Californian vegan pet food leader Wild Earth has rolled out its first product for cats, a “nutritionally complete” Unicorn Pate.
Wild Earth has entered the cat food sector with Unicorn Pate, a plant-based, nutritionally complete wet food product built on research proving that felines can be healthy on a vegan diet.
Made from a base of lentils, potatoes, sweet potatoes, peas, carrots, microalgae and cranberries, the new pâté contains all the ingredients essential to cats, including taurine and vitamins A and B12. It has a crude protein content of 8.5%, 4% fat and 1.5% fibre.
The 5.5oz cans are now available on Wild Earth’s website, with a pack of 12 priced at $60 (a subscription brings the cost down by 30%).
“Our team is incredibly proud to launch a new category leader that we hope will catalyse change in the entire pet food industry,” said Wild Earth co-founder and CEO Ryan Bethencourt.
“Nutritionally complete vegan cat food has been a long time coming, and we’re very thankful to be able to launch a whole new category of products which we think will transform both cat nutrition and help make space for a kinder world for all animals.”
Transforming health and ‘pawprints’
Courtesy: Wild Earth
Bethencourt first hinted at a cat food product in January, when he tweeted: “People aren’t ready for us to turn carnivore cats vegan but I’m going to do it.”
He alluded to it in an interview with Green Queen earlier this year too: “One of our guiding principles at Wild Earth is to be bold and push the pet industry to change. We did this when we launched our plant-based dog food, treats and supplements, we’re doing that again with our vegan cat products.”
The result is the Unicorn Pate, which is formulated to meet the nutritional requirements of the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO), a non-profit organisation that sets the safety and quality standards for pet food in the US.
It contains omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, promotes skin and coat health, supports digestion, and is associated with lower greenhouse gas emissions, water consumption and land use than conventional cat food.
“Our launch of Unicorn Pate, which helps accelerate a whole new category of vegan cat food products, represents a huge step forward in our mission to transform the pet food industry for our pets, other animals, and the planet,” said Bethencourt.
“Today our pets account for 25-30% of the meat we consume in the US unnecessarily. With Wild Earth’s industry-leading vegan dog and cat products, we can transform both their health with plant-based diets and their global pawprint.”
Wild Earth expects meat industry pushback
Courtesy: Wild Earth
Wild Earth’s Unicorn Pate was inspired by research from University of Winchester professor Andrew Knight, who has led a number of studies on vegan pet food over the years.
Last year, he authored a study finding that a plant-based diet could be healthier for cats than a meat-heavy one. Knight surveyed over 1,300 cat owners, 9% of whom fed their pets a vegan diet. His research suggested that 37% of vegan cats experienced one of 22 examined health disorders, versus 42% of felines that ate meat.
Of the 22 disorders, 15 were most common in meat-eating cats, and seven in those consuming plant-based foods. When fed a vegan diet, the number of health disorders per unwell cat decreased by 16%, visits to the vet dropped by 7%, medication use was down by 15%, and 23% fewer cats had severe illnesses.
While most differences were not statistically significant, the plant-based cats scored higher on all health indicators, a marker that even these obligate carnivores can thrive on vegan diets. It fuels Wild Earth’s mission to “put plant-based diets as a first choice for consumers vs the last choice when their pets have struggled with other meat-based diets”.
Bethencourt acknowledged that the Unicorn Pate would receive some backlash. “We know and expect aggressive resistance from the meat industry on the launch of this industry-pioneering vegan cat food,” he said. “But we know there are a lot of cat parents looking for healthier plant-based and more sustainable options, and we want to be the leader in providing them with that choice.”
Wild Earth – which shot to fame after Bethencourt grabbed a deal from Mark Cuban on Shark Tank – is also working on cultivated meat for pets. Last month, fellow Californian startup Friends & Family Pet Food Co. announced it was partnering with SIngapore’s Umami Bioworks to produce cultivated seafood treats for cats, aiming for regulatory approval in the coming months and an early 2025 launch.
British tofu brand The Tofoo Co has been taken over by private equity firm Comitis Capital after sustained growth in a faltering meat-free market.
The Tofoo Co has been acquired by German private equity firm Comitis Capital, which has taken a majority stake in the business, while the previous Japanese investor has exited
Co-founders David Knibb and Lydia Smith will continue as investors in the business and steer its next stage of growth in the UK and international markets.
“The Tofoo Co has plans to grow further – both with existing and new customers and channels – and needed a strong and proactive partner to help that growth journey,” said Smith. “Comitis is a great fit as that partner for this next chapter of Tofoo Co’s growth journey.”
“David and Lydia have built a remarkable enterprise that is ready for the next phase of growth. The Tofoo Co represents a great addition to our portfolio, covering the thriving plant-based food market,” said Comitis Capital managing partner Nikolaus Bethlen.
The acquisition comes after The Tofoo Co had enlisted Piper Sandler to conduct an auction process for the Yorkshire-based business in April.
“We chose Comitis as our partner to enter a new era of rapid expansion,” explained Knibbs. “Their deep understanding of our business model and entrepreneurial thinking has left us convinced that they are the right choice to bring The Tofoo Co to the next level.”
The Tofoo Co rides against the tide
Courtesy: The Tofoo Co
Smith and Knibbs established The Tofoo Co in 2016 and capitalised on the rising interest in vegan food in the UK. Its products are stocked at every major retailer in the UK, and are used by foodservice giants like Starbucks, Holiday Inn, Wagamama and Itsu.
The company soon branched out into tempeh, before rolling out seitan SKUs (in partnership with UK restaurant Temple of Seitan) and a line of burgers earlier this year.
These innovations have helped the brand continue to build momentum, driving revenue growth despite a decline in the overall meat-free sector. Last year, sales of meatless brands plunged by £38.4M, with volume down 4%. In contrast, revenue for The Tofoo Co (which also owns the Clearspot tofu brand) was up by 10% in 2023, reaching £20M, while volumes rose by 4%. Gross profit also swelled by 30%.
Despite the meat-free industry penetrating fewer UK households last year (27.5%), the tofu category expanded its presence to 8.7% of households. According to the company’s annual accounts, this was largely driven by The Tofoo Co brand, which alone saw sales grow by 14% (excluding Clearspot) – the Naked 280g SKU is the top-selling tofu product nationwide.
One factor that can be attributed to its success – as the company alludes to – is the negative press around the category’s connection to ultra-processed foods. As Brits look to eat more natural foods, businesses like The Tofoo Co – which accounts for 62% of the UK tofu market – are likely to thrive.
New products and foodservice expansion on the cards
Courtesy: The Tofoo Co
“The Tofoo Co has firmly established itself as a leader in the plant-based meat alternatives market with a strong brand image offering high-quality products,” said Comitis Capital’s Bethlen.
The company has now overtaken Cauldron as the second-largest meat-free brand in the UK (with 10.5% of market share), behind only Quorn.
Following the acquisition, it is aiming for significant growth with new and existing customers, banking on product development and an expanded presence in foodservice (which still makes up a small share of its business).
“There will be increased demand for tofu products in the coming years, following increased awareness of both more natural, healthier and environmentally friendly diets and products,” Knibbs said in the company’s annual filing.
“We are thrilled to collaborate with visionary entrepreneurs who are eager to foster growth, and the team at The Tofoo Co perfectly embody this spirit,” said Comitis Capital investment associate Felix Jauch.
He added: “Together, we share a unified vision of propelling The Tofoo Co into a leading position in the international plant-based meat alternatives market. With our investment, expertise, and extensive network, we are committed to fueling the company’s dynamic expansion plan.”
A majority of UK residents would support a tax on companies that make ultra-processed food. With rising costs for the NHS, it’s important to note vegan food can be the solution, not the problem.
As ultra-processed foods (UPFs) continue to creep into consciousness and our bodies, consumers in the UK are calling for government action to combat the country’s obesity issue.
A new 2,136-person survey by Ipsos for the UK’s Health Foundation has found that 53% of Brits are in favour of a tax on companies that produce UPFs, if some of the revenue is directed to funding fresh fruits and vegetables for low-income families.
Similarly, 58% support a tax on foods that are high in sugar and salt, as long as some of the revenue helps provide fresh produce to low-income households.
In the UK alone, UPFs make up 57% of an average person’s diet, and up to 80% when it comes to children or people with lower incomes. Likewise, around two-thirds of calories consumed by adolescent Brits come from UPFs.
One in three children in Britain are overweight or living with obesity by the time they leave primary school, while over a third are at risk of developing a food-related illness in the future. Meanwhile, 95% are exceeding the daily recommended amount of sugar, and 66% are doing so for salt. And only 9% aren’t eating enough fruits and vegetables.
The new Labour government has promised to clamp down on obesity by banning junk food ads on TV before 9pm (something 61% of the survey’s respondents support) and the sale of energy drinks to people under 16.
Whether it enforces a tax on UPFs – a la the soft drinks levy introduced by the Conservatives in 2018 – remains to be seen. But the conversation around UPFs needs to be more nuanced, especially when you consider plant-based food, which can help the cash-strapped National Health Service (NHS) tremendously.
The problem with linking UPFs, nutrition and plant-based meat
Courtesy: Springer
A quick recap: UPFs are part of the Nova classification, which categorises food into four subgroups, based on the amount of processing (it has nothing to do with the nutrition aspect of a food). UPFs are at the bottom rung of the ladder, comprising industrial formulations and techniques like extrusion or pre-frying, and cosmetic substances like high-fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils
Broadly speaking, this can include anything from ice creams, cereals and flavoured yoghurts to hot dogs, fizzy drinks, and plant-based meats.
But the conversation around veganism and its link to UPFs has been at best unfair, and at worst dangerous. Many have misinterpreted the idea that just because a food is ultra-processed, it’s unhealthy. A swathe of media outlets have taken that cue to denounce meat analogues, something that heightened after a recent study by the São Paulo University and Imperial College London.
The researchers labelled UPFs as a cause of heart disease, and headline writers jumped on the fact that this analysis included vegan meat analogues – notwithstanding the fact that these only made up 0.2% of the foods in the study, or that these were products that existed in 2010. In reality, the UPFs that were linked to cardiovascular disease were packaged breads, cakes, and biscuits.
Courtesy: Impossible Foods
One widely cited review linked UPFs to 32 harmful health effects. But many other UPFs, like cereals, dark or whole-grain bread, packaged sweet and savoury snacks, fruit-based products, and yoghurt and dairy-based desserts were inversely associated with ill health in the same study. Most of these products are technically plant-based.
These studies highlighted a key fallacy of the UPF nutrition debate. What really classifies as UPFs? According to the Imperial College/São Paulo research, beer, wine, pasta, cereals, table sugar and cheese were all non-UPFs, but tofu – made in a similar manner to many cheeses – somehow was deemed ultra-processed.
Marlana Malerich, co-founder at the Rooted Research Collective and a food systems researcher with expertise in UPF, told Green Queen in June that even experts disagree on the Nova system: “A study found only around 30% agreement on the placement of foods within Nova categories among food experts, suggesting the food categorisations used across studies almost certainly use different criteria for different foodstuffs.”
Plant-based foods can benefit the NHS
Courtesy: Planted
It is true that many UPFs aren’t good for you. I don’t think any manufacturer of a mass-produced cola drink or ice cream would disagree with that.
This is why Dr Chris van Tulleken, author of Ultra-Processed People – the book that amplified the conversation around UPFs last year – said a blanket tax on UPFs would be wrong and harmful. “We can regulate individual products much more effectively,” he told the Guardian. “The companies that make UPFs privatise the benefits and externalise all these costs so whether we like it or not, we will have to pick up the bill.”
Another organisation burdened with a huge bill is the NHS, which spends £98B a year on obesity, including £6.5B on treating illnesses associated with being overweight, like heart disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes and joint problems.
Research by the UK’s Office of Health Economics has estimated that if England were to adopt a completely plant-based diet, the NHS would see a net benefit of up to £18.8B a year. The health service has embraced meat analogues, partnering with Quorn – whose products are technically UPFs, but nowhere near as bad for you as processed and red meat, which have been classed as carcinogens by the WHO – for blended burgers and sausages.
Courtesy: Department of Health and Social Care
One modelling study, meanwhile, shows that a ‘plant-based by default’ approach could save the NHS £74M annually, with significant household savings too if patients are supported in making dietary shifts.
And 35% of Brits would support the NHS going fully vegan, though the same number are okay with patients being served processed meat. This highlights the conundrum: there’s a lot of paradoxical information, and consumers are understandably confused.
A quarter (24%) of respondents to the Health Foundation survey are against a UPF tax. A levy on these foods will have its advantages, but as van Tulleken suggested, it will only work if individual products are taxed.
Coke is plant-based. So is an apple. They’re not the same thing.
Norway is the latest European country to advocate for a plant-forward diet in its national dietary guidelines – but its recommended meat intake is still high, since it doesn’t factor in climate impact.
In a year when Austria and Germany have already updated their food-based dietary guidelines to promote a predominantly plant-based diet, Norway has become the latest to join the bandwagon.
The Nordic country has cut its recommended amount of red meat consumption by 30%, from 500g to 350g per week. And instead of advising Norwegians to only opt for lean meat or fish instead, the Norwegian Directorate for Health now endorses plant proteins and meat analogues too.
“Feel free to choose legumes such as beans, lentils and peas for dinner at least once a week, and as a side dish or spread,” the new guidelines read. “Processed legume products such as vegetarian burgers, sausages and falafel should contain little salt and fat.”
And crucially, the health directorate suggests that “a healthy and varied vegetarian or vegan diet that covers energy needs will also contain sufficient protein”.
Norway endorses plant proteins and dairy analogues
Courtesy: Planti
“A healthy and varied diet can be put together in many ways and adapted to different cultures, traditions and ways of life. The most important thing is that it is varied and consists mostly of food from the plant kingdom,” the guidelines note.
This includes foods like vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans, lentils, peas and nuts. Just like its counterparts in Germany and Austria, the Norwegian Directorate for Health proposes a ‘plate model’ with 50% fruits and vegetables, and 25% carbohydrates and proteins each.
“To eat more plant-based, beans, lentils and peas can easily replace all or some of the meat in dishes such as stews, soups, meat mixes, lasagne or tacos,” the new guidelines say. “Use beans, lentils and peas and their products, such as hummus, bean and lentil paste, tofu and other soy products in salads, or as a topping.”
The recommendations note how legumes contain dietary fibre, protein, iron, zinc and other nutrients, and a high intake can protect against cancer and reduce mortality: “In a vegetarian or vegan diet, beans, lentils, peas, nuts and seeds will be good sources of protein and other nutrients.”
And while the previous version didn’t mention dairy alternatives, the updated edition states that “plant-based drinks can contribute many of the same nutrients”, and recommends choosing products that have added calcium, iodine, riboflavin and vitamin B12.
Moreover, Norwegians are advised to choose unsaturated vegetable oils and soft margarine instead of butter, hard margarine and tropical oils like coconut and palm, as well as eat 20-30g of unsalted nuts every day.
Ignoring environmental impact a big miss amid high climate denial
The Norwegian food-based dietary guidelines recognise that red meat consumption is linked with increased risks of colon and rectal cancer: “Both a high intake of red meat and a high intake of processed meat are among the four highest diet-related risk factors for the burden of disease in the Nordic and Baltic countries.”
But the recommended amount of 350g per week is still much higher than what’s stipulated in the EAT-Lancet Commission’s Planetary Health Diet, which is associated with a 30% lower risk of death from all causes and a 17% reduction in global food emissions. It suggests limiting red meat to just 98g a week, 72% less than Norway’s latest guidelines.
This is because the Norwegian Directorate for Health is solely focusing on nutrition and health, instead of also taking climate impacts into account – something that both Germany and especially Austria have done.
This is a surprising contrast to the 2023 Nordic Nutrition Recommendations – a joint dietary guideline for the Nordic nations – which integrate environmental aspects to align with the Nordic Vision to “be the most sustainable and integrated region” globally by 2030.
The collaborative Nordic advice promotes a predominantly plant-based diet rich in produce, berries, legumes, and whole grains. “We cannot, and will not, turn a blind eye to the scientific evidence of how our consumption impacts our planet,” the guideline states.
Courtesy: Yale Program on Climate Change Communication
Ignoring the planetary impact of the food system – where meat and dairy make up 57% of emissions, twice as much as plant-based foods – is concerning for a country where climate denial is high. A study published in 2018 suggested that 36% of the population think climate change is a hoax. Despite the crisis worsening since then, these sentiments are still high, with recent analysis of a 2023 survey suggesting that 27% of Norwegians are either doubtful or dismissive of climate change.
So while the inclusion of plant proteins and meat and dairy analogues is a good first step, a lot more needs to be done to account for climate change in Norway’s dietary guidelines.
Following the Planetary Health Diet, which is rich in plant-based food and contains minimal animal proteins, can bring about a major shift in our carbon footprint.
Replacing red meat with nuts and legumes as part of a plant-forward diet can bring about a major shift in the food system’s climate footprint, a new multi-university study has found.
If everyone adopted the the EAT-Lancet Commission’s Planetary Health Diet – which advocates for more plants and whole foods, and less meat and dairy – decrease greenhouse gas emissions by a sixth.
Designed in 2019 as a way to feed 10 billion people and keep the planet healthy by 2050, the Planetary Health Diet recommends that fruits and vegetables should make up over half of people’s diets. As for the rest, more than a third should come from whole grains, plant proteins and plant oils, while dairy products and meat and seafood should make up only 3.6% each.
“The shifts of chief protein sources from animal-based to plant-based proteins according to the Planetary Health Diet would contribute the most to changes in footprints globally,” the researchers write.
In the study published in Nature Climate Change, scientists highlight the inequality of our protein consumption and its associated climate impacts. Consumers in rich countries cause more emissions thanks to higher red meat and dairy intake, but they display lower levels of inequality compared to low-income nations, whose diets produce fewer emissions.
The research found that nearly 57% of the world’s population is overconsuming protein, but if this group of people adopted the Planetary Health Diet, it would bring about a 32.4% reduction in emissions. This offsets the 15.4% rise in dietary emissions that will come from a shift to healthy diets by underconsuming populations, resulting in a 17% decrease overall.
“We should look to reduce overconsumption of emission-intensive products in affluent countries, such as beef in Australia and the US, especially for wealthy consumer groups who are overconsuming, which would help to achieve significant health and climate benefits,” said corresponding author Yuli Shan, who noted that “animal-based products show greater potential for reducing emissions”.
The regional disparities in meat consumption and emissions
Courtesy: Nature Climate Change
The study assessed the “unequal distribution” of dietary emissions from 140 food products in 139 countries or regions. It suggests that animal proteins account for 52% of dietary emissions, compared to 48% for plant-based products (in contrast with previous research that puts the former at 57%, the latter at 29%, with the rest ascribed to other land uses like cotton or rubber cultivation).
However, the gulf between their contribution to dietary consumption is vast, with plant-based foods supplying 87% of the world’s calories. Red meat is the most polluting food group, amounting to 29% of agricultural emissions but only 5% of its calories. Similarly, dairy contributes to 19% of emissions, but just 5% of calories as well.
Grains make up 21% of dietary emissions, but crucially, also provide 29% of global calories, highlighting the gap in efficiency between plant and animal proteins.
This is especially prevalent in high-income countries like Australia (where 84% of emissions come from meat and dairy) and the US (71%), despite animal foods contributing to less than a quarter of calories. Inversely, a majority of emissions in regions like Southeast Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and Indonesia come from plant-based foods, albeit they’re also the source for most of their calories.
The researchers explain that in countries like Mongolia, where diets rely on red meat and dairy due to traditional nomadic lifestyles, such shifts may not be feasible. Instead, such areas could benefit from enhanced nutritional education.
