Category: Future Foods

July 23, 2025

Future Food Quick Bites: Oatly Matcha, Mycoprotein Mince & A Vegan Football Kit

5 Mins Read
Our weekly column rounds up the latest sustainable food innovation news. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers Oatly’s new matcha latte, Revo Foods’s clean-label mince, and Lactalis Canada’s plant-based exit.

New products and launches

Swedish oat milk giant Oatly is the latest to join the matcha craze, launching a ready-to-drink matcha latte with finely ground Tencha matcha. The one-litre packs are available in the UK for £2.95 at Sainsbury’s and Morrisons, with Ocado adding to the list next month.

Courtesy: Oatly/Aflo Images/Green Queen

Californian firm Mud\Wtr has introduced Nourish, a protein powder with 25g of complete plant protein per serving, along with lion’s mane, cordyceps, ashwagandha, Bacopa and prebiotic fibre. It’s available in chocolate and vanilla flavours on its website for $70 per 645g bag.

Also in the US, plant-based waffle brand Vafels has rolled out gluten-free stroopwafels in caramel and maple flavours, which can be found on its website for €19.95 per 10-pack.

Courtesy: Revo Foods

Austrian 3D-printed meat maker Revo Foods has launched a four-ingredient Minced Fungi Protein with more protein than beef and higher bioavailability than chicken. Made from mycoprotein, rapeseed oil, rapeseed protein and spices, each 160g pack contains 25g of protein. The product is available at Billa Pflanzilla, online on its webstore and Billa’s website, and Kokku in Germany.

UK food manufacturer Premier Foods has unveiled a four-strong lineup of vegan jelly with no added sugar under its McDougalls brand. They come in 1.4kg packs (enough to make 17 litres of jelly), with flavours including strawberry, raspberry, orange, and lime.

Courtesy: Premier Foods

France’s Vétéjal has created a range of powdered seasonings for plant-based creams, sauces, marinades and grilled meals, which can be mixed with water, oil, milk and cream or sprinkled on top of dishes. Flavour options include cream of mushroom soup, king crab, spicy bacon, and Roquefort-style blue cheese.

Dutch specialty ingredient supplier Prodalim has launched upcycled VivaPro Coloring Foodstuffs and NaturaPro Natural Colors lines to tackle the growing demand for clean-label and sustainable plant-based colour solutions.

Courtesy: Atlr.72

And Japanese conglomerate Ajinomoto‘s Atlr.72 Flowering Ice Cream, which uses Finnish gas fermentation firm Solar Foods‘s Solein protein, is available at food trucks at the World Aquatics Championships (July 18 to August 3) in Singapore.

Company and finance updates

English football club Forest Green Rovers have launched a fully vegan football kit for the next two seasons (as part of its efforts to cut waste), featuring Reflo’s Reloop technology (which offers a fibre-to-fibre mechanical recycling solution).

Courtesy: Forest Green Rovers

UK vegan pet food company Omni – which made a splash with its success on Dragons’ Den this year – has been certified as a B Corp.

Speaking of certifications, Beyond Meat‘s burger, beef mince, steaks, chicken pieces, and sausages have now been accredited as Glyphosate Residue Free.

Courtesy: Beyond Meat

New York-based Helaina has expanded the manufacturing capacity of Effera, its precision-fermented human lactoferrin, to a metric-tonne scale, which would allow it to produce 10 million servings per production run.

Planetarians, a US-based producer of upcycled plant-based meat, is shutting down and auctioning its IP and assets, citing fundraising challenges.

Courtesy: Enjoy

Lactalis Canada, a subsidiary of the world’s largest dairy company, is closing its Sudbury plant and exiting the plant-based milk business this December. It comes just a year after the facility was turned into a vegan hub and the business introduced the Enjoy brand of dairy-free milk.

Nurasa, the sustainable food innovation platform owned by Singapore’s Temasek, has signed a strategic partnership with Protein Industries Canada to fast-track the entry of Canadian plant-based companies into the city-state and Asia-Pacific through technical, regulatory, and commercialisation support.

Policy developments

Canada’s Ocean Supercluster has pledged C$750,000 in a C$1.9M project to develop a vegan whitefish fillet, working with Profillet, Ardra Inc, Mara Renewables, and Rondo North America.

Courtesy: Else Nutrition

Weeks after criticising the FDA for its “outdated” regulation of dairy-free baby formula, Israel’s Else Nutrition has applauded the US House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations’s passage of bills that recognise the importance of expanding access to alternative infant formulas.

US non-profit People For Better Food has launched its first “culture shift” campaign, Plants for the Win, to shift young men’s perceptions about protein myths and plant-rich diets.

Courtesy: Renault Group

French carmaker Renault has pledged to eliminate animal leather from its entire portfolio by the end of the year.

In Spain, Alcorcón has become the third city in eight weeks to endorse the Plant Based Treaty, following in the footsteps of Parla, El Masnou and 40 other cities globally.

Check out last week’s Future Food Quick Bites.

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July 23, 2025

Martin Braun-Gruppe Embraces Cocoa-Free Chocolate with Win-Win Partnership

4 Mins Read
German bakery giant Martin Braun-Gruppe has partnered with London-based food tech startup Win-Win to introduce two cocoa-free chocolate coatings for manufacturers.

Martin Braun-Gruppe is the latest confectionery player to dive into cocoa-free chocolate, having struck a deal with British firm Win-Win.

The distribution agreement will see Martin Braun add two glazes based on Win-Win’s vegan milk chocolate and dark chocolate to its portfolio, enabling retailers, wholesalers, and foodservice clients access to a low-carbon alternative for their baked goods.

“We are delighted to enter into this partnership with Martin Braun, who have a fantastic reputation in the bakery sector and unrivalled customer networks,” said Win-Win CEO Mark Golder.

Cocoa-free alternative uses same techniques as conventional chocolate

Courtesy: Martin Braun-Gruppe

Formerly called WNWN Food Labs, Win-Win is modernising carob-based chocolate by combining the ingredient with tiger nuts, sunflower seed, and rice, alongside RSPO-certified palm oil.

The company employs the same techniques found in conventional chocolate making, from fermentation to roasting, grinding, refining and tempering. Its cocoa alternatives, which come in meltable button and liquid formats and can be used to make a range of desserts and baked goods at scale – think pastries, doughnuts, cookies, cakes, and coatings.

The partnership with Martin Braun – which invested in Win-Win in 2023 – focuses on the latter. The vegan glazes are produced using raw materials available within Europe, melt at 50°C, and deliver up to three times higher yields than couverture chocolate.

The ingredients of both options are nearly identical. The cocoa-free dark chocolate coating blends palm oil and sugar with roasted carob powder, tiger nut flour, sunflower seed protein, fermented rice, lecithin, natural flavourings, and salt. The dairy-free milk chocolate alternative, meanwhile, adds dehydrated oat syrup to that base.

Martin Braun has produced a book of recipes to showcase the use cases of Win-Win’s alternatives to its roster of baking, confectionery and catering industry clients. These include a Williams Pear petit gâteau, an Amaretto roulade, tartlets, nut corners, and more.

“We are proud that they have chosen Win-Win as their exclusive partner to develop the fast-growing alt-choc sector, and we are enjoying working with them to deliver a more sustainable solution to chocolate for customers and consumers,” Golder said.

Chocolate alternatives offer industry more viable solution

Courtesy: Martin Braun-Gruppe

The cocoa-free chocolate coatings will appeal to Martin Braun’s customers, who are actively looking for alternatives that offer more stable supply chains, lower costs, and better climate credentials.

Climate change has caused global cocoa stocks to slump to their lowest in a decade. Plantations in Ivory Coast and Ghana – the two largest producers – are the hardest hit due to extreme weather and crop diseases. That has caused cocoa prices to reach all-time highs, and the trend is set to continue this year.

Scientists have warned that cocoa trees are threatened, and a third of them could die out by 2050, which could lead to a global chocolate shortage. At the same time, dark chocolate is a highly emissive product, generating more greenhouse gases than all other foods except beef. Meanwhile, a bar of chocolate requires 1,700 litres of water to produce on average.

Industry leaders are feeling the effects. For example, Hershey’s profit forecast for 2025 was below analysts’ expectations, and it has just announced a double-digit hike in product prices due to high cocoa costs.

“We all love chocolate, but the way it’s currently produced isn’t sustainable. Climate change is leading to reduced yields, causing spiralling prices and supply-chain uncertainty,” said Golder.

“As consumers, we’re already seeing the impact of this in the form of rising prices and shrinkflation, and the cocoa industry continues to be troubled by issues relating to deforestation. The industry is at an inflexion point and needs alternative solutions that are stable and more environmentally and socially sustainable.”

Win-Win’s chocolate alternatives use up to 80% less water and generate 82% fewer CO2e emissions. They’ve been used at Toad Bakery and Lyaness bar in London, and Sem, a wine bar in Lisbon, and the firm has also rolled out dark chocolate thins, a Daim-style Waim! bar, and copycat versions of Cadbury Wholenut, Terry’s Orange and Tony’s Chocolonely on limited runs with its consumer brand.

The startup, which has raised $5.6M to date, is among a host of innovators in the alternative chocolate space. This includes cocoa-free players like Planet A Foods, Compound Foods, Voyage Foods, Prefer, Foreverland, Nukoko, and Endless Food Co, as well as cell-based chocolate makers California Cultured, Celleste Bio, Kokomodo, and Food Brewer.

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July 23, 2025

Cellular Agriculture Groups Team Up to Advance Cultivated Meat Regulation in Asia-Pacific

4 Mins Read
The APAC Society for Cellular Agriculture and Cellular Agriculture Australia have teamed up to advance the Asia-Pacific future food industry.

To boost the Asia-Pacific market for cultivated meat and fermentation-derived food ingredients, two industry bodies have signed a strategic collaboration agreement.

The APAC Society for Cellular Agriculture (APAC-SCA) and Cellular Agriculture Australia (CAA) have teamed up in an effort to foster international cooperation and advance the sector across Asia-Pacific.

“Through this partnership, we’re bringing together our regional strengths to drive transparency, coordinate regulatory efforts, and engage the public in meaningful ways,” said Peter Yu, programme director of APAC-SCA.

“This marks a significant step forward in international collaboration to accelerate the future of food – which the industry truly needs,” he added.

Collaboration focuses on public and policy engagement

Courtesy: Avant

APAC-SCA is made up of nine cultivated meat innovators from across the world, including industry leaders Aleph Farms, Gourmey, Meatable, IntegriCulture, and Avant. It has set up the APAC Regulatory Coordination Forum with the Good Food Institute APAC to advance regulatory approval for these proteins in the region.

CAA, meanwhile, is a think tank that works across Australia’s entire cellular agriculture sector to identify common, non-competitive priorities. It has published white papers on precision fermentation and held a host of cross-sector workshops, and counts local animal-free dairy firms All G, Eden Brew and Noumi as its sponsors.

Their collaboration aims to promote knowledge exchange and coordinated public engagement, while speeding up progress in regulatory alignment, trust building, and science-based policymaking.

“This MOU isn’t just a document – it’s a reflection of the collective vision for a more sustainable, secure, and equitable food system,” said Yu. “Cross-border collaboration is essential to building a thriving and trusted ecosystem for cellular agriculture,” he added.

The non-binding agreement focuses on several key areas. Through policy and regulatory exchanges, APAC-SCA and CAA will share timely insights and best practices on evolving regulatory landscapes.

As part of policy engagement efforts, they will co-author thought leadership pieces, white papers, and policy briefs to promote evidence-based regulation.

In addition, the two industry bodies will coordinate and amplify initiatives that build public confidence in cell ag technologies and products. Plus, they’ll explore and launch joint knowledge-sharing initiatives to contribute to sectoral growth and innovation.

Asia’s cellular agriculture industry is second to none

Courtesy: Vow

The trade organisations represent countries that are leading the future food race. There’s hardly a better example than Singapore, a global hub for food tech. It was the first country in the world to approve the sale of cultivated meat and gas-fermented proteins, and Asia’s first to allow the sale of precision-fermented dairy proteins.

Meanwhile, Sydney-based Vow has propelled Australia’s cultivated meat ecosystem to new heights, and is now selling cultured quail and foie gras in eateries across the country (as well as Singapore). It is also approved to do so in New Zealand. Another startup from down under, All G, has secured clearance to put its precision-fermented lactoferrin on the Chinese and US markets.

Other companies are betting on Asia’s biomanufacturing capabilities. UK cultivated pork startup Hoxton Farms has teamed up with Japan’s Sumitomo Corporation and Mitsui Chemicals in recent months, while Israel’s Aleph Farms is building a cultivated meat facility and awaiting regulatory approval in Thailand.

Home to eight of the top 20 alternative protein patent applicants, China is already a biomanufacturing leader and has ramped up support for alternative proteins this year. India last year launched its BioE3 policy, aiming to accelerate tech development and commercialisation via new biomanufacturing hubs. And South Korea could hand out its first cultivated meat approval this year.

As Europe continues to play catch-up with its novel food regulation (with promised reforms still at least a year away) and the states in the US ban cultivated meat, Asia-Pacific is a prime destination for the world’s cellular agriculture companies. This latest collaboration will hope to build on that.

“This partnership reflects our shared commitment to advancing cellular agriculture. Together, APAC-SCA and CAA aim to foster an enabling environment for innovation, support science-based policymaking, and cultivate a regional ecosystem where cellular agriculture can thrive,” said Yu.

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July 23, 2025

Reduce, Remix, Replace: German Govt Must Support Alternative Proteins, Say Scientists

6 Mins Read
Scientists advising the German government have called for greater support of alternative proteins in a new report, recommending over 50 policy measures.

Coining the ‘three Rs’ of protein diversification is a new report by Germany’s Scientific Advisory Board on Agricultural Policy, Nutrition and Consumer Health (WBAE), which advises the government to ramp up support for plant-based, cultivated, and fermentation-derived foods.

The report, presented to agrifood minister Alois Rainer, highlights alternative proteins’ benefits for the environment, animal welfare, healthy diets, and the economy, and urges policies that put them on the “common table” alongside animal proteins and conventional plant-based foods.

As part of the novel “3R strategy”, it aims to “reduce” the portion sizes of meat and dairy, “remix” them with plant-based ingredients to create blended proteins, or “replace” them entirely with alternative proteins.

“The reduction in the consumption of animal-sourced foods is largely driven by people who wish to cut back for various reasons – not by those fully switching to vegetarian or vegan diets. Therefore, a key lever for food policy is to promote gradual change through a flexible reduction and substitution strategy,” the WBAE said.

“In recent years, meat consumption in Germany has declined by around 10kg per year, but this has been offset by an increase in cheese consumption. As a result, total greenhouse gas emissions from food have hardly decreased,” explained Achim Spiller, a professor at the University of Göttingen and chair of the WBAE.

“Alternative products may offer a way out of this ‘cheese paradox’, as they often have a significantly lower climate footprint.”

How the 3R strategy could boost protein diversification

Courtesy: Anay Mridul/Green Queen

The report outlines that alternative proteins can support the nutritionally recommended reduction in meat and dairy consumption and thus help prevent chronic diseases. Germany’s latest dietary guidelines advise citizens to source 75% of their diets from plants.

Alternative proteins are also associated with lower emissions and improve ecological conditions in regions with high livestock densities. The scientists further note that these foods expand options for people opposed to certain animal slaughter practices and those looking for more flexibility in their food budgets by enabling a “less but better” approach to meat consumption.

And since the economic and social changes linked to a dietary transition would occur gradually, abrupt disruptions to the livestock sector are unlikely. That said, it would bring major wins for Germany’s economy – a recent report found that with the right political support, alternative proteins could contribute up to €65B to the country’s economy by 2045 and create up to 250,000 new jobs.

“The WBAE explicitly rejects restrictive or obstructive policies. From a sustainability, economic, and social perspective, there are no compelling reasons to hinder the development of alternative products,” the scientists wrote in a summary report. “Instead, the board calls for active, strategically oriented promotion.”

Touching upon the 3R strategy, the WBAE said it addresses a wide range of populations and dietary patterns and can potentially create significant environmental and health benefits. “The particular strength of this strategy lies in its flexibility and suitability for everyday life. It builds on existing eating habits and can be integrated into a variety of lifestyles,” it explained.

“Out-of-home food services, including food services in public institutions, hold particular potential for making reduced consumption of animal-sourced foods easier in daily life using the 3R strategy,” it added. The effective implementation of this approach, however, requires “sufficient diversity, accessibility, and everyday usability of sustainable alternative products within a fair food environment”.

The 3R strategy “illustrates how diverse, flexible, and practical a reduced consumption of animal-sourced foods can be in everyday life”, said WBAE deputy chair Britta Renner. Policymakers, she noted, should focus on “expanding options and supporting social cohesion”.

UPFs, taxes, and novel food regulation among 54 recommended policy points

Courtesy: WBAE

Germany is already the largest market for plant-based food in Europe, and the second-biggest globally (after the US). Value sales of plant-based food grew by 1.5% in 2024, reaching €1.68B, while volumes were up by 7%. Meanwhile, 37% of German households bought plant-based milk at least once last year, and 32% purchased a meat alternative.

But on current trends, per capita consumption of meat analogues would only reach 3kg annually, rising to 20kg for non-dairy products. However, a fundamental dietary shift (in line with the Planetary Health Diet) could help increase the intake of meat alternatives to 16kg (while conventional meat will fall to 20kg) per person, and dairy alternatives to 77kg.

To get there, the WBAE has made 54 wide-ranging policy recommendations for the German government, spanning six spheres: expanding consumer choice, supporting innovation and high safety standards, ensuring fair competition, improving understanding of food behaviours, tracking the impact of declines in animal husbandry, and shaping sustainable consumption and fair food environments.

It calls on the government to depoliticise the public debate on alternative proteins, increase financial support, and tackle perceptions of ultra-processed foods (UPFs). This is driven by “simplified classification systems” like Nova, “which lacks a solid scientific basis when linking processing methods, additives, and health effects”. “Policymakers should evaluate individual alternative products based on their specific composition, rather than relying on broad processing categories,” it said.

Germany should follow the Netherlands’s lead and establish a framework for public tastings of cultivated meat before EU-level regulatory approval. Speaking of which, WBAE is asking policymakers to provide greater support for novel food applications and assess whether the European Food Safety Authority’s capacity needs expanding to speed up processing times.

Courtesy: Alife Foods/Green Queen

This is a concern central to the European Commission’s new life sciences strategy, which has proposed a Biotech Act that will look to accelerate the slow approval timelines. The EU Parliament has also recently voted to make biomanufacturing a priority and address the ‘lengthy’ authorisation process.

