Plant-based foods present new opportunities for farmers

This month: Find out how European farmers can reap the benefits of alternative proteins, explore the questions ambitious startups need to ask, and look behind the misleading headlines about ‘ultra-processed’ plant-based foods.

As the appetite for plant-based food grows across Europe, these products are presenting new opportunities for farmers.

Our latest blog explores the commercial potential of these foods and examines three projects aiming to generate new income for farmers from diverse and underutilised crops. 

In the UK, Novo Farina has created an on-farm production model to make plant-based meat from yellow peas – a plant that flourishes in eastern England but isn’t widely grown. In Sweden, Lupinta has demonstrated the commercial viability of encouraging Scandinavian farmers to harvest lupins – a protein-rich legume. In the Netherlands, the long-established farmers' cooperative the Royal Agrifirm Group is developing fava beans – historically grown in Europe as animal feed – as a basis for plant-based products. 

However, although they found many farmers are interested in the commercial and ecological benefits of growing these crops, significant barriers remain, and much more work is needed to provide reliable revenue sources. Our blog explores suggestions for how this obstacle can be overcome – through government policies such as investment, knowledge exchange and public procurement – and how the plant-based sector needs to scale up to incentivise the supply chain and provide the long-term guarantees farmers need.

Entrepreneurs and farming innovators will be crucial to the success of plant-based foods, but governments and the food industry have an essential role in supporting farmers to tap into this sector's enormous potential.

Read our blog in English, German, Italian and Spanish

European countries lead the charge in supporting alternative proteins 

GFI’s new State of Global Policy Report reveals that Europe dominated the global leaderboard of countries that dramatically increased their alternative protein investments last year.

Top spots were taken by Germany, which announced a €38 million protein transition programme and the UK, which announced projects including the £12 million Cellular Agriculture Manufacturing Hub (CARMA). Denmark, which introduced the world’s first plant-based action plan, was also recognised as a regional leader, and the French government led an ambitious funding round to support the development of plant-based foods. Meanwhile, Finland and the Netherlands continued to build their research infrastructure and Spain laid the groundwork with significant investment.

As Europe competes with global powers like China and the United States, policymakers must get behind this momentum, recognise the huge potential of these foods, and develop coherent plans to continue supporting these growing sectors.

Read in French,Italian and Spanish.

Companies invest €16 million in precision fermentation platform

Dairy giant Danone is developing a new centre focusing on precision fermentation in collaboration with tyre manufacturer Michelin, US startup DMC Technologies and investor Crédit Agricole Centre France.

The Biotech Open Platform, based in Clermont-Ferrand, France, and with an initial investment of more than €16 million, will include a demo-level production line. This will help its founders meet their own scale-up needs, but will later be opened up to other companies aiming to overcome the challenges of commercialising fermentation-based products.

With a lack of large-scale infrastructure across Europe, both public and private-sector investments such as this will be vital to help startups overcome the notorious ‘valley of death’ and successfully bring their products to the market.

Listen: Science journalist says cultivated sausages taste just like conventional meat

Science journalist Linda Geddes chatted about her recent visit to Meatable’s facility in the Netherlands, where she tried the company’s hybrid product made from cultivated and plant-based meat – and found it tasted just like a conventional meat sausage.

In this podcast, she adds that if they were available now and were affordable, she would definitely choose them over conventional meat products. Listen to her thoughts on the “massive scientific progress” behind reaching taste parity, other developments taking place across the cultivated meat and precision fermentation sectors, and why – with global demand for meat increasing – she believes there will be a market for these products.

Four guiding principles for startups wanting to scale 

Our new scale-up series explores ways to successfully build a sustainable growth strategy in the emerging plant-based, cultivated meat and fermentation sectors.

In the first edition, GFI Asia Pacific’s Corporate Engagement ManagerJennifer Morton says all startups need to ask four key questions – what is the nature of their business, what market are they selling into, what problem are they solving for customers, and how will they finance growth?

Read our blog to find out more about how alternative protein startups can approach the challenge of growing into mature companies – and look out for part two, which will explore how startups make sure they scale in the right market

Misreported ultra-processing study leads to misleading headlines about plant-based meat

A new study has generated misleading headlines claiming plant-based meat can lead to heart disease.

But a response by experts published by the Science Media Centre illuminated flaws in the study’s design and interpretation, pointing out that plant-based meat made up just 0.2% of the ‘plant-sourced UPF’ category used – most of which comprised well-known unhealthy products like cakes, pastries, and biscuits.

As our nutrition guide highlighted, initial research suggests eating plant-based instead of conventional meat could actually reduce the risk of heart disease.

Misleading news stories risk putting consumers off easy swaps that could help improve their diets – and while it’s important to study the nutritional quality of these foods, work must look specifically at plant-based meat rather than lumping it into a much wider category of unrelated processed products. Read more about plant-based meat and ultra-processing research here.

Plant-based price parity a 'win-win' for retailers

A new report finds achieving price parity between plant-based and animal products would be a win-win for retailers, consumers, and the growing plant-based sector.

ProVeg’s Economic Impacts of Price Parity report points to examples such as Lidl Germany, which has reported that plant-based sales have risen by more than 30% nine months after bringing costs of its plant-based range into line with those of animal-based equivalents – resulting in positive customer feedback.

With affordability regularly cited as a barrier preventing consumers from switching to these more sustainable foods, this report provides a series of concrete suggestions to help both retailers and brands bring prices down.

Events:

• 20 June – GFI Science of Alt Protein (virtual)
• 20 June – Hackathon: Hacking the Future of Alternative Protein (virtual, applications open now)
• 26 June – Food in a Changing World (Leeds, UK)
• 10 July – Camden BRI Seminar (Gloucestershire, UK)
• 3-4 September – ProVeg New Food Conference (Berlin)
• 10 September – GFI: Building Your Alt Protein Career (virtual)
• 1-2 October – NutrEvent Innovation in Finished Food Products conference (Lille, France)
• 21-23 October – FoodRevolution (Parma, Italy – early bird registration until 1 July)
• 12-14 November –  Cellular Agriculture Advanced Course (Delft, the Netherlands)

Jobs, funding and resources:

• GFI role: Deputy Head of Operations (People) (deadline 9 July)
• Opportunity: Association for Cell Ag Engineering Research Advancement (Accellera)  (accepting new memberships)
• Opportunity: Nature Communications – Sustainable Food Production call for submissions (28 June)
• Opportunity: Special issue of Foods – Plant-Based Alternatives to Meat Products call for submissions (20 September) 
• Resource: GFI Alternative Protein Ecosystem Map
• Resource: CellAgri Cultivated Meat Supply Chain Report
• Resource: GFI Business of Alt Protein – LCA Modelling Tool
• Funding: Bezos Earth Fund Grand Challenge AI for Sustainable Proteins (30 July)
• Funding: Lower Saxony High Tech for the BioBased Economy (15 August)
• Funding: Top Sector: Agri & Food Public Private Partnerships (2 September)
• Funding: Circular BioBased Europe Work Programme (18 September)
• Funding: Novo Nordisk Challenge Programme (9 October 2024)
• Job: Nutropy, Paris region – various roles (deadlines vary by role)
• Job: Cultivated Biosciences, Wädenswil, Zurich – various roles (deadlines vary by role)
• Job: Cultimate, Hanover and Berlin – various roles (deadlines July and August)

For more alternative protein opportunities, check out our funding database, visit AltProtein.jobs, or subscribe to the Tälist newsletter.

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