For various reasons, many low-income countries can’t afford to move away from meat currently, so the biggest responsibility lies on developed nations, who are also the largest polluters. “Low-income countries face greater challenges in reaching healthier diets, with more than 1.5 billion low-income populations worldwide unable to afford the cost of the Planetary Health Diet,” says corresponding author Klaus Hubacek.
Courtesy: Nature Climate Change
“Diet shifts need increased food consumption, but Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as South and Southeast Asia, have experienced stagnating agriculture production efficiency for decades and cannot produce nor afford to import the required food,” he explains.
“Agricultural efficiency must increase through various measures such as crop and soil management techniques and introduction of high-yielding crop varieties. But the proportions of nutrient-rich products in food imports must increase – alongside a reduction in restrictive trade policies which tend to raise food prices.”
Red meat the largest driver of livestock emissions
Lead author Yanxian Li says the objective of the study was to “assess the potential implications of emission mitigation of the food system resulting from changing consumer choices instead of forcing everyone to adopt the same diet”.
The suggested dietary shifts would mean a drastic change in the global calorie supply, with red meat slashed by 91%, all sugars by 72%, tubers by 76%, and grains by 50%. Meanwhile, consumption of legumes and nuts would need to be increased by 438%, added fats by 62%, and vegetables and fruits by 28%.
The proposed cuts in meat, eggs and fish consumption would lead to a reduction of 2.05 gigatonnes of CO2e – that’s more than the emissions of Indonesia, Germany and Canada combined. And 94% of this is driven by red meat. China is the largest contributor to dietary emissions (13.5%) – thanks to its large population and meat consumption – and it would also see the largest emissions cuts from red meat reduction (22%). This is followed by the US (15%) and Brazil (14%).
Overall, Uzbekistan (-74%), Australia (-70%), Qatar (-67%), Turkey (-65%) and Tajikistan (-64%) would benefit from the biggest decreases in dietary emissions, while Iraq would witness the largest increase (155%) if the world adopts the Planetary Health Diet.
Courtesy: Nature Climate Change
As Hubacek alluded to, high costs remain the largest barrier for people in low-income countries to choose this diet. This is why these shifts “require tailored policies targeted at regions, countries, expenditure groups and products instead of ‘one-size-fits-all’ policies”.
In less affluent nations, policy efforts should focus on pricing interventions and technical assistance to reduce food costs and make it more accessible.
The study chimes with previous research extolling the climate credentials of plant-based food too. One analysis shows that vegan diets cut emissions, after pollution and land use by 75%, while another has found that replacing even 50% of meat with plant-based analogues can double climate benefits and halt deforestation.
In our weekly column, we round up the latest news and developments in the alternative protein and sustainable food industry. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers Chloe Coscarelli’s comeback to the restaurant world, vegan hits at UK airports, and Canada’s plant-based egg labelling guidelines.
New products and launches
Vegan chef Chloe Coscarelli has opened eponymous restaurant Chloe on New York City’s Bleecker Street (to rave reviews), eight years after she was ousted from her first restaurant chain, By Chloe.
Courtesy: Chloe
On the other coast, vegan seafood company Impact Food served its sushi-grade tuna in nachos and a rice bowl by the Da Poke Man food truck at the Outside Lands music festival last weekend.
If you’re a fan of the adult party game Cards Against Humanity, vegan gaming company This Is Not A Game has released a vegan-focused version called Plants Against Veganity. There’s apparently a Monopoly-style game in the works too.
Courtesy: This Is Not A Game
Israeli alt-seafood player Oshi has partnered with Lewis Hamilton-backed vegan chain Neat, which has added three dishes using the former’s vegan salmon. It comes shortly after the startup relocated production to California, spotting a bigger market for its vegan fish in the US.
US airline JetBlue has launched Lakeland Dairies‘ Milk in a Stick Oat Milk, a plant-based creamer for the in-flight Dunkin’ coffee and tea offerings.
Alt-dairy giant Califia Farms has announced its fall and winter lineups: the former features pumpkin spice barista oat milk, caramel apple crumble oat creamer, and maple waffle almond creamer; and the latter has a holiday blend black iced coffee, holiday nog, and peppermint mocha almond latte. These and other flavours are rolling out across grocery stores now.
Courtesy: Califia Farms
Blue Zones Kitchen – the company based on the world’s blue zones highlighted in Netflix’s Live to 100 – has rolled out its debut breakfast product line. The vegan, gluten-free, steel-cut oatmeal SKUs come in blueberry-walnut and peach-pecan flavours, and can be found at Whole Foods stores nationwide.
Fast-casual chain Veggie Grill has debuted its largest menu update since being acquired by Next Level Burger in January. New items include quinoa-mushroom burgers, crispy chicken sandwiches, and an avocado Cobb salad with tempeh bacon.
Courtesy: Veggie Grill
In the UK, VBites owner Heather Mills is sponsoring The Big Green Clash, an eco-focused rugby match between Richmond Rugby Club and the all-vegan Green Gazelles Rugby Club at London’s Richmond Athletic Ground on September 8.
Meanwhile, bottled oat milk maker Oato has launched a Caffè Latte variant exclusively for British milk round Modern Milkman, with notes of caramel and vanilla, 7g of sugar per 100ml, and a price tag of £1.50 per pint.
Courtesy: Oato
And restaurant chain Wagamama, which aims to make half its menu plant-based by 2025, has introduced a vegan brunch menu at 22 locations across the UK. A national rollout will follow soon.
Financial updates
Australian precision fermentation startup Cauldron has been awarded an A$4.3M ($2.8M) grant by the Department of Industry, Science and Resources Industry Growth Program to scale up its manufacturing platform for high-value ingredients.
Brazilian mycoprotein producerTypcal has received R$250,000 ($45,000) in grant funding from the government’s Paraná Anjo Inovador programme.
Courtesy: Typcal
In South Korea, meat-producer-turned-vegan-startup Sujis Link has secured a ₩3B ($2.5M) investment from Samyang Foods, as part of a collaboration to advance the country’s plant-based sector.
Since last summer, sales of vegan breakfasts and brunches have hiked by over 20% at Manchester, Stansted and East Midlands airports in the UK.
Policy and research developments
In Chile, the agricultural committee has passed a bill that would see plant-based meat, dairy and egg products as “simulated food”. The proposed legislation is now being debated in the Chamber of Deputies.
Canada is developing guidance on the labelling of plant-based egg products, in what it says is an effort to help companies avoid being ‘misleading’ and comply with regulations. The proposed guidance is predictable.
Courtesy: Veronika Dvorakova
Speaking of Canada, cellular agriculture platform Cult Food Science‘s subsidiary Further Foods has submitted a design protocol for feeding trials of its cultivated pet food, which it aims to launch under its Noochies! brand. As we reported last month, the goal is to receive US regulatory approval and sell cultivated chicken in early 2025.
University of Georgia startup CytoNest has introduced an edible 3D fibre scaffold for cultivated meat and seafood, which is made from Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) materials.
Courtesy: Lauren Corcino
Finally, in the UK, West Yorkshire’s Calderdale Council is the latest to go vegan, having approved the proposal to only serve plant-based food at future meetings and catered events.
Building on its impressive foodservice record, Impossible Foods will open its first pop-up restaurant in Chicago, showcasing its plant-based meat products across a range of dishes.
Impossible Foods is opening a new pop-up restaurant in Chicago’s XMarket Food Hall tomorrow, a first for the plant-based meat maker.
Titled Impossible Quality Meats, the foodservice concept will spotlight the company’s vegan beef, chicken and pork products in a variety of dishes. The idea is to call attention to its expansive foodservice footprint (it is available in over 45,000 locations in the US alone) and showcase the versatility of its plant-based meat range, which has now been on the market for eight years.
“Impossible began as a foodservice brand, launching our flagship beef product in 2016 with some of the best restaurants in America,” said Impossible Foods CEO Peter McGuinness. “It’s been a natural evolution for us to create our own branded dining experience to showcase our delicious food.”
What’s on the many at the Impossible Quality Meats pop-up?
Courtesy: Impossible Foods
Impossible Quality Meats will be open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 8pm, and run throughout fall 2024. It has been leased through PlantX Life Inc., whose parent company Veg House is managing the pop-up.
“With Impossible Quality Meats, we wanted to offer diners a fun way to experience our food. From breakfast to lunch to dinner, we leaned into classic craveable dishes people love,” said McGuinness. “Choosing meat from plants shouldn’t feel like a compromise. It’s great-tasting food, plain and simple.”
The menu contains small plates like Asian-style meatballs in hoisin-lime sauce, Italian meatball sliders, nachos with Impossible Beef or Chicken and a Cheez Whiz-style vegan alternative, beef chilli, as well as chilli cheese fries.
Visitors can also choose grilled chicken Caesar (with vegan parmesan), crispy southwest chicken or Asian-style chicken as part of a salad or wrap.
And on the bun menu, there’s a choice of a breakfast sandwich (with sausage and a vegan egg), a classic Impossible Burger, a smash burger, a bratwurst, an Impossible Hot Dog, and a chilli dog. In addition, the pop-up restaurant will also have rotating burger and hot dog specials.
The Impossible Nuggets are served with fries (which can be subbed for onion rings if you pay extra) and a choice from nine sauces.
And while the company may have stopped working on Impossible Milk, that doesn’t mean Chicago residents wouldn’t get dessert at the pop-up. The brand has partnered with Oatly, the world’s largest oat milk player, whose ice creams will be available in vanilla, chocolate and swirl options.
Impossible Foods is hosting a launch party on Saturday, August 17 at the XMarket Food Hall, when locals would be able to sample Impossible Hot Dogs, Burgers and Oatly Soft Serve for free.
Impossible Foods highlights record amid faltering industry sales
Courtesy: Impossible Foods
The development is a marker of Impossible Foods’s reputation as a foodservice mainstay. The company claims to be the leading plant-based brand in this channel in the US, and has long-standing partnerships with American chef David Chang and his Momofuku restaurant group (going back eight years), Bareburger (seven years), White Castle (six years), Starbucks (five years), and Disneyland (four years). And just last week, it completed five years of the Impossible Whopper at Burger King.
In addition to the Impossible Quality Meats pop-up, visitors of Xmarket Food Hall can also buy retail products like its plant-based beef, hot dogs, and chicken nuggets at the PlantX Bodega. It follows the brand’s entry into Whole Foods Market nationwide, which is a sign of its strong retail performance – Impossible Beef is the top-selling plant-based beef in the US across both retail and foodservice, while the vegan meatballs and nuggets are the bestsellers in their respective categories too.
In the US, Impossible Foods is the leader in refrigerated meat analogue sales, making up 9% of the market, according to Bloomberg. However, this segment witnessed a 21% drop in volume 19% decline in dollar sales in the 52 weeks ending May 19, 2024, data by Circana shows. Analysts ascribe this to high prices, unsatisfactory taste and texture, and concerns about ingredients.
Impossible Foods has already been leaning on its taste-first messaging since the identity and packaging refresh in March (with a heavier focus on health too), while it claims to have cut prices by 20% since early 2023.
At the pop-up, prices for dishes with Impossible Foods range from $7.99 for the hot dog to $12.99 for the nachos, chilli-cheese fries, meatball sliders, salads and wraps. Meanwhile, a single-patty Impossible Burger – topped with lettuce, onion, tomato, pickles, and special sauce – will set you back $9.99.
Nutritionist slams ‘unhealthy’ claims about plant-based meat
“The idea that all plant-based meats are categorically unhealthier than animal-based meats is scientifically unfounded. In fact, many plant-based options, like those from Impossible Foods, outperform animal meat in terms of key nutrients like cholesterol, trans fat, and saturated fat,” Kaytee Hadley, a registered dietitian and health and nutrition ambassador of Impossible Foods, told Green Queen.
“Most Americans do not consume enough plants or fibre, and Impossible products contain high-quality plant-based ingredients that contain important nutrients including fibre, iron and potassium,” she added. “Any one food in and of itself will not meet a human’s nutritional needs on its own because people need to eat a diversity of foods and nutrients, but in the context of a balanced diet, plant-based meats, like Impossible, can be a great addition.”
Hadley suggested that basing a food’s nutritional value on the number of ingredients is an “outdated and highly simplistic approach” view of nutrition. “Many foods are enriched with vitamins and minerals (for example, baby food, cereal, and white rice). Does this addition make a food less nutritious? The obvious answer is no.
“When you look more closely at the actual ingredients, processing methods, and nutritional profile of plant-based meats, it’s easy to see that these products are not all necessarily ‘less healthy than animal proteins’.”
Almost three-quarters of scientists around the world either follow mostly meat-free diets or are willing to go vegan/vegetarian out of concern for the climate, a new survey has found.
Nearly all global scientists (96%) believe climate change is caused by humans, 83% of whom are worried “quite a bit” or “a great deal” by the crisis, according to a large-scale survey led by the University of Amsterdam.
Researchers polled 9,220 academics from 115 countries from a variety of disciplines and across all career stages. Concern for the climate crisis has prompted a majority of them to change their lifestyles and engage in advocacy, with many willing to do so in the future.
Published in the Nature Climate Change journal, the study found that 39% of scientists follow a mostly plant-based diet, while another 32% indicated a willingness to give up meat, highlighting how academics are concerned about the impact of animal agriculture on the planet.
Livestock farming is responsible for up to 20% of total greenhouse gas emissions, 10 times more than the aviation sector. The overall food system, meanwhile, accounts for a third of emissions, 60% of which comes from producing meat.
Scientists and climate experts have hailed vegan diets as a highly effective way to reduce consumption-related emissions. One study has found that going vegan cuts emissions, water pollution and land use by 75%, while another has suggested that even replacing 50% of meat intake with plant-based analogues has the potential to double climate benefits and halt deforestation.
“Climate change is an existential threat to humanity,” said study lead Fabian Dablander. “To secure a liveable future, each of us needs to ask ourselves: how can I best contribute at this crucial moment in human history?”
Personal behaviours – not tech – will solve climate change, say scientists
Courtesy: Nature Climate Change
Most of the scientists surveyed (84%) think significant changes in personal behaviour and lifestyle are needed to tackle the climate crisis. But only a quarter (27%) believe technological advancements will “largely solve climate change” – in fact, 44% disagree.
Apart from eating more plant-based and less meat, there are several other shifts these academics have made to have a tangible impact on curbing global warming. These include reducing the use of cars (a change made by 69% of scientists), flying less (51%), increasing energy efficiency at home or shifting to renewable energy (46%), and having fewer children (36%).
Of the scientists who haven’t made these changes, there was a broad willingness to do so, especially in terms of embracing green energy (52%), cutting back on flying (34%), and using cars less (25%).
The research also found that 68% of academics feel an individual responsibility to help reduce climate change, and 51% say scientists should get more involved in advocacy.
Many have already engaged in activism, by talking more about climate change (78%), donating to relevant organisations (31%), and participating in legal protests (23%). However, they are divided over whether engaging in legal protests diminishes scientists’ credibility – while 35% believe this is not the case, 42% are unsure.
What it will take for scientists to become climate advocates
Courtesy: Elmar Gubisch
The researchers looked at what prompted scientists to engage in climate advocacy and protests, finding several intellectual and practical barriers hindering them from doing so.
The intellectual hurdles include low levels of knowledge or worry about climate change, doubts about the effectiveness of activism, and believing that isn’t scientists’ role to protest. Ideological and strategic disagreements with activists were also key issues.
In terms of practical barriers, scientists fear a loss of credibility, a perception of having an unsuitable personality, and repercussions of protesting. They also cited not having an activist in their inner circle and a lack of skill for advocacy as factors that keep them away from engaging in such activities.
To be willing to engage, the study suggests academics need to overcome mostly the intellectual barriers. But to actually engage, institutional reform is recommended – think more time, funding and support for scientists to engage with society, and normalising or rewarding climate action. this could also help reduce academics’ carbon footprint, if norms around travel and event organisations are changed.
Most of the survey’s respondents (91%) agreed that fundamental changes are required in the world’s social, political and economic systems to truly tackle climate change.
“Governments and corporations continue to make empty promises that downplay the level of transformation that is required to prevent climate breakdown,’ said Adam Aron, a co-author of the study.
“This study makes clear that scientists from all disciplines are very worried and are calling for this fundamental transformation. I hope it helps wake people up and get engaged – more and more scientists are.”
The research comes a few months after a survey of 380 climate scientists – all part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – found that only 6% believe we’ll meet our 1.5°C goal, with more experts feeling we’ll breach postindustrial temperatures of 4°C by 2100.
Californian startup Plonts has emerged from stealth with a $12M funding round, launching its fermented soy milk cheese at restaurants in New York City and San Francisco.
Cheese is not a dairy product; it is a microbial product – and Plonts wants you to know that.
Formerly known as Tezza Foods, the Oakland-based startup uses microbial fermentation to turn soy milk into “stinky” vegan cheese. Armed with a $12M seed investment round, it is introducing its first product – an aged Cheddar – at select bicoastal restaurants in the US.
The financing was led by Lowercarbon Capital, with participation from Litani Ventures, Accelr8, Pillar, Ponderosa Ventures, and several angel investors. It was accompanied by the opening of a pilot plant in Oakland.
The company was founded in 2019 by co-CEOs Nathaniel Chu, who has a PhD in the gut microbiome, and Josh Moser, whose background lies in venture capital. Chu tapped into his microbial expertise to create fermented foods from plants, and began experimenting with vegan cheese in the corner of a pizza restaurant.
Now, the Plonts Cheddar – currently sold in loafs to restaurants – is coming to the menus of Court Street Grocers and S&P Lunch in New York City, Shuggie’s and Moongate Lounge in San Francisco, and Lovely’s in Oakland, appearing in grilled cheeses, pizza puffs and burgers.
All about efficiency
Courtesy: Erin Ng
Plonts’ ‘microbes, not dairy’ mantra for cheese is rooted in the fact that it uses traditional cheesemaking processes, but eschewing cow’s milk with soybeans, one of the most efficient protein sources with a digestibility score equal to animal proteins.
It is far from the only company using centuries-old processes in a novel way to make climate-friendly cheese – Miyoko’s Creamery is a pioneer in this space (it uses cashews), Daiya recently began doing the same with oats, and Climax Foods is an up-and-comer championing pumpkin and hemp seeds and lima beans.
But Plonts is betting on soybeans. Soy, along with corn, is a commodity crops, and is a major driver of deforestation in the Amazon. However, globally, 77% of all soy is grown to feed cattle being raised for meat and dairy.
“It can take eight pounds of corn and soy to make one gallon of milk, and… 10 pounds of corn and soy blend to make one pound of beef,” Mark Shepard, founder and farmer at New Forest Farm, said in the 2024 documentary Feeding Tomorrow. “And so that’s really stupid. Because we could grow 90% less corn and beans if we didn’t feed it to animals.”
Plonts echoes this sentiment, explaining on its website: “The big problem with corn and soy is that they aren’t that tasty. So we use cows to convert that corn and soy into something we actually want to eat: beef and cheese.”
Courtesy: Erin Ng
The startup is also banking on soy’s sustainability aspects when compared to animal proteins. “The entire world’s protein needs could be met by a soybean farm the size of 1% of global habitable land, or less than eight times the size of Iowa,” it states. “Satisfying this need with cheese would require 120% of global habitable land, or a farm covering the entire continents of Asia, Africa, North America, South America, and Europe.”
Plonts adds: “To do this with beef alone, we’d need 955% of habitable land or nine more planets. What’s more, soy and many other plants don’t emit methane and require less water, machinery, fertilisers and pesticides. It’s vastly more efficient to grow a pound of soybeans than to grow 10 pounds of soybeans, feed them to a cow, and get a pound of beef or cheese.”