Another key recommendation is to level the playing field for alternative proteins by ending the fiscal disadvantages for these products. Currently, plant-based milk faces a 19% VAT, compared to just 7% for cow’s milk. The call for change has been echoed by retailers and companies in a public petition. And research has found that a carbon tax on meat (à la Denmark) could generate €8.2B in annual revenue for Germany.

The government should also advocate for harmonised naming of alternative protein products at the EU level. Current regulations are irregular and create “uncertainty among companies and consumers alike”, with meaty words allowed on plant-based product labels, but dairy-related terms not. But this month, there has been a renewed effort by EU policymakers to attempt to ban such designations on vegan packaging, a move labelled by one expert as “nonsense”.

The WBAE concluded by recommending that political, business, and civil society stakeholders “constructively harness the new opportunities provided by sustainable alternative products and establish fair competitive conditions to enable more choices at the common table”.

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July 22, 2025

GEA Opens $20M Centre to Scale Up Alternative Proteins in the US

4 Mins Read
German engineering firm GEA has opened its New Food Application and Technology Center in the US with a $20M investment to scale up alternative protein production.

To boost alternative proteins like animal-free dairy and cultivated meat, GEA has unveiled a new future food innovation hub in Janesville, Wisconsin.

The New Food Application and Technology Center (ATC) is supported by a $20M investment by the company, which supplies production-scale equipment to the food and beverage industry, and its second such Center of Excellence. It is a sister facility to the ATC in Hildesheim, Germany, which became operational in 2023.

Powered entirely by renewable energy, the US hub features pilot-scale infrastructure for precision fermentation, cell cultivation, and plant-based processing. The move aims to bridge the gap between lab innovation and industrial-scale production, with a focus on sustainability and the region’s economic transformation.

“With this investment, we are helping our customers scale up the production of novel foods such as precision-fermented egg white and cultivated seafood,” said GEA Group CEO Stefan Klebart.

The centre “shows how innovation and agriculture can work hand in hand to create good jobs, strengthen food security, and help address climate challenges”, according to Jessica Almy, interim CEO of think tank the Good Food Institute.

New GEA hub focuses on key process technologies

Courtesy: GEA Group

The new facility expands the GEA Janesville campus, which has served as a production, repair, logistics, and training site since 2024. According to the company, it combines core process technologies essential for producing next-gen proteins at scale.

The ATC has pilot-scale bioreactors for precision fermentation and cell cultivation, which simulate industrial conditions and allow companies to validate and optimise their processes early. Further, it offers a range of options to test UHT configurations, including thermal processing and aseptic filling.

Direct and indirect heat treatment options allow liquids of varying viscosities and sensitive components to be heat-treated on site, and packaged with an aseptic bag filler to retain the product for further quality checks. These tools can support shelf-stable storage for the alternative beverage industry, providing flexibility in distribution chains and cutting food waste.

Meanwhile, membrane filtration, spray drying, and centrifugation support downstream separation and formulation, helping enhance the quality, texture and cost efficiency of products. And advanced lab capabilities enable microbiological, cell-based, and analytical testing under one roof.

The construction of the centre supported up to 500 contractor and subcontractor jobs, and its opening has added up to eight jobs to GEA’s 74-strong workforce in the city. “This facility reflects how Janesville’s rich agricultural and industrial heritage can intersect with cutting-edge innovation,” said Jimsi Kuborn, Janesville’s economic development director.

“It not only honours our community’s roots, but also creates new opportunities for partnerships, workforce development, and sustainable growth. This project is a model for what’s possible – not just for Janesville, but for the entire Midwest and beyond,” she added.

Further investment crucial to meet cellular agriculture’s capacity needs

Courtesy: GEA Group

GEA said the new centre will look to foster collaboration between startups, the food industry, academia, and investors. It allows cell-based and microbial food players to generate true proofs of concept for their processes and support scale-up models to commercial manufacturing without any capital expenditure or other investment costs.

One of the first collaborators of the Hildesheim ATC was Israel’s Imagindairy, which makes cow-free whey proteins using precision fermentation. GEA is separately working with fellow Israeli firm Believer Meats, helping it develop technologies to lower the costs and emissions associated with producing cultivated meat.

“GEA technology hubs are the crucible where visionary science becomes transformative industry, uniting biological innovation with cutting-edge engineering to move towards a more sustainable future,” said Believer Meats CEO Yaakov Nahmias, who is also the director of the Grass Center for Bioengineering at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The US centre, first announced last year, complements GEA’s other food tech hubs in Skanderborg, Denmark (for bioreactors), Oelde, Germany (for cell separation), and Bakel, Netherlands (for plant-based foods).

“The food industry is at a crossroads. To feed future generations sustainably, we must turn vision into a scalable reality,” said Klebert. “Our new centre in Janesville is a key milestone on our shared journey, both for our customers and for us as a company.”

Cost and scale are the two major obstacles faced by the cellular agriculture sector. According to McKinsey, cultivated meat firms would need up to 22 times more fermentation capacity than currently exists in the global pharmaceutical sector. In a recent report, it noted that the sector needed $250B to meet its capacity needs.

GEA isn’t the only systems supplier helping cultivated meat companies scale up. Swiss manufacturer Bühler is working with Israel’s Ever After Foods to produce these proteins at a mass scale with much smaller equipment.

And its ATC is among a number of food tech hubs that have opened in the US recently. Last year, the University of California, Davis led the launch of the Integrative Center for Alternative Meat and Protein to speed up the commercialisation of alternative proteins, and Bezos Earth Fund opened the first of its three Centers for Sustainable Protein at North Carolina State University.

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July 22, 2025

New IPES Report Calls for Fossil Fuel Phaseout From Food Industry, Misses Key Solutions

6 Mins Read
A new report argues that we need to get fossil fuels out of our food system. It doesn’t go far enough – to truly combat climate change, we must limit livestock-linked land use and support alternative proteins.

Globally, 40% of all petrochemicals are consumed by the food industry, but “we can’t tackle climate change unless we get fossil fuels out of food systems”, according to a new report by the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food).

The analysis reveals how deeply entrenched the two most environmentally harmful industries are – in fact, the food sector uses 15% of the world’s fossil fuel supply. Yet, this remains a “major blind spot” in climate policy, the organisation argues.

“Fossil-based fertilisers and plastic food packaging have become critical lifelines for oil and gas companies, offering a new way to keep fossil fuels flowing even as other sectors begin to decarbonise,” the Fuel to Fork report reads.

It calls ultra-processed foods (UPFs) the “ultimate expression of fossil-fuelled food systems”, since they’re sourced from commodity crops, produced with energy-intensive processes, and wrapped in plastic packaging.

“From farm to fork, we need bold action to redesign food and farming, and sever the ties to oil, gas, and coal,” said Molly Anderson, an IPES-Food expert. “That starts by phasing out harmful chemicals in agriculture and investing in agroecology and local food supply chains – not doubling down on corporate-led tech fixes that delay real change.”

The report calls for phasing out fossil fuels from food production, but some of its solutions feel incomplete and others downright misleading.

Courtesy: IPES-Food

UPFs can benefit food security, and cultivated meat is way more climate-friendly

IPES-Food points out how a third of all petrochemicals go towards producing synthetic fertilisers, which are the biggest source of fossil fuels in agriculture. Food and drink packaging, meanwhile, accounts for at least 10% of global plastic use, and a further 3.5% is used in farming.

The report berates “industry-led solutions” like blue ammonia fertilisers and digital agriculture as costly, energy-intensive, and environmentally risky. “These technologies are controlled by a handful of powerful corporations, locking farmers into industrial monoculture systems,” it says.

While all this is true, several conclusions in the report are misleading and lacking context. For example, IPES-Food takes an axe to UPFs, calling for a tax on these products and a ban on their use in schools (as US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has previously promised).

“UPFs are particularly energy-intensive, using two to 10 times more energy in their production than whole foods,” the report states, outlining that their production relies on large-scale monoculture farming, long-distance transportation, and excessive packaging.

Courtesy: Getty Images

While these foods have become public enemy number one today, they’re often misconstrued. The classification of UPFs means everything from Coke and Lay’s to pre-seasoned tofu and meat alternatives, so painting them broadly with one brush creates confusion.

It’s true that many UPFs are linked to ill health. At the same time, nutritionists point out that plenty of them aren’t bad for you. Since they’re inexpensive, they can play an important role in food security. “We absolutely need foods to be processed so that we can feed the world,” Janet Cade, a member of the British Nutrition Foundation, said in 2023.

Cultivated meat is technically a UPF, and the report suggests it’s “more than twice as energy-intensive to produce as chicken”. That may have been true… 14 years ago.

The claim is linked to a study published in 2011, two years before cultivated meat even entered the public consciousness. Production methods have changed drastically since, and more recent life-cycle assessments suggest that these proteins can actually lower emissions by 92% (or even more) compared to conventional meat.

Courtesy: BioCraft Pet Nutrition/ClimatePartner

We need to focus on ‘more food with less land’

IPES-Food also advocates for “organic, agroecological, or regenerative farming practices that avoid chemical inputs altogether”. Regenerative agriculture has become a hot topic in recent years, thanks to documentaries like Kiss the Ground and Feeding Tomorrow, and support from across the political aisle, from RFK Jr to Al Gore.

While it does have some benefits for soil and nature, many of its climate advantages have been “wildly oversold”, according to Michael Grunwald, a journalist and author of the upcoming book We Are Eating the Earth.

“It’s the ultimate silver bullet narrative: ‘Farm a little kinder, go back to the old ways, diversify crops, be nice to the soil, and all that atmospheric carbon will magically return to the earth – Kumbaya!’”, he told Green Queen in an interview this month. “Carbon farming isn’t entirely bullshit, but mostly.”

IPES-Food implored the food industry to phase out agrochemicals, rebuild local food supply chains, cut back on plastic, scale up electric cooking, and build access to healthy food. Transition to sustainable and healthy diets by reducing meat consumption and food waste is an essential pillar of “any comprehensive food system transformation”, the report said, while highlighting some nuances to the argument.

Courtesy: IPES-Food

Factory farms have been found to produce less methane than pasture-fed beef, but they emit higher amounts of carbon and nitrogen and require more energy, write the authors. Pasture-raised systems, it added, “can reduce fossil fuel use, and support broader environmental and animal welfare goals”.

Environmentalists have suggested this kind of thinking is misguided at best and deceptive at worst. One recent study found that even the most efficient grass-fed operations had 10-25% higher emissions than industrially farmed beef. The bottom line is that beef consumption is not going anywhere; in fact, it is growing and will likely continue to grow as the global population increases and more people enter the middle class.

This is why, as Grunwald argues, farming systems need to focus on increasing yield and efficiency. “We need better industrial ag – not its elimination,” he said. “My North Star? High-yield agriculture. We must make more food with less land. Factories excel at mass production; factory farms are good at mass food. Sri Lanka tried ditching chemicals cold turkey – yields crashed, and the government fell. Disaster!”

Either way, with the food system accounting for a third of global emissions, reducing its impact is critical to mitigating climate change. Research suggests that even if all emissions from non-food sectors (energy and industry) are stopped, food emissions alone will surpass the 1.5°C limit.

“We need to be pragmatic and find a middle ground,” argued Grunwald. “We need higher yields, but also to make agriculture more efficient.”

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July 18, 2025

Climate Shocks Push World’s Largest Chocolate Supplier to Explore Cell-Based Cocoa

3 Mins Read
Barry Callebaut, the leading supplier of chocolate to the food industry, has signed a partnership to explore cell culture technology for cocoa alternatives.

With the cocoa industry keenly feeling the effects of climate change on their supply chains and bottom lines, the world’s largest chocolate supplier is looking to cellular agriculture as a solution.

Swiss manufacturer Barry Callebaut has teamed up with the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) to explore the potential of cell-based chocolate, after climate shocks and rising cocoa prices caused a 6% drop in volume sales over the last nine months.

Cellular agriculture has the potential to drastically reduce emissions, resource use, water consumption, and land use. By culturing cocoa cells in bioreactors, chocolate producers don’t have to rely on unpredictable land, soil and weather conditions.”

“This partnership reflects our proactive approach to building innovation capabilities that will shape the future of chocolate,” said Dries Roekaerts, president of customer experience at Barry Callebaut.

Cell culture tech will futureproof Barry Callebaut’s cocoa supply

Courtesy: Barry Callebaut

The deal combines Barry Callebaut’s chocolate prowess with the scientific know-how of ZHAW professors Tilo Hühn and Regine Eibl-Schindler, who are experts in cell culture technologies. The teams bring decades of experience and a strong portfolio of scientific publications to the project.

While the partnership is still in its early stages of development, Barry Callebaut highlighted that cell cultivation can allow it to develop new chocolate products with unique flavour and enhanced health benefits.

The technology also provides an alternative cocoa source to diversify its portfolio, while boosting its supply chain resilience and supporting traditional cocoa farming communities.

To that point, Roekaerts noted that the chocolate manufacturer isn’t looking to eliminate conventional cocoa from its portfolio. “We are not replacing cocoa from farms, but rather preparing for a future where we can offer consumers additional choices and ensure long-term supply security,” he said.

“Our research into cocoa cell culture technology opens up exciting possibilities for sustainable innovation in the chocolate industry,” Hühn and Eibl-Schindler said in a joint statement. “With Barry Callebaut’s support, we’re able to accelerate our scientific exploration and bring academic insights closer to real-world applications.”

Alternative cocoa heats up

Courtesy: Food Brewer

Barry Callebaut’s focus on alternative cocoa comes after a year when cocoa prices have broken all-time records, thanks in large part to the climate crisis. Global cocoa stocks have slumped to their lowest in a decade. Plantations in Ivory Coast and Ghana – the two largest producers – are the hardest hit due to extreme weather and crop diseases.

In fact, scientists have warned that cocoa trees are threatened, and a third of them could die out by 2050, which could lead to a global chocolate shortage. Meanwhile, only beef emits more greenhouse gases than dark chocolate, while a bar of chocolate requires 1,700 litres of water to produce on average.

Barry Callebaut already offers cocoa alternatives, using precision-fermented sunflower seeds for some of its offerings in Europe. “Our non-cocoa solutions from precision-fermented sunflower seeds offerings… expand the portfolio of Barry Callebaut and offer all the variety of chocolatey experiences for our customers,” CEO Peter Feld said in an earnings call earlier this year.

Cell-based cocoa is emerging as a viable and scalable solution, having also attracted investment from Lindt & Sprüngli and Sparkalis (the VC arm of bakery and confectionery group Puratos). Startups in this space leveraging cellular agriculture include US-based California Cultured, Israel’s Celleste Bio and Kokomodo, and Swiss firm Food Brewer.

Others, meanwhile, are using fermentation to turn lower-carbon ingredients and food industry byproducts into cocoa-free chocolates, such as Planet A Foods, Compound Foods, Voyage Foods, Prefer, Foreverland, Nukoko, and Endless Food Co.

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July 16, 2025

UK Food Strategy: Alternative Proteins Can Fill £14B Productivity Gap

5 Mins Read
The UK government’s new food strategy recognises how its R&D and manufacturing prowess can help develop alternative protein products and plug a £14B productivity gap.

The UK has just unveiled its new food strategy to create a “healthier, more affordable, sustainable, resilient food system”, and alternative proteins are in the spotlight.

As climate change hikes food prices and leaves 80% of British farmers worried about their livelihoods, it’s imperative that the UK’s food system has a “smaller environmental footprint, supports our net zero commitments, and is more resilient to short-term shocks and better adapted to the long-term challenges”, the new strategy reads.

Launched by food security and rural affairs minister Daniel Zeichner, the idea is to create a ‘good food cycle’ where businesses can invest in healthier and more sustainable supply chains to make food more accessible and affordable to the public.

This will drive economic gains too. A 2024 report found a £14B productivity gap in the UK’s food and drink manufacturing space, which could be plugged via digitalisation, tech adoption, and innovation.

“Our strong research and development and advanced manufacturing base mean the UK is well placed to develop new products and markets, including for healthier products and in alternative proteins,” the strategy states.

Alternative proteins offer multi-pronged benefits

Courtesy: Alpro

Including imports, the UK’s food system accounts for 38% of its emissions, with agriculture alone making up nearly 12%. By 2040, the government expects agriculture and aviation to be the dominant sources of greenhouse gas emissions. Meanwhile, farming takes up 69% of the UK’s land use, and is among the leading drivers of nature and biodiversity loss.

When it comes to health, 64% of English adults are overweight or obese, and 10% of children aged four and five are living with obesity. The diet-related risks of death and disability – from eating too little fruit, vegetables and fibre, and too much food high in fat, sugar and salt – have increased by 46% in the last decade.

It’s why the strategy is calling for a food industry that “supports more affordable, healthier and more balanced diets for all, higher in fruit, vegetables and wholegrains and lower in calories, saturated fat, sugar and salt”. Speaking of which, the UK’s self-sufficiency is low for fresh vegetables (53%) and fresh fruit (15%), foods that are critical for healthy diets.

All this has driven the government to focus on a good food cycle, which it describes as “a transparent, stable and predictable policy environment” that supports investment in the development, production and marketing of food that’s better for public and planetary health.

It has identified 10 priority outcomes from its plan, the first two being “an improved food environment that supports healthier and more environmentally sustainable food sales” and “access for all to safe, affordable, healthy, convenient and appealing food options”.

This is where alternative proteins – which include plant-based, fermentation-derived and cultivated foods – come in. They allow companies to produce food with a significantly lower impact on the environment, and provide an alternative to the health risks presented by certain animal proteins like red meat. They’re also much more resilient to climate shocks, and can ensure supply chain consistency and boost food security.

A prominent example relates to the National Health Service (NHS). Research has shown that a ‘plant-based by default’ approach could save the service £74M annually, a move that has support from health experts and the public alike.

UK government urged to set up £30M plant-based fund

Courtesy: Better Dairy

In an annex to the newly published strategy, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) noted that eco-friendly food production will bring economic opportunities and underpin long-term affordability.

“Adopting farming practices that are more environmentally sustainable has the potential to offer greater efficiencies and productivity, though this will vary at individual farm level and significant investment is needed for this transition,” it said. “There will also be sector-specific opportunities for economic growth that supports sustainability, such as agri-technology, alternative proteins and precision breeding.”

Alternative protein think tank the Good Food Institute (GFI) Europe welcomed the strategy, but called for “specific measures” that outline how innovative food can deliver growth. This includes a focus on precision fermentation, which is being used to develop recombinant dairy and egg proteins, and plant-based foods.

