‘Make Meat Great Again’

Earlier this week, I was on a panel about making our food system more resilient. I was asked by the moderator to give an overview of novel food technologies that could help derisk global food supply chains over the coming decades. I spoke about a variety of solutions, from precision fermentation dairy to fats made from CO2, to alternative cacao, to cultivated meat. Then, something odd happened. The next panelist, a food systems professor based in Asia, was asked to share his views on food security. Instead of answering his question, he started with an attack on my answer, attacking cultivated meat as a non-solution with no scalability and no potential to fix food security issues. I was taken aback. Had I been invited on the panel as bait? At no point had I said cultivated meat was the only solution for all our food woes. At no point did I give a timeline or suggest that the sector was ready to scale within 5 years. I was asked to showcase a few novel food tech solutions and that's what I did. It felt like the type of answer the haters leave on some of Green Queen's special media posts. It wasn't necessarily the content of his answer that shook me; rather, it was his tone. So much aggression, anger and disdain, and all of this in public. Was this a sign of things to come on the speaker circuit?

Earlier that day, I had read The Atlantic's ‘America is done pretending about meat' , reporting about the boom in red meat consumption amidst a reckoning for plant-based meat, which, according to the author, had lost what little appeal it had for most Americans.

In the same way that Donald Trump and his cronies have empowered the fossil fuel industry and toxic masculinity, he has empowered mainstream people to ‘make meat great again.' Across the media, a torrent of articles gleefully celebrate the end of veganism while carnivore diets are having a major moment.

Finding solutions for the problems in our food system has very little to do with veganism.

Let's put ethics aside for a minute. The reality is that the vast majority of people are not ready to commit to veganism, nor do they necessarily have a moral issue with eating meat.

Folks, the fundamentals have not changed. Intensive livestock ag is the cause of between 11-19% of all global greenhouse gas emissions. We do not have enough land or water on earth to produce the amount of beef, chicken and pork we would need to meet the animal protein needs of our growing population. And even if all the fertility drops cause the population to contract, we still have a gap in resources, because as people get richer and become middle class, they consume more animal protein. There are billions of people across Asia, Latin America and Africa that will experience economic mobility over the coming decades. We simply cannot produce for them the amount of meat that Americans eat every day. So what do we do about that?

And that's before we talk about ALL the other issues that are plaguing our food system, from extreme weather to mass antibiotic usage to geopolitical tensions to increasing zoonotic disease, all of which are causing supply chain disruptions and rising food prices.

Why on earth would we stop investing in and testing solutions that can help us mitigate the continued risks we face? And why on earth does it make people so angry to talk about these solutions?

Ya. I don't get it either.

The solutions are far from perfect. Some have been overhyped. Mistakes have been made. So what? That's what the path to world-changing innovation looks like.

-Sonalie

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🇮🇹 Deep Dive: The Biased Science That Fuelled Italian Farmers’ Anti-Cultivated Meat March
One of the loudest opponents of cultivated meat, Coldiretti, rallied thousands of farmers to demand that the EU assess novel foods like new drugs. It cited concerns from scientists, but half of them are members of the organisation.

🇺🇸 Industry Insights:  Self-GRAS Uncertainty Looms Over Food Tech Leaders As FDA Spotlights ‘Transparency’
The US’ move to potentially remove the self-determination pathway of food safety could have significant implications for fermentation protein companies, with the FDA doubling down on safety while outlining its support for innovation.

😋 Real Life Experience: What Does Cultivated Meat Actually Taste Like?
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💰 5 Minutes With A Future Food VC: Better Bite Ventures’ Simon Newstead
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, Simon Newstead, Founding Partner at Better Bite Ventures, shares the future food technologies that excite him the most and the best ‘future food’ thing he’s eaten this month.

😱 Interview: Underwhelming Sales Of Plant-Based Leaders Has ‘Scared Investors’
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🔢 Op-Ed: Why Going Vegan Isn’t The Only Way To Fight Factory Farming
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✅ Must-Read Headlines

🇩🇪 Germany’s Vytal Global  raised €14.2 million in growth funding to fuel the expansion of its reusable food packaging solutions.
💡Vytal’s business model combines reusable products with smart tech and “seamless service”, with integration into multiple point-of-service systems.

🇮🇱 Brevel, an Israeli startup using light and fermentation to create microalgae-based ingredients, secured $5 million in a seed extension round as it prepares for large-scale production.
💡The company is targeting the dairy alternatives market first with its ingredients because the segment doesn’t yet have a plant protein solution with zero flavour or colour compromises.

🌱 Unilever has agreed to sell   The Vegetarian Butcher to fellow plant-based meat business Vivera, with the deal expected to be completed by Q3 2025.
💡Vivera, owned by JBS, is one of Europe’s oldest and largest vegan meat producers, and its retail and private-label portfolio and in-house technologies are “complementary” to The Vegetarian Butcher.

🇰🇷 South Korea’s largest Muslim organisation has issued a fatwa recognising that cultivated meat can be Halal if it meets certain requirements, with one startup already pursuing the certification.
💡Globally, Halal consumers represent a quarter of the population, and the halal meat market is estimated to grow by 7% annually to reach $1.6T by 2032.

📚 Key Research

📉 A new study by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine shows that swapping meat with plant-based alternatives – no matter how processed – can lead to significant weight loss .

🇹🇭 New analysis from non-profit Madre Brava and sustainable development consultancy Asia Research Engagement has found that replacing half of meat and seafood production with plant proteins could save 100,000 lives lost from air pollution in Thailand .

🧫 Everything Else In Future Food

🧈 Californian startup Savor launched its farm-free, carbon-based butter , which will appear on Michelin-starred menus this year, ahead of a planned Series B funding round.

🍦New Zealand-based cauliflower ice cream startup EatKinda is moving operations away from its home country to focus on the US amid scaling challenges which have impeded its growth plans.

🥛 Danone-owned plant-based dairy giant Alpro announced that it is moving to a 100% local supply for its oat milk lineup in the UK, powered by a multimillion-pound investment to expand its capacity. Here’s why .

🌱🍔  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 Impossible Foods’s beef slider rollout, the New York Mets’s new vegan sandwich, and Grubby’s vegan meal kits for B Corp Month.

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📆 Scene & Heard

Connect With Green Queen’s Sonalie Figueiras At SynBioBeta 2025!

🇺🇸 Green Queen ’s Founding Editor, Sonalie Figueiras , is excited to speak at SynBioBeta 2025 —where synbiology’s future takes shape! Join her on May 5th–8th in San Jose, CA, to meet pioneers, explore innovative breakthroughs, and discuss biotech’s next chapter. Register here and use code SBB25-Future for $100 off.

🇳🇱 The Plenitude project’s final conference: Circular Bioeconomy for Sustainable Protein Production - is taking place 3rd June. It offers a unique opportunity for stakeholders, professionals, and academics to explore cutting-edge innovations and actionable solutions in sustainable protein production. The conference is free to attend for relevant audiences passionate about creating change and addressing global challenges through collaboration and innovation; get your ticket here .

🏅 EAT, together with Antler, Katapult and Norrsken, has launched Global Call for Startups, a global competition for startups that drive the food system transformation. Winners will be invited to pitch at the EAT Stockholm Food Forum 3-4 October, unlocking investor networks, residency opportunities and global support from Antler, Katapult and Norrsken. Find out more and submit your business plans here before 30th April 30th.