In our weekly column, we round up the latest news and developments in the alternative protein and sustainable food industry. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers Oatly’s new barista milk for light-roasted coffee, European precision fermentation developments, and the world’s best vegan chef.
New products and launches
First announced to investors in its 2023 earnings call, Swedish oat milk giant Oatly has rolled out a new version of its barista milk, formulated specifically for light-roasted coffee. The Barista Lighter Taste offering has 2.1% fat content (versus 3% for the regular barista edition) and enables the more nuanced flavour notes of specialty coffee to shine.
Courtesy: Grubby
After delivering over 100,000 dishes together, UK vegan meal kit startup Grubby has extended its partnership with plant-based chef duo Bosh! They have developed a new range of 10 dishes that can be made in under 30 minutes, including Gochujang Tofu Mac & Cheese and Peanut Butter & Tenderstem Udon Soup.
Months after acquiring Swedish mycoprotein startup Mycorena, Belgian animal protein company Veos Group‘s Naplasol has expanded the former’s Promyc line with two new ingredients at the Food Ingredients Europe event in Frankfurt (November 19-21).
Courtesy: Chosen Foods
US avocado oil startup Chosen Foods has debuted a vegan shortening made with just one ingredient: fractionated avocado oil. It’s available online and at Target for $10.99 to $12.99 per 16oz tub.
Fellow US firm the Plant-Based Seafood Co. has added Crispy, Crunchy, Fried Shrimp to its Mind Blown range of vegan seafood products. It’s available online for D2C and foodservice for a limited time.
Seattle-based vegan chicken playerRebellyous Foods has launched a Spicy Kickin’ Patty for K-12 schools, restaurants, and food service providers. It meets the USDA National School Lunch Program’s requirements for two meat/meat alternate credits and offers 1/4 grain credit as well.
Courtesy: Rebellyous Foods
And German startup Ohly, which makes yeast-based bionutrients for the food industry, has expanded its X-Seed product line with new nutrients designed to boost enzyme production.
Company and finance updates
UK vegan confectionery brand Doisy & Dam has been sold by Nurture Brands to organic cocoa company Food Thoughts. The deal will see the formation of an ethical plant-based chocolate offering for home bakery and snacking goods.
Courtesy: Doisy & Dam
Across the Atlantic, vegan baked doughnut maker Drumroll has received a $3M investment from CPG incubator 7 Mile Brands.
The Global Agri-Food Advancement Partnership (GAAP), which supports agrifood companies with funds, incubators and labs, has invested an undisclosed amount in Argentinian molecular farming startup Ergo Bioscience. GAAP will host Ergo in its Saskatoon labs in the coming months to help expand its operations to North America.
Chipotle is the top US restaurant chain when it comes to plant-based options and meat reduction policies, according to a report by World Animal Protection that ranks 23 major companies on these metrics. McDonald’s, Wendy’s and chicken chains like KFC and Popeyes received a failing grade.
In Chicago, PlantX‘s XMarket Food Hall – the largest vegan food court in the Midwest – has closed after a year of operations.
Since opening in Berlin this April, the fully plant-based Rewe store has been welcoming 5,500 visitors every week.
Speaking of Berlin, fermentation-derived dairy startup Formo has kickstarted its first out-of-home marketing campaign.
Courtesy: Formo/LinkedIn
Also in Germany, the federal food and agriculture ministry has invested €400,000 in sausage producer Metten Fleischwaren‘s project to develop a blended sausage with mycoprotein and meat.
Meanwhile, Dutch meat giant Nutreco has opened what it claims is the world’s first facility dedicated to food-grade powder production for cell feed, in an inauguration event attended by several cultivated meat companies.
Courtesy: Nutreco
New Zealand startup Daisy Lab, which makes precision-fermented dairy proteins, has partnered with two dairy processors to supply its plug-and-play technology for large-scale production of bioidentical proteins.
Speaking of precision fermentation, French player Bon Vivant has released a life-cycle assessment that shows its animal-whey protein cuts greenhouse gas emissions by 72%, reduces water use by 81%, and requires 99% less land compared to conventional dairy.
Courtesy: Bon Vivant
In further news from this industry, Belgian precision fermentation startup Paleo and Austrian 3D-printed seafood producerRevo Foods have received a €2.2M grant from the EU’s Eureka Eurostars programme to develop animal-free myoglobin for vegan salmon.
British peanut butter maker ManiLife has invested over £1M in a new 13,5000 sq ft manufacturing facility that can store up to 15 million jars of peanut butter. Raising £500,000 to fund the move, the factory is set to begin production in early 2025.
Courtesy: The Better Meat Co
Californian mycelium startup The Better Meat Co has received its patent from the US Patent and Trade Office, which covers its innovative shelf-stable mycoprotein production process, methods of sizing and separating mycelium particles, and million process to turn the dry mycleium into a powder.
Policy developments and awards
In the UK, conservation agency the National Trust will make menus at its 300 food and drink outlets at least 50% plant-based, after 75% of its 2.6 million members voted in favour of the move to speed up its path to net zero. Around 40% of its existing catering options are plant-based.
Alternative protein think tank the Good Food Institute has been recognised as one of Giving Green‘s top six climate impact charities globally for the third year running. It has recommended philanthropists to provide $2.1M in grants to the charity, contributing to its ongoing three-year raise of $125M.
Luxembourgish chef Steve Lentz has won the Best Vegan Chef title at the Global Chefs Challenge, who won over judges with a vegan foie gras and a cabbage-based dessert.
By replacing 50% of meat with plant-based proteins, Thailand could lower emissions by nearly 80%, while adding over a million jobs and boosting food security in the process.
Thailand could become a “kitchen of the future” with an emphasis on less meat and more plants, which would bring climate wins alongside a stronger national economy.
That’s if the country reduces meat intake by half and replaces it with plant-based proteins, according to a new report by Asia Research and Engagement for Madre Brava.
Between now and 2050, Thailand’s per capita meat and seafood consumption is on track to increase by nearly a third. That would mean increased production and expansion of intensive livestock and aquaculture both domestically and internationally, since the country’s animal food production relies heavily upon imported feed crops like maize and soy.
It would also end up using larger amounts of farmland and producing higher greenhouse gas emissions, going against Thailand’s climate goals – its second nationally determined contribution (NDC) to the Paris Agreement covers agriculture as a key focus sector, setting an unconditional emissions reduction target of 30% by 2030.
And in 2021, the government announced the Bio-Circular-Green economy as a component of the national economic strategy, with a focus on producing high-value, climate-friendly products that require fewer resources. The agrifood industry was one of four strategic sectors identified, and this is aligned with the government’s Future Food concept to transform Thailand into a global hub for sustainable, innovative food.
To showcase the potential of dietary change, the research looked at three scenarios – business as usual (BAU), a 30% switch from meat and seafood to plant proteins, and a 50% shift – and found that the latter presents outsized economic and environmental benefits to Thailand, and is the only way for the country to avoid breaching the climate-safety threshold (zero deforestation by 2025 and a 72% cut in emissions by 2050) set by international experts.
A 50% switch to plant proteins better for the planet and the economy
Courtesy: Madre Brava
According to the report, a 180% rise in meat consumption since 1990 has nearly doubled the amount of land used for livestock production. In the BAU scenario, where people continue to eat more meat, the amount of land needed to meet this demand would rise to 6.15 million hectares in 2050 (a 42% increase from 2020).
But if plants make up 30% of Thailand’s protein supply by 2050, this increase would be limited to 13.5%. The 50% scenario is the only one where the demand for land is eased to 3.98 million hectares (a 7% decrease from current trends.
Similarly, if things stay as they are, the country’s greenhouse gas emissions will rise by 14.7% to reach nearly 45 million tonnes by 2050, a figure four times higher than the climate safety threshold. Even with several best-case mitigation scenarios – like a 30% reduction in enteric fermentation, manure emissions and feed emissions, alongside 20% lower food waste and a move towards a 100% clean energy target – emissions would still be above this threshold.
Plant proteins are required to achieve further reductions, since they are less emission-intensive than animal-based foods. The 50% scenario is the only one that stays within the climate safety threshold after 2050, resulting in a 79% drop in greenhouse gas emissions to reach 9.35 million tonnes of CO2e.
One of the major concerns around protein shifts is the impact on farmers and agricultural workers. The study found that while a 50% switch to plant-based proteins would lead to the loss of 900,000 animal husbandry jobs, the production of food-grade soybeans and plant proteins would instead create over two million new jobs. The net job creation would, therefore, be 1.15 million.
“The 50% scenario not only creates many more jobs, but also enables greater self-sufficiency for raw materials, and less reliance on animal feed imports,” the authors wrote.
They added that government subsidies and structural support enable the growth of the Thai livestock sector, with virtually no public sector investment in plant protein yet. In the 50% scenario, though, both government and private financing could help yield ฿1.3T ($36.6B) in economic value by reducing the reliance on imports. This would make Thailand more self-sufficient as well.
“Thailand is increasingly seeing the devastating consequences of climate change, consequences which will only intensify in the coming years,” said Madre Brava’s Thailand director, Wichayapat Piromsan. “Our country has a chance not only to make a strong bid to become the world’s kitchen for years to come, but to massively reduce the impact of our valuable protein sector on the climate.”
Courtesy: Madre Brava
How stakeholders can enable the protein shift
The report chimes with previous analysis by Asia Research and Engagement, which stated that 30% of Thailand’s protein supply should come from alternative proteins if it is to decarbonise.
But this new study shows that only a 50% switch would truly keep Thailand on its path to net-zero. To get there, the Thai government needs to level the playing field between plant and animal proteins, which could involve carbon taxes on meat (à la Denmark) to incentivise sales of vegan food.
Policymakers should also ensure that government events feature plant-rich meals and consider offering more of these options in public canteens, including schools, hospitals and administrative buildings. The report further urged lawmakers to develop pathways with financial support and capacity-building programs for farmers to switch to plant-based crop production. Removing restrictions on labelling would help too.
Supermarkets and foodservice operators can play a role too. The former should set targets to increase the share of plant protein sales (mirroring trends in Europe) – lowering prices to eliminate the affordability barrier for plant-based foods, displaying them more prominently alongside meat, and providing information about preparation, nutritional content and health benefits would help retailers do so.
Caterers and foodservice companies, meanwhile, should increase the number of plant-based items, display these options alongside regular menus, and offer them at the same price as conventional meat.
Finally, food manufacturers should incorporate protein diversification strategies into their wider climate targets, and invest in R&D to make these proteins “tastier, less processed, more nutritious and more affordable”, with a view to cater for both exports as well as the domestic market.
Courtesy: Madre Brava
Thai consumers are willing to make dietary changes, as Madre Brava’s research showed earlier this year. Two-thirds of respondents to its survey said they would reduce or stop eating meat in the next two years, with 44% wishing to replace it with traditional plant proteins, and 39% with novel alternatives.
“There are clear levers to pull here to ensure Thailand makes the most of this opportunity but it needs to happen now,” said Wichayapat. “Otherwise we risk getting left behind by the coming global shift in protein production.”
Luxury hotel group Four Seasons has teamed up with Israel’s Oshi to put its plant-based whole-cut salmon on the menu at MKT Restaurant and Bar in San Francisco.
Showcasing the potential of plant-based seafood to adorn high-end restaurant menus, Four Seasons – one of the world’s best-known luxury hotel operators – has partnered with Oshi, an Israeli startup that makes a whole-cut salmon analogue from fermented fungi, algae, soy protein and a blend of vegetable oils.
At Four Seasons Hotel San Francisco’s MKT Restaurant and Bar, executive chef Kevin Tanaka will introduce the vegan salmon on the menu, in a move touted as part of the hotel group’s “ongoing commitment to sustainable luxury”.
“We’re honoured to work with Four Seasons to introduce plant-based salmon to their guests,” says Oshi co-founder and CEO Ofek Ron. “Chef Tanaka’s expertise and creativity are the perfect match for Oshi’s product, and we’re excited to be part of this shift towards more sustainable dining experiences.”
Oshi salmon to roll out at several Four Seasons hotels
Courtesy: Oshi
Oshi, which rebranded from Plantish in 2023, hopes to tap into the signature taste and texture of salmon, but without the climate and health concerns (think the presence of mercury and antibiotics, and the impact of overfishing).
To do so, it uses a blend of mycoprotein, soy protein, algal and vegetable oils, and rice flour that is put through a proprietary modular layering technology. This involves incorporating fats between layers of plant proteins and algae extracts to create a whole-muscle structure similar to conventional salmon.
Ron, who founded the startup with Ariel Szklanny, Ron Sicsic and Hila Elimelech in 2021, confirmed that Oshi recently received approval for its patents. The team moved operations from Israel to the US late last year, owing to a more receptive regulatory environment for mycelium, and set up a co-manufacturing production facility stateside.
The salmon has been rolled out at a number of restaurants across the US this year, including Urban Vegan Kitchen, Mercury Bar West, and Neat in New York City, V-Spot Food in New Hope, DVASH in Boca Raton, and BeeWali’s Vegan AF in Los Angeles.
But part of Oshi’s foodservice plan was to target the luxury market, which it is kickstarting with the Four Seasons collaboration. “We first connected with Four Seasons chefs at the National Restaurant Association Show in Chicago, where they had the chance to experience our product firsthand,” Ron tells Green Queen. “Our distribution partner, Royal Hawaiian Seafood, introduced Oshi to their team, and from there, the collaboration began.”
It’s a shrewd move considering that food is amongst the most popular luxury items consumers want to spend more on. A YouGov poll in 2023 found that more than one in four Americans (27%) were looking to buy luxury meat and produce over the next 12 months.
Meanwhile, a recent global survey by the Marine Stewardship Council found that 30% of people have been eating less seafood in the last two years, as nearly half (48%) are concerned about overfishing and 35% are worried about climate change impacts. At the same time, over 80% of people have changed their dietary habits in this period, and 43% are doing so for sustainability reasons.
While the MKT will be the first Four Seasons restaurant to introduce Oshi’s vegan salmon, it won’t be the last, with expansion to other locations planned for 2025.
“Oshi’s salmon has an authentic texture and flavour that beautifully complements our offerings here at MKT,” said Tanaka. “I’m excited to work with such a high-quality, sustainable product, giving our guests a delicious way to enjoy seafood without the environmental impact. We look forward to presenting Oshi in a variety of dishes that highlight its versatility.”
Treading rough waters for alternative seafood
Courtesy: Oshi
“Our focus is on expanding into luxury hotels, corporate kitchens, and casual restaurants across the US,” says Ron. “By 2025, we’re planning to launch our plant-based salmon in retail and begin a pilot in the EU.” Oshi will further launch a new product in early 2025, which it will reveal next month.
Apart from the partnership with Royal Hawaiian Seafood, it has also linked up with distributors like ACE Naturals, Earthly Gourmet and Webstaurant Store, which will enable Oshi to supply its products to more foodservice clients across the US.
The company has so far secured $14.5M, most recently closing a bridge funding round. It is planning to fundraise further in 2025. “I believe that as alternative protein becomes more mainstream, funding will naturally align with the growing demand for sustainable options,” he says.
Alternative proteins saw funding fall by 44%, and for plant-based and cultivated protein startups, the numbers are even worse this year. Companies dealing with fermentation (like Oshi), however, have bagged nearly 30% more investment in the first three quarters of this year than they did in all of 2023.
Meanwhile, sales of plant-based meat and seafood fell by 12% last year. But vegan seafood takes up just 1% of the overall seafood share in the US, and several companies – like Akua, Ordinary Seafood and New Wave Foods – have shut down over the last year, underscoring the tough market landscape.
“The alternative seafood market is still in its early stages, unlike alternative meat, which has decades of consumer familiarity. Brands like Tofurky and Gardein paved the way, and now Oshi is helping drive growth in the alt-seafood category with whole-cut options that make up over 70% of the traditional fish market,” says Ron.
“We’re seeing strong interest from major clients who are considering plant-based options for the first time, and consumer awareness of the health and environmental concerns around fish consumption is rising, which will help grow the category.”
“Change starts here,” Ira Van Eelen, co-founder at KindEarth.Tech and RESPECTfarms noted on the opening day of the Future of Protein Production Amsterdam 2024. With over 500 delegates, 45 exhibitors, and two packed days of panels, keynotes, and workshops, the event was a deep dive into the future of sustainable food production.
Green Queen was there to witness the cutting-edge ideas shaping this future and hear from the innovators, regulators, and entrepreneurs leading the charge. Here’s what we learned about the shifts reshaping alternative proteins – and why they matter.
1) Processing, not products
The event showcased a shift from end products to enabling technology, highlighting a new focus on scaling production. As the industry moves from lab to large-scale, managing costs while optimising processes has become the biggest challenge – especially as most companies are working to cut costs as they do so. Many companies are operating more cautiously now that food tech is no longer the trendy sector du jour, spending less on their own Capex and instead seeking external solutions – like ERIDIA’s nanosecond pulsed electric field technology, or Ziemann Holvrieka’s massive, industrial-grade tanks.
And, for several companies, the end goal isn’t necessarily to serve consumers. Robin Simsa highlighted this perfectly when he shared that Revo Foods’ longer-term aim is to supply its unique 3D printing technology to other producers, but first has to prove that it works with products in the market – hence the company’s ongoing retail partnerships with the likes of REWE, BILLA, SPAR and EDEKA. This shift from consumer-facing products to process-oriented B2B solutions could mark a key change in the alt-protein industry.
2) New media for cellular agriculture
To meet the high costs and volume needs of cell-based production, several companies are developing innovative, low-cost media. Susanne Wiegel, Head of Alternative Protein Program at Nutreco, predicted that, by 2040, the cell ag industry’s media needs will “leapfrog from niche production to commodity-scale demand”.
With its first dedicated cell feed powder plant in Boxmeer, Nutreco is creating high-volume, low-cost, food-grade media that it sees as critical for the future of cellular agriculture. Newcastle University spinout MarraBio is developing ultra-stable, low-cost alternatives to the extracellular matrix and growth factor proteins used in cultivated meat production, and Belgian startup FlyBlast is using black soldier flies to create human insulin, view a view to then creating bovine and porcine insulin, so removing the cost and ‘ick factor’ barrier of human insulin for cultivated meat production.
3) Leveraging AI to scale production
It’s becoming clear that AI could help to optimise everything from ingredient selection to production processes, supporting alt protein companies to reduce costs and improve their scalability. Sam Tucker from OpenPaws described it as “enabling smarter decision-making at every stage.” Sebastian Blum of Beckman Coulter Life Sciences emphasised that AI can improve bioprocesses in unprecedented ways—a claim demonstrated by Multus, which uses machine learning to optimise media formulations, making their production more efficient and affordable.
Tucker also outlined that, in the longer term, AI could enhance collaboration across sectors, bringing together innovators, regulators, and producers to strengthen the sustainable food ecosystem. In fact, a panel led by Thomas Cresswell of Melt&Marble concluded that the next decade will see AI-driven production processes playing a central role in shaping new protein technologies.
Courtesy: The Future of Protein Production
4) Meeting consumer expectations with personal benefits
There was a strong message throughout the event that consumer interest in alt-proteins centres more on personal benefits than environmental impact. Head of Corporate Social Responsibility at Sodexo Netherlands, Marloes van der Have, explained that in their foodservice facilities consumers are making choices based on financial triggers, not necessarily the environment. “While some may have an ideal view about looking after the environment, when it comes to it, it’s much more about personal benefit – so taste, health, and cost – than the bigger picture of climate impact.”
The emphasis on personal benefit over environmental impact is a valuable insight for industry leaders. Aligning consumer messaging with what truly resonates—taste, health, and cost—could redefine how alternative proteins are marketed, helping the sector grow without losing sight of its ultimate sustainability goals.
5) Tech for taste and texture
While health drives consumer interest in plant-based eating, taste is what seals the deal, according to Catherine Caro, Global Diet & Health Manager at Unilever. This insight is central to development at The Vegetarian Butcher.
