Canadian cultivated meat startup The Better Butchers has revealed plans to open what would be the world’s first exclusively cultured meat butchery within the next two years. The brand says it wants to be Canada’s first company to launch cultivated meat to market, and has had “positive discussions” with regulatory authorities in the country.
The startup is founded by Mitchell Scott, who was the former co-founder of US plant-based meat brand The Very Good Food Company. Scott was terminated as company CEO in 2022, and the business itself went into receivership this year.
“When I was unceremoniously exited from the plant-based food company I co-founded, I started looking into it and ended up building out a team to start the world’s first cultivated butchery,” Scott told Vegconomist. “In addition to having the potential to solve massive environmental, ethical and health concerns, I think cultivated meat can also solve some of the consumer adoption issues facing plant-based meat, such as taste, texture, and long ingredient lists.”
The Better Butchers plans to open its cultivated meat butchery in Vancouver in 2024, and is currently also focusing on a direct-to-consumer product portfolio, with plans to enter foodservice and wholesale in the aftermath. The brand is working on prototypes of cultivated pork sausages, meatballs and marinated steaks.
Canada’s regulatory process
Courtesy: The Better Butchers
Scott said the company has had positive discussions with regulators for a potential approval of The Better Butchers’ cultivated meat products. He expects just over a 12-month process to get the regulatory seal, once the prototypes are complete in Q1 2024.
According to industry think tank the Good Food Institute, Canada has stated its intent to regulate cultivated meat under its current novel foods regulations, instead of considering new regulatory approaches. Authorisation requires a premarket proposal with detailed information about the product. And the approval process is made up of three parts: a ‘letter of no objection’ for human food use; a premarket assessment for new animal feed, regardless of whether the product is intended for that purpose; and an environmental assessment.
Canada’s regulator, Health Canada, is also working in tandem with Food Standards Australia New Zealand on applications of GMO food safety assessment components. The collaboration will see one body take the lead while the other peer reviews, which streamlines the regulatory process, saves costs for both applicants and agencies, and maintains regulators’ independence for final approval.
Meanwhile, since the US is already further up the regulatory ladder after becoming only the second country to approve the sale of cell-cultured meat this June, The Better Butchers plans to pursue approval in that market too.
Cultivated meat in Canada
Courtesy: The Better Butchers
Interest in cultivated meat in Canada is booming. A new report published last week by the Canadian Food Innovation Network (CFIN) and Fiddlehead Technologies found that there have been 22 patent filings for cell-based meat tech in the country since 2020, with nine companies working in the nation’s cultivated meat sector. Meanwhile, media coverage about the topic has been more positive in recent years. And Canadians increasingly searched for terms including ‘lab-grown meat’, from its production process to its availability for sale.
GFI also notes that last year, Canada invested in cultivated meat development and commercialisation through the government-funded non-profit Ontario Genomics. It collaborated with Germany’s The Cultivated B. to build a 130,000 sq ft cellular agriculture facility, which will provide a domestic supply of bioreactors. Ontario Genomics also partnered with the CFIN for AcCELLerate-ON, a CAD$900,000 competition for cultivated food and beverage projects. Three of the winners of last year’s contest focused on cultivated meat and seafood.
While The Better Butchers wants to be the first company to bring cultivated meat to Canada’s market, a host of other businesses are working on cell-cultured meat and seafood in the country. And last year, Canada saw the opening of a new Institute of Cellular Agriculture, born out of a strategic partnership between leading cultivated protein investor Cult Food Science, the University of Alberta, and New Harvest Canada.
As for butcheries, while The Better Butchers could very well be the first brand to open a butchery exclusively featuring cultivated meat, it won’t be the first butchery to offer cultivated meat. That honour rests with Singapore-based Huber’s Butchery, which put cultivated meat by GOOD Meat (the first company to receive regulatory approval for cultivated meat, also in Singapore) on its display and menu last December.
It’s not tofu or tempeh and don’t call it plant-based meat. Newcomer-on-the-shelf Vegbloc looks to disrupt the protein on the plate of busy, climate-conscious folks who value health, taste and convenience.
When was the last time you put quinoa in your ramen? Or red lentils on your pizza? Or split peas in your stir-fry? Vegbloc promises to let you do all of that, and more. Designed to be a meat replacement – not imitation – this new kind of plant-based ingredient implores you to open up and expand your culinary imagination.
The thing about Vegbloc is that it isn’t interested in tasting like meat at all. But it’s also not a traditional protein source like tofu or tempeh – it’s its own thing. It’s an entirely new product format, and it’s exciting for people who want to experiment in their kitchens.
“We saw a gap for a convenient product that was nutritious enough to get picked up by health-minded shoppers, had an ingredient list that reassured the sceptical, and made it easy for people to cook with plants in a whole new way,” Vegbloc co-founder Simon Day tells Green Queen.
“It’s an innovative concept, but we’ve found it’s one that strikes almost everyone as a no-brainer,” he notes. “The product format is new, but the ingredients and process are based firmly in food heritage rather than novel science.”
Those ingredients? Quinoa, red lentils, split peas, flax and chia seeds, onion, sweet potato, mushroom, garlic, gram flour, rosemary, nutritional yeast, smoked paprika, mushroom powder, coriander, black pepper and salt. All wrapped up in a cylindrical sausage-like 250g (veg)block that’s cooked in the pack, eschewing the need for preservatives and achieving what Day calls a “decent shelf life” (not an “artificially long” one). He also confirms it can be frozen, should you want to extend its lifespan.
It is, in all senses of the term, clean label. A genuinely whole-food ingredient. And Big Meat will be mighty annoyed at that – it loves knocking the long ingredient lists of plant-based protein.
Courtesy: Vegbloc
A new way to cook
Another thing that would usually tick Big Meat off is that it doesn’t taste like meat. The old-protein lobby would be all over that – mocking it for its seemingly inferior flavour and texture to animal-based food. But then, it would be missing the point – because it doesn’t taste like tofu or tempeh either.
“The texture is not homogenous,” says Day. “As you eat Vegbloc, you recognise that you are eating quinoa, lentils, split peas and so on… It simply tastes and eats like the combination of wonderful plants it’s made from.”
And what is that taste like, I ask? “A delicious savoury flavour that deepens when it is browned through cooking,” Day answers. “It’s lightly flavoured with herbs and spices, but the umami hit really comes from the lentils and mushrooms.”
He adds that the British brand deliberately avoided over-flavouring the Original Vegbloc, because “we know so many people want a versatile ingredient that can slot into numerous dishes they already cook”. But for the ultra-curious, there are a couple of new flavours on the horizon that add a new dimension while retaining that valuable versatility.
Does Vegbloc also pass Big Meat’s protein test? Without revealing exact amounts, Day confirms that while Vegbloc is high in protein, it isn’t as high as some ingredients. But it does contain more fibre than tofu and tempeh, with an added hit of omega-3 thanks to the chia and flax.
Vegloc’s emergence comes at a pivotal point for plant protein. One of the industry’s giants, Beyond Meat, has seen sales decline by almost a third, while numerous brands have ceased operations, or come close to it. How do you pitch to a consumer base that has shown faltering faith in this sector over the last year?
“We are targeting people who are interested in their health, looking for whole food options, and don’t have the time to prepare a dozen plants from scratch at every meal,” says Day, outlining the importance of the ingredient’s quick-to-cook nature in an increasingly short-of-time consumer world. “We want people to drop it in their regular dishes – whether they contain meat or not – for a boost of nutrition, flavour and texture.”
Courtesy: Vegbloc
Adaptability is key
Vegbloc has been granted a Carbon Rating A by carbon calculator My Emissions, which aligns with greenhouse gas protocols and covers a product’s life cycle, including scope 3 packaging and transport emissions. This puts the new plant protein in the same bracket as tofu and, as Day happily points out, “obviously way ahead of mass-produced animal proteins”. A landmark study by Nature Food in July proved the environmental supremacy of plant-based food – vegan diets can cut emissions by 70% compared to meat-rich ones.
Day remains coy over the sourcing of Vegbloc’s ingredients, saying it’s “likely to change as we scale” – but hints at an adaptable strategy to keep its climate footprint down. “What’s exciting about the future of Vegbloc and our concept of a convenient ingredient made from a variety of plants is that there are so many amazing plants out there to use,” he explains. “We could use different recipes for different markets [and] target consumers in order to optimise for local growing capability, tastes and nutritional requirements.”
Vegbloc is planning for a January 2024 retail launch in its home market in the UK, before expanding into foodservice. While the product has garnered international interest, Day says the brand wants to prove the concept at home first to build the business sustainably.
Vegbloc feels like such a novel food ingredient, it throws out all convention. And you can’t predict its trajectory based on consumer surveys on plant proteins, since most automatically refer to alt-meat – like this Mintel report that found more than half of consumers want plant-based protein to taste indistinguishable from meat.
I ask Day whether he fears this ingredient is almost too unique to work. “We know we have a job to do to make it incredibly clear what Vegblock is and how to use it,” he admits. “But the huge groundswell of support and excitement we’ve received pre-launch has reassured us that we’re on to something.”
Is Vegbloc a round peg in the square alt-protein hole? Maybe, but that just might be exactly why it could work.
In the EU and the US, livestock farming receives about 1,000 times more funding than plant-based and cultivated meat, with the “gigantic” power of the animal agriculture industry blocking the development of sustainable proteins, finds a new study. The money meat producers spend on lobbying governments is 190 times higher than alt-meat in the US, and three times as high in the EU.
The research analyses subsidies and policies to show how the meat and dairy lobby is stifling the alternative protein sector, which has a much smaller environmental footprint. According to one estimate, livestock production causes 15% of all global greenhouse gas emissions.
And a landmark Nature Food study in July revealed that vegan diets – which include plant-based meat and dairy alternatives – can cut carbon emissions by 70% compared to those heavy on conventional meat and dairy.
The public funding gap
The Stanford University study, published in the One Earth journal, revealed that livestock farmers get 1,200 times more public funding in the EU than meat alternative companies, and 800 times more in the US. Public money spent on plant-based meat was at $42M between 2014-20 – just 0.1% of the $35B spent on meat and dairy. During this time, the former accounted for only 1.5% of all sales.
According to alt protein think tank the Good Food Institute (GFI), Europe led the world in terms of public funding for cultivated meat, with countries announcing financing in research and development for cultured meat, and the EU’s own core innovation and research funding programme highlighting cultivated meat and seafood as one of its three core pillars, setting aside around €7M for this sector.
There were similar developments in the US. The US Department of Agriculture awarded a $10M grant in 2021 to Tufts University to build the National Institute for Cellular Agriculture. And the Biden administration introduced a biotech programme that includes finances for “foods made with cultured animal cells”, while California allocated $5M for alt-protein research in its state budget.
The EU also supported two major research initiatives into the development of plant-based products in 2022, with a combined investment of €23.2M, according to GFI. And the US government performed and funded research on plant-based proteins through the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, with projects in three universities. California, meanwhile, set aside $100M to expand vegan and sustainable lunches in public schools.
Despite this rise in public funding, the numbers pale in comparison to what the animal agriculture industry received. The Stanford study shows that 97% of all research and innovation spending went to animal farmers, aimed at improving production. In the EU itself, cattle farmers received at least 50% of their income through direct subsidies.
“We found that the amazing obstacles to the upscaling of the alternative technologies relate to public policies that still massively fund the incumbent system, when we know it’s really part of the problem in terms of climate change, biodiversity loss and some health issues,” says Professor Eric Lambin, the study’s co-author.
The labelling debate
Courtesy: NotCo
The study also revealed that labelling regulations contributed to this gap, finding that almost all dietary guidelines avoided highlighting the climate impact of meat production, as well as spotlighted restrictions on alternative products using terms such as ‘milk’.
In the EU, terms like ‘milk’ and ‘cheese’ for dairy alternatives have been banned since 2017, while an ongoing proposal in the US could prohibit the sale of alt-meat unless products are labelled as ‘imitations’. Similarly, proposed guidance by the FDA on the labelling of plant-based milk has sparked widespread debate, with the dairy industry calling on the body to double down on restrictions and the plant-based sector roundly criticising the draft guidance.
Labelling conventions influence national dietary guidelines, which are the bedrock of the meals served in public institutions like schools, hospitals, government houses and prisons. The study found that there were no mentions of the environmental impacts of meat and dairy in US dietary guidelines, with only four of the EU’s 27 member states noting the climate footprint of these foods.
“Dietary guidelines are shaped with a strong influence from industry representatives,” says Lambin. “However, the Nordic country guidelines have just been rewritten and for the first time clearly promote a mostly plant-based diet.”
The unfavourable narrative: disinformation campaigns and more
Courtesy: CCF
The meat industry lobby has spent years creating coordinated ads targeting plant-based companies, especially in the US. Industry giants Beyond Meat and Impossible have been at the centre of these attacks, run by the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) since 2019.
One commercial pits vegan meat against dog food, with a side-by-side comparison of the ingredient lists asking consumers to guess which is which. A Super Bowl ad, meanwhile, featured Spelling Bee participants struggling with words like methylcellulose and propylene glycol (which the CCF claimed were “chemicals” used for “synthetic meats”). “If you can’t spell it or pronounce it,” concluded the advert, “maybe you shouldn’t be eating it.”
Beyond and Impossible have both responded to these ads in their own manners – with the former using the scalpel and the latter preferring the hammer. These attack campaigns have extended to social media, appearing across what Fast Company calls the internet’s “clean eating, raw food, and carnivore communities, on Ag Twitter, and among right-wing media hosts”.
Similarly, the US beef industry’s main lobby group has created an online training course that peddles misleading (but scientific-sounding) narratives about the sustainability of the sector – despite beef being the most carbon-intensive food on the planet. It’s initiatives like this that outline why 40% of Americans don’t believe eating less red meat will reduce their carbon emissions.
Meanwhile, in response to the FDA’s draft alt-milk labelling guidance, the Plant Based Foods Association launched an assessment that found some of the reports the FDA was basing its proposals on were funded by the dairy industry, hence skewing the results and introducing an element of “confirmation bias”.
Additionally, this narrative is also present across media reporting. One study by Faunalytics and Sentient Media found that 93% of climate reporting across mainstream media outlets doesn’t mention animal agriculture at all.
All the above highlights just how influential the animal agriculture industry really is, both in forming public opinion and informing public policy. “The power of the animal farming sector, both in the US and in Europe, and the political influence they have is just gigantic,” explains Lambin. “It’s clear that powerful vested interests have exerted political influence to maintain the animal-farming system status quo.”
The policy shifts
Courtesy: Rowe Group
Lambin adds that a significant policy shift is required to reduce the food system’s impact on climate, land use and biodiversity. Tackling this issue would need government policies that ensured meat and dairy prices reflect their true environmental cost – German retailer Penny trialled such costs at all its locations last month. This could be done via meat taxes, increased alt-protein research, and better-informed consumers.
“It’s not a level playing field at all at the moment,” says Lambin. “The [alt-protein] sector needs to be given its chance to expand and gain efficiency. After that, consumers will judge whether they like it or not, and scientists will judge whether it is really better for the environment and for health. But if it cannot even develop to a scale where we can make this assessment, it will be a lost opportunity to transition to a sustainable food system.“
The way the scales are currently balanced, it would almost seem the alt-protein industry doesn’t stand a chance. But there is hope, according to Lambin, who points to the EU’s proposal to accelerate the shift to sustainable proteins (to be adopted later this year), as well as the US’s landmark regulatory approval for the sales of cultivated meat.
And looking directly at subsidies, the EU Commission last year approved a European Citizens’ Initiative calling for the meat and dairy industry subsidies to instead be passed on to the plant-based and cultivated protein sectors.
Los Angeles startup Omeat, which launched in June after four years in stealth mode, has launched and already completed the first commercial sales of Plenty, its ethical and affordable alternative to fetal bovine serum (FBS). The product is available to buy for cultivated meat companies, presenting a slaughter-free substitute for the controversial growth medium and signals the launch of Omeat’s B2B arm.