“Increasing the take-up of options like plant-based meat, which can provide people with a simple switch to reduce our current overconsumption of processed meat, is an excellent way of making the sustainable and healthy choice the default option for consumers,” said Linus Pardoe, the think tank’s senior UK policy manager.

GFI Europe is urging the government to establish a £30M innovation fund to develop more affordable, tastier and nutritious plant-based foods, funded by UK Research and Innovation and Defra. Its analysis has found that the UK has invested £75M towards the development of sustainable proteins since Henry Dimbleby’s National Food Strategy in 2021.

And since 2023, four major research centres have popped up. The Cellular Agriculture Manufacturing Hub, the National Alternative Protein Innovation Centre, the Microbial Food Hub, and Bezos Earth Fund‘s Centre for Sustainable Protein have collectively been backed by over £60M in public and philanthropic funding.

GFI Europe is also among over 200 organisations asking supermarkets to disclose their plant and animal protein sales and climate emissions as part of their mandatory healthy food reporting initiative with the government.

Its new food strategy has committed to ensuring that regulatory frameworks promote innovation and economic growth, calling “proportionate and predictable regulation” essential. The government has already made strides here, with the Food Standards Agency breaking away from EU-era regulation and working with cultivated meat companies in a regulatory sandbox, as part of an effort to fast-track their market entry.

“The food strategy represents a unique opportunity to capitalise on the expertise that has been developed in the UK over the last decade, and develop ambitious plans to unlock alternative proteins’ potential to deliver food security, drive green growth and create new opportunities for food producers,” said Pardoe.

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July 16, 2025

Future Food Quick Bites: GLP-1 Drink, Plant Points & Cultivated Meat in Space

4 Mins Read
Our weekly column rounds up the latest sustainable food innovation news. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers a new GLP-1 alternative drink, Canada’s pea protein bet, and the European Space Agency’s cultivated meat project.

New products and launches

Texas-based Ozzi has launched Crave Crusher, a plant-based drink designed to suppress appetite and serve as an alternative to GLP-1 drugs. It’s free from caffeine and is available on its website for $60 per 20-stick pack in watermelon, grape and lychee flavours.

Courtesy: Ozzi

Meanwhile, California’s Glucostra has introduced a plant-based supplement with 20 botanicals and metabolic nutrients to support healthy blood sugar management.

NBA player Chris Paul’s vegan snack brand, Good Eat’n, has rolled out five of its products at over 1,000 Walmart stores nationwide, including popcorn, tortilla chips, and puffs.

US plant-based milk producer Malk Organics has released a four-ingredient shelf-stable vanilla almond milk, which is available at Whole Foods Market and Amazon.

Courtesy: Malk Organics

Finnish gas protein firm Solar Foods has partnered with US-based Sensapure Flavors to create new flavour combinations for its shake and ready-to-drink beverage concepts made with Solein protein.

In the UK, vegan meal kit startup Grubby has unveiled a Plant Points menu based on the 30-plants-a-week concept. One of the eight recipes features This‘s new Super Superfood protein block.

Swiss firms Yumame Foods and Le Patron have teamed up to develop tasty, healthy and sustainable plant-based foods.

Courtesy: Plantein

And vegan discovery platform abillion has partnered with Australian meat-free startup Plantein Foods to expand its distribution.

Company and finance updates

Snacking company Pladis has kicked off its first Accelerator Programme with 12 startups, including fibre-to-sugar startup Zye and AI protein discovery firm Shiru.

Dutch cultivated fat startup Upstream Foods has ceased operations, with its founder and CEO citing fundraising difficulties.

Speaking of cultivated meat, India’s Biokraft Foods has announced The Great Indian Cultivated Chicken Cook-off for chefs and innovators to cook with its cultured chicken.

More from this sector: Multus Biotechnology and Fishway have teamed up to develop scalable, cost-competitive cultivated fish, combining the former’s AI-led media optimisation platform with the latter’s expertise in fish cell line development.

Courtesy: Multus Biotechnology

Protein Industries Canada has announced a C$4.87M ($3.6M) new pilot project to meet the demand for better-tasting and more nutritious pea protein, in partnership with Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC) and the Seven Oaks Hospital Chronic Disease Innovation Center.

South Korean plant-based dairy company Armored Fresh has appointed David Benzaquen as its new director of sales strategy and Geo-Yoo Kim as its new CTO.

Research and policy developments

The European Space Agency is seeking proposals to investigate cellular agriculture as a novel technique to produce food, especially cultivated meat, in future space missions.

Courtesy: European Space Agency

The term ‘lab-grown’ meat enjoys a 20-point advantage in consumer understanding over ‘cell-cultivated’ in the UK, where 26% are willing to include it in their diet, according to the Food Standards Agency.

Also in the UK, over 100 parents have signed a petition to reinstate meat-based dishes at Sharow School in Sheffield, which advertises itself as a vegetarian primary school.

In the Philippines, 91% of consumers believe plant-based foods and meat analogues are healthier than animal proteins, and 83% want to increase their intake in the coming year.

Courtesy: Corbion

Dutch ingredient specialist Corbion has secured multiple regulatory approvals from China’s General Administration of Customs for its algae-derived omega-3 products, marketed under the AlgaPrime DHA and AlgaVia DHA brands.

And researchers at India’s Lovely Professional University have developed plant-based fermented probiotic gummies to offer a palatable, safe, and effective natural digestive health solution, particularly for children and those seeking clean-label alternatives.

Check out last week’s Future Food Quick Bites.

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July 15, 2025

With New Factory in Sight, Solar Foods Signs Latest Deal to Bring Solein Protein to Market

4 Mins Read
Finland’s Solar Foods has signed a letter of intent to commercialise up to 1,650 tonnes of its Solein gas protein, with plans to have its new factory fully operational by 2030.

Amid its ongoing efforts to launch in the US, Finnish gas protein firm Solar Foods has signed commercialisation deals that could account for half of the production capacity of its upcoming facility.

The company, known for its yellow-hued Solein protein, has secured a letter of intent with a leading international health and performance nutrition brand. If it leads to a binding agreement, the commitment would see 500-1,650 tonnes of the gas-fermented protein enter the market annually between 2026 and 2030.

This is also the year Solar Foods is aiming to make its ‘Factory 02’ fully operational. The facility is set to have a capacity of producing 12,800 tonnes of Solein every year, around a hundred times greater than its Factory 01, located near Helsinki.

This means that the higher end of the volume commitment in the latest letter of intent – 1,650 tonnes per year – would correspond to around 13% of the full production capacity of Factory 02, which is now in its pre-engineering phase.

Courtesy: Solar Foods

Solar Food secures deals worth half of its production capacity

Solar Foods opened Factory 01, its demo plant, in April 2024, with an initial capacity of 160 tonnes of its fermentation-derived protein per year. This is set to rise to 230 tonnes by 2026.

But to meet the demand for Solein, it has been working on the industrial-scale Factory 02 for years. It plans to build the plant in three phases to ensure an efficient cost structure and optimised unit economics. The first phase is set to be operational by 2028, and the following stages in 2029 and 2030.

The company’s final investment decision for Factory 02 is set to be made in 2026, but it has already raised around €83M in equity and debt funding for its two facilities, with backers including the EU Commission and Business Finland.

The latter, Finland’s official trade agency, has made a total of €110M in grants available to Solar Foods until 2035, and has already injected over €43M. It has set aside a total of €76M to help with the construction of Factory 02, if built on European soil.

The upcoming facility, currently in its pre-engineering phase, is expected to be able to produce Solein at a cost of €4.30-5.20 per kg, and generate net sales of €80-200M.

In May, Solar Foods signed two MOUs to commercialise a total of 6,000 tonnes of Solein annually. Combined with the new letter of intent, the volume commitment of all three deals would correspond to around 50-60% of Factory 02’s full capacity.

“These agreements strongly validate Solein’s commercial potential, and should the collaborations lead to binding agreements, they would correspond already to a major share of the production capacity of Factory 02,” said Rami Jokela, who took over as CEO in April. “Customers’ interest towards Solein also plays an important role in preparing for the final investment decision for Factory 02.”

Courtesy: Solar Foods

Targeting the health and performance nutrition market

Solar Foods produces Solein by feeding carbon dioxide, hydrogen and oxygen to microbes, instead of sugar, which eliminates the need for farmland, water for irrigation, and fertilisers and pesticides.

The microbes are grown in a liquid form, and later dried into a flavourless powder that has 78% protein, 6% fat, and 10% dietary fibre. Its macronutrient profile is said to be akin to dried soy or algae, and it contains iron and B vitamins.

Solar Foods calls Solein the “most sustainable protein” on Earth. The main raw materials for production are carbon dioxide and renewable energy, resulting in emissions equal to just 1% of those generated by conventional meat, and 20% of plant proteins.

The ingredient received novel food approval in Singapore in 2022, debuting as part of a vegan chocolate gelato at Italian eatery Fico. In addition, it was the base of a Taste the Future chocolate snack bar released by Fazer (a majority shareholder of Solar Foods) in the city-state, and a line of mooncakes and ice cream sandwiches rolled out by Japanese food giant Ajinomoto.

Courtesy: Solar Foods

The company achieved self-determined Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) status in the US last year, and registered Factory 01 with the Food and Drug Administration to import Solein protein stateside. Here, its commercialisation strategy centres on the health and performance nutrition market.

The new letter of intent was signed to advance product development and explore integration into end-consumer offerings in these categories, with products like protein shakes and bars.

Solar Foods recently launched a ready-to-mix protein shake powder with Solein, aimed at athletes and gymgoers looking to enhance their performance and recovery. It has also signed supply partnerships with US-based GLP-1 wellness company Superb Food (worth €1.39M) and Italian food firm KelpEat (worth €500,000).

“Our goal is to develop products that meet consumer demands for nutrition, taste, and functionality – while delivering a distinct advantage in sustainability and future supply security,” said Jokela.

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July 15, 2025

EU Parliament Votes to Make Biotech A Strategic Priority, Calls for An Investment Boost

4 Mins Read
EU politicians have voted in favour of advancing the bloc’s biomanufacturing and biotech prowess to promote sustainability, public health, and food security.

It’s a big month for biotechnology in the EU.

The European Commission just released its life sciences strategy, which sets aside €350M for the development of sustainable innovations, improved biomanufacturing efficiency, and promoting the bloc’s bioeconomy leadership.

The strategy includes the long-awaited Biotech Act. While delayed by a year to late 2026, it will help accelerate the approval of novel products, including cultivated meat and precision-fermented proteins.

And now, MEPs have voted overwhelmingly in favour of the European Parliament’s report on the future of the EU biotechnology and biomanufacturing sector, which paints it as an industry “of strategic importance in several different areas such as sustainability, economic security, food security and public health”.

The industry was further recognised as one of 10 strategic tech sectors to boost Europe’s competitiveness, economic security, and sustainability.

“Europe cannot succeed with its ambitions on competitiveness, decarbonisation and economic resilience without acknowledging the crucial role played by the EU’s biotechnology and biomanufacturing sector,” the Parliament’s report argues, highlighting the key bottlenecks faced by the sector, and calling for the creation of a chief biotechnology officer position in the EU Commission.

Greater investment and public awareness critical for biotech sector

Courtesy: Those Vegan Cowboys

“The EU is a global leader in research and biomanufacturing capacity, yet its potential remains unexploited due to the lack of a sufficiently coordinated policy framework that enables the efficient scaling up of innovation, the attraction of investment and the commercialisation of new technologies,” the Parliament acknowledged.

It called for “urgent, coherent and consistent action” over the next few years to make the region a world leader in biotechnology.

For example, the market demand for bio-based feedstocks can be further incentivised to speed up the transition from fossil fuels. These products, like sustainably sourced biomass, recycled waste, and carbon captured from biogenic sources, could be used to manufacture various products.

But the Parliament expressed concern that the way the European Investment Bank (EIB) interprets sustainability criteria “may result in access to funding for bio-based materials and projects being denied”. It called on the EIB to propose de-risking instruments for biomanufacturing.

It further noted that scale-up and commercialisation remain major challenges for the sector, stressing the need to enhance knowledge and tech transfer between academia and industry, and highlighting the importance of bolstering public-private collaborations. It called on the EU Commission to help create world-leading R&D hubs and robust physical testing facilities.

“The sector is characterised by high levels of risk, and reducing the cost of investment failure in the EU is necessary for attracting large-scale capital investment,” the Parliament suggested. “Public awareness of biotechnology and biomanufactured products in the EU should be further strengthened to boost public acceptance.”

EU Parliament calls for overhaul of ‘lengthy’ regulatory approval process

Courtesy: Sherry Hack

The EU Parliament laid out several criteria for a comprehensive Biotech Act, largely focusing on the regulatory challenges facing the industry, which includes novel foods.

“Current EU regulatory frameworks do not cater precisely to the specificities of bio-based products,” it said, suggesting that their inconsistency across sectors creates legal uncertainty and slows market access for innovative solutions. “The lengthy authorisation processes, particularly concerning approval times, need to be urgently addressed.”

Under the Biotech Act, it urged the EU Commission to take into account the regulatory frameworks of non-EU countries and learn from their best practices, as well as consider a simplified process for products already authorised for sale by “trusted regulatory bodies in like-minded countries with EU-equivalent standards”. Its former member state, the UK, is already doing so.

The UK has also created a regulatory sandbox to help cultivated meat companies get approved and enter the market, and the EU Parliament is recommending using its own sandboxes to assess biotech applications, while developing a strategy that supports companies transitioning from the sandbox regime to full market access.

It further called on the EU to double its research budget and reach the target of 3% of its GDP being set aside for R&D by 2030. The Commission, meanwhile, should integrate biotech and biomanufacturing in its digital and artificial intelligence (AI) strategies – the life sciences strategy already committed to creating an AI tool to help researchers embed regulatory compliance at early design stages.

“The European Parliament has taken a strong position in recognising biotechnology as a strategic priority, and made it clear that food biotechnology must be central to that vision,” said Pauline Grimmer, policy manager at the Good Food Institute Europe. “This creates opportunities for the EU to support innovations in plant-based foods and fermentation as part of a diversified protein system, which can boost Europe’s competitiveness, sustainability, and food security.”

She added: “The next step is for the Commission to follow through with a Biotech Act that delivers the funding, regulatory clarity, and ambition the sector needs to thrive.”

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July 11, 2025

Global Survey: 75% of Consumers Still Interested in Plant-Based Meat & Dairy

5 Mins Read
A majority of consumers globally remain interested in plant-based meat and dairy alternatives, while millennials are keenest on blended proteins.

Despite the doom-and-gloom coverage of the plant-based sector, three-quarters of global consumers are interested in plant-based alternatives to meat and dairy, according to new research.

Every generation wants to eat more protein, with its appeal peaking among millennials and Gen Zers (70% of whom say so). And nearly 80% of consumers believe eating plant proteins will help them age better and build or maintain muscle strength.

The data from ADM’s 2025 Alternative Protein Landscape Report shows that 46% of consumers identify as flexitarians, a movement led by Germany, South Korea, the US and Brazil. Vegetarians and vegans make up a further 4% and 1% of the population.

The rest are deemed “carefree” eaters, who eat both plant-based and animal proteins and don’t intentionally seek out or avoid either one. They skew slightly older and retired, and two in five don’t follow any specific dietary pattern. In fact, 73% of these consumers believe it’s healthier to obtain protein from a variety of sources beyond just animal products.

“Gen Z and millennial consumers are particularly open to protein variety,” said ADM. “And with Gen Z’s purchasing power just beginning to emerge, we anticipate amplified acceptance and adoption of a wider array of protein offerings.”

Here are five other takeaways from ADM’s annual report.

1. Is fermentation the darling of alternative proteins?

Courtesy: ADM

According to ADM, fermentation might be the future of alternative proteins, having garnered consumer acceptance for use in meat, dairy and seafood alternatives, as well as specialised nutrition. Notably, this is the only alternative protein vertical that has continued to attract investment against the tide.

While flexitarians are most attracted to novel plant-based ingredients, blended proteins and fermentation-derived ingredients aren’t far behind – 64% express interest in such meat and dairy products. Millennials are the biggest market for the latter, with 72% interested in these foods, followed closely by Gen Z (68%).

Meanwhile, 59% of global consumers show interest in cultivated meat, and 61% say the same for cell-cultured dairy proteins.

2. Traditional plant proteins on the rise

ADM’s research found that chickpeas and soybeans are among the most recognisable sources of plant protein globally. In fact, 83% of plant-forward consumers say soy protein is a good base for building and maintaining muscle, 81% call it a great option for reducing fat intake, and 79% link it with an active and healthy lifestyle.

Lentils are the next big thing in the traditional plant protein space, according to the report. While they have an awareness-to-consumption gap of 20%, they’re thought of as extremely healthy and nutritious, as well as tasty, clean and natural, aligning with flexitarians’ top food drivers.

3. Health and taste over everything else

Courtesy: Kampus Production/Pexels

Taste and health are the dominant motivators for alternative protein trial purchases among both flexitarian and carefree consumers. Improved flavour and mouthfeel are increasingly important for products like baked goods, ready meals, meal kits, and sports nutrition offerings.

Flexitarians place an equal emphasis on taste and nutrition, with 63% calling them a joint top driver for plant protein consumption. But health continues to be their main reason for choosing a flexitarian lifestyle, with 86% feeling it’s healthier to get protein from a wider variety of sources.

For carefree consumers, taste is more important than nutrition when it comes to plant-based alternatives. That said, 67% of them say eating more plant proteins will help improve their overall health.

Meanwhile, 78% of flexitarians say private-label plant-based products are just as good as branded, a sentiment particularly popular in Brazil and Australia. “In future innovations, consumers also want to see more food safety certifications, along with enhanced functional health benefits and sourcing transparency,” ADM said.

4. GLP-1 boom could be a boon for plant-based

The report looked at the impact of GLP-1 medications like Ozempic and Mounjaro, suggesting that their growth is positively influencing the uptake of plant-based food. Globally, 77% of flexitarians believe plant proteins make it easier to lose weight. In fact, weight management is among the top motivators globally for trying vegan snacks, sports nutrition, and ready meals, regardless of GLP-1 use.

In the US, 64% of weight-loss drug users pay more attention to a product’s protein content, and 44% are intentionally adding more plant-based sources to their diets.

Moreover, fibre is gaining relevance, with nearly half of consumers (49%) looking to eat more of this macronutrient. “New and reimagined plant-based foods and beverages that target portion control and deliver high protein and dietary fibre stand to succeed,” the report stated.

5. Blended proteins stand to win big

Courtesy: ADM

Blended meat and hybrid dairy are all the rage now. These products combine animal protein with plant- or fermentation-based ingredients to offer consumers a more balanced protein offering without significantly changing their diets.

