“If we lose the ocean, we lose ourselves.”
— Paul Watson

The ocean covers 71% of Earth’s surface and contains 97% of all water on the planet.1 It absorbs more than 90% of the excess heat from greenhouse gases,2 cradles 80% of the world’s seafood and nourishes more than 3 billion people.3 Phytoplankton, the microscopic ‘plants’ of the ocean, generate over half the world’s oxygen.4 It is home to about 230,000 documented species, with ~2,300 new ones discovered every year (scientists estimate there are 2.2 million marine species in total).5 80% of the ocean is “unmapped, unobserved, and unexplored”.6

Much of the ocean’s life and functions remain hidden from view. According to Sylvia Earle, an oceanographer who has led more than 100 expeditions and logged over 7,000 hours underwater, “We know more about the surface of the moon than we do about the deep ocean.” It turns out the ocean’s invisibility is also its vulnerability, where a hidden crisis is brewing.

Scientists consistently identify four interlocking threats to ocean health: (1) climate change, (2) pollution, (3) overfishing, and (4) habitat destruction. We debate the fate of the atmosphere, but overlook the ocean — Earth’s largest oxygen factory, climate regulator and life-support system. It’s time to look closer at what’s happening, and what we can do.

Image Credit: Sergey Nikolaevich/ Shutterstock

#1 – Climate Change: Fire Down Below

The ocean is the Earth’s great thermostat, quietly regulating our climate — but now, it’s overheating. Since 1993, the rate of ocean warming has more than doubled,7 unleashing a cascade of physical and chemical changes: seas are rising as water expands and polar ice melts; ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are destabilizing, threatening to reshape coastlines worldwide; hurricanes and typhoons are becoming stronger and wetter as they draw energy from hotter waters; and marine heatwaves, once rare, now strike with alarming frequency, cooking kelp forests, bleaching coral reefs, and disrupting fisheries. These shifts reverberate through ecosystems and economies alike — from coastal communities facing erosion and flooding, to global food systems strained by collapsing fisheries.

Climate change also drives ocean acidification, which weakens corals’ ability to build reefs. The Great Barrier Reef has already lost more than 50% of its coral cover in recent decades.8 Caribbean reefs have seen similar losses, and scientists warn that by mid-century most tropical reefs will be impacted. As reefs erode, the consequences ripple outward: fish lose their nurseries, coastlines lose a natural barrier, and entire reef-based economies — an estimated $375 billion per year9 — begin to collapse. Acidification extends beyond coral: oyster hatcheries in the Pacific Northwest have experienced mass die-offs as larvae fail to form shells, while microscopic plankton, the foundation of the marine food web, are similarly vulnerable.

#2 – Pollution: The Toxic Tide

Our oceans are drowning in our waste. Pollution is an assault on the ocean’s ability to sustain life. Every minute, the equivalent of a garbage truck of plastic is dumped into the sea — more than 8 million metric tons each year. As much as 80% of all litter in our oceans is made of plastic.10 Much of it breaks down into microplastics smaller than a grain of rice. These insidious particles infiltrate plankton, accumulate in fish guts, and travel up the food chain into humans. A recent study detected microplastics in 99% of seafood samples,11 and another found them in human placentas. Left unchecked, plastic pollution entering the ocean is projected to nearly triple by 2040.12

Runoff from farms, rich in nitrogen and phosphorus, adds to the pain, fueling algal blooms that strip oxygen from the water. This creates hundreds of ‘dead zones’ worldwide, where little to no marine life can survive. The Gulf of Mexico dead zone alone regularly grows to over 6,000 square miles — larger than the state of Connecticut — devastating local shrimp and fishing industries.13 Oil spills, pharmaceuticals, heavy metals, and untreated sewage further compound the chemical burden, while noise pollution from shipping, seismic testing, and naval sonar interferes with whales and dolphins, disrupting migration, hunting, and communication.

#3 – Overfishing: From Plenty to Empty

Wild fish stocks around the globe are being driven toward collapse. Nearly 40% of global fish stocks were being fished at biologically unsustainable levels — compared to just 10% in 1974.14 The pattern repeats across the world’s oceans. Industrial fishing has become extraordinarily efficient at finding and catching fish, but this efficiency is exhausting ocean life faster than it can replenish itself.

The methods are brutal. Bottom trawling — dragging weighted nets across the seafloor — is the marine equivalent of clear-cutting forests. Corals, sponges, and other organisms that took centuries to grow are scraped away in minutes, leaving behind barren underwater deserts. Each year, bottom trawling disturbs an area of seafloor larger than South America. Longline vessels stretch lines up to 50 miles, baited with thousands of hooks. Both practices are indiscriminate. Billions of fish die this way each year, along with hundreds of thousands of turtles, seabirds, and marine mammals — collateral damage known as ‘bycatch’.

Overfishing doesn’t just deplete fish populations; it undermines the ocean’s capacity to absorb carbon. Fish transport carbon to the deep ocean through their waste, and when they die, their bodies sink to the seafloor — locking that carbon away for centuries or even millennia. Large fish, which live longer and dive deeper, are particularly effective carbon transporters. Industrial fishing fleets preferentially targets these large, long-lived species, removing the ocean’s most effective biological carbon pumps.

The ecological toll is staggering. More than one-third of all sharks, rays, and chimaeras now face extinction. As apex predators, sharks maintain the balance of marine ecosystems, whose removal has a cascading effect. When shark populations decline, prey species surge, devouring vegetation and smaller life forms until ecosystems are fundamentally altered.

#4 – Habitat Destruction: The Wrecking Ball

Even when we’re not fishing, human activity reshapes marine environments. Along coasts, mangroves and salt marshes are cleared for ports, resorts, and seawalls. Anchors from cruise ships crush delicate habitats. Dredging clouds waters with sediment that suffocates coral reefs. More than half of all mangroves — critical ecosystems, bridging land, freshwater, and sea — are at risk of collapse by 2050.15 In shallow waters, destructive fishing methods multiply the damage. Blast fishing (detonating explosives underwater to kill or stun fish) obliterates reefs, while cyanide fishing (spraying sodium cyanide into coral crevices) poisons entire reef systems, killing fish, corals, and the life that depends on them. Both are shockingly common in parts of Southeast Asia.

Deep-sea mining poses yet another threat. Companies are now targeting the ocean floor for rare metals used in batteries and electronics. The deep sea is one of the least understood ecosystems on Earth. Disturbing it risks extinguishing species we have never even discovered. Oil and gas drilling adds further disruption, fragmenting habitats and introducing light, noise, and chemical stress into places that evolved in near-total darkness. These activities don’t just destroy individual species — they unravel entire deep-sea systems that regulate carbon storage, nutrient cycling, and the stability of the ocean itself.

Turning The Tide

These four threats — climate change, pollution, overfishing, and habitat destruction — do not operate in isolation. They amplify one other in ways that make the total impact far greater than the sum of parts. Warming waters worsen pollution impact. Overfished ecosystems lose resilience to climate shocks. Destroyed habitats leave species nowhere to retreat. Yet, just as human activity created the crisis, our initiative can chart a different course. Around the world, solutions are emerging that prove recovery is possible when we act with both urgency and scale.

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and Ocean Sanctuaries
When marine reserves are well-enforced, ecosystems rebound. Fish populations multiply, coral cover returns, and biodiversity flourishes. Countries like Palau and Chile have created massive sanctuaries, and global targets call for protecting 30% of the ocean by 2030. Today, only 8% is meaningfully safeguarded — a gap we must urgently close.16

Sustainable Fishing Practices
Some fisheries have shown remarkable recoveries after adopting science-based catch limits. Alaska’s salmon and several U.S. East Coast fisheries prove it can be done. Phasing out bottom trawling, reducing bycatch with improved gear, and prioritizing ecosystem health can transform how the world fishes.

Plastic Reduction and Cleanup
Stopping the tide of plastic requires upstream solutions. Reducing single-use plastics, building better waste systems, and embracing circular economies are crucial steps. Initiatives like The Ocean Cleanup aim to capture plastic before and after it enters the sea.

Coastal Habitat Restoration
Communities worldwide are replanting mangroves, reviving salt marshes, and protecting seagrass beds. These projects boost fisheries, buffer coastlines from storms, capture carbon, and create jobs. Indonesia, which contains approximately 20% of global mangroves, has already seen fish populations rebound through restoration efforts.

Climate Action
Ultimately, the ocean’s fate hinges on cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Transitioning to renewables, protecting forests, and transforming agriculture all reduce the stress on seas. The ocean has bought us time by absorbing heat and carbon — but that buffer is finite. Every degree of avoided warming means less acidification, less bleaching, and more resilience.

Blue Carbon Finance
New financial tools are beginning to value the carbon stored in mangroves, seagrasses, and salt marshes. By monetizing their role as ‘blue carbon’ sinks, conservation becomes competitive with development, offering coastal communities both economic and ecological benefits.

The Ties That Bind

The ocean’s health and humanity’s future are inseparable. If the ocean thrives, so does humanity. It regulates our climate, produces the oxygen we breathe, and feeds billions. But the ocean is not an infinite resource. Climate change, pollution, overfishing, and habitat destruction are converging to push it toward collapse. We are approaching a tipping point where recovery may no longer be possible. If we fail the ocean, we fail ourselves. If we protect it, we secure our own future.

“We live in a world that is run largely by insects.”
— E.O. Wilson, biologist

Insects represent over 80% of all known animal species on Earth.1 At any given moment, there are approximately 10 quintillion individual insects alive on the planet2 — that’s 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 individuals, or roughly 1.25 billion insects for every human being. A typical square yard of forest floor contains more than 100,000 insects and other ‘arthropods’ (which include ‘arachnids’ like spiders, ‘crustaceans’ like lobsters, and ‘myriapods’ like centipedes). Over 400 million years, insects have weathered mass extinctions that felled dinosaurs, emerging not just intact, but dominant. Their small size makes them incredibly efficient, enabling them to consume less energy and reproduce rapidly, but also makes them essentially invisible.

This invisibility isn’t accidental — it’s the result of millions of years of evolutionary refinement. It starts with visual camouflage. Stick insects and leaf insects not only match the colors of their surroundings, but textures, patterns and even imperfections of plant materials. Chemical camouflage, where insects release or mimic odors to blend into their surroundings or evade detection, adds another layer of invisibility. Some ant species cultivate bacteria on their exoskeletons that produce antibiotics, making them invisible to fungal pathogens. Notably, insects can also employ behavioral camouflage — disguising themselves by how they move and act. Beetles, weevils, and some ants drop motionless to the ground when disturbed. Some caterpillars stay still to make them look like bird droppings.

One of the most remarkable things about insects is their role in building connections we can’t see. Beneath our feet, fungi form vast underground networks that scientists call the “wood wide web,” linking trees and plants like a hidden ‘internet’ of the forest. Insects keep this system running. Tiny beetles and springtails nibble at fungal threads in ways that help the network grow stronger and spread farther — like little repair crews working on underground cables. Some ants even farm fungi that plug into these networks, giving their colonies access to the same hidden system. Insects are the forests’ technicians. Without them, the forest’s internet wouldn’t work as smoothly.