Omeat claims it’s among the first revenue-generating cultivated meat companies, having created a cell culture supplement that can dramatically cut costs and be scaled up to meet the global demand for cultivated protein – a market that could reach $25B by 2030 if consumer acceptance grows. A 2021 poll conducted by Israeli cultured meat producer Aleph Farms showed that 87-89% of Gen Zers, 84-85% of millennials, 76-77% of Gen Xers, and 70-74% of boomers were at least somewhat open to trying cultivated meat.
The problem with FBS
Courtesy: Omeat
FBS originally paved the way for cultivated meat production, but it’s a problematic substance. Harvesting it entails taking cells from the fetuses of pregnant cows during their mutual slaughter. The resulting meat is thus not animal-free, and this has raised a lot of ethical concerns, particularly amongst animal activists.
Moreover, it’s an exorbitantly expensive process. When Dutch cultivated meat pioneer Mosa Meat introduced the first cell-based burger 10 years ago, it cost $300,000 for two beef patties. While tech advancements have naturally helped such processes scale up and cut costs, removing FBS played a major role in that.
Now, industry think tank the Good Food Institute predicts that cultivated meat could reach price parity with its traditional counterparts by as early as 2030, with further analysis by industry supplier Ark Biotech highlighting how cost-competitive cultivated meat could become a reality.
In 2019, Mosa Meat itself became the first company to ditch the serum, and in a remarkable move, published the formulation for developing serum-free growth media for cultivated meat last year. Now, more and more companies are looking to move away from FBS, and Omeat says Plenty is a humane, affordable, scalable, and highly effective option for cell culture growth.
Japanese startup IntegriCulture also developed cultivated chicken and duck liver cells using a serum-free medium, and South Korea’s CellMEAT created a serum-free cell culture medium to drive down production costs and provide an ethical cell-cultured meat option. But Omeat claims other FBS alternatives on the market fall short of efficacy and consistency when compared to Plenty.
The Plenty difference
Plenty is created using regenerative plasma drawn humanely from cows that graze freely on Omeat’s carbon-negative farm. Collected weekly, the process to extract the plasma is similar to human plasma donation. Unlike blood, plasma regenerates quickly, so the cows do not feel depleted.
“With one cow providing plasma weekly, we can create many cows’ worth of meat annually,” explained Omeat founder and CEO Ali Khademhosseini during its June debut. The company can produce 20 times more meat per cow than if it was slaughtered. “This means we can feed the planet with only a fraction of the current number of animals used in beef production.”
“We’re perfecting a sustainable operation that existing farms and ranches can implement, generating the same volume of product but with a fraction of the overhead,” said Khademhosseini. “It’s way more efficient, and we don’t have to sacrifice the cow.”
While Plenty does not require animal slaughter, it does still necessitate cows and this could be an ethically grey area, given that for most animal welfare activists, the goal is to remove animals (and the use of animals) from food production entirely.
Omeat, which raised $40M in an oversubscribed Series A round last year, sees itself as a meat company, with the goal to “be a bridge to the future of the meat industry”. It employs full-time veterinary and animal welfare staff, and has developed procedures for plasma collection that rely on positive reinforcement and prioritise the comfort and overall well-being of the cows.
A bridge to the meat industry’s future
Courtesy: Omeat
A cultivated meat company with a focus on generating revenues
Crucially, Plenty does not require FDA or USDA approval as it is not a food, allowing Omeat to start generating revenue right out of the gate. Other cultivated meat companies can now buy the serum for their own usage in a US market that is buzzing of late, thanks to historic regulatory milestones made in June this year- it is now only the second country to grant regulatory approval for the sale of cell-cultured meat. Singapore was the first to do so in 2020. Elsewhere, Israel’s Aleph Farms became the first company to file for approval in Europe in, with applications in Switzerland (though notably, not in Brussels) and the UK this July.
Plenty is not limited to the cultivated meat industry. Omeat says its solution will appeal to businesses focused on regenerative medicine and vaccine production, or employing cell-culture technology. “We’re looking forward to scaling and helping other companies that are changing the world, allowing them to achieve their goals with a product they can feel good about using,” says Khademhosseini in a statement.
“When it comes to growth media supplementation, FBS is considered the gold standard. However, FBS has downsides, including high costs, limited and unpredictable supply, and ethical concerns about the FBS harvesting process,” he adds.
“Synthetic serum substitutes, defined media, and serum-free media have been developed before as alternatives, but they’ve come with limitations that have hindered their viability as a replacement to FBS. That’s why we developed Plenty: an affordable, effective, and slaughter-free cell culture supplement product.”
While cultivated meat startups such as GOOD Meat and Upside Foods have completed initial consumer sales of their cultivated chicken products, with the former doing so since December 2020 in Singapore, these have been fairly limited in quantity due to production capacity constraints. Plenty could enable Omeat to be one of the first companies in the space to reach significant revenues within a fairly short time horizon.
The global Halal food market is estimated to reach US$1.67 trillion by 2025, growing to meet the demands of a rapidly increasing Muslim population that will comprise 30% of the world’s population by mid-century. At the same time, meat intake is rising globally, with Muslim-majority countries no exception to this trend. This is especially true in India, a Hindu-majority country, that is nonetheless estimated to be home to the planet’s largest Muslim community by 2030 in absolute terms, with 250 million adherents. The South Asian country is expected to see a 17% rise in national demand for meat by 2030 (see figure 1, below).
Figure 1: Projected Change in Meat Intake in the Most Populous Muslim Countries by 2030, courtesy of the authors
Alternative proteins, including plant-based, fermentation-based, hybrid and cultivated products, are currently being developed and positioned as one possible solution to reduce the environmental impact of meat. Yet, little is currently known about the Halal status of many of these products, particularly hybrid and cultivated sub-types, nor the extent to which they may appeal to Muslim consumers. This is despite research showing that Muslim consumers want to see such Halal certification, particularly from their own country’s authorities, to be confident in consuming these novel products.
Alternative protein can help with food security
As well as benefitting the environment, alt proteins are being touted as a potential fix for food insecurity in some Muslim-majority countries. For example, in 2020, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) highlighted a substantial imbalance in Halal food trade, at around US$ 67 billion, indicating an overreliance on imports. The greatest volume of this trade currently comes from non-Muslim majority producer countries in Brazil, India, the US, and Russia. This represents a potential risk to food availability in an increasingly unstable world. Taking the Gulf as an example, local climate and terrain mean the region has a very limited capacity for livestock farming and field agriculture to meet regional dietary demand. This has resulted in over 85% of the total food supply being now imported as of today, including approximately 62% of its total meat supply.
Is cultivated meat halal?
If alt protein is to achieve its potential globally, companies producing and selling these products must also succeed in attracting a share of the global Muslim meat market. One fundamental question that still needs answering is whether all types of alt protein can even be classified as Halal. To date, no clear guidance has been issued by any Halal certification body regarding cultivated and hybrid products that contain cells derived directly from animals, leaving many consumers in the dark about their Halal status. A ‘Halal’ diet refers to the consumption of food and drink that is consistent with Islamic dietary laws, which state that animals must be slaughtered in a prescribed way, and certain types of meat and by-products – including pork and blood products – eschewed.
Islamic scholars have considered the question of whether cultivated and hybrid products can be seen as Halal from various perspectives, with some arguing that cultivated meat contravenes Islam’s ‘Natural Law’, as production can be seen as ‘playing God’, while others suggest that cultivated meat may be permissible if the parent animal, from which cells are harvested, was first slaughtered according to Islamic laws. Another potential obstacle is the use of cell culture media, such as fetal bovine serum, which contravenes Halal guidance because it is taken from the blood of unborn calves. Blood is considered unclean according to Islamic scriptures, a point which has now been clearly highlighted in the updated Malaysian Halal standard (MS 1500/2019). Wholly plant-based media is, however, now being developed, helping to allay the concerns of Halal consumers, as well as addressing the requirements of other ethical vegans, vegetarians and other religious groups.
In addition, further research is needed to better understand how Muslim consumers’ belief systems and religion-specific concerns will influence alt protein adoption. Some factors may play in their favour, for example, the fact that plant-based, hybrid, and cultivated products can all be produced in highly controlled environments, thereby limiting the potential for contamination with non-Halal animal ingredients during production, and helping overcome fears regarding impurity. Alt protein can also circumvent the issue of whether meat should be stunned prior to slaughter, which is generally considered more humane, but some believe is inconsistent with Halal laws.
The potential benefits of Halal alt proteins
Alt protein has additional potential benefits for the Halal economy, both in terms of creating new jobs for Halal meat scientists, as well as supporting the growth of Muslim-owned food businesses. We note that the Chief Rabbi in Israel ruled for the first time in January 2023 that cultivated steak could be considered a Kosher product. This represents the first steps towards such products receiving widespread Kosher certification and is a pivotal move for Israel, a country already home to 57 alt protein start-ups and that has declared food technology a national research priority. The extent to which similar conclusions will be arrived at by Islamic religious leaders remains to be determined. In 2022, the Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America deemed cultivated meat provisionally permissible by default, provided Halal criteria are met. This is a timely initial decision given that investment in alt protein technologies is also a priority for Muslim competitive markets in the Gulf, particularly the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia.
Lastly, the adoption of alt proteins is viewed by some Islamic jurists and Muslim consumers as a step towards Khilafa (guardianship of nature)[Quran 10:14], an important principle in Islam related to environmental sustainability.
Beyond alt protein, other well-known Islamic teachings have relevance for health and diet and may further help to catalyse a movement away from excess meat consumption in Muslim populations and towards more sustainable diets. Academic research has demonstrated that religiosity can play an essential role in promoting behaviour change, including pro-environmental actions; for example, a recent study found that Muslim diners were keen to avoid wasting food in order to adhere to teachings within the Quran – a particularly pertinent finding given recent data that shows food waste is extremely high, up to almost 200kg per per per year, in some Muslim majority countries. As such, influential Muslims, including Islamic religious leaders, have an influential role to play in encouraging sustainable and healthy behaviour change and should be included as key stakeholders in the sustainable diets movement in any Muslim-majority country where this is a priority agenda.
Prof. Cother Hajat is a Public Health doctor and professor whose career is focused on promoting healthy lifestyles and preventing chronic illness. She is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (UK) and a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health (UK). Her advisory company, Real World Health, provides support to numerous entities including governments, non-governmental organisations, academia and the private sector. Cother is a mother of two boys and has followed a plant-based diet for two decades.
Dr. Sophie Attwood is a Behavioral Scientist who works to help consumers switch to more sustainable plant-rich diets and reduce their food waste. Sophie is a Chartered Health Psychologist and doctor in Behavioral Science from the University of Cambridge. She has researched and published extensively on the science of behavior change for health and sustainability, covering the areas of diet, physical activity, wellbeing, smoking cessation, and alcohol reduction, with her work featured in a range of international media outlets including Reuters, Forbes, The Guardian, World Economic Forum and others.
Scottish-Dutch food tech company Enough has raised €40M in Series C funding to accelerate the production of its mycoprotein product, Abunda, which is used in plant-based alternatives like chicken breast, mince and dairy. The brand aims to scale up to produce enough protein to replace five million cows or one billion chickens by 2032.
Founded in 2015, Enough’s mycoprotein product, Abunda, is made from the same fungi as Quorn’s via biomass fermentation. The fungi are fermented using sugars from sustainably sourced grains as renewable feedstocks, supplied by a Cargill starch plant located next to Enough’s recently opened alt-protein facility in Sas van Gent, Netherlands.
The grains are fermented in a similar process to wine and beer production, Enough claims its signature mycoprotein is high in protein and fibre, contains all nine essential amino acids, and boasts a neutral flavour and meat-like texture to create plant-based meat, fish and dairy alternatives. It adds that Abunda is 15 times more efficient than beef thanks to its zero-waste, circular production process, which uses 93% less water, 97% less feed and has 97% fewer carbon emissions than beef. This also makes the alt-protein more affordable to produce.
Enough’s manufacturing facility will initially produce 10,000 metric tonnes of Abunda a year, and plans to scale up to 60,000 metric tonnes annually by 2027, which will be the equivalent of one cow’s worth of protein every two minutes. By 2032, the brand aims to up production to one million metric tonnes per year, which equates to replacing five million cows or over a billion chickens.
Launching into a fluctuating market
Courtesy: Enough
Enough says it is the leading player to produce sustainable protein at such a large scale, enabling it to partner with brands and white-label manufacturers serving retail, foodservice and fast-food companies expanding their plant-based offerings. In 2021, it partnered with Belgium’s Peace of Meat to launch hybrid meat products made with cultivated fats. The brand adds that European poultry processor Plukon Food Group, which is developing alt-chicken and -meat products to complement its conventional range, is “very enthusiastic about getting started” with Enough’s mycoprotein raw material.
According to AgFunderNews, the company is already in conversations with brands to use its alt-protein in plant-based meats, with over 30 customers sampling its products. Enough aims to see Abunda-derived offerings hit shelves by the end of the year. The ingredient will be tested by Unilever in its The Vegetarian Butcher line, as well as brands supplying to UK supermarket M&S.
Enough will be entering an overcrowded alt-meat market that has been hit by a fall in sales and fluctuating consumer demand. This has led to instances like plant-based meat giant Beyond Meat reporting a 30% drop in sales last quarter after months of continuous decline, and vegan chicken nugget startup Nowadays ceasing operations.
But there have been signs of a recovery. Despite the annual sales drop, Beyond’s quarterly revenue was up by 11% and is projecting a year-on-year topline growth in the last two quarters of 2023. And crucially, cost is an important factor, with a 2023 Kantar report suggests that while plant-based food brands have seen a 10% drop in sales, private-label supermarket offerings have grown by 14% in the last year.
Enough’s latest financing, which brings its total capital raised to €95M, will help it scale its mycoprotein production and reach price parity more quickly. “ENOUGH has made great strides in the past few years to launch our new factory in the Netherlands and scale up to work with customers across the UK and Europe. With this new funding, we will accelerate that growth,” said Enough co-founder and CEO Jim Laird.
Craig Douglas, founding partner at World Fund, said: “[Enough] is tackling crucial bottlenecks in the creation of sustainable protein, whilst using fewer resources and maintaining a zero-waste process, which is enabling Enough to have a lower carbon footprint compared to other plant-based protein sources, whilst producing at scale and providing supply security to a growing market.’
Countries in Southeast Asia and Asia-Pacific must increase their alt-protein production by 2030 to help mitigate the climate crisis, as animal protein and its associated emissions must peak by the end of the decade, says a new report. By 2060, alt-proteins will need to make up 50% of the region’s total protein production if it is to decarbonise.
The report was published by Singapore-based firm Asia Research Engagement, which says alt-proteins are key to tackling the climate crisis in the world’s largest and most populous continent. Spotlighting China, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, India and Pakistan, it calculated their projected emissions from protein production and found that none of these 10 countries are on track to keep their protein emissions targets in check.
According to the research, Asia supplies more than half of the world’s animal proteins, including land animals and seafood. It warns that without a shift to alternative proteins, it will be impossible to meet the 1.5°C warming goal set by the 2015 Paris Agreement. This is in line with a previous report that suggested high-methane food consumption must drop to meet this target. By 2060, alternative protein production will need to grow between 30-90% in these countries to curb carbon emissions.
Reducing livestock farming holds the key
Courtesy: CellX
The researchers suggest that livestock production has a bigger environmental footprint than all edible crops combined, because it’s more resource-intensive, and uses more land, water, animals and antibiotics. Livestock farming contributes to 14.5% of all carbon emissions, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization, and a report by the Nature Food journal this year found that vegan diets can cut emissions by 70% compared to meat- and dairy-heavy ones.
While some countries are witnessing a drop in population numbers, nations like India (which surpassed China to become the world’s most populous country earlier this year) and Pakistan have growing populations. These neighbouring nations need to have the highest increase in alt-protein production, with 85% and 90% of protein coming from alternative and traditional plant sources (like beans, tofu, tempeh, etc.), respectively.
