ESG…P?

Last week was a big one in Hong Kong, and I went to what felt like a parade of events taking place for the city’s annual ‘Green Week’, from the HK Green Finance Association Forum to the Belt & Road Summit. As ever, food was woefully missing from most events and conversations. There is some progress here and there around food waste awareness and solutions, but when it comes to topics like the need for dietary transition and alternative proteins, it’s simply not on the event panel menu (not to mention luncheon menus).

I spent Friday at Rethink HK, the city’s largest sustainable business conference. It’s always a good time, especially because I get to catch up with all of the city’s climate leaders in one place. I spoke on a panel about ‘The Evolution of ESG Communication in a Shifting Landscape’ organized by PRHK, along with marketing and comms leaders from L’Occitane, CFA Institute, and Qeelin. My main contribution? Throwing out a new letter in the title acronym: ESG…P?

I was inspired by a lecture I attended recently by two of Asia’s leading business figures, who pointed out that where 10 years ago, a business conference had about 10% of policy discussion/programming, today it was closer to 50%. This prompted me to reflect on how staying up to date on shifting geopolitics and having a solid understanding of policy are now key components of being a strong communications leader. Supply chains, labor markets, tariffs…Business IS Politics, and comms teams need to be prepared or risk major PR disasters.

On the news front this week, the theme is undeniable: alternative fats and oils are having a bumper week. We’ve got a record THREE palm oil alternative startups celebrating major wins, from a Bill Gates-backed Asia player coming out of stealth, to an EU leader signing a deal with a dairy giant, to a startup announcing that a commercially-ready cosmetic ingredient oil will roll out by year-end.

As faithful Green Queen readers know, I am bullish on the alt commodity space. Whether it’s alt fat, alt coffee, or alt chocolate, these companies are solving a real need, and unlike with protein, Big Fat/Coffee/Chocolate/is desperate for solutions to fight supply crunches, rising prices, climate-affected crops, the EU’s new deforestation regulation, and labor complications, among many other issues. While lots of progress is being made, I did some rough calculations to get a better idea of where we stand, and the numbers are clear: there’s simply not enough funding going into alternatives. The current investment numbers are literally a drop in the giant, problematic supply chain bucket.

So, kudos to all the founders working tirelessly, but VCs, where are you?

-Sonalie

💡 Only On Green Queen

🇩🇰 Exclusive: Summ Ingredients Nabs $2M to Transform Plant-Based Food with Fermented Proteins
Danish startup Summ Ingredients (formerly Nutrumami) secured €1.7 million to bring its multifunctional fermented protein FermiPro to market. Here’s why FermiPro is an “entirely new toolkit” for food producers.

🇺🇸 Industry Insights: Why Upside Foods & Wildtype Are Suing Texas for Its Cultivated Meat Ban
A day after Texas’s ban on cultivated meat came into force, two food tech startups sued the state for its decision. Their legal team explains why.

✅ Must-Read Headlines

🇳🇱 UK startup Xampla secured $14 million Series A funding to scale up its plant-based alternative to single-use plastic packaging.
💡The fresh capital will put Xampla on course to replace 10 billion units of single-use plastic with its Morro materials - already being commercialised through a number of high-profile collaborations - by the end of the decade.

🤝🏼 Israel’s Aleph Farms has struck a deal to produce its cultivated meat in Europe, setting up at The Cultured Hub facility in Kemptthal, Switzerland.
💡Setting up facilities in local hotspots could help Aleph Farms streamline its manufacturing and distribution once it secures approvals in markets across the world.

🧀 Israeli food giant Strauss Group will launch cow-free milk and cheese using Imagindairy’s whey protein, which is made from microbes via precision fermentation.
💡The move marks the first precision-fermented dairy products to make their way into Israel’s supermarkets, alongside the first commercial launch of Imagindairy’s protein.

🛢️ Alternative Fats News

🇸🇬 Singaporean sustainable fats startup Terra Oleo emerged from stealth with a $3.1 million funding round and selection in Breakthrough Energy’s 2025 Fellows cohort.
💡It will use the funds to scale from lab to pilot and advance formulation testing and validation with key customers.

