Are We Eating The Earth?

We’ve passed 70 applicants for Green Queen’s inaugural Climate Feed Fellowship we launched last week, which is thrilling. Also exciting is how international the pool is: folks are applying from the four corners of the globe. Please keep sharing with your networks- we’re accepting entries until June 20th!

On my mind this week is a brilliant new book I’ve just finished: We Are Eating the Earth: The Race to Fix Our Food System and Save Our Climate by award-winning journalist and author Michael Gruwald, which comes out on July 1st. We sat down for an interview - out soon on Green Queen - and my head is spinning with everything he writes about.

The book’s main thesis is that we’re basing our climate decisions on the wrong math when it comes to land use, and that until we solve for this Brazil-sized blind spot, we cannot solve for climate change.

The book is heavy on science, numbers and policy (unsurprisingly so, as Grunwald cut his teeth as a policy reporter for Politico, the Washington Post, TIME, among others), which may discourage some, but Grunwald is a gifted storyteller. He structures the narrative around the life work of one Tim Searchinger, a brilliant, stubborn and uber-passionate former environmental lawyer who has made unearthing land use and its climate cost the ultimate cause of his long and storied career.

The facts laid out are sobering. As Grunwald writes, even if we were to quit ALL fossil fuels overnight, we would not meet the Paris Agreement targets without addressing the other third of all global emissions, the T-Bone Steak-sized elephant in the room, food production.

If you prefer numbers, here’s another way to think about it: “to meet the Paris targets, the world will need to eliminate three-fourths of those food-related emissions by 2050, the equivalent of decarbonizing transportation and shipping.” and we’re nowhere near.

I would hope that for the regular readers of this newsletter and Green Queen’s reporting, this is not new information. Still, the book makes the case that we simply don’t get it. Governments and policymakers are blind to it. Climate finance spends less than 3% on fixing the problem. Environmentalists and major Food & Ag NGOs aren’t doing the math right. And every day, the problem gets worse.

Towards the end of the book, Grunwald goes on a solutions journey, sharing the stories of founders looking to save the world with precision farming, pongamia trees, regenerative farming and dozens more.

The book is also one of the best chronicles of the birth of the alternative protein sector (especially in the US) that I’ve come across, and it was fun to read those chapters. Lots of folks and companies we regularly report on have starring and supporting roles (Oh hi, Bruce Friedrich 😉 )

Grunwald does not offer up any easy answers, though. And I suspect the book will piss off a fair few folks because, as he writes, there are no silver bullets (though there is silvopasture). But Grunwald is a fan of humanity and an admirer of our capacity for world-changing innovation, and the book ends on a hopeful note, which is: we need it ALL and we need it YESTERDAY.

So keep on building (and funding, and supporting) folks. We need it all.

-Sonalie

💡 Green Queen Exclusives

💸 Industry Insights: What Do 2025’s Investment Trends So Far Tell Us About Alternative Proteins?
After a decline in alternative protein investments in 2024, funding fell further by 28% in Q1 2025 compared to the same period a year ago. Analysts blame AI, high costs, and low sales.

🤖 Tastewise: Using AI To Help Food Companies Cut Waste
Can artificial intelligence help companies cut food waste and advance one of the most easily achievable climate solutions? Consumer insights platform Tastewise is betting on it.

🫘 Consumer Trends: UK Urged to ‘Make Beans More Appealing’ As Meat Consumption Goes Into Overdrive
The UK eats twice as much meat as the global average, putting both public and planetary health at risk. Could beans be the solution?

💰5 Minutes With A Future Food VC: Thia Ventures’ Mirasbek Kuterbekov
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, Mirasbek Kuterbekov, Principal at Thia Ventures, shares why startups shouldn’t always be looking for the most generous checks.

🚀 Cultivated Protein Breakthroughs

🐟 San Francisco-based Wildtype has become the world’s first startup to secure US regulatory approval to sell cultivated seafood, with its salmon now on the menu at Kann in Portland, Oregon in what an industry insdier called a ‘watershed’ moment for the sector.
💡Backed by the likes of Robert Downey Jr, Leonardo DiCaprio and Jeff Bezos, the startup is preparing launches with four other restaurants over the next four months, and is planning for a retail launch.

🇬🇧 British startup Meatly announced a wave of breakthroughs that significantly slash the cost of cultivated meat, bringing it closer to price parity with chicken.
💡Having raised £5 million to date, Meaty is now kickstarting a funding round for a low-cost industrial facility to profitably scale production of its cultivated meat.

🍫 California Cultured, which makes cocoa via cellular agriculture, has transitioned to large-scale biomanufacturing in a key breakthrough for the industry.
💡The startup used AI-powered tools at Pow.Bio’s advanced facility to optimise its cocoa fermentation process to commercial volumes, improving efficiency and reducing production costs.

🐕 Although pet food brands promote animal byproducts as a sustainable option, a carbon footprint analysis commissioned by BioCraft Pet Nutrition reveals that cultivated meat products produce significantly lower emissions.
💡Some studies have contended that animal byproducts actually have a worse environmental impact because of their poor nutritional content. 

🆕 New Products & Campaigns

🇮🇩 Indonesian plant-based meat pioneer Green Rebel Foods rolled out two products at 7-Eleven Philippines, both as retail offerings and as part of in-store meals.

🌰 Cuíca is creating plant-based milk from Brazilian chestnuts (you might know them as Brazil nuts) to combat monoculture and deforestation in the Amazon while spotlighting and supporting Indigenous communities.

🏨 Accor Group has committed to removing 350 endangered fish species from menus and increasing plant-based options across all 600 of its Novotel hotels as part of its sustainable dining strategy.

🐮 Italian plant-based cheese startup Dreamfarm flooded the streets of Milan with tourists wearing cow masks as part of a new marketing campaign.

🥩🌱 Discount retailer Aldi Nord has become the latest company to release a blended meat product: a burger made from 60% beef and 40% plant proteins, launching in the Netherlands at a more affordable price than many conventional meat options.

🚀 Everything Else In Future Food: Key Research

📊 The food and agriculture industry requires 12 times more finance than current levels to reduce its environmental impact in line with global climate goals, suggests new analysis by the ClimateShot Investor Coalition.

🇬🇧 While most UK consumers are open to trying precision-fermented foods, according to research from the UK’s Food Standards Agency, far fewer are willing to eat them regularly, highlighting the need to address concerns around safety, affordability, and trust.

🌱 A Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine study finds that, for people with type 1 diabetes, switching from animal products to plant-based foods is an effective strategy for weight loss.

🌱🍔  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 Kellanova’s plant-based RXBars, Vivera’s pre-frozen tofu, and a cultivated seafood tasting event.

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📆 Scene & Heard

Don’t Miss the Vegan India Conference in July!

🇮🇳 The Vegan India Conference is India's largest plant-based industry event aimed at supercharging the growth of professionals and businesses. It’s happening 5th-6th July, and will feature sharp insights, trend analysis, and conversations that decode the next wave of conscious consumption in India. Get your ticket here.

🚀 VEGPRENEUR has teamed up with leading global e-commerce platform Shopline to launch The DTC Accelerator, designed to help consumer brands scale smarter, faster, and more profitably, with the resources, knowledge, and funding they actually need. Learn more and apply here.

🇬🇧 Future Food-Tech London takes place on September 24th-25th, where 500+ C-Suite food brand executives, investors and entrepreneurs from around the globe will come together to scale solutions in health, nutrition and alternative proteins. Learn more 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.