Social insects have created some of the most sophisticated hidden infrastructure on the planet. A single super colony of Argentine ants in Europe spans thousands of miles, housing millions of workers in a seamless, borderless empire. Colonies large and small maintain fungus gardens, waste management systems, and climate control mechanisms that rival human agricultural technology, yet they remain almost entirely hidden from surface view.

‘Micro’ Economics

Agriculture owes insects an unpayable debt. While honeybee pollination receives significant attention, wild insects provide pollination services worth an estimated $235 billion annually worldwide:3 75% of all major crop types4 and 90% of flowering plants depend on animal pollinators5 — the vast majority of them insects. Without them, apples, almonds, coffee, and chocolate would be luxuries, if they existed at all. Many of these species are so small or specialized that farmers remain unaware of their presence, yet crop yields would collapse without their services. In medicine, insects have played an essential role for millennia. Maggot therapy, revived in the 20th century, uses sterile fly larvae to clean wounds by eating dead tissue, often saving limbs when antibiotics fail. Bees make propolis, a resin once used by Egyptians in mummification, which is now valued for its immune-boosting properties.6

Decomposition and nutrient cycling represent equally valuable but even less visible services. Insects process organic matter at a rate that dwarfs any human waste management system. A single colony of termites can process several tons of dead plant material annually, breaking it down into nutrients that support entire ecosystems. Dung beetles roll waste into the ground, fertilizing soil and reducing parasites for grazing animals. Flies and other decomposers turn decay into fertile ground for new growth. Without insects, dead organic matter would accumulate faster than bacteria and fungi could decompose it, fundamentally altering global carbon and nitrogen cycles.

Image Credit: Chairil Azmi / Shutterstock

Small Matters

Insect populations have crashed by roughly 45% in the past 40 years7 — a silent collapse driven by habitat loss, pesticides, and climate change. It remains one of the most underreported environmental crises of our time.

Modern agriculture has replaced diverse landscapes with monocultures, stripping insects of food and shelter. In the U.S., prairies and field edges have been cleared for corn and soy, while in Brazil, soybean expansion across the Cerrado and Amazon has consumed millions of hectares — driving nearly 20% forest loss and wiping out insect life, including a ~50% decline in dung beetles and a 64% species loss in fire-hit areas.8 Each hectare cleared erases pollinators, decomposers, and soil engineers, weakening the web that sustains the forest and global climate. In China, intensive rice and cotton farming now relies heavily on managed bees and silk moths as wild insect populations decline.

Pesticides amplify the problem. Neonicotinoids, a class of systemic ‘nerve-agent’ insecticides that linger in soil and water, are widely used on crops. A Nature study found that wild bee populations near neonic-treated fields declined by more than 50%.9 The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that more than 140 million acres of farmland are treated with neonics each year — an area nearly one and a half times the size of California — turning vast landscapes into toxic zones for pollinators and beneficial insects.10

Climate change is reshaping insect life cycles and shrinking their ranges in ways scientists are only beginning to measure. A 2020 study in Science found that bumblebee populations in North America and Europe have declined by nearly 50% over the past century, with extreme heat events driving much of the loss.11 In the Amazon, droughts linked to El Niño cut dung beetle diversity by 64% in fire-affected forests, disrupting nutrient cycling and seed dispersal. Even in temperate zones, butterflies are shifting their ranges northward, while alpine species are being squeezed off mountaintops. Climate change is not just a future threat — it is already dismantling insect populations their ecological contributions.

The human use of insects continues to grow. Roughly 2 billion people worldwide eat insects as part of their diets, with more than 1,900 species consumed as food.12 Beyond the dinner table, insects are harvested at staggering scales for commercial goods. Silk production alone requires the killing of an estimated 420 billion to 1 trillion silkworms annually,13 with nearly 10 billion cocoons needed to spin 70 million pounds of raw silk. Other insect-derived products carry a heavy toll: a pound of shellac or carmine dye requires tens of thousands of insects. In nearly all cases, the process ends with insects boiled or scalded to death.

Edible insect farming is now being industrialized much like livestock factory farming. Millions of crickets and tons of black soldier fly larvae are farmed every month. These operations tout efficiency — using far less land, water, and feed per gram of protein than livestock — but the welfare calculus changes when viewed in terms of individuals. A single cricket farm can ‘process’ more animals in a week than many livestock operations handle in a year, typically through mass-killing methods like freezing, boiling, or grinding.

Emerging research increasingly supports insect sentience, showing that flies, mosquitoes, cockroaches, and termites display strong evidence of actually feeling pain, while beetles, butterflies, and moths provide substantial indicators pointing toward pain perception.14 A growing number of consciousness researchers now include insects in their declarations of animal sentience,15 raising urgent questions about industrial insect farming as a massive welfare blind spot. Even with minimal capacity for suffering, industrial insect farming could inflict more total suffering than all livestock farming combined.

From Hidden to Heard

Some researchers warn of an ‘insect apocalypse’ driven by habitat loss, pesticides, and climate change. Fortunately, efforts are underway to preserve or revive the insect population. Notable projects include:

Habitat Restoration
‘Pollinator Highways’ in the U.S. and Europe are transforming roadsides into wildflower corridors, giving bees and butterflies safe passage across fragmented landscapes. By planting milkweed, clover, and native blooms along thousands of miles of highway, these projects turn transit routes into lifelines for pollinators. In India’s Western Ghats, restoration projects have increased wild bee diversity and boosted coffee yields for local farmers. ‘Green Corridor’ programs in Nairobi, Kenya are transforming roadside verges into strips of native vegetation, proving that even urban spaces can double as insect havens.

Pesticide Reduction and Sustainable Farming
Europe’s Farm to Fork Strategy, rolled out in 2020, aims to slash pesticide use by 50% by 2030.16 Bangladesh’s floating gardens — rafts of water plants topped with compost and soil to grow vegetables and spices — create micro-habitats that support insect life. In India, neem-based biopesticides are increasingly used in rice and other crops, shown to control pests while preserving beneficial insects and soil ecology.17 Healthier bugs mean resilient harvests, as one Punjab grower quipped, “My fields are alive again — no more silent nights.”

Tech-Driven Monitoring and AI Tools
Technology is turning the invisible lives of insects into data that drives smarter conservation. In Japan, drones equipped with hyperspectral cameras track dragonflies and hoverflies as indicators of rice paddy health. In Brazil, scientists use AI to analyze soundscapes in the Amazon, cheaply detecting shifts in insect communities across huge landscapes. Dutch berry farms are pioneering AI-based pollinator monitoring, giving farmers real-time insight into crop pollination.

Public Education and Community-Led Actions
Knowledge is the ultimate pollinator. The Bee City USA program now spans 350+ communities and campuses, each pledging to reduce pesticides and plant pollinator-friendly habitat.18 Children in Michoacán, Mexico are planting butterfly gardens for the monarchs that spend the winter there. In South Africa, grassroots groups are mobilizing neighborhoods to grow pollinator gardens that improve food security while supporting insect life.

Policy and Protected Area Expansion
Policy enables conservation at scale. Clean water laws in Europe and the U.S. have fueled an 11% per-decade recovery in freshwater insects.19 Costa Rica is moving to ban harmful pesticides, Brazil is expanding reserves in the Cerrado to protect native bees, while China’s Ecological Red Line shields ecosystems across an area the size of Mexico.

We’re not there yet, but the buzz is building.

“There are many paths to the top of the mountain, but the view is always the same.”

— Chinese Proverb

The word startup evokes both mystique and admiration — brilliant founders, breakthrough products, and blockbuster IPOs. Beneath the glamour, however, the journey is grueling and unpredictable. Success is extraordinarily rare. Whatever the outcome, not all startups follow the same path. While startups in both technology (e.g. software applications, hardware devices, artificial intelligence, internet-based solutions) and biotechnology (e.g. drug discovery, genetic engineering, agricultural biotech, precision fermentation) have the potential for transformative impact, their playbooks, pace, and pitfalls are radically different. Here are eight dimensions where tech and biotech startups diverge — and why it matters.

(1) Product Development: Modular vs. Sequential

Tech startups thrive on rapid iteration. Feedback is immediate, failures are learning opportunities, and the cost of switching direction is low. Code can be refined quickly without requiring significant time or resources. Instant computational validation, rapid bug fixes and automated test cycles, A/B experiments and continuous deployment of new features all accelerate feedback loops and improve product quality.

Biotech startups, by contrast, operate with much slower feedback loops. Developing a viable strain involves a lengthy process of shortlisting, editing, and refining candidates before moving to wet lab experiments. From there, scaling up must be done carefully to avoid performance deterioration. A change midway through this process can mean starting over entirely, potentially setting a team back months or even years. In biotech, each decision builds on the previous one, resulting in high switching costs and compounding complexity.

(2) Time to Market: Sprint vs. Marathon

At a tech startup, an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) can ship in weeks or months, with user feedback driving near-daily refinements. Launching early — even with bugs — is embraced, even encouraged. When mistakes happen, they can be fixed quickly, with updates rolled out seamlessly across the entire system. “Move fast and break things” isn’t just a motto; it’s a strategy.

Biotech startups play a much longer game. Product development involves complex R&D, rigorous clinical trials, and regulatory hurdles. A successful launch can take 5 to 10 years — if things go well. There’s no room to “break things” when human health is on the line. The stakes are higher, and so is the cost of failure.

(3) Business Model: Incremental Revenue vs. Big Bets

Tech companies enjoy flexibility in monetization — from freemium SaaS to subscription platforms, ads, or transactional models. Revenue can begin flowing shortly after product-market fit, and companies often pivot to new models as they scale or see new opportunities.

Biotech startups live with much greater uncertainty. Revenue comes after years of effort — and it often hinges on regulatory approval. Commercialization typically comes through product sales, licensing, or milestone payments from food and pharma industry partners. There’s no pivoting mid-trial if the science doesn’t pan out.

(4) Defensibility: Platforms vs. Patents

In tech, defensibility usually comes from scale and speed — network effects, brand loyalty, switching costs, or first-mover advantage. Software patents are difficult to enforce, and the market often rewards execution over legal protection. Proprietary datasets give tech companies defensibility by powering personalization, creating customer lock-in and fueling superior machine learning capabilities.

In biotech, patents, exclusive licenses, and trade secrets are the moat. Without robust intellectual property protection, it’s difficult to attract investment or deter competition. The path to value creation runs through the patent office. Extensive patent portfolios and licensing agreements are crucial for long-term value.

Image Credit: Thitichaya Yajampa; Panuwatccn

(5) Distribution: Blitzscaling vs. The Long Game

Tech startups can scale distribution at breakneck speed — via app stores, viral growth, or direct digital sales. A clever user interface, growth hack, or successful launch campaign can create global adoption in months. Distribution channels — access to online platforms, organic or paid user acquisition, or product integrations — are digital, direct, and have minimal friction. Because distribution is digital, startups can iterate rapidly based on user data, test messaging in real time, and optimize acquisition loops continuously.

In biotech, the opposite is true. Bringing a new drug to market requires navigating a complex ecosystem that includes federal regulatory bodies, clinical trial networks, hospital systems, academic research centers, and insurance players who ultimately influence access and reimbursement. For biotech startups focused on food or ingredient production, the path involves engagement with food safety and regulatory authorities, partnerships with contract manufacturers and co-packers, and compliance with local and state health departments to ensure safe distribution and sale. Lead generation in biotech is almost purely relationship-driven. Sales cycles can take several years and must start before the technology is even fully validated. Viral marketing only captures a small subset of the customer base.