Asia-Pacific is home to some of the largest meat consumers in the world, including Hong Kong, Australia and China. The latter is the world’s largest producer of pork, fish and eggs, and its animal consumption is expected to increase by 2030 despite falling population numbers. The report suggests that 50% of all protein consumption must be from alternative sources by 2060 for China.
Asia Research Engagement says intensive livestock farming is also the main culprit of deforestation and biodiversity loss. It advises these countries to eliminate their contribution to deforestation by 2030 – tropical deforestation accounts for about 20% of all greenhouse gas emissions annually.
Indonesia and Malaysia face large-scale deforestation as land is cleared for pasture and palm oil plantations. In fact, 90% of the world’s palm oil trees are located in the rainforests in these countries, and they have been directly linked to deforestation here. In August 2019, Indonesian forests were engulfed by wildfires caused directly by palm plantation trees – a signpost of potential climatic catastrophes if measures aren’t taken to reduce deforestation.
Running out of time
Courtesy: Good Meat
Speaking to Green Queen, Mirte Gosker, managing director of alt-protein think tank the Good Food Institute APAC, alluded to research showing a significant awareness gap remains in Asian countries, with about one-third of consumers unfamiliar with plant-based meat or seafood products. “This presents both a challenge and an opportunity for the industry as it seeks to compellingly introduce itself to a wide swathe of potential customers,” she said.
“On the manufacturing side, many key infrastructural gaps remain, including a lack of adequate cold-chain infrastructure in various Southeast Asian countries,” she added. “There is also a substantial need to further build out the local technical talent pipeline, to ensure that the infrastructural machinery and laboratory spaces needed to perfect alternative proteins are fully staffed by highly skilled local workers.”
With the Asia Research Engagement report presenting a short timeline for an alt-protein turnaround, Gosker said that time is not on our side: “Amid skyrocketing demand and increased climate instability, reimagining Asia’s protein supply is now akin to making a U-turn in a freighter ship: it’s achievable, but requires that nations collaborate to further expand regional alternative protein manufacturing infrastructure and rapidly harmonise regulatory frameworks”
She continued: “Failure to do so will mean that the compounding pressures of ecological and supply chain instability will grow, resulting in a food system that falls woefully short of satisfying rising demand.
Asian alt-protein on the rise
Courtesy: Meatiply
While this all can sound fairly gloomy, there is hope. Gosker told Green Queen that numerous studies have shown that Asian consumers are open-minded when it comes to eating alternative proteins – as long as products match or exceed the taste, nutrition, ‘freshness’ and affordability people associate with conventional meat and seafood.
GFi says that Asia-Pacific is one of the fastest-growing regions for alt-protein in the world. This is helped by the fact that Singapore is an alt-protein torchbearer, becoming the first country in the world to grant regulatory approval for the sale of cultivated meat, and attracting a host of cell-cultured protein companies in the process.
Green Queen’s own APAC Alternative Protein Industry Report for 2022 found the region home to the biggest Series A investments ever for both plant-based and cultivated meat. This is complemented by GFI data that showed a 43% increase in financing for alt-protein startups in Asia-Pacific.
GFI also found that investments in fermentation-based and cultivated protein companies increased by 67% and 96% year-on-year from 2021 to 2022, respectively. In fact, interest in these sectors was so strong that these numbers didn’t just surpass the year prior – they surpassed the all-time totals in each segment’s history in Asia-Pacific.
Taking inspiration from the past
Courtesy: WEF
Gosker said there are policy examples to take inspiration from, pointing to massive investments by China and other nations into clean energy sources like wind and solar power two decades ago, in response to growing demand. Building infrastructure for renewables helped resist power-grid shortages and set up “an economic boom of historic proportions”.
Asia now boasts nearly half of the world’s wind energy capacity and produces over 80% of all solar panels. As the world deals with the climate crisis and tight energy transition deadlines, this continent “makes and sells what the rest of the world urgently needs”. And this is true for meat too – Asia is the world’s largest meat producer, responsible for between 40-45% of total production.
Touching upon this, Gosker says: “We now have a short window to turn another looming crisis into an opportunity, in perhaps the only sector more fundamental than electricity: our food supply. By leveraging every public and private investment tool at our disposal, we can rapidly ramp up a smarter way of making protein and reap the rewards throughout the rest of the Asian Century.”
Asia Research Engagement’s research states the benefits of reducing the region’s meat consumption. It could lead to lower land, water, animal and antibiotic use, less pollution, avoid deforestation and biodiversity loss, and present less risk of diseases linked to industrial production systems and overconsumption of meat.
“We see a great need for this sort of research, providing solution pathways for 10 major Asian market towards climate safety,” said Andy Jarvis, director of future food at the Bezos Earth Fund. “As novel work for the Asia region, transitional pathways from business as usual are critical for discussions with policy makers, companies and banks to demonstrate needs and opportunities for them to align and support a food system that helps us achieve [the] Paris climate goals.”
South Korean plant-based meat producer Unlimeat has partnered with US vegan egg brand Just Egg to unveil products using the latter’s folded egg format. The collaboration will result in a vegan kimbap, which will go on floors in Gangnam in September, followed by an American-style breakfast sandwich.
A week after announcing the launch of its plant-based tuna range, Unlimeat has announced a brand license agreement with the world’s largest vegan egg brand. Kimbap – a Korean dish made by rolling ingredients in seaweed – will be made plant-based using Just Egg’s folded format and Unlimeat’s sausage patty.
Following the 100% Plant Protein Bomb Kimbap’s Gangnam launch in September, when it will be available for sale and delivery, the brands will also introduce a plant-based breakfast sandwich, which will feature a Koran-style Tteokgalbi (grilled short rib) patty by Unlimeat, vegan cheese and folded Just Egg. The patty will have a soybean protein base and gets an umami flavour profile through alliums like onions, garlic and spring onions.
Plant-based boom in South Korea
Unlimeat and Just Egg’s breakfast sandwich | Courtesy: Unlimeat
Veganism is growing in South Korea. The Korean Vegetarian Union said that in 2020, there were around half a million strict vegans in the country – a threefold increase from a decade ago. Similarly, 1.5 million people followed vegetarian or plant-forward diets, while nearly 20% of the population (around 10 million) estimated to be flexitarian.
Unlimeat was launched in 2019, using proprietary protein extrusion developments to make slices of plant-based BBQ beef from upcycled waste ingredients. In 2021, its parent company Zikooin announced plans to build one of Asia’s largest plant-based meat factories, and last year, it entered the US market through online channels. And now, its product portfolio includes vegan pulled pork, jerky, beef mandu (a Korean dumpling), mince, pepperoni, sausage and tuna.
Just Egg entered the Korean market in 2021, followed by an egg shortage owing to a bird flu outbreak. The Avian flu hit over 100 farms in the country and led to the culling of more than 16 million chickens, sending egg prices skyrocketing by up to about 70%.
The Californian food producer capitalised on this opportunity by launching its mung-bean egg first to foodservice, through a distribution partnership with the bakery café chains Paris Baguette and Paris Croissant.
Egg consumption and a viable alternative
Courtesy: Just Egg
South Korea is also among the countries with the highest egg consumption in the world. As of 2020, one estimate found that on average, an individual consumes 250 eggs annually in the country. And according to Future Market Insights, the egg alternatives market is projected to reach over $1.5B by the end of 2026, growing 5.8% from 2016.
Vegan egg substitutes can also be much better for the environment. Just Egg claims its liquid egg alternative uses 98% less water, 83% less land and has 93% fewer carbon emissions than conventional eggs.
“We are excited to collaborate with Just Egg, a food tech company with a mission to create a healthy, safe, and sustainable food system,” said an Unlimeat representative. “As this collaboration unites brands with the same beliefs, we hope to develop a variety of products using Just Egg’s offerings and Unlimeat’s plant-based substitutes. This will serve as an opportunity to expand the range of choices for consumers who enjoy vegan options.”
Industry think tank the Good Food Institute has called South Korea a “global hotbed of alternative protein innovation”, with companies like CellMeat, Lotteria, Armored Fresh and Yangyoo some of the leaders in alt-protein. The country’s cellular agriculture industry is also developing fast, with the Cellular Agriculture Support Center opening earlier this year and 28 of its cultivated meat stakeholders signing an MoU to advance the industry.
Singaporean vegan egg startup Hegg – a subsidiary of Howw Foods – has entered into a distributorship agreement with the nation’s largest egg distributor, Dasoon. The move is designed to expand the presence of Hegg’s Eggless Egg in local supermarkets, and open more offline channels for the brand’s other plant-based egg products.
The collaboration has led to the debut of Hegg’s vegan Eggless Egg in cold-storage outlets across Singapore. The powder – which is made from canola protein, edible gum and potato fibre – has 6.4g protein per 10g serving and can be used in baking, steaming and frying, apart from regular egg applications.
Consumers can buy it at S$4.50 for a 50g pack (equivalent to five servings) in the egg section of supermarkets,as well as on online channels like Lazada, Shopee and Hegg’s own website (where a 500g pack is also available).
Plant-based eggs in Singapore
Courtesy: Hegg Foods
Hegg was launched in 2021 by food tech startup Howw Foods, which uses a proprietary artificial intelligence platform called RE-GENESYS to develop its plant-based products. The company secured S$3M in a pre-Series A round to advance its R&D capabilities and commercialise Hegg in 2021. Hegg also released an Eggless Kaya – a type of southeast Asian coconut jam – in partnership with local coffee chain Killiney Kopitiam in 2022, and added a third product, an Eggless Mayo, to its lineup last month.
Hegg isn’t the first plant-based egg company in Singapore. Float Foods has been retailing its vegan whole egg substitute OnlyEg since 2020. It received a development grant in 2021 to help further commercialise the product and has also filed a patent for the egg alternative. Last year, it launched Asia’s first vegan tamagoyaki and partnered with meal kit brand DayDayCook in Hong Kong. The startup, which closed a $1.6M oversubscribed seed funding round in 2021, also collaborated with many restaurants in Singapore this Veganuary to push OnlyEg into foodservice.
Singapore’s 30 by 30 Initiative
Courtesy: Hegg Foods
Both brands are part of a growing list of companies supporting Singapore’s 30 by 30 initiative, which aims to locally produce 30% of all food consumed by 2030 to reduce the island nation’s reliance on imports and boost its food security. Launches like Dynamic Foodco’s Dynameat brand, TiNDLE’s new vegan chicken pieces, and HerbYvore’s plant-based cheese support this initiative.
Vegan egg substitutes can be much better for the environment. While there are no specific numbers for Heggs’ products just yet, similar products have fared much better than traditional eggs in climate-related criteria. For example, UK-based aquafaba brand Oggs, which is marketed as an alternative to egg whites, has 72% fewer emissions than chicken eggs. And US producer Just Egg claims its liquid egg alternative uses 98% less water, 83% less land and has 93% fewer carbon emissions than conventional eggs.
Meanwhile, about two-thirds of Singapore’s eggs are imported, which means a shift to locally produced, more climate-friendly alternatives is imperative for the 2030 target. And products like Hegg’s Eggless Eggs are building a planet- and people-friendly food system.
In what is a burgeoning plant-based category, vegan seafood undergoes a whole-food twist with Canadian startup Seed to Surf, which uses vegetables as its primary ingredient. Founded in 2020, the brand makes tinned snow crab and smoked whitefish from mushrooms and celeriac root in a clean-label formulation responding to consumer trends.
A global consumer survey by Ingredion last year revealed that more than half of consumers find it important for products to have a short ingredient list, with 71% willing to pay more for brands people are willing to pay more for brands reformulating to cleaner labels and natural claims. Further research showed that nearly half (46%) would pay 20-30% more for such products.
The value of clean-label food is higher than ever. And it’s that mindset that Seed to Sturf aims to tap into with its whole-vegetable alt-seafood. The company’s snow crab is made from enoki mushrooms and smoked whitefish from celeriac root, with the aim to “celebrate vegetables for what they are”. It eschews high-moisture extrusion and shear cell tech – commonly used in alt-meat processing – and instead works with plants in their natural setting to create its whole-food plant-based products.
Championing vegetables for vegan ‘seafood with roots’
Courtesy: Seed to Surf
The brand has worked with food scientists to develop its products’ seafood flavours, and the vegetables are said to be cooked using retort technology, a process that uses heat and pressure to extend shelf life, during the canning process. The products only contain six or fewer ingredients – the vegetables are paired with sunflower oil, sea salt, seaweed (kombu and kelp) and natural flavourings, while the celeriac root whitefish also has lactic acid. It means the products are also gluten-free and allergen-friendly, which is a big win for a plant-based meat alternative.
The snow crab is described as tender, savoury and sweet, while the smoked whitefish is said to be smoky, flaky and packed with umami. The company says preserving and preparing whole vegetables “can offer intriguing new takes on the premium tinned seafood you’d find at top restaurants and high-end grocers”, while the inning aids a shelf-stable, low-energy storage option and recyclable packaging to boot.
“We found that these two vegetables really took on and enhanced that seafood experience that people might know well,” Seed to Surf co-founder Alexandra Bergquist told FoodNavigator. “Our mushroom crab is amazing in a crab dip, while the smoked whitefish is great on a bagel. [Consumers] should try these products in the best way possible. [It’s] setting them up for success.”
A rapidly evolving alt-seafood sector
Courtesy: Seed to Surf
Industry think tank the Good Food Institute reported a 40% year-on-year increase in pound sales for plant-based seafood in 2022. And as of 2021, there were over 120 companies in the alternative seafood space (which includes vegan, fermentation-based and cultivated seafood).
Surf and Seed is joined by a host of other brands making vegan alternatives to seafood, which is an industry rife with environmental and human rights issues. The growing demand for seafood has led to overfishing, which, in turn, means higher greenhouse gas emissions, while the heavy fuel use by ocean fishery vessels also contributes to the climate crisis. The 2021 documentary Seaspiracy details the endemic issues attached to this sector.
“The average consumer is becoming more aware of animal welfare and sustainability,” Maarten Garaets, alt-protein managing director of seafood giant Thai Union, told Green Queen in May. “And this is becoming a more important part of the selection criteria when they are buying food, but this is still a very small group.”
He added: “Alternative seafood is a new category, with limited awareness, whereas meat is more established. However, seafood is bound to catch up soon. Health is less of a concern for seafood, whereas sustainability will be more of a lever.”
Mycoprotein – essentially mycelium created from microscopic fungi – has already been on plant-based radars for decades, with Quorn being the world’s first producer of meat alternatives made from the ingredient. Now, a host of startups are taking the concept of mycelium further.
The global mycoprotein segment is set to reach $976M in 2032, according to Future Market Insights. Alt-meats made from mycelium, the substrate root of certain types of fungi, offer similar – and often superior – protein content, and are considered a complete food. They’re also better for the environment – as the harmful impact of livestock farming on climate change, while severely underreported, has been thoroughly researched.
Here are the most exciting mycelium meat brands on the market:
Meati
Courtesy: Meati Foods
Founded in 2015, Boulder-based company Meati is a mycelium pioneer. Its patented tech used mushroom roots to make plant-based whole-cut meat, with the current product portfolio comprising vegan steaks (in classic and Carne Asada varieties) and plant-based chicken breasts (in classic and crispy options) – which sold out in under 24 hours after being made available for pre-order in February 2022.
Mycelium constitutes 95% of the classic chicken cutlet and whole-cut steak, supplemented by natural flavourings, juices for colour acacia gum, oat fibre and chickpea flour. The other varieties only have a spice blend and breading mix added to them.
In January, it opened a large-scale, “infinitely scalable” production facility to rival the output of conventional animal farms, while it collaborated with AI company Pipa in July to better and faster understand the health benefits of its products. The startup, which has raised a total of $250M in various funding rounds – including an investment by Chipotle – also has a working collaboration with American chefs David Chang and Rachael Ray.