✅ UK-based Clean Food Group secured regulatory approval to use its sustainable yeast-derived oil as a cosmetic ingredient in the US and Europe.
💡The startup’s proprietary Clean OilCell platform feeds scalable non-GMO yeast strains on waste bread, turning it into what it says are “bio-equivalent alternatives” to resource-intensive and highly polluting oils.

♻️ NoPalm Ingredients has penned a deal to upcycle dairy giant Milcobel’s whey permeate into its fermentation-derived palm oil alternatives.
💡 It will also explore establishing a commercial factory by 2028, designed to produce 6,000-7,000 tonnes of oil per year.

🇪🇪 Estonian startup Äio has produced the first tonne of its yeast-derived palm oil alternative and plans to roll out its first cosmetic ingredient by year-end.
💡The company has already been in talks with personal care firms to use its ingredients in various formulations.

🥩🌱 Blended Proteins

🇩🇪 German food tech player Nosh.bio launched a blended beef mince product, made by combining meat with its fermented koji protein.

🇧🇪 Belgium’s largest supermarket chain, Colruyt Group, introduced a new blended beef mince product, following similar launches from Lidl, Albert Heijn and Aldi this year.

🌱 Plant-Based News

🇮🇳 Haldiram’s, one of India’s most popular restaurant chains, has teamed up with local plant protein player GoodDot to put its soy-based meat alternative on its menu, opening up access to tens of millions of vegetarian customers.

🇨🇦 Protein Industries Canada has contributed to a C$32.5 million project where two local startups will create future-friendly proteins from fava beans and mycelium.

🍽️ The world’s largest caterer, Compass Group, is increasing the use of vegetables, beans and lentils amid its push to make 40% of its UK and Ireland menus plant-based, a goal that has led to healthier meals at its sites.

🥚 Israeli startup Meala debuted a pea protein powder that can replicate the multifunctionality of eggs in baked goods, offering a solution to the avian flu-induced crisis.

🍖 British vegan startup This added a deli meat SKU and expanded the whole-food-championing This is Super Superfood line it launched earlier this year.

💡 Key Research & Industry Insights

🩸 A new study by Sweden’s Ironic Biotech shows that its precision-fermented heme protein absorbs iron 65 times better than lactoferrin, and at comparable levels to red meat.

📈 According to researchers at the University of Copenhagen, beta-lactoglobulin, the most abundant whey protein in dairy, outperforms all other forms of whey and casein. But tapping into precision fermentation is crucial to unlocking its true potential.

🌱🍔  Future Food Quick Bites 

In our weekly column, Future Food Quick Bites, we round up the latest news and developments in the alternative protein and sustainable food industry. This week, Future Food Quick Bites covers Two River’s lion’s mane broth, Planta’s acquisition, and animal-free egg legal battles.

📆 Scene & Heard

Catch Sonalie Figueiras at SXSW Sydney 2025!

🇦🇺 SXSW Sydney brings together professionals from business, tech, government, health, marketing, and creative industries for seven days of ideas, innovation and inspiration. Join the event, happening October 13th-19th, for an unparalleled week of connection and discovery in APAC, including a panel on ‘Rewriting the Rules’ with Green Queen’s founding editor Sonalie Figueiras. Secure your spot here.

🏅 The Agri-Food Tech World Championship returns for its 2nd edition from 4th – 5th November at Agri-Food Tech Asia Expo (AFTEA) 2025 – giving early-stage start-ups a powerful platform to showcase their ideas, pitch to global investors, and scale faster. Learn more and apply here.

🍄 Are you building the next fungal breakthrough? The Future is Fungi Award is a global award backing bold founders and science entrepreneurs using fungi to tackle humanity’s and our planet’s greatest environmental challenges. Learn more and enter here.

Fact-based news without bias awaits. Make 1440 your choice today.

Overwhelmed by biased news? Cut through the clutter and get straight facts with your daily 1440 digest. From politics to sports, join millions who start their day informed.

Sign up now!