(6) Regulatory Climate: Reactive vs. Proactive

Tech companies face limited regulatory friction, at least initially. While issues such as data privacy, intellectual property, or cybersecurity are increasingly important, most tech ventures can launch products into the market with relative ease. Compliance comes later, often only after significant scale — in areas like privacy (GDPR, CCPA), payments (FINRA), or ethics — and is often reactive based upon response from the market or regulatory agencies.

Biotech startups operate in a highly regulated environment. Product development is subject to rigorous scrutiny by government agencies such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the European Medicines Agency (EMA), or their counterparts worldwide. Each phase of product development must meet strict safety and efficacy standards, with detailed documentation and extended review periods. Non-compliance can result in severe penalties, product recalls, or even company shutdowns.

(7) Capital Requirements: Phased vs Front-Loaded

A modern tech startup can launch with minimal capital thanks to cloud computing, open-source frameworks, and no-code tools. As tech companies scale, multiple data points are available from monitoring product development to market feedback, and the capital required is relatively lower compared to biotech startups. Funding can be incremental, with new rounds raised as the company hits growth targets or expands its user base.

Biotech startups, on the other hand, are capital intensive from the outset. Laboratory infrastructure, specialized equipment, highly educated personnel, and the costs of conducting clinical trials demand significant early investment. Biotech entrepreneurs typically seek substantial seed funding, often from grants, angel investors, or specialized venture capital firms with experience in the life sciences. Government support and partnerships with universities and incumbents are also common and oftentimes required. Returns for investors are typically realized over much longer horizons due to the lengthy R&D process.

(8) Talent: Generalists vs Specialists

In a tech startup, particularly in software, the team is often comprised of generalists who can move fast, wear multiple hats, and ship code. Engineers, designers, and growth hackers are recruited early, prized for their ability to launch, learn, and scale quickly without deep domain specialization. Hiring cycles are shorter, compensation typically includes meaningful equity, and the bar is less about pedigree and more about hustle and output. For most tech startups, product-market fit is the focus, not deep R&D.

Biotech startups, in contrast, require deep technical expertise and domain-specific specialization from the start. Early hires are typically scientists with advanced degrees, regulatory experts, lab operations staff, and clinical researchers — individuals who contribute to experimental design, wet lab work, and milestone-driven R&D. A biotech startup must integrate expertise across biology, chemistry, manufacturing and data science, requiring a deliberate, focused hiring strategy. Teams must build defensible IP, navigate complex regulatory pathways and scale up production.

Charting The Future

While both tech and biotech startups drive innovation and economic growth, their paths diverge in significant ways. Tech startups thrive on speed, flexibility, and lower entry barriers, while biotech startups navigate scientific uncertainty, heavy regulation, and high capital requirements. Understanding these differences is vital for entrepreneurs choosing their journey, for investors considering where to place their bets, and for policymakers shaping the environments that enable innovation.

The advent of artificial intelligence will no doubt shift norms and best practices, as we are already seeing with a shift to leaner teams, utilization of vast and complex datasets, large infrastructure deployments, protein engineering, and in silico modeling. One thing is clear: innovation is accelerating, and tech and biotech are set to shape our future — each on its own extraordinary path.

This article was inspired by a longer piece written by Mark van Zee titled “Biotechnology versus Technology Companies”. We thank him for sharing his insights with us.

“Every life is valuable. It is an end in itself, not a means to an end.”

— Immanuel Kant

Shrimp is hard to beat. It permeates nearly every cuisine, is quick to cook, high in protein, low in fat, and bite-sized, making it perfect for skewers, hors d’oeuvres, or bowls. It has a distinctive texture in its firm, springy bite, is mild yet flavorful and umami-rich, which enhances savory flavor perception. From crispy tempura and shrimp scampi to the classic shrimp cocktail, it has found its way into dishes across the world.

A Global Seafood Powerhouse

The appetite for shrimp has driven a huge industry. The worldwide shrimp market is about $50 billion in size, growing at 9.5% annually.1 It is the top seafood consumed in the United States, accounting for about 38% of Americans’ annual seafood intake2 — more than tuna and salmon combined. U.S. shrimp consumption steadily climbed for decades, peaking at 5.9 lbs. per person annually3 (Japan is the highest globally at 7.23 lbs. per capita). It is among the highest traded seafood commodities globally, with rising demand across many regions. Asia-Pacific leads in production and consumption, accounting for over half of the market. The United States stands out as the largest buyer, comprising nearly 30% of global shrimp imports. Today, approximately 94% of shrimp consumed in the U.S. are imported from overseas farms.4

Production has boomed to keep pace with demand. Traditionally, shrimp were caught in the wild from oceans and coasts. But today, aquaculture (farming) supplies the majority of shrimp on the market. Of the over 9 million metric tons of shrimp produced annually,5 a majority is now farmed, surpassing wild catch. The dominant species is the Pacific whiteleg shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei), prized for its fast growth and adaptability to crowded ponds. Leading farmed shrimp producers include countries like China, India, Ecuador, Vietnam, and Indonesia, which together account for roughly three-quarters of the world’s output. This global supply chain means that a shrimp cocktail in an American restaurant likely began life in an Asian or Latin American pond before journeying thousands of miles on ice to the plate. Shrimp and prawns are referred to interchangeably, though shrimp belong to a different suborder than prawns and have distinct gill structures and body segment overlaps. Some regions prefer to use one or the other term to refer to both.

Image Credit: SizeSquares / Shutterstock

The Cost of Shrimp

For all its popularity, shrimp exacts a heavy toll on animals, people and the planet. The industry’s rapid expansion has led to problems including ethical issues in animal welfare to labor abuses to environmental degradation. Billions of animals, vulnerable workers, and fragile ecosystems are caught in the wake of the shrimp boom.

Animals

Though tiny, shrimp are animals — and they are killed in staggering numbers. More individual animals are killed for shrimp production than for any other food. About 440 billion are slaughtered every year,6 five times the number of all farmed land animals. Roughly half of all farmed animals alive at any given time are shrimp. There is growing evidence that crustaceans like shrimp are sentient and can feel pain. In 2021, the UK government formally recognized decapod crustaceans (including shrimp) as sentient beings in its animal welfare legislation,7 reflecting studies showing they have the capacity to experience pain and distress.8 Austria, Switzerland, and Norway have incorporated protections for decapods within their animal welfare frameworks.9

The way shrimp are harvested and farmed raises serious welfare concerns. In wild fisheries, shrimp are often caught by trawling, a method that drags fine-mesh nets through the ocean. Trawl nets scoop up everything in their path, leading to enormous bycatch — the unintentional capture of non-target species. Any sea creature larger than a shrimp can be ensnared, including fish, sea turtles, and other marine life. In tropical regions, the bycatch-to-shrimp ratio can be as high as 20:1, with the global average around 5:1. In other words, for every kilogram of shrimp hauled in, up to 20 kilograms of other marine life is unintentionally caught and usually discarded dead.10

On shrimp farms, these animals face a myriad of welfare issues. Intensive shrimp aquaculture often stocks crustaceans at very high densities in ponds or tanks. Disease outbreaks are common, and to prevent losses farmers may dose ponds with chemicals and antibiotics (more on the environmental impact of this later). One routine farming practice is eyestalk ablation in breeding females — essentially removing or cutting a female shrimp’s eye stalk, which induces more predictable egg production. This cruel procedure is done without anesthesia and is standard in many hatcheries to maximize reproduction, despite obvious suffering caused to the animal. Farmed shrimp are typically harvested by draining ponds and then immersing the shrimp in ice slurry to kill them, a process that can take many minutes of chilling (effectively a form of live freezing) despite the availability of more humane alternatives such as electrical stunning technology. Andrés Jiménez Zorrilla, Co-Founder of the Shrimp Welfare Project, details a chilling account of current practices.

People

Shrimp’s hidden costs extend to humans as well, impacting worker rights and human welfare. The pressure to keep costs low is continuously felt through the supply chain with its vulnerable laborers. Investigations have revealed serious labor abuses in parts of the shrimp industry, especially in some developing countries that export to the U.S. and Europe. In 2015, an Associated Press (AP) investigation exposed a shocking pipeline of forced labor in Thai shrimp processing. The AP found that migrant workers and children were being sold to factories in Thailand to work under horrific conditions.11 A recent exposé from India — the source of 40% of the shrimp consumed in the U.S. — uncovered a brutal industry rife with forced labor, environmental abuses, and food safety violations hidden behind falsified audits.12 Other reports have documented modern slavery on fishing vessels catching seafood, debt bondage of workers, and dangerous conditions in processing plants around the world.13 Shrimp are often farmed in one country, processed in another, and shipped to a third, creating a complex web where labor abuses can hide. The push for traceability and ethical certification in seafood is only a few years old, and significant gaps remain.

Beyond labor, food safety and fraud issues also plague the conventional shrimp market. Shrimp are frequently treated with chemicals like sodium tripolyphosphate (STPP) to retain water weight, or with antibiotics and preservatives to prevent spoilage in transit. Several countries have had to reject shrimp imports due to excess antibiotic residues or banned chemicals. Mislabeling is another concern — one Guardian investigation found rampant seafood fraud and mislabeling, meaning consumers often weren’t even eating the species they think they bought.14 The human dimensions of shrimp production span labor exploitation, economic inequality (small-scale fishers often struggle against industrial farms), and consumer protection issues, all of which cast a shadow on the shrimp on our plate.

Planet

Perhaps the starkest impacts are on the environment. Shrimp might be a tiny creature, but catching and farming shrimp is an enormously resource-intensive and polluting enterprise. Studies have found that shrimp (along with lobster) are among the most carbon-intensive proteins on the planet. On average, producing 1 kilogram of shrimp emits about 13 kg of CO₂ equivalent, roughly double the footprint of pork or chicken.15 One analysis by University of Oxford researchers showed that tropical farmed shrimp can have a carbon footprint up to ten times higher than beef from cattle raised on deforested Amazon land.16 Our collective shrimp appetite is literally warming the planet.

Carbon is only part of the story. Habitat destruction is the original sin of shrimp aquaculture. Shrimp farming’s rise from the 1980s onward led to bulldozing of coastal mangrove forests across Southeast Asia and Latin America. These mangroves are ecological gold: they protect coasts from storms, nurture fish nurseries, and sequester huge amounts of carbon in their tangled roots. Yet during the aquaculture boom, vast swathes were cleared to dig ponds for shrimp. It’s estimated that about 30% to 50% of global mangrove forests have been lost, and a major driver has been shrimp aquaculture expansion.17 This is an environmental double whammy — not only does it release stored carbon (contributing to climate change), but it also destroys biodiversity hotspots and weakens coastline resilience. The industry has left a patchwork of abandoned, polluted shrimp ponds in places like Thailand and Indonesia, areas that were once thriving green mangrove forests now turned into muddy, acidified expanses where even shrimp can no longer be raised after disease outbreaks.