Prime Roots
Courtesy: Prime Roots
Prime Roots launched in 2017, creating a koji-based mycelium protein that it claims successfully replicates the texture and flavour of conventional deli meat. And its offerings go a step further: these aren’t deli slices, they’re whole joints.
Its current lineup includes deli meats, charcuterie and bacon. The whole cuts include turkey (cracked pepper and smoked) and ham (smoked, black forest and sugar shack maple). The charcuterie range features salami, pepperoni, pizza-style pepperoni, apple-sage and black truffle patês, and foie gras torchon, while the bacon is hickory-smoked.
In 2021, Prime Roots also debuted a line of plant-based ravioli, which included what the company claimed was the world’s first vegan lobster ravioli. Earlier this year, it received a minor investment from mycoprotein giant Quorn to expand both brands’ reach and product range. Prime Roots closed a $30M Series B funding round in May, bringing its total financing to $50M.
MyForest Foods
Courtesy: MyForest Foods
Formerly known as Atlas Food Co in 2020, MyForest Foods is an offshoot of mycelium pioneer Ecovative Design. The brand makes a whole-cut bacon alternative from mycelium, called MyBacon.
There aren’t too many ingredients apart from the mycelium in this vegan bacon – salt, coconut oil, sugar, natural flavours and beet juice for colour. The Robert Downey Jr-backed brand’s mycelium is grown with a particular blend of woodchips and is ready for harvest in 12 days. The startup has so far raised $30M in funding, after closing a $15M Series A round in June.
Libre Foods
Courtesy: Libre Foods
Catalan brand Libre Foods is another mycelium startup that has launched bacon as its first product. Launched in 2020, it uses precision fermentation to develop fibres resembling animal muscle fibres.
Green Queen reported in December 2021 that Libre was hoping to be the world’s first company to unveil mycelium-based whole-cut steak. While bacon is its first product, it aims to create an entire range of whole cuts, including poultry and seafood. It closed a $2.5M funding round in April 2022, announcing its plans to launch across Europe.
The Better Meat Co
Courtesy: The Better Meat Co
Founded in 2018, The Better Meat Co. leverages the power of mycelium to make Rhiza mycoprotein, its base ingredient for its plant-based meat. The fermentation-based ingredient can be grown 365 days a year and harvested within just hours, and has a neutral flavour and a meatier texture than extrusion plant protein isolates.
The Better Meat Co. claims Rhiza contains more protein than eggs, more iron than beef, more fibre than oats, and is free from all the main allergens and GMOs. The B2B company also says it sells its ingredient for cheaper than the price of beef, and it aims to be cost-competitive with chicken too.
Rhiza forms part of Perdue Farms’ hybrid product Chicken Plus, and has partnered with meat corporation Hormel Foods to develop mycoprotein-based alternatives. The company, which has also conducted limited-edition tastings of its product worldwide, has infamously been in a legal battle with Meati over a proprietary mycelium harvesting technique since 2021.
Mushlabs
German biotech startup Mushlabs uses mushroom mycelium to create raw ingredients for meat alternatives, leveraging the natural umami flavour of mushrooms to replicate the taste of meat. It was part of the ProVeg Incubator and, in 2020, raised $10M in a Series A round.
Mushlabs feeds the mushroom cells with the sidestreams of the agricultural and food industries, making its process highly circular and sustainable. The brand says it aims to develop sausages, meatballs, spreads and burger patties, among others – but adds that its products aren’t yet vegan.
Bosque Foods
Courtesy: Bosque Foods
Fellow German brand Bosque Foods creates whole-cut chicken and pork filets and bacon from mycelium using solid-state fermentation. And just like Mushlabs, it also upcycles agricultural sidestreams by using them as feed in a 10-day harvesting process.
Last year, Bosque closed a $3M seed funding round to expedite product development and commercialisation and establish it with chefs and restaurants. It showcased its chicken cutlet – which contains 85% mycelium – at the Vegan Women Summit in New York City this May.
Adamo Foods
Courtesy: Adamo Foods
UK-based Adamo Foods just secured £1.5M in fresh funding for its whole-cut mycelium steak in June. The startup claims it has discovered a technique to grow mycelium into long, dense fibres that form a texture analogous to the “grain” of a steak or chicken fillet.
Adamo wants to fight climate change, improve global health and boost food security. It aims to keep its products price-competitive with conventional meat, and says its steak and fillets will be available later this year.
In the US, 95% of foodservice operators expect increased or stable sales of vegan food and beverages in the next year, with 76% aiming to continue or increase the number of plant-based meat options, according to a new report by industry body the Plant Based Foods Association (PBFA). It’s in line with consumer sentiment, who have upped their plant-based intake and reduced their meat consumption.
The PBFA’s State of the Marketplace Foodservice Report states that nearly half (48.4%) of all restaurants in the US currently offer plant-based options on their menus, with a 62% increase in plant-based menu items over the past decade. The shift has stemmed from a growing acceptance of vegan food among consumers, with a greater awareness of their health, environmental and animal welfare benefits.
It follows another report by the PBFA earlier this year, which found that the US plant-based market grew by 6.6% from 2021 to 2022, reaching $8B. “The plant-based foods industry’s momentum and resilience – built on robust consumer demand – is evident across 2022 retail and e-commerce sales and foodservice performance,” Julie Emmett, VP of marketplace development at the PBFA, said at the time.
Consumer trends on plant-based eating
Courtesy: Plant Based Foods Association
The report revealed that more than four times as many Americans increased instead of decreased their plant-based consumption, while a third say they’ll eat more vegan foods over the upcoming year. Overall, a third of consumers in the US use plant-based dairy alternatives at least once a week, followed closely by alt-meat.
When it comes to setting, around a quarter of home meals are entirely plant-based, compared to 19% of those eaten outside. And consumers are twice more likely to try plant-based foods in retail settings than foodservice ones, due to factors including convenience, cost and perceived health benefits. This follows the 27% year-on-year growth in plant-based retail sales in the US in 2021.
Meanwhile, 43% of consumers agree that the availability of plant-based food and beverages enhances the restaurant experience – a sentiment that was most prevalent among Gen Z and millennial consumers. The former demographic has a higher proportion of vegans, vegetarians and pescatarians, with 35% falling into the category of ‘meat limiters’.
Courtesy: Plant Based Foods Association
This is highlighted by recent product launches. Taco Bell introduced a vegan Crunchwrap in June, Chipotle added two plant-based options to its Lifestyle bowls as part of its ESG goals for 2023, while Charley’s Steak House collaborated with Chunk Foods to offer the latter’s plant-based whole cut on its Orlando menu.
Plant-based menu options at restaurants
Courtesy: Plant Based Foods Association
Four times as many foodservice operators plan to add plant-based meat to their menus than those who say they’ll remove it, while 8% who currently offer none plan to add vegan alternatives. The reluctance to add a plant-based meat substitute to menus is based on many considerations, including a lack of demand (53%), higher costs (46%), a higher difficulty in predicting demand and purchasing needs (33%), and vegan food not fitting the brand’s image (20%) – as well as factors like food waste and labour requirements.
But within the operators who do incorporate plant-based food into their menus, the fast-casual segment – which often caters to younger generations and those seeking healthy meals on the go – leads the way with nearly 70% menu penetration, followed by mid-scale and casual dining restaurants. Fast-casual chains Fine dining restaurants, meanwhile, are at the bottom of the list.
Courtesy: Plant Based Foods Association
In terms of food types, plant-based seafood and egg options have increasingly been featured on foodservice menus, seeing a 57% and 52% year-on-year growth, respectively. In February, Israeli startup Yo Egg debuted its vegan poached eggs at six Los Angeles eateries, before launching into Veggie Grill stores nationwide. And California’s Impact Food debuted its raw sushi-grade plant-based tuna at Bay Area restaurant Onigilly.
Meanwhile, coconut milk is the leading dairy alternative used owing to its versatility, followed by almond milk. But menu presence of alt-milk is still low, given that more than half of Americans will visit or pay more at establishments that feature specific plant-based dairy alternatives.
Courtesy: Plant Based Foods Association
The report also found that plant-based promotions and limited-time offerings receive higher uniqueness ratings from consumers compared to animal-based counterparts. There is precedent here with McDonald’s, which trialled the McPlant for a limited time before introducing it to the permanent menu, and Shake Shack, which launched its limited-edition Vegan ShackBurger in London in 2020, and debuted its vegan burger in permanent menus in the US earlier this year. Meanwhile, Impact Food struck a deal with Pokeworks for a limited-edition poke bowl in June.
The importance of inclusivity
“The focus of foodservice operators has shifted from simply offering a separate ‘vegan menu’ to creating inclusive dining experiences that highlight the abundance of plant-based choices available,” says Hannah Lopez, director of marketplace development, foodservice at PBFA.
Across all age demographics, the PBFA says there’s a stronger preference for the terms ‘plant-based’ and ‘dairy-free’ compared to ‘vegan’ and ‘vegetarian’. The clear labelling and intentional placement of plant-based food menu options at restaurants is essential for consumer awareness and inclusivity. It echoes a report by food awareness organisation ProVeg International last week, which expressed a preference for ‘plant-based’ over ‘vegan’ on menus.
According to the PBFA, this trend suggests that consumers are open to limiting their animal product consumption without completely eliminating it. It says nearly three-quarters of Americans are interested in blended animal- and plant-based proteins, like pasta dishes with plant-based proteins and dairy cheese. While only about 20% of operators currently offer such dishes, 30% show interest in exploring this idea. This concept has already penetrated the retail sector globally, with brands like Momentum Foods, Mush Foods and Nanka all offering hybrid plant- and animal-based meats.
Courtesy: Plant Based Foods Association
The report notes that inclusive menus are paramount: “As foodservice operators lean into menu innovation and expansion, having plant-based foods as staple menu options and ingredients will allow for more inclusive and wide-ranging customer bases, and a greater feeling among guests that their values, interests, and tastes are being served.”
In a January webinar, the PBFA presented data showing that 60% of US restaurants see plant-based as a long-term trend. This sentiment is mirrored by Jennifer DiFrancesco, director of culinary innovation at Sodexo Campus, which has committed to making its catering menu 50% plant-based by 2025. “Having plant-based foods isn’t a buzz or a trend, it’s a need and a demand that we deliver with creativity and flavour,” she says, adding: “Inclusive options are key – having the 1:1 animal to plant entrée makes it approachable, relatable, and tempting to try.”
The PBFA says it’s clear that the foodservice industry offers stability and reliability as a platform for plant-based food companies seeking long-term success in a rapidly evolving sector: “Key opportunities exist for companies and operators alike to forge meaningful, mutually beneficial partnerships to give consumers what they want: delicious, affordable, healthier, and more sustainable plant-based options.”
While it’s a rapidly growing industry, cultivated meat is still a new concept to people, with regulators in only two countries across the world approving its sale so far. A new study has analysed the impact of food technology neophobia – a fear of the new – and different images on consumer attitudes towards cultivated meat.
The research found that food technology neophobia strongly impacts consumer acceptance of cultured meat. It has negative effects on their behavioural intentions – but even then, participants indicated they are likely to embrace cultivated meat. Those who had higher levels of neophobia were less likely to regularly buy and eat it, but for people with a higher level of acceptance, neophobia wasn’t as significant in their potential to consume cultivated meat as it is in their behavioural intentions.
Published in the Food Quality and Practice journal, the study surveyed 727 potential cultivated meat customers in Germany, examining their willingness to try cultured meat, regularly purchase it, eat it instead of conventional meat, and pay more for it. It combined information about these alternatives with images centring on the tech surrounding them (like in a lab setting), those that focused on them in a more familiar context (where they look like conventional meat), as well as without any photos.
Receiving detailed information about the benefits of cultured meat or including pictures alongside this information proved to have no significant influence on people’s intentions to consume or regularly buy cell-based alternatives. Participants’ attitudes similarly did not change based on whether the information focused on the benefits of cultivated meat or remained neutral.
People were also tested on their preference for deliberative or intuitive thinking. The study found that those who favoured intuitive thinking are more likely to accept cultivated meat, while those preferring deliberative thinking are more likely to reject it.
Additionally, the researchers found that frequent meat eaters and those who regularly eat meat substitutes like tofu are the two groups most likely to eat cultivated alternatives, showcasing enthusiasm for the relatively new tech. The study also proposed further analysis of the effect of information about the risks of cultivated meat on consumer perceptions.
Courtesy: Ivy Farm Technologies
Research important to highlight consumer acceptance of cultured meat
The analysis adds to a body of research exploring consumer perceptions about cell-cultured meat. One study conducted last year found a correlation between people’s wellbeing and willingness to try cultivated meat in Singapore, while earlier research in the country showed 78% of its residents are willing to try it.
According to industry think tank the Good Food Institute, total investment in cultivated meat startups reached $2.78B last year, with more than 150 companies working in this sector and governments across the globe pouring funds into cell-based meat research. This is a marker of increased acceptance, and one study has highlighted consumer belief that cultured protein will make up 40% of their meat intake in the future. This is in line with industry sentiment, too, as 86% of chefs say they want to serve cultivated meat to their customers.
As more countries look to approve the sale of cultivated meat – and as it becomes more widely available – studies like these provide a key insight into what consumers think and want, and how they’ll perceive such alt-proteins.
Months after Switch Foods inaugurated the UAE’s first plant-based meat manufacturing facility in Abu Dhabi, consumers can now find its vegan kebabs, minced meat and burgers at retailers across the capital. It comes in the UAE’s Year of Sustainability, where it pledged to promote plant-based foods, and is hosting the UN climate summit COP28, which is confirmed to serve mostly vegan food.
In April, Switch opened a 20,000 sq ft facility in Abu Dhabi’s Khalifa Industrial Zone – the first to make vegan meat alternatives in the country. Now, it’s launching the nation’s first locally produced vegan products into the retail market.
Switch’s lineup includes kebabs, koftas, soujouks, minced meat and burger patties in varying sizes, with all products being GMO-, soy- and gluten-free. The range is allergen-friendly and halal-certified, and can be found at retailers including Carrefour, Organic Food Café, Grandiose, Geant, Union Coop, Sharjah Coop, Al Maya, Abella and Spinneys in Abu Dhabi. Switch’s products are also available on online platforms like Talabat, Careem, Kibsons and Noon.
A 250g pack of minced meat costs 14 AED ($3.81), while a 240g pack of the soujouk is priced at 19 AED ($5.17). Meanwhile, a four-pack of burger patties is 34 AED ($9.26), and 240g of kebab meat comes to 20 AED ($5.45). These prices, while not super cheap, are still affordable when compared to imported plant-based meat.
Switch founder and CEO Edward Hamod said: “It has been a true pleasure to witness the excitement and willingness of the leadership and management of prominent retailers and online platforms across the UAE to support locally produced and sustainable foods like the ones we produce at Switch Foods.”
Courtesy: Switch Foods
Plant-based boom in the UAE
2023 is also the UAE’s Year of Sustainability, part of which is a push to promote plant-based eating in the country. Later this year, the UAE will also host COP28, and it has famously announced that this year’s conference will serve predominantly plant-based food.
The company’s launch, along with COP28’s decision, is in line with consumer sentiment in the UAE – 44% of its residents are open to substituting meat and dairy with vegan alternatives.
The country has already seen multiple overseas plant-based producers enter the market in recent years. In 2021, US giant Impossible Foods made its Middle East debut at Dubai World Expo, while Singapore-based TiNDLE also launched in this region for the first time at 20 UAE restaurants.
Neighboring nation Saudi Arabia has also been actively promoting more plant-based foods – officials from the Saudi Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture are co-developing alt-protein products with locally sourced plants.
Plant-based newcomer Recreate Foods has appointed Michael Salem, creator of Burger King’s Impossible Whopper, as its president. Previously the curator of Kevin Hart-owned restaurant Hart House‘s menu, he joins a vegan chicken brand that faces stiff competition in an increasingly populated category – and he’s betting on taste and texture.