Robin Simsa talked about Revo Foods’ 3D Food Structuring Tech, which allows it to produce unique, flaky, and juicy textures, while Dr Lily Nur Sulaiman, Senior Research Scientist at THIS, also shared insights into the company’s mission to deliver nutritious and delicious plant-based food while tackling the common barriers around health and protein quality. THIS uses high-protein ingredients like concentrates and isolates, mixing protein sources to enhance the amino acid score, and its protein extraction processes are designed to improve protein digestibility by removing anti-nutrients.
6) Doing tastings the right way
At some point, all novel food companies will host public tastings (like Vital Meat just did in Singapore). Van Eelen underlined just how important it is to do them the right way – after all, these lay the groundwork for broader consumer acceptance. That is, by avoiding elements that could distract from the product people are there to taste (too much breading, strong herbs, overpowering spices), by allowing people to enjoy food together, as they would in a restaurant, and by honouring the chef in the process. “People believe in chefs, and what they can do. Don’t hide them at the back or make them wait for journalists or a lab tour. Make them the star of the show, and so the food will become the star of the show.”
Courtesy: The Future of Protein Production
7) Shifting the narrative: mindset matters
Some of the speakers and panellists suggested that alt proteins launched with the wrong pitch; there was too much noise about the morals and the environment, when instead the focus should be on the food and potential European sovereignty for novel technology. As Anna Handschuh, Founder and Managing Director at Future Affairs, put it: “Being right doesn’t mean you win.” Instead, understanding “what business you are actually in” and crafting compelling narratives that resonate with consumers to drive the widespread adoption of alternative proteins are important here.
8) Collaboration is key
BlueNalu founder Lou Cooperhouse asked: “What if 1+1=3? Then perhaps 1+1+1 could equal 7 or maybe 9.” Being greater than the sum of our parts was the thread that pulled together the whole conference, and the realisation that, as the industry matures and recalibrates through difficult times, working together will become the rule, not the exception. The sentiment of collective effort resonated across companies and sectors, with partnerships like that between Formo and Those Vegan Cowboys serving as examples of how collaboration and open innovation can accelerate scaling.
This collaboration could even extend to regulatory bodies. Cedric Verstraeten, CEO at revyve, stated that, when it comes to regulations: future of protein production “There is no EU,” describing how the different countries’ attitudes and approaches to novel foods are in no way unified – let alone across the world. Perhaps the industry should advocate for internationally accepted standards and categorisations; after all, a unified approach to approvals could only serve to speed up the process and inspire consumer trust.
Jasper Snoek from Fair Capital Impact Fund provided an investor’s perspective, highlighting how blended financing models can help companies scale in a capital-intensive environment. He stressed the need for building strong coalitions that transcend political divisions to drive real progress in alternative proteins. The message was clear: shared resources and knowledge will be crucial in driving progress.
This theme of collaboration resonated throughout the event, suggesting that the future of protein production might be a collective effort where joint innovation creates exponential growth.
After all, as Those Vegan Cowboys’ Will van den Tweel put it: “It’s impossible for one player to capture what is a $1 trillion dairy market. Together, we are better.”
Time Magazine has recognised a cultivated meat technology as one of the year’s best inventions, alongside lab-grown cotton and an AI platform for functional plant-based ingredients.
As further proof of the technology’s potential for safeguarding the future of the planet and its food supply, cultivated meat has been recognised as one of the top inventions of the year.
Time Magazine’s list of the Best Inventions of 2024 comprises 200 innovations “changing how we live, work, play, and think about what’s possible”, and covers everything from consumer electronics and beauty to food, gaming and medical care.
It’s a tradition that dates back two decades, and is built on nominations from both Time’s editors and correspondents globally. Each contender is judged on factors like originality, efficacy, ambition, and impact.
This year, the list includes Dutch startup Meatable’s cultivated pork technology, Boston-based Galy’s lab-grown cotton, and Californian firm Brightseed’s AI-led Forager platform.
Courtesy: Jo Whaley/Time
Meatable recognised for world’s fastest cultivated meat tech
Meatable was chosen for Time’s Best Invention list because of its proprietary Opti-ox technology, which allows it to produce cultivated meat in just four days, faster than any other company in the space.
Within the industry, it’s common for producers to use immortalised cell lines, but these need to be altered to multiply indefinitely. Meatable’s technology, however, uses pluripotent stem cells (PSCs), which have the natural ability to multiply continuously and rapidly.
While it can be challenging to change PSCs into more specialised cells like muscle or fat, combining them with the Opti-ox technology enables the Dutch startup to produce fully differentiated muscle and fat cells in just four days. This is then combined with a perfusion process that allows Meatable to work in a continuous cycle and generate very high cell densities, increasing productivity and making it easier to scale up the process.
“We’re deeply honoured to be recognised by Time for our Opti-ox technology, which we believe is at the forefront of the cultivated meat revolution,” said Daan Luining, co-founder and chief innovation officer of Meatable.
Courtesy: Meatable
“With our planet’s resources under increasing pressure and demand for meat only growing, it’s evident that our current food system is unsustainable,” he added. “This acknowledgement from TIME is a tremendous validation of our approach, and of our incredible team working day and night to make this happen.”
Meatable is currently working with regulators in six countries to get its cultivated pork approved for sale, with authorisation in Singapore expected in the first quarter of 2025, as CEO Jeff Tripician revealed to Green Queen last month.
The startup is aiming to raise a Series C round around the $35M mark to add to the $95M it has secured from investors since it was founded six years ago. It will host a large tasting event in Singapore next February with investors, the company’s board and meat companies interested in incorporating the cultivated pork in their products.
“I see us moving with pretty good speed through 2025,” Tripician said, indicating that Meatable would use its Singapore application to file dossiers in countries that largely follow the same process. “At the end, I would be very disappointed in our team if we don’t have approval in five, six countries by this time or the end of next year,” he added.
Lab-grown cotton and plant-based compounds join Time’s Best Inventions list
Courtesy: Galy
Meatable wasn’t the only cellular agriculture company present on the Time Best Inventions of 2024 list. Galy may not be working on food, but it’s using a similar technique to grow bioidentical cotton, minus the huge amount of water, chemicals, or deforestation.
Galy takes cotton cells and cultivates them in large bioreactors by feeding them sugar. Once they’ve proliferated to the required volumes, it selectively activates and deactivates genes in the cells, transforming them into cotton fibre. The process is 10 times faster and 500 times more productive than conventional cotton farming, uses 99% less water, takes up 97% less land, and emits 77% less CO2.
“Cellular agriculture offers the best way to address environmental challenges at scale while producing a material with the same characteristics as traditional cotton,” Galy co-founder Luciano Bueno told Time. “With all due respect to agriculture, we believe we can produce the same thing in a lab facility, better.”
The startup recently secured $33M in a Series B round led by Bill Gates’s Breakthrough Energy Ventures, taking its total raised to $65M. It hasn’t been commercialised yet, but it counts H&M Group and Inditex (the parent company of Zara, Bershka, Stradivarius and more) as investors, and has secured agreements with several industry leaders, including health and pharma giant Suzuran Medical.
Courtesy: Brightseed
Another company working in the realm of future food is Brightseed, which was recognised by Time for its proprietary AI platform Forager. This helps it discover bioactive compounds found within plants to deliver health ingredients for functional food, beverages, supplements and specialised nutrition companies.
Brightseed, which closed a $68M Series B round in 2022, has assembled the largest library of natural mall molecule compounds anywhere in the world (with over seven million already), linking them to potential health benefits and allowing food companies – like Danone and Blue Diamond – to understand their bioactives and optimise their products accordingly.
“This recognition from TIME is a tremendous honour,” said Brightseed co-founder and CEO Jim Flatt. “Forager marks a significant technical breakthrough, enhancing our ability to explore nature for insights and ingredients that transform our diet into targeted tools for health and longevity. Together with our customers and partners, we look forward to delivering a new class of powerful and sustainable health innovations for consumers worldwide.”
This isn’t the first instance of Time recognising alternative protein and future food companies in its Best Innovations list. Since 2020, Impossible Foods‘s pork analogue, Perfect Day’s precision-fermented whey protein, Upside Foods and Good Meat‘s cultivated chicken products, and MeliBio‘s bee-free honey tech have all appeared on the list.
Research efforts for alternative proteins like plant-based and cultivated meat received €290M in funding last year, just as the number of studies on the topic proliferated.
The only way for alternative proteins to reach the mainstream is through advancing research into ingredients, technologies, and consumer needs.
So it’s an encouraging sign that 2023 saw record sums of money (€290M) granted to researchers in Europe exploring plant-based, cultivated, and fermentation-derived proteins.
Additionally, over a quarter (26%) of all alternative protein research published in Europe came out in 2023, totalling 472. Since 2010, the UK has produced the most amount of research on future food, publishing 255 papers, followed by Germany (243) and the Netherlands (199).
This is based on analysis by the Good Food Institute (GFI) Europe, which suggested that the findings signpost the region’s massive potential, but also underline that the field remains in its infancy and at risk of being held back due to a lack of international collaboration, an inconsistent approach to funding, and key technical areas being overlooked.
How research funding for alternative protein was distributed
Courtesy: GFI Europe
Within Europe, the EU collectively pumped in €252M for future food research, half of which was invested in 2023 and early 2024, chiefly from its Horizon Europe programme.
But when it came to individual countries, Denmark led the way with €96M, spearheading the Nordic nations’ leadership with alternative proteins. Collectively, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland invested a fifth of Europe’s total.
The UK was second on the list, with €90M invested in research, thanks to the establishment of a network of research hubs by state agency UK Research and Innovation.
Plant-based protein studies commanded the most funding (39%), followed by cross-cutting research that featured a combination of alternative protein pillars (31%). Meanwhile, 21% of these funds went into fermentation, and a tenth were dedicated solely to cultivated meat.
Meat was the most popular target end product for these publications, being the focus of 65% of research investments in 2023. Dairy was next with 16%, while seafood research projects received 8% of the share. That said, governments and funding institutions are increasingly embracing cultivated meat research, and public investments into fermentation are expected to surpass €100M for the first time this year.
The Netherlands topped in the cultivated meat segment with €67M invested, strengthening its foothold as a cultivated meat leader in Europe. It became the first EU country to approve and host public tastings for these proteins. Finland, meanwhile, put the most money into fermentation research (€54M).
Some of the headline commitments include the €38M set aside for alternative proteins in Germany’s federal budget, the European Innovation Council’s €50M investment for precision-fermented and algae-based foods, and the Dutch government’s €60M commitment for a cellular agriculture ecosystem.
With more major investments expected in the second half of this year – like the €27M invested in Bezos Earth Fund‘s Center for Sustainable Protein in London – 2024 is on track to equal or even surpass 2023’s record as the highest investment year, making it five straight years of increasing research funding.
European research urged to ramp up international collaboration
Courtesy: GFI Europe
The outlook for the alternative protein publishing system is much the same, with plant-based proteins the focus of 64% of publications in 2023. Unlike the funding environment, cross-pillar research publications were low (8%), trumped by cultivated meat (13%) and fermentation (16%).
But European researchers working on alternative proteins have been collaborating internationally to a much lower degree than the continent’s average, with only 39% of studies co-authored by colleagues from outside Europe, versus the 56% average for the EU and 64% for the UK.
GFI Europe highlights the potential for these researchers to have a global impact, since existing papers have accumulated thousands of citations in 144 countries, particularly India, the US and China.
Meanwhile, research into cultivated and fermentation-derived proteins remains underdeveloped, with the number of papers fluctuating and even falling in certain years. Studies into the technical advancements needed to commercialise alternative proteins also only scratch the surface, with many key areas – like designing fermenters for cultivated meat scale-up, reducing downstream processing costs for precision fermentation, and developing functional ingredients for plant-based meat – remaining underfunded.
While this highlights the nascency of these fields, GFI Europe argues that these technology areas should be prioritised in future investment, with new mechanisms that enable greater collaboration to solve the major challenges of cellular agriculture.
The report also suggests that the research community is “quite fragmented” and needs to achieve a higher degree of integration and cohesion, underlining the need for greater support to stimulate and sustain cross-border, interdisciplinary research.
At the same time, regional disparity is a challenge for this sector, with considerable differences found in the research output and career opportunities in different European countries. “Governments in underrepresented countries should explore mechanisms through which they can stimulate greater research activity in alternative proteins to capitalise on the follow-on economic benefits of innovation,” the report reads.
“This report puts Europe’s alternative protein research under the microscope, finding a rapidly growing field offering exciting opportunities – but also an inconsistent approach to funding and an urgent need to build a more coherent network,” said Stella Child, research and grants manager at GFI Europe.
She added: “To capitalise on this growing expertise and make sure innovations developed by European scientists can be commercialised here, governments and funding bodies must create more opportunities for alternative protein scientists to collaborate and provide dedicated funding to boost research in overlooked areas.”
Americans should eat less red meat and more plant-based protein, according to scientists advising the US government on its upcoming update of dietary guidelines.
If you follow the EAT-Lancet Commission’s Planetary Health Diet, you’d know that you should limit your consumption of beef, pork and lamb to 11 lbs a year. If you can’t give up red meat, that’s the maximum amount it recommends you eat to protect the health of both yourself and the planet we live on.
But in the US, people consume 107 lbs of red meat every year, according to USDA projections, which is an amount nearly 10 times higher than Planetary Health Diet suggests.
This is a problem for several reasons. When it comes to pollution from food production, beef is as bad as it gets. There’s also not enough land or water to feed a global population that would be approaching 10 billion by 2050. And red meat, contrary to what many advocates claim, does more bad for you than good, with links to cardiovascular disease, obesity, type 2 diabetes, cancer, and other diseases.
It’s why the EAT-Lancet Commission is urging people to reduce red meat intake by 90% and follow a primarily plant-based diet. It’s also why more and more countries are adopting similar measures in their national dietary guidelines.
The US is hoping to do the same. Scientific experts drafting recommendations to the government for the next national dietary guidelines are calling for a shift away from red meat and a greater emphasis on plant proteins.
But this has already sparked furore from meat producers and meat-eating consumers, setting the stage for an intense tussle over the final guidelines, which are due to be unveiled late next year.
Draft US dietary guidelines promote plant proteins over meat
Graphic by Green Queen
The US revises its dietary guidelines every five years, with the forthcoming update covering the 2025-30 period. While they don’t necessarily have a heavy influence on how individual Americans eat, they do have important implications for school lunches, the food companies make, and public health efforts.
So far, the guidelines have recommended limiting saturated fat – which is present in high volumes in steak, burgers and processed meat – but have kept away from the red meat debate.
That may be changing now. In the seventh and final meeting of the 20-person Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, experts have drafted recommendations to cut back on red and processed meat, both of which have been classed as carcinogenic by the World Health Organization.
The scientists are instead calling for a shift to a more plant-forward way of eating, as the Wall Street Journal reports, with an emphasis on vegetables, fruits, legumes, whole grains, nuts, fish and seafood, low- and non-fat dairy, and unsaturated fats.
The committee has also proposed changes to the protein food group in an effort to deprioritise meat. This would see peas, beans and lentils move from the vegetable to the protein category, and be listed above meat, poultry, eggs and seafood to “align with evidence to encourage plant sources of protein foods”. Soy products, nuts and seeds would also be listed above animal proteins.
The suggestions were supported by a majority of the experts, and nobody said the existing guidelines should be preserved. Angela Odoms-Young, vice-chair of the committee, also said beans, peas, and lentils should be a separate category, a proposal backed by several committee members.
“Behaviorally, I think there is sort of a branding crisis when it comes to protein – thinking automatically meat,” Deirdre Tobias, an assistant professor at Harvard University’s Department of Nutrition and a committee member, said during the meeting. “And if there are more plant sources of proteins in the protein category that could help overcome that, you know, mislabeling or misnomer or misinformation by having it more prominently.”
She added: “I also think that that’s where we would probably offer more flexibility – where we would have an increase in plant-based. That’s going to be increasing beans, peas, and lentils at the expense of some of those other meat products, right? Not so much to displace vegetables that are in the vegetable category.”
Recommendations met with backlash, but are much-needed
Courtesy: National Institutes of Health
The draft recommendations were met with immediate and fierce backlash from members of the meat industry. Ethan Lane, VP of government affairs at the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, called the committee meeting “one of the most out-of-touch, impractical, and elitist conversations in the history of this process”. “We would laugh at the suggestion that beans, peas, and lentils are going to replace lean red meat and fill all the nutrient gaps Americans are facing if it weren’t such a dangerous and deceptive idea,” he added.
And it’s not just industry stakeholders. Some Americans seem to be angry too. “They can have my red meat when they pry it from my cold dead fingers dripping in medium rare hamburger juice,” wrote one reader on the Wall Street Journal’s comments section.
“This ‘recommendation’ is coming from those who want to control you. Just one more facet in their plan. Control the food. Control the currency (digital). Control the news. We need to put a complete stop on ‘dietary recommendations’,” wrote another. “Cows are not destroying our environment – the mono-crops are. Wake up.”
The problem is, cows are most definitely destroying the environment. As mentioned above, beef is the most carbon-intensive food on the planet, and lamb and mutton aren’t too far behind. Within the US, too, red meat is responsible for a third of total greenhouse gas emissions from the food system.
But it’s no surprise that some people believe beef is not bad for the planet. Polling shows that 40% of Americans don’t think consuming less red meat would help lower emissions, while a separate survey found that 74% of Americans don’t link meat-eating with climate change. And a survey by Gallup has revealed that the number of vegans in the US has reached a 10-year-low.
Courtesy: Nutrients
Despite three-quarters of US consumers finding plant proteins healthy, compared to 39% who think the same for animal protein, the number of people who reported eating more red meat rose from 13% in 2020 to 19% in 2022. Likewise, fewer Americans are reducing their red meat intake too.
This may be because 59% of them believe eating meat is just part of “the American way of life”, according to a 2021 poll found. But experts have repeatedly implored the nation to cut back on these highly polluting foods. However, with just 12% of Americans responsible for half of the country’s meat consumption, certain groups – like men and those on the carnivore diet – would need to take much more drastic action than others.
The dietary guidelines committee has received nearly 10,000 comments during this process, the most it has ever been subject to. Its report still needs to be finalised before being sent to the US Department of Agriculture and Department of Health and Human Services, which is expected in December.
Following that, the public will have 60 days to submit comments, and the agencies will take everything into consideration and release the official guidelines by the end of 2025. It’s no guarantee that these proposals will be taken up by the government – in the 2020 edition, the committee recommended significant cuts to added sugar and alcohol limits, but the policymakers rejected these proposals.
But an endorsement of plant proteins would be a major climate and public health win for the US, building on the momentum set by several European countries that have revised national dietary recommendations to skew towards plant-based food, including Germany, Austria, and Norway.
Finnish vegan company Oddlygood, a spin-off of dairy giant Valio, has acquired British plant-based milk brand Rude Health.
One of the UK’s most well-known brands in the vegan space, Rude Health, has been bought by Oddlygood, the Finnish plant-based food company majority-owned by dairy leader Valio.
The terms of the transaction – which was two years in the making – were undisclosed, but Rude Health was valued at £70M ($91M) when it sold a 10% stake to PepsiCo in 2020. And in the year to March 2024, it reported a revenue of £23.8M/$31M (a 25% hike), with pre-tax profit jumping from £8,000 ($10,400) to £101,000 ($131,300).
Founders Camilla and Nick Barnard are expected to make a seven-figure sum from the sale, having owned just over 50% of the business before the deal.
The acquisition will not affect Rude Health’s 30-strong workforce in the short term, and the team will continue to operate from the UK and be led by CEO Tim Smith. Camilla, meanwhile, will work for Oddlygrood as a brand consultant two days a month, according to the Times.
“The Rude Health brand has grown beyond anything I could imagine to become a household name. Now is the right time to find a partner who can help take it to the next stage of success and Oddlygood shares so many values and the ambition to make this possible,” she said.
