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Morning folks,

We’ve got some outstanding reporting this week, with a host of exclusives and breaking stories, so please scroll till the end. The world is a tough place these days. For those of you not based in Asia, the region is dealing with a host of protests by a (rightfully IMO) angry younger generation. Regrettably, the ‘Gen Z protests’, as they are now known (also ‘Nepo kid campaign’), which began over government corruption, have become bloody and claimed lives in multiple countries, from Indonesia to the Philippines, Nepal, and beyond.

While climate change and the price of food are not part of the protesters’ core messaging, it is undoubtedly part of the problem. Our youth feel shortchanged. To the young, the future looks bleaker than ever. And our collective irresponsibility to safeguard nature and future-proof the food system is very much to blame.

What keeps me going is the companies and founders working relentlessly to find solutions. I find solace in startups, however imperfect hustle culture is.

Cultivated meat companies continue to make substantial progress despite financial and regulatory challenges: the US celebrated its first cultivated pork tasting this week, Scandinavia got its first cultivated meat factory, an Icelandic cultivated meat startup bagged $5.8M in funding, and the EU has backed a cultivated meat farm in the Netherlands. Elsewhere, the blended meat sector welcomes an exciting new Michelin-lauded player, and India has cut GST on plant-based products by 7%. Still, headwinds abound. We took an in-depth look at consolidation in the alt-protein sector, and by our count, over 40 major players shut down this past year, while the EU Parliament’s latest vote to ban the use of terms such as ‘burger’ and ‘sausage’ by plant-based alternatives feels especially ill-advised.

There’s still more work to do, but I have full faith in the amazing humans who perservere in the face of so many barriers.

Stay safe and stay hopeful.

 -Sonalie

💡 Only on Green Queen

🍽️ Exclusive: Mission Barns Launches Cultivated Pork in World-First Dinner
Californian startup Mission Barns sold its cultivated pork for the first time at a dinner in San Francisco, with dishes featuring its meatballs and bacon.

🌱🥩 Exclusive: Carnéa Makes Its Mark On The Blended Meat Fray With A Michelin-Starred Twist
Parendi Birdie’s Texas startup Carnéa has emerged from stealth with a range of chef-crafted blended meats that beat Tyson’s products in taste tests.

📈 Industry Insights: LiveKindly Collective Bucks Plant-Based Meat Slowdown, Expects Profitability This Fall
Livekindly Collective is set to become profitable this fall, reversing the plant-based meat industry trend with strong brand building, private-label offerings, and Ed Sheeran.

⛔️ Op-Ed: It’s Time to Break the Factory Farm Doom Loop
Compassion in World Farming’s Christopher Browne argues how factory farming both contributes to – and is impacted by – the climate crisis. And the vicious cycle must stop.

🌱 Industry Consolidation: 40+ Major Alternative Protein Companies Have Shut or Been Acquired in Past Year
The past 12 months have seen a sharp increase in the number of alternative protein businesses that have ceased trading, come close to the brink, or been acquired. Here are all the major deals, starting September 2024.

✅ Must-Read Headlines

🇮🇸 Iceland’s ORF Genetics raised €5 million in a new funding round to scale up production of specialised proteins key to cultivated meat, made via molecular farming.
💡The startup uses barley as a vehicle for large-scale production of recombinant animal and human proteins.

🍄‍🟫 Singapore’s Greenitio closed a $1.5 million seed funding round to turn mushroom-based chitosan into functional biopolymers for cosmetics and specialty chemicals.
💡The fresh capital will help Greenitio scale up manufacturing, advance regulatory approvals, and expand commercial partnerships with global cosmetics and chemical companies.

🇸🇪 Swedish startup Re:meat has struck a deal with biotech innovation hub Biotech Heights to establish Scandinavia’s first cultivated meat facility.
💡The company says its patented core technology radically lowers the cost of hardware for cultivated meat, and that its facility will also be able to support other processes such as precision fermentation.