Water pollution is another major concern. Intensive shrimp farms often rely on regular doses of antibiotics, pesticides, and disinfectants to control diseases in crowded ponds. These chemicals, along with concentrated wastes and excess feed, are periodically discharged into surrounding waterways or coastal oceans. The result is eutrophication and dead zones near some farming clusters, where algal blooms fueled by nutrient runoff sap the water of oxygen and kill marine life. Although regulations in the U.S. and EU have banned many of the worst aquaculture drugs, enforcement and standards are uneven or inconsistent. Canada prohibits some antibiotic levels 100 times less than the U.S.18 Even when farms obey the rules, the effluent loaded with nitrogen, phosphorus, and organic matter can devastate local ecosystems, smothering coral reefs and seagrass beds near shrimp farming zones. In essence, industrial shrimp production is wasteful and polluting by design.

Both wild shrimp fisheries and shrimp aquaculture have ecological consequences with one of the highest environmental footprints per pound of protein produced, once factors like bycatch, habitat destruction, and climate emissions are considered. Bottom trawling for shrimp wreaks havoc on marine ecosystems. Trawl nets dragged along the seabed destroy fragile habitats like coral reefs and seagrass beds, kicking up sediments and disrupting the ocean floor. This practice has been likened to clear-cutting a forest — but underwater. Fragile seabed ecosystems can take decades to recover, if they recover at all. While there are ways to manage and minimize damage (e.g. restricting trawling areas), poorly managed shrimp trawls have caused severe degradation of benthic (seafloor) environments. From ocean to plate, conventional shrimp carries a hefty environmental footprint, prompting urgent calls for transformation.

The Rise of (Alternative) Shrimp

Efforts are underway to create shrimp without the shrimp — products that aim to recreate the taste and texture of shrimp without relying on wild catches or factory farms. The goal is ambitious: deliver the same taste, texture, and culinary versatility of shrimp — the juicy bite of a prawn in garlic butter, the delicate sweetness in a sushi roll — using animal-free ingredients or novel technologies. Several approaches are being pursued, each with its own promise and challenges:

Plant-based

The first wave of alt-seafood companies focused on plant-derived shrimp analogues. These products typically use combinations of seaweed, plant proteins, and vegetable starches to mimic the flavor and texture of real shrimp.19 The U.S. startup New Wave Foods developed a shrimp made from red algae (for an authentic ocean taste) and mung bean protein. After the company ceased operations, Big Idea Ventures acquired the intellectual property to launch Bayou Best Foods, focusing on plant-based shrimp.20 Another startup, The Plant Based Seafood Co., offers a line of ‘Mind Blown’ shrimp made with konjac and seasoned breading.21 In Europe and Asia, products like Vegan Zeastar shrimp (Netherlands), Jens Møller Products Cavi.art (Denmark), and Growthwell’s HAPPIEE! plant-based prawns (Singapore) are providing more choices for consumers seeking a shrimp substitute. Nestle and Thai Union have also ventured into the segment with their Vrimp and OMG Meat brands, respectively.

Innovative companies are even combining methods, such as 3D printing plant proteins to achieve sophisticated textures. In 2024, an Israeli company, Steakholder Foods, announced it had successfully 3D-printed a plant-based shrimp using a proprietary food printer.22 The system deposits layers of plant protein “inks”, including a shrimp-flavored algae-based ink, to create something virtually indistinguishable from a natural shrimp in appearance and mouthfeel. This approach may also enable hybrid products — for instance, combining cultivated shrimp cells with plant gels to get the best of both worlds (authentic flavor and fibrous structure).

Fermentation

Fermentation has the potential to deliver a seafood-like umami flavor and fibrous texture. Though still in R&D, these fermentation-derived shrimp aim to offer a clean, protein-rich product with minimal processing. Companies like Aqua Cultured Foods have utilized fermentation technology to create alternative shrimp.23 Innovators are also exploring algal fermentation to produce marine flavors and proteins that can enhance plant-based seafood. This technique harnesses microorganisms to produce the very compounds that give shrimp its taste, but without harvesting any marine animals.

Cultivated

Cell-based shrimp could offer the ultimate sustainable luxury — real shrimp taste and nutrition, but free from antibiotics, sea lice, and ocean contaminants. Early entrants such as Shiok Meats paved the way for future companies to advance the segment. Shiok’s approach isolated cells from shrimp and grew them in bioreactors, feeding them nutrients so they multiply into muscle tissue. Shiok Meats merged with another startup, Umami Bioworks, in a bid to combine forces and overcome technical hurdles.24 CellMEAT has demonstrated scale-up production of cultivated shrimp to several kilograms per day in pilot facilities, and is seeking regulatory approval. However, the science is still being refined to bring down costs and increase volumes.

A Long Voyage Ahead

Despite the excitement, alternative shrimp faces significant challenges before it can make a dent in the conventional shrimp market. Replicating shrimp is, in some ways, a tougher technical feat than making a beef burger substitute. Shrimp have a distinct ‘snap’ to their bite, a mild but unmistakably oceanic flavor, and they turn from gray translucent to pink and firm when cooked — properties that are tricky to emulate. Key hurdles for alt-shrimp include:

• Authentic Texture and Flavor: Achieving the bouncy, snappy texture of shrimp is a complex formulation problem. Plant-based versions use hydrocolloids and proteins to try to mimic that muscle structure, but some early products have been criticized for being too soft or not flaky enough. Matching the subtle sweetness and briny taste is equally challenging, often requiring seaweed extracts or fermentation-based flavors.

• Price and Scale: Today, alternative shrimp is more expensive to produce than farmed shrimp — and in the case of cell-cultured shrimp, significantly more expensive at pilot scale. Cultivated shrimp meat is still in the R&D phase with costs estimated in the hundreds of dollars per kilogram. Reaching price parity will require scaling up production, optimizing ingredient costs (such as finding cheaper plant proteins or growth media for cells), and achieving greater economies of scale.
  

• Consumer Acceptance: Plant-based shrimp needs to overcome both awareness (“I didn’t know there’s a vegan shrimp option”) and perception (“will this taste good?”). Surveys indicate seafood eaters are open to trying sustainable alternatives for environmental or health reasons, especially flexitarians. But the product must deliver on taste. For cell-based shrimp, an additional hurdle is regulatory approval and psychological acceptance — some consumers still feel uneasy about ‘lab-grown’ food (the so-called yuck factor). Public education and transparent marketing will be key, emphasizing the cleanliness and benefits of the product (no mercury, no antibiotics, etc.).

• Nutritional Profile: Another consideration is matching the nutritional profile of shrimp. Shrimp are low in calories, high in protein, offer a source of omega-3 fatty acids and micronutrients like selenium and B12. Plant-based shrimp makers are working to fortify products with similar nutrition — for instance, adding algal oil to provide omega-3 DHA (since many people eat seafood for the omega-3 benefits).

• Culinary Profile: Achieving a clean label with healthy ingredients is a balancing act alongside functional requirements. Moreover, alternative shrimp must perform in a variety of cooking applications — from frying to grilling — without falling apart or losing their intended texture. This versatility is crucial if they are to replace shrimp in all the beloved recipes.

Good Food Institute (GFI) notes that the seafood analog category is where plant-based meats were about 5-8 years ago. A wave of seafood innovation has the potential to make shrimp alternatives widely available.

For the Love of Shrimp

Shrimp are small creatures that loom large in our food culture. Their production carries outsized environmental consequences. Our global lust for shrimp is being fed by methods that extract a steep cost: billions of animals endure pain or death, vulnerable workers face exploitation, and precious ecosystems are damaged. Yet, it’s clear that people aren’t going to simply stop eating the world’s favorite seafood overnight. That is why the rise of alternative shrimp is so timely and important. Progress may be incremental at first, but momentum is building. The alternative seafood sector overall has raised over $500 million in funding, but sales are still meager.

The pioneers in this space — from scientists growing shrimp meat in labs to chefs crafting plant-based shrimp tacos — are driven by the idea that we don’t have to choose between our palate and our planet. As we’ve seen with alternative milk, consumer habits can change when given attractive, viable alternatives. Alternative shrimp products must clear the bar of taste, price, nutrition and convenience to truly compete with conventional shrimp. They will need to match the decades of culinary familiarity that real shrimp enjoy. As we prepare for a world of 10 billion people by mid-century, the need for sustainable protein sources has never been more urgent. Shrimp, as the planet’s most consumed seafood, is a critical piece of this puzzle.

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

— Albert Einstein

Since prehistoric times, humans have relied on fat as a vital source of energy, especially during colder seasons when other food sources were scarce. Archaeological evidence suggests that marrow, one of the body's richest fat stores, was extracted from bones, indicating that fat was highly valued.1 With the rise of civilization, both animal fats and plant oils were used for a wide range of purposes, including cooking, medicine, and cosmetics. Olive oil became a staple in the Mediterranean, while ghee (clarified butter) was revered in India for its culinary and medicinal properties. During the Middle Ages, butter became increasingly widespread in Europe, particularly in regions where olive oil was less accessible. Margarine was invented in 1869 as a response to a contest from Napoleon III, who wanted a cheaper substitute of butter for his marauding troops. French chemist Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès answered the call by blending melted beef fat with water and milk.2

The Industrial Revolution brought new technologies, including the process of hydrogenation, which transformed liquid oils into solid fats. This innovation led to the creation of Crisco, made from hydrogenated cottonseed oil, and launched in 1911 as a substitute for butter and lard. Margarine and Crisco marked the beginning of the trans-fat era, during which these fats became widely used in processed foods for their shelf stability and texture. In the mid-20^th century, saturated fats got a bad reputation after studies linked them to heightened level of cholesterol in blood, a risk factor for heart disease.3 Trans fats (once thought healthier) were later found to be worse than saturated fats, leading to bans in several countries.4

Image Credit: JPC-PROD / Shutterstock

Both human understanding and the perception of fats have evolved significantly, leading to today’s more nuanced view: fats can range from healthy (such as unsaturated fats found in nuts, seeds, avocados, and fish), to moderately healthy (some saturated fats), to clearly unhealthy (industrial trans fats). The emergence of alternative fats marks a new chapter in food innovation, as scientists and startups develop novel options from plant-based oil blends to lab-grown and fermentation-derived fats. These alternatives aim to replicate the taste, texture, and functionality of traditional fats while offering cleaner labels and a smaller environmental footprint.

Before exploring fat alternatives, it is helpful to understand how fat molecules function.

The Skinny Behind Fat

Most fats we eat and store in our bodies are triglycerides that have a glycerol backbone, coupled with long Fatty Acid (FA) chains (i.e., long chains of carbon and hydrogen atoms). These fatty acid chains vary in length and saturation, which is what makes fats different from one another.

Saturation: Fats come in three main types—saturated, unsaturated, and trans fats, each with different health effects.

• Saturated fats: Found in foods like butter, cheese, and red meat, saturated fats have no double bonds in their structure and are generally solid at room temperature. While not inherently harmful, excessive intake may raise cholesterol levels.

• Unsaturated fats: Found in olive oil, nuts, seeds, and fish, unsaturated fats contain one or more double bonds, are usually liquid at room temperature, and are known to support heart health.

• Trans fats: Found in partially hydrogenated oils, trans fats have a unique structure that makes them solid and shelf-stable but significantly increases the risk of heart disease.