“Rude Health is one of the biggest success stories in British plant-based food. It’s nothing less than impressive the way the team has grown its product range alongside such a distinctive and well-thought-of brand to deliver commercial success,” added Oddlygood CEO Niko Vuorenmaa.
Courtesy: Rude Health
Oddlygood strengthens UK foothold with Rude Health deal
Rude Health was founded nearly two decades ago with just over £4,000 in cash, and has grown into one of the UK’s leading plant-based brands. It has a wide range of plant-based milk products, alongside cereal and snack ranges, that can be found in all major UK retailers and in over 40 countries. The company also runs a café in London, and is on course to deliver €33M ($35.7M) in revenue in 2024-25.
Its new parent company, meanwhile, has been around since 2018, spinning off from Valio three years later with a range of oat-based dairy alternatives, including milks, cheeses and yoghurts. Oddlygood has since expanded to countries across Europe, and is expecting a turnover close to €50M ($54M) this year.
It launched its desserts in the UK in June 2023, followed by a rollout of its plant-based milks earlier this year. The takeover of Rude Health comes just a year after Oddlygood acquired fellow Nordic dairy-free brand Planti, and is a marker of the business’s expansion strategy.
“Our ambition is to become one of the leading plant-based companies in the UK and Europe and this acquisition will help accelerate this, but key to its success is the strong alignment between Rude Health and Oddlygood,” said Vuorenmaa.
That can be seen in both companies’ commitment to sustainability. Oddlygood’s oat milks, for example, use all of the oat flour, meaning that nothing is filtered out after being combined with water and other ingredients, minimising waste at its factories. Rude Health, meanwhile, is among the top three food and drink B Corp brands in the UK, with a score of 120.7 (from a maximum of 250).
Rude Health will continue to manufacture its products and look to use the R&D facilities owned by Valio, while the deal will help Oddlygood establish a UK base and support its expansion plans.
“Joining forces with Oddlygood opens up new opportunities for growth and innovation, and our shared missions around taste, quality and the crucial role of plant-based food and drink make this a natural fit,” said Smith. “We’re looking forward to working together and leveraging our strengths and making the healthy choice a celebration (not a sacrifice) for our customers. It’s an exciting new chapter for the brand and the team.”
Courtesy: Rude Health
Plant-based milk sales recovering in the UK
The transaction is the latest in a growing list of mergers and acquisitions in the plant-based (and the wider food) sector. The number of M&A deals in the food and drink industry grew by a third in Q2 this year, compared to the same period in 2023.
In the last three months alone, UK snacking brand Deliciously Ella was sold to Hero Group, tofu maker The Tofoo Co was acquired by Comitis Capital, Swedish mycoprotein startup Mycorena was taken over by Naplasol after filing for bankruptcy, Nuggs was purchased by Ahimsa Companies, the Aussie Plant Based Co was bought by Smart Foods a week after entering liquidation.
“In the context of flat or declining category demand, consolidation, and M&As are vital for rapid growth in the plant-based sector. These strategies allow companies to scale, innovate, and navigate through resilience challenges more effectively,” Matthew Glover, co-founder of holding company Vegan Food Group (which has acquired three plant-based brands in the last 18 months) told Green Queen in February.
“Both Oddlygood and Rude Health have complementary portfolios, target audiences and capabilities which will enable us to grow the business,” Vuorenmaa says of this latest M&A deal. “What we’ve achieved with Oddlygood in such little time is down to the expertise and passion of our team. We’ll focus the same attention and care to Rude Health and look forward to collaborating with their team.”
Courtesy: GFI Europe
Milk alternatives are the most popular plant-based category in the UK, accounting for 43% of its market share last year and consumed by 35% of households across the country, according to Circana data crunched by the Good Food Institute (GFI) Europe.
But the sales value of these products flatlined (up by only 0.8%) in 2023, driven by a 9% rise in costs since January 2022. It means plant-based milk is 67% more expensive than dairy on average. Meanwhile, both unit and volume sales of milk alternatives dropped by 9% last year. However, this decline may be levelling off, with weekly unit sales falling by only 1.4% in early 2024.
“Our analysis finds that lower prices and higher quality can power the growth of these more sustainable options, so policymakers and manufacturers should continue to invest in innovation and infrastructure to develop tastier, more affordable products capable of building a diversified, resilient and healthy European food system,” Helen Breewood, research and resource manager at GFI Europe, said last week.
In our weekly column, we round up the latest news and developments in the alternative protein and sustainable food industry. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers Beyond Meat’s European exploits, a big week for plant-based milk in the US, and cultivated seafood’s national TV debut in Japan.
New products and launches
Plant-based giant Beyond Meat has partnered with foodservice operator SSP Group to bring the Beyond Burger to UK airports and train stations. It is available at 13 locations, including The Camden Bar & Kitchen at London Stansted and Brigg & Stow at Bristol Airport, and will be rolled out at another six in December.
Courtesy: Beyond Meat/SSP
Beyond Meat is also delivering on its promised expansion in Germany, expanding from freezers into the chilled aisles of Edeka, which now stocks burgers, hack (mince), sausages, and more.
Speaking of Bristol, local favourite VeBurger is opening a second location on Whiteladies Road in Clifton. It will give away 100 free vegan burgers on day one.
Across the Atlantic, Slutty Vegan‘s location in Birmingham, Atlanta is reopening months after it was temporarily shut, but this time under new ownership. Company founder Pinky Cole has gifted the restaurant to its former general manager Reatta Hall, a local resident who has been at the company for three years.
London-based Grounded has brought its clean-label plant protein milkshakes to the US, with Whole Foods Market carrying its chocolate and mint-chocolate variants in 150 stores across both coasts.
Courtesy: Rebbl
In more milkshake news, Californian functional beverage maker Rebbl has launched a line of vegan protein shakes with 26g of protein per bottle. They are powered by EverPro, an upcycled barley protein developed by AB InBev’s EverGrain, and come in chocolate, vanilla, and cookies and creme flavours.
Californian juicer manufacturer Nama has unveiled its M1 Plant-Based Milk Maker, which can produce “barista-quality milk” in under two minutes, alongside infused oils, soups and flavoured waters. It’s available in North America for $400.
Courtesy: Nama
On the opposite coast, New York-based Edenesque has introduced its debut line of “chef-crafted” milk alternatives, featuring unsweetened and barista oat milks, and a barista pistachio-cashew milk.
Also in New York, Elmhurst 1925 has released a limited-edition OatNog for the holiday season, made from a base of oats and cashews.
Courtesy: Silk
Another US alt-dairy launch comes from Danone-owned Silk, which has rolled out an oat milk for kids aged five and over with 8g of protein per serving, alongside DHA omega-3, choline, and prebiotics.
In Italy, vegan cheesemakerDreamfarm has expanded its lineup with a new almond and cashew ricotta, which is currently available exclusively at Esselunga ahead of an EU-wide launch.
Courtesy: Dreamfarm
And Australian firm Pectin 360 has teamed up with The Original Juice Company to transform food waste into pectin and fibre. The two will set up a pilot plant with an undisclosed research and commercialisation entity, with the aim of saving over 10,000 tonnes of citrus peels and apple pomace waste annually.
Company and finance updates
In Canada, Modern Plant-Based Foods has acquired vegan pet food startup AnimalKind, marking its expansion beyond human food products.
Courtesy: AnimalKind
French firm C&DAC has brought in €1.6M ($1.7M) from Yeast, ILP Group, and Alsace Business Angels to speed up the development of its fermented legume-based flour for the plant-based industry.
Polish food waste platform Foodsi, which allows restaurants and stores to sell discounted surplus food, has raised €1.2M ($1.3M) in a seed extension, taking its round’s total value to €2.5M ($2.7M).
US biomanufacturing firm Liberation Labs has secured a $3.5M investment to support the ongoing construction of its large-scale precision fermentation facility in Richmond, Indiana. It comes ahead of its Series A round, which is expected to close at $37.5M.
Courtesy: Liberation Labs
Also in the precision fermentation realm, Chicago’s Hydrosome Labs – whose H2O technology can double yields and decrease production time by up to 25% – has bagged $3.7M to scale up operations to improve nutrient uptake in skincare and provide enhanced hydration in performance drinks.
German dairy giant Hochland, which has been around for almost 100 years, has joined Food Fermentation Europe, a coalition of companies aiming to advance regulatory approvals of novel fermentation-derived proteins.
In sadder news, molecular farming startup Tiamat Sciences has announced that it ceased operations a few months ago, a decision it attributed to “financial constraints”. As of last year, it had raised $5M in total funding.
Courtesy: Meatable/Green Queen
Dutch cultivated pork startup Meatable, Chilean biotech firm Sticta Biologicals, and the University of Chile‘s Center for Mathematical Modeling have been awarded a research grant by the Good Food Institute to develop a precise and genome-scale metabolic model of porcine cells.
Finnish state investor Business Finland has granted €10M ($10.8M) in R&D funding to FoodID and FinBioFAB for projects to create alternative proteins and materials, which have been accepted into the Global Centers research programme led by the US National Science Foundation. Participating collaborators include Onego Bio, Enifer, Fazer, MeEat, and others.
The US Department of Agriculture has announced $1.5B in grants for 92 partnership projects to advance nature conservation and climate-smart agriculture, as part of the Inflation Reduction Act and the Farm Bill.
Courtesy: Melbourne City FC
Hong Kong-based alt-dairy giant Vitasoy has agreed to be a shirt sponsor for A-League club Melbourne City FC. The brand’s logo will appear on the men’s team’s training shirt and shorts for the 2024-25 season, alongside LED signage at AAMI Park.
Alternative protein advocacy group ProVeg International has opened an outpost in Brazil, its first office in South America. It comes months after it set up an office in Portugal.
Policy and research developments
New York startup Pureture, which has been working on a vegan casein alternative, has developed a yeast-based protein with a complete amino acid profile to match the muscle recovery and growth attributes of casein and whey.
Courtesy: Pureture
The China National Center for Food Safety Risk Assessment has released new safety assessment materials for GMOs used in food processing trials, a regulatory step that can help commercialise precision-fermented foods in the country.
Further progress for precision fermentation comes from the Netherlands, whose House of Representatives has voted in favour of allowing public tastings of foods made from this technology. The agriculture ministry will now consult with stakeholders on the motion’s contents.
Courtesy:
Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry
Researchers in the US have created a prototype of cultivated pork grown on a new scaffold: kafirin proteins isolated from red sorghum grain.
The City of West Hollywood, California has unanimously voted to endorse the Plant Based Treaty, calling on the federal administration and other national governments to negotiate a Global Plant Based Treaty.
Courtesy: Oato
PETA UK has announced the winners of its Vegan Food Awards 2024, with La Fauxmagerie, Oato, Strong Roots, One Planet Pizza, and Lurpak among those receiving honours.
Yelp, meanwhile, has published its list of the best 100 vegan restaurants in the US, based on user reviews. Lil’ Vegerie in Redondo Beach, California bagged the top spot.
Courtesy: Yelp
Finally, cultivated seafood has made it to Japanese TV, with actor Keita Machidaexplaining the concept on featuring on an episode of Manga Artist Ienaga’s Complex Society Redefined.
US food tech startup Chunk Foods is rolling out its whole-cut vegan steak products at independent retailers, before a wider launch in 2025.
Chunk Foods, which makes plant-based steak products that replicate the whole muscle structure of beef, is making its retail debut in the US.
It is introducing four cuts of its vegan steak that lean into consumer demand for high-protein and clean-label options, containing eight ingredients (plus fortifications) and up to 37g of protein per serving.
“We are focusing on local and independent grocers in Los Angeles and New York City as part of our initial retail strategy,” founder and CEO Amos Golan tells Green Queen.
“These retailers align with our goal of engaging with communities that are passionate about high-quality, plant-based options. E-commerce will follow in late November, with plans to expand to national retailers in 2025.”
Asked what supermarkets could stock the steak SKUs next year, he says: “We are currently in discussions with Whole Foods, Sprouts, Wegmans, HEB, and several other national retailers.”
Appealing to consumers with high-protein, clean-label meat analogues
Courtesy: Chunk Foods
Golan founded the startup in 2020, targeting what many have described as the “holy grail” of meat analogues: whole-muscle cuts.
Chunk Foods’s USP lies in its solid-state fermentation tech, through which it creates its cultured soy protein base for the steaks (made from defatted soy flour, soy protein isolate, and wheat gluten.
The startup took a foodservice-first approach for its initial launch, appearing on the menus of New York establishments like Coletta, Anixi, The Butcher’s Daughter, Leonardo DiCaprio-backed chain Neat, and Pastrami Queen.
It has also established a partnership with the Florida-based restaurant group Talk of the Town, having launched into Charley’s Steak House in Orlando last year. Last December, it headlined a culinary experience at Art Basel Miami Beach, as part of a Philly cheesesteak.
Chunk Steak is in Philadelphia too, appearing in a short rib ragu at Monster Vegan. And it has an ongoing partnership with popular fast-food chain Slutty Vegan and its sister establishment Bar Vegan.
These collaborations have proved to be a testament to the whole-cut steak’s pedigree, which won the Plant Based Meat Product of the Year honour at the 2023 AgTech Breakthrough Awards.
Among the products being launched in retail are 4oz fillets ($8.99 for a two-pack) and a pulled format ($7.99 per 8oz pack), both of which contain 25g of protein per serving. There’s also a steakhouse cut ($9.99 per 6oz), which delivers a whopping 37g of protein, and a 10oz slab with 31g of protein ($12.99).
The prices of these products are on the higher side, at a time when inflation continues to squeeze consumer budgets and price becomes an increasingly important purchase driver.
“We are confident in our value proposition,” says Golan. “While price is undoubtedly a critical factor for consumers today, we believe that offering delicious, whole-cut plant-based alternatives that deliver on taste and texture will resonate with shoppers seeking quality and convenience in their food choices.”
He adds: “We’ve been mindful in positioning our pricing to remain competitive within the plant-based category and traditional beef products.”
Chunk Foods enters a stagnating retail market for meat alternatives
Courtesy: Chunk Foods
Chunk Foods’s move into retail comes during a sustained decline in sales of meat analogues. In 2023, these products suffered from a 12% drop in revenue compared to the year before. And this year, too, sales were down by 9% in the year ending July 2024.
So for any meat alternative brand to enter the grocery sector right now is a bit of a risk. “Despite the broader market challenges, there is still strong demand for high-quality, healthy, and delicious plant-based products,” argues Golan.
“We’ve received significant interest from consumers and retailers alike, which has been a driving factor in our decision to enter the retail space,” he adds. “Our clean-label, high-protein whole-cuts offer a unique edge in the market, and we believe the timing is right to bring something new and exciting to the retail landscape.”
Asked how companies in the space can turn things around, he believes delivering on consumers’ expectations for taste, texture and nutrition is critical. The industry needs to focus on making plant-based foods more approachable and satisfying, and that’s exactly what we’re doing at Chunk Foods,” he suggests.
“Continued education about nutritious plant-based options, clearer product differentiation, and better storytelling about the benefits of our clean label products will help reinvigorate the category.”
Last year, Chunk Foods completed the construction of what it says is one of the world’s largest factories of its kind. It has also teamed up with plant protein company Better Balance to create new whole-cut meat analogues for the Mexican market.
And to date, it has raised $24M in funding (including a $7.5M round earlier this year). Golan confirms that the business is well-capitalised for now, so it isn’t actively fundraising. “Over the next year, we’re focused on our retail expansion,” he says of the company’s immediate plans. (It is also working on pork, lamb and poultry alternatives.)
“Additionally, we’ll continue to grow our presence in foodservice, with new partnerships and menu innovations,” he continues. “There’s also a lot of excitement around an e-commerce partnership, which will launch by late November, allowing us to reach more consumers directly.”
In a detailed opinion, the EU Commission has rejected the evidence provided by Hungary to justify banning cultivated meat, alongside a number of other member states.
At the EU’s Agriculture and Fisheries (Agrifish) Council meeting in July, the Hungarian presidency called for efforts to “protect” Europe’s culinary traditions from novel foods like cultivated meat. It was a move welcomed by Italy and Austria, which (along with France) led a similar effort at the council’s January meeting.
Essentially, what Hungary was proposing was a ban on cultivated meat, which Italy had become the first country to introduce last year. France and Romania have floated similar proposals in their parliament too.
But in a detailed opinion published by the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm has opposed these legislative attempts, throwing doubt on Hungary and other countries’ proposed restrictions, as well as Italy’s ban.
Commenting specifically on the Hungarian proposal, the EU Commission noted that all novel foods are subject to the European Food Safety Authority’s (EFSA) pre-market authorisation process. If approved, the product is placed on the EU-wide novel food list. But since no cultivated meat company has received the greenlight in the region so far – the first application was filed in July by France’s Gourmey – a ban is “unnecessary”.
“The prohibition to market it results from Union law and applies to all the Union territory,” the Commission stated.
“The scientific assessment to be performed by EFSA within the procedure for the authorisation of novel foods is aimed to ensure that foods to be placed on the EU market are safe and do not present risk for human health,” it added.
“A ban is therefore unjustified, since it could pre-empt the harmonised authorisation procedure for novel foods at EU level, which includes a scientific assessment by EFSA.”
EU Commission opinion puts cultivated meat bans in jeopardy
Courtesy: Mosa Meat
The EU Commission’s comment was in response to a Technical Regulations Information System (TRIS) notification submitted by Hungary – this is a procedure aimed at preventing the creation of barriers to the free movement of goods among member states.
“In addition to the protection of human health and the environment, the sustainable production of agriculture and the preservation of the traditional rural way of life justify the introduction of regulation,” the TRIS notification read, suggesting that it is unclear how the safety of cellular agriculture can be guaranteed (although that is exactly what the EFSA does).
“Traditional livestock-based meat production is of paramount importance for the future of the domestic food economy, in particular the sustainability of food production and the retaining power of the countryside,” it continued. “Increased production of laboratory-grown meat can have an adverse impact on the agricultural sector and rural living conditions as a whole.”
Italy had already sparked some controversy with its TRIS notifications earlier. The process allows fellow member states to give their opinion on bills that can hinder the EU free market, before it is approved by the country. Italy withdrew its first note attempting to ban cultivated meat, knowing it would have been rejected by the bloc.
But it still went ahead and banned cultivated meat anyway – potentially unlawfully – before presenting a second TRIS notification, which the EU closed because the law was already in place.
To avoid this mess, Hungary did not implement the ban before the Commission and member states got a chance to voice their opinions.
“The Hungarian proposal clashes with the principles of European law, just as would have happened with the Italian law if it had complied with the TRIS procedure,” explained Francesca Gallelli, public affairs consultant at the Good Food Institute Europe. “Both bans are unfounded, as they are not based on scientific evidence, especially considering that cultivated meat is not yet available to European consumers.”
She added: “The Italian law is also potentially unenforceable since it was notified to the European Union after being approved, in violation of the TRIS procedure.”
Across the Atlantic, a host of states in the US are attempting to restrict cultivated meat too, including Arizona, Illinois, Kentucky, Nebraska, Iowa, Michigan, New York, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Two states – Florida and Alabama – have already banned it.
Member states step up in favour of cultivated meat
Courtesy: Meatable/Green Queen
Hungary’s explanation for the attempted ban wasn’t just rejected by the EU Commission’s assessment of the TRIS notification, but also by several member states.
Sweden noted that the reasons justifying the move to ban cultivated meat because it’s harmful to human health were “unacceptable”, highlighting that Hungary hasn’t provided any risk evaluations or demonstrated that these products might threaten human or planetary health.
The Czech Republic also disagreed with the proposal, citing the obstacles to the EU free market and outlining its support for the “development of innovations in food technologies, including laboratory-grown meat”. It stressed the need to “respect the existing EU legal framework”.