Millennials are the most interested in these formats (75%), followed by Gen Zers (72%), Gen Xers (66%) and baby boomers (53%). There are several things that appeal to consumers here: they find blended proteins better for them and the planet, believe they add variety to diets and promote better balance between animal and plant proteins, and feel they’re more nutritious.

Some companies are betting on plant-based ‘meat extenders’ to boost animal protein’s volume for cost-conscious shoppers, like Nestlé has done in Chile. “While one in four global plant-forward consumers have never heard of meat extensions and only 16% claim to currently consume them, the perception of meat extensions is much more positive than expected,” said ADM.

“Protein blends meet every rising consumer demand – protein and ingredient diversity, higher protein content, elevated taste and texture, sustainability concerns and affordability,” it added. “And they do so better than the current selections in the marketplace, namely, traditional meat or dairy or all-plant products.”

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July 10, 2025

21st.Bio Unveils Platform for Low-Cost Production of Cow-Free Dairy Protein

5 Mins Read
Danish firm 21st.Bio has launched a new development programme for companies to create precision-fermented alpha-lactalbumin in a cost-effective manner.

To help companies expand access to a key whey protein, minus the cow and the environmental damage, 21st.Bio has kickstarted a new development launchpad.

The Copenhagen-based firm has opened up a precision fermentation programme for companies to produce recombinant alpha-lactalbumin, which makes up 25% of bovine whey content. It is built on an exclusive license of a high-yield microbial strain obtained from biosolutions giant Novonesis.

It’s described as the first solution for companies to produce precision-fermented alpha-lactalbumin themselves. The highly functional milk protein is rich in essential amino acids, easy to digest, and linked to cognitive development benefits – but its current supply is limited and thus mostly reserved for the “very high-end infant formula market”, explained 21st.Bio CEO Thomas Schmidt.

“Through precision fermentation, we make production more efficient, sustainable, and – most importantly – available to many, not just the few. On top of this, we are able to produce alpha-lactalbumin of high purity, an important parameter for infant nutrition,” he said.

“We’re already in several promising collaborations and dialogues to bring precision-fermented alpha-lactalbumin to market,” he told Green Queen, noting that the talks are confidential. “There is robust interest across the nutrition and food sectors.”

Can 21st.Bio make cost-effective alpha-lactalbumin a reality?

Courtesy: 21st.Bio

Alpha-lactalbumin is present at a high concentration in human milk (around 20-25%), and plays a key role in providing essential nutrients to infants, including amino acids and bioactive peptides. It also supports gut health and immune function in early life, making it a highly prized ingredient for baby formula.

However, the protein improves sleep, aids in cognitive resilience, and relieves stress in adults too, which is why it’s garnering interest from manufacturers of functional foods, ready-to-drink beverages, clinical nutrition, and dietary supplements.

The problem is, whey proteins only represent 20% of the protein content in cow’s milk, and alpha-lactalbumin accounts for just 3-5%, making it difficult and expensive to extract in large amounts. Currently, it takes 1,000 litres of milk to produce just 1kg of purified alpha-lactalbumin, making it one of the costliest dairy proteins on the market, according to 21st.Bio.

21st.Bio, which operates a pilot plant in Copenhagen with a fermentation capacity of 3,000 litres, instead inserts the molecular sequence of bovine alpha-lactalbumin in microbes, which then produce the protein when fermented. The resulting liquid is filtered to separate the microorganisms.

The firm is optimising the Novonesis-developed strain for industrial fermentation, scale-up, and commercialisation. Its technology offers companies a scalable, animal-free solution to consistently produce alpha-lactalbumin at competitive costs, tackling the major bottlenecks of the precision fermentation industry.

This is critical, given the environmental impact of the dairy industry, and the volatility of its supply chain. The sector is responsible for around 4% of global emissions, and the climate change it’s helping cause could lower cows’ daily milk yields by 4% by 2050.

“We’re heading for a protein supply gap. The industry itself is telling us: we won’t be able to meet future demand using traditional methods alone,” said Schmidt. “Precision fermentation is a complementary solution – one that can reduce pressure on natural resources, lower environmental impact, and create a more distributed and resilient supply chain.”

21st.Bio to use royalty-based licensing model

21st.Bio CEO Thomas Schmidt | Courtesy: 21st.Bio

Schmidt and CSO Per Falholt founded 21st.Bio in 2020 as an end-to-end partner helping bioindustrial companies scale up from molecular innovation to industrial production. It has labs in both Copenhagen and Davis, California.

Its alpha-lactalbumin launchpad is a phased development programme, through which it will work with dairy producers, food and beverage companies, and food tech startups. It will offer access to production-ready microbial strains, tailored fermentation and downstream process development, support for pilot and large-scale expansion, and regulatory advice. It will employ a royalty-based licensing model upon commercialisation.

“We go beyond licensing our technology to our partners,” said Schmidt. “We help them through the entire process of industrial-scale production. Our experience in functional proteins and our goal of achieving at least price parity with traditional dairy makes this a game-changer for companies looking to supply the market.”

The startup is already working on many other projects with customers in the nutrition, biomaterials, agriculture, and even biomining sectors. It has also launched BLG Essential+, a recombinant beta-lactoglobulin protein, for food companies, after self-determining its Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) status in the US last year.

“We submitted our GRAS notification dossier for BLG Essential+ in April 2025. We expect our customers to launch products containing BLG in the coming year or so,” confirmed Schmidt.

It is planning a GRAS filing for the alpha-lactalbumin in 2025, with a submission to the European Food Safety Authroity to follow shortly after. “We’re laying the groundwork now to support our customers when they’re ready to commercialise,” he said.

Both proteins are derived from strains licensed by Novonesis, owned by Novo Holdings (also the parent company of Ozempic maker Novo Nordisk). “We see alpha-lactalbumin as a great fit for 21st.Bio’s strategy and portfolio, making it the right path forward while we at Novonesis continue to focus on other protein innovation,” said Thomas Batchelor, senior VP of advanced health and protein solutions at Novonesis.

In 2021, Novo Holdings invested €86M ($97M at the time) in 21st.Bio against an ownership share. Asked about the firm’s fundraising plans, Schmidt said: “We have a group of owners right now that are in this for the long run.”

Other precision fermentation companies working on alpha-lactalbumin include Israel’s Imagindairy and Portugal’s PFx Biotech.

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July 10, 2025

‘Meaty’ Names on Cultivated Protein Packaging Don’t Cause Confusion, Finds Study

5 Mins Read
The use of terms like ‘beef’ or ‘salmon’ on cultivated meat packaging labels helps, rather than hinders, consumer understanding, particularly with allergenicity.

Four in five Europeans are able to differentiate cultivated meat from conventional versions when presented with a front-of-pack label that uses ‘meaty’ terms, new research has shown.

While the labelling debate has been a major talking point for plant-based meat in Europe over the last decade, the emergence of cultivated meat has sparked similar discourse.

Some EU policymakers have cited consumer confusion as a reason to restrict how cultivated meat products are marketed, or whether they should even be sold.

However, research shows that European citizens are far from confused. A survey by the Good Food Institute (GFI) Europe, a future food think tank, last year showed that a majority of consumers are happy for cultivated proteins to use terms like ‘beef’ and ‘chicken’, as long as it’s made clear that they aren’t a product of livestock farming. The sentiment was particularly strong in Spain (81%), Portugal, Hungary, Czechia and Greece (all 79%).

Adding to that is new research from GFI Europe and Opinium, which analysed the impact of on-pack nomenclature and descriptors related to these foods on 2,000 respondents in France, Germany, Spain, Switzerland and the UK.

They found that in all these markets, consumers are more likely to confuse cultivated meat with plant-based proteins when presented with an on-pack label and image, with only two-thirds able to differentiate the two. According to Seth Roberts, senior policy manager at GFI Europe, that “reinforces the need” for cultivated proteins to be able to use meaty terms to “ensure consumer understanding, and therefore safety”.

Consumers prefer ‘cultivated’ meat, not ‘artificial’

Courtesy: Eat Just

One key factor driving this argument is allergenicity. If people with seafood allergies are unable to discern between cultivated and plant-based salmon, they’re at risk of consuming a product that could cause an allergic reaction.

The research tested four names for cultivated meat – cultivated, cell-cultivated, cultured and artificial – as well as three descriptors: ‘made without farming animals’, ‘made from cellular agriculture’, and ‘made from synthetic protein’.

Terms that are seen as negative, like ‘artificial’ and ‘made from synthetic protein’ were the least helpful for identifying allergy risks, with only 32% of respondents doing so – much lower than the efficacy of ‘cultivated’ (55%) and ‘cultured’ (58%) meat labels. In addition, the negative terms were rated as “too technical”, “misleading” and “unappetising”.

This leads to a “strong consumer safety justification” for regulators to avoid mandating the use of such terms for cultivated meat, Roberts said, further pointing to concerns that these are inaccurate descriptors for the large-scale production of these proteins.

The research further found that ‘cultivated’ and ‘cell-cultivated’ were the clearest qualifiers across Europe, and ‘made from cellular agriculture’ the most appropriate descriptor.

These findings chime with previous research. In 2022, a peer-reviewed study found ‘lab-grown’ and ‘artificial meat’ to be the least favourable terms among consumers, and ‘cell-cultured’ and ‘cell-cultivated’ the most popular. A year earlier, in a GFI survey of 44 industry CEOs, 75% preferred ‘cultivated’ too.

GFI Europe pointed to a “variation in preferences” in the survey, suggesting that it may not be appropriate for regulators to mandate certain terms for cultivated meat, but instead set a range of options that producers can use as they commercialise.

One suitable approach could be inspired by Singapore, whose regulator doesn’t necessitate the use of any specific terms; it has instead introduced conditions to use “suitable” qualifiers that don’t mislead or confuse consumers.

Cultivated meat labelling under spotlight ahead of EU regulatory approval

Courtesy: Sherry Hack

In any case, Europeans still remain unsure of how cultivated meat is produced, and this affects their understanding of these proteins. That highlights the need for industry players to support consumer education via transparency about their manufacturing methods. For regulators, working with the sector on preferred terms while engaging with the public could be an important tool.

“We encourage industry and regulatory agencies in Europe and overseas to proactively engage on these topics, sharing resources, insights and perspectives to strengthen consumer understanding of what cultivated meat products are and how they are made,” remarked Roberts.

One industry-led solution to clear confusion has come from Swiss certification body V-Label, which established the C-Label for cell-cultured foods in January. The organisation’s founder, Renato Pichler, told Green Queen that the market for these products is developing “very quickly”, and the accreditation helps “increase the transparency of the whole cultured sector”.

“As we move closer and closer towards a world where cultivated meat will become the norm, certification such as the C-Label will be increasingly necessary for consumer confidence in this new and revolutionary product,” added Owen Ensor, co-founder and CEO of Meatly, Europe’s first company to be approved to sell cultivated meat (for pet food), and the first user of the C-Label.

Regulatory clearance for human food applications is still at least a year away in the EU, with France’s Gourmey leading the race. Setting labelling standards in advance to aid consumer understanding upon cultivated meat’s arrival on the market is crucial.

Talk about alternative protein labelling continues to envelop Europe. After the region’s top court rejected France’s latest attempt to ban the use of meat-like terms on plant-based products (a decision replicated by France’s highest court), legislators at the Agrifish Council reignited the effort last week.

“This would not only go against the goals of simplification, competitiveness and innovation, but also raises the question of political priorities,” said Rafael Pinto, senior policy manager at the European Vegetarian Union. “While the world is facing wars, economic and humanitarian crisis, as well as an innovation race, our ministers are discussing ‘what is a burger’.”

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July 9, 2025

Fan Favourite: As Sales Soar, Revo Foods Brings Back Hyper-Realistic Vegan Octopus

6 Mins Read
Austrian mycoprotein player Revo Foods has re-released its 3D-printed octopus product, The Kraken, as a permanent offering after receiving “overwhelming demand”.

Robin Simsa and his team get four to five messages every week about a single product. Revo Foods may be selling a range of mycoprotein-based seafood alternatives, from salmon to black cod, but none of its innovations have attracted as much fanfare as the vegan octopus tentacle it released last year.

Titled The Kraken, the hyper-realistic alternative was a limited-edition release because Revo Foods thought it was “too niche” for mass production. The first batch sold out within 48 hours.

In the months that followed, the startup churned out several new products, but customers, chefs and retailers alike inundated it with hundreds of requests to re-launch the octopus.

Courtesy: Revo Foods

“Releasing the product as a limited edition in March 2024 was more of a fun little project. We didn’t expect the amount of requests we received afterwards,” says Simsa, the company’s founder and CEO. “At the beginning of the year, we decided to bring it back permanently.”

Described as a complete protein, The Kraken is characterised by a true-to-life tentacle shape, visible suckers, and a chewy texture. It’s made using mushroom mycelium at Revo Foods’s production site in Vienna, and is available across Europe.

“The Kraken is a fun, niche product, so [it’s probably not for every supermarket shelf,” says Simsa. “However, we sell through our webshop all over Europe, with Billa in Austria (part of Germany’s Rewe Group), delivery services Gurkerl.at, kokku.de, knuspr.de, and with distributors in Italy, UK, France and Spain.”

Why Revo Foods created a vegan octopus alternative

Just like its other vegan seafood products, Revo Foods leverages its patented 3D extrusion process to produce The Kraken. This continuous manufacturing technology eschews the high-heat treatment common in other food production methods, and seamlessly integrates fats into a fibrous protein matrix.

It allows products to preserve the nutritional qualities of the raw ingredients, while providing a satisfactory taste and texture. Thanks to the mycelium, the octopus alternative has a complete amino acid profile, with 6.3g of protein per 100g.

Courtesy: Revo Foods/Green Queen

It’s also high in fibre (7g per 100g) and omega-3 fatty acid content from DHA- and EPA-rich microalgae, giving the product a more similar nutritional profile to conventional seafood. The Kraken has a Nutri-Score rating of A, which will appeal to the 51% of Europeans looking to eat healthier food this year.

The product can be eaten raw in a salad, though Revo Foods says frying it for pulpo-style dishes releases the best flavour. Octopus is a delicacy and common food ingredient in many countries, from Spain and Italy to Japan and Turkey, where it’s used in dishes like polbo á feira, meze, sushi and carpaccio.

Octopus farming is considered highly unethical and planet-harming. Globally, we eat 350,000 tonnes of the mollusc every year, but overfishing has led to a decline in global octopus landings for several years now. Still, producers in several countries are attempting to build industrial-scale octopus farms to meet global demand, with Spain’s Nueva Pescanova facing fierce backlash for its effort.

Courtesy: Revo Foods

With nine brains, octopuses are a highly intelligent, sociable and complex species. In fact, they’re considered sentient creatures by countries like the UK, which joined Switzerland, New Zealand and the US in outlawing the act of boiling them. In fact, in the latter country, the states of Washington and California have banned octopus farming.

Being carnivorous, octopuses need fish and other seafood products – like fishmeal or fish oil – in their diet, which are still frequently harvested from the ocean. It takes about 3kg of feed to produce 1kg of octopus, a highly inefficient use of resources. The 2020 Oscar-winning film My Octopus Teacher shed light on the similarities between humans and octopuses, raising awareness on a mainstream level.

Revo Foods outperforms 2024 revenue in six months

Courtesy: Revo Foods

Revo Foods is working on scaling up its production capacity for The Kraken over the next few months. It’s part of its wider expansion plan, which has been supported by an ongoing crowdfunding round that has brought its total raised to €11M.

“We’ve already raised over €1.5M since the spring,” says Simsa. “We’ll use these funds to strengthen our distribution and advance our 3D structuring technology. We recently implemented a new extrusion system in our machines, which improves the output by 50% while drastically cutting the production waste.”

Vegan seafood is still a highly niche sector, making up a fraction of the conventional seafood market. In fact, in the US, it only accounted for 0.8% of retail sales of plant-based meat in 2024, falling by 18% to $10M. Several startups have been forced to cease operations recently, including Ordinary Seafood, New Wave Foods (whose IP is now part of Bayou Best Foods), and Olala.

Courtesy: GFI Europe

That said, Revo Foods seems to be doing well. It has launched two new product formats this year, and Simsa has teased another “that goes in a completely different direction” in a couple of weeks’ time.

One of its newest innovations was The Prime Cut, a product it has internally dubbed “tofu 2.0”. The mycoprotein product is not meant to be a seafood alternative; it is designed to stand apart as a nutrition-forward protein that offers consumers something new.

“The Prime Cut is right now rather niche. Many people ask: ‘Why do these products need to resemble meat/seafood?’, but this also helps consumers get a point of reference,” says Simsa. “The Prime Cut is a very ambitious product and sells well in some markets, but on a greater [scale], these types of products need more time to establish themselves.”

Courtesy: Juicy Marbles

Last month, Revo Foods went international through a partnership with Slovenia’s Juicy Marbles, which introduced a whole-cut cod alternative using the former’s technology. “Juicy Marbles built an amazing distribution system in the US, together with a great brand,” he says.

“I think it’s smarter to work together with partners that are stronger in some areas, than doing everything by yourself. So we do not plan to enter the US directly with our own brand in the near future, but rather want to collaborate with Juicy Marbles on this.”

Revo Foods’s products are already available at over 1,000 distribution points in Europe, and it plans to be profitable by 2026. “In the first half of 2025, we already made more revenue than in all of 2024, so the trajectory looks positive,” says Simsa.

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This post was originally published on Green Queen.
July 9, 2025

Future Food Quick Bites: Beyond Steak Filet, Apricot Kernel Chocolate & Vegan Eggs

4 Mins Read
Our weekly column rounds up the latest sustainable food innovation news. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers Beyond Meat’s Steak Filet debut, Quorn’s £18M injection, and Chocolat Stella’s apricot kernel milk bar.

New products and launches

Beyond Meat has debuted its new Steak Filet as part of the All-American Vegan menu at Next Level Burger and Veggie Grill, which has 28g of protein and is paired with potatoes, broccoli, and either melted blue cheese, a peppercorn sauce, or chimichurri. The menu also features Oshi‘s whole-cut salmon.

Courtesy: Next Level Burger

US plant-based company Better Balance Foods has partnered with Papa Johns to supply vegan protein products for the chain’s Green Ranch and Green BBQ pizzas and vegetable fingers in Spain and Portugal

Plant-based milk leader Califia Farms has expanded its barista oat milk range in the UK with pistachio and hazelnut, which are available at Ocado now and at Sainsbury’s next month.