Founded earlier this year, Arizona-based Recreate Foods’ vegan chicken range – which includes filets, tenders, nuggets and grounds made from pea protein – is crafted by chefs to prioritise high quality.
A premium brand in an overpopulated category
The US plant-based chicken sector is over-congested and highly competitive – there are around 20 brands making vegan nuggets alone. Just last week, Californian alt-nugget startup Nowadays announced it is ceasing operations amid a continued decline in plant-based meat sales in the US.
But Salem believes Recreate Foods’ positioning as a high-end company separates it from the crowd. “What clearly differentiates Recreate from others in the category is it’s simply a delicious chicken-based analogue,” he told trade publication Food Dive. “And we’re not a value-oriented brand, we’re a premium brand.”
He doubled down on this aspect by explaining the producer focuses on flavour and texture – two key components of concern about plant-based meat for consumers. “A lot of these big companies have a ton of resources, they have a lot of passion, they have a ton of exposure and media, but they don’t really necessarily have a great product,” said Salem.
“The ethos that we operate under as a company is that we’re not a science-based company. We’re not in the business of creating formulas. We’re in the business of creating delicious recipes.”
Photo: Recreate Foods/Instagram
From Burger King to Recreate Foods
Salem was the head of culinary development at Burger King for four years, and found his love for the plant-based category after launching the vegan Impossible Whopper burger exactly four years ago (8 August 2019). He called the unique impact of product launches one of the industry’s main attractions: “Not to trash the product launch of McCafé – it was a great launch – but it didn’t really change the world.”
He added that some brands prioritise virtue over quality: “We start to see companies position themselves as ‘It’s the right thing to do’ or really leaning in on vegans to kind of shame you into doing the right thing.”
However, he was also quoted as saying: “In the plant-based category, a product can be profitable, creative, incremental, and make perfect business sense. But more importantly, and more impactful for me, is it can have a tremendous impact on the pressure that we’re putting on livestock.”
During the launch of Hart House, he had a similar response: “I’ve seen too many animals die. I’ve been too guilty about the food I’ve been serving the community, making people really unhealthy for a long time, and I just don’t think it’s necessary. I think this is really the future of fast food, so that’s why I took the gig. I just thought it was an incredible chance to really make a difference and leave a legacy on food service and an industry that’s been so good to me.”
Whether it’s virtue- or flavour-first, the jury’s out on how a premium player will perform in an oversaturated and sales-hit category, but Salem is up for the challenge.
Prolonging what CEO Ethan Brown called “the most difficult period” for the plant-based giant, year-on-year sales at Beyond Meat fell by 30.5% to $102M, with a $53.5M net loss. The company has now reduced its full-year revenue forecast and walked back its earlier goal of becoming cashflow-positive in the second half of 2023. Brown ascribed the grim Q2 results to diminishing demand and problematic health perceptions of Beyond’s products.
After entering this year on an optimistic financial note – with its Q1 2023 earnings (while down year-on-year) exceeding Wall Street projections – Beyond had expected sharper revenue growth in the second half of 2023. But it has now reduced its full-year forecast from $375-415M (predicted in Q1) to $360-380M, giving up hope of achieving positive cashflow in the second half.
Beyond cites “greater-than-expected consumer and category headwinds and their anticipated impact on net revenues” as the reason for this. However, the company added it remained “firmly focused on achieving cash flow positive operations, including increased cost containment, and expects meaningfully reduced cash consumption for the balance of the year”.
The alt-meat giant – which laid off 19% of its staff last year – said gross profit was $2.3M in Q2, which meant a gross margin of 2.2%. This is an improvement from the previous year – a $6.2M loss and a negative gross margin of -4.2% – which Beyond attributes to lower materials costs, lower inventory reserves and lower logistics costs per pound. This was partially offset by higher manufacturing costs and lower net revenue per pound, and it represents a decline from the Q1 gross margin of 6.7%.
Beyond hit by fall in consumer demand for plant-based meat
Beyond Meat CEO Ethan Brown called it “the most difficult period for the business” | Courtesy: Beyond Meat
Beyond’s Q2 results come amid a growing decline in demand for plant-based meat alternatives. A new Mintel survey of 1,400 US consumers suggests that only 20% followed a meat-reduced diet this year, with inflation causing 53% of consumers to try fewer new foods like plant-based substitutes. Participants cited taste (48%), nutrition (35%), cost (34%), texture (24%) and processing (21%) as their primary concerns against alt-meat.
It suggests that the category suffers from negative perceptions – reflecting Beyond CEO Brown’s comments on an earnings call to investors, against whom Beyond is facing a class-action lawsuit. “There is a considerable gap between the strong health credentials of our products and a broader counternarrative that is now afoot, and this gap appears to have widened,” he said, as reported by AgFunderNews.
“As was the case during the ascent of plant-based milk, this change in perception is not without encouragement from interest groups, who have succeeded in seeding doubt and fear around the ingredients and processes we use to create our and other plant-based meats,” he added. “Nor is it without contribution from well-meaning yet misguided comparisons of our products to kale salads, versus the animal-based meats they are intended to replace.”
He pointed to the company’s new There’s Goodness Here ad campaign, which subtly responds to years of targeted ads by meat industry interest groups against plant-based meat. The new ads highlight alt-meat’s positive impact on the environment, water and land use, energy footprint, as well as health and farmers. They also focus on a reduced ingredient list for the Beyond Steak, which is also the first meat product – animal- or plant-based – to be certified by the American Heart Association.
The aim is to alter consumer perceptions shaped by coordinated negative messaging against plant-based meat. It also keys into what people want: the Mintel report found that 30% of flexitarians avoid vegan meat alternatives because they are overproduced.
“If you look at Beyond Steak,” said Brown, “it’s absolutely delicious – you have such high levels of protein and a gram of saturated fat… Those things matter when the consumer is willing to come in. But if there’s a kind of cloud over the sector, those things matter less. So our number one goal is to lift that cloud.”
The Europe-US perception divide
With Beyond Steak, the company hopes to quell consumer concern about alt-meat’s health benefits and overprocessed ingredient lists | Courtesy: Beyond Meat
Beyond’s international retail revenue was down by 15.6% year-on-year, while foodservice sales saw a more modest decline of 0.9%. But in the US – its home market – retail sales fell by 38.5%, while foodservice saw an even larger drop of 45.4% in the same period. Brown alluded to the differences in consumer perception between the US and Europe: “Consumers are very concerned about climate and the environment in Europe, government is concerned about it, and institutions are concerned about it.”
But in the US, plant-based food consumption is “more driven by health”, and there’s been a decline in the health perception of this sector. He cited a Food Marketing Institute study that found 50% of Americans believed plant-based meats were healthy in 2020, compared to just 38% in 2022. This echoes a 2023 Newsweek poll that showed 40% of Americans don’t believe eating less would help lower carbon emissions, which is in contrast to research that shows a vegan diet can cut emissions by 75% compared to a meat-heavy diet. “We now have to do the heavy work as an industry to fix that.”
He pointed to the “clear nutritional advantages” of Beyond Steak and other products compared to conventional meat. These include “no cholesterol, lower levels of saturated fats, the absence of antibiotics, hormones, and other veterinary drugs, the absence of carcinogenic compounds such as heterocyclic amines, and the absence of precursors to TMAO, a compound that researchers have associated with heart disease and certain cancers”.
Ethan noted that “while older people aren’t necessarily wrapping their minds” around their food’s impact on the climate, younger Americans are. He referenced how 44% of US foodservice provider Aramark’s residential dining menus at 250+ colleges and universities will be plant-based, while Sodexo’s commitment to make 50% of its college campus menus plant-based by 2025. “So the trend really is here.”
And it’s what keeps Brown optimistic. Despite Beyond Meat’s decline in year-on-year sales, quarterly revenue actually increased by 11%, ending a five-quarter streak of continuous revenue decline. Referring to the cut in its full-year revenue forecast, the CEO said: “We nevertheless expect a modest return to year-over-year top-line growth in the third and fourth quarters of 2023, and – relative to the first half of 2023 – a meaningful reduction in cash consumption and an increase in gross margin.”
While the plant-based industry has faced a slump, cost plays a big part. Like many branded products, Beyond’s alternatives are relatively expensive. A 2023 Kantar report suggests that while plant-based food brands have seen a 10% drop in sales, private-label supermarket offerings have grown by 14% in the last year. And reaching price parity with the conventional products Beyond Meat replaces is one of its top priorities in the coming months.
Shanghai food tech brand Haofood, known for its plant-based chicken made from peanuts, has launched soup dumplings filled with peanut-based pork mince. The first plant-based meat brand to use peanut protein as the base ingredient, this marks the company’s second type of vegan meat.
Xiaolongbaos (or soup dumplings) traditionally contain a minced pork filling, but Haofood’s vegan version swaps them for a peanut-based alternative that mimics the original’s taste and texture. The soup itself is a black truffle flavour, and the dumplings are packed with protein and dietary fibre, and free of trans fats.
Launched in 2020, Haofood co-founder Astrid Prajogo exhibited the peanut mince dumplings at the Berlin headquarters of ProVeg Incubator – the brand had participated in the 12-week accelerator programme in 2020. The new product comes on the heels of a report that puts China at the top of the list of countries with the greatest market potential for alt-meat.
Haofood co-founder Astrid Prajogo exhibited the new peanut-based pork dumplings in Berlin | Courtesy: Haofood/LinkedIn
Haofood’s peanut-powered journey
“We started with the aspiration of helping foodies reduce their meat consumption without losing the pleasure of eating the familiar dishes that they love,” Prajogo told ProVeg in 2020. “That’s why we are developing a plant-based chicken that is specifically designed to be cooked as Asian fried chicken.”
Now, the brand has three products in its portfolio: vegan pulled chicken in naked, black pepper and Xinjiang-spiced flavours; crispy chicken patties in original and spicy variants; and a plant-based chicken chop.
In 2021, Haofood partnered with five Shanghai restaurants to add its peanut-based chicken to their menu offerings, like mini-burgers, wraps and bowls. It also struck a distribution deal with Chinese convenience store giant Lawson last year to stock its plant-based chicken in 2,300 retail stores nationwide. This came a month after it announced a $3.5M seed funding round, which included the likes of ProVeg, Monde Nissin CEO Henry Soesanto, and Big Idea Ventures, among others.
Plant-based dumplings on the rise
Courtesy: OmniPork
Haofood’s latest offering joins a host of other companies in the budding vegan dumpling category in Asia. While its xiaolongbaos are the first of their kind to launch to market, brands like OmniPork and Plant Sifu (both Hong Kong-based brands) have debuted various ready-to-eat dumpling ranges in recent years in retail and in foodservice. Omni famously partnered with Wanchai Ferry, Hong Kong’s dumpling-famous frozen meal brand, on two OmniPork-filled SKUs in 2020.
Plant Sifu, meanwhile, uses a proprietary fat technology to create a juicy and fragrant pork alternative ideal for dumpling fillings. The brand claims its product is cholesterol- and MSG-free, and contains less salt and fewer calories than conventional pork.
Vegan dumplings are equally popular around the world including the US: seaweed startup Triton Algae Foods has teamed up with Too Good to Be Foods to launch vegan pork dumplings and San Francisco brand Sobo Foods has soft-launched its plant-based dumplings at select retailers in the Bay area.
On August 5, 2013, a team of Dutch scientists from Maastricht University, led by Dr Mark Post, showcased the world’s first burger made from cultivated meat at a tasting in London. It was the result of decades of research and trials, with food critics describing this first prototype “close to meat, but not that juicy”, and Post calling it a “good start”.
Now, 10 years on, the progress made by this industry has accelerated, with more companies and funding than ever before, as well as increased government and regulatory support, and steps towards price parity with conventional meat. Here are 10 highlights defining the meteoric rise of cultivated meat.
Launch of the world’s first cultured meat hamburger (August 5, 2013)
1) There are now over 150 companies working on cultivated meat around the world
According to industry think tank the Good Food Institute’s 2023 State of the Industry Report, the total number of cultivated meat companies is at least 156 – up from 107 in 2021. These producers are based in 26 different regions internationally, and at least 70 additional brands have joined the industry via partnerships or product and service offerings.
This total number of companies, however, is likely an underestimate, as it’s common practice for startups to begin in ‘stealth mode’ and announce their arrival after hitting their first milestone (such as a successful funding round or product prototype), but given that a decade ago, there wasn’t one incorporated company working on this technology, we’ve come a long way!
2) There are now dozens of types of cultivated animal flesh from quail to fish to foie gras
While that first burger tasting was for a beef burger, there are numerous kinds of cultivated meat being developed. Where Dr Mark Post’s Mosa Meat and Israeli startup Aleph Farms are focused on the cow, companies like GOOD Meat, ClearMeat, SuperMeat and Upside Foods are working on chicken (the latter has also debuted duck and beef products). Pork is another popular alternative, with brands like Meatable, Joes Future Food and Ivy Farm Technologies tackling Asia’s favorite meat.
There’s also cell-cultured seafood, from fish fillets to raw salmon to crustaceans such as prawn and crab. Singapore’s Umami Meats and Shiok Meats, and California’s Finless Foods and Wildtype Foods are all pioneering this sector.
Apart from these, Orbillion Bio produces Wagyu beef, in addition to working on elk, lamb and bison alternatives. French startup Gourmey is making cultivated foie gras, and Australia’s Vow want to use this tech to develop kangaroo, zebra, tortoise and yak meat – and it’s already showcased Japanese quail dumplings.
Courtesu: Orbillion Bio
3) Nomenclature continues to be an issue
Cultivated meat, which is the industry’s preferred term, is has many alternative names from cultured meat to clean meat to synthetic meat to the industry’s least preferred term: lab-grown.
Research published in Nature Portfolio found ‘lab-grown’ to be the least favourable term among consumers (alongside ‘artificial meat’) too, while ‘cell-cultured’ and ‘cell-cultivated’ were the most popular. This is echoed by a 2021 GFI survey of 44 industry CEOs, 75% of whom preferred ‘cultivated’ meat. And in 2022, APAC stakeholders signed a memorandum of understanding declaring ‘cultivated’ as the preferred English-language term for these alternatives.
Mainstream media reporters continue to use the term lab-grown despite repeated requests from industry to stop doing so. One main reason journalists should rethink the term? It’s inaccurate. In fact, cultivated meat at commercial scale is not produced (or grown) in a lab environment. Rather, like most foods in our supermarkets, it is made in a food factory.
In 2021, Upside Foods strongly discouraged the use of terms like ‘lab-grown’ or ‘lab-based’, ‘synthetic’ and ‘fake’. It argued that ‘lab-grown’ suggests cultivated meat would always be made in a lab – but once it scales up, it could likely be made in a food-production-like environment. “The labelling of cultivated meat and poultry products will be a crucial component of how our industry conveys the basic nature, essential characteristics, and value of these products to consumers,” the company said.
4) Removing FBS from production is key to the industry’s long-term sustainability
One of the biggest controversies surrounding cultivated meat is the use of fetal bovine serum, a growth medium derived from cows. The use of this serum meant cell-cultured meat produced with it wasn’t animal-free – since it relied upon genetically altering animal cells – and Mosa Meat called the ingredient “not sustainable, reliable or scalable”.
The Dutch company ditched the serum in 2019, and last year published its formulation for developing a serum-free way to produce cultivated meat. “Using a method called RNA sequencing, we can study the changes in gene expression that the cells undergo when they differentiate into muscle,” the company said. It paved the way for companies across this sector to develop serum-free offerings.
Japanese startup IntegriCulture also developed cultivated chicken and duck liver cells using a serum-free medium, and South Korea’s CellMEAT created a serum-free cell culture medium to drive down production costs and provide an ethical cell-cultured meat option.
In fact, many of the more established cultivated meat companies are either phasing out or no longer using FBS in their production but the controversy remains, especially for industry detractors.
