Food Fight: How the UPFs Debate is Changing What We Eat

Looking through the past six months of Green Queen’s reporting, a few themes emerge. One that has dominated our coverage is the ultra-processed foods (UPFs) fight and how the food industry, including future food companies, is adapting.

When we started reporting on this topic a few years ago, we were focused on the narrative as it affects plant-based foods, specifically plant-based meat alternatives. Mostly, this was coming from Europe. The 2023 British book Ultra-Processed People by infectious disease physician Dr Chris van Tulleken, ignited a countrywide discussion in the UK about whether these foods were killing us, which bled into vegan foods. Today, that narrative has become global and is now a major Achilles’ heel for the sector, especially in the US, with many consumers citing UPFs as a reason they avoid this category of products. The industry is fighting back, but based on recent sales reports, it’s not clear it’s working.

And what nobody had on their Bingo card was the rise of the MAHA movement led by one Robert Kennedy Jr, who surprised the world when he became US Health and Human Services Secretary. His anti-seed-oil, anti-processed foods, anti-food-dyes rhetoric has activated an army of fed-up moms (and some dads) who are tired of how unhealthy the US food system is and how damaging it is for their children. All this culminated in the release of a flagship childhood disease report last month, which, ChatGPT-hallucinations notwithstanding, represents a major shift in US food policy.

We’ve been working to unpack this for future food folks. And it’s a hard one. The anti-UPF critiques seem to merge with anti-food-tech sentiments, and a yearning for a simpler time when food was more ‘wholesome’ and ‘natural’. But very little of what we eat is truly unprocessed, plant-based or not.

If you sift through the data, consumers remain a conflicted bunch. US consumers seem to be experiencing what I’ll call UPF-split personality disorder. On one hand, Americans are railing against processed foods like never before, forcing brands across the spectrum to rethink product formulations (there is now a Seed-Oil-Free label and a Non-UPF-Verified certification). The FDA is working on a new definition of UPFs- not everyone agrees with the existing one. This is a huge trend. Even Walmart is adapting. The retailer announced last week that 96% of Sam’s Club products are now free of 40+ artificial ingredients (like high fructose corn syrup, aspartame, synthetic food colorings). This is bigger news than you might think. For Walmart to have gone through the trouble of reformulating dozens of products means the company thinks this trend is here to stay. On the other hand, consumers continue to throw their hard-earned dollars at products like Cheetos Flaming Hot Series, Nerds Gummy Clusters and protein bars of all kinds- all of which are very much in the ultra-processed category.

There’s so much more to say, and I will continue to write about this, but in the meantime, to help make sense of it all, we’ve put together an overview of the major hits of our UPF reporting to get a handle on how this trend is reforming food.

-Sonalie

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💡 Green Queen Exclusives

📈 Key Founder Insights: Simple Planet CEO Predicts Regulatory Approvals for Cultivated Meat Will Bring Investors Back
Along with its upcoming fundraise, Simple Planet is about to submit dossiers in South Korea and Singapore for regulatory approval – a feat its CEO, Dominic Jeong, says will make cultivated meat resurgent.

🌱🐄 Product Trends: Can Hybrid Dairy Follow In Blended Meat’s Footsteps?
From Kerry’s Smug Dairy lineup to a new Dutch-Danish range of ‘hybrid milks’, could blending cow’s milk with plant-based ingredients be a winning solution?

❓Deep Dive: The 20 Things Plant-Based Brands Should Know About Ultra-Processed Foods
UPFs have become public enemy number one, and the plant-based meat sector has been caught in the media crossfire. Here’s everything CPG brands and founders need to know.

💰5 Minutes With A Future Food VC: Siddhi Capital’s Steven Finn
In our new interview series, we quiz future food investors about the solutions that excite them the most, their favourite climate-forward restaurant, and what they look for in successful founders. Here, Steven Finn, Co-Founder and Co-Managing Partner at Siddhi Capital, shares why cap table mechanics became his specialty, and why he goes after businesses that can be staged.

