The Good Food Institute Europe

📰 September newsletter 📰 Check out this month's bumper edition of the GFI Europe newsletter, including world-first printed cultivated seabass, the researcher applying tissue engineering to cultivated meat, and new UK investment in alternative protein R&D. All this and more here👇

🎊 A warm welcome to our newest team member Hannes Geldof who joins GFI Europe as an EU Policy Fellow for six months from The School for Moral Ambition. Working as a part of our Policy team, Hannes will support our work in accelerating public and private funding for plant-based and novel protein startups in Europe. Hannes brings experience from working on the EU Green Deal and industrial policy at the European Commission and from advising companies on competition policy and public investments at a UK economic consultancy. We are excited to have you on board, Hannes! 🙌

⚡ What are the most important research priorities for alternative proteins? ⚡ At present, research funding for alternative proteins falls far short of what is needed to reap the full benefits of their game-changing potential – so research must be targetted at the key technical bottlenecks in order to get the maximum return on investment. Our new research priorities document works through each of the alternative protein pillars, identifying the key research topics most likely to push the field forwards.  Check it out ⤵️ #science #research #researchfunding

🩺 Alongside its clear environmental advantages, plant-based meat also offers huge opportunities to help improve public health by making increasingly plant-based ways of eating more accessible. More government investment is sorely needed to further enhance the nutrition and taste of plant-based meat, seafood, eggs and dairy while also making them more affordable. 🌱 Our report, Plant-based meat and health in Europe, reviewed by researchers and nutrition experts, reviews the available evidence on the nutritional profiles of plant-based meat options across several European countries, takes a deep dive into the opportunities offered by plant-based meat as a tool to improve public health, and highlights key areas of potential for future research and development. To complement the report, summaries are now available in 4 European languages, with our expanded German summary now live on our website. Find the full report, along with summaries in English, German, Italian and Spanish, here: https://lnkd.in/enQp9Pn3 #health #plantbased #nutrition

🏖️Hugely exciting news from the UK, where the Food Standards Agency and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology have just announced a £1.6 million investment to create a new regulatory sandbox for cultivated meat! Working collaboratively with businesses and researchers, the sandbox will deepen the FSA’s understanding of cultivated meat science and food safety. Check out this summary from our UK Senior Policy Manager Linus Pardoe of what this means for the sector and what remains to be done ⤵️

🚨 New report 🚨 Analysis by Systemiq Ltd. finds that the EU’s cultivated meat sector could grow to a €15-80 billion market by 2050, directly creating up to 25-90,000 new jobs – but this growth will only be possible if governments ensure a fair and transparent regulatory environment, and significantly ramp-up support for research and development. 💡 Key findings 💡 🔬 The report finds a particular competitive advantage in the EU for supplying inputs for cell cultivation like media, leveraging its latent strengths in science and biotechnology. 🏭 It also identifies opportunities for Germany and Spain to provide processors and fermentors, but this was an area on the whole that the report saw as less suited to Europe’s strengths. 🌍 The report also found that the sector could mitigate up to 3.5 gigatons of greenhouse gas emissions, while also saving up to a third of global agricultural land (1.4 billion hectares) and 225 million cubic metres of water – all while boosting public health and food security. 💶 These findings are hugely exciting, but to deliver on the opportunity governments must majorly ramp up their investment in coming years in order to realise them. The report found that of a total required annual investment of €55bn globally, around 5 billion of this should come from the EU, of which €500 million should be from public funding. In terms of allocation, the recommendations advise a 40/60 split in investment between R&D and infrastructure build-out. Read the full report here, available in English, French, Spanish, German, and Polish: https://lnkd.in/dFxnhubu #growth #greengrowth #cultivatedmeat

📣 Positive news on plant-based labelling in the EU 📣 The landmark ruling delivered by the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) rules that EU countries are not legally allowed to introduce national labelling restrictions for plant-based foods unless they have defined clear legal names for meat products.   🍔 This ruling is great news for consumers, as surveys show they support common sense labelling practices like calling a veggie burger a burger! #plantbased #labelling #EU

🧀 Self-assembling casein proteins – a new way to improve the stretchiness and creaminess of plant-based cheese 🧀 A common challenge with existing plant-based cheeses is that they often lack the texture of dairy cheese, particularly the stretchiness and creaminess that many consumers expect. This is largely due to the absence of casein proteins, which are essential for the structure and functionality of dairy cheese. Latest advancements in precision fermentation have shown great potential in producing casein micelles – the ‘building blocks of dairy’ – that can recreate the flavour and texture of dairy cheese in plant-based products. One promising way to develop casein micelles is through self-assembly. DairyX is one startup exploring this method by using engineered yeast strains to produce casein proteins which can self-assemble to form micelles – the tiny structures responsible for the unique texture in cheese. Besides self-assembly, there are other methods for developing micelles, such as modifying proteins post-fermentation – a model being explored by researchers at Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands. This is needed as the proteins that are normally produced by yeast don’t have the chemical structure needed for micelle formation. Methods using precision fermentation can play a key role in boosting food security, driving green economic growth and providing new opportunities for dairy companies, and it’s crucial that more open-access research is carried out into this area to share innovation and boost progress across the whole sector. Read more about the use of fermented caseins in plant-based foods: https://lnkd.in/ddScqDma #precisionfermentation

📢 We are hiring! 📢 We’re looking for an Administrative Coordinator to join our growing team, working on a wide range of tasks to make our team more efficient, more effective, and better connected. Based in Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, or the UK, this new team member will balance routine administrative tasks with internal project coordination to support the smooth running of GFI Europe’s team. We are seeking a new colleague with a collaborative approach and strong skills in problem-solving, communication and organisation. Sound like the role for you? Know someone who might be interested? Please help us spread the word! 📣 Check out the job description to learn more and apply: https://lnkd.in/dv4xh_bE #hiring #operations

📅 There are just three weeks to go until The Future of Protein Production conference in Amsterdam! If you plan to attend, join us to learn about recent European policy developments impacting alternative proteins from our Deputy Head of Policy Alex Holst who will be speaking on a panel on the topic, or meet up on the ground with our Head of Industry Carlotte Lucas to learn about the latest developments and consumer insights in the sector. We are excited to again be partners of this mission-aligned event which will be held at RAI on 23 and 24 October. Get in touch if you’d like to catch up! If you're interested in coming to learn more but cost is a factor, the discount code GFI20 will offer a reduced registration fee. Check out the link in the comments to learn more about the event agenda. #innovation #alternativeproteins #conference