Who Controls What We Think, Controls What We Eat

What we eat and how we eat it is determined by many factors including things individual consumers have little control over, such as what type of grocery stores are around us, and what’s on the shelves of those stores. Moreover, most of us may also feel we have very little agency over food policy.

Still, a few times a day, we make choices about the fuel we put into our bodies and at least some of that is influenced by media. Historically, this has meant television, radio, newspapers and magazines. Increasingly, this is social media.

According to a major global study by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, which surveyed 100,000 news consumers globally, social media has now overtaken television as a source of news for the first time. This is the proof of the major shift that most of us will have observed over the past few years, though the speed at which it is happening is mindboggling.

54% of US consumers now use social media to get news, ahead of all other channels. In the UK, 46% of folks avoid the news entirely. And globally, 58% are worried about their ability to evaluate what is true and what is false online. And they should be worried. A UN Study from last November found that over two-thirds of online influencers and digital creators do not fact-check.

This is even more worrying when you consider the results of another forecast that came out this week, this time by WPP, which estimates that in 2025 for the first time ever, creator-driven platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok will surpass the total ad revenue of traditional media! Or, as podcaster Ed Elson puts it: “The future of advertising looks like individual people talking to you about products.” Without ad money, how can traditional media survive? Who will pay for fact-checking and journalist training?

So to recap: we are getting most of our information about what to think and what to buy from social media, where most influencers do not fact-check and are now getting paid all the ad dollars.

This has major repercussions for the work we do around food and climate. And here’s my hot take: founders, investors, activists- no one is thinking about this enough.

 -Sonalie

PS- Last two days to apply for our Climate Feed Fellowship so we can train more journalists to tell the food and climate story, which, in case I haven’t made my point clear enough, we desperately need more of!

💡 Green Queen Exclusives

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Shortly after acquiring low-calorie fat maker Epogee, TikTok-famous protein bar startup David Protein is being sued by other snack brands for allegedly monopolising the ultra-processed ingredient derived from a seed oil. Here’s what’s happening.

🌱 Interview: Meet The Team Behind The V-March Campaign
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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, Silla Scheepens, General Partner at Future Food Fund, shares why she’s going after the tech that helps us grow more with less.

🎥 Feeding the Future: Why Hollywood Food Storytelling Needs a Climate-Scale Revolution
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✅ Must-Read Headlines

💰 Tastewise secured $50 million Series B funding to scale its AI-powered platform for food companies across the globe, designed to help businesses save food waste through successful product launches.
💡Tastewise already works with over half of the food and beverage companies on the Fortune 100 list, including Mars, Kraft Heinz, and PepsiCo.

🍄‍🟫 France’s Fungu’it raised €4 million to scale its fungi fermentation technology that turns food waste into natural flavours for meat and cocoa alternatives.
💡The flavour industry is a $20 billion behemoth, and the backlash against UPFs represents a massive opportunity for companies making natural flavours sustainably.

🇮🇱 Israeli startup Lembas has created a bioactive peptide, GLP-1 Edge, which is a CPG-ready ingredient that triggers the GLP-1 hormone in the body and naturally regulates appetite.
💡The firm just emerged from stealth with an oversubscribed $3.6 million pre-seed funding round, and its computational platform can accelerate the discovery of new functional ingredients.

🇺🇸 The FDA is set to develop a definition of ultra-processed foods, in the hope of encouraging companies to label their offerings as ‘non-ultra-processed’.
💡The regulation of ultra-processed foods has been the talk of US food policy ever since Robert F Kennedy Jr took office. Confused as to why it’s a topic? Check out our complete FAQ guide.

📚 Key Research

🇪🇺 A report by GFI Europe shows that retail sales of plant-based food in Europe grew by 2% in 2024, thanks in large part to inexpensive private-label offerings from supermarkets.

📊 A study from Tufts University of Upside Foods’ cultivated meat tasting shows what consumers want from these proteins and what they don’t want from their lawmakers.

🤔 A two-country study published in the Plos One journal reveals that vegetarians have a different worldview from meat-eaters, though not necessarily in the way you think.

🚀 Everything Else In Future Food

🥩🌱 Impossible Foods CEO Peter McGuinness has suggested that the plant-based giant could enter the blended meat space to entice more flexitarians.

🆕 Israeli 3D-printed meat maker Redefine Meat introduced a new product line with dramatic reductions in saturated fat and methylcellulose use.

🇧🇷 Food awareness organisation ProVeg Brazil has kicked off the Cultiva Project, an initiative to help livestock farmers transition to plant-based farming.

🌱🍔  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 a host of protein lattes, Better Nature’s tempeh rollouts, and Meatable’s presentation at a Wall Street Journal forum.

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📆 Scene & Heard

Don’t Miss the International Symposium on Food & Feed Extrusion

🇦🇺 The International Symposium on Food & Feed Extrusion on 7th and 8th August will bring together industry, academia and research leaders to explore the latest in extrusion technology. This two-day event will feature an engaging program of keynote presentations, technical sessions, industry booths and networking opportunities. Sign up here.

💻 TABLE is hosting the first of three webinars on alternative proteins on 24th June at 4pm BST, to discuss the drivers, investments, trends and regulation of alternative proteins. Register here.

🇬🇧 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.