Courtesy: CellMEAT
5) Total funding to date for cultivated meat startups is close to $3B
In its latest report, GFI report states that cultivated meat startups have raised a total of $2.78 billion in venture funding since 2016. In 2022, the sector reeled in $896 million – and while this was a 33% year-on-year drop, the amount still outperformed the overall global VC funding decline of 35% year-on-year.
Europe saw higher investments in cell-cultured meat last year than in 2021, while Asia Pacific companies raised more capital in 2022 than any other year. It was also the year that saw the largest single deals for both a cultivated meat (Upside Foods) and seafood company (Wildtype Foods), while the number of unique investors also grew year-on-year by 19% to 679.
Courtesy: Upside Foods
6) Governments around the world are (slowly) starting to fund cultivated meat
Amidst a worsening climate crisis and more frequent food supply disruptions, governments around the world are increasingly looking to future food technologies as potential solutions as part of national food security strategies.
In 2022, Europe led the world in financing cultured meat research and development. The Netherlands announced a €60M investment – a world record – towards building a cellular agriculture ecosystem, while Norway pledged €10M for a five-year programme to develop cellular agriculture and solve cost and scalability issues. In Spain, a €750,000 grant was given to a biotech company to study cultivated meat industrialisation.
Horizon Europe, the EU’s core innovation and research funding programme, also mentioned cultivated meat and seafood as one of its three core pillars, with around €7M set aside for this sector. Meanwhile, the UK’s Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council poured £20M into research and development for alt-proteins, which include cell-cultured meat.
Across the Atlantic, the US Department of Agriculture awarded a $10M grant in 2021 to Tufts University to build the National Institute for Cellular Agriculture, which was the first-ever government-funded research project. And in September last year, the Biden administration introduced a biotech programme that includes finances for “foods made with cultured animal cells”. Meanwhile, California allocated $5M for alt-protein research in its state budget, becoming the first US state to invest in research for cultivated meat.
In the Middle East, Israel leads the alt-protein wave. In 2021, it invested $18M to fund the world’s largest cultivated meat consortium, while government funding has contributed $13M to early-stage startups and infrastructure.
Asia also saw an increase in government investments in cultivated meat. South Korea awarded a $15M million grant to cell-based meat startup Space F, while Japan provided a ¥240M ($2.2M) grant to build the country’s first bioreactor for cultured meat production. Meanwhile, Singapore and Israel collaborated to award a joint grant to Steakholder Foods and Umami Meats to develop 3D-printed cultivated grouper fish. Notably, the Singaporean government has made alternative proteins and cultivated meat a key part of its 30 by 2030 food security plan.
7) Only 2 Countries Allow For The Commercial Sale of Cultivated Meat
As of today, only 2 countries have given cultivated meat the regulatory green light.
In 2020, Singapore famously became the first country in the world to approve the sale of cultivated meat after granting regulatory approval to Eat Just, the parent company of GOOD Meat. Since then, a host of companies have flocked to the island nation to pass through its regulatory process and enter the market. Earlier this year, Singapore also became the first country to grant regulatory approval for the use of serum-free media in cultivated meat (also awarded to GOOD Meat).
In June, the US became just the second country on the list to greenlight the sale of cell-cultured meat, as GOOD Meat and Upside Foods passed the premarket regulatory review process for cultivated chicken.
Many countries have regulatory systems in place for alt-proteins, but they are yet to grant approval to companies for sale. The Netherlands has, however, approved cultivated meat and seafood tastings. And in July, Aleph Farms submitted the first regulatory application for cell-cultured meat in Europe, filing for approval in Switzerland. Days later, it also applied for clearance in the UK. But so far, no cultured meat company has filed for regulatory approval in the EU. Israel is another locus of activity with more cultivated meat companies per capita than almost anywhere, and pundits have predicted it could be next for regulatory approval, but so far, the jury is still out.
Courtesy: Good Meat
8) Only a small handful of restaurants in the world have served diners cultivated meat
Currently, only a handful of restaurants across the globe are selling cultivated meat, with Singapore’s regulatory approval paving the way for eateries to debut these alternatives. In 2020, after the approval was granted, 1880 became the world’s first restaurant to serve cultivated meat, namely GOOD Meat’s chicken. This was followed by JW Marriot’s Madame Fan restaurant, which replaced all chicken items on its menu with GOOD Meat’s product in 2021, and Huber’s Butchery and Bistro, which also introduced the company’s cultivated chicken on its menu in 2022 where it remains on the menu today.
And in July, San Francisco’s Bar Crenn, owned by chef Dominique Crenn, became the first US restaurant to serve cultivated meat in the US – with Upside Foods’ chicken – followed a week later by chef José Andrés’s Washington DC eatery China Chilcano, also serving GOOD Meat’s cell-cultured chicken.
9) From cultivated meat to cell-base coffee, chocolate and fur: how the industry’s tech inspired alternatives beyond food
While the technology for cultivated meat was originally developed to make a slaughter-free alternative to animal flesh, the industry inspired entrepreneurs and scientists from all kinds of other sectors to use the science to find cell-based alternatives to other high-emission products. Several companies are producing an animal-free alternative to dairy Indo-American startup Brown Foods, Canada’s Opalia, and Israel’s Wilk, which makes yoghurt from cultivated milk fat. Meanwhile, startups like Australia’s Me& and US-based Biomilq are pioneering cultivated breast milk.
There’s also cultivated chocolate, with startups like Israel’s Celleste Bio and California Cultured leading the pack. The latter is now also working on cell-based coffee, something researchers from Finland’s VTT Technical Research Centre say they developed in 2021 with French startup Stem working on the beanless coffee alternative too.
10) Cultivated meat and price parity: an ongoing battle
Alongside regulatory approval, the cost of these products is the biggest obstacle for the cultivated meat industry to overcome. But there have been major steps forward in this area. 10 years after Dr Post and his team’s showcased the first beef burger tasting in what reportedly cost over $300,000 for two patties, the cost is now closer to approximately $100 per pound (some companies have suggested a few hundred per pound, others have quoted under $100, so this is an average) thanks to continuous R&D and production scaling.
While at Bar Crenn, Upside Foods’ chicken is part of a six-course $150 prix fixe tasting menu – on par with (or cheaper than) many fine-dining tasting menus, the company is likely losing money per serve (hence the very limited availability of the menu), and we are still a while away from cultivated meat being able to compete with conventional meat or even plant-based meat
While GFI predicts that cultivated meat could reach cost parity with its traditional counterparts by as early as 2030 and further analysis by industry supplier Ark Biotech highlighted how cost-competitive cultivated meat could be a reality, many industry insiders are more cautious. Startups want to scale, but a lack of bioreactor facilities, a need for more funding, and the high cost of media (including FBS-free serum) mean the industry is unlikely to compete with supermarket beef chuck anytime soon.
Beyond Meat’s first new ad campaign after a difficult year sees the plant-based meat brand go back to its roots – literally. Titled There’s Goodness Here, Beyond tackles misinformation about plant-based meat in a subtle response to the meat industry’s targeted ads over the years. Crucially, the campaign puts an oft-overlooked member of the agri-food system at the centre of the action: the farmer.
The new ad highlights Steven, a fifth-generation fava bean farmer from North Dakota. (Fava beans are one of Beyond Meat’s key ingredients.) It is set in a rural field, where Steven takes the viewer through his rows of crops, while a voiceover explains how Beyond turns plants into meat and extols the environmental and health virtues of its products.
“From these crops,” the narrator says, “we get protein and run it through a simple and clean process of heating, cooling, and pressure to form plant-based meats that are better for you.”
The meat industry’s campaign against the plant-based industry
The ad marks Beyond’s first response to years of coordinated ads by meat industry interest groups, run by the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) since 2019. The smear campaign involved print ads, newspaper op-eds, video features and target websites like Clean Food Facts. The CCF took a shot at the processed nature of plant-based meats, and their long, complex ingredient lists.
One ad pit vegan meat against dog food, with a side-by-side comparison of the ingredient lists asking consumers to guess which is which. Meanwhile, a video campaign used a clip from Beyond CEO Ethan Brown’s interview with CBS, where he talked about reproducing amino acids and fats from plant-based sources to replicate meat. CCF proceeded to list a partial ingredient list from Beyond to show it takes more than just those two elements to “make fake meat”, adding that “not all ingredients these are good for you”, without explaining why.
But perhaps the CCF’s biggest attack on plant-based meat came during the 2020 Super Bowl – an ad that featured Spelling Bee participants struggling with words like methylcellulose and propylene glycol (which it claimed were “chemicals” used for “synthetic meats”). “If you can’t spell it or pronounce it,” concluded the ad, “maybe you shouldn’t be eating it.”
Where Beyond focuses on farm and ingredients, Impossible fights back against CCF and meat industry tactics
Where Beyond takes a more muted approach, the response from its closest competitor Impossible Foods is more direct, explicitly calling out the meat industry.
For example, the company parodied the CCF’s spelling bee ad, where a child is confused after being asked to spell “poop”. The judge goes on to explain how there’s “lots of poop in the places where pigs and chickens are chopped to pieces to make meat”, and a voiceover highlights research that found 300 samples of ground beef to contain “fecal bacteria”. In response to the CCF’s last line, Impossible’s ad says: “Just because a kid can spell ‘poop’, doesn’t mean you or your kids should be eating it.”
Impossible’s newest Making Meat History campaign is a more direct retaliation than Beyond’s latest commercial. The former’s The Summer of Impossible ad – released in June – takes the form of a musical, discussing the differences and similarities between plant- and animal-based meat.
Beyond’s ad puts the focus on its ingredient label. Its Beyond Steak, which debuted last year and which the company described as having a ‘cleaner’ and simpler ingredient list – wheat gluten, fava beans, pomegranate concentrate, spices and flavourings, sunflower lecithin, and fruit and vegetable juice colour, became the first meat product – vegan or conventional – to be certified by the American Heart Association this past May.
Beyond uses this win to address the “unclean” and “unhealthy” rhetoric the CCF ads pursue, labelling its new product as “heart-healthy steak from the Heartland” in the ad campaign.
After a turbulent year, Beyond readies for an uptick
It’s no secret that the last year or so has been tough going for Beyond Meat. Retail sales for plant-based meat have seen a continuous decline, and Beyond has been hit hard. It failed to meet targets in 2022, with revenue dropping for five consecutive quarters ending April 1 this year. In May, its stock tumbled to a new low of $10.02 – far from its highs of over $239 following its July 2019 IPO.
The meat giant was forced to lay off 19% of its staff – around 200 employees – last year, and is now facing a class-action lawsuit over claims it misled its investors about its production and growth plans. It has also entered an equity distribution agreement with Goldman Sachs to sell shares worth up to $200M.
With its new ad campaign, Beyond goes back to its roots, spotlighting the very people who form the bedrock of any food business: farmers. The tagline for its new There’s Goodness Here campaign is ‘Back to the Farm’, putting the producer at the heart of its messaging. Highlighting the story of Steven, a farmer who decided to grow fava beans for products like Beyond Meat, is a laudable step towards Beyond’s commitment to transparency and giving back.
“Our story begins with sun, soil, water, and a seed,” the voiceover says at the beginning of the ad. “It begins in fields.” It continues by explaining the soil-positive effects of these crops, but stresses the fact that farmers also benefit: “It helps farmers keep their fields and soil healthy, naturally.”
Keying in on the importance of farmers is crucial, especially since a common criticism of the plant-based meat industry is that it puts meat farmers out of business. In a world that is becoming more ethical and hoping to be more sustainable every day, positioning its products as planet-, health- and people-friendly could be just what Beyond needs.
Dutch startup Meatable has raised $35M in funding to scale the production and accelerate the commercial launch of its cultivated pork. Bringing the total funding received by the company to $95M, the announcement comes a month after it worked with Mosa Meat, HollandBIO and the Dutch government to create a ‘code of practice’ facilitating cultivated meat tastings in the country.
The Series B investment round was led by Agronomics, and so Invest-NL join as a new investor, contributing $17M. Meatable aims to use the funds to scale its processes and speed up the commercial launch of its cultivated pork. The scaling and optimisation of its manufacturing processes will also help it become cost-competitive with conventional meat.
“Our pursuit for appropriate protein alternatives that further a sustainable and circular society remains ceaseless,” said Bastiaan Gielink, senior investment manager at Invest-NL. “The breakthroughs achieved by Meatable have convinced us that they possess the know-how and team to make this potential a reality.”
Meatable eyes 2024 Singapore launch
Courtesy: Meatable
In October 2022, Meatable partnered with Singapore’s ESCO Aster, the only regulator-approved contracted cultivated meat manufacturing facility in the world, in its bid towards achieving approval from the Singapore Food Agency. And in May, it hosted its first cultivated meat tasting event in the city-state, with the goal of launching its pork sausages and dumplings in select restaurants and retailers in 2024.
Meatable co-founder and CEO Krijn de Nood confirmed to Green Queen that the company will be looking to expand to the US after the Singapore launch, before exploring other markets, depending on the regulatory processes. The US became just the second country to approve the sale of cultivated meat products in June, granting regulatory clearance to Upside Foods and Good Meat.
“In order to gain regulatory approval in the US, we’re working with the relevant US experts and authorities on this matter – including the US Food and Drug Administration and the United States Department of Agriculture,” said de Noord. “Our application in Singapore gives us useful points of reference as well.”
“To create Meatable’s cultivated meat, our team first isolates a single animal cell, taken harmlessly from an animal. While immortalised cell lines are more commonly found in the industry, they require an alteration of the cells to allow them to multiply indefinitely,” explained de Nood.
The company’s patented tech instead uses pluripotent stem cells (PSCs), which “have the natural ability to keep on multiplying and to do so rapidly” – and these double in just 24 hours. “The difficulty with using PSCs is that it can be more challenging to change them from stem cells into more specialised cells, such as muscle or fat,” said de Nood. “However, by using these cells in combination with patented opti-o technology, we’re able to produce real muscle and fat cells that are fully differentiated in just [eight] days.” That’s about 30 times faster than it takes to rear a pig for pork on the farm.
“This is coupled with a perfusion process that allows the team to work in a continuous cycle to generate very high cell densities,” he added. “This means we can grow a lot of cells in our bioreactors, and harvest cultured meat from the reactors continuously. This is a great step forward as it increases productivity and makes the process easy to scale.
“Altogether, this means that when it comes to making real cultivated meat, we have the tools to make the process extremely efficient and one that can scale to serve customers around the world.”
Asked about consumer perception of cultured meat – people who are vegetarian or vegan may be uneasy about the idea of eating meat grown from an animal cell – de Nood stresses that cultivated meat isn’t “like meat” – it is meat.
“Cultivated meat addresses some of the concerns people might have about eating traditional meat. For example, there is no harm done to animals and it will in time be much more environmentally friendly to produce than industrially farmed options. In the end, cultivated meat will be a dietary choice, just like any other. We are aiming to make that choice as self-explanatory as possible.”
A 2021 poll conducted by Israeli cultured meat producer Aleph Farms – which applied for regulatory approval in Switzerland and the UK last month – showed that 87-89% of Gen Zers, 84-85% of millennials, 76-77% of Gen Xers, and 70-74% of Boomers were at least somewhat open to trying cultivated meat.
“These numbers are growing every day,” said de Nood. “We know that education is essential. The more people know about cultivated meat, the more they are open to it and willing to try.”
Israeli-cultivated meat startup Aleph Farms has filed for regulatory approval to put its cell-based steak on restaurant menus in the UK, reports Bloomberg. The alt-protein producer made the application on July 21, days after applying for approval in Switzerland, which was the first such filing in Europe.
Aleph Farms, which makes cell-based whole-cut meat, is the first cultivated meat company to apply for regulatory clearance with the UK’s Food Standards Agency. It plans to start production in the UK in the next few years and is in talks with potential commercial partners.
“The strategy is to file in the UK and Switzerland which are interesting markets,” Aleph Farms CEO Didier Toubia said. “We believe the UK will take a couple of years, but the potential is huge.”
Aleph Farms steak.
