Morning All,

Beef is having a moment. I can’t open a digital news tab without seeing a headline proclaiming that consumers are “clamoring for beef” and that America’s “appetite for beef is insatiable”. Global beef demand is projected to keep rising this decade, even as climate warnings grow louder, with the market expected to swell from around USD 579 billion in 2025 to close to USD 846 billion by 2034. Prices are elevated, exports from major producers like Australia are booming on the back of tight global supply, and governments are still banking on beef as a high‑value export and a strategic protein for growing middle classes. For anyone who believed alternative proteins would clip beef’s wings by mid‑2020s, the reality is more uncomfortable: the cattle business is not in retreat; in fact, it is thriving.​ This morning, an investor friend told me that a major global event organiser shared that demand for their beef industry tradeshow is through the roof, while their novel foods conference is a hard sell.

The alt protein sector is nursing its own bruises. Investment has slowed, patents are dropping, and growth in plant-based meat has softened in key Western markets, even as long‑term projections still show global meat consumption rising by double digits and straining planetary boundaries. The uncomfortable truth is that, right now, beef is benefiting from system inertia: deeply entrenched supply chains, subsidies, culinary cultures, and institutional buyers that default to “more meat” as incomes rise. Alternative protein was never going to disrupt this with hype alone.​

So how should the sector respond? First, by dropping the fantasy that beef demand collapses on its own and instead positioning alt protein as essential surge capacity in a world where meat consumption is forecast to grow by up to 50% by 2050. That means focusing relentlessly on taste, price, and reliability in the specific channels that move serious volume: QSR and fast casual chains, meal delivery platforms, institutional catering, and export‑oriented Asian cities where protein demand is soaring. Second, by treating conventional meat players as part of the transition, not just the opposition, because it is increasingly the large meat and FMCG companies that control the infrastructure, distribution, and capital to scale new protein formats fast.​

For Green Queen readers, the takeaway is simple but urgent: a thriving beef industry is not a reason for the alt protein movement to retreat…rather, it is a signal to change tactics. Rather than selling a binary “meat vs no‑meat” narrative, the opportunity is to become the credible, climate‑smart answer to the unavoidable rise in global protein demand—especially in Asia, where most of that growth will happen. If the sector can lean into regional cuisines, farmer-inclusive supply chains, and transparent climate metrics, it can turn today’s beef boom from a story of defeat into a mandate for smarter, more diversified protein systems that actually fit within a 1.5°C world (more like 3°C at the rate we are going).

-Sonalie

💡 Only On Green Queen

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Prosperity Organic Foods has emerged as the winning bidder for plant-based dairy company Miyoko’s Creamery. Its namesake founder is asking the new owner to rebrand in the hope of getting back the rights to her name. Here’s what’s going on.

🌱 ‘Sharp Focus & Consolidation’: How The Livekindly Collective’s Plant-Based Meat Became Profitable
Livekindly Collective, the company behind brands like Oumph, Like and Fry’s, achieved profitability in September, countering the plant-based meat slowdown. Here’s how it did it.

💡 COP30 Updates

📝 COP30 Digest: Everything You Need to Know in Food & Climate News Today
Welcome to #COP30. In our Green Queen COP30 Digest, our editorial team curates the must-reads, the must-bookmarks and the must-knows from around the web to help you ‘skim the overwhelm’. Catch up on it with our most recent edition: volume 4

❓Opinion: COP30 Will Be the Opportunity of A Lifetime To Improve Our Food Systems
Aline Baroni, country director of ProVeg Brasil, makes a case for why COP30 could bring about a pivotal shift in the fight for a better agrifood system.

✅ Must-Read Headlines

🇩🇰 Danish precision fermentation startup Chromologics secured €7 million to commercialise its natural food-grade alternative to synthetic red dye.
💡The startup has garnered interest from companies across multiple sectors, from beverages and confectionery to plant-based products, as the market responds to the growing trend against UPFs and additives.