Most health guidelines recommend limiting saturated fats and avoiding trans fats while prioritizing unsaturated fats.

Chain Length: The length of fatty acid chains also affects their physical state. Shorter-chain fatty acids (e.g., 2-6 carbons) are typically liquid at room temperature (e.g., canola oil), while longer-chain fatty acids (e.g., 13-20+ carbons) are generally solid at room temperature (e.g., butter). As the chain length increases, so does the melting point. Short-chain fatty acids melt at lower temperatures, remaining liquid at room temperature, while longer chains have higher melting points and tend to be solid. The degree of saturation also influences this—saturated fatty acids (with no double bonds) are more likely to be solid, whereas unsaturated fatty acids (with double bonds) remain liquid.

Fat to Fuel

Fat plays a vital role in the body far beyond being just a source of energy. It supports cell structure, protects organs, and helps regulate body temperature. Fat is also essential for absorbing fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, and K), producing hormones, and fueling long-lasting energy, especially during periods of fasting or endurance activity. Certain fats, like omega-3s, are crucial for brain health and reducing inflammation, making fat an indispensable part of a balanced, healthy diet.5

While the level of saturation and the configuration around the double bonds determine whether a fat is healthy or unhealthy, the specific use of fats in the body is determined by the length of the fatty acid chains. Short-chain (fewer than 6 carbons) and medium-chain (6-12 carbons) fats are digested and absorbed more quickly, and go straight to the liver for energy use, making them popular in medical nutrition and performance diets. Long-chain (13-21 carbons) and very-long-chain (22+ carbons) fats are absorbed via the lymphatic system and are more likely to be stored as body fat, but are also essential for cell membrane integrity, hormone production, and long-term energy.

Fatilicious Flavors

Fat plays a crucial role in the organoleptic properties of food i.e., sensory attributes such as taste, texture, aroma, and appearance. Fat enhances flavor, improves texture, and plays a vital role in cooking performance. It adds richness, helps retain moisture, creates fluffy and flaky baked goods, and contributes to browning and crisping. Fat also helps blend ingredients in emulsions like dressings and sauces, and it carries fat-soluble vitamins, boosting nutritional value. Beyond taste, fat makes food more satisfying by increasing satiety, making it an essential ingredient in both culinary and nutritional terms.

Plant and animal fats differ in their culinary behavior, flavor, and functionality. Plant fats, like olive or sunflower oil, are typically composed of unsaturated fatty acids and are liquid at room temperature, making them ideal for dressings and light sautéing. They offer a neutral or mild flavor and appeal to health- and sustainability-conscious consumers. However, being unsaturated makes them susceptible to oxidation leading to loss and damage during food production. In contrast, animal fats like butter, lard, and tallow are saturated and solid at room temperature, lending themselves to rich flavor, flakiness in baked goods, and browning in high-heat cooking. While plant fats offer versatility and clean-label appeal, animal fats are prized for their depth of flavor and texture-enhancing properties in traditional dishes.

The New Fat

Enhancing the appeal of alternative meats, seafood, and dairy hinges on nailing the fat composition. To truly replicate the flavor, texture, and cooking behavior of their conventional counterparts, the role of fat is non-negotiable. Here’s why it matters:

• Authentic Flavor: Animal fats contain complex lipid compounds that release savory, meaty aromas and umami flavors when cooked—something that’s hard to mimic with plant oils alone. These flavors are crucial for creating a convincing meat or dairy experience.

• Melting Behavior: Plant-based fats often melt too quickly or behave differently under heat, making them less ideal for high-heat searing or baking. Animal fats, on the other hand, have precise melting points and marbling patterns that contribute to juiciness and mouthfeel:

  • Meat: Fat melts during cooking, releasing moisture and flavor

  • Dairy: Milk fat gives butter and cheese their creamy richness

  • Seafood: Subtle fat layers create a buttery, delicate bite

• Texture & Mouthfeel: The crystallization and distribution of animal fat within muscle or milk gives traditional products their signature bite, creaminess, and smoothness. Replicating this structure is hard with plant oils, which are more uniform and lack the same saturation levels or fatty acid profiles.

While most plant-based fats fall short in texture and functionality, the few that perform well, like palm oil, unfortunately have concerns with health (e.g., saturated fats) or sustainability (e.g., Indirect Land Use Change or ILUC).

Fats of Life

Alternative fats can take the form of fatty acids, fatty alcohols, or triglycerides. These alternatives are trying to replicate the functionality of conventional fats when it comes to texture, mouthfeel, melting profile, nutrient delivery amongst other things. Below are some alternative fat production methods that are being explored to bridge the existing gaps.

Restructuring Plant Oils: A variety of techniques are being utilized to restructure plant oils to enhance their texture, melting behavior, and flavor delivery, enhancing their appeal for use in alternative protein products. The industry currently employs several innovative approaches to achieve this, with two of the most prominent being:

1. Microencapsulation: This technique creates plant-based fats that closely mimic the texture and behavior of animal fats. It involves encapsulating plant oils within a water-based emulsion, resulting in a stable system that resembles intramuscular fat. Microencapsulation not only improves mouthfeel and stability but also extends flavor release and enables the customization of lipid profiles to replicate meaty flavors more effectively.

   Pros: Provides enhanced stability, controlled flavor release, and effective taste masking

   Cons: Requires specialized equipment, precise control of processing parameters, and may alter the physical properties of the final product

   Notable Companies: CUBIQ FOODS, Lypid

2. Oleo-gelation: Oleo-gelation is a promising method for structuring unsaturated, fatty acid-rich oils without altering their chemical composition. It involves entrapping the oils in a three-dimensional network using oleogelators (structuring agents with viscous and elastic properties) such as rice bran wax or carnauba wax. The resulting oleogels have the consistency of a solid fat, offering functional properties similar to those found in animal-derived fats.

   Pros: Offers versatile applications across food categories, enhances texture and mouthfeel, and can serve as a delivery system for bioactive compounds

   Cons: May alter the taste and texture of certain food products and can be prone to oxidation, affecting shelf life and stability

   Notable Companies: Paragon Pure, Perfat Technologies, Shiru

Precision Fermentation: Fats derived through precision fermentation are produced by programming microbes such as yeast, bacteria, or fungi to synthesize specific lipid molecules that closely mimic those found in animal fats. This process allows for the creation of tailor-made fats with desirable characteristics like rich mouthfeel, clean melting profiles, and enhanced flavor delivery, without the need for animal agriculture.

Pros: Enables fat production with targeted characteristics, offers high consistency, and effectively replicates the taste, texture, and functionality of animal fats
Cons: Involves high capital expenditure, requires process optimization and scale-up efforts, and could face regulatory challenges
Notable Companies: C16 Biosciences, Clean Food Group, Cultivated Biosciences, Melt&Marble, NoPalm Ingredients, Nourish Ingredients, Terra Oleo, Xylome, Yali Bio, Zayt Bioscience

Cell Cultivation: Cell cultivation involves growing fat cells (adipocytes) in controlled environments without the need for an animal. These cells are isolated, expanded, and then differentiated to produce lipid-rich tissues that closely mimic the taste, texture, and melting behavior of animal fat. These cultivated fat cells can be used as ingredients to enhance the flavor and texture of plant-based meats or seeded onto edible scaffolds and combined with muscle and connective tissues to create structured 3D meat-like products.

Pros: Replicate exact function and taste of animal fats, ideal for whole cut applications
Cons: Face challenges with scale-up, cost efficiency, media optimization, and regulatory approval
Notable Companies: Cellva, Genuine Taste, Hoxton Farms, ImpacFat, Mission Barns, Upstream Foods

Plant Molecular Farming: This involves engineering plants to produce specific lipids or fat-related proteins that mimic the functionality of animal fats. This approach leverages the scalability and sustainability of agriculture, using crops like soy, canola, or even tobacco as biofactories. By tailoring lipid profiles at the genetic level, plant molecular farming can create fats with desirable melting points, textures, and nutritional properties.

Pros: Highly scalable with potential for integration into current farming infrastructure; enables precise tailoring of fat profiles
Cons: Involves high development costs and technical challenges in replicating the sensory and functional complexity of animal fats
Notable Companies: Miruku

Gas Fermentation: Gas fermentation is an innovative approach that uses microbes to convert gases like carbon dioxide, oxygen, hydrogen, or methane into valuable compounds, including alternative fats. Through metabolic engineering, these microbes can be designed to produce specific lipids that mimic the structure and functionality of animal fats. While still in early stages for fat production, this method offers significant sustainability benefits, as it utilizes waste gases and requires minimal land or water.

Pros: Utilizes low-cost, widely available feedstocks and supports a broad range of substrates for production
Cons: Faces technical hurdles such as gas-liquid mass transfer limitations, scale-up challenges, and safety concerns related to handling gases like hydrogen
Notable Companies: Circe Bioscience

Other Chemical/Thermochemical Processes: ​Savor, a California-based startup, has developed a novel approach to producing alternative fats using a thermochemical process that converts carbon dioxide and hydrogen into fat molecules. This method involves capturing CO₂ from the air and combining it with hydrogen, applying heat to synthesize hydrocarbon chains, which are then oxidized to form fatty acids. These fatty acids are further processed to create fats that mimic the structure and functionality of traditional animal fats, such as butter.​

Pros: Enables rapid conversion and flexibility in using diverse feedstocks
Cons: Requires significant capital investment as well as energy to generate lipids and may face issues like coke generation during processing
Notable Companies: Savor

Other innovative companies, such as MicroLub, are developing advanced technologies to reduce the need of fat without compromising the mouthfeel or texture of food products. Their approach uses protein microgels (plant protein and water scaffolds coated with polysaccharides) that act as natural lubricants to replicate the fatty sensation in food.

Fat Chance

While many alternative fat technologies are at various stages of development, each brings its own set of strengths and challenges. The future doesn’t lie in choosing one approach over another, but in embracing the diversity of innovation from precision fermentation and cell cultivation to oleo-gelation and plant molecular farming. These methods together form a powerful toolkit for delivering the richness, functionality, and sustainability of animal fats (outside the animal).

These technologies offer complementary pathways to the existing food system while moving us closer to a shared vision: nourishing people, protecting the planet, and minimizing harm to animals. Similarly, the conversation around proteins must shift, too. Rather than classifying them as "alternative", "plant-based", "fermentation-derived", or “cultivated”, an opportunity exists to simply create healthy proteins that appeal to consumers while offering better health and sustainability.

Like the energy sector—where solar, wind, hydro, biomass, geothermal, and other renewables coexist—the future of food will bring a panoply of technologies, not a single dominant solution. Just as no one energy source will solve the planet’s energy challenges, no single food technology will become a panacea. To build a truly resilient and equitable food system, we require a diverse toolkit, with each innovation playing a role in nourishing people and the planet.

We end with an ode to the journey and future of fats:

“Your brand is the promises you keep.”
— Michael K. Levine

With the current shape of U.S. geopolitics, perhaps it’s a challenging time to discuss Tesla. Still, the success of the company stands apart from its industry. Despite a decline in its share price of 51% since its recent peak in late 2024, Tesla is the 11^th most valuable company in the world.1 The next most valuable automaker, Toyota, is a third of its market cap. The result is a company with approximately US$100 billion in revenues that has played a key role in ushering in the modern era of automobiles. Tesla’s rise offers lessons for any industry; alternative proteins are no different.

