with Vital Meat chicken and Singaporean spices, served in a cultivated chicken broth; and cultivated chicken rice, a national favourite.
“Our ingredient comes in the form of a paste that can be used as it is or processed according to the final recipe,” Vital Meat CEO Etienne Duthoit told Green Queen. “For example, chef Jun Hao, who developed the recipes for our tasting event, prepared a powder from our product and used it to reinforce his broth”He also prepared a batter to create the famous chicken skin.”
He added: “Chef Jun Hao enjoyed working with our product due to its amazing taste and versatility which allows it to be processed in a variety of ways to suit different recipes.”
The ingredient was blended with standard ingredients in each dish. “In the espuma dish, it was mixed with potato and milk, while for the chicken rice, it was combined with rice, garlic, ginger, salt, sesame oil and other spices essential to Singaporean cuisine,” said Duthoit.
“Our ingredient stands on its own in terms of nutrition and taste, without the need for additives or flavour enhancers. Fun fact: Some guests thought flavouring was added to Chef Jun Hao’s broth – they couldn’t believe our product had such a true-to-nature chicken taste.”
The event convened investors, industry stakeholders, government officials from Singapore, and representatives from France, who were given leaflets describing the story behind the collaboration.
Calisa Lim, senior project manager at the APAC Society for Cellular Agriculture, wrote: “The cultivated chicken powder was mixed with flour and pan-fried into a crispy, crunchy chicken skin (very, very yummy and you can’t go wrong with fried chicken), the brown stock seasoned with cultivated chicken powder made a good umami chicken soup with a hint of sweetness (feels just like a warm embrace), and a classic chicken rice featuring plant-based meat slices that soaked up all the chickeny goodness.”
Vital Meat goes for ‘accessible’ over ‘upscale’
Vital Meat’s decision to host the tasting at Hue – a welcoming, accessible establishment – instead of a high-end, Michelin-starred eatery, as has been the case with most cultivated meat tasting menus globally, was a deliberate decision.
“We deeply appreciate Chef Jun Hao’s talent and innovative approach to cuisine, which aligns with our vision for cultivated meat. As a promising young chef, he represents the new generation of consumers who are aware of the changing food landscap – whether for environmental, animal welfare or health reasons – and the growing range of alternatives available to them,” said Duthoit.
“Holding the tasting at Hue also reflects our commitment to making cultivated meat accessible to everyone, not just for ultra-premium dining experiences. By partnering with Hue, we’re showing that our product is intended to be part of everyday meals.”
This is also why it’s relying on the hybrid approach, helping it bring down costs. The powdered format also allows chefs and manufacturers to easily incorporate the chicken into different recipes.
“We are steadily closing the gap with traditional meat. To lower the cost of our cultivated chicken, large-scale production is essential. And achieving that requires consumer interest and feedback. So we (and our clients too) are taking things step by step,” he said. “A first touch base with consumers and the market will help us refine the product and the needed communication to meet market demand.”
Vital Meat is working with cell culture media producer BioWest, whose customised serum-free media enables the startup to manufacture its cultivated chicken in 250-litre bioreactors, each capable of producing several kgs of product at a time.
Moreover, it has a pilot facility near Nantes, where it runs 2,000-litre bioreactors on a daily basis. “With each production, we are seeing significant cost improvements. It is very encouraging,” Camille Chevalier, communications manager at Vital Meat, told Green Queen in May. “We are confident to get to price parity in a few years.”
The startup has partnered with food companies in anticipation of its regulatory approval in Singapore, which was the first country to allow the sale of cultivated meat. It’s also the only nation where you can currently buy or experience these foods, whether it’s Good Meat’s chicken in retail or Vow‘s cultivated quail in restaurants.
Aside from Singapore, Vital Meat has also applied for approval in the UK, where the regulatory framework around novel foods is being overhauled to speed up authorisations and help companies get to market faster. “We can’t wait to start commercialisation in Great Britain; chicken is one of the most consumed meat over there,” Duthoit said in May. “We are now preparing our launch in 2025 and looking for food partners.”
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