Courtesy: Califia Farms

Still in the UK, Juice Plus has become the latest brand to jump on the 30-plants-a-week movement, launching a Superfood Powder drink mix with 30 different fruits, vegetables and berries, as well as plant-based vitamins. They’re available on its website starting at £104 for 30 single-serve sticks.

Austrian startup Kern Tec has teamed up with Swiss confectioner Chocolat Stella to introduce a limited-edition vegan chocolate bar using the former’s upcycled apricot kernel milk. Titled ApriCoa, it’s available on Stella’s website for 2.80 Swiss francs ($3.50) per 80g bar.

Courtesy: Chocolat Stella

And in Tokyo, the restaurant 8go has introduced new menu items using local startup Umami United‘s vegan eggs: Spanish omelette, financiers (in plain, matcha and chocolate flavours), and canelé.

Company and finance updates

Israel’s AlgoCell has raised $2.8M in pre-seed funding to build its AI-powered digital twin platform for bioprocess development and optimisation, targeting cultivated meat and fermentation companies.

Marlow Foods, which includes mycoprotein giant Quorn and tofu brand Cauldron, was injected with £18M in fresh capital by its Filipino parent company, Monde Nissin. It used the money to further pay down its debt as part of a turnaround strategy following a difficult few years for the business.

Courtesy: Finneato Fysh Foods

Speaking of mycelium meat, German firm Kynda has been named Startup of the Week by business magazine WirtschaftsWoche.

Finnish oat milk cheese maker Mö has witnessed a 135% increase in revenue this year after quick growth in the Nordic region.

Courtesy: Mö

Lallemand Bio-Ingredients has acquired Solyve, a French producer of enzymes specialising in solid-state fermentation, from its parent company, InVivo Group.

In Canada, state-funded agency Alberta Innovates has committed $500,000 to support the Cellular Agriculture Prairie Ecosystem (CAPE) project, a $2.4 million programme led by New Harvest Canada.

Courtesy: Finneato Fysh Foods

PETA has released its list of the top vegan seafood brands for 2025, which includes Mind Blown, Oshi, Seed to Surf, Cavi-art, Konscious Foods, Gardein, Save Da Sea, Finneato Fysh Foods, and Jinka.

Research and policy developments

Xanterra Travel Collection, the main foodservice provider of some of the US’s most popular national parks – including the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone and Mount Rushmore – has committed to making 50% of all menu items plant-based by 2026.

Courtesy: Plant Based Treaty

El Masnou, a municipality in Catalonia, has become Spain’s second city to formally endorse the Plant Based Treaty, after the city council passed a motion to do so with 17 votes in favour (versus two against).

New research by NielsenIQ suggests that 37% of Indians are looking to add more plant-based proteins to their diets in the next 12 months.

Check out last week’s Future Food Quick Bites.

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This post was originally published on Green Queen.
July 8, 2025

Prime Roots: Omnivores Prefer This Netflix-Famous Startup’s Mycelium Deli Slices Over Meat

4 Mins Read
New York-based mycelium meat brand Prime Roots has revamped its whole-cut deli lineup, with meat-eaters preferring its cold cuts over conventional meat.

Prime Roots, the koji meat maker that went viral on Netflix’s You Are What You Eat, has unveiled its first product refresh in seven years.

The US startup has reformulated its deli meat alternatives to turkey and pork in response to consumer feedback. The result is a lineup that over 50% of meat-eaters prefer to leading brands of conventional cold cuts, according to third-party blind taste tests.

“Over two years and millions of slices, we’ve listened to your feedback and we’ve made our best products ever,” said co-founder and CTO Joshua Nixon. “Our new products have a meatier and tastier texture with the same nutrition and clean natural ingredients you know and love. No gluten, no soy, and absolutely no nitrates.”

The Prime Roots 2.0 range is housed in revamped packaging as well, and is available at delis and grocery stores in the US and Canada.

Prime Roots drives 20% growth in deli sales

Courtesy: Prime Roots

Nixon founded Prime Roots with CEO Kimberlie Le in 2017, betting on a koji mycelium protein that it claimed could successfully mimic the flavour and texture of deli meats.

The company positions its products as “whole-food” and “clean-label” offerings, eschewing plant protein isolates and heavy processing. Koji, the national fungus of Japan and the fungi strain that powers soy sauce, miso and mirin, takes only two to three days to grow, compared to 10-plus days for other fungi and years for animals.

Prime Roots mixes whole koji with plant-based and fungi-derived ingredients to form its end products, which include turkey, ham, salami, pepperoni and bacon.

Unlike other brands, which sell deli alternatives in slices, it retails whole joints, partnering with delis and grocers to give shoppers fresh slices instead.

“As a new-school deli brand, we’ve always been committed to giving people the flavour and health benefits they expect from their favourite deli classics,” said Le. “We’re thrilled to unveil our upgraded recipes and new packaging that has been refined over years of feedback and that will drive real results.”

Its 2.0 lineup includes smoked and cracker pepper turkey, smoked and black forest ham, salami, bacon, and cupping pepperoni for pizzas. The brand is already available at delis, grocery stores and restaurants in over 30 states, and is now looking to expand rapidly.

“With some of our retail partners reporting that Prime Roots is driving 20% growth in deli sales, we’re not just taking share, we’re growing the category,” said Le.

Courtesy: Prime Roots

Targeting Americans’ demand for healthier proteins

Prime Roots is targeting several key consumer pain points. Its products are a source of complete protein and packed with fibre, and being animal-free, have zero cholesterol.

Deli meats are part of the processed meat category that the WHO has identified as a class 1 carcinogen, indicating that there is sufficient evidence that these foods cause cancer. With Americans looking to cut back on processed food, which has also hurt the sales of meat alternatives, brands that offer recognisable ingredients and clear health benefits stand to win.

Research by the American Heart Association last year found that 77% of Americans would like to eat healthier. Another survey showed that 48% feel plant-based foods are healthier than animal proteins, and 36% want to eat less meat due to personal health concerns (a 7% rise since 2023).

Moreover, polling has found that half of Americans believe plant-based diets can improve health and prevent chronic illnesses, and among those who are unsure, 65% are willing to try a vegan diet if shown that it can enhance their well-being.

Courtesy: Prime Roots

Prime Roots’ products are better for the planet too, linked with 91% fewer carbon emissions and 92% less water use, according to an independent life-cycle analysis. This will appeal to the 48% of Americans open to eating vegan food to reduce their climate footprint.

The startup has raised $50M to date, with mycoprotein giant Quorn also joining as an investor. It is one of several US firms using mycelium to make meat alternatives, including Meati Foods, The Better Meat Co and MyForest Foods. Even Beyond Meat, one of the industry’s leading companies, is working on a clean-label mycelium steak.

Prime Roots did not respond to a request for comment on this story.

The post Prime Roots: Omnivores Prefer This Netflix-Famous Startup’s Mycelium Deli Slices Over Meat appeared first on Green Queen.

This post was originally published on Green Queen.
July 8, 2025

This is the Only Way the Food System Will Meet Its Climate Goals

5 Mins Read
Fully replacing animal proteins with alternative sources by 2050 is now the only way to keep the food system from eating up its carbon budget, a new study has found.

With our calorie and protein demand growing, the global food system must rapidly transition from meat and dairy to low-carbon alternatives if it is to keep within its climate limits.

A study published in the Scientific Reports journal suggests that, as things stand, rising population numbers and incomes will lead to a further increase in animal protein demand, and limiting climate change to global targets would not be possible without a fast and significant reduction of these foods.

Pace, the researchers suggest, is of the essence. “The longer the delay before the transition begins, the larger the share of animal-source foods that needs to be replaced by 2050 for the same target cumulative emissions,” they write.

Livestock farming accounts for up to a fifth of global emissions, and nearly 60% of the food system’s climate footprint. In fact, when using updated GHG metrics, animal agriculture has been found to be the leading cause of climate change.

The alternatives proposed by the study include plant-based, fermentation-derived and cultivated proteins, which have a fraction of the climate, water and land use footprint of animal proteins when produced with renewable energy.

Current consumption trends suggest that the world’s calorie demand will increase by 24% by 2050, and the share of meat, dairy, eggs and seafood will nearly double (going from 15.6% to a quarter of the total). This, however, will result in a doubling of annual food system emissions between 2020 and 2050, driven almost entirely by animal proteins.

Courtesy: Scientific Reports

Only a full shift away from meat will meet climate goals

While many such studies focus on the 1.5°C emissions goal, this one looked at the more realistic target of keeping post-industrial temperature rises under 2°C, given the “limited progress on emission mitigation”. That makes its findings even starker.

The food system accounts for a third of global emissions. According to the IPCC’s estimates, that leaves it with a carbon budget of 390 gigatonnes, which the researchers allocated to 2050. However, under a business-as-usual scenario, the sector’s emissions will instead reach up to 639 gigatonnes of CO2e in this period.

The study compared different mitigation pathways and found that the food system can only reach its climate goals if 60% of animal proteins are replaced with alternatives by 2050, with the transition starting in 2023. Since that hasn’t happened, this would now need to be a 100% switch if the rapid transition begins in 2026.

This scenario would mean only plant-based meat, dairy and eggs being adopted through to 2032 before fermentation-derived and cell-cultured ingredients enter the mainstream to make up 27% of all alternatives by mid-century.

The study found that swapping calories from animal proteins for these alternatives could reduce emissions by 33%, an impact that is in line with other proposed emission reduction strategies, like shifts in cattle production areas, animal feed changes, land restoration, yield improvements, and reducing food waste.

While a combination of these approaches will yield the greatest impact, none of them has as much potential as a rapid switch to plant-based, microbial and cell-cultured foods. “Alternatives to animal-source foods are likely the most promising path to food system sustainability,” the researchers write.

Courtesy: Scientific Reports

Alternative proteins should receive the same policy support as green energy

Strikingly, the researchers suggest that their estimated emission cuts are conservative because they did not account for three other environmental impacts: land use and degradation, water depletion and pollution, and biodiversity loss.

“These costs can lead to even more immediate negative effects than GHG emissions, thus underscoring the need for [a] rapid shift away from animal-source foods. They arise due to the ultimate inefficiency of the animal production technology for energy conversion,” they write.

That inefficiency also has a social cost. The high share of animal products in the diets of affluent countries increases the demand for feed crops like soy and corn, which will likely raise their prices globally and make them less accessible to low-income consumers.

The study notes that there has been a resistance to reducing animal protein consumption and an upward trend in their intake. But the transition needs to be fast, underscoring the potential importance of novel foods like cultivated meat and precision-fermented dairy.

It points to some key barriers, including taste and price parity. Delays in matching the attributes of animal proteins and an ultimately limited replacement share will “reduce the impact substantially”. It’s why innovation needs to be rapid and supported by a “strong regulatory environment and investment from both the private and public sectors”.

Courtesy: Bene Meat Technologies

The shift towards animal protein alternatives is “unlikely to begin soon enough without intervention”, the authors note. They cite the energy transition as the framework for dietary change, with similar policies necessary for the rapid adoption of low-carbon alternatives.

“Now that the pace of adoption of electric vehicles and solar panel generation is exceeding forecasts, policy interventions to help jump-start the transition away from animal-source foods are likely to be highly impactful for reaching climate goals,” they write.

“Such interventions could include both supply-side incentives, such as research grants and R&D subsidies for quality improvement and subsidised loans to enable rapid scaling that meets growing demand; and demand-side measures, such as incentives for food companies, retailers, and the foodservice industry to reduce their climate impact.”

The post This is the Only Way the Food System Will Meet Its Climate Goals appeared first on Green Queen.

This post was originally published on Green Queen.
July 4, 2025

Germany’s Bluu Seafood Hooks Deal with Spice Major Van Hees to Develop Cultivated Fish Products

4 Mins Read
German cultivated meat startup Bluu Seafood has teamed up with spice manufacturer Van Hees to create hybrid proteins combining cultured fish cells with plant-based ingredients.

As it awaits regulatory approval in multiple geographies, Germany’s Bluu Seafood has partnered with Van Hees, which makes spice blends and functional ingredients for the food industry, to develop proteins combining cultured fish cells with plant-based ingredients.

The partnership will leverage Van Hees’s technological and culinary expertise and Bluu Seafood’s cultivated fish platform to create customised hybrid seafood products with high sustainability and sensory appeal.

“We see great potential in cultivated fish as part of a sustainable protein supply,” said Robert Becht, managing director of Van Hees. “This cooperation enables us to contribute our innovative strength to a forward-looking segment and actively participate in the transformation of the food system.”

Bluu Seafood latest to embrace hybrid meat

Courtesy: Bluu Seafood

Van Hees has been operating for nearly 75 years, with a presence in over 80 countries. It produces spices, spice blends, processing additives, and marinades for use in a range of meat, sausage and vegan products.

Its collaboration with Bluu Seafood aims to optimise the texture, stability and flavour profile of cultivated meat products. Van Hees is working closely with Aromatech, a long-standing partner that has expertise in the field of flavour technology, and using the expertise of its Food.PreTect competence centre to enhance product safety and prolong shelf life.

Hybrid meat has been touted as the only viable way of commercialising cultivated meat, which suffers from cost and scale bottlenecks, in the near term. Most products that have entered the market have been mixed with plant-based ingredients with a low percentage of cultured animal cells. Some companies, in fact, are manufacturing cultivated fat to add to plant proteins.

This is the same approach taken by Wildtype, the only company to have successfully brought cultivated seafood to market. Its salmon, which is now being served at Portland restaurant Kann, combines fish cells with plant-based ingredients to replicate the structure and texture of conventional Pacific salmon. That said, the cells are the primary ingredient after water in this product.

Bluu Seafood itself is working on both salmon and rainbow trout, and indicated that the collaboration with an established food company like Van Hees is a key step in its path to market readiness.

“Both sides – we at Bluu Seafood as a pioneer in the field of fish cell cultivation and Van Hees as an established and experienced food company – can only benefit from the partnership,” argued Sebastian Rakers, co-founder and co-CEO of the alternative protein firm. “This offers enormous opportunities for the development of delicious yet sustainable foods.”

Targeting cultivated seafood approval in several markets

Courtesy: Wim Jansen/Bluu Seafood

Rakers founded Bluu Seafood with Simon Fabich in 2020 and has made several production and regulatory strides on its way to market.

The company opened Europe’s first dedicated facility for cultivated seafood production in Hamburg last year, sprawling 2,000 sq m and housing fermentation tanks with a capacity of 65 litres. It planned to scale up to the full 2,000 litre capacity this year, allowing it to produce cultivated muscle, fat and tissue cells from Atlantic salmon and rainbow trout in much larger quantities.

Bluu Seafood’s first products will be fish balls and fingers; in the works are prototypes for salmon sashimi and trout fillets. “If the scalability and market conditions are favourable, we will be able to offer cultivated fish at wholesale fish prices in as little as three years,” Rakers told Green Queen last year.

Like most cultivated meat companies, it plans to launch in foodservice first. “At the market entry point, we will only have a very limited number of products available. We will therefore take a careful positioning strategy, and initially work exclusively with well-known restaurants, chefs and influencers,” he said. “Rollout with exclusive retail partners will follow thereafter.”

The startup is pursuing regulatory clearance in Singapore, the US and Europe, though the timelines it expected have been delayed several times. “Considering that the EU approval process with its 27 members is a lot more complex, we will probably focus on European countries outside the EU first – for example, the UK and Switzerland,” Rakers said.

The EU’s novel food framework has been a hot topic in recent weeks. In the newly released life sciences strategy, the EU Commission said it will propose a Biotech Act to overhaul and speed up regulatory approval in the region. These measures would include regulatory sandboxes, better mobilisation of public and private funds, and an AI tool to help companies embed regulatory compliance at the early stages of product development.

“Even with centralised approaches, long authorisation procedures under regulatory frameworks that require pre-market authorisation to ensure safety for human health and the environment can delay market entry of innovative products,” the strategy states. “Efforts should also be made to increase efficiency and to significantly reduce the length of authorisation procedures in the health, medical devices and food areas, to make the EU more attractive in comparison to other regions in the world.”

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July 4, 2025

Fermentation Sector Needs $500B Investment to Unlock Biotech’s True Potential: Report

6 Mins Read
The advanced biotech sector can cut global emissions by 5% and create $1T in annual economic value, but only with major investments to derisk scale-up and ensure cost competitiveness.

Technologies that use microbes to feed the world, produce fossil-free materials, and create high-performing products with low emissions have enormous potential for the global economy, but they haven’t reached their “full scale of impact” yet, a new report shows.

Up to 60% of all physical inputs globally could be produced or replaced with bio-based methods, though achieving that would require significant investment to help scale up the technologies and reduce costs, according to Advanced Biotech for Sustainability (AB4S), a coalition of companies and organisations including L’Oréal, Lallemand, EIT Food, the Good Food Institute, and Arsenale Bioyards.

“Advanced biotechnology leverages breakthroughs in biological sciences such as genetic engineering techniques, as well as advances in computing and engineering, to achieve the full potential use of microbes at scale,” the report states.

“Until recently, however, advanced biotechnology solutions and products have not been able to compete with fossil-based products and solutions on scale or price,” it adds. “We firmly believe that future goals can be more ambitious, positioning the industry on a more transformative trajectory.”

Food represents the biggest biotech opportunity

Courtesy: Advanced Biotech for Sustainability

The AB4S alliance teamed up with consulting giant McKinsey to quantify the environmental and economic benefits of the advanced biotech industry. They focused on four key technologies: precision fermentation, biomass fermentation, organism-as-a-product (think livestock breeding), and tissue-as-a-product (for example, cultivated meat).

They found that at its full potential, this industry could reduce three to four megatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions, or 5% of the global total in 2022. In addition, it can free up as much as four million sq km of land (equivalent to the size of India), lowering 3-6% of the total land used for agriculture.

This land could then be repurposed in different ways, including growing feedstocks for other sectors to improve overall farming output and restoring land to ensure more resilient ecosystems.

By providing an alternative to agriculture, advanced biotechnology could save between 250 to 500 billion cubic metres of water every year. For context, that’s between three to six times the water that flows through the Nile River every year.

The sector can further help boost food security by lowering pressure on food demand without affecting affordability, and making food production resilient to supply chain, pandemic and geopolitical shocks. Governments dependent on food imports can achieve strategic autonomy through these technologies, which enable the production of nutritionally and environmentally superior goods.

According to the report, the current market for advanced biotech stands between $200B and $300B annually; at its full scale, this could expand to $700B-$1.1T by 2040. This includes various sectors, like agriculture (which could account for up to $225B), food (up to $395B), chemicals ($100B), personal care ($75B), and transportation fuels ($320B).