🇫🇮 Finnish startup Enifer secured self-affirmed GRAS status for its Pekilo mycoprotein ingredient in the US, and will begin operating a large factory in Finland next year.
Currently, Enifer operates a pilot line and periodically runs campaigns with contract manufacturers. It is now set for a big increase in production and plans to launch a Series C once the factory is open.

🇨🇳 As China’s future food leadership grows, its students will compete to solve real-world problems by developing new products in ProVeg International’s next Food Innovation Challenge.
💡The students will receive challenge briefs from firms including Beyond Meat and Oatly, and will give participants the chance to design products tailored to China’s evolving taste and nutritional preferences.

☑️ Government & Policy Updates

🇮🇳 India’s latest tax reform will narrow the price gap between animal proteins and plant-based meat and milk - GST on these products will go from 12% to 5%.
💡The new tax regulations will make vegan food more accessible, and they align with the growing demand for plant-based food in the world’s most populous country.

👩🏻‍🌾 The Craft Consortium is building a cultivated meat farm in the Netherlands, in a first-of-its-kind project co-funded by the EU.
💡The project has been awarded the first €2 million of a €4 million grant request, and is designed to decentralise cultivated meat production and enable farmers to diversify their businesses.

🇺🇸 The US Food and Drug Administration has added a proposed rule to its spring 2026 agenda that would eliminate the current provision of companies self-affirming their ingredients as safe.
💡This carries major implications for all food tech, fermentation firms will likely be the hardest hit, as they rely the most on the self-determination rule in the alternative protein sector.

🚫 The European Parliament’s agriculture committee has voted to prohibit the use of terms like ‘burgers’ and ‘sausages’ on vegan alternatives, paving the way for an EU-wide ban.
💡The fact that the proposal made it to an amendment where it’s essentially out of scope raises suspicion of lobbying pressure, not least because very few consumers care about this debate.

🚀 Everything Else In Future Food

🏅 Green Queen Wire: Global Call for Startups, an initiative introduced in the lead-up to the forthcoming 2025 EAT-Lancet Commission Report, announced the five winners of its 2025 competition.

☕️ Starbucks Coffee is rolling out Protein Lattes and Cold Foam across the US and Canada this month, but its use of whey powder is in direct contradiction to its climate goals.

🚗 South Korean carmaker Hyundai has partnered with US biomaterials startup Uncaged Innovations to develop animal- and plastic-free, grain-based leather alternatives for its vehicles.

🌱 A new Stanford study showed people a mock Chipotle menu with and without plant-based options to see whether it affected their decisions to choose meat. The results go against the grain.

🐄 A new report by Dutch bank ABN-AMRO reveals that cattle populations are declining in the Netherlands, leaving companies with an opportunity to foray into hybrid milk products. And consumers are here for it.

💔 Despite recommending patients to follow a plant-based diet, very few cardiologists actually do so themselves, finds a new study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

🌱🍔  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 TiNDLE Foods’ premium vegan chicken, Mena Massoud’s Evolving Vegan series, and Meatable’s leadership change.

📆 Scene & Heard

Register for your Free Pass to Agri-Food Tech Expo Asia 2025

🇸🇬 Agri-Food Tech Expo Asia 2025 (AFTEA) is the premier sourcing and networking platform in Asia for the global agri-food tech and agri-food communities hosting 7,000 attendees and 250 exhibitors, including international and industry-led pavilions and 100 start-ups, Engage with global leaders and industry experts over three days, under one roof, to explore innovative technologies and sustainable practices designed to future-proof our food systems. Register for free.

🏆 The FoodTech 500, also known as ‘The Fortune 500’ of the AgriFoodTech sector, is the world's definitive list of global entrepreneurial talent at the intersection of food, technology, and sustainability. Applications for this year’s edition are open; find out more here.

🗺️ The Good Food Institute has updated its alternative protein ecosystem map, designed to help you visualise and interact with geographical hot spots of alternative protein activity across the globe. Check it out here.

💰 The USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture opened a new funding opportunity, totalling $300 million, including program priority areas such as "Diet, Nutrition, and the Prevention of Chronic Diseases", and "Soil Health”. Find out more and apply here.