Since the time Beyond Meat went public in 2019, the alternative protein sector has seen its fortunes fall. Funding collapsed from $5 billion in 2021 to just over $1 billion in 2024, seeing a sizeable decline every year over this period. Beyond Meat and Oatly have seen their respective market caps collapse to below 1x sales.2 Several U.S. states have banned cultivated meat, and consumers remain skeptical of the nutritional value of plant-based meats, thanks in part to successful campaigns from the meat industry.

The alternative protein industry deserves credit for innovations over the past 15 years, but perhaps lessons from a different industry may offer a path forward that accelerates sector progress and consumer adoption. The Tesla story offers a glimpse into how continuous innovation can disrupt a decades-old industry.

Tesla Rising

Tesla innovates at a dizzying pace. Since it was founded in 2003, the company has undergone a meteoric rise with milestones that are the envy of the industry:

• Products: Its first sedan, the Model S, earned numerous accolades, including Motor Trend Car of the Year (the first EV to do so), Automobile Magazine’s Car of the Year, and Consumer Reports’ Highest-Rated Car Ever. Its Model 3 was the top 10 bestselling cars globally, while the Model Y was the bestselling car globally in both 2023 and 2024.3

• Software: Tesla’s Autopilot and Full Self Driving (FSD) system utilizes artificial intelligence and neural networks, making continuous improvements using real-world data. Its cars run on a custom Linux-based system optimized for real-time performance, scalability, and integration with its systems.

• Data: Tesla’s proprietary software platform has effectively built computers with wheels that generate vast amounts of data. Coupled with its over-the-air updates, this information flows into the company’s servers, where it is crucial in training its autonomous software algorithms.

• Factories: Its ‘gigafactory’ manufacturing facilities are now on three continents, collectively spanning over 40 million square feet in size, with several more planned. Today, Tesla has gigafactories in Nevada, Texas, New York, Berlin, and Shanghai, with a new one in Mexico upcoming.4

• Superchargers: Tesla operates the largest proprietary supercharging network of 7,000 stations globally, with over 65,000 individual charging connectors.5

• Batteries: The company has continued to innovate with battery technology, creating the 4680 battery cell design to drive increased energy density, improved range, and lower costs.

• Solar: Following its acquisition of SolarCity, the company provides solar energy generation and storage products for both residential and commercial applications, with products such as Powerwall, Solar Roof, Powerpack, and Megapack.

• IP: Tesla holds patents in battery technology, electric drivetrains, autonomous driving, and vehicle design.

That all of this was accomplished by a company founded just over 20 years ago is astonishing and offers valuable learnings. Four lessons stand out:

Lesson #1: Break The Cost Barrier

Producing food is not easy. Undergoing the sourcing, production, packaging, and distribution process is hard enough. For alternative proteins to then compete with animal products on price, which routinely benefit from government subsidies, feels like adding insult to injury. Tesla began by targeting the luxury market. The company recognized that certain customers were less cost-conscious. Given an alternative that represented an upgrade from the status quo, they would be willing to pay a premium price. Tesla knew it would eventually need to compete on price. But it also knew that starting there would be suicide. From its initial Roadster priced at $109,000 in 2006, it began selling the Model S with a starting price of $57,900 in 2012, followed by its first mass market car, the Model 3, for $35,000 in 2017. To get there, Tesla lowered the cost of battery packs from over $200/kWh to around $100/kWh, reduced production time per vehicle by over 30%, and leveraged carbon credits to offset production costs. It took over a decade for Tesla to get its prices to compete at scale with the automotive industry. What would have happened if Tesla had tried to build a Model 3 from day one?

Lesson #2: Design A Better Product

For each new Tesla product, the value proposition to consumers was compelling. The Roadster, built on the Chassis of Lotus cars, zoomed from 0-60 mph in just 3.9 seconds with a range of 244 miles, more than 2x that of other EVs. It was a commercial success despite producing less than 2,500 units. The Model S, its next major automotive breakthrough, built upon this success. It accelerated from 0-60 mph in 4.2 seconds, with the Performance model bringing that down to 2.8 seconds. It had a low center of gravity for superior handling and safety, a futuristic, minimalist interior design with a 17-inch touchscreen to control most vehicle functions, over-the-air software updates, and a ‘frunk’ (front trunk) for additional storage. It could charge to its full range of 265 miles in 40 minutes. It also garnered a 5-star rating from the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) with exceptional performance in crash tests. The car rendered oil changes obsolete, offered ongoing vehicle improvements via automatic software updates, while eliminating the need to go to a gas station ever again. The contoured design and luxurious feel didn’t hurt either. The Model 3 represented yet another upgrade. It offered a range of up to 344 miles, going from 0-60 mph in as little as 3.1 seconds. It was equipped with Autopilot as a standard feature, which offered traffic-aware cruise control, lane centering, and automatic lane changes. It echoed the minimalist interior of previous models with a 15-inch touchscreen, while maintaining the 5-star safety rating from the NHTSA. Would Tesla have succeeded if it simply released the electric car equivalent of a Toyota Corolla or Honda Accord?

Lesson #3: Build Out The Infrastructure

Tesla’s supply chain innovations are perhaps its most underrated. Tesla has been rapidly building out its infrastructure to support the growth of its electric vehicle ecosystem. This includes expanding its Supercharger network globally, scaling Gigafactories to increase production of vehicles and batteries, and investing in energy storage and solar solutions. These efforts were aimed at creating a vertically integrated, sustainable energy ecosystem that supports mass EV adoption.

Rather than outsourcing heavily, which was a standard in the industry, Tesla manufactured critical components in-house, including battery packs, battery cells, electric motors, drivetrains, as well as proprietary software and AI systems. Its gigafactories streamlined production of both batteries and cars, operating on a mass production scale. It adopted a direct-to-consumer model, disrupting the traditional dealership model, which allowed Tesla to control the customer experience while capturing higher margins.

As batteries represented a crucial component for the company, Tesla forged partnerships with CATL, Panasonic, and LG Chem to scale production while developing its own battery technology. It innovated on battery production with its 4680 battery cells, offering higher energy density, improved thermal management, and reduced production costs. The company went further by securing long-term contracts for critical raw materials like lithium, cobalt, and nickel to ensure supply chain stability. It localized production to reduce costs, avoid tariffs, and minimize logistical complexities.

Tesla’s supply chain is data-driven and software-centric, giving the company real-time visibility into production and inventory levels. This helps the company manage inventory, optimize logistics, predict demand fluctuations, and make rapid adjustments to supply chain disruptions. Its over-the-air updates allow the company to improve vehicle functionality post-production, reducing the need for recalls. During the semiconductor chip shortage, Tesla rewrote software to support alternative chips. Tesla also implemented closed-loop battery recycling through its partnership with Redwood Materials to reduce dependency on raw materials. How would Tesla have fared had it simply outsourced the production of most of its components?

Lesson #4: Foster Brand Identity

A brand isn’t just logos, slogans, and marketing; it’s about delivering on commitments and meeting (or exceeding) customer expectations consistently. Perhaps the most well-recognized customer loyalty metric, the Net Promoter Score (NPS), measures how many customers are likely to refer a company or product to their friends and family. It should not surprise anyone that Apple and Netflix earn among the highest scores. It may, however, surprise some to hear that Tesla routinely earns an NPS score that rivals or exceeds these brands, and is well above the rest of the automotive industry. Visit Tesla’s website and you won’t see messages about how sustainable the company’s cars are, or how closely they mimic their conventional counterparts. Instead, you’ll see images of sleek cars and cutting-edge technology that offer a glimpse of the future with an invitation to engage. Would Tesla’s brand have held the power it does today if the company simply touted that its cars were electric and sustainable?

Speed Bumps

To be sure, Tesla has made missteps. For years, Tesla struggled with production bottlenecks as the company attempted to create ‘extreme automation’ in the Model 3 factory. Despite its technological progress, the company has overpromised and underdelivered on both its vehicle sales numbers and its Autopilot/FSD automation technologies. It remains unclear if its entry into the truck market with its CyberTruck may have caused the company to miss an opportunity, given its production delays and limited adoption. The company has suffered from quality issues, including misaligned panels, problematic paint jobs, and software glitches. Its founder has received negative publicity earlier in the company’s life when he desired to take the company private, and more recently with his involvement in the U.S. government with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Clean Protein

Despite these missteps, Tesla has continued to innovate and has become one of the most influential companies in the world, offering valuable insights for other sectors. The alternative protein sector has made substantial progress, but has also suffered from a number of missteps. The hype around plant-based foods, and later cultivated meat, was simply too high to live up to, causing consumer disappointment and stalling growth. Companies built facilities before it was evident that they could manufacture products profitably. They scaled without determining if the market wanted the products they were selling. Scale-up before market adoption is a recipe for pain. To make matters worse, building products without a sustainable supply chain created hurdles in price, quality, and scale.

• Product: Product formats have largely focused on mimicking meat, rather than simply creating something delicious in their own right. Mimicking, by definition, positions the product as second best. Further, the gymnastics required to make plants taste like meat not only leave consumers wanting but also drive up the price. Rather than creating a ‘duplicate’ or ‘approximate’ of a meat product, positioning the product as an ‘alternative’ has worked better. Oatly is a prime example: no one is doing a taste test to compare it to dairy milk to see if they taste the same. Oatly has repeatedly focused on a key message – we taste better with coffee. This makes Oatly a primary choice rather than a ‘flexitarian’ option. There has been relatively little innovation to create similar alternatives for meat, nor has the industry ventured out to try new product formats. Apple, Meta, and Coca-Cola would not be leaders in their respective industries today if their users were ‘flexitarians’ with their products, so to speak.

• Pricing: A premature push for affordability would have stunted Tesla’s growth potential. It is clearly harder for alternative proteins to take a similar approach, since the demand for alternative food is price elastic. Still, instead of trying to undercut conventional meat immediately, the industry could benefit from a similar strategy to Tesla’s phased approach. Premium-positioned plant-based or cultivated meats with superior taste and quality could appeal to early adopters willing to pay more, a strategy implemented successfully by plant-based milk. The key is to build consumer loyalty before competing purely on price.

• Positioning: Polarizing leadership and/or messaging has also distracted from the core offering – the product itself. Alternative proteins have largely framed their messaging around ethics and environmental benefits. While these factors resonate with some consumers, mainstream consumers are driven by taste, price, and convenience. The main reason behind Tesla’s success is simple: it was a far superior product. Sustainability was secondary. Many alternative protein products, however, are marketed primarily as ethical or sustainable choices rather than as superior culinary experiences. The focus must shift toward developing products that surpass conventional meat in taste, texture, and format. If alternative proteins can provide an undeniably better culinary experience, consumers will switch regardless of their views on sustainability or ethics. Rather than branding based on values, it may be more effective to focus on product attributes.