The regulatory race
Post-Brexit, the UK is reviewing novel food regulation changes that could speed up cell-based and precision fermentation approvals. However, it still relies on the European regulatory framework. No cell-based meat company has yet filed for regulatory approval in the EU, where the process can be seen as opaque and complicated.
“The EU must develop a coherent strategy to support the sustainable protein sector and ensure regulatory processes are clear, in order to reap the benefits of cultivated meat,” Seth Roberts, policy manager at GFI Europe, told Bloomberg.
Cultivated meat is grown via animal cells in bioreactors, and is seen as a cruelty-free and more sustainable alternative to meat. Cell-based chicken has been available in Singapore – a hotbed for cultivated meat – since December 2020, when Eat Just gained the world’s first such regulatory approval. And in June, the US too issued its first approval to Upside Foods and Eat Just’s Good Meat.
In yet another sign of an increasingly tough market for plant-based meat companies, US vegan chicken nugget brand Nowadays has announced it is ceasing operations. The Californian startup, which launched its pea-protein-based frozen nuggets two years ago, is in “active conversations” about selling its IP and other assets, reports AgFunderNews.
A year after closing an oversubscribed $7M seed round – taking its total funding to nearly $10M – Nowadays says the decision comes “due to an inability to raise venture funds in this market”. Co-founder Max Elder told AgFunderNews that while the nuggets were performing well in direct-to-consumer and retail channels with strong repeat purchase rates, the unit economics of distributing frozen foods were challenging for a startup of its scale.
“The economics only work if you have the capital to really push a multi-year brand building and marketing strategy and it’s really hard to access capital now,” he was quoted as saying.
Nowadays uses low-moisture extraction technology, which enabled it to produce vegan nuggets with fewer ingredients and scale up more easily. “We’ve been awarded patents for low-moisture extrusion of whole cuts of clean-label plant-based chicken using pea protein, and a patent on pea protein characteristics for the texturized outcomes of our platform,” Elder told AgFunderNews. “So there’s some differentiated enabling technology here that I’m excited to find a home for; we’re actively looking for opportunities to preserve the value of what we’ve built over the past three years.”
The US plant-based meat decline
Courtesy: Nowadays
This news comes on the heels of a continued decline in purchases of plant-based meat in the US. According to analysis by insights firm Circana, retail sales of vegan meat alternatives fell by 12.6% to $106.8M in the five weeks to July 2, 2023, with units down by 19.8% year-on-year. And for the year to July 2, 2023, sales declined by 7.3% year-on-year, while units saw a 15.6% drop.
Although down in all temperature states, sales in the refrigerated plant-based meat case and produce department – where retailers are cutting assortments, according to AgFunderNews – witnessed the biggest drops. Sales reached $34.4M in the five weeks ending July 2, falling by 21.9% from June 2022 levels, and 33.4% from the year before.
And while this coincides with a decline in conventional meat purchases in the US too, the numbers there are more modest. That sector saw a 2.7% year-on-year decrease in sales in the five weeks to July 2, dollar sales were up by 1.6% in the year ending July 2.
Nowadays isn’t the only plant-based meat company in this situation. In July, Californian brand Tattooed Chef, whose meals included vegan meat alternatives, filed for bankruptcy – a month after Boston-based Plant & Bean fell into administration. And in January, Canadian vegan butcher and cheesemonger The Very Good Food Company went into receivership. Across the Atlantic, Meatless Farm faced a similar fate in June after making its entire team redundant and preparing for bankruptcy, before its UK business was rescued by fellow British vegan plant-based meat manufacturer VFC.
While this makes for grim reading, Elder is still positive about the alt-meat market. “I still feel like long-term, the headwinds for conventional proteins will only get stronger, and while companies are struggling to access capital, I don’t think that fundamentally, anything has changed about the potential or the need for alternative protein products,” he told AgFunderNews, echoing the findings from a recent report by the Plant Based Foods Association
He added: “I think we just need to batten down the hatches and weather the storm, and sometimes that means some companies can’t survive because there’s limited access to capital. [In the] long term, hopefully, the value that’s created by those companies can survive.”
Too many vegan chicken nuggets?
Courtesy: Nowadays
Even if one overlooks the wider sales issues for plant-based meat, Nowadays was already in an overpopulated, congested and highly competitive US vegan chicken nugget market.
Look at the sheer number of brands selling plant-based nuggets in the US. Jack & Annie’s, Simulate, The Alpha Nugget, Daring, MorningStar Farms, Yves, Rebellyous, LikeMeat and Boca all have their own versions, to name a few – and that is before we get into private-label supermarket offerings.
And then there are Gardein, Quorn, Beyond Meat and Impossible, who all make meatless nuggets too. But they benefit from much larger distribution networks and greater brand presence. Unlike these giants, single-product startups like Nowadays don’t have another product to fall upon – it’s boom or bust, and nothing in between. The question remains: in an oversaturated retail market, how many nuggets brands do consumers really want?
Israeli startup Chunk Foods‘ plant-based whole-cut meat is now on the menu at Charley’s Steak House in Orlando – the first time a steakhouse chain is offering a vegan alternative. Backed by Robert Downey Jr’s VC firm FootPrint Coalition, Chunk Foods’ biomass-fermented filet mignon is priced at $69.
Chunk Foods uses solid-state fermentation and combines plant-based ingredients with food-grade organisms to create its whole-cut beef alternative. Whole cuts have often been described as the “holy grail” of alt-meat, and this collaboration follows the appearance of Redefine Meat’s 3D-printed alternative on restaurant menus in Europe and Israel.
Chunk Foods’ journey
Chunk Foods makes vegan whole-cut steak | Courtesy: Chunk Foods
Founded in 2020 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Chunk Foods raised $15m in seed funding last year – which founder Amos Golan called the biggest seed round ever for an Israeli company. Using solid-state fermentation allows the product to be “highly tunable”, and makes it cheaper than high-moisture extrusion or submerged fermentation, which calls for expensive steel vessels and downstream processing tech.
While its vegan whole-cut beef uses cultured soy and wheat, the company says it is working on products without these ingredients for diners with allergies. After beef, it plans to develop vegan pork, lamb and poultry alternatives. As reported by TechCrunch, this will be aided by the opening of a new factory in Israel, described by Golan as “one of the largest plant-based whole-cuts factories in the world”.
Chunk Foods’ vegan steak has already appeared on the menus of several New York City restaurants, including Coletta, Anixi and The Butcher’s Daughter. And while other plant-based whole cuts – like the aforementioned Redefine Meat and Meati‘s mycelium-based alternatives – have made it to eatery menus, Chunk Foods’ collaboration with Charley’s Steak House marks the first time a steakhouse is offering a vegan option.
Charley’s Steak House’s inclusivity bid
Charley’s Steak House is now serving plant-based whole-cut meat | Courtesy: Chunk Foods
Part of the Talk of the Town Restaurant Group, Charley’s Steak House has been around since 1984. This move marks a milestone moment for the eatery and reflects its commitment to more inclusive dining.
“At our core, we serve the finest steaks and seafood, and we have been searching for over 15 years for a plant-based option for our guests that meets our standards,” said Talk of the Town VP and COO, Seth Miller. “We are excited to introduce our customers to Chunk steak; this partnership provides a solution that is in line with our quality expectations that we place on every item we serve. If it’s not the best, we won’t serve it.”
Chunk Foods says its steaks are “extremely versatile” when it comes to the cooking method – they can be “pan-seared, basted, grilled, smoked, stewed, braised, BBQ, and baked, the same way beef is prepared”. This affords a greater level of creativity and eschews the need for intensive chef training.
“At Chunk, we’re passionate about pushing boundaries,” said Golan. “Together [with Charley’s Steak House], we’re ensuring that all guests, regardless of dietary preference, can enjoy an exceptional steakhouse experience.”
More and more companies are successfully debuting their vegan whole cuts to the North American market, with New School Foods‘ salmon filet and Tender Food‘s beef steaks, pulled pork and chicken breasts being prime examples as plant-forward consumers look for texture and format variety beyond mince-based burgers, sausages and nuggets.
The governments of Taiwan and Saudi Arabia have joined a growing list of countries backing the vegan industry, announcing startups and funding, respectively, to create plant-based meat.
Taiwan plans to produce whole cuts via a spin-off startup, while Saudi Arabia has signed two agreements with companies to produce vegan alternatives to meat and dairy. In a year where COP28 has confirmed it will serve mostly vegan food, these are two steps that further link the plant-based industry with governments and lawmakers. But how do these initiatives line up with these nations’ net-zero ambitions and consumption?
Taiwan MOEA’s plant-forward push
Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) announced a special pavilion for the Technology Division at this year’s Bio Asia Taiwan exhibition (July 26-30). Among the two highlighted achievements of the pavilion was the creation of a novel texturisation technology to make whole-cut plant-based meat.
The MOEA will launch a startup by the end of 2023 to produce this alt-meat. It argues that current options on the market are much different from conventional meat, as they are made up of ingredients that are dismantled, emulsified and recombined. The technology developed by the Department of Industrial Technology introduces a multidirectional fibre structure that can emulate the muscle structures of beef, pork, chicken and fish.
The MOEA suggests the alt-meat is healthier than its counterparts given its simple processing. Using wheat and soy proteins eschews the need for additives and emulsifiers, while providing all the essential amino acids and a high protein content. The nutritionally complete nature of the food is what sets it apart from traditionally tenderised meat substitutes.
The MOEA’s alt-meat was exhibited at Bio Asia Taiwan 2023 | Courtesy: Bio Asia Taiwan
The product has been tested at scale, and is said to be eco-friendly and in line with a low-carbon economy, with samples showcased at Bio Asia Taiwan. The new startup will further develop the technology to add to Taiwan’s product portfolio as it competes in the global vegan market.
According to Dupont, demand for plant-based meat will surge by 25% across Asia-Pacific between 2020 and 2025. Taiwan already exports 80% of all vegan meat produced in the country, and has launched initiatives promoting a plant-forward diet. Its Meat Free Monday organisation secured over 100 pledges from political candidates participating in the 2022 elections to support a Veg-Friendly campaign.
In January, Taiwan approved a landmark climate bill mandating the government to promote low-carbon, plant-based diets. And in the country’s 2050 Net-Zero Transition plan, a low-carbon diet lands top of the pyramid of promotion strategies. This includes the consumption of “low-carbon cultivated agricultural food products”, as well as a push for zero-waste and low-carbon-diet literacy, and food agriculture education.
However, while the climate bill earned praise for highlighting food’s role in tackling climate change – food systems are responsible for a third of all global greenhouse gas emissions – others called for a more blatant approach against animal-based meat.
“As the world comes to grips with the importance of food systems in addressing climate change, we are delighted to see an emphasis on low-carbon diets in Taiwan’s climate legislation,” said Wu Hung, CEO of the Environment and Animal Society of Taiwan. “In light of this development, we call on the Executive Yuan to revisit its 2050 Net Zero Emissions Pathway and Strategy and take steps to address excessive meat consumption,”
The government body aims to encourage a healthy food culture among citizens via high-quality vegetarian substitutes and tap into advanced technology to produce these dairy and meat alternatives. The signing ceremony was accompanied by an exhibition where visitors could sample these vegan products.
Saudi Arabia has among the world’s highest meat consumption per capita ! Courtesy: Mishaal Zahed/Unsplash
Saudi Arabia has also committed to a net-zero target, with an aim to reach the goal by 2060. But it has the biggest net-zero-busting plans for oil and gas expansion in the world, according to the Guardian. Its government also launched a sustainable agriculture challenge this year, which calls for climate-smart farming solutions to improve food production and address food security. But the country has among the highest meat consumption per capita in the world, which exacerbates the need for more programmes like these.
Global governments go green
With these moves, Taiwan and Saudi Arabia are the latest countries whose governments are boosting the development of the alt-protein industry. According to the Good Food Institute, plant-based meat will capture 6% of the global meat and seafood markets. It also reports that Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland have committed over $150M in research and development for plant proteins. Meanwhile, the US Congress allocated $6M to the Department of Agriculture and California promised $5M to three universities for alt-protein research and development.
A host of other countries have been endorsing vegan foods around the world. As part of its Eat Right India campaign, the Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare released a poster promoting plant-based food. And in January, Germany announced it was finalising its National Nutritional Strategy, which spotlighted a shift to plant-based diets. Likewise, Scottish capital Edinburgh banned meat in all public schools, hospitals and nursing homes as part of its plant-based pact.
Expanding from plant-based meat, even cultivated protein is seeing a massive amount of interest. The Dutch government has invested €60M into its cellular agriculture industry, while Australian-American startup Change Foods has received two government grants for its animal-free cheese. And in Israel, the world’s largest cultivated meat consortium was approved in April 2022, with $18m in funding.
Singapore-headquartered Next Gen Foods is rebranding into TiNDLE Foods, its vegan chicken subsidiary, as it announces an expansion into new product categories. The move will see Mwah!, the start-up acquired by the parent company in March, merged into the TiNDLE Foods umbrella. The rebrand will see the company launch its first line of vegan sausages later this year, with a range of plant-based milk and gelato also in the pipeline.
Led by chief technology officer John Seegers, TiNDLE Foods’ expanded platform will serve the development, production and sales of the existing line of vegan chicken, as well as the upcoming range of plant-based sausages and dairy products. The aim is to have a portfolio that covers all meals of the day, from breakfast to dinner and dessert. Its newest product, to be launched in the US later this year, will be a savoury morning breakfast sausage, a spokesperson confirmed to Green Queen Media. (TiNDLE will also roll out Bratwurst and Italian varieties later.)
Founded in 2020, Next Gen Foods was the parent company of TiNDLE Foods, and has raised $130 million in funding through its flagship vegan chicken offering, including a record-breaking Series A round for plant-based meat. It was also named one of Fast Company‘s 10 most innovative Asia-Pacific companies for 2023.
Vegan dairy expansion
The company’s acquisition of London-based vegan dairy startup Mwah! earlier this year will further expand its research and development capabilities and expertise in dairy product development. Mwah!, which makes plant-based Italian-style gelatos, debuted its Madagascan Vanilla flavour in select London eateries this spring.
Led by Mwah! co-founders Damian Piedrahita and Claudia Comini, TiNDLE is expanding its gelato collection and developing a range of plant-based milks. TiNDLE’s spokesperson told Green Queen Media that the brand won’t limit itself to single-source milks (like oat or soy milk). “Instead, our process will be focused on finding the best consistency, flavour, and overall experience – and exploring all types of plant-based ingredients – so it delivers on the same creaminess and taste of cow’s milk.” While there’s no release date yet, they confirmed that they aim to make the milks available in the US, UK and Germany.
TiNDLE CEO Andre Menezes hinted at the company’s product expansion plans when speaking to Green Queen Media in March: “When Timo [Recker, co-founder and chairman] and I started Next Gen in 2020, we didn’t intend to only develop one core product and stick with it. We wanted to offer a diverse range of global food brands and products… We started with chicken first, of course, but we’re always looking to enter other categories – including other meats, seafood and dairy.”
TiNDLE acquired Mwah! in March 2023 | Courtesy: TiNDLE Foods
Multi-ingredient plant milks
Menezes also alluded to the company’s multi-ingredient alt-milk approach: “We also see immense growth in the plant-based dairy market, which is expected to reach over $31.5B by 2028. Right now, many plant-based dairy products are focused on the source (i.e., oat milk from oats, soy milk from soy, etc.) and not necessarily on experience and flavour.”
He was inspired by Damian and Claudia’s approach. “They aren’t limiting themselves to a dairy alternative source (e.g. cashews, dates, oats, etc.),” he explained, “but instead are focused on the right source for the right consistency and creaminess of the product being developed.”
Multi-ingredient, ‘blended’ plant-based milks are an emerging category. These don’t necessarily fall into the biomass-fermented category, but instead use a blend of different ingredients to mimic the flavour and texture of dairy. Chilean food tech startup NotCo is a pioneer here: its NotMilk range is a blend of cabbage, chicory and pea protein.