Another country against the ban was Lithuania, which posted a detailed opinion that also underscored the potential of alternative proteins. The country pointed out how the global population will peak by 2080 and demand much higher amounts of protein. “The development of the alternative protein industry will generate new, high value-added jobs and promote the integration of businesses into international value chains and the export of high value-added food products,” it said.
Lithuania’s response added: “Given that countries such as the US, Israel, and Singapore already allow the sale of these products, it is important that the EU remains competitive in the development of these technologies and dictates the conditions for regulation and standards globally.”
Finally, the Netherlands – a cultivated meat leader in Europe – expressed doubt that an “absolute ban” is proportionate to any issues presented by these proteins, and believed that the policy objective can be achieved in “an alternative, less far-reaching way, without introducing a ban on a product that has not yet been placed on the market”.
It presented another case against the ban: cultivated meat can economically benefit farmers. “The possibility of in-vitro meat production on a farm has been investigated and found feasible, and in the Netherlands, livestock farmers have already come forward who want to investigate how this production can be achieved on their farm,” it said.
“Stimulating this development can therefore also ensure the preservation of the agricultural sector and make it futureproof, thus providing an alternative way to achieve the Hungarian goals.”
Hungary now has until mid-January 2025 to respond to the issues raised. The EU Commission has also warned that if the country doesn’t comply with the obligations or goes ahead with the ban without taking these objections into account, it could take the matter to the European Court of Justice.
Despite the industry’s headwinds, retail sales of plant-based food in six major European markets increased by 5.5%, and lower prices can help bring a windfall for companies in this space.
There have been a few too many doomsday-like headlines about the plant-based world in recent months, adding to a divisive narrative that the industry’s best days were behind it.
The reality is, in the US, all but four categories in the vegan sector saw sales plummet last year. And in Europe, retail sales of meat and dairy analogues collectively increased in 2023 compared to the previous year.
This is according to analysis of previously unpublished Circana data by the Good Food Institute (GFI) Europe, which found that in are athe six largest European economies – Germany, the UK, France, Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands – the sales value of plant-based food rose by 5.5% in 2023, reaching €5.4B. At the same time, the volume of sales measured by weight also grew by 3.5%.
“Europe’s plant-based sector has continued to make headway despite a difficult few years for the wider food industry,” said Helen Breewood, research and resource manager at GFI Europe.
“Plant-based meat and dairy are becoming mainstream options in many European countries, emerging plant-based categories are growing, and some products are beginning to compete with their animal-based counterparts on price.”
Here are our five major takeaways from GFI Europe’s analysis of vegan food sales in Europe.
Alt-milk remains king
Courtesy: GFI Europe
Like the rest of the world, plant-based milk has remained the largest category in Europe, accounting for 41% of all sales in 2023. This was facilitated by a 7% hike in sales value, reaching €2.2B. Unit sales also grew by 4.7%, and product volumes were up by 5.2%.
Germany is the largest plant-based milk market, netting €805M in sales value (a 37% share). This is explained by the shrinking price gap between milk alternatives and conventional dairy, which was down from 35% in 2021 to just 3% in 2023. If the VAT on the former (19%) was the same as the latter (7%), price parity would have already been achieved.
Meat analogues are second on the list with a 37% share of Europe’s vegan sales. Between 2022 and 2023, the sales value of these products was up by 3.2%, reaching €2B, while units were steady and volumes declined.
Germany retains top spot for plant-based
Courtesy: GFI Europe
The land of bratwurst was already the largest in Europe, and it continued to dominate, taking up 40% of the market (€2.2B) among the countries analysed.
Despite being the most profitable nation for plant-based milk producers, Germany bucks the continental trend by selling more meat analogues than alt-dairy. This is because it is also the largest market for meat-free products, accounting for nearly half (46%) of all sales.
The number of households these products are reaching is also rising steadily, if gradually – plant-based milk penetrated 37.4% of households last year (versus 33.8% in 2021), and milk alternatives were bought by 36.5% (up from 36.3% two years prior).
The UK is next on the list in terms of market size, with sales reaching €942M. It was followed by France (€648M), Italy (€641M), Netherlands (€452M) and Spain (€309M).
Where sales declined, the slump may be over
Courtesy: GFI Europe
In only two markets did plant-based products perform worse in 2023 than the year before: the UK and the Netherlands. The former saw sales decline by 2.8% (with a larger 10% drop in volume), while in the latter, volume sales were down by 5%, with units dipping by 1%.
However, there are signs that this slowdown started to level off in 2023 and the early months of this year. For starters, the sales value of plant-based products in the Netherlands actually grew by 1%, and volumes have shown a slight rebound after two years of decline.
In the UK, weekly unit sales of meat analogues fell by 7% in early 2024, compared to a 12% decrease last year. And plant-based milk experienced a 1% decline in unit sales per week this year, versus 9% in 2023. And just this week, discount retailer Lidl announced it is tripling its own-label plant-based offering after seeing demand grow by 12% last year.
Europeans love non-dairy cheese and cream
Retail sales of vegan cheese in Europe from 2022-23 | Courtesy: GFI Europe
Two categories that shone last year were cream and cheese alternatives. Vegan cheese, taking up 3.6% of the total share, was the fastest-growing product in Spain, France and Italy, and plant-based cream (comprising 2.6% of the market) experienced the quickest growth in Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK.
The latter made 24% more money in 2023, representing the highest sales hike of any category, albeit being a much smaller category than vegan milk, meat, and yoghurt.
On the other hand, plant-based desserts (-3%), non-dairy ice cream (-8%), and vegan ready meals (-10% in France, Germany and the UK) have witnessed drop-offs, which GFI Europe ascribed to cost-of-living pressures that led shoppers to cut back on non-essential and convenience items.
Price parity is priceless
Courtesy: GFI Europe
A major finding of the analysis was that with certain products and in certain markets, the price gap between animal proteins and their vegan versions has closed – and this has been associated with better sales.
For example, branded dairy-free creams are cheaper than their conventional counterparts in Germany and the UK, spurring a 23% sales hike in the latter. In fact, private-label plant-based milk costs an average of €1.12 per litre, 13% cheaper than own-label dairy milk (€1.30).
Likewise, higher prices mean middling sales. With volume sales of plant-based meat down, manufacturers need to develop products that meet consumer expectations on both taste and price.
So finding ways to lower prices is key to the success of plant-based meat and dairy in Europe. “Our analysis finds that lower prices and higher quality can power the growth of these more sustainable options, so policymakers and manufacturers should continue to invest in innovation and infrastructure to develop tastier, more affordable products capable of building a diversified, resilient and healthy European food system,” said Breewood.
Americans are attracted to meat analogues mainly for their health benefits, but to overcome the sales slump, plant-based companies must offer better-tasting and cheaper products.
The health halo created by meat producers is fluttering. People are now actively moving away from animal proteins as they realise the burdens they put on the human body – after all, red and processed meat have been labelled carcinogens by the WHO, adding to their contribution to heart disease, diabetes and obesity risks.
Plant-based meat, of course, provides a viable alternative. And in the last year, there has been a notable shift in this industry’s marketing playbook. Climate change, the reason why most companies say they exist, is no longer the top message anymore. Now, it’s health first.
And this is an intentional effort. For Americans, health is now the top reason to shift from animal proteins to plant-based analogues. Despite their sales dwindling over the last couple of years, consumers remain interested in vegan meat products because they believe they are better for their personal health and don’t pose disease risks.
That said, there remains a large gap in purchase drivers and barriers – some households have decreased their consumption of plant-based meat due to their taste or texture and higher prices.
This is according to a new study by Kroger, the Plant Based Foods Institute (PBFI), and 84.51°, which revealed that flexitarians are gradually reducing their spending on animal proteins for the fourth year in a row. The Plant-Based Migration Analysis analysed the behaviour of over seven million US households in 2022-23 and carried out a survey this year to provide a blueprint for retailers to expand their vegan offering and drive the category’s growth.
“Despite economic challenges in the past few years, we continue to see that shoppers have remained engaged and interested in plant-based foods,” said Linette Kwon, data and consumer insights analyst at the Plant Based Foods Association, the site organisation of PBFI.
Health attitudes mirror plant-based brand messaging
The research revealed that 48% of US shoppers think plant-based foods are healthier than animal proteins and 45% want to eat less meat and dairy due to personal health concerns, the latter sentiment representing a 7% rise since 2023. Meanwhile, 29% of Americans are also concerned about the presence of antibiotics and hormones in conventional meat.
Three in 10 respondents say they’re enthused by the greater availability of plant-based products, and their climate credentials. And 28% want to eat fewer animal proteins because of their rising costs – beef prices reached record highs last month. In fact, the number of consumers concerned about the price of meat has grown by 9% since last year.
On the other hand, a third of Americans (32%) have been buying fewer plant-based products because they don’t like how they taste, highlighting a key hurdle for manufacturers in the space. The same percentage of people moving away from animal proteins due to high costs are deterred from plant-based options for budgetary reasons (28%), a 12% rise from 2023.
While only 14% dislike the nutritional profile, 23% feel there are fewer vegan products in-store, and 16% were dismayed by the decreased amount of convenience options like ready meals. Meanwhile, 19% have trouble finding them in the store.
“Making plant-based foods more affordable, improving the taste/texture, offering greater variety and providing more nutritional benefits would make them more likely to purchase plant-based foods,” the report says.
“It’s not necessarily that sustainability has become less important, but we have to meet our consumers where they are. Health is a major driver when it comes to purchasing plant-based food,” Sherene Jagla, chief demand officer at Impossible Foods, told Green Queen this week. “It’s important that we’re educating consumers about the nutritional value of our products so they can understand how it might fit into their lifestyles.”
Sales are still down, and improvements are crucial
In line with sales data, milk alternatives seem to be the most popular plant-based product. More than a third (37%) of Americans are drinking more alt-milk now, and in place of dairy. Around a quarter are doing the same with frozen meat analogues (26%), refrigerated vegan meat, yoghurt, and frozen meals (24% each).
The share is slightly lower for vegan cheese (18%)- it has jumped by 7% from last year. “Shoppers who are increasing their spend on plant-based milk, cheese, and fresh meat are actively decreasing their spend in corresponding animal-based categories,” the report states. “This indicates their dedication to making a switch to more plant-based foods.”
Julie Emmett, VP of marketplace development at PBFA, said the research showcases evidence of a protein transition for a variety of reasons: “Retailers can use this extensive research to develop merchandising and marketing strategies for long-term growth.”
In Europe, this shift is already in motion. Lidl and Ahold Delhaize are aiming to become the first supermarket groups to set sales goals in line with their climate ambitions by setting ‘protein split’ targets, which involve increasing the share of plant-based food sales while decreasing animal protein sales. The WWF last week published a methodology for retailers to measure protein sales, urging them to make 74% of all food sold plant-based.
The PBFI report recommends manufacturers and retailers optimise pricing and promotion strategies to make plant-based foods more affordable to a wider group of consumers and improve the taste and texture of products while offering unique items and cleaner labels.
They also write that making vegan food easy to find in-store and online is critical, and can be helped by digital and in-store signage. In addition, the report says companies should provide recipe inspiration and education about the health benefits of these products to pique consumer interest.
These measures are important when you consider the continued struggles of plant-based meat, whose sales fell by 12% in 2023, according to SPINS data crunched by the Good Food Institute. This decline has not been stemmed, with meat alternatives down by 9% in the year ending July, per Circana. And since 2020, the number of alt-meat brands has shrunk by 28%, from 116 to 83.
Prices of vegan meat and seafood also swelled by 9% in 2023, compared to 3% for their conventional counterparts – this meant there was a 77% price premium on the former. But consumers haven’t permanently turned away from these products. Cutting prices will attract more of them back, as was evidenced by Lidl’s trial in the Netherlands.
“As the challenges of price and findability improve, we believe different plant-based categories will have many more opportunities to better reach shoppers,” said Kwon.
Meatable’s Jeff Tripician on his journey from meat industry veteran to cultivated meat CEO, why these proteins should be more expensive, the company’s upcoming Series C round, and its global regulatory plans.
“It’s just a very practical conversation,” says Jeff Tripician. The current demand for eight billion people is taxing the food system. You have rising emissions, alarming rates of soil degradation, a huge amount of freshwater used to feed and grow animals that we eat.
“What do you do 25 years from now, when [the demand for meat] is 70% bigger, there are two billion more people, and developing countries eating more?” he asks. “Hell, that’s why I joined this.”
The ‘this’ Tripician is referring to is Meatable, the Dutch startup making cultivated meat. He joined as CEO in May, taking over from co-founder Krijn de Nood (who remains on the board). His appointment was a marker of the company’s plans to expand in the US, leveraging his decades-long experience as a meat industry executive.
“I was part of the meat industry. I’ve run these companies, and I don’t have an answer to that question,” Tripician, who has worked at Perdue Farms and Grass Fed Foods, tells me. “I don’t know if cultivated meat is the perfect answer, [but] I know that it has huge positives.”
It can do in 12 days what takes a pig eight months, or a cow two to three years. There’s minimal waste, a fraction of the land and water use, and a dramatic reduction in emissions. “It does a lot of things, and it does it at once, at scale, and at a price that’s reasonable,” suggests Tripician.
“In our case, the taste is so close to conventional pork that if you use it as an ingredient, like a sausage, or in a taco, burrito, or meatball, you cannot tell the difference. Because it’s real meat, it comes from real pig cells.
“So you sit there. You go: ‘If this isn’t the answer, I would like to know what is.’ And you hear nothing. The meat industry goes: ‘Well, we’ve already invested in all of this, so we’ll just continue to push.’ If they’re successful, they further stress the planet. If they’re unsuccessful, they don’t have enough meat to feed the planet. Which is worse?”
Cultivated meat appeals to tech-savvy Gen Z
Courtesy: Meatable/Green Queen
Tripician the company has had a “big change” in approach: “The role of Meatable is to help meat companies gain access to more meat. We’re a supplier to them. We show them the technology. We transfer the technology so they can do what they do. They take raw material – meat – they turn it into food, and they sell it. We now provide them with some of the meat. Very simple.”
Meatable conducted a survey of 500 chefs in the US, 60% of whom said they’d put its cultivated pork on the menu, alongside the message and the brand name. It then polled thousands of consumers – while older ones were more apprehensive, younger Americans were excited.
In Tripician’s mind, there are two ways meat companies (this includes plant-based) can cater to the growing protein demand. The first involves combining a plant-based product – which “just doesn’t taste as good” – with a percentage of cultivated cells. This hybrid route is what’s currently being taken by most cultivated meat startups right now.
The problem here is that “there’s a younger consumer that says food is supposed to do more than provide calories and nutrition”. Indeed, taste is the most important purchase driver for nearly three-quarters of Gen Zers in the US.
That’s where the second approach comes in. “You take your conventional product, add in some Meatable, and now some of that is helping make it a better place. I think that’s a route that would work, and it’s cost-effective at that size.”
He points out how younger Americans are holding sustainability dearer than perhaps older generations do. Their purchasing power is massive, and they’re not afraid to switch to a different brand if it doesn’t meet their ethical needs.
“So if the meat industry wants to help itself, they should say: ‘I’ll put some of those things on the shelf with my name on it, not Meatable’s name, and have those consumers go: ‘Great!’” says Tripician.
“We saw it with plant-based,” he adds. “People tried it, didn’t really buy it again, it fell off dramatically. That’s fixed simply with a taste. Change the taste, change the texture. We tested that at about a 25-30% blend. For an average person, you could not tell the difference between that and a 100% pork product.”
‘I won’t tell billion-dollar meat companies what to do’
Courtesy: Meatable
Meatable has been using similar rations for its tastings. The company held two events in Singapore last year, and one at its Leiden headquarters in the Netherlands in April – this was the first on EU soil.
“We try to keep investors and government agencies and so on, just give them a chance [to try], because they can’t go buy it yet. Really, Singapore is the only place that’s embraced it – we do regular tastings there,” says Tripician.
“It brings the media into the discussion and parties that can influence positive outcomes. It was really well received. We continue to do them in other places, with other people… What we’re talking about at the end of it is: this is food, how do you feel about it?”
Meatable has a large tasting event coming up in February with investors, the board and meat companies that are interested in trying to figure out how to feed 10 billion people by 2050 with fewer resources at hand.
As for how much cultivated meat clients want to add to their product, Meatable leaves it up to them. The startup can show them different recipes, whether that’s a mix with pea or soy protein, or even a vegetable patty with butternut squash, carrots and mushrooms. “You can blend other things in here that have high nutritional value, no sugar added, all kinds of health benefits.”
“It’s really up to the business, meat company, grocery store, restaurant,” says Tripician. “So if you’re a meat company – Impossible, Cargill, JBS, whoever it is – and you go: ‘You run plants, you bring in livestock, you harvest, you fabricate, you turn it into food, put it in cold storage, put on a truck, you sell to restaurants and grocery stores.’
“All we’re going to do is say: ‘We’ll give you the technology, so you can have the equipment in your plant to make cultivated meat.’”
Tripician doesn’t want to change what meat producers do. “I’m not going to tell a $15B company how to make their product. I’m going to say: ‘I can get you raw material at a competitive price in 12 days, guaranteed, regardless of whether, regardless of feed prices, regardless of pandemics or diseases like avian or swine flu, regardless of all of that hailstorm, none of that matters.”
He continues: “When they go to their customers, they would be able to say: ‘Look, you seem like a progressive chef. You’ve got the younger people, they’re all on their iPhones… Do you think a product like this would make sense?’”
Meatable looks to collaborate with fellow cultivated meat producers
Courtesy: Meatable/Green Queen
One of the defining features of Meatable’s business is its production process, which was recently updated to halve the manufacturing time to just four days. This is made by its Opti-ox technology, which allows it to make products by isolating a single animal cell, without the need for fetal bovine serum.
The process uses pluripotent stem cells (PSCs), which – unlike immortalised cell lines that need to be altered to multiply indefinitely – have the natural ability to continue multiplying, and do so rapidly. This is coupled with a perfusion process that allows the startup to work in a continuous cycle to generate very high cell densities and produce fully differentiated muscle and fat cells faster than any competitor.
The company moved to its Leiden facility in November 2023, which houses 200-litre bioreactors (with the potential of expanding to 500 litres). It has also partnered with Singapore’s ESCO Aster, the world’s first approved contract manufacturing facility for cultivated meat, and plant protein manufacturer Love Handle.
But scaling up to meat industry levels is an immense challenge that has troubled even the most well-capitalised companies in the space. Tripician, for his part, doesn’t want to own a pilot plant. “We’re going to go to people that are our colleagues, and we’re going to say to them: ‘You figured this out. Why don’t we work together?’” he says.
Meatable is reaching out to cultivated meat pioneers in Australia, Europe, the UK and elsewhere to collaborate. “I want to use their pilot plant. I want to use the things they know, so that when we figure it out, we obviously benefit. And so do they. There’s more than enough demand for a bunch of us to be successful.
“Because – this isn’t going to shock anybody – what happens if, five years from now, the technology changes and the equipment’s different, you have to redo all the equipment. I don’t own any equipment. I don’t want to own any equipment.”
Cultivated meat ‘should not be at price parity’
Courtesy: Meatable
One key advantage of scaling up is that it will bring costs down, which is critical if cultivated meat is to reach the masses one day. The sector has managed to lower costs by 99% in the last decade, but McKinsey suggests it will take at least until 2030 for these proteins to reach price parity with meat.
Tripician, however, doesn’t believe cultivated meat should cost the same as its industrially farmed counterpart. “I think it should be a little bit of a premium,” he says. “As an industry steward, if it gets to parity, then farmers and ranchers are at risk, because it would be the same price, and I want them to be at a little bit lower, so that their businesses are always strong.”
He adds: “And if you’re going to ask a meat company to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in plants and facilities, they better make a little bit more money.”
