Morning Folks,

What does a vending machine have to do with fertility demographics and changing eating habits? Actually, everything!

This weekend, I was at a residential mall in Hong Kong, where it feels like we’re already living in the future. There’s a vending machine where you can make a custom iced tea, a custom coffee or even a custom milkshake. It’s amazing, and it costs around $2. Right next to it, though, is something that says even more about where the world is headed: a pet vending machine.

I’ve never seen a baby vending machine. I’ve never seen a women’s health vending machine. Billions of people have children (there are about 2.3bn), and billions of women (4.13bn) exist in the latter market. Yet somehow, pets (approx 1-1.5bn) are the category getting the vending machine treatment.

As a signal, it’s shouting pretty loudly about family life in Asia and beyond. People are having fewer kids, or none at all. Children are expensive, emotionally demanding, and, in many cases, still not supported by the systems women need if they want both a career and a family. Pets, by contrast, are cheaper to raise, easier to handle, and increasingly seen as companions in a world that feels more digital, more isolated, and more fragmented. In the age of AI and over-digitization, people still want something real and physical. Pets offer that.

And they don’t just offer companionship. They offer routine, stress relief, and a kind of emotional grounding that many people are craving. That’s one reason I think pet ownership will keep rising: not just because fertility is falling, but because fewer people want larger families, and more people want low-friction forms of care and connection. The pet economy reflects that shift.

It also tells you where the spending is going. People are spending more on pets because they have more discretionary income when they’re not raising children. And that spending is not just on better-for-you food. It’s on pet supplements, pet accessories, home accessories, and all the products that make life with pets feel easier and more premium. There are entire D2C businesses being built around this shift, like the founder I met the other week, who has built a multi-million-dollar Amazon-first brand around a pet-hair scraper for rugs. It sounds absurd until you realize it’s exactly the kind of utility-led product people buy when their households and habits are changing.

Even a historically food-first business like Mars seems to understand where the long-term value is. Last year, I met a senior exec at the company who told me the firm had reorganized to double down on pets rather than drinks and snacks. No surprises why: its animal-care arm reportedly generates at least 60% of total sales.

Given all the above, it’s hardly surprising that the cultivated meat companies with real commercial and retail traction tend to be the ones serving pets, not humans. When it comes to the future of alt protein, this is where the market is actually moving and where the easiest early wins are. Pet food is a less emotionally loaded, more commercially flexible entry point for alternative protein, and it fits neatly with the broader rise in pet spending and pet humanization.

This also connects directly to future food and protein and how consumers view eating meat. While I don’t think having a pet automatically makes someone stop eating meat, I do think it can make one more conscious about animals in general. It can make animal welfare feel more immediate, more personal, and more emotionally legible. Once you live with an animal, you start asking different questions. What’s the difference between a pig and a dog, for example? Even if you don’t have an ethical objection to eating meat, you may start to feel differently about how the animal on your plate was raised, treated, and slaughtered. I think the rise in pet ownership will lead to greater interest in and support for animal welfare standards. Meat retailers are going to come under more pressure, and the supply chains that support better treatment, better transparency, and better assurance are going to win big. In other words: the pet economy is not just about changing demographics, it’s part of the same bigger shift in how people relate to animals, care, consumption, and values.

-Sonalie

 💰 Funding News

🍎 Israeli food tech Phytolon secured $23.6 million to commercialise its fermentation-derived alternatives to food colours, starting with red dye.
💡US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has been pushing food manufacturers to move away from synthetic dyes, and two-thirds of Americans support this call, marking a potentially major opportunity. 

🇮🇳 Indian precision fermentation startup StrainX Bioworks has emerged from stealth with $13 million in funding, a large-scale facility, and US GRAS determination for one of its ingredients.
💡While in stealth mode, StrainX Bioworks focused on building deep scientific capabilities, execution velocity, and a globally competitive, multidisciplinary team, centred around an integrated biotech platform.

🇨🇦 Protein Industries Canada is backing a C$15.1 million ($10.9 million) project to expand production of whole-cut plant-based meat and seafood alternatives for the local market.
💡The investment will help establish an end-to-end soy protein value chain, generate innovation-based jobs, and increase significant economic output. 

🍗 German mycelium protein company Pacifico Biolabs raised €7 million ($8.1 million) Series A funding to scale up and launch its clean-label, cost-effective chicken alternative this year.
💡The startup takes advantage of disused beer brewery fermentation tanks, eschewing the years-long process of building new production plants.

🇮🇪 Munster Technological University received €3 million ($3.5 million) from Ireland’s agriculture ministry to develop biorefinery tech that can convert grass and legumes into protein.
💡Researchers will develop new ways to produce sustainable proteins for animal feed, human food and energy applications, as well as create new value chains for grassland farmers.