🔀 Plant-based meat company TiNDLE Foods is pivoting its business model to divest its US operations and focus on private-label products in Europe.
💡The move comes amid a slowdown in the US plant-based sector, while Europe sees growth, and the shift to manufacturing for private-label brands is a direct nod to one of the key barriers and drivers of plant-based meat consumption: cost.

👩🏻‍⚖ Beyond Meat has been found to have infringed a trademark covering a slogan used in a joint ad with Dunkin’ in 2019, so is now facing $39 million in damages.
💡Bad year for Beyond, as this follows its share price reaching an all-time low, becoming a meme stock, experiencing a sustained slowdown in sales, and being forced to bat away bankruptcy rumours.

🥛 The US Senate has unanimously passed the FISCAL Act, which makes it easier for students to access plant-based milk in school meals.
💡This marks a major step forward for dietary inclusivity, and a potential new market for alternative milk brands.

🧫 Cultivated News

🛒 Exclusive: This Cultivated Meat Marketplace Sells Inputs & Equipment for Manufacturers
Cultigen Group, which opened an online cultivated meat shop for consumers this year, has now launched a B2B marketplace for companies.

💵 Israel’s SuperMeat raised $3.5 million in an ongoing funding round to support the commercialisation of its cultivated meat in Europe.
💡Last year, the firm revealed that it had made several breakthroughs to make its cultivated chicken more affordable, and its cost advancements are based on a 100% cultivated chicken product, not a hybrid version.

👨🏻‍🌾 The world’s first cultivated meat farm just opened in the Netherlands, thanks to a pilot farm launched by RespectFarms, and will demonstrate how livestock farmers can integrate these proteins into their existing setups.
💡Farmer Corné van Leeuwen has become the first farmer to receive EU funding for these proteins, and hopefully this pioneering project will help to allay fears of the technology’s impact on the farming community.

🇩🇪 German startup Bluu has expanded its salmon cell culture technology to skincare and health innovations, adding to its existing cultivated seafood line.
💡It isn’t the only cultivated seafood maker to venture beyond food, and the move will hopefully accelerate the scaling of cultivated marine cell production in Europe amid efforts to navigate the region’s regulatory red tape around novel foods.

🚀 Everything Else In Future Food

🤝🏼 Solar Foods announced the latest partnership for its gas-fermented Solein protein, which will form the base of Pothos protein powders to be launched in the US in early 2026.

🍗 Californian food tech pioneer Eat Just says its plant-based chicken product, Just Meat, has outperformed conventional versions and has just landed in over 3,050 Walmart stores across all 50 US states and Puerto Rico.

💬 The World Health Organization has opened up the public consultation process as it develops a guideline for ultra-processed foods, though it has been subject to criticisms of bias in its selection of experts.

🌱🍔  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 Oatly’s iced coffees, La Vie and Cathedral City’s collab, and Danone and Walmart’s listeria settlement.

📆 Scene & Heard

🚀 Secure Your Spot At HackSummit New York

🗽 This year’s HackSummit New York, happening 10th-11th December, will shift the conversation from reductionary approaches, and instead explore plentiness, and the new ways of manufacturing and adapting to a world that continues to grow. Get your ticket here.

🧫 The 7th Industrializing Cultivated Meats & Seafood 2025 Summit on 3rd-4th December is the only event laser-focused on the technical innovations driving cost parity, scalability, and product excellence. Join leading food techs, CPGs, investors, and regulators to explore cutting-edge bioprocessing, downstream design, and commercialization strategies. Sign up here.

🇬🇧 Plan ahead for Food Matters Live, returning to London on 3rd-4th June. The event will bring together hundreds of the UK and Ireland's innovators and product developers, technical managers, food innovators, and nutritionists across brands, manufacturers, retailers, QSRs and foodservice, including start-ups and scale-ups. Learn more here.

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