But where does that leave the consumer? Tripician points out that between 6-23% of the dairy, produce, egg and bakery industries are made of premium-priced items. “These are 100-billion-dollar industries just in the US. If those can be that penetrated, then you would think the same premium on meat would be equally effective.”
He puts it in the same bracket as organic meat, which can be 70-75% higher than commodity meat. “It’s more, but it’s an amount people pay for,” he feels, forecasting such prices for cultivated meat in the next two to three years. “After that, it will come down more, a slow glide down.”
Targeting a Series C raise in the $30M ballpark
Courtesy: GFI
To date, Meatable has raised $95M from investors, and that’s excluding grants like the €7.6M pumped in by the Netherlands Enterprise Agency under its Innovation Credit programme last month. But the company is now working on a “modest” Series C raise, which would close at around the $350 mark (similar to its Series B round last year).
It’s part of the startup’s asset-light approach – it’s not building a plant, and it’s not competing with the rest of the industry in terms of production, distribution, sales, and the like. Lately, investors have cooled on cultivated meat – as they have on the wider food tech sector – though the downward spiral may be ending.
“They hate the asset-heavy thing,” Tripician says of venture capitalists. “They’ve lost a lot of money, or think they’re going to lose a lot of money in that. Because it’ll be very, very difficult for a pilot plant in cultivated meat to ever make money… We’re not pursuing that.
Meatable has enough runway for around 18 months, but the Series C would buy the company more time. “We’re fine, but I want to have more than fine, and I think that’s smart to say to an investor,” its CEO says.
“Look, if you believe we’re on the right path and the science and the IP and all that’s there, and our business model is going to be successful, can you invest an amount that will get us through this time?” he says when asked what his pitch to investors would be. “I know the meat companies will be buying licenses from us, building plants, and entering the marketplace over the next five years.”
He reveals that the business is doing a “soft launch” for existing investors, who might satisfy the capital requirements. But the round would be open from January 2025, with the aim of closing it by the end of spring.
Meatable expects regulatory approval in multiple countries next year
Courtesy: Meatable
Each of Meatable’s seven business hubs services the countries around it. For example, its Asian base is in Singapore, the first country to approve cultivated meat, and one that is currently evaluating Meatable’s application too.
“We’ve got meat companies there that know there’s regulatory approval, or there will be, within 12 to 18 months,” says Tripician. “That’s where it’s going to gain traction, and then we’ll follow.”
He adds: “I flew out and sat with the Singapore Food Agency. Their thinking – this is an American saying this – far exceeds ours as far as coordination between ministries of government, the Economic Development Board… and the private industry [goes]… Now, they also have a different background. We are not food insecure – they are. The US doesn’t have that pressure, and [Singapore] is a small country, but the coordination was truly impressive.
“They’re helping with staff. They’re helping open doors, and that’s the model. If countries go: ‘Our water is a problem, our soil is a problem’ – maybe it’s not food insecurity, you have other issues – then you should be facilitating solutions, not rejecting.”
Tripician reveals that Meatable is currently filing dossiers in six countries. “The Singapore regulatory approval process is largely welcomed. Several other countries out in Asia look to Singapore and say: ‘Well, we pretty much follow that.’ It’s not 100%, it’s not guaranteed, but it’s very alike,” he says.
“So we’re perfecting it with Singapore, and then we’re just taking it and saying to the other countries: ‘Here’s what we have. What do you need to see that’s a little different?’” he adds. “Some of them are saying nothing. Others are going: ‘Well, we could use a little more data here or a little more information there,’ and we go: ‘Absolutely.’”
Once the Singapore approval comes through – which Tripician expects by Q1 2025 (“we’re just a little short on the explanation, not the science” – Meatable will use that to get authorisation in a host of other countries. The UK’s Food Standards Agency has announced its intention to use a framework for international cooperation for novel food approvals too, a partnership likely to include Singapore.
“I see us moving with pretty good speed through 2025,” predicts Tripician. “At the end, I would be very disappointed in our team if we don’t have approval in five, six countries by this time or the end of next year.”
The EU is ‘leading with science, not a fear of change’
Courtesy: Meatable
What about things closer to home? So far, the EU has only received one application – from France’s Gourmey – thanks to the make-up of its existing novel food regulation. The complexity and timelines have led homegrown startups (like Meatable) to look internationally for launch plans.
“Countries and areas have their own hurdles, the things they care about, and it’s up to companies to navigate that. It’s not up to [EU members] to change their mind,” says Tripician. “We’ve been working with them in a way that we’re leading with science, not the fear of change.”
He believes the EU is taking a “very methodical” approach to the regulation of cultivated meat and other novel foods, and is now questioning the barriers it previously put up.
“If the product is safe, and you have bigger problems – climate change, feeding your people, soil, use of land – do you really want to use all of that land to raise feed? Or do you want to convert it to feeding people?,” asks Tripician. “Those are internal conversations, but they’ve been very supportive.”
Cultivated meat bans ‘anger’ Meatable CEO
Courtesy: Ron DeSantis/Twitter
As for Tripician’s own home country, a wave of states have been attempting to restrict this industry – Florida and Alabama have already banned cultivated meat”, with the former currently facing a lawsuit for the decision. “As an American, it angers me,” Tripician says.
“They don’t have a better idea, but they’re going to shut this down,” he adds. State politicians are suggesting that cultivated meat could be bad for farmers and ranchers. “That’s just un-American. We’re supposed to pick what we want, as long as it’s safe, not supposed to have someone tell us what to do.”
He appeals to state governors, calling them “smart people” who are “trying to do the right thing”. “I would ask them the same question we started with: if you don’t like cultivated meat for whatever reason – probably political, because farmers and ranchers vote – what’s your answer for five, 10, 15, 20, 25 years from now?” he wonders.
“We already have 10% of the global population going to bed hungry every single night. What’s that number going to be? Is it going to be your kids, your grandkids, your nephews, your nieces, your neighbours? What’s your answer?”
He adds: “I think if you’re not part of the solution, my god, please don’t be part of the problem. Just get out of the way. Let the FDA and USDA do their job. They’re really good at it. If it’s a problem, they’ll stop it.”
Drawing on his experience as a “meat guy”, he believes that farmers won’t be hurt by the success of cultivated meat as an industry. “Farmers and ranchers are the best stewards of the land. Nobody cares more about the quality of the land than them and the livestock they treat with respect. They don’t want to do anything bad to them, but if they’re running out of meat, then everyone’s going to push them for more,” he says.
Cultivated meat can take some of that pressure off. The livestock farmers and producers wouldn’t be impacted negatively if cultivated meat grew at a reasonable rate – one that they decide, based on how much they want to include in their formulations.
“The meat companies then could say: ‘Now I have enough meat, I can feed the people, and that meat doesn’t destroy soil, water or air. It doesn’t do the harm,’” says Tripician. “How does that puzzle not fit together?”
In our weekly column, we round up the latest news and developments in the alternative protein and sustainable food industry. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers a new oat milk dessert brand, Next Level Burger’s holiday feast, and price parity for plant-based milk.
New products and launches
Discount retailer Aldi has introduced its largest vegan Christmas range in the UK, including a plant-based version of its footlong pig in blanket, a sprouted gratin, a nut roast, a brie and butternut wellington, and a dairy-free cheese board.
Courtesy: Aldi UK
Fish-free seafood maker Aqua Cultured Foods has landed on the menu of Chicago eatery Mama Delia, owned by Michelin-starred chef Marcos Campos Sanchez. The dish, called Atún Crudo, features the vegan raw tuna topped with a fried egg and potato strings.
If you’re after oat milk desserts, Kaiser is a new brand by Canadian oat farmer Nathan Kaiser. The company has introduced a bunch of ice cream tubs and bars, all but one of which are vegan. They’re available at select grocers in Quebec and will enter the Greater Toronto Area later this year, before a national rollout in 2025.
Courtesy: Kaiser
Oatly has signed a multi-year deal with UK café chain Black Sheep Coffee, which will serve its barista oat milk as the default dairy alternative across its 100 stores.
Mushroom meat maker Myco has struck a deal with Brakes, the UK’s largest wholesaler, to supply burgers, sausages and mince – made from vertically farmed oyster mushrooms – to the latter’s 20,000+ clients.
Courtesy: Myco
And vegan fast-casual chain Next Level Burger and its subsidiary Veggie Grill have introduced a take-home Holiday Feast menu, which features its Holiday Harvest wellington and five sides. Each $130 set feeds four to six people and requires a 72-hour notice, with the option to add dessert.
Company and financial updates
Swiss cultivated meat startup Sallea, which has created edible scaffolds for manufacturers to produce whole-cut meat and seafood from animal cells, has raised $2.6M in a funding round led by Founderful.
Courtesy: Sallea
London-based New Wave Biotech has won the €20,000 EIT Food Accelerator Network Tech Validation Award to validate its technology with research organisation CPI. It has created an AI-powered software to help precision fermentation companies optimise their downstream processing.
Fellow UK company Vegan Food Group has sold the Weisbaum production facility it acquired in the takeover of Tofutown earlier this year to another German tofu producer, New Originals Company. It will allow the firm to focus on scaling up at its larger plant in Lüneburg.
Courtesy: Vegan Food Group
At British meat-free brand Gosh Foods, sales decreased by 7% in 2023, mostly from declines in Europe, with pre-tax losses widening from £1.3M to £3M.
Meanwhile, Framptons, another UK plant-based company, has reported a profit of £1M for the financial year ending April 2024, overturning a £3.7M loss from the previous year. It comes after its acquisition by German investment firm Profura. The manufacturer launched the Wessex Oat Company in July.
Courtesy: Framptons
Dutch crop solutions provider AgroSpheres has closed a $37M Series B round to scale up its AgriCell technology, which protects active ingredients in pesticides from environmental pressures, and bring its biopesticides to market.
Also in the Netherlands, Qorium, led by Mosa Meat founder and cultivated meat pioneer Mark Post, has produced a 35x35cm sample of cultivated leather using a newly scaled-up tissue bioreactor.
Courtesy: Qorium
Massachusetts continues to invest in the future of food, awarding $2.1M to the Tufts University Center for Cellular Agriculture to establish the Foodtech Engineering for Alternative Sustainable Technologies (FEAST) centre, which will advance cultivated meat R&D.
Agricultural giant Royal Cosun has invested $3.5M in Planetary to scale up the development of cost-effective ingredients derived from fermentation, convert the former’s feedstock into mycoprotein ingredients, and create new applications for plant-based food.
Policy, research and awards
The Vegan Society’s VEG 1 Baby & Toddler supplement, a liquid multivitamin for children aged six months to four years, has won a three-star rating in the supplement category of the 2024 Nourish Awards.
Courtesy: The Vegan Society
In the Netherlands, plant-based milk is almost at price parity at Lidl (where dairy is only six cents cheaper) and Aldi (a 16-cent difference), according to research by animal rights organisation Wakker Dier.
Japanese researchers have conducted a life-cycle assessment of IntegriCulture’s serum-free, food-grade culture media for cultivated meat, revealing that electricity, animal inputs and single-use items like “lab consumables” were the main emissions hotspots.
Courtesy: Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology
Finally, is our brain chemistry to blame for the climate crisis? That’s the perspective of a new white paper, which suggests that humans are hardwired to desire status (which translates to material wealth and consumption), and dopamine continually craves greater rewards.
Plant-based meat pioneer Impossible Foods has launched a Health Hub to battle misinformation about the industry, and has attained a new health certification for its Lite Beef.
In recent months, Peter McGuinness has been very vocal about one thing: the climate argument for plant-based food just doesn’t fly with consumers right now.
These events led fellow Californian company Beyond Meat, one of Impossible Foods’s chief rivals, to lean all into health – it revamped its products and recipes to be more nutritionally sound, shook up the packaging to put health attributes front and centre, and backed it with a marketing campaign and cookbook. It now poses itself as a “health company”.
Impossible Foods, for its own part, refreshed its brand identity and product packaging earlier this year too, bringing taste and health descriptors to the fore. These efforts underscore the shifting needs of the American consumer: the flavour and nutrition of food, alongside price, are now the biggest drivers of consumption.
The number of Americans who think plant-based meat is better for their health is the same as those who don’t, and for six in 10 people, health is the biggest motivator for them to eat more vegan meat.
Now, Impossible Foods is doubling down against criticisms levelled by the meat industry and its interest groups – that plant-based meat is ultra-processed and therefore bad for you – with a new Health Hub.
Diving deep into myth-busting
“We have to meet our consumers where they are, and health is one of the top reasons why they choose plant-based,” McGuinness said in a statement. “It’s important that we as an industry are educating consumers on the many benefits of plant-based meat and how it can fit into everyday life.”
The Health Hub, housed on its website, is designed to better educate consumers about the nutritional benefits of plant-based meat via a centralised virtual resource.
It features detailed nutritional information about every ingredient used in its products, alongside side-by-side comparisons with conventional beef, chicken and sausages, and deep-dives from Impossible Foods’s health and nutrition team on subjects like soy and fibre.
The company explains how, for example, cultured dextrose stops food from spoiling and is also found in dairy products and pork sausages, why it chooses to use coconut and sunflower oils, what its signature heme ingredient does, and how methylcellulose – commonly used in ice creams, sauces, baked goods, etc. – holds its meats together.
Addressing the ultra-processed question, Impossible Foods provides some important context. “Almost everything we eat is processed in some way,” it points out. “For example: blending, mixing, cooking, or baking are all “processes” that change a food from its raw, natural state. Our products are made by mixing carefully selected ingredients derived from plants or by fermentation, to create something unique and delicious.”
The Health Hub also features a section dedicated to debunking myths about plant-based products. This includes claims like “you should only eat foods with ingredients that you can pronounce” (a response to an infamous attack ad against Impossible Foods a few years ago), “processed foods lack nutrition”, and “eating soy is going to give me man boobs”.
One criticism it tackles is the sodium content – Impossible Beef has nearly five times as much sodium as conventional 80/20 beef mince. But, the company points out, “raw animal meat is naturally low in sodium”, which is why “animal meat is usually salted when cooking”. And even then, the Impossible Beef makes up only 16% of the daily recommended sodium intake by the USDA.
Impossible Foods gets new health certification for Lite Beef
In addition to the launch of the Health Hub, Impossible Foods’s Lite Beef – an alternative to 90/10 lean beef – has satisfied the guidelines set by the American Diabetes Association’s Better Choices for Life programme.
The announcement, made at the HLTH 2024 event in Las Vegas today and a week ahead of Diabetes Awareness Month, follows the product’s ‘heart-healthy’ certification by the American Heart Association (AHA) a year ago. The two accreditations speak to two leading diseases in the US – heart disease is the leading cause of death, while diabetes affects nearly 12% of the population.
“Working with trusted organizations like the American Diabetes Association and the American Heart Association helps us clearly demonstrate how products like Impossible Lite Beef are healthy options for people who want to find easy ways to make better choices,” said McGuinness.
To further highlight the health benefits of its products, the Impossible Foods Health Hub features five new recipes certified by the AHA’s Heart-Check initiative. These include BBQ pineapple and chimchurri-avocado burgers, a southwest taco salad, a miso beef soba bowl, and sheet pan meatballs – all using the Lite Ground Beef.
To solidify the nutritional claims, the Health Hub contains insights from several nutritionists who serve on the company’s health and nutrition council. “So many people struggle to figure out how to eat more plant-based foods because learning to cook new meals and overhauling your plate can feel intimidating. Impossible meat makes it easy to gain momentum and add diversity to your diet while enjoying the foods you already know and love,” said Kaytee Hadley, a functional medicine dietitian.
“We don’t believe in a single dietary regimen for health. Rather, we promote diets that prioritise nutrient density, a variety of foods from the different food groups, and the enjoyment of a good meal,” the company says.
“That’s why we strive to formulate our products specifically to be delicious, versatile, and full of key nutrients, all while imposing a far lower environmental impact compared with meat from animals. But we don’t just want to replace meat from animals, we want to make it better.”
Californian startups Friends & Family Pet Food Company and Novel Farms are co-developing cultivated meat for pets, and are already engaging with regulators.
Friends & Family Pet Food Company, the newly launched startup focused on alternative pet food, has announced a second collaboration to produce cultivated meat for cats and dogs.
The Berkeley startup is collaborating with Oakland-based cultivated meat producer Novel Farms, which has a range of cell lines to make products like quail, chicken, pork and mouse meat. It complements Friends & Family’s partnership with Singapore’s Umami Bioworks to create cultivated seafood for cats, which was announced in July.
Friends & Family and Novel Foods are in the testing and prototyping stages right now to determine which meats they want to focus on, but have earmarked a 2025 launch for the product line, co-founder and CEO Joshua Errett tells Green Queen.
The target market is the San Francisco Bay Area, and to reach these consumers and their pets, Friends & Family has begun engaging with the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM), which regulates animal feed ingredients and pet food in the US.
“Just like all food, pet food is a meat-focused industry that could use some innovation,” says Errett. “Our collaboration-heavy, asset-light approach has the potential to change pet food forever.”
He adds: “Novel Farms is a great partner for us as they check all the boxes. We will work together to make customised pet nutrition for cats and dogs.”
A business model built on tech and collaboration
Friends & Family CEO Joshua Errett with Novel Farms CEO Michelle Lu | Courtesy: Friends & Family Pet Food Company
Errett, who has years of experience in cultivated meat and alternative pet food, established the startup last year with pet industry veteran and COO Jonny Cruz, and veterinarian and chief science officer Sarah Dodd.
The company has developed a proprietary pet food platform with freeze-drying technology to help cultivated meat producers get to market. “Our model is to partner with talented scientists, research facilities and bioscience companies that are creating cultivated ingredients,” explains Errett.
“We especially look for ingredients that are sought-after by pet food consumers. The ingredients and technology also have to be scalable – we want to build an iconic pet brand, and to do that, we need commercial-scale ingredients. And we create a path to market for these ingredients.”
The partnership with Novel Farms is the second among several others in the works, and will see its cultivated animal ingredients be incorporated into Friends & Family’s “shelf-ready foods” for dogs and cats.
“My vision is that Friends & Family is the masterbrand, and each product line we create will have its own branded identity,” outlines Errett. “Think of it like a house-of-brands strategy. This will allow us to showcase these amazing ingredients individually, and tailor each ingredient for a specific category of pet food.”
He adds: “For instance, we can make food for puppies, and cultivate the meat in that product line to have higher calcium, more protein, more phosphorus and other nutrients that puppies need.”
Michelle Lu, founder and CEO of Novel Farms, says: “Cultivated pet food makes perfect sense as an entry point for getting cultivated products to market. As Novel Farms prepares for our own market entry in the next year, pet food is a high-impact strategic target for us.”
Cultivated meat firms must make consumers the focal point
A prototype of the cultivated fish treats being developed by Friends & Family and Umami Bioworks | Courtesy: Friends & Family Pet Food Co.
Errett says Friends & Family’s pet food platform can help extend the ingredient, lower the cost and enhance the nutrition of the final product: “Part of our mission is to bring cultivated meat and fish to the consumer; to prove there’s demand. We can only do that if the cost is reasonable to the average pet food consumer.”
The resulting pet food will likely not be 100% cultivated meat – instead, it would be mixed with plant-based ingredients to create hybrid meat, which is the path most cultivated meat producers for humans have also taken. “We’ll aim for the highest inclusion rate we can,” says Errett.
He previously revealed that the cultivated seafood being developed with Umami Bioworks will have up to 10% fish cells upon launch, with an aim to get to 25-30% eventually. Asked how that partnership is going, Errett praised Umami Bioworks’s team as “true visionaries in not only cultivated technology, but in food”. “Things are moving along with that partnership,” he says, hinting at an update soon.
Umami Bioworks has also been in touch with the CVM with Friends & Family Pet Food, with the startups previously indicating a launch for Q1 2025.
Friends & Family is the applicant for the pet food being created with Novel Farms. “Each time we go through the regulatory process, our next application becomes stronger,” says Errett. “That’s stronger in terms of what data we need, but also the relationship we’re building with our contacts at the CVM.”