• Support: The industry will clearly need more capital to realise its potential. Tesla benefited hugely from government subsidies for electric vehicle purchases, which were offered both at the federal and state levels. In 2010, during a precarious time for the company, it received a $465 million low-interest loan from the U.S. Department of Energy. For years, Tesla benefited from regulatory credits, which were often a crucial factor in reaching profitability. The company also availed international government support in the United Kingdom (£200 million) and China ($426 million). State and local governments also provided subsidies to Tesla for manufacturing and operations. The alternative protein sector has received modest support at best, which needs to change in the coming years.

The Road Ahead

The takeaway is that Tesla didn’t just build an electric car; Tesla built an incredible car that just happened to be electric. To get here, Tesla had to buck ‘best practices’ that were followed religiously for decades. Using the same techniques as everyone else to create something innovative is akin to repeating the same action expecting a different result.

Despite the headwinds the alternative protein sector has faced, there is much to be proud of. Today, 65-70% of U.S. consumers are aware of Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods,6 while 50% have tried a plant-based meat product. Plant-based milk commands a promising 16% share in the United States, and 12% globally.7 Innovation continues unabated, with new startups standing on the shoulders of early innovators who pioneered the category with new approaches that reduce capital expenditure and enable more efficient scale-up. The opportunity to improve the food system is compelling. But to get there, we may require a different approach than anything we have seen to date.

“Mycelium is Earth’s natural internet.”
— Paul Stamets

With the alternative protein landscape continuing to evolve rapidly, a quiet but powerful contender is quickly gaining ground given its ability to match the taste, texture, and nutrition of conventional meat across a multitude of applications. Mycelium is the root system of fungi, a complex network of threads called hyphae that grow beneath the soil. When these hyphae grow together in clusters, they form mycelium, which can be transformed into mycoprotein—an incredibly versatile ingredient packed with nutrients. Unlike mushrooms, which are the fruiting bodies of fungi, mycelia have a dense, meat-like texture and are rich in fiber, low in fat, and packed with essential amino acids.

The diversity of the fungal kingdom is vastly greater than that of the plant kingdom. The estimated number of fungal species (2.5 million) is about 7 times the number of known plant species (374,000). Of these, only about 10% have been explored, identified, and named by scientists thus far.1 The incredible variety of fungi also means that mycelium holds immense potential in the alternative protein market. As consumers increasingly seek sustainable, healthy alternatives, mycelium holds promise as the protein of the future.

Image Credit: Dmytro Ostapenko/Shutterstock

Magic Mycelium

Mycelium’s journey began long before the recent buzz, back in the 1960s, when a British company named Marlow Foods started research in the space. Two decades later, Quorn was formed in 1985 to commercialize mycelium as a meat alternative. Initially, the category was born out of a need to tackle food security and create a more sustainable protein source. Over time, it has evolved into a versatile, eco-friendly option, offering a sustainable solution to the world’s growing protein demands.

What makes mycelium so exciting? It ticks every box. Unlike plant-based proteins, which can be limited in texture and flavor, mycelium offers something truly unique. When grown under controlled conditions, its dense, fibrous structure delivers a satisfying chew that closely resembles traditional animal products like chicken or beef. This texture absorbs flavors well, making it incredibly adaptable for a wide range of dishes. Nutritionally, mycelium stands shoulder to shoulder with animal meat, providing all nine essential amino acids, but without the saturated fat and cholesterol. It is rich in glutamic acid, which contributes to its umami flavor, and is also rich in fiber, B vitamins, and minerals like iron and magnesium, making it a powerhouse for anyone looking for a balanced, complete protein source.

Beyond flavor and nutrition, mycelium is highly functional. It can be engineered to replicate meat in various forms—from the tender texture of pulled pork to the hearty bite of a steak. What’s more, mycelium is a truly circular solution as it can be grown on organic waste materials. It grows quickly (within days), making large-scale production feasible. This scalability, paired with its low environmental footprint, positions mycelium as a leading contender in the race to develop sustainable alternatives to traditional meat.2

Root to Table

The process of making mycelium protein is as fascinating as it is varied. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach; different strains of fungi may be utilized, each offering unique qualities from flavor to texture to nutritional content. For instance, Ganoderma lucidum, better known as Reishi, is celebrated for its health benefits and is often used in functional foods. While it grows on a variety of substrates, its slower growth rate makes it less ideal for large-scale protein production. In contrast, Trametes versicolor (Turkey tail) grows quickly and is often used for its medicinal properties, though it has less protein (around 10-20%) compared to other fungi.3 One of the most popular fungi for creating mycoprotein, however, is Fusarium venenatum. This strain is the workhorse behind Quorn products, renowned for its rapid growth, high protein content, and the meaty texture it produces.4 Another strain, Neurospora crassa, also boasts of impressive growth but hasn’t yet seen similar commercial success.

Once the right strain is selected, the next step is fermentation. The following are the dominant methods for growing mycelium:

Submerged fermentation involves growing mycelium in a nutrient-rich liquid medium, where it is carefully controlled for temperature and pH. This method enables consistent and efficient production but is not without its challenges. The process is energy-intensive, and the texture of the resulting mycoprotein tends to be softer, making it less meat-like. On the plus side, submerged fermentation can produce a protein yield of up to 30-40% of the dry biomass, depending on the strain.5

Solid-state fermentation involves mycelium growing on solid substrates, such as agricultural waste or grains. This method is environmentally friendly because it utilizes waste products, creates a circular system, and requires less energy for aeration. The texture of the end product tends to be more fibrous and meat-like, making it ideal for alternative meats. However, it has some drawbacks: it yields less protein and can be challenging to control at scale. The quality of the substrate plays a crucial role in determining the consistency of the final product, and large-scale fermentation can result in uneven outcomes.6

Liquid surface culture fermentation is a lesser-known method where mycelium grows on the surface of liquid media in shallow trays. This method is effective for producing dense, protein-rich fungal structures while being energy-efficient as it requires less external oxygen. The downside? The growth is often uneven, the final texture is harder to control, the collection and downstream purification process can be tedious, and the longer fermentation time can make output less consistent.7 Nature’s Fynd developed a unique application of this methodology called liquid-air interface fermentation to produce their mycelium-based protein ingredient, Fy.

Gas fermentation utilizes large bioreactors that promote mycelium growth through optimal gas exchange and aeration. The high oxygen content in the bioreactor acts as a catalyst, accelerating mycelium growth and yielding higher quality and quantity of biomass through a continuous process. However, the downside is that the system can be highly complex, requiring multiple different expensive infrastructure components to work in tandem. Additionally, the energy costs can be high unless the process is optimized using waste industrial gases or direct air capture methodologies.8

No conversation on fermentation methods is complete without discussing Quorn’s proprietary technology. Quorn developed a tailored process that utilizes submerged fermentation with a continuous flow culture system, called airlift fermentation, to produce its mycoprotein. The process uses large air-lift fermenters, which differ in design from conventional stirred-tank bioreactors. These fermenters benefit mycelial production by reducing shear stress, thus fostering longer hyphal growth, which is essential for replicating the texture of meat.9

Peaks and Pitfalls

The use of mycelium is mushrooming (pun intended) across multiple applications. While it is early yet, the platform shows incredible potential for transforming the future of food. Several applications show promise.

Alternative Meat

Mycelium’s ability to mimic the texture of animal muscle tissue makes it perfect for alternative meats. Fermentation enhances the meatiness, creating a fibrous bite, using fewer resources, and emitting less carbon than traditional meat production. The challenge lies in scaling production and overcoming consumer skepticism about fungi and fermentation-derived foods.

Pet Food

Rich in protein, fiber, and essential amino acids, mycelium provides a nutritious alternative to conventional pet food. Although it is clearly a sustainable option, the challenge is meeting the specific nutritional needs of pets, especially obligate carnivores like cats, who need animal protein for optimal health. It is gaining traction as companies racing to bring products to market are turning to the pet food industry where regulations are more relaxed.

Dairy Alternatives

Mycelium’s binding and gelling properties replicate the creamy texture of cheeses and yogurts while also offering rich, umami flavors. The challenge is recreating the complex flavor profiles of traditional dairy products, particularly aged cheeses.

Alternative Materials

Mycelium can be used to develop a wide range of products, including building materials, packaging, furnishings, textiles, and even leather alternatives. Benefits offered by mycelium composites include fire resistance and natural thermal insulation.

Red Tape, Green Light

The regulatory landscape of mycelium-derived products varies as some nations embrace its use while others evaluate its safety and potential. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a few approvals to mycoprotein companies such as a 'no questions' letter issued for The Better Meat Co.'s Rhiza mycoprotein, and Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) status awarded to The Protein Brewery’s Fermotein.

The process in Europe is slightly different. Under EU regulations, any food that was not consumed ‘significantly’ before May 1997 is considered a novel food and requires pre-market authorization. Quorn’s Fusarium venenatum strain has been approved for food use in the EU since the 1980s, following extensive safety assessments by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). The European Commission also granted Novel Food status to MycoTechnology's FermentIQ MLL (milled) and PTP (protein powder) formats.

In Asia, Singapore leads with approvals also given to The Better Meat Co. and The Protein Brewery. South Korea could offer an attractive regulatory pathway as it considers certain mycelium-derived proteins and ingredients to be mushroom-related (depending on the origin of the strain). This can shorten the regulatory cycle as particular strains may not require approval, but rather a food safety analysis.

As the popularity of mycoproteins grows, countries will inevitably update their regulations to accommodate new fungi-based ingredients, balancing innovation with consumer safety.

Myco-Scope

As mycelium-based innovations continue to grow, the stories of companies navigating this space reveal both challenges and triumphs that have shaped their journeys. From product development to regulatory hurdles, these companies provide valuable lessons learned along the way.

Innovation – Libre Foods
Libre Foods took an innovative approach by focusing on whole-cut animal product alternatives. Their flagship product, a mycelium-based whole-cut chicken breast, became the first of its kind in the EU. The company highlighted the natural fibrosity of mycelium as the key to creating a clean-label product with fewer ingredients. But even with this breakthrough, the company faced regulatory challenges. Their initial bacon product stalled, forcing them to pivot to using the sprouting bodies of mushrooms for their products rather than the roots. To accelerate development and overcome hurdles, Libre developed a cutting-edge screening platform that combines robotics and machine learning to optimize fungi-based applications. "Mycelium is a blank canvas for endless product possibilities," said their CEO, underscoring the company’s belief in the future potential of mycelium.

Regulation – Infinite Roots (formerly Mushlabs)
For Infinite Roots, the initial pull to mycelium lay in its complex aroma, which made it well-suited for a wide range of applications, especially as a meat alternative. Mycelium’s properties, which closely mimic animal meat, mean less processing is required. However, the journey to market was far from smooth, particularly when it came to regulatory approval. Initially targeting Europe, the company encountered a lengthy, slow regulatory process. As one team member put it, “This can easily turn into a couple of years of documentation and finding the right labs.” Eventually, Infinite Roots found success by partnering with Pulmuone in South Korea, overcoming its regulatory challenges to find a path forward.

Scale-up – Ecovative
Ecovative has focused on using mycelium for sustainable materials to partner with ECCO to produce ECCO Leather, a cruelty-free leather alternative. The company’s attraction to mycelium lies in its circularity and natural recycling properties. However, scaling up production posed significant challenges. Production downtime and operational inefficiencies were key hurdles, leading Ecovative to learn from the Dutch mushroom farming industry to improve scale-up processes. Armed with insights from an established industry, the company optimized its AirMycelium platform, enabling it to expand into food- and fashion-related applications.