A Cheddar that takes less Chedda’
Just like fermentation originally transformed “cheap but not particularly tasty ingredients like milk and wheat into delicacies like cheese and beer”, the startup is making use of “the most sustainable, inexpensive plants available” and introducing them to microbes that make them more delicious.
“Our searches may result in familiar foods from unfamiliar ingredients (e.g., cheese made from cheap plants) or entirely new categories of fermented products. In this way, we’re not trying to imitate beef and dairy. We are discovering the delicious potential of what plants and microbes can be,” says Plonts.
Cheese, one of the most famous fermented foods, is known for its funky, sharp flavours, which the startup ascribes to the metabolism of microbes, instead of milk. Some companies – like Perfect Day, Formo and New Culture, to name a few – are using precision fermentation to recreate bioidentical dairy proteins for more realistic animal-free cheese.
But this is expensive, and scaling up is a major challenge. Soy, on the other hand, is cheap and easy to scale, and Plonts looks to take advantage of that by “biochemically and physically manipulating” the ingredient to replicate the stretch and melt so important to many cheeses.
Courtesy: Erin Ng
However, Plonts is entering a crowded category with multifaceted challenges. Between 2021 and 2023, only four plant-based segments witnessed sales declines in the US – vegan cheese was one of them, dipping by 5.4%. Plant-based cheese has only penetrated 7% of American homes, with less than half (49%) buying it more than once.
How does Plonts – whose name has already spawned some detractors – aim to differentiate itself from the growing number of brands selling vegan cheese? By harnessing microbes, the company claims it can lower costs to less than half of dairy cheese “something that cannot be said for cheese made with nuts or engineered proteins”.
It may seem like a bit of a stretch, but that’s the idea.
In our weekly column, we round up the latest news and developments in the alternative protein and sustainable food industry. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers Mr. Charlie’s new vegan cheeseburger, Califia Farms’ acquisition of Uproot, and a raft of EU investments into alternative proteins.
New products and launches
Vegan fast food chain Mr. Charlie’s – dubbed the plant-based McDonald’s – has introduced the Mr. Royale with Cheese, a burger featuring the non-dairy Cultured Cheddar slices by Stockeld Dreamery. The menu item is available at its Los Angeles and San Francisco locations.
Courtesy: Mr. Charlie’s
AI-powered protein discovery startup Shiru has collaborated with Ajinomoto Health & Nutrition to develop and commercialise sweet proteins for use in beverages and specialty products.
Pinky Cole has opened the second location of Bar Vegan – the sister establishment of Slutty Vegan – at 706 Grayson Highway in Lawrenceville, Georgia.
German ingredients company Loryma has developed three wheat-based solutions for specific fat applications to bolster the processing, textural and nutritional benefits of meat analogues.
Also in Germany, poultry giant PHW Group – known for its Wiesenhof brand – is entering the traditional and precision fermentation space with a new subsidiary this year, which will develop ingredients for alternative protein and blended products.
Courtesy: Redefine Meat
Israel’s Redefine Meat is continuing to expand its retail presence in Europe, gaining listings for its 3D-printed meat analogues with Coop in Switzerland, Jumbo in the Netherlands, Velivery in Germany, and Monoprix in France.
As part of the state-funded Singapore Agri-food Innovation Lab, the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) has partnered with global food giant Bunge. The latter will supply soybean, canola and sunflower fats, plus oilseed meal and cake for NTU to produce alternative protein flavours using fermentation.
Courtesy: Nanyang Technological University
And in Vietnam, Hanoi-based FPT Software has signed an MoU with the Green Tuesday Initiative to reduce its food-related carbon footprint via sustainable food policies.
Finance and business updates
In Poland, the science and education ministry’s National Center for Research and Development has invested $2.29M in Warsaw-based cultivated chicken startup LabFarm. It will use the funding to expand production, develop proprietary growth media, create products, and expand its team.
Meanwhile, Sweden’s Millow – maker of minimally processed oat- and mycelium-based meat analogues – has received a €2.4M ($2.6M) grant from the European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator and up to €15M ($16.3M) in equity funding from the EIC Fund. The startup, which has already developed multiple products with large manufacturers, will use the capital to scale up production.
On similar lines, Dutch palm oil alternative producer NoPalm Ingredients has secured €2.5M ($2.7M) in funding, along with potential equity investment, from the EIC Accelerator. It follows a €5M ($5.4M) seed investment round in July.
Courtesy: NoPalm Ingredients
Canadian cellular agriculture platform Cult Food Science‘s portfolio company Jellatech, which is making bioidentical collagen, has joined the Bezos Earth Fund‘s $30M Center for Sustainable Protein at North Carolina State University.
Cult Food Science is also about to close a $3.3M fundraise to commercialise its Noochies! cultivated pet treats. The company will soon begin feeding trials to receive regulatory approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Courtesy: Uproot
US plant-based milk leader Califia Farms has acquired New York startup Uproot, which makes alt-milk dispensers. The latter’s team will join Califia Farms, which aims to expand its foodservice offerings.
AI-powered vegan travel app Vegius has initiated a crowdfunding campaign on Wefunder with a target of $120,000 to fuel its global expansion. It currently lists accommodations in 30+ countries and donates half its revenue to the 125 animal sanctuaries it has partnered with.
Research and awards
A new psychology study on US and German consumers tests the Moral Foundations Theory on cultivated meat, revealing that people who say living a natural life is morally important to them are more likely to reject these proteins, while the idea of harm doesn’t have any consistent correlations.
In the UK, a new study by The Vegan Society has found that 41% of men are interested in veganism, but health concerns and unsupportive friends are the major barriers to the lifestyle.
Courtesy: THIS/Green Queen
The Vegan Society has also supported a legal case by two students from the National Major University of San Marcos in Peru, who are asking the university to recognise veganism as a protected belief and offer suitable plant-based meal options.
UK plant-based meat startup THIS has received 10 stars from the Great Taste Awards across five of its products, with its lamb kebabs earning the maximum three stars.
Another recopient of the Great Taste Awards is vegan cheesemaker Julienne Bruno, whose ricotta-style Crematta has received two stars and burrata alternative Burrella has gained one.
Courtesy: Dr Foods
Finally, Japanese startups Next Meats and its subsidiary Dr Foods were finalists in the cultivated meat category of this year’s FoodNiche Summit at Cornell Tech University, where they presented vegan foie gras, caviar and truffle butter with the aim to find local distribution in New York.
Hong Kong épée fencer Vivian Kong Man Wai won gold at the Olympics and took home HK$6M ($770,000), the highest prize money at Paris 2024.
A lot has been made about the focus on vegan and vegetarian food at Paris 2024, as the Olympics looks to cut its carbon footprint. And while this has raised some controversies – and concerns about the organisers’ planning – this edition of the Games is host to a bunch of plant-based athletes competing for the medals.
One of them – Vivian Kong Man Wai of Hong Kong – made history by winning her first Olympic gold and taking home the tournament’s largest cash prize.
While the International Olympic Committee doesn’t dish out financial rewards for medals, several countries and regions do. At Paris 2024, Hong Kong is offering the highest payouts to athletes, with gold medallists like Kong – who went vegan in 2017 following a career-threatening injury – earning HK$6M (around $770,000).
“We are thrilled that with her outstanding performance, superb fencing skills and perseverance during the competition, she has earned the well-deserved gold medal,” said John Lee Ka-chiu, chief executive of Hong Kong. “She has once again made history for Hong Kong fencing and proved the extraordinary capabilities of Hong Kong athletes, making all Hong Kong people proud.”
Kong’s win a strong response to Olympic critics of plant protein
Courtesy: SF&OC
Kong’s appearance at Paris 2024 was thrown into doubt after she suffered a knee injury a month before the Games. But after recovering from the setback, she became Hong Kong’s first female gold medallist since Atlanta 1996.
During the women’s épée final, France’s Auriane Mallo-Breton led Kong 8-3 at one point, but the Hong Kong fencer fought back soon after, levelling the score at 12-12 before the clock expired. She got the winning sudden-death hit in overtime to win the gold medal.
It’s a big win for vegan athletes at the Olympics, and an apt response to critics who have lamented the apparent lack of protein and meat at Paris 2024, forcing the organisers to break their climate commitments and increase quantities of grilled meat.
It’s also a strong reminder to those who have questioned whether athletes can get enough protein and other nutrients from plants. This includes Philipp Würz, head of food at Paris 2024, who told the Washington Post that athletes “need a lot of proteins”, suggesting: “You can’t just say, okay, you go 60 or 100% vegetarian. It’s just not possible.”
Kong’s gold medal shows that it indeed is possible. Now the world number one, she turned vegan after injuring her anterior cruciate ligament in 2017. After initially struggling with prejudice at home, she had since competed at the Tokyo Olympic Games and won the Asian Championships thrice, before the Paris 2024 gold.
“I can be an example to show it’s possible, and it’s more motivation for me to work harder, have better results, and tell my story about how eating plant-based foods made me better and made me feel better too,” Kong told the South China Morning Post in 2018.
After the win, the vegan Olympian announced her decision to retire from full-time professional fencing and focus on “starting a new career and working towards having my own charity to help kids find joy and [put] playfulness back into sports”.
Courtesy: SF&OC
How vegans are faring at Paris 2024
Fellow Hong Kong fencer Cheung Ka-long joined Kong as a gold medallist after winning the men’s individual foil event, successfully defending his title at the Tokyo Games. They both were awarded with the highest amount of prize money at the 2024 Olympics.
Hong Kong announced a 20% hike in cash incentives for its Olympians ahead of the tournament (compared to the 2020 edition), with silver and bronze medallists receiving HK$3M ($385,000) and HK$1.5M ($193,000) respectively. Swimmer Siobhán Haughey won bronze in the women’s 200m freestyle, her fourth Olympic medal.
Singapore is second on the prize money list, giving its gold medallists SG$1M ($745,000). It is followed by Indonesia, Israel, Kazakhstan, Malaysia and Spain, each of which is also offering six-figure sums.
Kong isn’t the only vegan Olympian to win a medal at Paris 2024. British cyclist Anna Henderson bagged the silver in the women’s individual time trial, and Canadian fencer Eleanor Harvey won bronze in the individual foil event.
“I used to be like: ‘I’ll never be vegan, I love meat. But I think what happens is that we all dissociate from what meat is and what animals are,” Henderson told cycling magazine Rouleur in 2021. “I feel no difference, I feel better. I’m faster, I’m a bit leaner and I love it.”
Courtesy: Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP
Harvey, a vegetarian since the age of three and vegan since 10, told the Canadian Fencing Federation in 2019: “I just didn’t like how animals were treated, and so that was the primary reason. Also environmental reasons. I don’t think it’s maybe the right choice for everybody, but for me, it fits really well with how my body works.”
Other vegan Olympians hoping to get gold at Paris 2024 include Team USA’s Diana Taurasi, widely regarded as the greatest women’s basketball player of all time, and German 400m hurdler Constantin Preis.
This year, the Olympics pledged to make 60% of all food available to spectators meatless, while 30% of meals in the athletes’ village were said to be meat-free (a number that has been sustained despite the additional meat supply). Overall, the organisers said nearly a third of the 13 million meals at Paris 2024 will be plant-based.
Paris 2024 was touted to be the most sustainable ever, with a majority of food being meatless – now, the Olympics has reneged on this promise. It’s a major failure.
For months, one of the dominating themes about the 2024 Olympics has been sustainability, and its decision to make 60% of all meals served meatless. In fact, the organisers pledged that nearly a third of the 13 million meals will be plant-based.
But now, following food shortages, complaints about inadequate protein, and overall dissatisfaction in the athletes’ village, meat is back on the menu.
French caterer Sodexo Live is responsible for supplying around 40,000 meals a day to the 15,000 athletes in the Olympic Village, using over 600 tonnes of produce provided by Carrefour. On Monday, however, the catering company made a temporary shift from its climate-friendly commitments, adjusting its supply of meat and eggs in response to feedback from Olympians in the opening days of the 2024 Games.
“Certain products, such as eggs and grilled meats, are particularly popular among athletes, so their quantities have been immediately increased,” Sodexo said in a statement.
Athletes had complained that the amount of food available to them was insufficient, especially items like grilled meat. It resulted in actions like eggs being rationed.
While all Olympic Games have teething problems, and food seems to be one of the issues in Paris this year, the fact that the organisers are resorting to a solution that rips apart months of promises and their commitment to lower their carbon footprint is a sad sight to behold. Especially for plant-based food. It’s a massive failure, and raises questions about how unprepared even some of the world’s biggest entities are when it comes to viable food systems transformation.
‘Not possible’ to go vegetarian, says Olympics food head
Courtesy: Olympics.com
“Regarding the food we’ve had to make some adjustments, which is normal in operations that size,” Paris 2024 CEO Etienne Thobois told a press conference this week. “There has been a reinforcement in animal proteins, with 700 kilos of eggs and a ton of meat, to meet the demands of the athletes, who we place at the heart of the Paris 2024 experience.”
Some of the loudest complaints came from Team Great Britain. On the eve of the Opening Ceremonies, British Olympic Association CEO Andy Anson said the food was “not adequate”, criticising the caterers for a lack of eggs, chicken and certain carbohydrates, as well as for serving raw meat to athletes.
Mats Grambusch, captain of the German men’s hockey team, was also unhappy about the food. “Basically, it just takes an insanely long time because they’re completely overwhelmed at peak times,” Grambusch told the DPA news agency. “And then the quality and quantity of the meals aren’t good, because there are simply too many people coming at the same time.”
Other countries took matters in their own hands. The US carried 30 pallets’ worth of supplies, including 8,000 bottles of high-protein milkshakes. Australia, meanwhile, brought three tonnes of tuna, 10,000 muesli bars and 2,400 meat pies to sustain their 460-strong delegation of athletes.
In the lead-up to Paris 2024, the Olympics committed to hosting a carbon-friendly menu focused on local, seasonal and plant-based foods. But while meatless meals accounted for 60% of what spectators could buy at the venues, they only make up 30% of what’s available to athletes in the Olympic Village. This remains true after the adjustments, but the adjustments themselves leave a lot to be desired.
Philipp Würz, head of food at Paris 2024, told the Washington Post that athletes “need a lot of proteins”. “You can’t just say, okay, you go 60 or 100% vegetarian. It’s just not possible,” he said.
And that’s where the problem lies. The person responsible for food and drink at the world’s most celebrated sporting event is alluding that eating a plant-based diet rich in protein is impossible.
Olympics’ meat U-turn contradicts its own promises
Courtesy: Paris 2024
Würz statement is a blow to the philosophy of vegan athletes competing at this year’s Olympics, and goes against proven research that plant proteins are nutritionally complete, can meet a person’s daily requirements, and are healthier than many animal proteins. Even governments are realising this, with more and more countries updating their dietary guidelines to acknowledge the efficiency of plant-based diets.
“Athletes requiring high animal protein diets is a myth that has been busted a long time ago,” Rafael Pinto, policy manager at the European Vegetarian Union, told Euronews. “Those perpetuating it in these Games aren’t basing their arguments on science.”
The Olympics’ U-turn mirrors the EU’s stance on its Farm to Fork strategy, which promotes plant-based diets for a more sustainable planet, and has been left reeling after successful attacks from livestock lobby groups such as Copa Cogeca.
Copa Cogeca president Christiane Lambert had already been on Paris 2024’s case about the shift towards plant proteins. “Prescribers [of these diets] have underestimated the need and desire for high-protein foods, offered by animal proteins, to repair muscles and recover between events and training sessions… need for carbohydrates too,” she wrote on Twitter/X.
Würz’s comment is also a blow to the Olympics’s decision to bring Michelin-starred chefs to its kitchens, in a bid to ensure that athletes would appreciate plant-based, climate-friendly food. But it seems that has been ineffective. Why even bother with such chefs if you don’t believe going 60-100% vegetarian isn’t possible for athletes’ protein needs?
Moreover, it’s a blow to the Games’ climate commitments. An additional ton of meat will only serve to inflate the tournament’s carbon footprint – producing meat accounts for twice as many emissions as plant-based foods. And while some athletes may be unhappy with a lack of meat, they’d probably be even more frustrated at the fact that this could be the hottest Olympics ever, posing a serious risk to their wellbeing.
It’s why educating athletes about the benefits of plant proteins is paramount, both for their performance and the planet. EVU’s Pinto put it best: “This is an opportunity to showcase to millions of people that plant proteins are a better alternative for the planet and can also support athletic performance.”
Retail sales of plant-based meat products in the US have continued to slow, dropping by 19% from last year – but industry experts have remained positive over this period.
Americans spent 18.6% less on chilled plant-based meat in the 52 weeks to May 19 (reaching $310.5M), compared to the same period a year ago, according to market research firm Circana. This coincided with a 21% drop in the volume of meat analogue products they bought from supermarket fridges.
Similarly, volume sales for frozen meat analogues totalled 90.1 million (much higher than the 36.9 million units sold in the fresh aisle), representing an 11.7% decline. Here, these products raked in $725.8M, a 6.6% loss in value sales.
Even the best-selling products in each section witnessed volume declines. In the fresh plant-based meat department, dinner sausage, ground, and patties saw units down by 22.6%, 13%, and 34.6%, respectively. Likewise, purchases of vegan patties, strips/cutlets, and nuggets decreased in volume by 13.9%, 11.9%, and 17.5%, respectively.
High prices, unsatisfactory taste and texture, and concerns around ingredients are limiting sales, according to analysts. This has deterred shoppers from repeat purchases, according to Chris DuBois, executive VP of fresh foods and protein at Circana.
“The decline in meat alternative sales reflects broader changes in grocery purchasing due to the continued pressures of cost of living – we’re seeing consumers trading down and returning to familiar foods to save money,” Joanna Trewern, director of partnerships and institutional engagement at ProVeg International, told Green Queen.
But she argued that consumer demand for these products isn’t slowing down. “60% of US households purchased plant-based foods in 2023, highlighting the opportunities for success for forward-thinking brands,” she said. “95% of households that bought plant-based meat also bought animal-based meat, underscoring the importance of products that can successfully cater to flexitarian and omnivore consumer expectations.”
Price, taste and texture concerns hurt sales
Courtesy: Dig Insights
A 1,500-person survey earlier this year found that taste and texture are the greatest barriers to Americans eating plant-based meat, with only 16% saying these attributes would motivate them to purchase meat analogues in supermarkets. That said, 91% of respondents who have tried plant-based protein like the taste and texture of these products.
“The ingredients are too complex and more highly processed than animal proteins, and very few people will pay a premium, especially with inflation and with meat prices, except for beef, coming down,” DuBois told Supermarket News. However, processed meats are equally or often more processed than vegan analogues, a fact that hasn’t come through in the rise of reporting around ultra-processed foods.
Then there’s the price tag. Circana found that the price of fresh meat analogues was up by 3.3% from the same period a year ago, reaching an average of $8.41 per lb. Similarly, frozen products in this space saw costs rise by 5.8% to $8.06 per pound.
A poll by Kroger-owned research firm 84.51° revealed that the cost of plant-based meat is prohibitive for 53% of Americans, driving them to eat less of it. This is why “getting the pricing right” is crucial for the industry, according to DuBois.
“Today’s consumer expects plant-based products that are tasty, affordable and nutritious. Enhancing taste and texture, ensuring pricing is competitive, and focusing marketing on taste and excitement will be important to drive the category back into growth,” said Trewern.
Courtesy: GFI
The Circana figures mirror SPINS data crunched by the Good Food Institute earlier this year, which revealed that plant-based meat and seafood saw sales decrease by 12% in US retail in 2023, reaching $1.2B. When it came to volume sales, this was an even larger 19% decline.
