Happy 2026!

Hope you all had a restful break and wishing you a brilliant year ahead.

As the Green Queen editor-in-chief, part of my job is to figure out the stories and issues we want to report on, particularly ones that are flying under most people’s radar. Every year, I put together a list of growth areas for the team to focus on, and I thought I’d share it with y’all. It’s essentially a set of trend predictions but framed differently. Here are the areas we will be doubling down on in our reporting over the next 12 months.​

• Blended dairy (and meat) grabs shelf space
  Expect more coverage of hybrid dairy, where conventional milk is “cut” with oat, soy or other plant bases to lower emissions and cost while keeping the taste and functionality consumers recognise. This builds on the blended meat story we’ve been tracking for a few years now—burgers and mince formats that combine animal meat with mushrooms or plant protein to shrink footprint without asking flexitarians to give up meat entirely.​

• Blended chocolate, coffee and fats
  We’ll be watching the rise of “quiet hybrids” in categories like chocolate, coffee and fats, where brands swap in alternative ingredients—cocoa-free chocolate analogues, bean-free coffee, precision-fermented fats—to hedge against price volatility, deforestation and climate risk. These products don’t always market themselves as “alt” anything, but they’re where a lot of the real reformulation work is happening behind the scenes.​

• From ‘eat less meat’ to sustainable protein policy
  Rather than focusing on reductive “less meat” messaging, more governments are experimenting with broader sustainable protein strategies: supporting plant-based, fermentation and cultivated proteins alongside lower-impact animal production. Our policy coverage will track where this portfolio approach is actually being written into procurement rules, R&D funding and national roadmaps, and where it’s still stuck at the press-release stage.​

• Longevity x foodtech
  Longevity is shifting from wellness buzzword to product and policy driver, as evidence accumulates that plant-forward, minimally processed diets can extend healthy life expectancy by years. We’ll continue exploring how foodtech players (alternative protein startups in particular) are trying to translate that science into everyday products and claims.​

• Better-for-you kids’ products
  Parents (especially in the UK and the MAHA-motivated US) are demanding options that are lower in sugar and ultra-processed ingredients, higher in fibre and protein, and generally more wholesome. We’ll be looking at the brands and policies trying to move beyond cartoon packaging and healthwashing towards genuinely improved school meals, snacks and drinks for children.​

• Food products designed for women
  From iron, calcium and protein gaps to perimenopause and hormonal health, women’s needs have historically been an afterthought in mainstream product development. A new wave of “for women” brands is trying to change this, and our reporting will look at whether they’re delivering real nutritional value or just pink-washing the same old SKUs.​

• GLP-1 comes for restaurants, foodservice and retail
  In 2025, we covered how GLP-1 use was already reshaping grocery baskets and CPG strategy; in 2026, the focus shifts to menus, portion sizes and channel economics. From medical nutrition shakes entering Walmart and hospitals to QSR chains rethinking value meals for people eating less but prioritising protein, this will be one of the defining demand-side stories of the decade (check out this piece on how Shake Shack in the US and Morrisons in the UK are doing this already).​

-Sonalie

💡 Only On Green Queen

📈 GLP-1 Boom: US/UK Restaurants & Supermarkets Roll Out Ozempic-Friendly Food
GLP-1 drugs are taking over the food system, and fast-food chains and supermarkets are the latest to embrace this new order. Here’s what’s happening.

📊 2025 FAO Statistical Yearbook: 10 Key Food & Climate Charts
The UN FAO has released its annual Statistical Yearbook for 2025, featuring data about the food and agriculture system, land use, emissions, and more. Here are the 10 most important charts.

🐶 Consumer Insights: Pet Parents Prefer Cultivated Meat Over Plant-Based Proteins for Dog & Cat Food
Two new surveys highlight the growing consumer acceptance of alternative pet food, with cultivated meat particularly piquing their interest.

💬 Op-Ed: Self-GRAS Isn’t a Loophole. It’s A Lifeline for Food Innovation
Simo Ellilä, co-founder and CEO of Enifer, argues why the self-affirmed GRAS pathway – set to be eliminated by the US FDA this year – is worth preserving.

🧀 Industry Insights: Italian Vegan Cheese Startup Dreamfarm Eyes 2026 Expansion After Doubling Revenue
After expanding in several European markets, dairy-free cheesemaker Dreamfarm more than doubled its sales in 2025 – and it’s eyeing similar success this year.

✅ Must-Read Headlines

🇨🇳 Shanghai has laid out a 20-step plan to advance its novel food sector over the next five years, with new products and regulatory approvals among the chief goals.
💡The plan will run from 2026-30, focusing on the creation of new processes, products, and business models by leveraging emerging technologies like synthetic biology and AI as the driving forces of innovation.