🐟 Vegan seafood maker Oshi received a $3 million investment from a Latin American seafood major and launched a crowdfunding round to build on its fourfold sales increase.
💡The funds will help the firm open a production facility and distribution centre in the region to support mass scale-up, as it moves to launch a whitefish product.

 ✅ Must-Read Headlines

🇸🇬 Israeli startup Amai Proteins has obtained regulatory approval from the Singapore Food Agency to sell its sweet protein Sweelin, marking a first for the city-state.
💡The company is now positioning itself to ramp up its commercial activities across Singapore and the wider Asia-Pacific region.

🤝🏼 Germany’s Infinite Roots has strengthened its mycelium meat portfolio with the acquisition of Bosque Foods, which had filed for insolvency due to regulatory challenges in 2024.
💡The deal will see Infinite Roots expand its fermentation technology portfolio and incorporate whole-cut meat analogues into its mycelium protein lineup.

🦌 German startup MyriaMeat has successfully established a pluripotent stem cell line from roe deer, expanding its cultivated meat product portfolio beyond pork and wagyu beef.
💡MyriaMeat is one of the better-funded startups in Europe’s cultivated meat sector, having raised €43 million in a 2023 financing round.

🗺️ The German government has released a biotechnology roadmap that includes creating an innovation hub for cultivated meat and precision-fermented foods, and advancing novel food regulation.
💡The hub will help consolidate previously scattered research activities, minimise duplication, and accelerate the commercialisation of research results, according to the Good Food Institute Europe.

🇧🇷 The Brazilian government has asked the World Health Organization to develop regulations requiring countries to restrict the sale of ultra-processed foods, especially to children.
💡Brazil has already set a limit on the use of processed and ultra-processed products in school meals to a maximum of 10%.

 🌱 Plant-Based Expansion

🥛 Oatly has introduced a high-fibre oat milk and low-GI cream in China, homing in on diverse nutritional highlights to build its momentum in the country.

🇦🇺 US plant-based meat brand Daring Foods has launched its frozen vegan chicken into Australia, following its acquisition by local plant protein player v2food last year.

🥩 Steakholder Foods is bringing its 3D-printed, whole-cut meat alternatives to the US with the launch of its new plant-based brand, Perfecta, in the second half of 2026.

📈 The price of meat in the UK, Germany and Spain has climbed sharply since the pandemic, widening the gap with plant proteins like beans and making meat alternatives a more affordable option, according to Madre Brava’s analysis of Euromonitor data.

🌱 In its 2026 sustainability report, Tesco has retired its goal to increase sales of meat alternatives by 300% by 2025 amid a wider market decline, but has pledged to keep innovating in this space while also championing plant-based whole foods.

🚀 Everything Else In Future Food

🚴🏼‍♀️ In its latest coffee-centric brand activation, Oatly has opened a “bike-thru” pop-up in Amsterdam, offering the city’s bikers a rotating menu of oat milk creations.

💄 Californian label Tower 28 Beauty has debuted a lip jelly featuring C16 Biosciences’s Palmless Torula Oil, a yeast-derived substitute for palm oil.

🍫 Germany’s Planet A Foods has debuted its cocoa-free chocolate ingredient, ChoViva, in the US, thanks to its partnership with chocolate giant Barry Callebaut.

🇦🇹 Austrian meat major Marcher Fleischwerke has expanded its focus on alternative proteins with Now!, a new brand that combines plant-based meat with blended proteins.

🌱🍔  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 Silk’s ultra-high-protein milk, a urine-to-fertiliser project featuring Oatly, and The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf’s non-dairy milk decision.

📆 Scene & Heard

🚀 Catch Up With Sonalie Figueiras At Bridge2Food Europe 2026

💡 Green Queen’s founder and editor-in-chief Sonalie Figueiras will be speaking at Bridge2Food Europe 2026, happening 9-11 June 2026 in Copenhagen, where she will give a keynote titled “The Global Politicization of Food and the Influence on Consumer Choices”. Catch her live to unpack how geopolitics and consumer behavior are increasingly intertwined in the future of food. Register here, and use code GREENQUEENMEDIA to get €200 off your ticket.

🌏 The Growth Asia Summit returns on 8th-10th July 2026, after its biggest ever edition in 2025, to once again explore the very latest market opportunities that have developed over the previous 12 months in the region that is driving the growth of the global food, beverage and nutrition industries. Find out more here.

📆 Plan ahead to meet the global leaders driving sustainable agricultural practices in San Francisco on March 9th-10th 2027. Be at the World Agri-Tech Summit with 1500+ decision makers from agribusinesses, technology giants, food brands, farmers, policymakers, investors, and start-ups for strategic networking, industry benchmarking, agri-tech discovery, and deal making. Learn more here.

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