Prices were also up by 9%, compared to just 3% for conventional meat and seafood. In fact, vegan beef was the closest to price parity, but still had a 20% markup over its animal-derived counterpart. Overall, meat analogues remained 77% more expensive in American supermarkets last year.
Only 15% of American households bought these products last year, but contrary to DuBois’s assertion, 62% of them were repeat purchasers.
“What’s clear is that growing the category will require stakeholder collaboration. In Germany, supermarket chain Lidl introduced a price parity commitment for its private-label plant-based products in 2023. Volume sales grew [by] 30% as a result of this action.”
Circana’s figures come after a couple of tough years for the plant-based industry, which saw VC investment dip by 24% last year. But in this time, company executives and industry experts alike have all remained optimistic.
“We can’t hide away from the fact that plant-based meat categories have been in decline over the past year, or two,” Matthew Glover, co-founder of the UK-based Vegan Food Group, told Green Queen in February. “There’s a multitude of factors at play, including the cost-of-living crisis, meat industry misinformation campaigns successfully turning consumers away, as well as products not meeting expectations. Retailers reducing shelf space hasn’t helped.”
Godo Röben, former managing director of German meat and plant-based giant Rügenwalder Mühle, and an investor in whole-cut meat startup Project Eaden, said last month: “There are only [a] few products consumers really love. It’s a ‘bestseller’ market rather than an even distribution of success. I believe there is a lot of room to consolidate the current offer and substitute ‘so-so products’ with really good ones.”
This is a sentiment echoed by Peter McGuinness, CEO of Impossible Foods, which leads the refrigerated meat analogue market in the US. “There are a lot of companies that are making food that’s not great food. There’s 200 plant-based companies in America – [we] probably only need three, or two. So there’s a lot of small companies making not-so-great food and people are having bad first impressions,” he told Bloomberg Television.
“That’s good for consumers because overall quality and value for money will improve, and it’s good for retailers because repeat buys and rotation in the plant-based alternative shelves will increase,” said Röben.
But as Quorn CEO Marco Bertacca pointed out, the slowdown in the category mirrored many others, and comes “against the backdrop of many consecutive years of incredible growth in meat-free eating”. This is something DuBois also agrees with, noting how the sector “still is a billion-dollar category” and is “not going away”.
Courtesy: GFI
The industry’s trials have prompted ProVeg International to label this period a “correction phase”, especially since venture capital is still hard to come by. In the first six months of this year, plant-based companies only attracted 15% of what was poured into the sector in 2023. “We expect to see the effects of consolidation, along with signs of recovery in the sector, between 2025-26, with more corporate investors driving innovation in the sector,” Hédi Farhat, investment manager at ProVeg Incubator, told Green Queen in April.
Andy Jarvis, director of the Bezos Earth Fund’s Future of Food programme, explained how its alternative protein centres are aiming to “reduce price, boost deliciousness, and improve the health benefits” in an interview with Green Queen last month. “If you do that, you’re driving their market share. So what we’re looking for is that this takes 10-20% of global market share over the next decade or so,” he said. “And if you have 10% or 20% market share, you’re having planetary-level impacts.”
US whole-cut meat analogues maker Chunk Foods has debuted The Prince, an iteration of its new Slab steaks, in partnership with New York City deli Pastrami Queen.
The site of Anthony Bourdain’s favourite pastrami sandwich now has a plant-based offering.
Chunk Foods, the startup making vegan whole-cut steaks, has collaborated with celebrated New York City deli Pastrami Queen to unveil its latest product, The Prince.
Made from cultured soy and wheat, it’s a $20 plant-based pastrami sandwich cut from the Chunk Slab, one of two new vegan steak offerings the brand has brought to foodservice this year. Touted to be the largest plant-based whole-cut meat to hit the restaurant market (weighing over 3 lbs), this marks the Slab’s debut in the US.
“‘The Prince powered by Chunk’ bridges the gap between the past and the future of food with the intersection of traditional Jewish deli cuisine with modern plant-based options, contributing to the dynamic and diverse food scene in NYC and local food culture,” said Chunk Foods CEO Amos Golan, who founded the startup in 2020. “The unique qualities of Chunk’s plant-based pastrami offer a taste and texture comparable to traditional meat.”
Pastrami Queen collaboration will help with texture concerns
Courtesy: Chunk Foods
Pastrami Queen has been feeding New Yorkers since 1956, starting with its original site on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Over the 70-odd years, it has carved a reputation as one of the city’s best delis, praised for its dedication to preserving the flavours and traditions of Jewish deli cuisine. It led the late Bourdain to proclaim the establishment as the “real deal”.
This is why it’s a big deal for Chunk Foods, a four-year-old startup, to team up with Pastrami Queen. The new vegan pastrami sandwich is available at the latter’s Moynihan Food Hall store. It is comprised of the Chunk Slab, New York deli mustard, rye bread, and a pickle.
The fermentation-derived slab steak was first introduced at Chicago’s National Restaurant Association Show in May, where it received a Food and Beverage (FABI) Award. Apart from the base of soy and wheat, the product contains coconut oil, water, beet juice, iron, salt and vitamin B12, a clean-label list catering to an increasingly conscious consumer.
Whole-cut plant-based meats are known for their fibrous texture and mouthfeel, since they replicate animal muscle fibres. Texture is among the main consumption barriers of plant-based meat. A 1,500-person survey this year found that 42% of Americans are deterred from choosing a meat analogue dish at a restaurant because they don’t think they’ll like the texture. However, 91% of those who have tried plant-based protein like its taste and texture and are satisfied with it, highlighting a major perception gap.
Debuting its product at a popular and acclaimed deli like Pastrami Queen will only help Chunk Foods assuage these concerns. “At Pastrami Queen, we pride ourselves on offering the best of traditional Jewish deli cuisine,” said manager Eric Newman.
“Partnering with Chunk Foods allows us to expand our menu with a delicious plant-based option that maintains the high standards our customers expect. ‘The Prince powered by Chunk’ is a great addition to our menu, providing a taste and texture that our patrons are looking for.”
Chunk Foods targets restaurants as whole-cut meat race heats up
Courtesy: Chunk Foods
This isn’t Chunk Foods’ first rodeo into meat-based foodservice. In 2023, it launched into Charley’s Steak House in Orlando, the first time a steakhouse in the US put a vegan analogue on the menu. This evolved into a wider partnership with the restaurant’s parent company, Talk of the Town.
The plant-based meat startup, which has raised $24M in funding (including a $7.5M injection earlier this year), has appeared on other restaurant menus in New York City as well, including Coletta, Anixi, The Butcher’s Daughter and Leonardo DiCaprio-backed chain Neat. And last month, it announced a partnership with popular fast-food chain Slutty Vegan and its sister establishment Bar Vegan.
Chunk Foods is also working on pork, lamb and poultry alternatives, and last year completed the construction of what it claims is one of the world’s largest factories of its kind. It has also gone international this year, linking up with plant protein company Better Balance to create new whole-cut meat analogues for the Mexican market.
That said, plant-based pastrami is a largely untapped market. The Corn’d Beef by Shark Tank alum Unreal Deli (formerly Mrs Goldfarb’s) and the Pastrami Style Slices by Squeaky Bean in the UK are among the few on the market.
Project Eaden is also developing a version made from wheat protein, which is slated for launch in 2025. The startup leverages fibre-spinning technology and is creating its own flavours.
“This has really changed the game, and has created deeper, more complex meatiness and more realistic roasting aroma,” its co-founder Jan Wilmking told Green Queen last month. “The combination of a blank flavour canvas with hardly any off-taste – and truly meaty taste notes on top – makes the products extremely tasty, without being too extreme or intense.”
Austria’s new dietary guidelines recommend eating less animal protein and more plants, with pulses getting their own category for the first time.
Eat less meat and dairy – and for your protein needs, choose mostly plant-based. That’s the gist of Austria’s updated national dietary guidelines, joining a growing list of countries championing a shift away from animal-based foods for a healthy and sustainable food system.
And for the first time, the dietary recommendations have a dedicated section for pulses, legumes and their products, such as tofu, tempeh, soy milk and yoghurt, etc.
The new guidelines are based on a ‘plate model’ that advises a diet of 50% fruits and vegetables, 25% whole grains and potatoes, and a further 25% proteins, mostly plant-based. Meat, fish, milk and dairy should be reduced.
“[The guidelines] show people how to make their diet healthier and more environmentally conscious,” said social affairs minister Johannes Rauch. “A conscious diet with a focus on vegetables, fruits, grains, and legumes is not only good for the planet, but it also helps us live longer and healthier.”
Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons/CC
Food’s climate impact necessitated ‘plate model’
Austria’s updated dietary recommendations were developed by the health ministry in collaboration with the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety and the Austrian Society for Nutrition, which took both health and climate aspects into account.
The ministry explains that the existing version was presented in the form of a food pyramid and considered evidence-based recommendations on nutrient intake and findings on the prevention of diet-related diseases. But current developments – especially the food system being a driver of climate change – mandated an expansion to include climate and health parameters.
“Of all foods, meat and dairy products burden the climate the most,” reads an accompanying cookbook based on the plate model. “The production of meat, milk, cheese, and eggs is responsible for about half of the food-related greenhouse gas emissions in western countries.”
The plate model embodies the “optimal composition of a meal” and complements two new food pyramids – one for omnivores and one for vegetarians (a first) – to be published in the autumn.
Half of people’s diets should be made up of a wide variety of fruits and vegetables that provide essential vitamins, minerals and fibre. These are low in emissions, as long as they’re locally produced and in season.
A quarter should comprise whole grains like bread, pasta, rice and potatoes, which are rich in complex carbohydrates, fibre and other vital nutrients. And the final quarter should consist of protein side dishes, which should predominantly come from plant-based sources like legumes, nuts, and seeds. The recommendation to prioritise plant proteins is thanks to their health and environmental benefits.
Meat products are recommended in moderation as they can be high in cholesterol, saturated fat and salt, as well as resource-intensive. This is why animal fats like butter are also advised to be used only in small quantities, with the guidelines encouraging Austrians to use plant-based fats like rapeseed oil, olive oil, walnut oil, and others.
Austria’s national guidelines follow Eat-Lancet’s Planetary Health Diet
For omnivores, Austria’s new national food guidelines suggest five servings of fruits and vegetables, four servings of grains and potatoes, three servings of milk and dairy products, and two servings of fats and oils per day. This is complemented by three servings each of pulses and their products and eggs per week, and just one weekly portion each of meat and fish (plus an optional extra serving).
At 226g and 200g respectively, the meat and fish recommendations are in line with those of the Eat-Lancet Planetary Health Diet, which suggests eating no more than 301g of meat and 196g of fish each week.
Vegetarians, meanwhile, are advised to eat five servings each of produce and grains, and the same amount of dairy and oils as omnivores daily. Additionally, they should eat an extra serving each of plant proteins and eggs, amounting to four per week.
The cookbook – which offers suggestions to veganise each dish with plant proteins and meat and dairy analogues – also suggests ways to design healthy and climate-friendly meals. People should choose seasonal and local ingredients, prioritise plant-based foods, avoid heavily processed foods, and use herbs and spices to enhance flavours naturally without adding salt. They should also focus on animal welfare and consider organic food.
“By consciously choosing regional products and reducing the consumption of animal products, everyone can make a valuable contribution to combating climate change. Of course, taste should not be neglected. Healthy, climate-friendly, and delicious nutrition is therefore not a contradiction,” said Rauch.
Austria’s new guidelines mirror Germany’s latest recommendations, which suggest that at least 75% of people’s diets should be plant-based. The German Nutrition Society doubled down on this by changing its official position on veganism and calling it a ‘health-promoting’ diet. Similarly, the Nordic countries, Taiwan and Canada have also realigned their nutritional guidelines to spotlight plant-based foods, and France is being called upon to do the same.
The Impossible Burger is now a step closer to appearing on EU shelves after the company’s heme ingredient was ruled safe for consumption by the bloc’s regulatory body.
Californian plant-based meat giant Impossible Foods has passed the first part of the lengthy, rigorous regulatory process to sell its plant-based beef burger in the European Union.
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has found that the use of soy leghemoglobin from genetically modified Komagataella phaffii (formerly named Pichia pastoris), a strain of yeast used by several alternative protein companies, does not raise a safety concern for its proposed use and levels of inclusion.
Impossible Foods uses soy leghemoglobin as an additive in its plant-based beef range, which gives the products the distinct colour and flavour associated with conventional beef. The company has always marketed the precision-fermented ingredient as the element that makes the Impossible Burger “bleed”.
The EFSA’s opinion is provisional, subject to an ongoing safety assessment by a panel on the genetic modification of the production strain.
Heme has kept Impossible Foods away from the EU
During its R&D days, Impossible Foods was extracting heme from the root nodules of soybean plants, before pivoting to fermentation to enable scale-up and more planet-friendly production.
It starts by inserting the DNA from soy plants into genetically engineered yeast, which is then fermented in a similar way to how Belgian beer is made. It then isolates the soy leghemoglobin (which contains heme) from the yeast and adds it to its beef products.
The yeast strain, K. phaffii, is the same one used by precision fermentation companies The Every Co (which makes animal-free egg proteins) and Remilk (which produces recombinant dairy proteins).
The Impossible Burger, Beef, Beef Lite and Hot Dog all use the ingredient for a hue and flavour that more closely replicate conventional beef. Food safety regulators in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and Singapore have all approved the use of soy leghemoglobin for human consumption, paving the way for Impossible Foods to launch these products.
But so far, the Impossible Burger has not made it to the EU, whose famously stringent regulatory process has held back a number of alternative protein players. However, recent advancements have been encouraging. Just last week, French cultivated foie gras producer Gourmey became the first to apply for approval in the bloc.
This came a month after Impossible Foods cleared its first obstacle too, as part of an assessment that has been ongoing since 2019.
Courtesy: Impossible Foods
EU food safety regulator says heme is safe, but GMO approval needed
In a scientific opinion published in late June, the EFSA Panel on Food Additive and Flavourings noted that the proposed food additive, called LegH Prep, is a liquid preparation containing the soy leghemoglobin and added ingredients and intended to be used as a colouring in meat analogues.
In its submission to the EFSA food additive panel, Impossible Foods said soy leghemoglobin contains a haem B group similar to animal myoglobins and other plant haemoglobins. In conventional meat, this group is responsible for the red colour of uncooked products.
When a burger is cooked, it causes the oxidation of iron, which means oxygen is released and results in a loss of the red colour. And when the soy leghemoglobin is heated above 62°C or exposed to low pH environments (like the human stomach), it denatures. Combined with the release of the haem B group, this plays a major role in generating the flavours and aromas associated with cooked animal-derived meat.
Courtesy: Impossible Foods
The proposed maximum level of heme in meat analogues is 0.8%, which is similar to the amount of myoglobin in beef (0.8% to 1.8%). The exposure to iron is also below the “safe levels of intake” established by the EFSA’s Panel on Nutrition, Novel Foods and Food Allergens.
The filing stated that no genotoxicity concerns or adverse effects had been identified in toxicology studies, and the EFSA did not feel the need to set an acceptable daily intake.
The next step in the Impossible Burger’s journey to the EU is the safety assessment by the Panel on Genetically Modified Organisms. This process has been under a Clock Stop since December 2021, meaning the company needs to provide additional information for the EFSA to complete its evaluation. Currently, the deadline for the GMO risk assessment is set in June 2025.
Sir Kier Starmer’s Labour government is being called on to introduce a plant-based action plan and reform public procurement to make the UK’s food system more sustainable.
With a new party governing the UK for the first time in 14 years, there are hopes that the change Sir Kier Starmer promised would also bring about a new dawn for the country’s climate plans and food system.
Creating a zero-waste economy, ensuring nature’s recovery, and supporting farmers to boost food security are among the Labour government’s five priorities for the climate. It has also pledged to work with businesses and be pro-innovation.
With these promises in mind, Plant-Based Food Alliance (PBFA) UK – a coalition of 16 organisations and companies, including Alpro, Oatly, Quorn and the Vegan Society – has made six demands of the new Labour government, with the hopes of achieving “the abundant health, economic and environmental benefits of increasing plant-based food consumption”.
PBFA regularly meets with ministers and civil servants on matters related to the vegan food sector, which has continued under Starmer’s premiership. It will be briefing both new and returning MPs on its policy demands to ensure support where needed.
Courtesy: Alpro
1) Promote plant-based foods as part of sustainable and healthy diets
PBFA asks policymakers across national, regional and local levels to support an increase in plant-based food consumption and the role they plan to help the public eat more sustainable and healthy diets.
These foods should be scoped into new climate and health strategies, such as a land use framework, carbon budget delivery plan or green industrial strategy.
2) Devise a national action plan for plant-based food
The UK is being urged to develop a plant-based action plan to unlock economic opportunities and bolster food security, enabling it to become a leader in the sector. Last year, Denmark became the first country to adopt such a strategy, followed by South Korea.
Policies could include new R&D funding through a partnership between UK Research & Innovation and the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), greater support for farmers to grow crops for plant-based products, and increased investment in plant-based production facilities on British farms.
3) Align the Eatwell Guide with sustainability
The UK’s national healthy eating model, the Eatwell Guide, recommends eating five fruits and vegetables a day, dairy and dairy alternatives low in fat and sugar, whole grains over refined, plant proteins like beans and pulses, two portions of “sustainably sourced” fish a week, and less red and processed meat.
PBFA is calling on the government to refresh this guide to include the latest evidence on the health and nutritional benefits of plant-based foods, and incorporate sustainability criteria like GHG emissions and water usage – much like the Planetary Health Diet devised by the EAT-Lancet Commission.
Courtesy: Gov.uk
4) Reform public procurement to spotlight planet-friendly foods
Labour must update the Government Buying Standards and the School Food Standards to ensure that all food sold in public sector catering meets robust health, climate and animal welfare criteria. These standards should also be linked to the refreshed Eatwell Guide mentioned above.
The plant-based coalition recommends more fruits and vegetables to be served in catering settings, and at least one nutritious vegan option available on public sector menus daily. More dynamic standards would allow local businesses and farms to benefit from procurement contracts, and they should be legally enshrined to ensure compliance.
5) Grow more fruit, vegetables, fungi and pulses
A plan for the country’s horticulture sector should be developed and implemented as promised in the Government Food Strategy, which would help bolster the UK’s food security by reducing reliance on imports of fruits, vegetables, fungi and pulses grown overseas.
This strategy should be centred on innovation and infrastructure that can help scale up the supply chain to support the expansion of the plant-based food industry.
6) Level the playing field for plant-based
The UK follows pre-Brexit EU rules that prohibit plant-based dairy companies from using terms like ‘milk’, ‘cheese’ and ‘yoghurt’ on their products, but these restrictions must be reviewed. PBFA argues that this would build confidence and drive investment into the category, as well as pave the way for the commercialisation of fermentation-derived analogues.
Additionally, the government should work with retail and out-of-home sectors to help achieve price parity between plant and animal proteins – one way to do so would be to equalise margins.
Courtesy: Green Queen
How realistic are these demands?
It’s one thing to make these asks, but does PBFA feel there’s a realistic chance that they’re taken up by the Starmer government?
“We have been pragmatic in our asks and realistic on what can be achieved, as well as open to working with the wider food sector on a future underpinned by healthier and more sustainable food systems,” highlights Marisa Heath, CEO of PBFA.
“In terms of promoting healthy diets, Labour pledged earlier in the year to take measures that ensure the ‘healthiest generation of children ever‘. Plant-based diets can contribute to this ambition and the Alliance will be connecting with relevant ministers to ensure they are aware of the positive contribution plant-based food makes to the nation’s health,” she tells Green Queen.