Fermentation and cell cultivation in focus

Courtesy: Ever After Foods

The food sector represents the highest economic potential for advanced biotechnology by far, while also effecting significant reductions in emissions, land use, and water consumption. This sector can complement conventional technologies by producing proteins and high-value ingredients more efficiently.

AB4S outlines several use cases to highlight advanced biotech’s impact on the agrifood system, for example, meat and dairy production. Livestock accounts for up to a fifth of all emissions and uses 80% of the world’s farmland, despite only providing 17% of global calories and 38% of our protein supply.

Cattle are the biggest culprit here, alone emitting over 10% of GHG emissions, mostly methane. Advanced biotech, however, can cut beef and dairy’s climate impact through both conventional and alternative pathways. The former group includes techniques like selective breeding, feed additives, manure management, and advanced crop breeding, which could lower the climate footprint of dairy by 30%.

Alternative solutions, however, are threefold. Precision fermentation can replace dairy proteins like whey and casein. Since they’re already at low concentration in cow’s milk, purpose-made molecules derived from microbes can enable production at higher volumes.

Precision-fermented proteins can generate less than 5% of the greenhouse gases emitted by the animal proteins they’re built to replace, while reducing water and land use by more than 95%. Moreover, they are bioidentical to conventional dairy proteins, offering the same taste, texture, and nutritional profile for manufacturers.

Then there’s biomass fermentation, a commonly used technology that converts feedstock into protein-rich microbes to produce meat analogues. “Its broader potential lies in producing versatile proteins that can serve as ingredients in fortified foods, improve nutritional value, or substitute for conventional soy or whey protein,” the report states.

Finally, cell culture technology enables animal cells to grow with the same biological process found in livestock, but in a bioreactor instead. It allows companies to produce cultivated fat and muscle for use in meat alternatives.

According to AB4S’s analysis, fermentation could capture 20% of the market for food derived from cellular agriculture by 2040, while the higher price of cultivated proteins would enable it to take up 80% of the market.

The three solutions to propel advanced biotech

Courtesy: Arsenale Bio

While these technologies are brimming with potential, they face some tall hurdles. Scaling them to meet consumer demand and reduce overall costs remains the biggest of them all. “Achieving cost comparability with traditional dairy products would require continued innovation, both in advanced biotechnology and in efficient industrial production processes,” the coalition says.

Moreover, consumer acceptance is still in its early stages, with many sceptical about the food safety aspects of cultivated meat and precision-fermented foods. Vast differences in regulatory approaches make things more complicated – while several such products are approved in the US, the EU is yet to join the race.

The report suggests that the industrialisation of advanced biotech at a greater pace will rely on three enabling concepts: minimising the variety of approaches to focus resources efficiently creating uniformity across processes, tools, roles, and technology to streamline operations, development, and scaling; and shifting from high-tech development to cost-effective, repeatable deployment of mature technology.

These concepts form the basis of AB4S’s three priority solutions. The first involves setting priorities based on market demand, focusing on products with the highest scalability and commercialisation potential. This entails overhauling policy and regulatory frameworks to steer demand and companies towards agreed goals.

The second solution centres around derisking the scale-up process to increase success rates and reduce financing costs. VC funding for food tech has fallen dramatically over the last few years, although fermentation startups have been an outlier. Since 2015, precision and biomass fermentation firms have received $5B in venture capital.

Courtesy: Advanced Biotech for Sustainability

The fermentation sector requires an exponentially larger amount to overcome the industry’s current challenges, $500B by 2040, to be precise. This accounts for both capital spending on the buildout and startup financing, with capacity expansion alone needing 85% of these investments. This amount would also be needed to overcome regulatory obstacles, bridge talent gaps, and improve consumer awareness and acceptance.

The third solution mentioned in the report is to ensure cost-effectiveness at scale. “This can be achieved by strategies such as optimising plant operations to minimise running costs; applying best practice capital investment methods to develop and commission additional capacity; and using flexible, modular design and shared capacity,” AB4S says.

Its analysis found that these measures could bring the unit costs of precision-fermented dairy molecules down to $8-13 per kg, making them 50-75% cheaper than current costs and reaching price parity with conventional proteins.

“Many [hurdles are fully in the hands of the industry – in particular, prioritising products with the highest market demand, derisking the scale-up process, and reducing costs at scale,” the report says. “The challenges are significant, yet the rewards for successfully addressing them are paramount.”

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July 4, 2025

Scientists Call on Australian Government to Develop National Bioeconomy Strategy

4 Mins Read
Australia must develop a national bioeconomy strategy and invest in new infrastructure to unlock key economic growth opportunities, scientists say in a new report.

Home to some of the world’s leading food tech companies, Australia has a significant opportunity to become a global bioeconomy leader and boost its economic growth, but only if the government invests in the industry.

In a new report by the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) and the ARC Centre of Excellence in Synthetic Biology, scientists are calling upon the government to urgently create a national bioeconomy plan to “risk losing the ability to compete” with other nations.

Most of the G20 economies already have such national strategies, thanks to the Bioeconomy Initiative, which creates a global framework to support this industry. This has provided governments with a focal point for coordinated action to unlock private investment.

“It is a pivotal moment of economic transformation for Australia, which is driven by the shifting global market, rapid technological advancements and the move towards a low-carbon economy,” said Professor Ian O’Hara, deputy dean at QUT’s Faculty of Engineering, and co-author of the report.

“Without a unified effort and strategic approach by government, industry and researcher partners, Australia risks losing the opportunity to compete effectively in this market,” he added.

Australia already has the ingredients to be a leader

Courtesy: Queensland University of Technology

The bioeconomy entails using biological resources like plants, animals, microbes and organic waste to produce climate-friendly food, energy and materials via new technologies. The global bioeconomy market is valued at $4T already, and is set to skyrocket to $30T by 2040 – a third of the total worldwide economic value.

Australia has a significant opportunity here, thanks to its “abundant and diverse natural resources”, well-established primary infrastructure, advanced logistics and supply chain capabilities, biotech innovation expertise, and a robust regulatory framework.

The bioeconomy can support existing industries and advance technologies prioritised by the government, ultimately boosting high-value exports, international market share, environmental stewardship, and workforce strength.

It will enable the country’s primary industry to diversify its revenue streams, with raw materials, byproducts and industrial waste given added value. The development of new synbio technologies would further enhance the country’s biomanufacturing capability by unlocking new feedstocks, products and processes.

“Our world-class research, education and innovation are key strengths that can underpin advancing Australia’s bioeconomy development,” said O’Hara. “Australia has one of the best biomass resources in the world, which provides a huge advantage in the development of these industries. By unlocking the value of these resources, we can add value to Australian agriculture and grow new biomanufacturing industries across regional areas.”

He added: “As examples, Australia is at the forefront of developing new food ingredients, including proteins produced through precision fermentation and has the potential to lead in the development of sustainable aviation fuels from agricultural industry byproducts.”

A bioeconomy blueprint for Australia

Courtesy: Cauldron Ferm

The report outlines the importance of scale-up facilities to help translate lab research into commercial-scale production. For example, a renewable biocommodities pilot plant at QUT was recently upgraded to help the sugar diversify into more value-added products, but the experts say more focus is needed on this transitional aspect.

Government investment is critical here. Australia is among a handful of countries that have approved cultivated meat for sale, with Sydney startup Vow now selling its cultured quail products in restaurants. Vow also has approval in Singapore and New Zealand, the industry’s only startup to secure the green light in three countries.

Australia is the base for several precision fermentation firms too, including Nourish Ingredients, Eden Brew, Daisy Lab, Cauldron, and All G. The latter, which makes animal-free whey proteins, has received regulatory clearance in China and the US, and last month was involved in a tech transfer by the government-backed Food and Beverage Accelerator.

Its lawmakers have shown a keen interest in food tech products. Melbourne startup Magic Valley showcased its cultivated pork at the New South Wales parliament in May, months after securing A$100,000 from the national government to transition from research to commercial production, as part of its A$392M Industry Growth Program.

The Queensland government, meanwhile, is providing financial assistance and facilitation for biomanufacturing firm Cauldron’s first-of-its-kind precision fermentation contract manufacturing plant.

The QUT report makes several recommendations to help advance Australia’s bioeconomy, chief among which is the creation of a dedicated national strategy to assess capabilities, prioritise growth and identify strategies for market, workforce and regional benefits.

Moreover, the government should invest in developing world-class, scalable feedstocks and optimising farm-to-market supply chains, as well as fund pilot and pre-commercial biomanufacturing infrastructure. Plus, it should expand education and training initiatives, with a focus on regional workforce development.

Finally, the scientists implore policymakers to invest in bioeconomy research, development and tech translation by establishing a large-scale collaborative research programme involving academia, industry and government.

These calls echo the conclusions of a report by non-profit Cellular Agriculture Australia last year, which urged the government to recognise precision fermentation as a research and infrastructure priority, increase investment into pilot- and commercial-scale fermentation facilities, and boost regulatory resources to advance domestic approval of novel foods.

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July 3, 2025

Singaporean Bean-Free Coffee Startup Nabs Major Ice Cream Collab

5 Mins Read
Melvados, a gourmet retailer in Singapore, has launched a co-branded Coconut Latte ice cream without dairy or coffee, using local startup Prefer’s beanless alternative instead.

Singaporeans can get their hands on Asia’s first ice cream featuring beanless coffee at Melvados, the retail arm of local food company Foodedge Gourmet.

The new Coconut Latte ice cream is powered by Prefer’s coffee alternative, made by fermenting food industry byproducts. It’s the first product to highlight its bean-free coffee as a hero ingredient, and marks a milestone for the three-year-old food tech startup.

Melvados was founded in 2004 and has become a household name in Singapore’s gourmet food space, selling everything from ice creams and cakes to ready meals, condiments and snacks. Its co-branded coffee ice cream with Prefer is available on the retailer’s website and its 13 locations across the city-state.

“This is a permanent product with plans to expand the lineup together,” Prefer co-founder and CEO Jake Berber tells Green Queen. “The launch is just the first step in what we both see as a long-term collaboration.”

Prefer talks up hybrid coffee applications

Courtesy: Melvados/Prefer

To make its bean-free coffee, Prefer upcycles locally sourced waste ingredients like surplus bread, okara (the leftover pulp from tofu production), and brewers’ spent grain. These are fermented with food-grade microbes, then roasted and ground just like coffee beans, with the process unlocking the same aroma volatiles found in coffee.

Melvados pairs this coffee alternative with coconut milk, sugar, glucose syrup, emulsifiers and stabilisers to give the product a smooth and indulgent mouthfeel. And the best part? At S$11.99 for a 470ml tub, it’s priced in the middle of the company’s lineup, on par with 11 of its other flavours.

“Using our proprietary fermentation platform, we’re able to produce coffee that’s up to two times more affordable for coffee procurement teams. For companies that license our IP and produce it themselves, the ingredient can be up to 10 times more affordable than traditional coffee,” explains Berber. “In both cases, we help customers lower input costs while significantly reducing their carbon footprint. Sustainability is a core value for Melvados, so the alignment was natural.”

Berber doesn’t see Prefer’s alternative as a direct competitor to synthetic coffee flavourings. “It’s a better option for brands looking for an affordable, natural, and sustainable coffee flavour,” he says. “The taste profile is chocolatey, nutty, and is designed to maintain or enhance the flavour of the coffee our partners blend it with.”

The Melvados ice cream isn’t completely devoid of coffee – it blends the bean-free version with conventional instant coffee powder. “The thinking behind this is consistent with what we’ve seen across nearly all of our B2B partners. Prefer is being used as a coffee extender to help reduce cost and carbon footprint, while maintaining or even enhancing the flavour profile of their products,” says Berber.

“Every non-binding offtake agreement we’ve signed so far is structured around hybrid applications. Prefer is designed to work alongside traditional coffee, not to replace it entirely. We expect to see many more hybrid use cases going forward,” he adds.

Indeed, several beanless coffee startups are banking on hybrids. US startup Atomo launched a 50:50 blend last year, combining its upcycled alternative with medium-roast coffee that consumers preferred over Starbucks. Belgium’s Koppie is also working with coffee roasters, which “makes consumer adoption easier and is closer to their own core and capabilities, just like we’re seeing happening in meat and dairy at the moment”, its co-founder told Green Queen last week.

Scale-up plans and a two-pronged business model

Prefer co-founders Jake Berber and Ding Jie Tan | Courtesy: Prefer

The reason all these companies are making coffee alternatives isn’t simply to offer a caffeine-free alternative. Coffee is a carbon-intensive product, generating more emissions per kg than poultry and pig meat combined. Plus, it takes 140 litres of water to produce enough beans for the average cup.

At the same time, climate change has left 60% of coffee species endangered, and the area suitable for cultivating Arabica is shrinking. Crop failures and shortages pushed up arabica prices by 80% last year, with wholesale prices reaching a nearly 50-year high. That has continued in 2025 – this February, coffee futures in New York hit an all-time high of $4.34 per pound.

By its own calculations, Prefer’s product has an estimated carbon footprint 10 times smaller than conventional coffee, no doubt helped by the fact that it’s made from food industry sidestreams.

“Our current lineup includes soluble coffee powder, roasted and ground coffee, concentrates, and a ready-to-drink iced oat latte. As of today, Prefer is stocked in 75 locations across Singapore, and we’re actively expanding into new markets,” says Berber. The brand is on track to cross 100 points of sale by year-end.

“Additionally, we’ve signed $15M in non-binding offtake agreements with B2B partners, including FMCGs, ingredient manufacturers, and coffee chains. We’re scaling up production to meet this demand.”

The firm raised $2M last year to fund a larger-scale pilot facility. “Melvados first reached out to us about a year ago. At the time, we weren’t quite ready, as they required halal certification and the ability to scale production to meet their needs,” reveals Berber. Prefer has since secured the certification and built out the facility.

“Over the next 12 months, we have ambitious goals to scale to a 500-tonne annual capacity through toll manufacturing and partnerships with major food companies across the region,” he adds. “We’re focused on scaling production and rolling out improved product formats for B2B applications. Our business model is becoming clearer, with two primary paths: supplying our ingredients or licensing our IP.”

In January, the startup added beanless chocolate to its portfolio, tackling another high-carbon industry marred by the climate crisis. “Development is progressing well. Our cocoa-free chocolate is built on the same fermentation platform, working with the same customers and following the same commercial model,” says Berber. “We’ll be sharing more publicly this quarter as we approach launch.”

Fura’s New Age Sando, featuring Prefer’s bean-free coffee | Courtesy: Kahying

Prefer’s beanless coffee is part of another future-forward ice cream, in the form of a menu item at sustainable eatery Fura. Here, it was paired with an apricot kernel ice cream, raspberry crisps, and marigold in a dish titled the New Age Sando.

It isn’t the only brand to feature its bean-free coffee in an ice cream product. Atomo’s 50/50 blend is paired with Hello! I’m Ugly’s dried apricots and nectarines in a Coffee and Stone Fruit Marmalade flavour by US creamery Salt & Straw.

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July 3, 2025

Is Denmark’s EU Presidency A New Dawn for the Plant-Based Transition?

6 Mins Read
As Denmark kicks off its EU Council presidency, it is spearheading efforts to shift the bloc towards a plant-based food system.

For years now, diplomacy has thwarted the EU’s climate ambitions, whether that’s to do with redirecting agricultural subsidies towards low-emission foods, or creating a framework to aid protein diversification.

But change is afoot, and Denmark’s turn to take the rotating presidency of the European Council could serve as the much-needed reset. A green economy leader, the Nordic country is leading the EU’s lawmaking arm until the end of the year, and has laid out a plan to move the region’s food system in a future-friendly direction.

As part of its climate strategy, Denmark had promoted meat reduction in favour of plants in its updated dietary guidelines and established a $96M fund to advance the plant-based sector back in 2021, and became the first country to create a national plan for plant-based foods two years later.

These measures were followed by the landmark Green Deal in 2024, which convened government and industry groups to impose the world’s first carbon tax on meat and dairy farming, devise a $6B plan to buy land from farmers and convert it into forest, and add another $60M to the plant-based fund until 2030 (which could potentially reach $142M).

While Denmark was leading the way, the EU had been facing calls to set out its own plant-based strategy and encourage protein diversification. It caused controversy and the likelihood of such a plan being formalised remained uncertain, until now.

“European protein supply is vital for the development of plant-based foods, raw materials for the livestock sector, and the diversification of supply sources. It is also an important element in the transition towards a more sustainable food system,” reads Denmark’s programme for the presidency.

“The presidency will focus on the potential of a common EU action plan for plant-based foods and a common EU protein strategy,” it adds.

Denmark’s presidency could unlock EU’s plant-based ambitions

Courtesy: Dimarik/Getty Image, Alessandro0770/Getty Images, Canva AI | Composite by Green Queen

Agriculture is responsible for 11% of the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions, and 81-86% of these come from livestock. That’s despite animal-based foods only providing 35% of calories and 65% of proteins in the region. The European Environment Agency has suggested alternative proteins (which include plant-based foods) are inevitable for safeguarding food security in the EU.

In last year’s Strategic Dialogue on the Future of EU Agriculture report, stakeholders – from farmer lobby groups to climate activists – advised the EU Commission to transition to a more sustainable agrifood sector and create an EU-wide action plan for plant-based foods.

That call was backed by doctors, consumer groups and food industry giants, but the Commission’s agrifood vision, unveiled in February, ignored it. Experts labelled it as “the death” of its Farm to Fork strategy, the failure to deliver on which has led to heavy criticism.

Soon after, though, Christophe Hansen, the agricultural commissioner, pledged to create a protein diversification strategy to address the EU’s protein supply challenges. With Denmark at the Council’s helm, that effort could finally come to fruition.

It will draw inspiration from Denmark’s own plant-based strategy, and be supported by two events this autumn. The presidency will host a conference on plant-based foods in September, as well as a Plant Food Summit for “policy inspiration” a month later.

“Denmark is the country with the largest animal production per capita in the world. Yet, the country has successfully adopted groundbreaking policies paving the way for more plant-based foods,” the summit’s website reads. “The Plant Food Summit is integrating this very focus in all of its programme in the hopes to share valuable experiences for stakeholders across the European continent to be inspired from.”

The Danish presidency will also address the EU’s Common Agriculture Policy (CAP), 82% of whose subsidies go towards livestock farming. In fact, meat and dairy production receives four times more EU money than plant-based agriculture.

“The future CAP must support rural development, organic farming, generational renewal, and animal welfare, while ensuring greater coherence with sectoral legislation, including climate and environmental regulations,” its programme states.

