The Good Food Institute Europe

📰 October newsletter 📰 Check out this month's edition of the GFI Europe newsletter, including a new report revealing cultivated meat could add up to €85 billion to the EU economy, top alternative protein research priorities, and good news from the EU's highest court marking a win for common sense plant-based labelling. All this and more here 👇

🚜 Land is a finite resource, but with growing global instability, weather changes and biodiversity loss, boosting self-sufficiency and expanding regenerative farming practices is more important than ever. This is a key area where alternative proteins could represent an important part of the solution. The report by Green Alliance (commissioned by GFI Europe) explores the potential for plant-based, cultivated and fermentation-made meat to create a huge land dividend in Europe, reducing reliance on land from other countries and creating the space for organic and regenerative farming practices. Have a look at the quick summary breaking down the potential offered in each of the 10 European countries studied. Read the full report (available in Danish, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Romanian, Swedish and English) here: https://lnkd.in/eXvAx7Me #landuse #agriculture #organic #proteindiversification

📅 Upcoming event! 📅 Are you an entrepreneur with a science and technology project related to the food sector? Do you speak Spanish? Join the UCAM HiTech Bootcamps to scale your business, attract investment, and overcome market-entry challenges. The event registration is free, but there are only a limited number of available places. 📅 Event Dates 📍 Spain, Málaga: 26-28 November 📍 Spain, Valencia: 10-12 December During the bootcamps, startups and innovators have access to specialized workshops, personalised mentoring, pitch presentations, and 1:1 meetings with investors and others key players. Register by submitting your project: https://lnkd.in/di-yQMVa Image: UCAM HiTech

🌍👨🍳 What is the role of chefs in promoting healthier, more sustainable diets? A new EU-funded project seeks to empower chefs to lead the way in sustainable cooking through a free, open-source online course. The Life Climate Smart Chefs project offers a high-level training course to equip culinary professionals with the skills and knowledge to craft sustainable menus that benefit both the environment and public health. The course covers topics such as sustainable and healthy diets, food waste, recipe design, and communication with customers, and it encourages chefs to act as changemakers, promoting low-emission, nutritious, and affordable diets across the EU. Another useful tool for climate-conscious chefs is Foodprint—a fully automated system developed by Nutritics as part of the Life Climate Smart Chefs project. Foodprint allows chefs to measure, display, and report the environmental impact of their menus, making it easier to create sustainable, low-emission dishes. Learn more about this exciting project: https://lnkd.in/dspAY-nc

✨We’re incredibly proud to be recognised by Giving Green again this year as one of their top 6 nonprofits for climate impact, thanks to our work driving reductions in food system emissions. Read more about the recommendations here: https://lnkd.in/ehPmece3  #philanthropy #climate #impact

🔬New reports!🔬 Europe is a leader in alternative protein research, with a thriving ecosystem of researchers and institutions, but this fledgling field is still only just getting started. Our latest reports seek to better understand this exciting research landscape from twin perspectives, looking through the lenses of both research funding and publications. Key findings:  🧑🏿🔬Research into plant-based, fermentation-made and cultivated meat is growing rapidly in Europe, with more than a quarter of all studies published in 2023 amid record funding.  📝The UK, Germany and the Netherlands lead the way in terms of publications, while Italy has the largest number of researchers in the field. Despite this, key individuals and institutions across Europe punch well above their weight relative to their national ecosystem.  🤝Alternative protein researchers have far lower international collaboration rates than EU and UK averages – highlighting the need for more international research programmes in the space.  💶The EU leads in terms of research funding, with Denmark and the UK emerging as frontrunners at the country level. Fermentation technology is set to become the best-funded research area, overtaking plant-based in 2024.  🏭Research into the technical advancements needed to bring these foods closer to commercialisation only scratches the surface, and many key areas – such as developing functional crop ingredients for plant-based meat, reducing downstream processing costs in precision fermentation, or designing the fermentors needed to scale up cultivated meat production – remain underfunded. Explore the full reports and regional deep-dives on our website: https://lnkd.in/eJ7U2kGj #openaccess #research #science #funding #publications

📅Upcoming event! 📅How can novel fermentation techniques and agriculture work together? An upcoming event hosted by Food Fermentation Europe seeks to explore this question. Learn more and register here: https://lnkd.in/etDDFema

🌱 Study finds EU Green Deal success requires a shift towards plant-based foods A new study published in Nature Sustainability has highlighted that the European Green Deal – aimed at achieving carbon neutrality within the EU – could unintentionally lead to higher emissions outside Europe unless accompanied by a move towards more plant-based foods. The study identified dietary change as one key way to mitigate global emissions, and one where Europeans currently have a significant knock-on effect on other parts of the world, particularly through deforestation and land use change for animal agriculture and feed production. Reducing Europe’s dependence on overseas land to grow feed for livestock is vital for reducing global emissions and could also boost food security and provide more opportunities for farmers to grow high value crops. The European Commission should adopt recommendations in last month’s Strategic Dialogue On The Future of EU Agriculture to develop an EU-wide action plan for plant-based foods by 2026. Read more about the study: https://lnkd.in/eAZfGahA #EU #plantbased

🔍Plant-based, fermentation-made and cultivated meat was recognised as a key opportunity to meet climate and biodiversity goals in a new research paper from Chatham House. The report highlights in particular the way in which 'land-sparing' innovations such as alternative proteins could represent an important enabler for other bioeconomy innovations. Check out the full findings here: https://lnkd.in/gReDBh2q

🥩 Nutritional role of plant-based meat and dairy recognised in new UK parliamentary report. 🥩 Findings from the Food, Diet and Obesity Committee’s inquiry in the UK parliament’s House of Lords were published yesterday, covering wide-reaching topics and policy recommendations for reducing rates of diet-related ill health across the country. It was great to see explicit discussion of plant-based meat and dairy as part of the report, and recognition of their nutritional role for those needing or choosing to cut down on animal products. The inquiry also addressed the urgent need for nuance in the public discourse surrounding ultra-processed foods (UPFs), acknowledging the widely varying nutritional characteristics of foods in this group. The government must design policies to address the harms caused by foods with well-established risk profiles, such as processed conventional meat and foods high in fat, salt and sugar, without demonising healthier processed foods like wholemeal bread and plant-based meat. Read the full report here: https://lnkd.in/e7pCNJ2c #health #UPF #diet