“For long-term solutions, we need to tackle diet change, as obesity and chronic disease [are] a huge burden on our health systems. Plant-based diets have a proven role in tackling obesity and poor health and it seems timely to review the Eatwell Plate,” says Heath.
She adds that if the government is open to receiving and discussing a national plant-based action plan, the sector is prepared to do the work for it: “We believe that is a very small ask at this stage and that there is no reason for the government to not agree to that as we may be able to contribute to plans for economic growth and tackling some of the problems the nation faces.”
Touching upon the demand to grow more produce and whole foods domestically, Heath outlines its food security and national health benefits. “And as it has wide support across sectors, the government will find everyone keen to help,” she suggests.
Courtesy: Department of Health and Social Care
The hope for alternative protein under Labour
Asked how hopeful PBFA is of progress for alternative proteins under Labour, Heath points to comments made by Starmer in February, when he was leader of the opposition. He stated that under his government, at least 50% of food bought by the public sector would be “locally produced and sustainable”.
“Plant-based food is more sustainable than animal-based food in terms of environmental impact, particularly where emissions are concerned. So we expect Labour’s focus on sustainable food will boost both the profile and uptake of alternative proteins,” says Heath.
“Where public sector catering is concerned, we are already seeing university student unions across the country voting for exclusively plant-based menus and schools adopting the ProVeg School Plates programme, which enables more plant-based food to be served in school canteens. So Labour has a foundation of support upon which to build programmes that increase plant-based food in the public sector,” she adds.
“We also know that Labour set out their support for Henry Dimbleby’s Food Strategy, which sets out the need for alternative proteins in the future food systems.”
Fighting off the livestock lobby
Courtesy: AHDB | Composite by Green Queen
One major roadblock for government action is the influential livestock lobby. Research has shown how meat and dairy companies sway lawmakers to block any unfavourable policies and promote the animal agriculture sector. In the US, for example, the Department of Defense recently abandoned its call for projects to produce cultivated meat for the military, after pressure from livestock groups and some Congress members.
Within the UK, the government has been urged by doctors to retract misinformation-spreading ads promoting meat and dairy. These were initiated by the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board, a group funded by farmers and food suppliers that falls under the wing of Defra.
“We hope that the government will commit to better transparency around food policy and consider the idea of having a key stakeholder advisory group that enables all sides to discuss the key issues in a clear way,” says Heath.
She adds that the administration must recognise the need to break down silos between policies within Defra, the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero, the Department for Business and Trade, and the Department for Health. “We have a number of big issues which need to be solved by cross-department working and a range of stakeholders including the plant-based sector,” she says.
“We must tackle health issues alongside sustainability issues for example and recognise that we need to set a new vision for food and diet that will involve a number of solutions, and involve businesses both big and small with the help of key NGOs and public bodies. Too much food policy in the past has been done behind closed doors with influence from a small group of large players.”
This was my second year attending the Hollywood Climate Summit and for the 2024 edition, the organizers took things to another level. The event was packed with insights, inspiration, and information. Founders Heather Fipps, Allison Begalman, and Ali Weinstein’s goal for the summit is to create a community space for entertainment and media professionals to take action on climate, and from where I was sitting, mission accomplished!
With a completely revamped schedule that made it easier for industry professionals to attend (panels started in the late afternoon and went until the night versus early morning starts last year), the 2024 Hollywood Climate Summit spanned four days and featured a Climate Film & Television Marketplace for the first time – a screening of 2024’s best independent environmental and climate-themed projects looking for distribution.
There was also a daily “Vegan Food Experience” led by Chris Tucker, Director of Food and Beverage and Yo Egg’s Executive Chef.
Panel topics ranged from “Communicating Climate in Children’s Media” to “Innovative Climate Campaigns in Music, Film & Pop Culture,” and everything in between.
Producers, directors, writers, actors, production and costume designers sat down alongside journalists, activists, and climate experts to explore how Hollywood can promote climate stories and solutions while showing the impact of the climate crisis in our everyday lives.
Courtesy: Chelsea Lauren/Hollywood Climate Summit/Shutterstock
The power of storytelling in fighting climate change
Storytelling is at the heart of the entertainment industry. It’s its secret sauce, its magic pill, its superpower. Impactful storytelling is what Hollywood does when it’s at its best and it’s Hollywood’s most powerful weapon in the fight against climate change.
This doesn’t mean every television show has to be Extrapolations nor every film Don’t Look Up. We get that the entertainment industry has to be entertaining, but climate change doesn’t have to be front and centre in every story, it just has to be part of the narrative. Hacks and Murder at the End of the World are two shows that exemplified that and delivered a climate message by weaving climate change into the storytelling.
In the “On the Spotlight on TV Climate Stories” panel, co-creator of Hacks Jen Statsky, said making the twenty-something Eva character someone who deeply cares about the climate crisis felt natural and organic.
Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij chose to bake climate crisis into their miniseries A Murder at the End of the World and experienced climate-related extreme weather issues first-hand during production in Iceland and Utah. “We really appropriately just got smacked on the face by the climate crisis which was good because we were writing about it. But it’s one thing to write about it, it’s another thing to just have everything grind to a halt because storms are coming from directions they’ve never come from before they’re parking and just like dumping snow in volumes that no one in [Iceland had ever seen before],” Marling told the audience.
“On the flip side of the shoot, we were in Utah and there were flash floods and there were record heights in temperature and the entire crew at one point was crowded under an overpass and we had to just sit there because the sun was baking the ground of the desert so much that we couldn’t get back to where the set was.”
“I just don’t think we can ever tell any stories moving forward that aren’t dealing with the climate crisis because it is the story of our time,” Batmanglij added. “I don’t think we addressed it enough because the experience of making it has opened my eyes a lot.”
Courtesy: Chelsea Lauren/Hollywood Climate Summit/Shutterstock
Making production sets sustainable
Hollywood is often villainized (fairly) for being wasteful but having started my career in the entertainment industry, it’s an industry that is very close to my heart and I can honestly say that it has made leaps and bounds when it comes to sustainability thanks to green sustainable resources from partners like Scriptation, an Emmy Award-winning app for going paperless when reading, annotating, and marking up scripts; Earth Angel, a full-service sustainability agency dedicated to reducing the environmental impact of entertainment productions; and Green Spark Group, sustainable production consultants focused on changing the climate of entertainment, to name just a few.
But can Hollywood ever really reach net zero? Maybe. As Scott Z. Burns reminded the audience in “The Academy Presents: Sustainability in Film” panel, “What we need to do is change our culture on set, so that we’re thinking about more than just accomplishing that scene, that moment, and can we do it within the boundaries of sustainability?” The writer and producer of Contagion and Extrapolations thinks plastic bottles are the low-hanging fruit, adding “not all of our waste is created equally on a set. So much of where our waste goes is transportation and food, much like the rest of the world.”
This was one of the only times food was mentioned during the summit. Project Drawdown reminds us that the two biggest levers for individuals fighting the climate crisis are reducing food waste and reducing meat consumption.
Food production, especially livestock agriculture, is a major cause of global warming – representing 14.5% of global emissions, on par with the entire aviation industry – and it’s one area that Hollywood has yet to tackle when it comes to making production sets more sustainable.
Studies show that if we decrease our animal protein intake by 30-60% we can make significant progress in reversing climate change. Last year, LinkedIn worked with its foodservice provider and non-profit Greener By Default (GDB) to shift to a 65 per cent plant-based menu using behavioural change tactics such as nudging. It can be done so why not production sets, production offices, and studio cafeterias? I would love to see Hollywood’s food carbon footprint be part of the conversation in a much bigger way at next year’s summit.
And let’s not forget the fashion industry’s toll on the planet. It was refreshing to hear from creatives like production designer Missy Parker (Hidden Figures and the upcoming Twisters), costume designer Isis Mussenden (Shrek, American Psycho), and Writer, Producer Director Gloria Calderón Kellett (One Day at a Time, With Love) talk about how they shop at vintage stores, rent costumes, reuse sets, hire locally, avoid fast fashion, and donate production leftovers to local charities.
Courtesy: Chelsea Lauren/Hollywood Climate Summit/Shutterstock
Inspirational moments
The four days were packed with inspiration and I wish I could quote every speaker in every panel because, unusually for an event of this kind, every single person’s contributions were interesting, informative, and thought-provoking. Instead, I will leave you with these last few inspirational moments I simply couldn’t omit.
Before sitting down for a fireside chat with Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins, U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm shared “For the first time in American history, we actually expect energy from solar and wind to outpace the energy we get from coal.”
“Mad Men in Big Oil” moderated by Drill Media’s Executive Editor and veteran climate journalist Amy Westervelt was an eye-opener of a panel. Westervelt did not mince words as she delved into how Big Oil has known about climate change since the 1960s and has been sowing disinformation ever since. “I always hear Big Tobacco did it and then Big Oil did it. No, big PR [Public Relations] did it and they did it for Big Tobacco and Big Oil at the same time all the time forever,” she said. “They worked for all the same companies all of the time including automotive and chemical and food and they came up with ‘The Playbook’ and the reason that all these people were learning from each other was they had the same PR.”
So, it’s not surprising that these are the same PR folks behind TikTok’s Viral Butter Board campaign. The big question is, how can you and I fight climate disinformation? Per Westervelt and the panel, when you read a climate story that speaks to you, call or write to the media outlet and let them know, subscribe to your local newspapers, and support your local media.
One of my favorite speakers two years running is Alison Smart, Executive Director of Probable Futures, a non-profit climate literacy initiative. She does a wonderful job of explaining climate science and climate instability – according to her, the last 10,000 years of climate stability have allowed humans to build civilizations.
“We have broken out of the “civilization temperature” band… climate science helps us see that climate change isn’t just about warmer temperatures, it’s about instability. It’s about the fact that we have never maintained civilization in a changing climate before. That is unprecedented, it is a paradigm shift.”
On Probable Futures’ website, you can see a visual representation of where we’re headed via their interactive climate maps that forecast the changes in temperature, precipitation, and dryness based on warming scenarios ranging from 0.5 to 3 degrees Celsius.
The inimitable Jane Fonda took to the stage again to talk about Project 2025. She urged the audience to get out and vote for the Democrat on the ballot, whoever it is. Fonda joined several activists for “Destination Tomorrow: A Series of Inspirational Keynotes,” which featured, for the second year in a row, local activist Nalleli Cobo who grew up next to an oil drilling site in south Los Angeles and, along with her community, advocated to get it shut down, eventually leading to the city phasing out neighborhood oil drilling for good.
Twenty-two-year-old Mexican-Chilean environmental activist and member of the Otomi-Toltec Nation Xiye Batista shared the trailer of her upcoming documentary The Whale Lagoon and spoke about the myth of growth, noting that she never understood the common adage “less is more” because “saying less is more is still saying more is better.”
How climate-friendly was the Hollywood Climate Summit?
Courtesy: Alessandra Franco
From a food point of view, it was totally aligned. All food and beverages were fully plant-based and sourced locally from some of my favourite eateries like Hey, Sunshine Kitchen, Cena Vegan, Monty’s Good Burger, and Just What I Kneaded. I was thrilled to see so many great plant-based brands showcased daily like Impossible Foods, Better Balance, and Rebel Cheese – I couldn’t get enough of the latter’s Brie! The “Vegan Food Experience” also included deli cuts and sandos by Prime Roots, tuna wraps by Unlimeat, Impossible Burgers, yummy vegan desserts, and snacks from ReGrocery.
The Summit organizers worked with Earth Angel to ensure there were compostables and compost bins throughout the venue as well as reusable cups at the Bevi water dispensers and bar.
Not only was the Hollywood Climate Summit climate-friendly, but it was also inclusive. They didn’t just talk the talk, they very much walked the walk. The summit had ASL interpreters for all content, provided gender-neutral restrooms, offered sliding scale ticket pricing, and streamed free virtual programming for anyone who couldn’t attend in person. The full summit is now available on their YouTube channel.
The message to Hollywood
As so many speakers touched on, collaboration and the power of diverse communities are key if Hollywood is to emerge a hero in the fight against climate change. Filmmakers must assume their responsibility to tell stories about the time in which they live and scary as it is, we’re living in a time of climate crisis. The entertainment industry has the power to influence and shape today’s global culture – in fact, some might say no other industry is better positioned to fight climate change.
It takes a village and I felt I was a part of one at the Hollywood Climate Summit. As best put by one of the Daniels, the Oscar-winning directors of Everything Everywhere All at Once, during last year’s summit: “There’s no calvary, we are the calvary.”
Plant-based dairy maker Elmhurst 1925 has launched into the vegan meat category with a clean-label dehydrated chicken under the new TerraMeat brand.
In a surprising move, Elmhurst 1925, a plant-based milk powerhouse in the US, has entered the meat analogue category.
It has done so through the launch of a new brand, TerraMeat, which makes Plant-Based Chick’n using only one ingredient: hemp protein. An ambient product, all consumers need to do is add water and oil to the hemp grain powder, and microwave it for 90 seconds – the result would be cutlets that can be seasoned and then grilled, baked, braised or fried.
“At 90 years old, I have seen many changes in the food industry, but I believe Elmhurst TerraMeat Plant-Based Chick’n has the potential to redefine the plant-based meat market,” said Elmhurst 1925 CEO Henry Schwartz, whose father and uncle founded the brand 100 years ago, in an interview with AgFunderNews.
TerraMeat powered by same tech as Elmhurst 1925’s alt-dairy range
Until now, Elmhurst 1925 – which switched from dairy to plant-based in 2017 – was known for its clean-label vegan milks, creamers, sour cream and ready-to-drink lattes.
Its move into plant-based meat is a curious one, considering the category is crowded and financially challenging. In the US, meat and seafood analogues saw sales drop by 12% last year – in contrast, plant-based milk witnessed a minor 1% increase.
Several players have been forced to cease operations over the last year, and plant-based meat and seafood only take up 0.9% of the overall market. For context, plant-based milk accounts for 14.5% of the milk category.
But Elmhurt 1925 is betting on its technology – the same HydroRelease milling process it uses for its plant-based dairy products – to stand out from the crowd. “We start with hemp grain [seeds from industrial hemp plants], which we’ve been working with to make hemp-based creamers,” said Cheryl Mitchell, senior VP of ingredient manufacturing at Steuben Foods, which is manufacturing the TerraMeat Chick’n.
She added: “We apply the same water-based technology that enables us to liberate all the different components, rather than taking nuts or grains and dry milling them to a flour or paste and then having to add stabilisers, emulsifiers, and oils. We had the hemp cream for our plant-based creamers, and it was a case of what do we do with the protein? So we started working with it and the functionality and the applications were endless.”
Mitchell explained that at relatively low temperatures, the protein starts to coagulate and change. “By contrast, when you extrude plant proteins at very high temperatures, it impacts their digestibility, and what I realised with this protein from the hemp seed, was that using our technology to liberate it, it had a functionality at relatively low temperatures, so you can set it at low heat,” she said.
“When you add water, a little bit of oil and you heat it, it develops the texture and the layering that you get in muscle meats, so you basically get a piece of meat in just over a minute from a powder that looks, cuts and cooks just like chicken.”
Leaning into consumer demand for clean labels
Courtesy: Elmhurst 1925
The powdered chicken is available in two formats: the first is a starter kit that also includes a mixing glass, spatula and seasoning blend, and the second is a refill pack featuring the hemp powder and seasoning.
“It has no real taste, so you can season it with whatever you want or just add salt and pepper and it has a far more appealing texture than extruded plant-based meats, which can be like chewing rubber bands,” said Mitchell.
The spice mix that comes with the product contains garlic powder, onion powder, champignon mushroom powder, ground sage, thyme powder, salt, basil and black pepper.
Elmhurst 1925 will be testing the TerraMeat chicken in foodservice via restaurants in New York City over the coming weeks. “It is amazing to work with, it is delicious – one clean ingredient, hemp grain protein,” said Camillo Sabella, a plant-based chef based in New York City. “Unlike any other plant-based chicken product on the market that have sometimes 40 or 50 ingredients. [With] its ability to take on flavours and textures, you can use it in a variety of recipes.”
“We are able to harness the full nutritional quality of hemp protein, making it a wholesome, protein-rich option that satisfies both dietary preferences and the desire for a more sustainable food future,” said Schwartz. Thanks to hemp’s superfood status, each serving of the vegan chicken contains 26g of protein, 62mg of calcium, 10mg of iron, and 6mg of protein.
A survey by Innova Market Insights in 2022 revealed that over two in three global consumers are influenced by clean-label claims, and that almost half would pay more for these products. The absence of additives, the use of natural ingredients, and sustainability positioning are the three most important indicators of such products.
Moreover, for a quarter of respondents, cleaner labels indicate healthier products. This is why brands like Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat have upped their focus on health and nutrition, both in product formulations and their marketing efforts. In fact, TerraMeat’s launch came the same week Beyond Meat introduced a new Sun Sausage range made from whole foods like vegetables, grains and legumes.
After reviewing its guidelines, the British Veterinary Association is no longer discouraging pet owners from feeding their dogs vegan food, as long as it’s nutritionally complete.
The British Veterinary Association (BVA) has recognised that it’s possible to feed dogs fully vegan diets, in what is a major shift in its long-standing position and a big win for the plant-based food sector.
The UK organisation has for years discouraged pet owners from feeding plant-based protein to their furry friends. But it was criticised for this stance, with some pointing to a conflict of interest arising from its partnership with Mars Petcare (a major meat player in the pet sector).
In 2023, as pet food became more humanised and alternative diets more commonplace, the BVA began reviewing its advice. And this week, it finally published its latest policy position, acknowledging that it’s possible for dogs to follow a plant-based diet. Not only that, it also noted the potential of plant-based ingredients to enhance sustainability, thanks to the high emissions of meat production.
“We know that owners of cats and dogs are increasingly drawn to pet diets that reflect their own personal values and lifestyle choices, and this is leading to a surge in alternative approaches to pet food,” said BVA president Anna Judson.
A survey by the association revealed that 42% of pet parents fed their companion animals meat-free diets. “We support owners making informed choices about what to feed their pets, but they must be aware that these choices play a pivotal role in the health of the animal and can also have a wider impact on human health and environmental sustainability,” Judson said.
The latest policy position doesn’t attempt to determine the ‘best’ diet for individual pets, but seeks to focus on supporting the lifestyle choices of pet owners and helping them meet their pets’ nutritional needs.
Plant-based diets possible for dogs
Courtesy: Jane Faizullin/Getty Images
Speaking to the Guardian in 2023, BVA senior VP Justine Shotton said: “There is increasing interest among pet owners around alternative diets for pets, and while there is a lot of ongoing research into the impacts of vegan diets in particular, there has been a lack of robust data mapping the health consequences of this diet over time.”
She added that in light of ongoing research, the association had convened a companion animal feeding working group, which would inform its recommendations going forward. “In the meantime, owners should speak to their vet if they are considering changing their pet’s diet,” she said.
Now, the new policy position states that while meat and cereal-based diets are still the most common, owners now have increasing access to vegetarian or vegan foods, while there’s growing interest in alternative proteins like insects, cultivated meat, and yeast- and algae-based ingredients.
Research has found that vegan diets are the healthiest and least hazardous choice for dogs. The BVA also cites research that supports the use of meat-free food for pets and exhibits skin and gastrointestinal improvements. But it warns that such studies are small-scale and based purely on owner-reported data, so long-term, controlled assessments are needed to determine nutritional safety.
That said, “it is possible to feed dogs a plant-based diet”, the policy position notes. “But owners should be aware of the difficulties in balancing these diets for nutritional needs, the lack of robust long-term data on their safety, and should monitor their dog’s health for long-term impacts,” it adds.
However, the BVA is still against promoting fully vegan or vegetarian diets for cats, pointing to their perceived status as “obligate carnivores” and a lack of suitable synthetic amino acids. But a study last year suggested that vegan food could be healthier for cats than meat (although this was also based on owner responses).