While politicians in several US states are attempting to restrict cultivated meat – Florida and Alabama have already banned it – the USDA and the FDA have both found these products to be safe, leading to the launch of Upside Foods‘s and Good Meat‘s chicken products. But consumers (and investors) remain on the fence: a global survey found that a third of pet owners are willing to try cultivated meat themselves, but nearly half would feed it to their furry friends.
“Cultivated meat and seafood companies will only be successful if they can create products that consumers love. Not simply one-to-one replacements for what’s currently out there, but products that provide true value to the end customer,” says Errett.
“I believe this is something every cultivated meat and seafood company needs to think about – even if you are B2B, somewhere along the line there will always be a C: the consumer. And you have to understand what that consumer wants. That’s why we are working closely with all our bioscience partners, to customise cultivated meat and seafood nutrition to bring the most value possible to pets.”
French cultivated chicken startup Vital Meat showcased its ingredient in a public tasting in Singapore, where it expects regulatory approval “very soon”.
With a market launch on the horizon, Vital Meat organised a cultivated meat event in a Singapore restaurant to give consumers a taste of its future-friendly ingredient.
The Nantes-based startup teamed up with Hue, a modern Thai eatery owned by chef Neo Jun Hao, for the tasting, which featured three dishes championing Singaporean culture.
“Hue will be one of our launch partners, and we’re currently in discussions with several other restaurants and food players,” Vital Meat CEO Etienne Duthoit told Green Queen.
It marks the “first step” towards the company’s commercial launch, having filed a regulatory dossier to the Singapore Food Agency in November 2023. “The regulatory process in Singapore has been moving smoothly, and we’re confident in its progress,” Duthoit noted. “We remain hopeful for approval by the end of the year.”
The company’s regulatory expert Claude Rescan added: “We are going through the questions and answers process with scientific experts from SFA and so far, the discussion is very smooth and is going well.”
Cultivated chicken dishes impress diners
Courtesy: Vital Meat
Vital Meat uses pharmaceutical technology to turn cells from fertilised chicken eggs into a cultivated meat ingredient, which it will supply to manufacturers and restaurants to combine with plant-based ingredients for hybrid meat.
For the tasting at Hue, Jun Hao curated three dishes to celebrate local flavours and palates. Diners were treated to cultivated chicken skin chips, a golden, crispy snack; handmade ravioli filled with Vital Meat chicken and Singaporean spices, served in a cultivated chicken broth; and cultivated chicken rice, a national favourite.
“Our ingredient comes in the form of a paste that can be used as it is or processed according to the final recipe,” Vital Meat CEO Etienne Duthoit told Green Queen. “For example, chef Jun Hao, who developed the recipes for our tasting event, prepared a powder from our product and used it to reinforce his broth”He also prepared a batter to create the famous chicken skin.”
He added: “Chef Jun Hao enjoyed working with our product due to its amazing taste and versatility which allows it to be processed in a variety of ways to suit different recipes.”
The ingredient was blended with standard ingredients in each dish. “In the espuma dish, it was mixed with potato and milk, while for the chicken rice, it was combined with rice, garlic, ginger, salt, sesame oil and other spices essential to Singaporean cuisine,” said Duthoit.
“Our ingredient stands on its own in terms of nutrition and taste, without the need for additives or flavour enhancers. Fun fact: Some guests thought flavouring was added to Chef Jun Hao’s broth – they couldn’t believe our product had such a true-to-nature chicken taste.”
The event convened investors, industry stakeholders, government officials from Singapore, and representatives from France, who were given leaflets describing the story behind the collaboration.
Calisa Lim, senior project manager at the APAC Society for Cellular Agriculture, wrote: “The cultivated chicken powder was mixed with flour and pan-fried into a crispy, crunchy chicken skin (very, very yummy and you can’t go wrong with fried chicken), the brown stock seasoned with cultivated chicken powder made a good umami chicken soup with a hint of sweetness (feels just like a warm embrace), and a classic chicken rice featuring plant-based meat slices that soaked up all the chickeny goodness.”
Vital Meat goes for ‘accessible’ over ‘upscale’
Vital Meat’s decision to host the tasting at Hue – a welcoming, accessible establishment – instead of a high-end, Michelin-starred eatery, as has been the case with most cultivated meat tasting menus globally, was a deliberate decision.
“We deeply appreciate Chef Jun Hao’s talent and innovative approach to cuisine, which aligns with our vision for cultivated meat. As a promising young chef, he represents the new generation of consumers who are aware of the changing food landscap – whether for environmental, animal welfare or health reasons – and the growing range of alternatives available to them,” said Duthoit.
“Holding the tasting at Hue also reflects our commitment to making cultivated meat accessible to everyone, not just for ultra-premium dining experiences. By partnering with Hue, we’re showing that our product is intended to be part of everyday meals.”
This is also why it’s relying on the hybrid approach, helping it bring down costs. The powdered format also allows chefs and manufacturers to easily incorporate the chicken into different recipes.
“We are steadily closing the gap with traditional meat. To lower the cost of our cultivated chicken, large-scale production is essential. And achieving that requires consumer interest and feedback. So we (and our clients too) are taking things step by step,” he said. “A first touch base with consumers and the market will help us refine the product and the needed communication to meet market demand.”
Vital Meat is working with cell culture media producer BioWest, whose customised serum-free media enables the startup to manufacture its cultivated chicken in 250-litre bioreactors, each capable of producing several kgs of product at a time.
Moreover, it has a pilot facility near Nantes, where it runs 2,000-litre bioreactors on a daily basis. “With each production, we are seeing significant cost improvements. It is very encouraging,” Camille Chevalier, communications manager at Vital Meat, told Green Queen in May. “We are confident to get to price parity in a few years.”
The startup has partnered with food companies in anticipation of its regulatory approval in Singapore, which was the first country to allow the sale of cultivated meat. It’s also the only nation where you can currently buy or experience these foods, whether it’s Good Meat’s chicken in retail or Vow‘s cultivated quail in restaurants.
Aside from Singapore, Vital Meat has also applied for approval in the UK, where the regulatory framework around novel foods is being overhauled to speed up authorisations and help companies get to market faster. “We can’t wait to start commercialisation in Great Britain; chicken is one of the most consumed meat over there,” Duthoit said in May. “We are now preparing our launch in 2025 and looking for food partners.”
With a new plant-based private label, Lidl GB has announced that it will make a quarter of its meat and fish sales vegan by 2030, whilst also doubling the current share of non-dairy alternatives.
German discount supermarket Lidl is truly leading the future food shift amid Europe’s retailers. Just weeks after it set targets to reduce scope 3 emissions (which make up almost all of its climate footprint), it has now committed to selling more plant-based food in the UK.
The company has pledged to have 25% of its meat and seafood sales in the UK sourced from plants by the end of the decade, versus a 14% share in 2021. It will simultaneously double the sales share of non-dairy milk, cheese, butter and yoghurt by that time, from a baseline of 6.4% in 2021.
It makes Lidl the first retailer in the UK to set a protein split target, committing to increase the share of vegan products over animal proteins to mitigate its impact on the environment and reach net zero by 2050.
“We know that as a society, we need to incorporate more plant-based foods into our diets to ensure balance,” said Richard Bourns, chief commercial officer of Lidl GB. “That’s why we are proudly standing behind the Planetary Health Diet, which is key to achieving a more healthy and sustainable future and supports our net-zero ambitions.”
To kickstart the shift, Lidl GB has launched a new Plant! range under its vegan private-label brand Vemondo, which will help triple the number of plant-based products on offer.
“Make no mistake, this is a game-changer,” said Emily Armistead, interim director of think tank Madre Brava. “We applaud Lidl for being the first supermarket in the UK to take this bold but essential step towards a more sustainable, healthy food offering.”
Price parity a key focus for Lidl GB
Courtesy: Lidl GB
Lidl says it has witnessed a 12% increase in demand for vegan products over the past year, which pushed it to expand its plant-based offering with the new own-label range.
The Vemondo Plant! lineup features 28 new products that will be rolled out to select stores this month, ahead of a national launch in January 2025. These include multiple tofu varieties (from £1.75), burgers and sausages (from £1.89), nuggets (£1.99), and mince (£2.49), alongside vegan cheese, yoghurts, deli meats, and ready meals like lasagna and cordon bleu.
Besides the product expansion, Lidl has pledged to offer “market-leading” prices for plant-based products to amp up its protein shift. It is endeavouring to increase in-store visibility by displaying meat and dairy analogues alongside conventional products, a dedicated plant-based fixture, and increased marketing of its animal-free products.
The discounter is also focusing on the nutritional value of these products to ensure they contain micronutrients like B12 and iron, and are high in protein and low in fat and calorie content, according to Madre Brava.
“We’re the first UK retailer to set specific plant-based protein targets and are committed to breaking down key barriers that currently exist within the category, like price, quality, and availability,” said Bourns.
This speaks to consumer trends in the UK, where two in five people eat plant-based meat for its nutritional benefits, but one in five are deterred due to high prices.
“With the launch of our new own-label Vemondo Plant! range, and the expansion of our branded offering, all at market-leading prices, we’re making high-quality plant-based foods accessible to everyone, ensuring that more customers can afford to make healthy and sustainable choices,” Bourns added.
The retailer will today be honoured with the Bronze Planet Friendly Award from animal welfare organisation Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) at the Good Farm Animal Welfare Awards. “Lidl is setting an example in the UK retail sector, and we hope their initiative inspires other supermarkets to consider the impact their business has on planetary health,” said CIWF director of food business Tracey Jones.
Lidl labelled ‘pioneer’ as experts hail plant-based shift
Courtesy: Lidl GB
The move is the latest in a series of initiatives over the last 12 months, through which Lidl is aiming to greenify its own portfolio and lead the protein transition race among retailers globally. Just this month, the supermarket expanded its scope 3 reduction targets, aiming to cut these emissions by 35% in the next decade, and curb emissions from agriculture, forestry and land use by 42.4%.
The most effective way to do this is to replace climate-harming animal proteins with planet-friendly plant-based foods, and Lidl has recognised this by lowering the prices of plant-based analogues to match their conventional counterparts (or even beat them on price) in Germany, Denmark, Hungary, Austria, Belgium, and the Netherlands. It has positioned these products next to conventional meat and dairy items on shelves as well, which has brought sales success.
“Our commitment to sustainable proteins will contribute to significantly reducing our scope 3 CO2 emissions and support a more balanced and sustainable food system for the future,” said Bourns.
The UK is the seventh market where it has set a protein ratio target, although Madre Brava has repeatedly called for a 60-40 split in flavour on plant proteins by 2030. Still, the current target is a start, and a further sign of Lidl’s intentions.
“We can legitimately call Lidl GB a pioneer in this country, and it is notable that a discounter is publicly leading the way. All eyes will be on which supermarket will be the next to take the opportunity to offer more healthy, sustainable food,” said Armistead.
“All the solar panels and electric delivery vans in the world are of no use if supermarkets don’t also tackle the emissions from the products they sell, and shifting sales to more plants and less meat is the truly effective way of doing this.”
Rebecca Tobi, senior business and investor engagement manager at the Food Foundation – which recently published research finding meat analogues better for human and planetary health – echoed this sentiment. “Setting targets is a hugely important step, serving as a North star for driving meaningful change in shifting the food on offer so that supermarkets are better supporting both people’s health and the plan,” she said.
Lidl GB is also working with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) on a five-year, 31-country project to make the retailer’s supply chain more eco-friendly, advocate for sustainable diets, and reduce food waste. The WWF itself published a methodology for retailers to measure protein sales last week, urging them to make 74% of all food sold plant-based.
Plant-based meat and egg alternatives in India meet the government’s standards for ‘high-protein’ products, a new analysis has shown.
In a country where food attitudes are driven as much by health as they are by religion, and four in five citizens are protein-deficient, a new analysis is aiming to reinforce the potential of plant-based meat and eggs to meet India’s consumption needs.
Comparing over 100 meat and egg alternatives with their animal-sourced equivalents, researchers found that most vegan products have an equivalent or higher amount of protein. And those that combine two or more sources of plant proteins have a balanced amino acid composition.
The study, titled Decoding Smart Protein Nutrition, was conducted by the Good Food Institute (GFI) India, and aims to provide nutritional information to Indians while listing out recommendations for plant-based companies and the government based on its findings.
“This analysis underscores the nutritional strengths of plant-based alternatives, particularly in terms of protein and fibre content,” said Padma Ishwarya, science and technology specialist at GFI India, and the report’s author. “By offering consumers healthier, sustainable options, we can chart a path toward nutrition security and a more resilient food system.”
Plant-based meat and eggs show impressive nutritional results
Courtesy: Good Dot Foods/Green Queen
The study was conducted in two phases. The first reviewed the nutritional labels and ingredient lists of meat and egg products, both conventional and plant-based, and this was followed by a quantitative analysis of amino and fatty acid composition to determine their nutritional quality.
In total, 112 meat analogues in 11 categories and eight egg substitutes in four categories were analysed. The researchers found that in the Indian market, 30% of meat alternatives feature soy as their sole protein source, while 20% use a blend of soy and wheat gluten, and 16% feature pea protein. A quarter of the vegan egg offerings are also made from a soy and pea mix, with the rest being a combination of various other proteins.
GFI India found that the average protein content in plant-based meat ranged between 9% and 21%, with products using a combination of sources exhibiting higher levels of the nutrient. All products fall under the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India’s (FSSAI) minimum requirements for a ‘source of protein’, the average protein content in formats except nuggets, sausage, momos, and biryani are classed as ‘high-protein’ foods under the regulator’s definition.
All of the plant-based egg formats similarly fell under the high-protein classification, with levels ranging from 8-50%. These products also have lower fat and saturated fat content than chicken eggs across the four formats (scramble, egg powders, omelette pre-mix, and scramble pre-mix). The egg powder and scramble products also fulfil the requirements for sources of omega-3 fatty acids.
In meat analogues too, all formats barring samosas have a lower or comparable amount of average fat than animal-derived meat, with chunks, curry and strips showing lower mean saturated fat too.
The one metric where plant-based products outperformed conventional meat and eggs was fibre. The FSSAI considers foods with at least 3g of fibre as a source of the nutrient, with products containing over 6g classed as high-fibre foods.
None of the animal-derived products met either criteria, but 10 of the 11 plant-based meat formats (except biryani) and all the egg analogues are considered high-fibre foods. This is important considering nearly 70% of Indians consume less fibre than recommended.
What government funding efforts should focus on
Courtesy: Greenest Foods
There are still several strides plant-based meat producers can make to enhance their products’ nutritional value to India’s consumers. For example, meat analogues need improvements to fulfil the nutrient content claims on unsaturated fats (specifically, the energy derived from them), as well as omega-3 fatty acids.
Ishwarya also pointed to the need to reduce sodium and saturated fat levels, and increase micronutrient profiles. “This could be achieved by upstream strategies such as crop optimisation for enhanced nutritional content and quality, ingredient diversification, and functionalisation, besides science-based product reformulation efforts,” she said.
GFI India suggested India’s smart protein sector can develop more effective communication and marketing strategies to educate consumers, and explore more unconventional plant protein sources with better amino acid composition. Manufacturers can also tweak plant protein blends to get the best out of their products, and formulate novel fat alternatives with superior fatty acid content.
Instead of using a trial-and-error approach to reduce fat and sodium levels, product reformulation efforts should be evidence-based, the report noted.
It also left some recommendations for government investment bodies, urging them to direct funds towards new plant-based product development focused on achieving nutritional parity, and ingredient optimisation and salt reduction for healthier meat and egg alternatives.
Public sector capital should also go into R&D projects that leverage Indigenous crops to diversify the “ingredient basket” of the vegan sector, as well as those exploring novel structuring approaches like microgelation and oleogelation to reduce the dependency on texturisers and enhance the application range of current lipid offerings.
Finally, the government should also support investigations into the protein digestibility and nutrient bioavailability of plant-based analogues. The report argued that understanding the long-term benefits of vegan diets on gut health and mitigating diseases would bolster the category’s strength.
“With support from the public and private sectors, the continued development and improvement of these products has the potential to enhance nutritional benefits for individuals while also protecting public health and the environment,” said Ishwarya.
The Aussie Plant Based Co has been acquired by Queensland-based Smart Foods, eight days after entering liquidation due to cashflow problems.
It was only three weeks ago that Queensland-based vEEF introduced a new lineup of carbon-neutral meat analogues that were cheaper than conventional meat.
This was the brand’s first new product launch since its parent company Fënn Foods merged with All G Foods’s Love Buds brand in October 2023, forming the Aussie Plant Based Co. “This union combines our strengths, enabling significant growth in both retail (vEEF) and foodservice (Love BUDS) sectors,” Alejandro Cancino, co-founder and CEO of vEEF, told Green Queen last month.
But last week, the Aussie Plant Based Co went into liquidation, after a general meeting of the board resulted in the decision to wind up the business. The company appointed insolvency firm Fort Restructuring’s Kenneth Whittingham and Mark Robinson as liquidators, who confirmed that the closure was an outcome of cashflow problems.
At the same time, they were in discussions with three interested buyers, and today, Gold Coast manufacturer Smart Foods confirmed that it has acquired the Aussie Plant Based Co’s equipment, stock, brand names, and IP, turning over a new leaf for the startup. It means Fënn Foods will now cease operations as an entity.
As part of the deal, Love Buds owned 49% of the new company, and combined production at vEEF’s facility on the Sunshine Coast. Combining their footprints, the Aussie Plant Based Co’s products were now available at over 6,000 locations across retail and foodservice, and it had set its sights on an expansion into Asia and the Middle East.
“Our consolidated resources and shared expertise have positioned us for continued expansion,” Cancino said last month. “We remain committed to delivering top-quality plant-based products across both channels, leveraging our enhanced capabilities to meet growing consumer demand.”
He added: “This strategic alliance strengthens our market presence, allowing us to better serve our customers and drive innovation in the plant-based food industry.”
Now, the sale of its assets would allow half of the Aussie Plant Based Co’s 32 employees to be retained. “While the company has faced recent challenges, I believe in its strong foundation and the dedication of its team,” Raghu Reddy, CEO of Smart Foods, told Food & Drink Business.
He added: “By streamlining operations, fostering key partnerships, and focusing on innovation, we will solidify its position as a leader in the Australian plant-based market.”
Australia’s troubled plant-based meat sector
Courtesy: Food Frontier
While wholesale demand for plant-based meat in Australian foodservice rose by 59% in 2023, retail sales dropped by 1% from the year before. This has been compounded by a high price premium on most meat analogues, a combination of low volume sales and high margins for retailers.
This has left many companies in a bind. Do you keep prices high – which is already the second-largest consumption barrier for meat analogues – or do you risk lower margins? vEEF, for its part, cut its manufacturing costs through raw materials and a streamlined supply chain, while also increasing output through its production process, to offer a cost-competitive line of plant-based meats.
But meat analogues are yet to reach 65% of Australia’s population. And of those who have tried them, only 22% say they’d buy them again, signalling a gap in consumer liking, and an uphill battle for brands in the space.
“The retail sector grew very quickly before the pandemic and has suffered inevitable contractions, readjustments and corrections,” Simon Eassom, CEO of Sydney-based think tank Food Frontier, told Green Queen in May. “Whilst the leading brands have consolidated or grown their market share, other brands have contracted or disappeared, so the overall growth trajectory through the financial difficulties of the past few years has been relatively flat, but there are strong signs of recovery.”
This year alone, ProForm Foods, the company behind the Meet range of plant-based analogues, wound down after entering voluntary administration, while pea protein manufacturer Australian Plant Proteins is facing a similar fate. And in April, New Zealand’s Sunfed Meats also shuttered after nearly a decade in operation.
In our weekly column, we round up the latest news and developments in the alternative protein and sustainable food industry. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers Vital Meat’s cultivated chicken tasting in Singapore, Oatly’s new marketing campaign, and layoffs at The Every Company.
