Good Food Institute Europe

Plant-based foods present new opportunities for farmers, Europe dominates the global leaderboard of governments supporting alternative proteins, and companies invest €16 million in a new fermentation platform.

🗺️ Curious where alternative protein research and innovation is happening? Our interactive ecosystem map visually captures clusters of activity across the globe. Check it out → https://ecosystem.gfi.org/ 🧭 Navigate the map by country, alternative protein type, technology focus, and other filters to reveal a rapidly growing #alternativeprotein landscape and dive into your region or topic of interest. 📍The ecosystem map is a living resource, and we'd love the community's help making it more comprehensive. Do you have an alt protein company or researcher to add? Make a submission* through our 'Add a Pin' button in the upper-right-hand corner of the map: https://ecosystem.gfi.org/ *Please note that submissions are open to companies who focus the majority of their operations on alternative protein ingredients and products and academic researchers working in plant-based meat, cultivated meat, and fermentation technologies.

We talk to Rodrigo Ledesma-Amaro, PhD about how a new centre he is leading at Imperial College London will advance the growing field of alternative protein science and train the next generation of researchers. The Bezos Centre for Sustainable Proteins will harness engineering biology – a 21st-century technology that has been used to create mRNA Covid vaccines –to overcome the bottlenecks preventing the commercialisation of plant-based, cultivated meat and fermentation-made foods. Rodrigo explains the centre will boost academically-led open access science, enable greater collaboration between a wide range of scientists and engineers, and help build the UK's research ecosystem. #plantbasedmeat #cultivatedmeat #precisionfermentation #research #imperialcollegelondon #alternativeproteins https://lnkd.in/gYR7jD5x

📰Our July newsletter is out now! This month: advice for alternative protein startups hoping to scale up production, meet the head of the new Bezos Centre for Sustainable Protein at Imperial College London, and a new report on opportunities for farmers and cultivated meat companies to work together. Check it out for all this and much more including events and opportunities in alternative proteins.

📝 Scaling series part 2📝 It’s a catch-22: broad consumer uptake requires companies to scale and reach price parity, but to finance this expensive process they need to have broad consumer uptake. So what’s the solution? In the second instalment of this new blog series, our Head of Industry Carlotte Lucas explores target market selection for alternative protein startups as they scale, highlighting the importance of finding the right market at every stage of growth, and the importance of being able to pivot if needs demand it. The blog also explores important considerations for identifying this market: Do you want to sell small amounts of a high-value product or large amounts of a cheap product? The answer to this question is key to identifying the right niche. Check out the full blog here: https://lnkd.in/d6HQPjP8 #marketing #startup #scale Image created using DALL E

🌱The recently launched #plantourfuture campaign from the European Alliance for Plant-based Foods urges the EU to prioritise rebalancing and diversifying Europe’s food system in the newly embarked upon legislative cycle. The manifesto highlights 6 key focus areas to help deliver this: 🔬Increased funding for research and development to scale-up production and boost European competitiveness, and support the proliferation of a diverse range of plant-based products that can compete with conventional offerings on taste and price. 🏷️Develop clear labelling standards with transparent product information to help consumers make sustainable choices. 🚜Work with farmers and support them in navigating the transition to a more sustainable food system. 🏫Encourage expanded public procurement of plant-based foods. 🎓Educate consumers on the sustainability of the food system. 🏛️Clarify the political direction and policy framework through a sustainable food systems law. Check out the full manifesto on the EAPF website here:https://lnkd.in/dg8S77eT #EU #Europe #foodsystem

🍕How did a bizarre ultra-processed study, categorising meat-feast pizza as a plant-sourced food, lead to wildly misleading headlines on plant-based meat? The general consensus from scientific research, substantiated by two recent systematic reviews, suggests replacing conventional (particularly processed) meat with plant-based meat is associated with several health benefits. Unfortunately however, the headlines surrounding a recent study on ultra-processed foods and health gave a very different impression. The latest substack post from The Good Food Institute, guest written by GFI Europe’s Amy Williams, takes a deep dive into a strange new study on ‘plant-sourced foods’ and ultra-processing, and the flurry of wildly misleading headlines that accompanied its publication. The study itself had very little to do with plant-based meat (which made up only 0.2% of food eaten by participants), and far more of the ‘plant-sourced UPF’ eaten by study participants was made up of foods already widely understood to be harmful in excess such as pastries and cakes (6.9%) and biscuits (3.9%). Confusingly, this ‘plant-sourced’ category also included products that generally contain conventional meat and/or dairy such as cake and pizza. Nevertheless, the headlines linked the outcomes to plant-based meat. Misreporting is a major issue in nutrition research, and could discourage people from making easy swaps that benefit their health, such as replacing processed conventional meat with plant-based versions. People only have so much bandwidth for improving their diets, and we cannot expect everyone to read the papers behind every news story to find the truth. Inaccurate reporting such as this has a real opportunity cost, and distracts people from convenient, impactful changes they could make to their diets. Check out the full story here:https://lnkd.in/gYQZCRDa #upf #ultraprocessed #nutrition

🍞Did you know: Yeast is thought to be one of the first organisms to have been domesticated by humans, with evidence of bakeries and breweries using fermentation stretching back thousands of years. Today this ancient technology is on the frontier of building next-generation foods with remarkable nutritional, environmental and taste credentials: 🧀Precision fermentation, already widely used in conventional cheesemaking to make rennet, can be used to make ‘real’ animal proteins like casein and whey with yeast. 🥩Biomass fermentation is used to make high-fibre, high-protein ingredients that can also offer a great flavour profile and meaty texture. 💨 Gas fermentation uses microscopic organisms that can make protein out of thin air, using carbon dioxide and electricity. Check out the links in the comments for a selection of resources on the applications of fermentation in alternative proteins 👇 Image: Onego Bio precision fermentation egg white. #fermentation #nutrition #sustainable

🗳️What do the UK general election results mean for alternative proteins? After yesterday’s historic election in the UK, this new piece from our UK Policy Manager Linus Pardoe, published in UK Day One Project outlines the opportunities and priorities for the UK in the exciting space of alternative proteins. Key highlights: 🔬With its world-leading science expertise, the UK is primed to become an international leader in alternative proteins, but it needs the right support to achieve this. ⚖️Political barriers in the US and EU mean the UK has an opportunity to capture a growing market for plant-based, fermentation-made and cultivated proteins if current barriers relating to taste and price can be overcome. 📈Real support in this emerging sector could not only help create a new export market for UK food production, inward investment and jobs, but also support the UK in delivering its net-zero ambitions, safeguard food security, and help address pressing environmental protection priorities. Recommendations: ✅The new UK government should modernise regulations for cultivated meat and fermentation-made ingredients. 🥩The government should invest £100 million from research and innovation funding budgets (including climate R&D budgets) to pioneer next-generation products that can deliver on taste and price. Check out the full blog here: https://lnkd.in/entHsgJV #ukgeneralelection #alternativeproteins #dayone

🥩What does cultivated meat actually taste like? Only a small handful of people worldwide know the answer first-hand, but following the Netherlands' recent regulatory updates to allow for pre-approval tastings of cultivated meat products, a few journalists were invited to try it for themselves. This podcast from the Guardian tells the story of such a tasting hosted by Dutch startup Meatable. Hopefully other national governments will follow the Netherlands’ leadership in implementing a pragmatic approach to enabling these new technologies. Listen now here: https://lnkd.in/eMy2Bjya   #cultivatedmeat #netherlands #meat