“It is commendable that the BVA has finally ended its unscientific opposition to (nutritionally sound) vegan dog diets and has noted the environmental benefits that plant-based ingredients may provide,” said University of Winchester professor Andrew Knight, who has led a number of studies on vegan pet food, including the aforementioned one on cats. “It is now up to international veterinary associations to follow suit.”
In February 2023, industry body UK Pet Food published similar guidelines that acknowledged animal-derived nutrients can be sourced synthetically or from novel ingredients, so long as they are carefully formulated by highly qualified pet nutritionists. “There is little evidence of adverse effects arising in dogs and cats on vegan diets,” it stated.
Vet group recognises sustainability benefits of vegan pet food
Courtesy: Golero/Getty Images
It’s no secret that meat is much more harmful to the planet than plant-based foods – the former accounts for 60% of the world’s agricultural emissions. Because most pet food uses the ‘undesirable’ cuts of meat not destined for human consumption, experts disagree over the true emissions generated by pet food.
However, one study suggests that 20% of all meat produced is used for pet food. And in the UK, pets eat more per year than the entire population under 18, and labradors – the most popular pet dogs in the country – consume 70 million kg of meat annually, nearly 60% more than their owners. Plus, growing livestock and their feed takes up 85% of the UK’s farmland.
The BVA has recognised this, outlining how alternative proteins have been suggested to improve the eco credentials of pet food, but it cautioned that more research is needed to determine whether they’re truly sustainable.
“There has also been a growing interest in plant-based ingredients, including fully vegetarian and vegan diets,” the new policy position states. “Animal ingredients usually have higher environmental impacts overall than plant products, especially in terms of GHG emissions, so increased use of plant-based ingredients could help to improve sustainability, provided further research shows these diets meet nutritional needs over time.”
Research by Knight has also suggested that if all dogs were put on a nutritionally complete vegan diet, it would help feed nearly 450 million people and save more emissions than what the UK produces.
The BVA also laid out concerns about the trend towards pet owners seeking “higher-value meat content” instead of byproducts, which would result in greater transportation and storage costs, more waste, and higher climate impacts. “Premium brands may also seek to use [fewer] grains and cereals, unsustainably increasing the total meat content with no evidence that this benefits animal health and welfare,” it says.
The alternative pet food sector has been steadily growing over the last few years, with brands like Hownd, The Pack and Wild Earth some of the leading vegan manufacturers.
But even more activity has come from the cultivated meat sector – earlier this month, UK-based Meatly became the world’s first company to be approved to sell cultivated chicken for pets. In the same week in the US, Friends & Family Pet Food Co inked a deal with Umami Bioworks to make cultivated fish for cats, and Cult Food Science announced it would begin FDA feeding trials for its Noochies! cultivated dog treats as part of the regulatory clearance process..
After reviewing its guidelines, the British Veterinary Association is no longer discouraging pet owners from feeding their dogs vegan food, as long as it’s nutritionally complete.
The British Veterinary Association (BVA) has recognised that it’s possible to feed dogs fully vegan diets, in what is a major shift in its long-standing position and a big win for the plant-based food sector.
The UK organisation has for years discouraged pet owners from feeding plant-based protein to their furry friends. But it was criticised for this stance, with some pointing to a conflict of interest arising from its partnership with Mars Petcare (a major meat player in the pet sector).
In 2023, as pet food became more humanised and alternative diets more commonplace, the BVA began reviewing its advice. And this week, it finally published its latest policy position, acknowledging that it’s possible for dogs to follow a plant-based diet. Not only that, it also noted the potential of plant-based ingredients to enhance sustainability, thanks to the high emissions of meat production.
“We know that owners of cats and dogs are increasingly drawn to pet diets that reflect their own personal values and lifestyle choices, and this is leading to a surge in alternative approaches to pet food,” said BVA president Anna Judson.
A survey by the association revealed that 42% of pet parents fed their companion animals meat-free diets. “We support owners making informed choices about what to feed their pets, but they must be aware that these choices play a pivotal role in the health of the animal and can also have a wider impact on human health and environmental sustainability,” Judson said.
The latest policy position doesn’t attempt to determine the ‘best’ diet for individual pets, but seeks to focus on supporting the lifestyle choices of pet owners and helping them meet their pets’ nutritional needs.
Plant-based diets possible for dogs
Courtesy: Jane Faizullin/Getty Images
Speaking to the Guardian in 2023, BVA senior VP Justine Shotton said: “There is increasing interest among pet owners around alternative diets for pets, and while there is a lot of ongoing research into the impacts of vegan diets in particular, there has been a lack of robust data mapping the health consequences of this diet over time.”
She added that in light of ongoing research, the association had convened a companion animal feeding working group, which would inform its recommendations going forward. “In the meantime, owners should speak to their vet if they are considering changing their pet’s diet,” she said.
Now, the new policy position states that while meat and cereal-based diets are still the most common, owners now have increasing access to vegetarian or vegan foods, while there’s growing interest in alternative proteins like insects, cultivated meat, and yeast- and algae-based ingredients.
Research has found that vegan diets are the healthiest and least hazardous choice for dogs. The BVA also cites research that supports the use of meat-free food for pets and exhibits skin and gastrointestinal improvements. But it warns that such studies are small-scale and based purely on owner-reported data, so long-term, controlled assessments are needed to determine nutritional safety.
That said, “it is possible to feed dogs a plant-based diet”, the policy position notes. “But owners should be aware of the difficulties in balancing these diets for nutritional needs, the lack of robust long-term data on their safety, and should monitor their dog’s health for long-term impacts,” it adds.
However, the BVA is still against promoting fully vegan or vegetarian diets for cats, pointing to their perceived status as “obligate carnivores” and a lack of suitable synthetic amino acids. But a study last year suggested that vegan food could be healthier for cats than meat (although this was also based on owner responses).
“It is commendable that the BVA has finally ended its unscientific opposition to (nutritionally sound) vegan dog diets and has noted the environmental benefits that plant-based ingredients may provide,” said University of Winchester professor Andrew Knight, who has led a number of studies on vegan pet food, including the aforementioned one on cats. “It is now up to international veterinary associations to follow suit.”
In February 2023, industry body UK Pet Food published similar guidelines that acknowledged animal-derived nutrients can be sourced synthetically or from novel ingredients, so long as they are carefully formulated by highly qualified pet nutritionists. “There is little evidence of adverse effects arising in dogs and cats on vegan diets,” it stated.
Vet group recognises sustainability benefits of vegan pet food
Courtesy: Golero/Getty Images
It’s no secret that meat is much more harmful to the planet than plant-based foods – the former accounts for 60% of the world’s agricultural emissions. Because most pet food uses the ‘undesirable’ cuts of meat not destined for human consumption, experts disagree over the true emissions generated by pet food.
However, one study suggests that 20% of all meat produced is used for pet food. And in the UK, pets eat more per year than the entire population under 18, and labradors – the most popular pet dogs in the country – consume 70 million kg of meat annually, nearly 60% more than their owners. Plus, growing livestock and their feed takes up 85% of the UK’s farmland.
The BVA has recognised this, outlining how alternative proteins have been suggested to improve the eco credentials of pet food, but it cautioned that more research is needed to determine whether they’re truly sustainable.
“There has also been a growing interest in plant-based ingredients, including fully vegetarian and vegan diets,” the new policy position states. “Animal ingredients usually have higher environmental impacts overall than plant products, especially in terms of GHG emissions, so increased use of plant-based ingredients could help to improve sustainability, provided further research shows these diets meet nutritional needs over time.”
Research by Knight has also suggested that if all dogs were put on a nutritionally complete vegan diet, it would help feed nearly 450 million people and save more emissions than what the UK produces.
The BVA also laid out concerns about the trend towards pet owners seeking “higher-value meat content” instead of byproducts, which would result in greater transportation and storage costs, more waste, and higher climate impacts. “Premium brands may also seek to use [fewer] grains and cereals, unsustainably increasing the total meat content with no evidence that this benefits animal health and welfare,” it says.
The alternative pet food sector has been steadily growing over the last few years, with brands like Hownd, The Pack and Wild Earth some of the leading vegan manufacturers.
But even more activity has come from the cultivated meat sector – earlier this month, UK-based Meatly became the world’s first company to be approved to sell cultivated chicken for pets. In the same week in the US, Friends & Family Pet Food Co inked a deal with Umami Bioworks to make cultivated fish for cats, and Cult Food Science announced it would begin FDA feeding trials for its Noochies! cultivated dog treats as part of the regulatory clearance process..
Former TiNDLE Foods CEO Andre Menezes on why plant-based meat industry founders need to start facing some hard truths.
Over the past few years, I have had the privilege of engaging with numerous founders, professionals, and investors in the plant-based alternatives sector. It is surprising how many of them still overlook the critical context of their industry, failing to recognize that the challenges they face go far beyond flawed marketing, price parity, ingredient list and product performance. While these areas undoubtedly need improvement, the real challenge is much larger, more complex, and deeper. Consumer adoption has proven to be more nuanced and difficult than initially anticipated, and their relationship with meat and the lack of motivation to reduce meat consumption at the time of purchase are significant barriers. This is the primary reason this sector’s growth has been both incredibly expensive and slow. In my opinion, this headwind is the most relevant, and this oversight is likely to lead to many-a-failed company.
It is undeniable that the plant-based alternatives industry is navigating troubled waters, similar to many disruptive sectors such as EVs have already faced. This doesn’t mean the industry will die or fail to grow from its current state, but it does mean that the environment and strategies need urgent adaptation.
From 2019 to early 2022, the industry experienced a race for rapid growth, fueled by excess liquidity. Profitability wasn’t a focus; the strategy was to grow as fast as possible, raise more funds, and continue investing to become a leader in one of the most promising and fast-growing categories at that time. Burning cash wasn’t an issue with the right unit economics and growth metrics, as more funds were always just around the corner. However, things have since drastically changed.
Venture funding was initially driven by the expectation that the plant-based alternatives industry would disrupt and capture a significant share of the $2 trillion meat and dairy market, promising huge growth, greater valuation, and substantial returns for investors. However, after an initial pop, growth in the category has stagnated, which means raising capital at previous valuations is no longer an option. This shift doesn’t spell doom for the industry. In fact, it might force the sector to become more sustainable and efficient. Profitability is no longer merely optional, it’s now a necessity. Companies with cash runway must urgently devise strategies to achieve profitability, potentially including inorganic consolidation. Failure to reach profitability will more than likely result in bankruptcy, or at best, a small exit that won’t satisfy shareholders, especially founders who have dedicated years of their lives to the business, usually without a plan B.
All of this should be apparent to anyone involved in the business, especially those who have been operating or investing in this sector for a few years. Surprisingly, certain founders and more than a few investors I have been speaking to still cling to outdated strategies and hypotheses. They continue to attribute the industry’s stagnation only to product issues and flawed marketing. While both of these do require significant improvement, the reality is that the investment, assortment, variety and attention this sector has received should have led to higher actual category growth.
Geography and category examples highlight the importance of consumer readiness
There are enough elements, cases, and launch attempts to show that the most significant factor for adoption (or lack thereof) is not the product or the marketing itself, but consumer readiness in each market. On the product side, there are many applications where plant-based products are indistinguishable from their meat counterparts but still sell a tiny fraction of their animal counterparts – even when the price is close or at parity.
For instance, in my opinion, the Impossible Whopper from Burger King US is nearly indistinguishable from the chain’s regular Whopper. I invite you to go to any Burger King in the States and try an Impossible Whopper and a regular Whopper. Then drive 20 miles and do the same test at another Burger King location. You will likely find that the difference between the two beef patties from different locations is more significant than the difference between beef and Impossible meat in the same location, prepared by the same staff. However, if you ask the staff how many Impossible Whoppers they sell compared to beef Whoppers, you will be shocked at the discrepancy. When product quality, price, and marketing are equivalent, what could possibly explain the immense difference in their respective performances? In my opinion, this is where consumer openness and adoption at a societal level have been drastically overlooked.
In Germany, the situation is much better according to Burger King Europe’s own data, with 1 in 5 Whoppers sold being plant-based. While some might rush to conclude that the German product—made by Unilever Vegetarian Butcher—is superior or better marketed than its US counterpart, such an argument could easily be countered by the fact that other EU countries offering the same product do not perform at the same level. Germany has a longer history of education around sustainability and the environmental impacts of the food system than most countries in the world. Eco-friendly behaviours, ranging from recycling strategies and energy efficiency incentives to higher efficiency cars, are just some of the many examples of behaviours resulting from Germany’s decades of education around sustainability, matched with policies that encourage companies and individuals to consume fewer resources. In Germany, the environmental impacts of our food system are better understood, and consumers are increasingly trying to reduce their impact on the environment.
Interestingly, the plant-based milk sector has had more consistent success across most markets. If you enter any trendy urban coffee shop in a developed economy, you will find that plant-based milk often accounts for 50% or more of milk sales. This is despite plant-based milk being far more expensive and usually nutritionally inferior to cow’s milk in terms of protein, sugar, and other minerals. The success of plant-based milk brands shows that marketing, product quality, and price alone are not the sole determinants of market success. While I don’t believe there is one definitive answer to explain the relative success of this category, it is clear that there is less consumer resistance to switching from cow’s milk and fewer barriers to adoption despite the usually higher prices. Factors certainly include the prevalence of milk allergies and the fact that milk is not as aspirational an ingredient as meat, among others.
Shifting consumer behaviours requires more than product-market fit and better marketing
Shallow comparisons to companies like Tesla often emerge, suggesting plant-based meat companies should simply mimic Tesla’s approach to drive up the category adoption. While Tesla’s role in the EV revolution is category-making, comparing its growth across different markets shows that adoption requires more than a coveted product and great marketing. Relative EV market growth in the US compared to Norway or China illustrates that EV adoption involves a complex interplay of factors beyond just product appeal and marketing. Not only the funding for EVs has been multiple times higher than alternative proteins, but -most importantly- there were significant financial incentives targeted at driving demand coupled with consumer subsidies, privileged access to parking and city toll exemption. Further reading on the EV/Alt-Protein industry comparison can be found here.
Recognising the headwinds and reshaping the strategy for success
While it feels comfortable for founders and their investors to look at failed attempts as being the result of flawed marketing or product quality while hoping that their companies are exceptional and that the headwinds won’t affect them, they should honestly ask themselves whether they will be able to raise funds on the same good terms and/or grow to profitability organically like most others haven’t been able to before they run out of cash. Founders and investors must reassess their strategies to align with the current environment. Without profitability, scale and growth, chances of successful funding rounds are slim and successful exits are highly unlikely as valuations increasingly rely on classic food business multiples, which are orders of magnitude less than the coveted SaaS/tech numbers.
Facing headwinds is a natural part of business, and resilience is an essential trait for a startup founder. However, this must not turn into stubborn blindness, and result in leading companies to failure or frustrating exits after years of hard work. Recognizing and adapting to the new normal is crucial for navigating the challenges ahead.
The good news is that category leaders often do emerge exactly in times like these, when businesses with the right scale, profitability and strategy can leverage the challenges faced by the broader category to solidify their presence, navigate troubled waters and point towards a brighter future.
In our weekly column, we round up the latest news and developments in the alternative protein and sustainable food industry. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers VFC’s ad in response to KFC’s new campaign, a new oat milk company, and an alternative protein week.
New products and launches
Slovenian whole-cut plant-based meat producer Juicy Marbles has introduced its newest product, Baby Ribs, made with a cleaner-label recipe. The 350g pack will roll out tomorrow, and newsletter subscribers who pre-ordered the product could receive prototypes of its lamb rack or bacon.
Courtesy: Juicy Marbles
Shane Stanbridge and C-Y Chia, owners of Oakland’s now-closed Lion Dance Cafe, are working on a cookbook inspired by the vegan restaurant, and have put out an open call to ask customers which dishes they should include in the recipe list.
Catering giant Compass Group‘s Eurest division has linked up with Irish company The Plant-It Food Co to serve the latter’s vegan chicken across non-commercial operations in Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, and Philadelphia. A national rollout will follow soon.
UK plant-based brand Framptons has unveiled the Wessex Oat Company, a range of discount oat milk in original, unsweetened, oat latte, caramel latte, and chocolate flavours for £1.49-1.99. It will also introduce a single cream alternative later this year.
Courtesy: Framptons
German vegan startup Planteneers has developed a fully plant-based Italian buffet. It showcased the menu with Marriott International, preparing vegan tiramisu, white fish and mortadella sandwiches for 1,450 attendees at the Future Food-Tech trade show in San Francisco.
Meanwhile, German producer Greenforce has linked up with UAE agrifood tech company Silal to bring its dehydrated plant-based meat mixes to foodservice locations in the Middle East and Africa region.
Also in Germany, discount supermarket Kaufland has expanded its own-label vegan, K-Take It Veggie, by around 20%, crossing 100 SKUs. It comes a year after it reduced the prices of its private-label plant-based products to match animal proteins.
In Australia, vegan food maker Plantein has rolled out an affordable line of ready-to-cook meals at Woolworths stores, featuring burgers, mince and meatballs for A$2.95 ($1.97).
Courtesy: Fascin8foods
And fellow Australian company Fascin8foods has expanded its Froom range of whole-food plant-based burgers, mine and meatballs to retailers in New South Wales and Queensland.
Company and event updates
Ingredients giant AAK has received a ‘no further questions’ letter from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the use of shea stearin, a plant-based fat that can replace cocoa butter and coconut oil, among others.
The Plant Based Foods Association has partnered with jobs platform Tälist, enabling its members to post open positions on a specially curated version of the AltProtein.jobs board.
Courtesy: Livekindly Collective
New York-based firm Livekindly Collective – the parent company of Like Meat, No Meat, Oumph! and Alpha Foods – has named David Suarez as CEO. Suarez moves up from his previous role as chief supply chain officer.
The Cultured Meat Symposium and UC Davis’ Integrative Center for Alternative Meat and Protein (iCAMP) have collaborated to host the Alternative Protein Week (September 9-13), which will convene over 300 researchers, policymakers, investors and stakeholders to discuss novel protein production.
Two months after opening its first European plant-based production line in Germany, Dutch drinks company Refresco has acquired Spanish white-label plant-based milk maker Frías Nutrición for an undisclosed sum.
Courtesy: VFC
UK vegan chicken maker VFC has launched a new campaign taking a shot at KFC‘s Believe in Chicken campaign, calling on people to ‘Believe in Chickens’ instead. The plurality aims to highlight the fast-food giant’s “hypocrisy”.
Research, policy and awards
What really drives people away from cultivated meat? One new study suggests it could be people’s morals, with Germans and Americans who care about the purity and naturalness of life are less inclined to eat these proteins. It highlights another pain point around consumer education for the sector.
Minnesota governor Tim Walz has announced a $200M Climate Pollution Reduction Grant from the US Environmental Protection Agency to cut greenhouse gas emissions from the state’s food system
US mycelium meat producer Meati has received the Sustainable Plant of the Year award by Food Engineering magazine for its 100,000 sq ft Mega Ranch in Thornton, Colorado.
Courtesy: Meati
A campus-wide meat-free trial at the University of Bonn in Germany found that up to eight weeks after the trial ended, sales of meat were lower by 7-12% than before the veggie month, with 80% of students saying they want to see more meatless meals in the canteen.
Finally, in the UK, polling by Bosh! has revealed that nearly half (49%) of the country’s vegan population is male, subverting trends seen in previous research, which has suggested that veganism is much more common among women.
Project Eaden co-founder Jan Wilmking on why fibre-spinning technology can solve plant-based meat’s woes, the startup’s investment plans, and when it will come to market.