New products and launches
As it awaits regulatory approval in Singapore, French cultivated meat producer Vital Meatcollaborated with Hue Restaurant as part of a tasting in the city-state. The event featured three dishes using the startup’s cultivated chicken powder.
Courtesy: Carisa Lim/LinkedIn
There’s a new mushroom brand in town. California’s Thallus Foods is using the chicken of the woods mushroom to replace, well, the other chicken. It calls itself the first indoor cultivator of this fungi variety.
Speaking of new companies, in Denmark, Plantbox is curating plant-based meats and cheeses for wholesale consumers, and has gained listings at SPAR, Pico Pizza, Nemlig, Wolt, and more.
Courtesy: Oatly
Swedish oat milk giant Oatly has kicked off its new It Works in Tea campaign to target Britain’s tea-drinking tendencies. Featuring billboards in London, Manchester, and Brighton, the brand asked consumers to text a WhatsApp number if they were unconvinced. It received over 12,000 responses in the first 24 hours, who were in with a chance of winning a free tea set (with a mug and PG Tips tea).
London-based The Good Pea Co, which makes alt-milk powders, has rebranded to Kwerky, with a new five-ingredient oat and pea milk powder slated for launch next month.
Also in the UK, Tiba Tempeh has gained a listing for its tempeh block and mince at 327 Morrisons store, following a rollout in Sainsbury’s in the summer.
In more tempeh news, Mamame Foods has introduced tempeh chips made from black-eyed peas in original, hot chilli, sea salt and rosemary flavours. They’re available at Whole Foods in the UK and will come to Planet Organic this month for £4.99, alongside Erewhon and Sprouts in the US in the coming weeks.
Courtesy: Mamame Foods
Discount retailer Asda has added Dark Choc & Honeycomb Cake Pop Bites to its private-label Free From range in the UK.
Belgian bakery and chocolate giant Puratos has extended its ready-to-whip Ambiante line with a dairy-free chocolate flavour, which uses cocoa from the company’s Cacao-Trace programme and can be used as a topping or filling for cakes, pastries, and more.
Courtesy: Puratos
Swedish startup Hooked Foods has teamed up with Sodexo to distribute its seafood and chicken analogues to the caterer’s network, following a successful Green Lunch for one of its clients.
Vegan frozen food company Strong Roots has launched Air Bites, a range of products designed specifically for air fryers. It is available in Crispy Spinach & Carrot, Crispy Pea & Lemon and Crispy Veg flavour for £2.95.
Courtesy: Oatrageous/Misunderstood Whiskey
And back in the US, Misunderstood Whiskey has unveiled its Outrageous brand of cream liqueurs made from oat milk. The 14% ABV bottles come in espresso, coconut and bourbon cream flavours for $28.
Company and finance updates
US biotech startup Tiamat Sciences, which created animal-free growth factors for cultivated meat via molecular farming, has ceased operations following financial constraints.
Californian firm The Every Company, the precision fermentation startup making recombinant egg proteins, has conducted layoffs at its Daly City headquarters.
Courtesy: NotCo
Chilean food tech startup NotCo, whose products are built on its AI platform Guiseppe, has developed a generative AI model to create new flavour and fragrance formulations.
Two years after the initiative’s launch, Ferments du Futur has opened an innovation centre in the Paris-Saclay science and innovation cluster. The public-private scheme is an accelerator for fermentation startups.
Spanish vegan egg maker Uobo has secured a six-figure sum in its latest funding round, and partnered with fellow Catalan startup Cubiq Foods – which makes animal-free functional fats – to develop a new egg alternative for B2B clients.
Courtesy: Uobo
In Japan, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries has issued several grants under the Small/Startup Business Innovation Research Program. Alternative protein startups include Agro Ludens ($7.1M), Deats Food Planning ($4.5M), and Fermenstation ($3.4M).
ProVeg South Africa has been working with the Western Cape government to raise awareness about food insecurity during the National Nutrition Week (October 9 to 15), distributing 2,000 educational booklet to youngsters, hosting events for locals, and handing out 2,500 vegan nuggets from Fry Family Food in Uniondale.
Courtesy: Redefine Meat
Israeli 3D-printed meat maker Redefine Meat has won plaudits from Dutch chefs after hosting them at its new visitor centre in the production facility in Best, with the startup’s R&D team taking in the feedback to improve upon its New-Meat range.
US biotech manufacturing firm Liberation Labs, which specialises in precision fermentation, has received a further $12M from cellular agriculture investor Agronomics. It brings its total equity-linked funding to $35.5M, which will be joined by its upcoming Series A round.
Policy, events and awards
The APAC Society of Cellular Agriculture has signed an MoU with Temasek Polytechnic to create its first student chapter, which will foster a community of students across Asia-Pacific looking to shape the future of food through cultivated meat and seafood.
Courtesy: Float
FoodBev Media has announced the winners of its 2024 World Plant-Based Innovation Awards, which include Float‘s adaptogenic oat milk, Elmhurst 1925‘s sour cream, Arla‘s JÖRÐ barista oat milk, The Mushroom Meat Co, and LOVO chocolate.
Speaking of awards, Australian cultivated meat startup Vow, which has been selling its cultivated quail since receiving clearance in Singapore this April, has won the Future Ready Award in the Australian Financial Review‘s 2024 BOSS Most Innovative Companies category.
Courtesy: Vow
Finally, also in Australia, Sydney will host the next edition of the AltProteins Conference in October 2025, following a three-year stint in Melbourne.
With a host of positive developments recently, the UK’s alternative protein sector is at a tipping point – but the country needs further action to solidify its leadership.
These are all critically important steps when you consider that 16% of British households are food insecure or have low levels of security, and that alternative proteins could add £6.8B every year to the country’s economy and create 25,000 jobs by 2035.
The UK Committee on Climate Change has said that meat and dairy consumption needs to be reduced by a fifth by 2050 to achieve the nation’s net-zero target for 2050, which would in turn contribute to food security, healthy diets, biodiversity, and resilience.
While the UK’s recent moves to advance alternative proteins position the country as a potential world leader in the industry, several actions need to be taken for it to truly transform its food system and address the global crises of climate change, public health and pandemics.
That’s according to a new briefing written by stakeholders in the food sector, including the Bezos Earth Fund’s Centre for Sustainable Protein in London, the Good Food Institute Europe, and the National Alternative Protein Innovation Centre (NAPIC). The paper was created at a workshop held at the Pioneer Group’s Wilton Centre in June, which convened over 40 representatives from different parts of the industry.
“Alternative proteins face the inherent challenges of nascent regulations, consumer acceptance, smaller production scales, R&D investment needs, differing feedstocks, [and] techniques to create textures and flavours,” it reads. “To truly compete with traditional meat, alternative proteins must overcome three barriers: cost, sensory optimisation, and a complex regulatory system.”
Tactics to build on alternative protein progress
Courtesy: Imperial College
The report builds on a 2022 whitepaper by UK Research and Innovation, the national science funding agency, titled Alternative Proteins: Identifying UK Priorities, and underlines the need to develop and commercialise future-friendly foods spanning plant-based, fermentation-derived, and cultivated proteins.
“The challenges in accelerating the development and commercialisation of the alternative proteins sector require a coordinated effort involving industry, government, research institutions, and other stakeholders,” it notes.
The paper lays out 10 tactical actions to take the UK’s alternative protein industry forward, each assigned to different stakeholders.
First, it calls for the mapping of the full alternative protein landscape across the UK, including an understanding of the UK’s alternative proteins asset base, capacities, readiness, and investments. This would be prepared by GFI and NAPIC by the end of the year.
These two entities would work with Growing Kent & Medway to create a database of food-grade development and testing facilities across the UK, and carry out a gap analysis.
The Pioneer Group and Growing Kent & Medway, meanwhile, could develop a programme of accelerators and incubator spaces for spinouts and small businesses, co-locating them with clusters of expert human capital, bioprocessing and R&D.
Meanwhile, the Bezos Centre for Sustainable Protein at Imperial College London would scope a case for investment into a protein database to enable access to protein structures and predict properties like allergenicity, solubility and binding.
This research hub can also team up with NAPIC to facilitate collaboration between industry and academia, generating data and standardising the methodology for life-cycle assessments of alternative proteins.
Government action crucial to support the industry
Courtesy: Food Standards Agency
Public-private collaboration is a must, according to the report, which has outlined the need for the Food Standards Agency, Advanced Food Regulation, MAST Consulting, and Bezos Centre for Sustainable Protein to develop and deliver a programme of regulatory training for small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
NAPIC was assigned to host sandpit events to create ‘oven-ready’ projects involving full supply chains – and both SMEs and large corporations – for the development and commercialisation of these proteins. According to the paper, it would also work with Growing Kent & Medway, the Bezos hub, and IChemE to develop training programmes to cross-skill and upskill the future workforce in the industry.
GFI, meanwhile, took ownership of creating an in-depth policy and regulation stakeholder map for the UK alternative protein sector, and the Pioneer Group could develop a series of talking-head videos and blogs to highlight these foods’ importance on a national level, which would be launched on what is termed as the Alternative Proteins Day.
The briefing further highlighted the need for detailed terminology for the food sector, and for alternative proteins to be included in the food pyramid, the national industrial strategy, and the National Health Service’s Eatwell Guide.
Companies in the sector would also thrive from access to venture studio, accelerator, incubator and scale-up facilities. And the Food Standards Agency needs to set a framework for the regulation of different proteins that specifies parameters for standards, performance, safety, functionality, sustainability, etc. – progress has been made on this front recently.
“This briefing note calls on policymakers, industry leaders, and consumers to embrace alternative proteins as a key component of future food strategies,” the paper reads. “Alternative proteins represent a promising solution for sustainable food production. By supporting their development and adoption, stakeholders can contribute to a more sustainable and secure food system.”
Umiami, the Parisian startup making whole-cut plant-based chicken, is now called Swap, and has entered the US foodservice sector.
French plant-based meat company Umiami has rebranded to Swap, which it says is “a universal word, easy to understand, and works well for international audiences”.
“Swap perfectly represents our mission: to provide consumers with the opportunity to exchange their usual meat for a delicious and sustainable alternative, without compromising on taste or texture,” said co-founder and CEO Tristan Maurel. “Our new name is a call to action, encouraging consumers to make a positive choice for themselves and for the planet.”
The refresh coincides with the brand’s US launch, where it is targeting flexitarians via restaurants to encourage them to “swap” to a “new kind of chicken”. It has introduced the Swap Chicken, a whole chicken fillet alternative, at restaurants in Chicago.
Umisation tech enables clean-label meat analogues
Courtesy: Swap
The four-year-old startup, which has raised $107M in funding to date, relies on its Umisation texturising platform to produce whole-muscle replicas of conventional fillets like chicken and fish.
This involves a technique that transforms plant proteins into structured fibres without high heat or pressure. “This technology is the result of several years’ research and development, and uses plant matrices to produce a fibrous texture and control the size, direction and thickness of the resulting fibres,” the company told Green Queen last year.
“Umisation is an innovative protein texturing technology that is unique and specific to Umiami. It is the world’s first-ever process to be able to create – on a large scale – plant-based fillets that resemble pieces of animal meat: both in taste and texture,” they added.
The technology also allows the startup to produce plant-based meat with minimal ingredients, with the chicken using eight ingredients and no artificial flavours, colourants or texturisers.
Courtesy: Swap
This will likely resonate with Americans, who are looking for clean-label formulations amid the classification of meat analogues as ultra-processed (despite that label being separate from nutrition). Around 40% of the country’s consumers say they avoid ultra-processed foods and/or plant-based meats.
Meanwhile, half of people in the US now seek out clean-label packaged foods, while health is the major driver of overall food consumption, influencing how eight in 10 Americans eat. On the contrary, a sixth of respondents are dissuaded from trying meat analogues in a restaurant setting because they have too many ingredients.
And April, a decade-long proprietary study revealed that 99% of European manufacturers (like Swap) believe clean-label products are not just an advantage, but a cornerstone of their business strategy. In fact, over the next two years, these products are set to make up 70% of portfolios (up from 52% in 2021).
Swap Chicken on the menus at multiple Chicago restaurants
Courtesy: Swap
Swap’s chicken fillet has 21g of protein per 100g, and can be marinated, breaded, sliced, or cubed to be served either warm or cold. The company says it is also “priced comparably to boneless, skinless chicken breasts”, which enables it to help kitchens reduce both costs and food safety risks.
“We created a product that we believe will unlock the plant-based category for the mainstream consumer. Swap Chicken’s superior taste, clean ingredients and unrivalled product versatility finally enable chefs to recreate traditional recipes using only plant-based ingredients,” said Maurel.
Among the Chicago restaurants Swap has partnered with The Chicago Diner, Spirit Elephant, Soul Veg City, Majani, Duke’s Alehouse, and Clucker’s Charcoal Chicken, while it is also on the menu of SteMartaen Vegan Catering. “We believe Swap Chicken will elevate menu possibilities, making it easier than ever to Swap animal meat for plant protein,” Maurel said.
The company opened a 14,000 sq m facility in the Alsace region earlier this year, backed by local and federal government funding, which can produce 7,500 tonnes of plant-based meat annually, eventually rising to 20,000 tonnes. Swap says the rebranding also allows it to expand beyond chicken fillets to all kinds of meat and fish analogues, broadening its future product development plans.
“Our rapid growth opens up new opportunities for expansion, while staying true to our commitment to simple ingredients and authentic recipes,” said Maurel.
A federal judge has refused Upside Foods’s request for a preliminary injunction in its lawsuit against Florida’s ban on cultivated meat, throwing its Art Basel plans into doubt.
Upside Foods has had its request to halt the enforcement of Florida’s cultivated meat ban denied by a federal judge.
In a 21-page ruling last Friday, Chief US District Judge Mark Walker rejected the Californian food tech startup’s motion for a preliminary injunction, which would have allowed it to showcase its cultivated chicken at the Art Basel festival in Miami (December 6-8).
Florida was the first US state to ban cultivated meat, making it a second-degree misdemeanour to manufacture, sell or distribute these proteins. After being signed by Governor Ron DeSantis in May, the law came into effect on July 1.
A month later, however, Upside Foods – one of only two companies approved to sell cultivated meat by the US Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration – filed a legal complaint against the state, calling the move “unconstitutional”.
The Institute for Justice, which is leading the case on behalf of Upside Foods, sought a preliminary injunction to halt the ban until a decision on the lawsuit is made, allowing the company to sell its products and honour its event commitments. It had teamed up with local chefs for the Art Basel fair, and is set to host a tasting at the South Beach Wine and Food Festival in the state capital next February.
But after a hearing last Monday, Walker has denied the preliminary injunction. However, this does not spell the end of the lawsuit.
Upside Foods ‘could identify no regulation’ to support specific arguments
Courtesy: Upside Foods
Upside Foods argued that the federal Poultry Products Inspection Act (PPIA) – which requires the USDA and FDA to inspect all poultry products, which apply to sales in states too – preempts Florida from prohibiting the sale of cultivated meat.
“Essentially, the federal government has said that cultivated chicken cells produced at Upside’s facilities can be used in poultry products, and the state of Florida is saying that they can’t. The state simply doesn’t have that power,” Paul Sherman, senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, said at the time.
The state argued that cultivated chicken does not fall into the definition of a poultry product, but Walker noted that Upside Foods “has the better of the arguments” here, acknowledging that Upside Foods’s product comes directly from chicken cells.
However, while the company argued that Florida’s ban imposes ingredient and manufacturing requirements inconsistent with the PPIA, the judge said the plaintiff could not identify a law or regulation “creates a federal ‘ingredient requirement’ with respect to ‘cultivated meat’”.
Moreover, since Upside Foods does not manufacture its cultivated chicken in Florida, the ban on manufacturing doesn’t impact its operations or facilities. “Florida has not sought to reach into Plaintiff’s facilities to tell them how they should handle their cultivated chicken cells throughout the production process and then reframed such regulations as a sales ban,” he wrote.
“Just because Plaintiff’s product arguably falls within the scope of the PPIA, and thus, is under the USDA’s regulatory authority, this does not mean that a state is expressly preempted from banning the sale of that particular kind of poultry product,” Walker stated.
Lawyers to appeal decision as judge recognises ban’s effect on Upside Foods
Courtesy: Kevin Martin Galante/Upside Foods
While the preliminary injunction has been denied, the lawsuit continues. “Preliminary injunctions are just that: preliminary,” said Sherman. “The real fight is still ahead, and today’s ruling has no bearing on the final resolution of this case. We always expected the bulk of the lawsuit to be decided on its merits, and that’s exactly where we’re headed.”
The judge’s ruling revealed a number of partnerships Upside Foods had struck to sell cultivated meat in Florida before the ban was imposed. The company had already sold its cultivated chicken to at least one restaurant in Miami, and the chef it had teamed up with for Art Basel was also planning to offer the cultivated chicken at her restaurant on a limited basis by the first quarter of 2025.
Upside Foods had further identified chefs in Miami and Tallahassee for similar partnerships, but halted talks after the ban came into place.
“Defendants’ suggestion that Plaintiff’s evidence must establish something more than past sales or distribution, halted plans to work with Florida chefs, and future intentions to resume efforts to partner with Florida chefs and other businesses would effectively require Plaintiff to submit an admission concerning the commission of a crime under Florida law,” wrote Walker, noting that Upside Foods did not need to incriminate itself “just to get through the courthouse door”.
In recognising Upside Foods’s standing to seek a preliminary injunction, he stated that the “evidence demonstrates that it faces a real and immediate threat of criminal enforcement against it if it continues to attempt to sell or distribute its cultivated chicken in Florida”.
Suranjan Sen, an attorney at the Institute of Justice, called the denial of the preliminary junction merely a “procedural step”. “We are looking forward to appealing this preliminary decision while the case goes forward,” he said. “We are confident that the courts will ultimately recognise that Florida cannot ban products simply to protect local industries from honest competition.”
Florida isn’t the only state to have banned cultivated meat – a similar law took effect in Alabama at the start of this month. And lawmakers in Arizona, Illinois, Kentucky, Nebraska, Iowa, Michigan, New York, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia have introduced similar measures.
A new YouGov survey reveals that around half of Americans don’t like the use of meat- and dairy-related terms on plant-based products, but should this shake up brands’ marketing strategies?
It was only last week that the European Court of Justice delivered a major win for the plant-based food sector, rejecting a proposed legislation by the French government that would ban companies from using terms like ‘veggie burger’ and ‘plant-based bacon’ on packaging.
Such regulations are commonplace globally – in the EU itself, non-dairy products are still not allowed to use words such as ‘oat milk’ or ‘cashew cheese’ – as meat and dairy companies vie to protect their business and argue that these labels mislead consumers.
It’s an argument that has been debunked time and again, with several studies finding that most people understand that plant-based means animal-free, so a vegan beef product will not, in fact, have come from a cow.
But a new survey finds that in the US, more than half (54%) of Americans believe companies should avoid meaty terms on plant-based labels, while just under half (47%) say the same for vegan dairy products. However, YouGov – which conducted the 2,500-person poll – says this shouldn’t really affect the marketing strategies of vegan food producers.
Different folks, different strokes
It's not like the rest of the respondents want companies to market products as 'vegan sausages' or 'almond milk' either. Only 22% are in favour of brands doing so for meat analogues, which rises to 31% for alternative dairy products.
The rest of the consumers – a quarter for meat and 22% for dairy – are unsure of how these products should be labelled.
The results may suggest that brands should get rid of this language, but there are some important caveats: the attitude towards plant-based labels isn't uniform across different demographics.
For example, older Americans are more resistant to such terms – 62% of people aged 55 and above are against the use of meat-related terms on animal-free products, compared to 45% of 18- to 34-year-olds.