Danish groups support presidency with diplomacy effort

Courtesy: _Wohtek_/Instagram

Advancing Denmark’s advocacy for sustainable food systems is a new coalition of trade groups and non-profits, which aims to inspire the EU and its member states to “pursue ambitious political action, building on the Danish action plan and its accompanying funding”.

“We clearly see how political initiatives and targeted business support can generate growth and innovation in the sector. The Danish action plan and the state fund of 1.3 billion kroner have given our members a significant boost – support we would also like to see across the rest of Europe,” said Stella Staunstrup, secretary general of the Plant-Based Business Association.

The organisation has joined forces with the Vegetarian Society of Denmark, the Danish Food and Drink Federation, the Danish Chamber of Commerce, the Danish Agriculture & Food Council and others to kickstart what they call “Danish Plant-Based Diplomacy”.

The initiative will promote active dialogue across Europe, with a focus on sending small Danish delegations to parliaments and embassies and participating in networking events and roundtable discussions. The hope is to create business opportunities and the right framework to shape the future of food.

“We see Danish Plant-Based Diplomacy as a strong platform for developing plant-based production while also supporting the continued green transition of animal-based agriculture. In a world where demand for nutritious and sustainably produced food is growing, this is not a matter of either-or, but of both-and,” explained Christian Høegh-Andersen, vice chair of the Danish Agriculture & Food Council.

A blueprint for a plant-based food system

Courtesy: Nicolas Tucat/AFP

Last month, over 70 civil society organisations unveiled a blueprint at the EU Parliament outlining measures to unlock the full potential of the plant-based value chain. They called on the EU to include plant-based food in national CAP plans, reward environmental achievements, and facilitate financial access for farmers.

The EU Commission was asked to update public procurement rules and the school scheme to include healthy plant-based products, and encourage member states to align their dietary guidelines with both health and sustainability aspects. Greater investment in R&D and policies to incentivise greater accessibility and affordability of plant-based foods were also key recommendations.

“Increasing the consumption and production of plant-based foods is part of the solution to many challenges the EU agrifood sector faces, including health, biodiversity, climate and food security – in line with the EU’s One Health approach,” the document stated.

“At the same time, innovating and investing in plant-based foods could position the EU as a global leader in competitive, resilient, and sustainable agrifood systems and provide opportunities for European farmers, businesses and SMEs.”

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July 2, 2025

Future Food Quick Bites: Protein Coffee, Beyond Meat x Lacrosse & Plant-Based Pakistan

5 Mins Read
Our weekly column rounds up the latest sustainable food innovation news. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers Chike Nutrition’s plant protein coffees, a sunflower seed meat alternative, and US physicians’ letter to the government.

New products and launches

US protein beverage powder maker Chike Nutrition has introduced plant-based Toasted Coconut Mocha and Salted Caramel Latte. The two drinks contain 20g of pea and pumpkin seed protein, two shots of espresso and 3g of sugar per 34g serving; they will roll out on its website on July 15 and at Whole Foods Market in September.

Courtesy: Chike Nutrition/Nadiya Senko

US plant-based company Before the Butcher has debuted VegBurg, a line of whole-food veggie burgers designed for foodservice and at-home cooking enthusiasts, combining lentils, zucchini, carrots, quinoa, mushrooms, and more.

Californian frozen food startup Hey!Hunger has unveiled Indian-inspired Tikka Patties made from whole foods and free from isolates, gums and preservatives. The clean-label plant-based product is available at Good Earth, Berkeley Bowl, Rainbow Market, Woodlands, and over 30 independent stores in the state.

Meanwhile, Beyond Meat has become the official Plant-Based Protein Partner of the Premier Lacrosse League, with its products being integrated into team meals and player nutrition programmes across all eight clubs.

Vegan cheese pioneer Miyoko’s Creamery has launched a meltable Oat Milk Taco Blend Seasoned Shreds SKU. It’s available at Erewhon, Nugget Market, Hy-Vee and National Co+op Grocers stores nationwide for $6.99 per 7oz bag.

Courtesy: Daiya/Gulnar/Green Queen

Elsewhere in the plant-based cheese world, Canadian firm Daiya has added Chipotle Cheddar Shreds and Pepper Jack Slices to its oat milk cheese lineup, which can be found at retailers across the US.

Meanwhile, Canadian vegan fast-food chain Odd Burger has teamed up with retailer Vegan Supply to expand the distribution of its CPG line. These products will now be available at all Vegan Supply stores across British Columbia.

Courtesy: Odd Burger

Certification body V-Label LATAM has released Todo Vegan, an iOS and Android app to help users in Latin America search for vegan-certified products more easily and conveniently.

In the UK, Papa Johns has introduced a new vegan pizza with French plant-based pork brand La Vie. It features vegan ham, jackfruit pepperoni, and non-dairy cheese from Scotland’s Sheese, and costs £12 for a large option.

Courtesy: Papa Johns

Irish brand The Happy Pear has gained a listing at UK online grocer Ocado, which will now stock both chilled and ambient offerings, like hummus, tapenade, dip and snack pots, pesto and granola.

Indian online grocer Country Delight has expanded into the plant-based realm with an oat milk targeted at health-conscious Indians. It’s available in 400ml packs for ₹40 ($0.47).

Courtesy: Jacked Nutrition

In Pakistan, Jacked Nutrition has introduced a vegan brown rice protein powder with 24g of protein and 2g of fibre per 30g scoop. It’s available in chocolate and vanilla flavours.

Company and finance updates

Protein Industries Canada, in collaboration with NRGene Canada, Pulse Genetics, Hensall Co-op, and Yumasoy Foods Ltd, has committed $4.3M to bolster the national specialty soybean market and support the development of plant-based foods.

In Germany, Planet A Foods, the company behind ChoViva cocoa-free chocolate, has been named as a finalist for the prestigious entrepreneurial award, Deutscher Gründerpreis 2025.

Courtesy: Planet A Foods

Planet A Foods has also been recognised as a Rising Star at Manager Magazin and Bain & Company’s Game Changer Award 2025.

In Portugal, four major Lisbon hospitals have committed to offering more plant-based options under ProVeg Portugal‘s Sustainable Meals programme.

Luxembourg-based molecular farming firm Moolec Science has secured a US patent for its Piggy Sooy technology, which produces pork protein directly within soy seeds.

Policy and research developments

Over 130 physicians have penned an open letter to the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Department of Agriculture (USDA), urging the government to prioritise the consumption of legumes as a protein source in the upcoming national dietary guidelines.

Courtesy: Bold Bean Co

The UK’s Food Standards Agency has created a Business Support Service to help companies looking to file regulatory applications for cultivated meat, in its latest move to advance novel food regulation.

Over 60% of Hong Kong’s leading restaurant groups have committed to ending the use of caged eggs across all global operations, according to analysis by non-profit the Lever Foundation.

Courtesy: Luc Vietanh Soto/10 Billion Solutions

The International Institute of Refrigeration has urged all countries to establish National Refrigeration Committees to tackle food security, public health, energy use, and sustainability challenges.

Researchers from Brazil’s Institute of Food Technology and the University of Campinas have worked with Germany’s Fraunhofer IVV Institute to develop a sunflower-seed-based meat alternative.

Courtesy: Unicamp

In a redux of the conversation sparked by The Game Changers documentary, a new study has found that whole-food plant-based diets could lower the risk of erectile dysfunction, compared to animal-based and processed diets.

Finally, another study has revealed that healthy plant-based foods are linked to better heart health, but unhealthy ones are not.

Check out last week’s Future Food Quick Bites.

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This post was originally published on Green Queen.
June 30, 2025

Could the EU’s Biotech Act Finally Break the Novel Food Approval Deadlock?

5 Mins Read
In a potentially big win for cultivated meat and precision fermentation, the EU is set to publish a document outlining its push to overhaul and fast-track novel food approval.

Novel food approval could receive a boost under a new legislation proposed by the European Commission, helping the region catch up with regulators in the US and Asia.

The executive arm of the EU is set to unveil a draft of its Life Sciences Strategy on Wednesday (July 2), which will contain details of how the upcoming Biotech Act will seek to modernise the bloc’s novel food regulation, as reported by Euractiv.

“The Commission will propose a Biotech Act to make the EU regulatory system more conducive to biotech innovation in various sectors such as health and food; and will facilitate and accelerate the approval procedures for Novel Foods,” the document reads.

It would prove a major win for stakeholders in the alternative protein and future food industry, who have long called for an overhaul of the EU’s novel food framework.

EU pinpoints precision fermentation amid need for public education

Courtesy: Formo

Current EU law considers any food that wasn’t consumed to a significant degree before May 1997 a novel ingredient. This includes everything from cultivated beef and precision-fermented dairy to UV-treated vegetables and certain algae-based foods.

It has already approved over 200 novel food products, and many others are waiting in the wings for the go-ahead.

The Biotech Act was first announced by Margrethe Vestager, executive VP of the EU Commission, last year, with its final publication slated for 2026. Its aim is to drive economic development via high-value job creation and greater investment, ultimately enhancing the region’s global competitiveness.

Moreover, the EU hopes to meet its environmental goals and boost food security by promoting sustainable agriculture and developing bio-based products through the act. In a briefing released last month, the European Parliamentary Research Service explained how public acceptance of novel foods and GMOs remains a “major challenge” that can “polarise opinion”.

“Effective communication with the public could emphasise that biotechnology is already integrated in daily life, with many products relying on biotech processes or components, and to already very good results – not only in healthcare, but also in areas such as soil protection, energy, fertilisers, and combating water pollution, etc.,” it said.

The current regulatory process to approve novel foods, run by the European Food Safety Authority, is too stringent and long, “hindering uptake and competitiveness” in the sector, the EU Commission argues in the draft.

One of the technologies name-checked as having transformative potential for the food industry is precision fermentation, which combines traditional fermentation with the latest biotech advances to produce proteins, fats and other compounds. It enables companies to create bioidentical dairy, egg and other proteins, sans the animal.

The EU Commission is planning the launch of an annual Food Fermentation Conference, which would connect industry stakeholders and bolster support for this technology.

Cultivated meat and Impossible Foods’ struggles reflect the complicated EU novel food landscape

Courtesy: Sherry Hack

The EU’s regulatory framework for novel foods is amongst the world’s most rigorous, with the complexity and timelines driving many homegrown companies to look to other markets first. For example, Dutch cultivated pork startup Meatable is targeting Singapore as its debut market, as is France’s Vital Meat. Meanwhile, precision fermentation firms Vivici, Onego Bio and 21st.Bio have all focused on the US.

Despite changes by the EFSA hinting at a shift towards an easier pathway to file for approval, the current deadlock has come to the benefit of non-EU countries in Europe. The UK began shifting away from its pre-Brexit regulations last year and is now working with several companies to fast-track approval – it has already received applications from European startups Vital Meat, Mosa Meat, and Gourmey.

In addition, the latter two startups have filed dossiers in Switzerland (and are the only ones to have applied for EU approval too). Even companies from outside Europe, like Aleph Farms, have targeted the UK and Switzerland first.

It’s not just new products untested in the market – even established ones that have found success elsewhere have struggled to get into the EU. Impossible Foods is a prime example here. While the company sells plant-based meat in the US, Canada, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand, its use of soy leghemoglobin – a precision-fermented heme protein – has kept its signature alt beef lineup out of Europe for almost a decade.

The company first filed for approval of the ingredient in March 2021. Last year, the EFSA Panel on Food Additives and Flavourings issued a positive safety assessment of LegH Prep, a liquid preparation containing soy leghemoglobin and other ingredients.

Courtesy: Impossible Foods

This was followed by a ruling by the regulator’s GMO panel, calling soy leghemoglobin “safe for human consumption with regard to the effects of the genetic modification”. The EFSA’s opinion was then followed by a period of public consultation ahead of final approval by the EU Commission and member states. Then, in February of this year, the EFSA stated that the public comments didn’t raise any further concerns, moving Impossible Foods an inch closer to the green light.

In an interview at the Bloomberg Sustainable Business Summit in London this month, Impossible Foods CEO Peter McGuinness called the regulatory process in the EU (and the UK) “on the slow side”.

“That’s a double-edged sword,” he said. “When it comes to food and the health of people and the planet, the government should have a keen interest in that… The flip side of that is we’ve been trying for four years to get Impossible in [Europe], and we’re still not there yet. But we’re waiting patiently impatiently.”

The Biotech Act, therefore, will be keenly watched by industry leaders. It could usher in some long-awaited changes to position the EU, already a leader in R&D funding for alternative proteins, as a future food leader.

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June 30, 2025

British Startup Multus Taps AI & Automation to Create Serum-Free Media for Cultivated Meat

4 Mins Read
UK firm Multus Biotechnology has unveiled an animal-free media formulation for cultivated meat, allowing companies to eliminate serum from their products.

To ease ethical concerns, optimise production and lower costs, British company Multus Biotechnology has developed an animal-free culture medium to replace fetal bovine serum (FBS) for cultivated meat.

Animal serum contains high amounts of protein, alongside growth factors, hormones, antioxidants, lipids, and other components that replicate a fetal-like state for cell proliferation. It has been used as a key component in cell culture for decades.

The problem? It can contain unknown amounts of thousands of different components and poses the threat of antibacterial contamination. It’s also in short supply and thus highly expensive, and has sparked ethical concerns about the use of fetal animals to produce cultivated meat.

Over the years, many companies have moved away from cultivated meat to use animal-component-free (ACF) media formulations for production. Multus’s latest innovation, developed with the help of artificial intelligence (AI), adds to the list of solutions for producers in this space.

How Multus uses AI to develop serum replacements

Courtesy: Multus Biotechnology

The new serum replacement has been described as the first commercially available ACF media formulation for porcine adipose-derived stem cells. These are multipotent cells that differentiate into fat, bone and cartilage, which makes them valuable for a variety of applications, from food production to regenerative medicine.

Titled Proliferum P, the ACF formulation is said to match or outperform the functionality of FBS, while maintaining critical stemness characteristics and adipogenic differentiation capacity.

Traditionally, media development is expensive, labour-intensive, and slow – it can take two to four years to develop FBS alternatives, which delays product roadmaps. Multus uses AI and automation to speed things up, creating machine learning models and integrating them with high-throughput lab automation systems.

It uses machine learning to screen dozens of potential ingredients for each cell to figure out the specific formulation, and automate media preparation, cell culturing, data collection, and data analysis.

“We’ve built a process that not only accelerates the media development process, but also customises it to specific cell types,” said Soraya Padilla, project lead for Proliferum P.

The technology helped Multus develop Proliferum P in less than six months, while optimising for cost, cell growth and functional performance. This was faster than Proliferum B, a serum replacement for bovine fibroblasts that was created in nine months.

Proliferum P is said to be quality-controlled and scalable, and is available for testing and evaluation by companies working with porcine ASCs to create food and healthcare products.

Serum-free media becoming the norm for cultivated meat

Courtesy: Multus Biotechnology

Multus, which has raised over $14M to date, said the launch represented a “breakthrough in both development speed and performance”, and showcased its platform’s ability to deliver optimal formulations for diverse cell types.

“Our platform doesn’t just allow us to match industry standards – it ensures we continuously raise the bar,” said co-founder and CEO Cai Linton. “With Proliferum P, we’re delivering a superior product to FBS while demonstrating how AI and automation, in the hands of our experienced scientists, can transform biotechnology development timelines.”

It marks the firm’s third product launch in six months. In May, it introduced its food-grade basal media, developed in tandem with global food and feed ingredient companies.

Multus is working with bioprocess optimisation firm New Wave Biotech to create more affordable inputs for cultivated meat makers, as well as with Quest Meat to develop a cell culture ingredients platform as part of a £1M project co-funded by the UK government. And last year, it opened a food-safe media manufacturing facility that can support 500 tonnes of cultivated meat per year.

Efforts to eliminate FBS from cultivated meat production have been growing. Dutch firm Mosa Meat is a pioneer in this space, having removed animal serum from its products in 2019 and later making its serum-free formulation open-source.

Elsewhere, Japanese startup IntegriCulture developed cultivated chicken and duck liver cells using a serum-free medium, and South Korea’s CellMeat and Simple Planet have created serum-free cell culture media too. Meanwhile, Eat Just’s Good Meat won regulatory approval for its serum-free media in Singapore back in 2023.

By replacing animal serum in its cultivated pork production tech, US startup Clever Carnivore has achieved industry-leading media costs of $0.07 per litre. A 2023 industry survey by the Good Food Institute showed the benefits of eliminating ASF formulations, with 74% of companies reporting identical or better results after establishing a cell line in serum-free conditions.

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June 30, 2025

Gen Z Growing Appetite for Meat Extends to Cultivated Proteins Too, More So Than Other Age Groups

5 Mins Read
While young men are driving the rise in meat consumption in the UK, they’re also more open to cultivated meat than other demographics.

Two in five young men in the UK are eating more meat than they did last year, and 83% of them don’t feel comfortable eating plants in public.

New research shows that this group is also the most likely to think that cultivated meat should be available for sale, demonstrating that their affection for meat isn’t limited to conventional options. That said, their opinion is still split – 44% of men are in favour of these proteins entering the market and 43% are against.

In contrast, only 28% of women are supportive of this, versus 51% who aren’t. Meanwhile, half of Brits aged 16-34 are in favour, and this receptiveness declines with age – only 26% of people between 55 and 75 want to see cultivated meat on the market.

The 1,100-person survey was carried out by Ipsos Observer UK this month and reveals the underlying trends informing sustainable food consumption in the country.

The results chime with another survey by YouGov last year, which found that men and people aged 18-24 (36% each) are much more likely than women (16%) and Brits aged 50 and above (18%) to try cultivated meat.

Cultivated meat is more popular among youth, but there’s a lack of awareness

Willingness to try cultivated meat in the UK | Courtesy: Ipsos

What would Brits do if cultivated meat became available? Nearly a third (32%) say they are open to eating it, though a much larger share (56%) is against. Gen Z is the only group where the willingness to try these products (cited by 47%) is higher than the reluctance (43%).

Cultivated meat becomes less popular with age in terms of potential consumption too – 39% of millennials say they’d eat it, versus only 21% of Gen Xers and 22% of boomers.

The results show that UK attitudes towards cultivated meat haven’t changed. A 2022 survey by the government found that a third of its citizens were willing to try these proteins, a year before they were approved for sale anywhere in the world.

This can be interpreted in two ways – enthusiasm for cultivated meat hasn’t waned, and it hasn’t magnified either. In fact, it remains low, with more people opposed to its sale and consumption than not.