On the German morning show ZDF Morgenmagazin in 2017, Jamie Oliver declared Jörg Förstera, owner of Berlin butchery Kumpel & Keule, the best butcher in the country.
It was a stamp that echoed what many in the public felt as well. Kumpel & Keule prides itself on quality, noting that “only the best belongs in a good sausage”.
So when someone like Förstera endorses a plant-based meat product, it’s worth paying attention. After all, the only way animal-free meat producers will have an impact is by appealing to meat-eaters – and the people who sell and cook it for them.
“For me, the meats from Project Eaden are the first alternatives that get extremely close to the taste profile of animal meat,” says Förstera. “Really impressive.”
The German startup – founded in 2022 by Dr David Schmelzeisen, Hubertus Bessau, and Jan Wilmking – first made global headlines last year, when it came out of stealth to announce an oversubscribed €10.1M seed round, featuring EU food and climate VC stalwarts including Creandum, Atlantic Food Labs, Shio Capital and Mudcake.
Food tech social media was filled with photos of what is considered to be the holy grail of plant-based meat: whole-cut steak. The image of the company’s steak fillet (see below) made the rounds online, where commentators wondered if the photo was doctored. It was not.
The company’s original steak loin from their 2023 launch announcement | Courtesy: Project Eaden
In less than two years, the company has successfully used its technology to create a wide range of whole cuts including sausages, pork loin, and beef steaks, “a full meat range for everyday life” as the company puts it. But also, ham.
Ham: the other plant-based holy grail
As with steak, ham and deli meats are for some another holy grail of the meat alternative market, particularly for Europeans. Until recently, there have been almost no contenders for true ham lovers.
Last year, French plant-based meat startup La Vie debuted two cooked ham products (emulsified soy) to well-deserved fanfare and a small handful of US startups like Prime Roots (fermented koji base) and Unreal Deli offer American-style deli cuts but, unlike plant-based burgers and chicken nuggets, there is plenty of room for a new player like Project Eaden to disrupt the ham case.
For meat-eaters, taste and texture remain a major stumbling block when it comes to whole-cut meat analogues. Project Eaden says it is solving for both. The company says its tech results in “realistic optics and a realistic, heterogeneous chew experience.”
Fibre-spun meat attracts industry veterans
Courtesy: Project Eaden
So what makes Project Eaden’s meats “really impressive” to people like Förstera? To make the novel food, the startup leverages ancient textile technology. In Egypt, spindles were used to turn flax fibre into yarn. In 1665, the idea of producing synthetic threads through the spinning wheel was first floated. It was the 1930s that birthed the first spinning of fully synthetic fibre in the form of nylon and polyester.
Fibre-spinning changed the face of the fashion industry, and Project Eaden hopes to use the same technology to transform the food system.
The fibres produced by Project Eaden’s highly scalable tech can be designed to meet technical requirements like elasticity, water-binding ability and strength. Plant proteins are bundled into strands, and then unfolded in a solution to create a homogenous liquid. This is spun to form ultra-thin fibres, which get integrated into a compound to replicate the collagen-based connective tissues found in animals.
“Our technology essentially uses two main types of fibres to make delicious meat-like products,” explains Wilmking, the company’s managing director. “First, we use strong and thin fibres for connective tissue, which don’t stick together much, but help make the meat structure and bite experience feel real. Then, a large part of our product is made from a cheaper, juicier fibre that sticks together just enough to hold meat juice in small spaces, making it taste tender and yummy, like real meat.”
The technology has excited industry executives like Godo Röben, former managing director of German meat and plant-based giant Rügenwalder Mühle (Wilmking refers to Röben as the godfather of Germany’s plant-based industry). “When I heard about the idea for the first time, I thought: that can work. And I invested early in the seed round at a time when frankly, their prototypes were still very, very rough,” he tells Green Queen.
Röben came on as an advisor to the startup, galvanised by Project Eaden’s “team, tech and traction”. “I could see from early on that retailers, B2B and foodservice clients will want Project Eaden’s products,” he says.
Plant-based meat is a crowded space, but for Röben, this startup stands out because it’s “very fast and very professional at the same time.”
Triple threat: a founding team with commercial experience, tech expertise and food industry knowledge
Courtesy: Project Eaden
“The quality bar is really high. The pace is high. And finally, the products deliver taste and texture unseen in the market,” Röben says.
This isn’t the founding team’s first rodeo. Where plenty of food tech startups boast a technical founder, many lack founding teams with operational commercial experience, or a food industry background, Project Eaden’s founders each bring multiple careers worth of expertise.
After a stint at McKinsey and Harvard, Wilmking cut his teeth working for Rocket Internet’s Zalando, rising to be a senior VP. As anyone who has worked for the famed Samwar brothers knows, there is no better business school than running a Rocket company.
Bessau is a food industry insider, having co-founded cereal startup MyMuesli in 2007 and built it up to a multi-EU-country brand employing over 850 people.
Rounding out the team is Dr Schmelzeisen, who holds PhD in textile engineering focused on textile welding and production tech for smart textiles. He has previously supported research into smart textiles at RWTH Aachen University and developed electronic sensor systems to integrate into textiles at ETH Zurich.
Rounding out the team is Schmelzeisen, who holds PhD in textile engineering focused on textile welding and production tech for smart textiles. He has previously supported research into smart textiles at RWTH Aachen University and developed electronic sensor systems to integrate into textiles at ETH Zurich. Schmelzeisen is also a passionate and experienced hobby chef, which is how he first saw the connection between textile fibres and meat fibres.
Project Eaden is keeping things affordable
Courtesy: Project Eaden
Project Eaden suggests that its meats, however tech-forward, offer a much-needed solution to plant-based’s affordability problems. As the company explains: “Our technology platform is textile tech, which has been optimised for massive scale, low cost and low CAPEX for decades.”
According to Schmelzeisen, wet and rotary spinning processes are usually very expensive and can lead to slick fibres that don’t connect with each other. He says Project Eaden has solved this issue. “We have developed a new way of spinning proteins, which is cheap to run and creates meaty fibres. We still use wet spinning, but only selectively.”
This allows it to keep costs low. “Our tech has the benefit of being cheap to run, and cheap and fast to scale up in terms of equipment,” he says. “Our roots in the world of textile technology and mechanical engineering have paid off, as this angle has unlocked both low capital expenditure and cost of goods, especially low process cost and a high degree of automation.”
Massachuessets-based Tender Foods is another startup making fibre-spun meat analogues, likening its production process to spinning cotton candy. The company has raised a total of $23M since it launched in 2020, closing an $11M Series A round last month led by Rhapsody Venture Partners and Lowercarbon Capital, and it inked a deal with meat-free QSR chain Clover Food Lab to feature its fried chicken and pork as bowl toppings.
How does Project Eaden’s tech differ? Schmelzeisen says that where others are using a single-fibre approach, “we follow a multi-material approach: meat is muscle, and muscle is organic fibre compounds, made of different fibre types.”
The multi-fibre tech allows the team to replicate the mouthfeel of different types of meat that they say has not been achieved to date: “We replicate this logic and combine different fibre types to create the sensations of meat. Muscle fibres, connective tissue, adipose tissue. All made from plants, designed to match mechanical properties of meat fibres.”
To safeguard its IP, the company already has three patents pending, all of which are “focused on fibre spinning and fibre compound creation (i.e. meat creation), covering key aspects of process and end products”.
Project Eaden is developing its own, bespoke flavours
Courtesy: Project Eaden
So that’s the texture stuff. But in order to truly capture the market, companies need to address flavour, which has become the most important purchase driver for meat analogues.
For Project Eaden, the USP is “little to no off-taste”, according to Wilmking. “One thing that has a massive impact on flavour is the spinning process, which leads to a significant reduction of undesirable plant taste notes, aka off-taste,” he says.
“So our spinning process, rather than the exact selection of input materials, helps to generate a nearly blank canvas in terms of taste, which we can [project] our flavours on. No need for maskers, no need for massive seasonings.”
He adds that the company has been working with large flavour houses and developing its own reactive flavours, rather than opting for a pre-made blend. “This has really changed the game, and has created deeper, more complex meatiness and more realistic roasting aroma,” Wilmking says. “The combination of a blank flavour canvas with hardly any off-taste – and truly meaty taste notes on top – makes the products extremely tasty, without being too extreme or intense.”
The base ingredient for all its meat products is wheat protein, complemented with fava bean and/or pea protein. “We use blends of proteins depending on fibre and meat type,” he says.
“Generally, wheat protein can be sourced locally in high quality and provides a great base texture. But it is way too elastic on its own. Hence, we blend it with other protein types, which are great at holding water and releasing it when chewed (juicy mouthfeel), or which add brittleness and roughness for a realistic chew.”
Cooked ham will be the first retail product
Courtesy: Project Eaden
The technology also allows the startup to create a wide range of cuts, from Serrano and cooked ham, bratwurst, and bacon to chicken breast, pastrami, and beef and pork flank steaks. “From the start, one of our goals has been to build a highly versatile production platform,” he says. “One base process, one set of input materials, a large variety of end products – all created very efficiently in terms of COGS and with low CAPEX.”
He adds: “Today, we can see that it works. The portfolio of possible products ranges from pork and beef to chicken. And we’ve developed products for cold and warm applications on the same fibre tech platform.”
The cooked hams will come to market first. Wilmking explains it’s a product he and Schmelzeisen grew up with as a staple in their fridges. “We tested hams last summer and our early prototypes hit home with the team instantly,” he says. “Since then, we tested it with friends, family, and finally retailers and food service professionals and it got better and better. Now, we feel it’s ready for the ‘real stage’, called retail shelves. And it’s a pretty large market in and by itself, like nearly all segments in the world of meat.”
Project Eaden says its meats can add a fibrous texture to mycelium-based or cultivated versions (the latter being an example of hybrid meat). Would it be tempted to look into the evolving blended meat space (a mix of conventional meat with plant-based or fermented ingredients), which has attracted industry giants like Nestlé and Quorn?
“Slaughtered animal meat integrated with our meat is not on our agenda,” states Wilmking. “What we have explored and continue to do so is to collaborate with lab-grown meat and precision fermentation startups to test [the] integration of their materials into our meat technology.
“We can add texture to their materials, which by nature have no fibrous texture yet. We focus on plant-based now, however, given the ongoing regulatory challenges. So this is a longer-term exploration and initiative for us.”
An increasingly greater hurdle for consumers when it comes to plant-based is health and nutrition. But the numbers for Project Eaden are encouraging. Its cooked ham, for example, has 21g of protein, while the flank steaks boast 28g, both on par or higher than their conventional counterparts. Plus, the plant-based versions contain the all-important fibre, and zero cholesterol.
The company is raising a Series A ahead of a 2025 launch
Courtesy: Project Eaden
Unlike many others in the industry, Project Eaden is opting for a retail-first approach and has secured a listing with a leading supermarket chain in the Germany, Austria and Switzerland (DACH) region. The first products are slated for a launch in early 2025.
“It’s the fastest route to market for us. We have listings in DACH and can reach millions of people, with full control over product and brand experience,” says Wilmking. “We believe it creates everyday relevance fast and will open doors for B2B in a later stage.”
He notes that the feedback from retailers has been “very positive”: “The meatiness and real-like look and taste are really interesting across products, which is why they are not only interested in one product but a range from the start.”
As he alluded to, Project Eaden will enter B2B eventually. “One super interesting channel could be to feature our products as ingredients in convenience meals, which also touch the lives of many people every day, especially those of busy professionals and families,” he says. “From frozen ready meals to frozen pizza, meat is still a massive part of them and we see a big opportunity for partnerships.”
So far, the company has secured more than €12M in funding, with an additional €2M in public grants to add to their seed last year. “We are currently raising a Series A to scale up and service retail demand,” reveals Wilmking.
Raising capital is tough work in the current VC environment. Financing for plant-based companies fell by 24% in 2023, reaching $908M. And in the first quarter of 2024, the sector attracted just $58M. That coincided with faltering sales in some markets.
“There are only [a] few products consumers really love. It’s a ‘bestseller’ market rather than an even distribution of success,” suggests Röben. “I believe there is a lot of room to consolidate the current offer and substitute ‘so-so products’ with really good ones.”
He continues: “That’s good for consumers because overall quality and value for money will improve, and it’s good for retailers because repeat buys and rotation in the plant-based alternative shelves will increase.”
While some decry the plant-based market stagnation in geographies like the US, in Germany, the ecosystem is thriving, according to Röben, who tells Green Queen the vegan market has actually grown in the DACH region. In Germany alone, plant-based meat production was up by 17% last year, according to federal data. “The little slowdown we saw after the pandemic is over,” he says. “The market is hungry for better products that finally hold what they promise.”
As early as next year, then, you could be eating ham made the same as the clothes you’re wearing.
UK manufacturer Pets Choice has agreed to acquire vegan dog food maker Hownd for an undisclosed sum, in what is described as a “positive” deal for the brand.
Power Pet Brands, the parent company of Hownd, has agreed to sell the vegan dog food startup to legacy manufacturer Pets Choice.
The deal will see Hownd co-founders Jo Amit and Mark Hirschel exit the business, with Pets Choice taking over operations from August 5.
As a manufacturer of branded and white-label pet food, Pets Choice has an extensive portfolio with brands dating back to 1881, including Davies, Webbox, Bob Martin, Felight, TastyBone and Vet’s Kitchen.
Hirschel, who described the move as a “strategic milestone”, declined to comment when asked about the financials involved, but did confirm that Pets Choice will own 100% of the Hownd brand following the completion of the deal.
Pets Choice CEO Tony Raeburn suggested the acquisition will bolster its drive into product premiumisation, with Hownd helping the company enter the $14B vegan dog food sector. “We look forward to leveraging Hownd’s established market presence and extensive and loyal customer base, further solidifying our position as a leader in the pet care industry,” he said.
Why Hownd was sold to Pets Choice
Courtesy: Hownd
First established in 2013 as Butch & Bess, Hownd rebranded to its current name two years later, and has become known for its hypoallergenic dog food range – which includes kibble as well as canned porridge, dal and casserole – and wellness treats targeting different functions and ages. It also offers pet care in the form of shampoos, conditioners, skincare and sunscreen.
The startup has built its reputation as an ethical brand, topping the environmental impact, animal welfare, and public record categories in the Good Shopping Guide 2024, which ranks ethical businesses around the world. Its nutritionally complete dog food has also been recognised in Forward Fooding’s FoodTech 500 list of food innovators for two years running.
But these successes have come against a backdrop of faltering sales in the larger plant-based industry, with investors becoming more cautious with their capital in the post-pandemic landscape. In 2023, investment in vegan startups was down by 24% globally, reaching $908M. This year, only $58M was pumped into the sector in the first quarter.
In light of this, Hirschel explained that the decision to sell was influenced both by Hownd’s success as well as the industry’s headwinds. “Market conditions are tough, they have been for a while now. It’s not just plant-based companies – I see struggles across many different industries,” he said.
“But cash is king, as we all know, and it does take deep pockets to launch into the pet food space across multiple distribution channels. Hownd is a well-respected brand brought to the market in 2013 with loads of growth potential, but as business owners, it’s important to know when the future success is best in someone else’s hands, and for us, the time is now.”
Co-founders to leave the startup
Courtesy: Hownd
Hirschel said the deal would have a positive effect on Hownd’s portfolio and distribution: “The buyers are extremely well-established, managing a portfolio of brands and shipping globally. They will be putting both time and investment into scaling the brand and its distribution channels, and will be able to do this much faster and more efficiently than we would be able to on our own.”
Hownd’s employees will be subject to the UK’s Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) regulations, which protect workers when they’re transferred to a new employer.
But it does mean that both Hirschel and Amit will leave their roles and the business they founded over a decade ago. “I’d like to think that we will both take on other employment for the time being, as we have a non-compete [clause] built into the sale, with regards to vegan pet food [or pet care],” explained Hirschel.
“Whether that’s together or separately is anyone’s best guess right now, but we’re both well-connected with lots of experience, so let’s just see what happens,” he added. “And who knows what happens a bit further down the road? We both love looking at opportunities and have plenty of ideas up our sleeves.”
Amit said she’s exploring “purely purpose-driven roles”, helping create and launch new brands and products in a new, but related sector. “I’m passionate about all forms of animal welfare and environmental sustainability, including rewilding projects,” she told Green Queen. “These areas resonate deeply with my values, and I am eager to contribute more significantly to these causes.”
Some have suggested that this is a reflection of the tough macroeconomic conditions and cooling consumer interest in certain products and categories. While Hirschel noted that it’s common to see M&As increase during tough times, he said he doesn’t believe consolidation is crucial.
But he added: “It’s early days with regards to growth in the vegan pet space, and sometimes consolidation can be the driving force between creating a successful brand and a struggling one. There are loads of new players entering the category and we know that not all will survive, so deal-making at the right time can be instrumental to a brand’s success.”
So why are brands finding it hard to survive? For vegan pet food makers, the biggest challenge is consumer adoption, he said: “We’ve had decades of marketing and media telling us that dogs need meat, and this just isn’t true. So it takes time for consumers to trust a different way of thinking and see the benefits of a plant-based diet first-hand.
“Lots and lots of education and marketing are needed, and this can be challenging. There’s also a general belief that plant-based is not enticing enough for dogs – but again, this is just not true, and many dogs are choosing the taste of plant-based over other meat alternatives.
“And finally, there is price… Generally speaking, it’s more expensive to make a premium plant-based recipe than a meat-based one – this is mostly down to government livestock farming subsidies and also [the fact] that production costs are higher at factories, as more prep is required to flush and clean the equipment to avoid cross-contamination.”
So what’s next for Hownd, which has raised over £300,000 ($389,000) in funding? “The new owners will be investing into Hownd [by] adding more breadth and depth to the product assortment and pushing the brand through more distribution channels,” said Hirschel.
“The Hownd brand is already well-loved and respected, so now it’s about driving that competitive edge in the marketplace, increasing exposure and bringing in loads of new customers.”
Certification body V-Label has now accredited more than 70,000 products from 48,000 companies globally, reaching an all-time record.
V-Label – the international vegan and vegetarian certification mark – now has more products sporting its logo than any other alternative protein label.
As of this week, it has certified over 70,000 products as vegan or vegetarian, surpassing The Vegan Society’s Vegan Trademark (said to be on 65,000+ items, although these are exclusively plant-based).
The number of licensees has also reached an all-time high, with 48,000 companies now holding licences from V-Label and its 37 local partner organisations.
It means that since January 2023, the number of V-Label certifications has spiked by 40%, while 11% more companies now have a licence. “We are thrilled to see such a substantial increase in the number of certified products and our licensee base,” said V-Label founder Renato Pichler.
“This milestone is a confirmation of our dedication to providing easy-to-understand and transparent information to consumers worldwide,” he added.
Martin Ranninger, co-director of V-Label International, told Green Queen: “The first licensing took place already in 1996. With the growth of the industry and consumer interest, there have never been as many vegan and vegetarian options. Our growth is fuelled by the work of 30+ local partner organisations.”
How companies get the V-Label
Courtesy: V-Label
Backed by the European Vegetarian Union, V-Label was introduced in 1995 in Switzerland, and has been a recognised seal for vegan and vegetarian products across various industries, including food and beverage, cosmetics, household items, and other non-food categories.
“The majority of our licensed products are food and beverage products,” said Ranninger. “We, however, see a growing trend in the cosmetics and cleaning products industry.”
Apart from being a guide for grocery shoppers, it has also provided expertise in quality management, food technology, chemistry, cosmetology and marketing.
And last year, it redesigned the two seals to better differentiate between vegan and vegetarian products. While both logos were virtually identical before – a yellow circle with a green V – now, the vegetarian label features a green background with a yellow V.