💥 Funding & Market Moves

🇩🇪 Munich-based vegan pet food startup Vegdog raised €9 million Series A funding to expand its European presence, after seeing sales hike by 66% in 2024.
💡The investment in Vegdog contrasts with what has otherwise been a tough landscape for plant-based food companies, which raised 64% less money in 2024 than the year before.

🇵🇹 Portuguese startup PFx Biotech secured €5 million, made up of seed funding and a recent EIC Accelerator grant, for its recombinant human milk proteins.
💡The firm told Green Queen that its technology platform can be “adapted to produce” bovine lactoferrin as well, and it is also working on alpha-lactalbumin and osteopontin.

🇳🇱 Dutch poultry producer Plukon Food Group has acquired local meat-free startup Vega Insiders to strengthen its alternative protein portfolio.
💡The deal comes during a time of rampant M&A activity in the rapidly consolidating animal-free food sector.

📉 Austrian biotech firm Arkeon, known for its gas fermentation technology to make proteins from air, has filed for insolvency.
💡Arkeon had secured more than $13 million from investors, though this is only a fraction of the capital raised by other companies turning gases into food or feed.

📈 Regulatory News

🇺🇸 California has established a special committee to advance innovation in the alternative protein sector. The announcement comes at a time when several US states are banning (or hoping to ban) cultivated meat from being sold within their borders, and marks a refreshing approach to the future of food.

✅ In its latest conference in Doha, the International Islamic Fiqh Academy ruled that Muslims can consume cultivated meat if certain conditions are met. Globally, the Halal meat market is estimated to grow by 7% annually to reach $1.6T by 2032 - a massive opportunity.

🥛 The US Senate Agriculture Committee has unanimously voted in favour of a bill that would allow students access to plant-based milk in their school lunches.

📰 Researchers at Tufts University have uncovered eight themes that prevailed in the media coverage of the USDA’s first two approvals of cultivated meat in 2023, with important implications.

🚀 Everything Else In Future Food

🇦🇺 Australian cultivated meat startup Magic Valley held a tasting for politicians in the New South Wales parliament last week. Here’s what they thought.

🧀 French dairy giant Bel Group announced that it will discontinue its Nurishh brand of vegan cheese by the end of the year, citing a failure to attract new consumers and become profitable - Nurishh only represents 1% of the retail market for vegan cheese, compared to Violife’s 22% share.

🍼 In an op-ed published in the Washington Times, Else Nutrition CEO Hamutal Yitzhak urged the FDA to modernise its regulation of plant-based infant formula amid RFK Jr’s Operation Stork Speed.

📊 Research from Dataessential reveals that, in the US, 24% of consumers are cutting back on meat this year, but enthusiasm for plant-based alternatives remains low – here’s why.

🇭🇰 The University of Hong Kong, sustainability charity Green Hospitality, and food-saving app Chomp, have launched a cookbook to tackle food waste in the city.

🌱🍔  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 recipe lookbook, Villareal CF’s tofu seminar, and People Magazine’s plant-based awards.

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📆 Scene & Heard

Major Events at London Climate Action Week

🇬🇧 The ClimateShot Investor Coalition’s London Climate Action Week event, Accelerating Agrifood Innovation and Investment, will take place on 25th June. It will offer insights into innovations in technology and finance transforming the world’s agriculture and food systems, and showcase UK International Development's role in scaling climate ventures in agrifood systems and connecting the innovation and investment landscapes. Find out more here.

🚀 Applications are open for the Climatebase Fellowship, the climate career accelerator designed to help ambitious mission-driven professionals supercharge their careers in climate. Learn more and apply here.

🇪🇸 Join global experts at the Food Innovate Summit 2025, taking place in Madrid on June 16th-17th, to explore the future of food safety, trends, and technology, network with industry leaders, learn from top innovators, and refine your strategy. Find out more here.

🎉 APPLY NOW: The Climate Feed Fellowship by Green Queen Media, the first-ever program designed to empower the next generation of journalists to spotlight the critical link between food and climate. Because transforming insights into action starts with amplifying the right stories. Learn more and apply here - the deadline is June 20th.