Likewise, what diet a person follows goes a long way in determining how they feel about plant-based labelling. Only a third of vegetarians oppose these terms when it comes to meat analogues, while 30% are in favour – more (37%) are just unsure. In contrast, 57% of meat-eaters think brands shouldn't employ this terminology, and only 21% say the opposite.
Things are similar when it comes to dairy-free products. Among people who don't consume dairy, a greater share (37%) support the use of terms like 'soy milk' and 'vegan cheese' than those who oppose it (35%), though a large number are still on the fence (29%). But on the other hand, half of Americans who consume dairy products are against these terms, and only 29% are in favour.
Brands should magnify other attributes
Here's the thing, though: plant-based brands may not need to come up with new terms for their packaging after all, because most Americans who object to these labels "will be hard to win over anyway", wrote YouGov's Clifton Mark.
A majority of respondents who oppose meaty (65%) and milky (61%) terms are somewhat or very unlikely to purchase plant-based analogues, the survey found. "It’s doubtful that a new label would change these consumers’ minds," Mark noted.
On the other end of the spectrum, only 20% and 28% of Americans against meat- and dairy-related terminology, respectively, are likely to buy these products. "Among those who are likely to buy plant-based substitutes, those who think that brands should use such language outnumber those who think they shouldn’t," Mark pointed out.
"Therefore, if brands want to target those who are most likely to buy their products, it makes sense for them to continue using 'meaty' and 'milky' language, as long as regulators allow them to."
It's worth noting that, unlike the EU or the UK, the US does allow both vegan meat and dairy products to use industry-related terms on packaging, though some efforts are trying to change this.
So companies may not need to overhaul their terminology completely, but given that their target consumers are meat-eaters and dairy consumers – i.e., those who are more likely to oppose the use of such terms on packaging – they need to highlight the attributes that these shoppers care about the most.
Leading brands have already begun revamping their messaging. Beyond Meat is now posing as a "health company", with new product recipes and packaging highlighting the nutritional credentials of its products.
One of its chief rivals, Impossible Foods, has also updated its packaging to hone in on the taste and health factors – both companies have had insights from nutritionists in their recent announcements, and toned down their sustainability messaging to appeal to a broader base.
Some of America’s leading vegan food companies have come together to launch the first joint marketing campaign for the plant-based industry.
Do not ingest plant-based food… if you enjoy the taste of average to mediocre food.
That is the call to action of a new, first-of-its-kind ad campaign backed by some of the leading companies in the US vegan sector.
The marketing drive is coordinated by the Plant-Based Foods Association (PBFA), and aims to highlight the benefits of plant-based eating in a quirky, deliberately contradictory way.
Devised with marketing agency AKQA Bloom, the first activation is called ‘Plant-Based May Cause’, featuring a 60-second spot with a 10,000-word leaflet that was present all over Climate Week NYC last month. The fast-paced, playful narration challenges the misconceptions and underlines the benefits – some obvious, some ‘unexpected’ – linked to a vegan diet.
It’s the first time leading brands in the industry have joined forces for a commercial campaign at this scale, with partners including The Kraft Heinz NotCo, Beyond Meat, Impossible Foods, TiNDLE Foods, Bel Brands, Daiya, Prime Roots, Mellody, Stockeld Dreamery, Armores Fresh, Milkadamia, and more.
“For years, the Big Meat and Dairy industries have been planting misinformation, so we’ve chosen to plant joy and deliciousness instead,” said AKQA Bloom co-founder and executive creative director Jean Zamprogno. “A better future for us and our planet begins with a shift in consumer behaviour, and no industry is better than ours to lead the way.”
Leaflet straddles the comical and the critical
Courtesy: PBFA/AKQA Bloom
The campaign ad comprises footage from a branded food truck the PBFA organised with chef Nina Curtis and the 15 companies at Climate Week NYC, where New Yorkers were offered free samples of plant-based dishes.
The video notes that eating plant-based may cause several effects, narrated in a way that feigns negativity. But these implications include vegan hot dogs causing you to love sausages more than your dog, non-dairy cheese making you want to only eat cheese for the rest of your life, and plant-based nuggets having no effect whatsoever – because “you’ll never realise they’re plant-based”.
The leaflet, attached to products from participating companies at Climate Week NYC as well as in grocery stores, is a seven-point guide underscoring the impact of eating vegan food. Some of these points are earnest, the others just fun.
For example, the leaflet lists “trouble sharing shareables” and “a crowded home at all times” as positive outcomes, as well as “severe urges to grill every day” and increased visits from your mother-in-law as side effects. But it also explains the true environmental and social benefits of plant-based food, from lower water consumption, land use, greenhouse gas emissions, and exposure to contaminants, to greater food access, better soil health, and a more robust local economy.
Courtesy: PBFA/AKQA Bloom
The guide also features several recipes to specifically highlight the fact that preparing vegan food is “actually very similar” to dishes with conventional meat and dairy. These include breakfast tacos, mozzarella sticks, mac and cheese, and chia pudding.
Doubling down on the tongue-in-cheek yet impactful messaging, one of the lines in a section outlining the best places to eat vegan food reads: “Try having plant-based yogurt in your apartment, which, if it’s in NYC, is already so tiny that it literally has a tiny carbon footprint. So, if you’re enjoying plant-based food in that ridiculously small kitchen/bedroom/living room/dining room, you’ll be doing double duty when it comes to reducing land usage.”
A collaboration long in the making
The Plant-Based May Cause campaign also has radio spots, while the leaflet will be handed out digitally and physically. The food truck is serving as a mobile platform to educate people about the health and climate benefits of plant-based food.
“This campaign marks a key moment for our industry. By coming together, for the very first time, as a diverse coalition of brands across 20+ plant-based food categories, we are engaging and inspiring a growing community of consumers around a singular marketing platform,” said PBFA CEO Rachel Dreskin.
“By collaborating with AKQA Bloom and our members, we’re demonstrating how strategic, unified messaging can broaden the industry’s influence and realise its potential and myriad of benefits.”
Courtesy: PBFA
Alternative protein companies have been trying to collaborate on a joint marketing drive for a while now. Last year, it was reported that vegan businesses were hoping to form a coalition in the style of Got Milk? and The Incredible Edible Egg – two of the most successful consumer campaigns in modern US history – although some marketing experts expressed doubt over whether this could actually materialise.
Impossible Foods was part of the effort, with CEO Peter McGuinness saying there’s “a collective opportunity to extol the benefits of the category”, but underlining the difficulties of coordinating the coalition at a time of upheaval in the plant-based sector.
While the PBFA’s campaign isn’t a result of this effort, it’s still a strong signal of togetherness in the industry. This is important considering that meat analogue sales dipped by 12% last year, and investments were down by 24% – in 2024, funding has become an even bigger challenge for plant-based startups.
Elsewhere, some are working on a vegan checkoff programme, a take on the meat and dairy industry approach that collects government-backed funds from livestock producers to fund promotional campaigns.
UK-based Vegan Food Group’s Matthew Glover (who is also the co-founder of Veganuary) and Indy Kaur, founder of vegan consultancy firm Plant Futures, are spearheading this initiative. “We are looking to level up with this, consolidate funding and create a campaign which can fairly compete and give consumers a reason to choose to eat plants and not animals,” Glover told Green Queen in February.
Connecticut-based Wayback Burgers’s franchisee in Asia has opened a 100% plant-based chain called Next Restaurant in Japan, with major expansion plans in sight.
Fast-casual chain Wayback Burgers is going all-in on Asia’s hunger for plant proteins, establishing an all-vegan restaurant concept championing plant-based meat in Japan.
Wayback Burgers Asia, the Japanese master franchisee of the US hamburger chain, has opened Next Restaurant in Tokyo, which it describes as a first-of-its-kind concept in the city designed to overcome the ever-changing barriers of the foodservice sector.
The chain operates mainly as a takeaway and delivery site, with only limited seating for dine-in options. The restaurant operates a shared kitchen to prepare dishes from different restaurants, with visitors able to choose items from multiple menus at the same time.
Next Restaurant’s model to expand globally
Courtesy: Wayback Burgers Asia
Wayback Burgers is a 33-year-old chain with over 170 locations in more than 20 countries using the franchise model. The chain has an extensive menu of beef burgers, chicken patties, shakes, and more, it does have a couple of meat-free options, using Impossible Foods and Gardenburger’s analogues.
The company opened its first site in Japan in 2022, but has now expanded its operations with the 100% plant-based concept of the Next Restaurant. “The traditional restaurants are now facing high procurement costs, labour shortages [and] general inflation, and consumers [continue to demand] high-quality, healthy foods while seeking better value for money,” said Wayback Burgers Asia CEO Koichi Ishizuka.
“Next Restaurant’s multi-brand restaurant model shares the same kitchen for better food preparation efficiency, and the pick-up and delivery concept allows us to operate within a small location.”
At Next Restaurant, customers can order from a range of vegan bento boxes, with options like foie gras kalbi, short ribs, pork and ginger, and a beef bowl. The eatery also keeps to its parent company’s hamburger legacy, with menu items like short rib or pork-ginger rice hamburgers, as well as a minced meat cutlet.
Moreover, Next Restaurant offers gluten-free pasta and doria (a type of rice gratin) tossed in tomato, bolognese or carbonara sauce, alongside entire menus for cheesesteaks and pizza (with flavours like tuna mayo, bulgogi, curry, and Margherita).
Wayback Burgers Asia has further created a vegan and gluten-free smoothie brand called Niseko & Smoothie, which uses fresh produce from farms in the town of Niseko, Hokkaido.
“It is franchisable and expandable to accommodate various existing restaurants’ menus,” Ishizuka said of the business model. “We are setting a new post-Covid restaurant business mode from Tokyo and expanding internationally.”
Japan’s growing appetite for alternative protein
Courtesy: Yano Research
As Ishizuka alluded to, Wayback Burgers Asia is now exploring domestic and international franchise partnerships to take Next Restaurant global. Its second franchised eatery is set to open this fall too, in Kumamoto on Japan’s Kyushu island.
It comes amid a time of growing need for plant-based and other alternative proteins in the country. Japan has a net-zero target of 2050, with a shorter-term goal of cutting emissions by 46% by the end of the decade. But its current policies have been deemed “insufficient” by the Climate Action Tracker. And last year, research suggested that 45% of the country’s protein supply needs to come from alternative sources by 2060 if it’s to decarbonise.
A 2021 poll found that 53% of its population primarily viewed plant-based meat as having “low calorie and fat values compared to regular meat”, and just over a third (37%) viewed these products as “sustainable”. Around the same time, another survey found that less than 20% of consumers in Japan were aware of plant-based foods.
But things are changing now. This May, one study showed that three in four Japanese citizens had heard about or seen plant-based meat, with 21% displaying a broad understanding of these products. It also found that one in five respondents had tried meat analogues.
Showcasing long-term trends, a survey last year suggested that the number of vegans and vegetarians had gone from 4.8% in 2017 to 6.5% in 2023. Likewise, while only 16% of Japanese consumers were consciously lowering their meat consumption in 2017, this swelled to 26% last year.
These habits are part of the reason why alternative protein think tank the Good Food Institute opened its latest office in Japan earlier this month, noting the country’s ability to cater to Asia’s “skyrocketing meat demand in a more secure and sustainable way”.
Kimiko Hong-Mitsui, interim director of the office, told Green Queen: “Just as Japan developed and exported the cutting-edge technologies that brought solar power and other renewables to the world, we now have an opportunity to pioneer the next generation of alternative proteins – the food equivalents of clean energy.”
Two new studies have found that plant-based meat can match or outperform beef on many nutritional fronts, while also making you full faster.
A vegan mince product can have the the same protein quality and digestibility as conventional ground beef, but is more filling and better for gut health, two new studies have found.
Sydney-based vegan startup v2food collaborated with the Australian national science agency, CSIRO, to compare the health benefits of its soy protein beef with its animal-derived counterpart.
The studies entailed detailed analysis of the composition and nutritional attributes of v2food’s mince, and examined the effects of reformulating the product to enhance these health gains even further.
“With health being the top reason Australians choose plant-based meat, this research highlights how v2food mince can support a healthy lifestyle,” said Lisa-Claire Ronquest-Ross, chief science officer of the company.
A recent survey showed that 54% of ‘meat reducers’ in Australia were cutting back on animal proteins for health reasons, a sentiment echoed by 58% of flexitarians – making it by far the most popular dietary driver.
v2food’s plant-based meat aids gut health improvements
Courtesy: v2food
One of the studies analysed the protein quality, amino acid profile, fibre composition, iron absorption, and effects on the gut microbiota.
The total amino acid content was found to be comparable between conventional beef and the four formulations of the v2food mince tested (three of which were supplemented with different nutrients). While animal-derived beef had 26g of amino acids per 100g, the plant-based version had 18.65g, with the reformulated editions going as high as 20g.
The conventional beef had higher amounts of nearly all the individual amino acids, but v2food’s mince has a greater concentration of sulphur-containing acids.
Similarly, there was not much disparity in the protein digestibility scores either. Ground beef had a total rating of 71.7, while v2food’s alternative scored 73.6.
The vegan mince outperformed conventional beef on several factors. Animal products don’t contain any fibre, so the plant-based beef came out on top by default, featuring 6.7% of fibre by wet weight (mostly insoluble). These dietary fibres helped modulate the production of short-chain fatty acids, which brings about a favourable shift in the composition and activity of the gut microbiota, and therefore improved gut health.
Finally, intestinal absorption of iron from the v2food beef was three times lower than that of conventional mince, but the authors note that the former (alongside many other plant-based competitors) is formulated to achieve a total iron content in line with the requirements of Food Standards Australia and New Zealand to have a ‘source of iron’ claim.
Fortified meat analogues also provide a superior source of iron compared to vegan products that don’t have supplemental iron. Moreover, the v2food formulations that contained ferrous sulphate increased iron absorption by the intestine by 50%.
Vegan beef makes you full and satisfied faster
Courtesy: v2food
The second study focused squarely on satiety, measuring the amount of pasta eaten by 24 men on separate visits, containing a Bolognese sauce made either from v2food’s mince or conventional beef.
Both meals had a near-identical calorific value, while the protein made up 45% of the cooked meal’s weight. After the meal, they were given access to a well-stocked buffet to eat as much as they wanted for the next 30 minutes.
“The research also reveals that v2food mince induces feelings of fullness more quickly than traditional beef mince, with participants consuming significantly less pasta Bolognese made with v2food mince compared to beef mince after having a standard breakfast,” revealed Ronquest-Ross.
The participants were found to eat 72g less of the plant-based mince dish, as well as 586 fewer calories. Those who ate the v2food bolognese also consumed lower amounts of fat and starch, and higher amounts of fibre, while the amount of protein was similar between the two options.
But the energy intake at the buffet meal, and the measure of fullness, satiety and satisfaction after the pasta were not found to be different between the two beef dishes. In fact, the plant-based mince was more satiating and did not result in greater energy intakes at the subsequent buffet meal.
“Individuals need to consume lower volumes and amounts of energy to achieve satiety when consuming a meal prepared with plant-based mince, compared to an equivalent meal prepared with beef mince,” the researchers wrote.
This is an important finding at a time when one in five Australians identify themselves as meat reducers. In 2024 alone, a quarter of citizens have cut back on meat, with 12% planning to do so now, while 2% have eliminated it altogether – for these people, health is the main motivator (cited by 61%). It’s a welcome finding for a country with one of the highest per capita meat consumption rates globally.
“These plant-based protein products are complementary to our existing protein sources such as red meat and fish,” said Crispin Howitt, lead of CSIRO’s Future Protein vertical. “It’s important that these products are developed so that they are as healthy as possible and with nutritional claims backed by evidence. We need new protein options to sustain the world’s growing population into the future.”
Two new studies have found that plant-based meat can match or outperform beef on many nutritional fronts, while also making you full faster.
A vegan mince product can have the the same protein quality and digestibility as conventional ground beef, but is more filling and better for gut health, two new studies have found.
Sydney-based vegan startup v2food collaborated with the Australian national science agency, CSIRO, to compare the health benefits of its soy protein beef with its animal-derived counterpart.
The studies entailed detailed analysis of the composition and nutritional attributes of v2food’s mince, and examined the effects of reformulating the product to enhance these health gains even further.
“With health being the top reason Australians choose plant-based meat, this research highlights how v2food mince can support a healthy lifestyle,” said Lisa-Claire Ronquest-Ross, chief science officer of the company.
A recent survey showed that 54% of ‘meat reducers’ in Australia were cutting back on animal proteins for health reasons, a sentiment echoed by 58% of flexitarians – making it by far the most popular dietary driver.
v2food’s plant-based meat aids gut health improvements
Courtesy: v2food
One of the studies analysed the protein quality, amino acid profile, fibre composition, iron absorption, and effects on the gut microbiota.
The total amino acid content was found to be comparable between conventional beef and the four formulations of the v2food mince tested (three of which were supplemented with different nutrients). While animal-derived beef had 26g of amino acids per 100g, the plant-based version had 18.65g, with the reformulated editions going as high as 20g.
The conventional beef had higher amounts of nearly all the individual amino acids, but v2food’s mince has a greater concentration of sulphur-containing acids.
Similarly, there was not much disparity in the protein digestibility scores either. Ground beef had a total rating of 71.7, while v2food’s alternative scored 73.6.
The vegan mince outperformed conventional beef on several factors. Animal products don’t contain any fibre, so the plant-based beef came out on top by default, featuring 6.7% of fibre by wet weight (mostly insoluble). These dietary fibres helped modulate the production of short-chain fatty acids, which brings about a favourable shift in the composition and activity of the gut microbiota, and therefore improved gut health.
Finally, intestinal absorption of iron from the v2food beef was three times lower than that of conventional mince, but the authors note that the former (alongside many other plant-based competitors) is formulated to achieve a total iron content in line with the requirements of Food Standards Australia and New Zealand to have a ‘source of iron’ claim.
Fortified meat analogues also provide a superior source of iron compared to vegan products that don’t have supplemental iron. Moreover, the v2food formulations that contained ferrous sulphate increased iron absorption by the intestine by 50%.
Vegan beef makes you full and satisfied faster
Courtesy: v2food
The second study focused squarely on satiety, measuring the amount of pasta eaten by 24 men on separate visits, containing a Bolognese sauce made either from v2food’s mince or conventional beef.
Both meals had a near-identical calorific value, while the protein made up 45% of the cooked meal’s weight. After the meal, they were given access to a well-stocked buffet to eat as much as they wanted for the next 30 minutes.
“The research also reveals that v2food mince induces feelings of fullness more quickly than traditional beef mince, with participants consuming significantly less pasta Bolognese made with v2food mince compared to beef mince after having a standard breakfast,” revealed Ronquest-Ross.
The participants were found to eat 72g less of the plant-based mince dish, as well as 586 fewer calories. Those who ate the v2food bolognese also consumed lower amounts of fat and starch, and higher amounts of fibre, while the amount of protein was similar between the two options.
But the energy intake at the buffet meal, and the measure of fullness, satiety and satisfaction after the pasta were not found to be different between the two beef dishes. In fact, the plant-based mince was more satiating and did not result in greater energy intakes at the subsequent buffet meal.
“Individuals need to consume lower volumes and amounts of energy to achieve satiety when consuming a meal prepared with plant-based mince, compared to an equivalent meal prepared with beef mince,” the researchers wrote.
This is an important finding at a time when one in five Australians identify themselves as meat reducers. In 2024 alone, a quarter of citizens have cut back on meat, with 12% planning to do so now, while 2% have eliminated it altogether – for these people, health is the main motivator (cited by 61%). It’s a welcome finding for a country with one of the highest per capita meat consumption rates globally.
“These plant-based protein products are complementary to our existing protein sources such as red meat and fish,” said Crispin Howitt, lead of CSIRO’s Future Protein vertical. “It’s important that these products are developed so that they are as healthy as possible and with nutritional claims backed by evidence. We need new protein options to sustain the world’s growing population into the future.”
(@plantxmarket)