🇺🇸 A new US bipartisan bill, The Childhood Diabetes Reduction Act, aims to make front-of-pack warning labels mandatory on ultra-processed foods and products high in saturated fat, sugar or salt.
💡This could inculde plant-based meat products, since the categorisation bundles everything from whole-grain bread, canned soups and vegan burgers to Oreos, Coca-Cola and McDonald’s nuggets together. 

🇨🇭 The Cultured Hub, a biotech facility run by Swiss food industry giants, has expanded its service to include plant cell culture technology for coffee, cocoa and citrus.
💡The Hub allows companies to scale up from small lab experiments to 1,000-litre pilot operations without investing in expensive assets or diluting equity.

🧫 Cell Ag News

💰 California’s BlueNalu raised around $11 million, taking its total funding to $129 million, to scale up production and support the commercialisation of its cultivated bluefin tuna toro.
💡As it works towards regulatory green light, BlueNalu is working closely with chefs, distributors, and strategic partners to provide a consistent, high-quality product with year-round availability.

🇯🇵 Japanese cellular agriculture specialist IntegriCulture has introduced Cellag, a brand to sell its own products, as well as those by other companies, across the food, cosmetics, and materials categories.
💡Through Cellag, it aims to foster a “new culture” that integrates these technologies with regional characteristics and traditions, labelling the approach “cellular agriculture terroir”. 

🤝🏼 South Korea’s SeaWith has signed a supply deal with the UK’s 3D Bio-Tissues, whose cell culture media can reduce the cost of the former’s cultivated meat by 30%.
💡The agreement is worth £300,000 ($400,000) for 3D Bio-Tissues, making it a key source of revenue for the firm, and is an exciting way to break into a key market.

💸 A bankruptcy filing by Israeli cultivated meat firm Believer Meats has revealed that the company was nearly $225 million in debt, and sheds light on how approval delays stalled its financing efforts.
💡The company was a victim of the increasingly tough fundraising climate in the food tech sector, both globally and “for an Israeli company in particular, given the geopolitical situation”.

🇸🇬 Singaporean cellular agriculture company Umami Bioworks has teamed up with salmon specialist Nippon Barrier Free to bring cultivated marine supplements and cosmetics to Japan.

🥩 Green Queen Wire: TissenBio unveiled the world’s first cultivated meat with cell density equivalent to red meat.

🌱 Plant-Based News

🍔 Headline-grabbing startup Juicy Marbles is targeting the “sweet spot” between hyper-realistic meat alternatives and veggie patties with its new Umami Burger.

🇬🇧 Chef-founded Symplicity Foods is tapping into the UK’s whole-food plant-based movement with the retail debut of its fermented-vegetable-based burgers, sausages and ‘nduja.

📊 Plant-based giant Beyond Meat revealed the results of its latest LCA on its flagship burger and made its first carbon disclosure submission in November. Here’s how that went.

🌏 The Vegan Society’s latest report reveals the top countries around the world for plant-based eating

🧒🏻 Well-planned vegan and vegetarian diets can be healthy for children, according to a nutritional analysis of the eating patterns of nearly 50,000 kids, published in Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition.

🚀 Everything Else In Future Food

🇮🇹 Scientists at Italy’s public research agency, ENEA, have developed prototypes of 3D-printed nutrient-rich sweet snacks from cultured plant cells and fruit residues.

🇳🇱 The Netherlands’ Central Bureau of Food Trade, a representative body for supermarkets and foodservice operators in the country, has published a report on supermarkets’ best practices to drive the protein transition, and is calling on the government to play its part too.

🏆 Sustainability startups from around the world will have the chance to help decarbonise the cattle industry in the world’s largest continent, thanks to retail network DFI Group and collaborative green tech hub The Mills Fabrica’s new DFI Sustainability Innovation Challenge.

🌱🍔  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 wave of launches for Veganuary, a Stranger Things-inspired burger, and a HappyCow alternative app.

📆 Scene & Heard

🚀 Catch Sonalie Figueiras at Bridge2Food’s Ecosystem Webinar!

💥 Green Queen’s founder and editor-in-chief, Sonalie Figueiras, will be speaking at Bridge2Food’s upcoming Ecosystem webinar on 13th January. She will share her view on 2026’s biggest trends, and the areas her team will be focusing their reporting on for the upcoming year. Sign up here.

♻️ The BEAM Circular Accelerator is looking for startups for its 2026 cohort. The program will select five startups turning agricultural waste into value through sustainable agriculture, renewable bioresources, circular biomanufacturing, and waste reduction solutions. Applications close on 11th January; find out more and apply here.

🔬 The Foods of the Future: Science and Engineering Approaches GRC is a premier, international scientific conference focused on advancing the frontiers of science through the presentation of cutting-edge and unpublished research, prioritizing time for discussion after each talk and fostering informal interactions among scientists of all career stages. It’s happening 25th-30th January; sign up here.