Companies need to undergo a standardised process to obtain the label. This includes the application, submission of documents, a licence contract, verification, and other steps.
“We always license a specific product, and we do not award licence certificates for whole companies or brands. If an application is successful, the producer receives a licence certificate and may use the label on product packaging, promotional materials, etc.,” explains Ranninger.
“The license is usually awarded for 12 months and needs to be renewed afterwards. The price is set by the local partner organisation and depends on several factors, such as the size of the producer, the complexity of the products, etc.”
Private-label brands signal V-Label’s success
Courtesy: V-Label
Ranninger credits V-Label’s supermarket partnerships as part of the reason for the certification’s success: “The growth is definitely supported by our excellent relationships with the majority of European retailers, which license their private-label products with us.” More than 25 own-label brands from leading European grocers carry the label.
“The highest number of certifications will be among several retailers who have licensed their private-label products,” Ranninger revealed. “Edeka, Aldi, Lidl, Coop, Tesco, Rewe, Carrefour, and Migros are some of the retailers that we work with internationally.”
While V-Label is on more products than ever before, labelling battles for plant-based products have raged on globally. Within Europe, it has partner organisations in 23 of the 27 EU member states. But the bloc still doesn’t allow plant-based dairy packaging to feature words like ‘milk’, ‘yoghurt’ or ‘cheese’. Similar restrictions exist (for meat analogues as well) in numerous parts of the world.
“The ongoing attempts to introduce further restrictions on the labeling of plant-based products is driven by industry interests. Consumers are increasingly asking for healthier and more sustainable products, which is exactly what plant-based products can help them with,” said Ranninger.
“We do not think that policymakers should be making consumers’ lives more difficult. Put simply, consumers are not stupid and they know when they buy a veggie burger or soy milk what they are buying. Furthermore, we do not think that policymakers should not be acting on the vested interests of the animal agriculture lobby.”
Oatly has launched three ice creams via partnerships with Haidilao and KFC in China, where it has initiated a strategic reset this year.
Swedish oat milk giant Oatly has partnered with hotpot giant Haidilao and fast-casual chain KFC to introduce new vegan popsicles to the restaurants’ menus in China.
At Haidilao, the world’s largest hotpot chain, Oatly has introduced two fruit popsicles in guava and grape flavours. The eatery is one of the five most valuable brands internationally. Among the only companies surpassing it is KFC, which has extended an ongoing partnership with Oatly to offer a limited-edition citrus-flavoured ice lolly.
It follows the rollout of a range of zero-sugar oat milk ice creams in the market to cater to an increasingly health-conscious population.
Oatly hones in on health amid China reset
Courtesy: Oatly
At Haidilao, the oat-based fruit popsicles were specifically designed to complement hot pots, providing a cooling sensation to the often spicy and always piping-hot dish. The treats blend Oatly’s milk with fresh fruits, resulting in a creamy, sweet and sour offering that counterbalances the meal.
Meanwhile, Oatly’s KFC popsicle is called Bursting Citrus Trio, and features a blend of three different kinds of lemons, whose tanginess is offset by malt paste and maltose syrup. The zesty treats also contain crunchy bits of frozen candied lemon peel.
This comes months after Oatly rolled out zero-sugar treats in latte, cocoa and hazelnut variants, speaking to a growing demand for healthier plant-based foods in China. A 2023 report by Asymmetrics Research outlined how plant-based milk brands are highlighting attributes like ‘no sugar/cholesterol/trans fat’, ‘good for brains/eyes’, and ‘high protein/calcium’ on product packaging, alongside cleaner labels.
Courtesy: Oatly
“China is promoting healthier and more nutritious food options in response to the Healthy China policy,” said David J Ettinger, chief representative officer at law firm Keller and Heckman Shanghai. “Therefore, foods offering health benefits and high nutritional value are going to likely lead the way.”
Health is the main driver of plant-based food consumption in China, with 46% of consumers saying so in a poll published last month. This was followed by nutrition (39%). Freshness of ingredients, meanwhile, is the biggest barrier, cited by 36% of respondents, so this focus by Oatly will likely be popular with shoppers.
The partnerships with Haidilao and KFC will help Oatly, which first introduced ice cream in China in 2022, turn its fortunes around in the country. Sales have been on the decline for a while now, with the oat milk maker blaming a “slower-than-expected post-Covid-19 recovery”.
Last year, its Asian revenue decreased by 19% – China made up 93% of the market. “The consumer environment in Greater China remains challenging. However, we are identifying opportunities to rebuild our business in a disciplined manner,” COO Daniel Ordonez said in May.
“While it is clear we have not yet gained the traction needed for this business to capture the full opportunity that region provides, you can see we’re starting to make progress on the second stage of this segment’s turnaround plan,” he added.
Spotlighting culture and functionality for Chinese consumers
Courtesy: Oatly
As part of its strategic reset in China, Oatly rejigged its operating segments this year, with Greater China (including Hong Kong and Taiwan) now managed separately from Asia-Pacific, which has joined Latin America, Europe, Middle East and Africa in a new Europe & International section.
Ordonez’s statements came during the company’s Q1 earnings call this year. The Greater China region made up 11% of the business’s sales in the quarter, and year-on-year revenue was down by 27%. Oatly had already begun eliminating low-margin SKUs from retail and e-commerce, and now, the foodservice focus has been amped up.
The latter channel accounted for 70% of the brand’s Q1 revenue in Greater China, while e-commerce contributed to 13% – it represents the need for a different strategy in this region, given that retail dominated revenue in its other markets.
“Sensitive to the economic context prevailing in China and the new consumer behaviour, it was clear we needed to complement our portfolio with SKUs that could hit certain price points,” Ordonez said. “This helps us to build a stronger service package for our customers, drive volume growth to sustain necessary levels of capacity absorption, and hence, solidify our margins.”
Courtesy: Oatly
Reflecting on Oatly’s journey in China and its future strategy, its Greater China president David Zhang told Campaign Asia last month that “categories serve as forests, brands act as trees, and business represents the fruit”. “Initially, there’s a forest, followed by trees, and ultimately, fruit. Without a forest, the trees would be swept away by the wind. Only when a category is established can a brand genuinely exist,” he explained.
Zhang highlighted the importance of understanding cultural differences and values in the CPG sector. “We’ve discovered that numerous Nordic concepts are compatible with fundamental human logic, such as ‘less is more’, ‘lagom’ (Swedish for ‘just right’), and ‘sustainable development’. These concepts are also relevant in China,” he said.
“In China, Oatly not only highlights the functionality of its products but also chooses to use them to represent a lifestyle. We discuss the Nordic way of life and position environmental protection and sustainability as our distinctive attributes, together with the importance of design and creativity as our primary focus, to showcase our unique strengths and qualities.”
Zhang added that the demand for oat milk has been constantly on the rise in China. “The challenge of shifting from a ‘niche’ to ‘daily’ means increasing the consumer base and its diverse needs,” he stated. “At the same time, it is an opportunity for Oatly to maintain keen market insights and create R&D capabilities to meet the diversified needs of the general public for oat-based products.”
PETA’s packing a willy important message for all viewers of Foodtopia, the raunchy Sausage Party “micro series” spin-off that just dropped on Prime Video. It’s not the first time we’ve aimed to get a rise out of meat-eating men—but this provocative new ad might cause a full-blown insurerection.
Meat-Eating Men May Suffer From ‘Flaccid’ Reflux
Dysfunction makes for great TV, but nobody wants it in the bedroom. Meat, eggs, and dairy are high in saturated fat and cholesterol, which clogs up the arteries and slows the blood flow to all organs—including the one down there. And while eating meat might make an afternoon delight more of an afternoon disappointment, virility isn’t the only thing to worry about. Consuming animal-based foods is also linked to numerous other health problems, including cancer, heart disease, and strokes.
Every Sausage Was Someone
Sausage Party had many viewers’ stomachs turning with scenes of anthropic foods getting chopped and boiled alive—but animals who are killed for their flesh endure similar real-life horrors every day. In the pork industry, workers chop pigs’ tails off, clip their teeth, and castrate males—all without pain relief.
Pigs are curious, sensitive animals who naturally form complex social structures—but on farms (even self-proclaimed “humane” farms), they spend their lives in filthy, severely crowded pens where they can’t bathe in the mud or bask in the sun. At slaughterhouses, workers stun pigs before dunking them into tanks of boiling-hot water. However, because of improper stunning, many pigs are still alive when they reach these tanks.
The Simple Solution to a Hard Problem
Unlike the humans in Sausage Party, you don’t need bath salts to rethink what—or who—is on your plate. The benefits of vegan living are endless, from boosting your performance in the sack to reducing your environmental footprint. So what are you waiting for? Order PETA’s free vegan starter kit to start sparing animals today:
Swedish oat milk maker Oatly has partnered with cult-favourite coconut rum brand Malibu – not to create a cocktail, but a soft-serve instead.
When was the last time you dreamt of putting oat milk in your coconut rum to make some ice cream?
If your answer is never, that’s exactly the point of the link-up between the world’s largest oat milk company and the brand synonymous with coconut rum.
“The collab no one actually asked for” appears in large, bold lettering on Oatly’s website, announcing a series of music, wellness, entertainment and lifestyle pop-ups to accompany the Piña Oatlada, a dairy-free soft serve featuring its oat milk and Malibu rum.
Hosted in London’s Shoreditch district, the pop-up series will be held at a clubhouse dubbed the Paradise Arches, running from July 12 to August 2. The vegan ice cream will simultaneously also be available at music festivals in the UK, Sweden, Germany, Finland and the Netherlands, with the latest date being September 8.
“If you think adulting is hard, try getting a soft serve campaign approved by two sets of lawyers,” said Martin Ringqvist, executive creative director at Oatly. “We’re always searching for new and unexpected ways for people to experience our brand and Malibu is a perfect partner to launch our glorious oats into the nightlife scene.”
Playing to adulthood stresses and escapist mindsets
Courtesy: Oatly/Malibu
While Oatly may insist that nobody asked for this, it actually carried out rigorous research alongside Malibu to determine exactly why people would want it. The brands say the collaboration is for “drinking-age consumers struggling to navigate the pressures of adulthood”, with a 2,000-person survey showing 45% are struggling to cope with responsibilities, and 53% want more time to escape them.
“Adulting can be draining and there’s no manual or guide of how to get through it. Our study has shown how the most basic tasks are the ones we crave to escape from the most,” said Craig van Niekerk, VP of marketing at Malibu.
Even when on holiday, 19% of respondents said they struggle to switch off completely, and 26% would love an evening of indulgence all to themselves. Additionally, 23% favoured the idea of an hour-long vacation to completely free themselves of responsibility.
Another poll in Germany suggested that 80% of adults consider their lives to be stressful, and a third suffer from constant stress.
“It seems like we’re all in serious need of bringing out the spirit of summer and enabling good times. Just an hour away from responsibilities can help you to unplug and enjoy the summer, which is why we’ve made the perfect place to escape to,” said van Niekerk.
The vegan soft-serve – which contains only 1.5% alcohol by volume (ABV) – comes as Gen Zers spearhead the low- and no-ABV movement. In the UK, 44% of people aged 18-24 regularly drink alcohol alternatives, and 39% don’t drink at all. This cohort is also “driving the demand for plant-based alternatives and are up for experimenting with new flavours”, suggest Oatly and Malibu.
To create the ice cream, Oatly’s innovation team conducted functionality and sensory tests combining Malibu with its existing soft-serve mix, with the aim of creating a creamy soft-serve profile. At the Paradise Arches pop-ups, it will be served in a cocktail-glass-shaped waffle cone and garnished with pineapple sauce and coconut flakes. Select activations will also carry a non-alcoholic version.
Malibu ice cream latest in a series of collaborations for Oatly
Courtesy: Oatly/Malibu
At the Paradise Arches, the daytime events include pilates classes, workout sessions and a hip-hop brunch, while the evening activations include comedy nights, dance parties, cabaret shows and a drag bingo, and cost between £6-£38.75 (though most cost £9.05).
The Piña Oatlada will also be available at pubs, bars and social spots like Dabbers, Mrs Riot (both in London), Pong & Puck (Manchester) and The Three Sisters (Edinburgh).
Oatly and Malibu have also teamed up with a host of music festivals and venues for the ice cream, such as All Points East and Forwards in the UK; Berlin Pride, Dockville and Superbloom in Germany; Trädgården and Way Out West in Sweden; Netl de Wildeste Tuin and Wilderburg in the Netherlands; and Siltanen x Onda in Finland.
This isn’t the first time Oatly has dabbled with alcohol – earlier this year, it launched a limited-edition stout with the Brussels Beer Project to promote its new organic barista oat milk in Belgium.
These partnerships come amid a host of new product rollouts from Oatly, including a 1.5-litre of its barista milk, a 25ml Jigger for travel, a revamped yoghurt lineup in parts of Europe, and Super Basic and Unsweetened milks in the US. This year, it will also unveil a barista edition specifically for light-roasted coffee.
The company has been through a topsy-turvy period, but its first-quarter performance this year exceeded analysts’ expectations, with losses narrowing by 39% and gross profit up by 58% from Q1 2023.
To reach more demographics, it has been establishing a host of partnerships globally, including with gyms, fitness centres, EF Pro Cycling and Minor League Baseball in the US, Swedish rail company SBB, and global cruiseliner Virgin Voyages. Starbucks is also reportedly set to introduce a non-dairy whipping cream made by Oatly for its summer menu in the US.
With Paris 2024 going predominantly plant-based, here are seven athletes competing at the Olympics, fuelled by a vegan diet.
At this year’s Olympic Games – touted to be the greenest ever – 60% of the 13 million meals served will be meatless, and a third will be vegan.
As athletes and spectators arrive in Paris from across the world, the theme of the Olympics menu is global too. Dishes like a veggie bourguignon, cauliflower and baked potato with turmeric; a bell pepper shakshouka, a meatless moussaka, crispy quinoa muesli, and zaatar sweet potato with hummus and chimichurri will aim to fuel Olympians, support staff, employees and onlookers alike.
Many champion athletes have long followed a plant-forward diet, with the sporting benefits of veganism blown into mainstream consciousness with the 2020 documentary The Game Changers. Lewis Hamilton. the Williams sisters, Dotsie Bausch, Mike Tyson, Carl Lewis, and so many more have propagated the athletics gains they made by switching to plant-based diets.
There are a number of vegan athletes competing at this year’s games, who will hope to encourage viewers from across the world to cut down meat consumption and embrace more plant-based foods for the sake of their health, as well as the planet’s, given fears that heatwaves could adversely affect Olympians in Paris this year.
Widely regarded as the greatest WNBA player of all time, Diana Taurasi went vegan in 2016, and has credited her vegan diet for her success. The five-time Olympic gold medallist (a US basketball record) has spoken of the faster recovery times that are helping her do things now, at 42, that she couldn’t at 28.
“I let the food be the medicine, as the saying goes. There’s so many supplements now. I think every person has to make their own choice about how they go about it. For me, the thing that was affecting me was the actual food I ate,” she told GQ earlier this month.
Alex Morgan
Country: US Sport: Football
Courtesy: Alex Morgan/X
A veteran of the USWNT, Alex Morgan has been following a plant-based diet since 2017. A two-time Olympic medallist (including Gold at London 2012) and FIFA World Cup Winner, she went vegan for ethical reasons, but noticed a huge drop in her cholesterol and fatigue levels, as well as an accelerated recovery time.
“It benefited me all around,” she told The Beet in 2021. “I was fearful it would affect soccer in a detrimental way but it was the opposite. It made me feel better.”
Constantin Preis
Country: Germany Sport: Hurdling
Courtesy: Constantin Preis/Facebook
A specialist in 400m hurdles, German athlete Constantin Preis went vegan in 2018, a year after cutting out meat from his diet. He made the change specifically for fitness reasons, following muscle tears, strains and back issues. Preis has spoken about the importance of whole foods like beans, which have similar iron, protein and micronutrient levels to chicken.
“There are so many benefits, but the bottom line is that it all starts with better blood circulation. By giving up dairy products, the plaque and everything that had built up has disappeared. Now that my blood circulation is better, the muscles can be optimally supplied and the muscular problems have minimised,” Preis told SportSirene in 2022.
That said, he told Bon Appétit that he plans to eat meat again after Paris 2024, in order to simplify his meals. “I want to see how I feel if I switch it up,” he said.
Marina Fioravanti
Country: Brazil Sport: Rugby
Courtesy: Martín Seras Lima/World Rugby
Marina Fioravanti competed in her first Games at Tokyo 2020 (well, 2021) as part of Brazil’s rugby sevens team. This year, the 30-year-old will aim to earn her first Olympic medal, and will be fuelled by a plant-based diet.
She spoke to Bon Appétit about relying on “nutritive and tasty” staples like protein smoothies, rice and beans, lentil Bolognese, and oatmeal with chia seeds during training-packed days.
You might know her from The Game Changers, but Morgan Mitchell has been vegan for a decade now. A former 400m runner, she now specialises in the 800m sprint, and is heading to her third games as a plant-based Olympian. She has cited faster recovery, easier weight management and better overall health as the key outcomes of her dietary shift.
“A clear example of why I knew it would work for me was back in 2012. I made the state team for netball, but I also had glandular fever,” Mitchell told News.com.au in April. “I could probably survive about three hours a day, outside and then I’d be sleeping for the rest. I’d get tonsillitis twice a year and turning to a vegan diet really helped with my overall health. I haven’t had tonsillitis since.”
Kaylin Whitney
Country: US Sport: Track and field
Courtesy: Getty Images/Olympics.com
Kaylin Whitney became a gold medallist in the 4x400m relay at the Tokyo Games in 2021, a year after she turned to a plant-based diet. She missed out on qualification as a 100m and 200m sprinter for the 2016 Olympics in Rio, but has said that going vegan during the pandemic reinvented her. She felt a lot healthier, a lot lighter, and a lot less sore.
“It was the best thing I ever did,” she told Olympics.com, stating that she was inspired by Mitchell. “I can’t even begin to explain all the benefits I saw… It felt like my body was working how it needed to.”
Vivian Kong Man Wai
Country: Hong Kong SAR Sport: Épée fencer
Courtesy: International Fencing Federation
Following a career-threatening injury in 2017, champion épée fencer Vivian Kong Man Wai turned to a vegan diet. After initial struggles with prejudice from home, the results speak for themselves: she has since competed in two Olympic Games, won the Asian Championships thrice, and climbed to the top of the world rankings.
“I can be an example to show it’s possible, and it’s more motivation for me to work harder, have better results, and tell my story about how eating plant-based foods made me better and made me feel better too,” she told the South China Morning Post in 2018.
Bonus: Novak Djokovic
Country: Serbia Sport: Tennis
Courtesy: Maja Hitij/Getty Images
One of the greatest tennis players of all time – and another star of The Game Changers – Novak Djokovic is included as a bonus because he has distanced himself from the ‘vegan’ label, citing his dislike of people’s misinterpretation of the word. “I do eat plant-based, and it’s been for many years,” he told American journalist Graham Bensinger in 2020.
Nevertheless, with more Grand Slams in the bag than any of his peers, the 37-year-old is heading for his fifth (and likely final) Olympics at Paris to try and win the elusive gold – and is doing so on the back of years of plant-forward eating.
“My diet hasn’t just changed my game, it’s changed my life – my wellbeing,” he told Forbes in an interview about his Monte Carlo vegan restaurant Eqvita in 2016. “And if I feel better, that obviously transfers to my professional life. Eating vegan makes me more aware of my body on the court… more alert. I removed toxins from my body, and with them went all the inflammation and other things that were messing with my energy levels.”
Could Paris 2024 convince more Olympians to eat more plants? We’ll find out next month.