One possible reason is simply a lack of awareness. Less than one-sixth of respondents to Ipsos’s survey said they knew “a great deal” or “a fair amount” about these proteins. More concerningly, a third have never heard of it, and a quarter are aware of it but know nothing about it.

It highlights the importance of marketing campaigns by businesses and the government to help familiarise the public with cultivated meat, which experts say will be a crucial cog in the future of the food system and help the UK meet its climate goals.

“With limited knowledge about cultivated, or ‘lab-grown’ meat, there is a chance for producers to shape perceptions before it’s done for them,” said Peter Cooper, director of global Omnibus services at Ipsos.

Animal welfare benefits are popular amid health concerns

Drivers of interest in cultivated meat in the UK | Courtesy: Ipsos

While the UK became the first European country to approve the sale of cultivated meat last year, this was for a pet food product. Four companies are awaiting the green light for human food, and the government has set up an initiative to fast-track approval.

Ipsos’s new research underscores “a genuine potential growth market for cultivated meat in Britain, in particular among younger people”, according to Cooper.

The thing that draws most Brits to cultivated meat is the fact that it doesn’t involve raising and slaughtering animals – a third of respondents feel this is the main benefit. For 20%, cultivated meat reduces the risk of zoonotic diseases, and a similar number of consumers are attracted by the climate benefits, agreeing that it generates fewer emissions and takes up less land than livestock farming.

“That being said, consumers do still have some concerns, in particular around the unclear long-term health impacts of cultivated meat. This will need to be addressed for perceived environmental upsides to be realised,” Cooper said.

Indeed, Brits do feel strongly about the perceived health implications of cultivated meat. Nearly half (48%) feel the impact of long-term consumption is unclear, and 42% say it isn’t a natural food source, a nod to the discourse around ultra-processed food.

Barriers to cultivated meat consumption in the UK | Courtesy: Ipsos

Around a quarter, meanwhile, are concerned about the high price and the potential negative impacts on farming – although several cultivated meat startups have made major strides in cost reductions lately (including one based in the UK), and British farmers recognise the opportunities presented by these proteins, finding the climate change and global market volatility a much bigger threat.

There was one more interesting finding from the Ipsos survey, specifically from omnivores who say they’ll eat cultivated meat in the future. Assuming it becomes widely available and cost-competitive, more than half (52%) say it will replace at least half of their meat consumption.

Only 9% said it wouldn’t substitute their conventional meat intake, outlining these proteins’ true potential for dietary change.

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June 27, 2025

Brazil’s Future Cow Raises R$4.85M to Scale Up Animal-Free Dairy Proteins Via Fermentation

5 Mins Read
São Paulo-based precision fermentation startup Future Cow has secured R$4.85M ($885,000) in equity and public funding to expand its platform for animal-free whey and casein proteins.

Future Cow, a Brazilian precision fermentation firm producing recombinant dairy proteins, has raised R$4.85M ($885,00) in new funding to scale up its technology and begin licensing it to companies.

The funds are a combination of crowdfunding and public investment. The startup attracted R$1.27M from 145 crowd investors on Captable in January, which was short of its initial target. But it has since secured additional financing from the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) and Brazilian research agency EMBRAPII, part of the National Center for Research in Energy and Materials (CNPEM).

It takes the company’s total raised past $1.2M, including the $150,000 it raised as part of São Paulo’s Antler residency programme, and the $200,000 invested by Big Idea Ventures through its New Protein Fund II.

The startup will use the fresh capital to advance its R&D efforts to optimise production and increase efficiency, with the aim of reaching commercial scale in 2026.

Future Cow tests scale-up under state-backed accelerator

Courtesy: Future Cow

Founded in 2023 by Leonardo Vieira and Rosana Goldbeck, Future Cow is one of Brazil’s only startups using precision fermentation to create next-generation proteins.

The technology combines traditional fermentation with the latest advancements in biotech to efficiently produce a compound of interest, such as a protein or a fat. It involves identifying the genetic sequence in the animal’s DNA to ‘instruct’ a microbial host to produce recombinant proteins.

Future Cow uses a digitalised blueprint of cow DNA to grow proteins through yeast, which is fed on agricultural byproducts and multiplies in fermentation tanks. The resulting liquid is filtered and dried to extract the bioidentical milk proteins.

The startup is working on producing both casein and whey (including the iron-regulation bovine lactoferrin protein), enabling it to reach a wider consumer base for a range of applications.

It already has a functional yeast strain and is now looking to increase its production yields. “The more the strain produces, the more the unit price falls. So we’re optimizing the fermentation processes,” Vieira, who is the company’s CEO, told the FAPESP last month.

Future Cow’s techno-economic analysis shows that producing precision-fermented milk proteins on a 300,000-litre scale will be less expensive than conventional methods, though there’s some way to go before it reaches industrial manufacturing levels.

It has previously carried out a proof of concept in 15-litre tanks, and has planned to test its technology in fermentation vessels with a capacity of 200, 2,000 and 5,000 litres, as a precursor to commercial-scale production.

It’s scaling the process as part of a deep tech accelerator under CNPEM. “95% of biotechs fail when they leave a bench environment and go to a pilot plant or other relevant environment,” Vieira explained. “We’re very optimistic that with the support of the CNPEM and the available infrastructure, we’ll achieve the scale-up we need for the next stage.”

CEO talks up hybrid milk and Brazil’s future food potential

Courtesy: Future Cow

Future Cow operates a B2B-focused model, positioning itself as an ingredient supplier to the dairy and food industry, instead of an end product developer. This, the company said, will help accelerate its path to market.

“As an ingredient, our product can be incorporated into existing products without facing a high entry barrier,” said Vieira. He suggested that large dairy producers can’t increase production with current production methods and raw materials, so precision fermentation is a natural evolution for their goals.

“When precision fermentation began, it was all very black or white: the product was either animal or it wasn’t animal. Now, we see more hybrid models,” he said. “If [companies] can mix our ingredient with the animal product to create a hybrid product and increase the scale, it’ll be a significant gain.”

Dairy majors have been increasingly interested in the sector. The world’s largest dairy exporter, Fonterra, was an early backer of Dutch firm Vivici, which is now cleared to sell animal-free whey proteins in the US. French dairy giant Danone, meanwhile, has set up a biotech hub with a special focus on precision fermentation, with a view to lowering its emissions.

Speaking of which, Future Cow says its milk proteins can lower emissions by 97% and water use by 99%. “Even if precision fermentation doesn’t fully replace animal milk, a 10% or 20% reduction in the carbon footprint of large corporations in the food sector would already represent a considerable environmental impact,” Vieira pointed out.

His startup has already signed MOUs with dairy and food producers, including multinationals and the national market leader. “With the funds raised, we will accelerate the development of our precision fermentation technology, optimise production and prepare for commercial scale,” he said.

To get there, though, Future Cow will require regulatory approval from the National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa). It will also need to fend off a legislative bill aimed at banning the manufacture and sale of “synthetic milk” in Brazil.

The country’s food industry is under the microscope as it prepares to host the UN’s annual climate conference this year. Its cattle industry has had a disastrous impact on Amazon deforestation, and its beef sector alone is generating more than twice the GHG limit outlined in the Paris Agreement.

Vieira believes precision fermentation is a unique opportunity for the nation. “Brazil is the only country in the world that has an abundance of water, sugar, and renewable energy, which are the three essential inputs for fermentation,” he said. “With these characteristics, Brazil can take the lead in a strategic industry for the future of global food.”

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June 27, 2025

Japanese Retailer Aeon Brings Planet A Foods’s Cocoa-Free Chocolate to Asia

3 Mins Read
Japan’s largest retailer, Aeon, has debuted a private-label biscuit SKU featuring ChoViva, a cocoa-free chocolate alternative by Planet A Foods.

After establishing a foothold in Europe and the US with some of the world’s largest chocolatiers and supermarkets, Planet A Foods has brought its cocoa-free chocolate to Asia.

The German startup has teamed up with Japanese retail giant Aeon, which has released a new biscuit using the former’s sunflower-seed-based ChoViva alternative.

Called ‘Chococa?’ (which translates to ‘Is It Chocolate?’), the new product is being rolled out under Aeon’s Topvalu own-label brand. It’s available at around 2,2000 Aeon, Aeon Style, and MaxValu stores for a limited period.

Planet A Foods goes truly global with ChoViva

Courtesy: Aeon/AviavLad/Getty Images/Green Queen

The product consists of a wheat and oat biscuit coated with Planet A Foods’s milk chocolate alternative. It contains 7.1g of sugar and 3g of fat, and each 143g pack contains 12 pieces and costs 398 yen ($2.75).

To make its beanless chocolate, Planet A Foods puts a base of sunflower seeds through a proprietary fermentation process. This is then roasted to bring out a similar aroma, flavour and texture to cocoa, and mixed with sugar and plant-based fats to create a mass similar to cocoa.

ChoViva can be used as a 1:1 replacement for conventional chocolate or in hybrid formulations. Since entering the market in 2024, it has featured in over 60 products in over 42,000 points of sale in seven countries: Germany, the UK, the US, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Switzerland.

The startup has partnered with the likes of Lindt, Piasten, Lambertz, Griesson-de Beukelaer, Peter Kölln, Lufthansa, Deutsche Bahn, and Seidl Confiserie, and worked with retailers such as Kaufland, Rewe (and its subsidiary Penny), Aldi, and Lidl for private-label innovations.

Planet A Foods itself is working to expand its annual production capacity from 2,000 tonnes to over 15,000 tonnes, an effort supported by a $30M Series B round in December. “Our mission remains unchanged: to provide sustainable food ingredients that are decoupled from price-volatile and limited resources such as cocoa,” co-founder and CEO Maximilian Marquart said at the time.

Japan bets on alternative cocoa

Courtesy: Planet A Foods

Speaking of which, chocolate alternatives are hot property thanks to the climate crisis. Scientists have warned that cocoa trees are threatened, and a third of them could die out by 2050, which could lead to a global chocolate shortage.

Global cocoa stocks have slumped to their lowest in a decade. Ivory Coast and Ghana – the two largest producers – are the biggest victims of extreme weather, crop diseases, and reduced plantations in favour of illegal gold mining.

All this has already caused major price hikes. In 2024, cocoa futures broke all-time records, and the cost will continue to remain high this year. That has hurt the sales of industry giants like Hershey’s, whose profit forecast for 2025 is below analysts’ expectations. Some are now turning to alternatives – Barry Callebaut, the world’s largest cocoa manufacturer, is using precision-fermented sunflower seeds for some of its offerings in Europe.

These factors are also what drove Aeon to partner with Planet A Foods. It cited tight supplies and high prices to advocate for enhanced production tech and alternative raw materials. It’s not the first to innovate with cocoa-free chocolate in Japan.

Since last year, food producer Ahjikan has been selling Govoce, which uses a sweet ingredient called MelBurd, replacing cocoa with burdock seeds. And in March, Fuji Oil introduced Anoza M, a B2B alternative made from uses pea protein, carob, and vegetable fats.

Meanwhile, Japanese chocolate major Meiji is co-developing cell-based chocolate products as part of a decade-long partnership with California Cultured, which employs plant cell culture to make bioidentical cocoa.

Others innovating in the alternative chocolate space include Compound Foods, Voyage Foods, Prefer, Foreverland, Nukoko, Endless Food Co, and Food Brewer.

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June 27, 2025

Legume is the New Coffee: Meet the Belgian Startup Making Your Latte Without the Bean

7 Mins Read
Belgian startup Koppie, which makes a single-ingredient coffee alternative using legumes, has emerged from stealth with a pre-seed funding round.

What if you could brew coffee with a different bean? Say, chickpeas? Or something more native to your region?

It’s an idea that spurred former Danone marketer Daan Raemdonck and bioscience engineer Pascal Mertens into action.

They are the co-founders of Koppie, a three-year-old Belgian startup that uses fermentation to give pulses coffee-like aromas and flavours. It has just come out of stealth mode with a pre-seed funding round led by Nucleus Capital, with participation from Mudcake, Rockstart, and several angel investors.

While the investment sum is under wraps, Raemdonck tells Green Queen that the amount was what “we wanted and feel we needed to reach our business goals”. Said goals include further enhancing the product, scaling up to commercial volumes, and landing its first customers.

The capital injection adds to the €400,000 it has secured in grants from the Flemish Institute of Innovation & Entrepreneurship. Moreover, the startup was selected as part of the EU-backed EIT Food Accelerator Network earlier this year.

Courtesy: Koppie

Why put chickpeas instead of single-origin coffee beans in your V60, you might be wondering? Well, your regular coffee bean soon may not be as regular anymore. Climate change is threatening the crop, with 60% of coffee species endangered and the area suitable for cultivating arabica shrinking.

Crop failures and shortages pushed up arabica prices by 80% last year, with wholesale prices reaching a nearly 50-year high. That has continued in 2025 – this February, coffee futures in New York hit an all-time high of $4.34 per pound.

“With yields under pressure, and prices rising, we believe novel and hybrid solutions will be essential for coffee companies looking to navigate volatile supply chains,” says Raemdonck.

How Koppie is using legumes and fermentation to futureproof coffee

A host of companies are now working to develop alternatives to coffee, from Atomo, Minus Coffee and Voyage Foods in the US to Northern Wonder in the Netherlands and Prefer in Singapore. These players use a variety of ingredients to replicate the flavour of coffee.

Koppie, however, offers a single-ingredient solution, turning locally sourced legumes into “Koppie beans” that can be ground and brewed the same way as conventional coffee. Consumer panels and specialists have validated the taste experience, with sensory coffee professionals (called Q Graders) giving it a 70/100 score, on par with commodity coffee.

“From the start, we set out to create a ‘coffee bean’, believing this would help industry and consumer adoption: just swap out coffee beans for our Koppie bean, and use it like you’re used to,” explains Raemdonck. “This, of course, significantly limited the base product options and automatically made it a single-ingredient play.”

He adds: “We then conducted a broad screening, based on numerous elements: sustainability, local harvests, known allergens, product size, as well as price. The next step was trialling it with our technology in mind, and validating the final product with taste experts. This is how we arrived at pulses and our current prototypes.

“The beauty is that our technology does the heavy lifting. Hence, we can review the above criteria depending on the region we’d be operating in.”

Courtesy: Koppie

While the details of the fermentation tech are patent-pending and thus under wraps, Mertens explains that the key lies in adjusting the pulses to such a degree that the roasting can create coffee-like flavours without any off-notes.

“The great element here is that it also allows us to be flexible depending on what flavour we want to create. Tuning the technology allows customisation for potential clients to use in their blends,” he notes.

Koppie hasn’t disclosed what microbial strain it’s using to ferment the pulses. “However, I can confirm that we’re not novel food and don’t require specific regulatory approval beyond standard food safety measurements and guarantees,” says Mertens.

But wait, what about the coffee farmers?

A common criticism of beanless coffee is the impact on farmers – the industry has 125 million people whose livelihoods depend on the crop.

“Ultimately, the value of coffee is not to produce a liquid that tastes like coffee, but what happens from the tree all the way down to the cup and what happens in between,” Elliot Bentzen, director of trade and traffic at Starbucks Coffee, told Green Queen last year. “So I don’t know if I’d ever be enamoured or thrilled or curious enough to be like: ‘Okay, some scientists boiled it down to a cup of coffee!’”

However, Bentzen acknowledged that the industry will need to adapt in the face of climate change. Alternatives like Koppie’s could be a key part of the solution.

“Farmer compensation is a massive and frankly underexposed topic. However, calling out alt-coffee as a driver feels like a red herring argument,” says Raemdonck. “We also believe the supply-demand imbalance which is coming is going to be so significant. We’re going to need all the solutions we can find to save a daily ritual for a very significant part of the global population.

“There’s a systemic issue within our food system globally, and one of those strange elements is how little farmers are benefiting from this beautiful product we all love,” notes Raemdonck, pointing to a 2021 Columbia University study that found coffee farmers earn above the poverty grade in only two of the top 10 producers, Brazil and Vietnam.

Courtesy: Anay Mridul/Green Queen

“Despite the unprecedented green coffee price points, your average farmer isn’t benefitting. This is not a ‘future issue’ – farmers not being compensated fairly is a ‘today’ issue,” he contends.

The impacts of climate change will be keenly felt by smallholders, who represent 60% of the global coffee supply. “It has so many implications for them. For sure, help will be needed to adapt and potentially diversify, simply in order to sustain their livelihoods,” he says.

Meanwhile, global demand for coffee is increasing by 2% every year. Given the supply issues, this will create a major gap, which “even in our wildest business plans, we’ll not be able to offset”. “We need more solutions to help save our ritual, not less. There will be plenty of demand to fill for people with good-tasting products, at a fair price,” says Raemdonck.

Working with the industry to produce hybrid coffee

Koppie is making a point to highlight that it is not trying to replace coffee; instead he is working with the industry to futureproof it. That’s why it is initially focusing on a B2B model, working with roasters to develop hybrid blends that combine coffee beans with its legume-based replicas.

“We’re seeing significant traction by coffee companies and manufacturers of coffee-derived products, who understand that the future will hold significant supply challenges. We’ve also found that our product, when blended with coffee, not only fits perfectly, but has the potential to uplift and improve the final product due to the slightly sweeter, less bitter profile,” says Raemdonck.

“The vast majority of these companies are looking to blend, as this makes consumer adoption easier and is closer to their own core and capabilities, just like we’re seeing happening in meat and dairy at the moment,” he adds. “This doesn’t mean we wouldn’t want to sell under our own brand at some point in time. However, that’s not the case currently.”

Courtesy: Koppie

Its debut product is likely to come from either chickpeas or yellow peas. “We’re looking to be ready for commercial volumes by end of year, hoping to conduct a market test by the middle of next year,” he says. “Of course, that depends on the timeline of our first customers.”

In fact, Koppie is aiming to reach commercial scale by the end of 2025, which will enable one or two relevant in-market tests.

“We believe we can be cost-competitive to coffee, now and in the future,” reveals Mertens. “Of course, time will tell what happens to the coffee price in the coming months and years. That’s perhaps the key here: we can guarantee a good, stable product at stable prices, something elusive in coffee at the moment.”

Coffee is a carbon-intensive product, generating more emissions per kg than poultry and pig meat combined. Plus, it takes 140 litres of water to produce enough beans for the average cup of coffee. Koppie’s alternative, however, is estimated to have a 70% lower carbon footprint, and use 60% less land and 90% less water.

This opens up the potential for innovative coffee products tailored to specific audiences. “Think lighter roasts, or blends which are naturally lower in caffeine,” says Raemdonck. “We’re taking a forward-looking category vision to secure the future of a beautiful daily ritual for many.”

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