In the UK, Rebel Kitchen has two blends – oat and coconut, and coconut and cashew – while Alpro’s cross-European This Is Not M*lk range features oat and pea protein. Similarly, in India, Bagrrys produces an oat, cashew and almond milk, Nourish You offers one that pairs oats with finger millets, srghum, pearl millets and amaranth, and One Good makes a cashew, oat and millet milk.
In yet another sign of the growing popularity of plant-based seafood, Californian frozen vegan sushi brand Konscious Foods has raised $26M in a seed funding round. Founded by French chef Yves Potvin, who also launched Yves Veggie Cuisine and Gardein, the brand’s investors in the financing round included Protein Industries Canada, Zynik Capital and Walter Group.
Launched in 2021, Konscious Foods’ frozen plant-based sushi is a world-first. The brand, which caters to both retail and foodservice, has 10 products across three ranges: sushi rolls, onigiris and poke bowls. The company aims to use the investment to grow its presence – it’s expected to be available in 4,500 stores across the US by the end of 2023 – support operations at its production facility in Vancouver, and deploy marketing initiatives for nationwide retail launches.
“The products offered by Konscious Foods represent a significant shift in the plant-based food space,” said Pierre Somers, chairman and CEO of Walter Group. “It proves that meat alternatives do not need to be highly processed, filled with unnatural ingredients or cost more than the incumbent products. We believe the company will transform plant-based food and the seafood industry.”
Overfishing and the demand for plant-based seafood
“This investment validates our excitement about the demand – and critical need – for seafood made from plants,” said Potvin. “With the rising demand for fish, and subsequent overfishing crisis, we feel it is crucial to have better-for-you, better-for-the-world seafood options that don’t sacrifice taste or texture.”
The seafood industry – much like the meat sector – is heavily industrialised and inundated with sustainability and labour issues. One of the major problems, as Potvin alludes to above, is overfishing, whose operators receive $22B in capacity-enhancing subsidies every year.
Lily Ng, owner of Manhattan-based alt-seafood market Lily’s Vegan Pantry, previously told Green Queen Media: “Overfishing disrupts the food chain. And when populations are diminished, other species will overpopulate, destroying biodiversity and making changes to the entire ecosystem. In the end, our consumption of fish still destroys our planet.”
Overfishing is a response to the growing demand for seafood, which has also exacerbated the industry’s poor climate footprint. Increased greenhouse gas emissions and fuel use by ocean fishery vessels both contribute to this. Additionally, plastic packaging, the presence of microplastics in oceans that get contaminated via toxic chemical runoff, and a history of child and slave labour make the sector an unsavoury prospect for many.
Recent investments and growth of vegan seafood
Konscious Foods is far from the only alt-seafood brand receiving investment this year. In June, German cultivated fish startup Bluu Seafood raised $17.5M in a Series A funding round, and also applied for scientific approval to distribute its products in the US. And last month, Swedish brand Hooked Foods raised about €644,000 via a crowdfunding campaign.
In January, a partnership between Sweden’s Mycroena and Austrian producer Revo Foods received a €1.5M grant from Swedish innovation agency Vinnova, the Austrian Research Promotion Agency, and EU funding programme Eurostars to create 3D-printed mycoprotein to replace seafood.
Meanwhile, eight months after securing vegan seafood brand Good Catch, plant-based giant Wicked Kitchen acquired pioneering alt-seafood startup Current Foods in May, expanding the latter’s foodservice and fine-dining operations in Europe and the US. This comes as no surprise, given the year-on-year growth potential of vegan seafood in US restaurants is 57%.
The plant-based seafood category is relatively small, but as restaurant menus look to be more inclusive and sustainable, it’s a bright spark in the wider vegan industry and a trend that holds tremendous potential.
“The average consumer is becoming more aware of animal welfare and sustainability,” Maarten Garaets, alt-protein managing director of seafood giant Thai Union, told Green Queen Media in May. “And this is becoming a more important part of the selection criteria when they are buying food, but this is still a very small group.”
He added: “Alternative seafood is a new category, with limited awareness, whereas meat is more established. However, seafood is bound to catch up soon. Health is less of a concern for seafood, whereas sustainability will be more of a lever.”
The LIVEKINDLY Collective (LKC) has acquired Californian plant-based meat startup Alpha Foods, which becomes the sixth food brand under the former’s portfolio. Founded in 2015, Alpha’s lineup includes frozen burritos, burgers, nuggets and tamales, with a nationwide presence in over 11,000 retail stores.
The strategic acquisition allows the LIVEKINDLY Collective to enter the ready-to-eat breakfast and burrito snacking categories, and consolidate its position in the saturated plant-based food market. Alpha Foods will benefit from the LIVEKINDLY Collective’s vast distribution network – which boasts over 200,000 centres across more than 40 countries – and the deal will help both expand their reach in the US.
The LIVEKINDLY Collective – which also owns Fry’s, Oumph!, LikeMeat, No Meat, and Dutch Weed Burger – aims to ensure a reliable supply chain and pricing structure comparable to Alpha’s animal-based counterparts.
“Joining LKC will enable Alpha to grow sustainably while propelling innovation in a category that’s often accused of creating a plethora of plant-based versions of ubiquitous products like patties and nuggets,” says Loren Wallis, co-founder and chief innovation officer of Alpha Foods.
Alpha’s sustainability credentials
Soy protein concentrate is one of Alpha Foods’ main ingredients. Soy’s over-cultivation has contributed to deforestation and forest fires in the Amazon.
Speaking to Green Queen Media in 2019, Alpha’s co-founder Cole Orobetz tackled the issue: “When we were sourcing soy, we made sure to use non-GMO soy, having in our minds the practices that come with GMO soybeans. And the more we realised how educated the consumer base is – people were learning a lot about soy production – we have been proud to say that all our soybeans are ethically sourced from the US where there is no deforestation to be concerned of.”
He added: “We have made changes before upon learning new information. For example, we were previously using palm oil in our first pot pies. But when more news and reports came out about the ethical conflicts involved in palm oil production, we removed it from our ingredient list. Every single day, we really try to push to be as sustainable as possible.”
Alpha Foods will benefit from the LIVEKINDLY Collective’s vast distribution network | Courtesy: Alpha Foods
New products and collaborations in the pipeline
The LIVEKINDLY Collective says that the acquisition complements its portfolio, and the companies have a shared vision. “We will first focus on integrating Alpha’s assets into the structure of LKC. LKC is a truly global organisation backed by shared functions such as R&D, operations and others,” Shaun Richardson, the LIVEKINDLY Collective’s US general manager, told Green Queen Media. “The primary focus this will be to make sure Alpha fits into this structure to unlock efficiencies and opportunities for the brand in the US and beyond.”
The deal holds promising potential for new product development. “Our global infrastructure, allowing for better distribution, R&D pliancy and innovation, will open up opportunities in the market and beyond,” Richardson said in a statement.
Speaking to Green Queen Media, he added: “We have an exciting innovation pipeline and unprecedented food tech knowledge in-house, which we will make sure Alpha will benefit from.”
Alpha Foods has existing collaborations with fellow Californian startups Just Egg and The Every Co, the Anne Hathaway-backed precision fermentation producer. Alpha incorporates the former’s vegan liquid egg and the latter’s egg white protein to elevate its offerings as part of its product renovation plans. The brand recently also announced the integration of high-moisture extrusion technology to create enhanced protein formulations.
With the LIVEKINDLY Collective’s acquisition of Alpha, could we see a collaboration between its other brands and the likes of Just Egg and The Every Co? “We are open for any opportunities that will get us in front of consumers,” said Richardson, before adding: “The plans are currently being developed.”
Months after patenting its technology, German food brand Veganz is gearing up to release Mililk, a line of 2D-printed oat milk sheets, tapping into three key areas for consumers and product developers alike: waste, water scarcity and carbon emissions.
The caramel-hued, barista-friendly oat milk sheets are A4-sized and letterbox-friendly. Each leaf can make 500ml of oat milk, with the €17.99 pack containing enough to make 10 litres. The consumer can tear off as much of the sheet as needed, and blend it with water for 30 seconds to make fresh oat milk. The sheets contain oat powder, a small amount of water, coconut oil, chickpea isolate, vanillin and gellan gum – all of which combine to produce a creamy, coffee-friendly milk. (Veganz is also developing coffee creamer pads.)
Similar to other powdered oat milks like Mighty, Overherd and Blue Farm, Veganz’s latest offering is built to have a low ecological footprint. Sustainability is a major factor affecting consumers’ buying decisions: a 2023 survey by Kearney found that 42% of respondents considered environmental impacts when making a food purchase.
Mililk’s three-pronged benefits
By removing most of the water involved in making oat milk (conventional varieties contain about 90% of water on average), Mililk drastically reduces the materials needed for its packaging by 90%, as well as its weight (82% less volume). This, in turn, massively cuts its transport emissions.
With the water crisis raging – 26% of the global population does not have access to safe drinking water – passing the water usage to the consumer is a smart tactic. People at home can customise exactly how much milk – and thus water to make it – they need at a given time, which cuts down on any waste. This is also a major aspect influencing purchasing decisions, as roughly a third of all food goes to waste globally.
Mililik’s 2d-printed oat milk sheets | Courtesy: Jan Bredack/LinkedIn
Apart from sustainability, this innovation also taps into a major post-pandemic consumer need: convenience. The packaging comprises just an envelope that can be recycled, as opposed to scores of Tetra Paks (which most plant-based milks are packed in) or cardboard boxes (when buying an equivalent amount of milk) that need to be discarded. (Crucially, only 26% of Tetra Pak cartons are recycled globally.)
Economic equity in product design
The plug-and-play aspect of products like Mililk is a big plus-point too, especially for solo consumers who don’t go through an entire litre of milk in five days. You do require a blender for the oat milk sheets, which raises a question about the accessibility of Mililk’s offering. Not everyone has a blender or food processor – whether that’s due to affordability or living in places that don’t have enough counter space – so would they be able to use this product as directed? This includes students, which would be a key demographic for Veganzz, considering Gen Z is consuming less dairy than any other age demographic, and more plant-based milk than ever before.
From Robijn‘s laundry detergent sheets to Mono‘s dissolvable skincare pastilles, waterless product development has been a key driver in the beauty and household landscape for some time now, but it’s a relative novelty in the food and beverage sector. But with innovations like Mililk’s oat milk sheets, the tide may finally be turning.
Flora Ventures has announced the launch of its $80M fund, with its first closing securing commitments of $50M and establishing it as the largest Israeli-based AgriFood venture capital firm.
The data from IVC confirms Flora Ventures is the largest new VC fund in Israel to complete a first closing during 2023 across all tech investment verticals.
The firm focuses on investing in early-stage start-ups within Israel and Europe, aiming to build a more sustainable and resilient AgriFood system while supporting global expansion for these ventures.
The fund has a partnership with the Israeli Kibbutzim, pioneers of innovative agriculture, who serve as anchor investors and partners.
‘the next generation of AgriFood unicorns’
Flora co-founders, Gil Horsky, a former Mondelēz executive, and Esther Barak-Landes, a renowned VC investor, secured funding in just four months. They identified opportunities to address technology gaps in areas such as food security, digitization, sustainable agriculture, and food as medicine.
Israel’s Remilk is producing dairy via precision fermentation | Courtesy
“I’ve been fortunate in my career to lead important VC deals in the Retail-Tech, FinTech, and Digital Transformation sectors, which enables me to reapply proven technologies and business models to the AgriFood industry where it is greatly needed. I am excited to bring my skills to finding and fueling start- ups from Israel and Europe that are good for people and kind to the planet, while helping to build the next generation of AgriFood unicorns,” said Barak-Landes.
“Working for leading food multinationals, as well as co-founding one of the industry’s most successful corporate venture capital (CVC) and incubation initiatives in Mondelēz, taught me the value of having design partners early on,” said Horsky. “That’s why we are excited that Flora can provide our start-ups proprietary access to Haifa Group, Sadot Kibbutzim and Harel Group, which are among the most innovative and agile design partners in the industry.”
First investment
Flora says it has already completed its first investment in Arrakis Bio, a stealth-mode Israeli startup, developing a breakthrough technology poised to revolutionize the production and utilization of human collagen and gelatin made without animal ingredients.
Photo by Louis Reed at Unsplash.
Flora Ventures successfully completed the initial raise with strategic partners, including Sadot Kibbutzim, providing the fund’s portfolio with proprietary access to agricultural land, production capabilities, and expertise. Other key anchor investors in this closing include Haifa Group, a world leader in plant nutrition and special fertilizers, and Harel Group, Israel’s largest insurance and finance group.
Alibaba Group’s latest ESG report reveals insights into consumer attitudes toward sustainability and the role businesses can play in promoting more conscious choices.
According to independent research commissioned by Alibaba Group, a vast majority (73%) of consumers are eager to adopt more sustainable lifestyles, especially in emerging Asian markets (87%). However, the study identifies inconvenience and high costs as the primary barriers hindering the widespread adoption of sustainable practices.
The findings
The research, titled “The Sustainability Trends Report 2023,” surveyed more than 14,000 consumers across 14 markets in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. It highlights convenience (53%) and affordability (33%) as key drivers for encouraging behavioral changes toward sustainability, while businesses can simplify the process by offering more sustainable options.
Yet, despite the growing interest in sustainability, consumers remain skeptical (38%) about the genuineness of businesses’ claims regarding “sustainable” products. Only 15% of respondents expressed complete trust in the sustainability claims of products, prompting businesses to focus on building trust, particularly among European consumers.
Courtesy Kevin Malik via Pexels
Alibaba Group aims to address this “say-do” gap challenge by reducing inconvenience, increasing sustainable choices, and optimizing supply chains to maintain reasonable costs for consumers. Liu Wei, Alibaba Group ESG Strategy Lead, emphasized the significance of sustainable consumption for both the environment and businesses.
As part of its commitment to sustainability, Alibaba published its latest Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Report, disclosing its Scope 3+ decarbonization progress, with over 180 million consumers participating in carbon emission reduction through its carbon ledger platform. The report also highlighted the availability of 1.91 million low-carbon friendly products from 409 brands on Tmall and Taobao, promoting sustainable practices to a broader consumer base.
The research further indicates that consumers from emerging Asian markets exhibit the greatest willingness to learn about making more sustainable online purchases. Approximately three in four consumers (76%) worldwide expressed interest in receiving more information about sustainable practices, with the highest proportion in the Philippines (93%), Indonesia (91%), and the UAE (90%). APAC consumers continue to show keen interest in embracing sustainable and healthier alternatives.
Consumers’ willingness to engage in sustainable practices varies across regions, with respondents from emerging Asian markets (88%) displaying a stronger inclination to learn about sustainable online shopping compared to those in developed Asian markets (66%) and Europe (66%). Preferences for sustainable practices, such as choosing sustainable packaging or recycling, also vary across regions.
Recommendations
The report highlights that convenience and affordability remain essential factors driving consumer choices. Lack of information (48%) and high prices of sustainable products (45%) emerge as the primary barriers to adopting more sustainable lifestyles. Over half of the consumers (53%) would prioritize sustainability if it were convenient, especially in Asian markets (61%). Additionally, one-third of respondents (33%) perceive sustainable living as unaffordable, with Thailand (84%) leading the trend, followed by the UAE (41%) and Spain (37%).
Courtesy Canva
Businesses have the power to facilitate sustainable choices, with 61% of consumers stating that making sustainable products more affordable is crucial. Reducing single-use plastics and packaging (55%) and offering a broader selection of sustainable products and services (47%) are also impactful ways businesses can promote sustainability.
However, businesses must address the trust deficit among consumers regarding sustainability claims. Approximately 23% of consumers “do not trust very much” the claims made by businesses about their products’ sustainability. France (31%), Spain (31%), Germany (30%), and the U.K. (30%) exhibit the highest levels of skepticism. Moreover, nearly two in five consumers (38%) view sustainable products as a marketing tactic to sell products at higher prices, particularly in Thailand (56%), France (48%), and Singapore (47%).