Product Market Fit – Nature’s Fynd
From the outset, Nature’s Fynd positioned the Fy ingredient as an ingredient with a myriad of applications. The outcome was both a meat and dairy alternative. The company’s CMO highlighted that it took extensive quantitative work, to understand which products had consumer appeal. For example, kombucha is also made from microbes but has only gained popularity in recent years after the nutrient density of the product was placed front and center in easily accessible formats.

Market Expansion – Quorn
Quorn, the leader in mycoprotein-based alternative meat, faced a different challenge—market positioning and expansion. After being acquired by Monde Nissin in 2015, Quorn’s focus shifted toward differentiating their mycoprotein products not only from plant-based alternatives but also from conventional meats. As Quorn’s CEO noted, "Benchmarking is useful, but when you're creating something new, it comes with its own set of challenges." To stay ahead, Quorn has focused on creating a distinct identity, educating consumers on the benefits of mycoprotein, and reinforcing its position as a leader through strategic acquisitions for geographic expansion.

As the industry continues to evolve, the lessons learned from its pioneers will help shape the future of mycelium in food and beyond. The alternative protein industry has come a long way, but there is still “mush-room” for growth.

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts."

– Winston Churchill

The advent of new technology is laced with challenges. Pioneers face obstacles spanning technology, regulation, and market acceptance. Both established industries and consumers resist change. Successful innovators must not only create superior products, but also educate the market, build trust, and navigate regulatory frameworks. Although new technologies have the potential to transform sectors and drive societal progress, their adoption curve is anything but smooth.

The Gartner Hype Cycle is a potent framework for examining any technology evolution. It maps an emerging technology into several phases:

• Innovation Trigger: An innovation sparks consumer interest.

• Peak of Inflated Expectations: Hype created by media and other stakeholders overshadows reality, resulting in unrealistic expectations.

• Trough of Disillusionment: Skepticism emerges as the technology fails to deliver on unrealistic expectations. This is often accompanied by media predicting the technology’s demise.

• Slope of Enlightenment: Consumers reset their expectations even as a better understanding of the technology leads to incremental improvements that bridge the gap between hype and reality.

• Plateau of Productivity: A new generation of products emerge that address consumer needs. Consumers find utility as products undergo gradual improvements in response to feedback.

Meatless Mania

As a relatively nascent industry, the alternative protein sector has not been immune to this hype cycle. With the founding of Beyond Meat in 2009, the first plant-based burger was the trigger that sent expectations soaring. Precision fermentation and cultivated meat technologies promised to produce meat replicas with a fraction of the resources, without animal slaughter, and with significantly lower emissions. Impossible Foods introduced burgers that could “bleed” like real meat. However, early versions of these products fell short of consumer expectations when it came to price, taste, texture, and nutrition. This sent the industry tumbling down, leading the media to raise questions about both the industry and its products. As the alternative protein industry navigates these challenges, it is worth exploring whether the industry will transition out of the trough of disillusionment. Instead of attempting to predict an uncertain future, we look to other industries that have navigated the hype cycle and examine the tailwinds supporting each sector to uncover valuable lessons.

Image Credit: UladzimirZuyeu/Shutterstock

High Voltage – The Story of Solar Technology

The story of solar photovoltaic (PV) technology mirrors the classic path of many transformative innovations, navigating through the stages of the Gartner Hype Cycle.

The Technology Trigger for solar PV began in the 1950s when the first practical solar cells were developed. These early cells were a breakthrough in harnessing the sun’s energy, and this pioneering work set the stage for future advancements.

The 1970s saw a surge of excitement for solar PV, fuelled by the global oil crisis leading to the Peak of Inflated Expectations. With soaring energy prices, solar PV was heralded as the answer in the quest for alternative energy sources. Governments and companies launched ambitious initiatives, and the media painted a picture of a solar-powered future. While expectations soared, solar technology was still in its infancy, lacking the efficiency and the infrastructure needed to support its widespread adoption.

Early excitement for solar PV began to fade in the 1980s and 1990s. The high costs of solar panels, combined with slow adoption rates and the challenge of integrating solar energy into the grid, led to frustration. Many viewed solar as an impractical energy source, and several companies in the space struggled to survive. These headwinds led the industry to a low point by the end of this period.

In the 2000s, solar PV began to evolve. Technological advancements led to increased efficiency, and manufacturing processes became more cost-effective. The price of solar panels dropped, making them more accessible. Government incentives for renewable energy helped further spur adoption. As economies of scale were realized, applications for solar power grew, and the once-promised vision of solar becoming a mainstream energy source started to take shape.

Solar PV reached the Plateau of Productivity in the 2010s to early 2020s, becoming a mature and widely adopted technology. The costs of solar power have dramatically decreased with greatly improved efficiency of panels. Solar power is now a meaningful contributor to global electricity generation, contributing 5.5% of global electricity in 2023.1 According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), Solar PV accounted for three-quarters of renewable capacity additions worldwide in 2023. Major strides in energy storage technology, such as improved battery solutions, have accelerated solar adoption, with governments around the world setting ambitious goals to further expand renewable energy. The total time from the initial innovation trigger to this plateau has been approximately 60 to 70 years.

Injecting Growth – The Story of the Biopharmaceutical Industry

The journey of the biopharmaceutical industry is one of high expectations, significant setbacks, and remarkable breakthroughs.

The Technology Trigger for biopharma came in the 1980s, with the emergence of recombinant DNA technology and the creation of the first biotech drugs. The first recombinantly produced human insulin was introduced under the brand name Humulin in 1982,2 and excitement around the innovation sparked hope for a future where biotechnology could revolutionize healthcare.

With the rapid development of genetic research and high-profile drug discoveries, the industry was brimming with optimism at the turn of the century. Bold predictions were made about the potential for biotech to cure genetic disorders, create personalized medicines, and transform the treatment landscape. Inflated expectations led to heightened investment in biotech. Numerous companies went public, promising world-changing breakthroughs.

Unfortunately, innovation progressed slower than anticipated as developing effective, safe treatments involved unforeseen challenges. The industry grappled with high drug development costs, regulatory hurdles, and failures of clinical trials, leading to a low point in the early 21^st century. Several biotech companies struggled to bring their products to market. It became clear that the path from discovery to market was longer, more expensive, and more uncertain than initially envisioned.

The biopharma industry began to recover in the 2010s, driven by advancements in biologics, gene therapy, and targeted treatments. The success of drugs like monoclonal antibodies and the rise of CAR-T cell therapies3 brought new hope. The introduction of gene-editing technologies like CRISPR4 opened new possibilities for treating genetic disorders at their root cause. These success stories generated a flywheel effect. While challenges remained, the industry began to find its footing with more targeted therapies showing promising results, signaling the emergence of the Slope of Enlightenment.

The biopharmaceutical industry entered the Plateau of Productivity in the 2020s as advances in biologics, gene therapy, and immunotherapy moved from experimental to mainstream, with new treatments reaching patients faster than ever before. The industry’s swift response to COVID-19 by developing and deploying multiple vaccines within a year of the initial pandemic designation validated the potential of biotechnology and opened the door for new vaccine platforms and therapies. As the industry matures, the focus is shifting toward refining and scaling these innovations to improve patient outcomes on a global scale. The biopharma industry, once filled with uncertainty, now serves as a beacon of hope in modern medicine. The total time from the initial innovation trigger to this plateau has been approximately 40 to 50 years.

EVolution – The Story of Electric Vehicles

The launch of Electric Vehicles (EVs) marked the dawn of a new era in transportation, signaling a shift away from fossil fuel dependence toward a more sustainable future. While the first practical EV was built by William Morrison around 1890,5 modern EVs emerged nearly a century later with pioneering developments and the launch of early models like the GM EV1 and the Toyota Prius.

Expectations soared in the late 2000s with the introduction of Tesla’s Roadster and Model S, which generated tremendous excitement and lofty expectations about the potential of EVs to revolutionize transportation. However, this period also saw overly optimistic projections about the speed of mass adoption and the readiness of supporting infrastructure.

Following this peak, the industry experienced a lull during the mid-2010s. Challenges such as high costs, limited range, long charging times, and a lack of widespread charging infrastructure tempered early enthusiasm. Many early EV startups faced financial difficulties, and consumer adoption lagged behind expectations.

Persistent innovation and gradual improvements marked the industry’s climb up in recent years with advancements in battery technology, economies of scale, and increasing governmental support via incentives and emission regulations. Automakers expanded their EV offerings, and charging infrastructure grew substantially.

The industry is entering the Plateau of Productivity with EVs accounting for roughly 10% of total new car sales in the United States in 2023.6 Other markets are seeing even more rapid EV adoption. The total time from the initial innovation trigger to this plateau has been approximately 25 to 30 years. However, the road has been a bumpy one.

Cautionary Tales

While many technologies have successfully navigated Gartner’s Hype Cycle, albeit over varying timelines, there are industries and innovations that remain mired in the Trough of Disillusionment for extended periods, struggling to overcome practical, economic, or adoption challenges. Two such examples come from the green fuel industry – biofuel and hydrogen fuel electric vehicles.

Biofuel: Modern biodiesel fuel is an outcome of research conducted in the 1930s in Belgium. During the early 2000s, biofuels, particularly ethanol and biodiesel, experienced the Peak of Inflated Expectations driven by global energy security concerns and climate change mitigation efforts. However, the late 2000s and early 2010s saw many biofuel startups fail or pivot their business models7 as the industry struggled to maintain momentum due to several factors:

• Economic Viability: High production costs and competition from cheaper fossil fuels have limited widespread adoption.

• Environmental Concerns: Some biofuel production methods, such as those involving large-scale cultivation of crops like corn and palm oil, have been criticized for their impact on emissions, food security, deforestation, biodiversity, as well as land and water usage.

• Technological Challenges: Second- and third-generation biofuels, which rely on non-food crops or waste, have faced difficulties scaling up and reducing production costs.

Although advanced biofuels (e.g., those derived from algae or cellulose) along with waste-to-energy approaches for biofuel production offer promise, progress has been slower than expected. Some technologies remain in pilot phases or are used on a limited scale, suggesting the industry has not yet moved out of the Trough of Disillusionment.

Despite these setbacks, biofuels still hold potential, especially as governments and industries aim for net-zero goals. However, breakthroughs in cost reduction and efficiency will be required for the industry to regain its footing.

Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle (FCEV): As the most abundant element on the planet, Hydrogen has immense potential as an environmentally friendly and sustainable fuel source. The General Motors Electrovan, developed in 1966, was the world’s first hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicle. It sparked expectations for FCEVs by showcasing a ground-breaking technology that promised clean energy with water as its only emission. Its debut captured the public imagination and fuelled visions of a hydrogen-powered future despite severe practical limitations like high costs, bulky infrastructure, and safety concerns. While FCEVs like the Toyota Mirai, Hyundai Nexo, and Honda Clarity have emerged in recent years, slow adoption and technical hurdles have spurred skepticism about their viability for widespread consumer adoption. In 2023, only 14,451 FCEVs were sold worldwide8 and there are only about 17,000 hydrogen-powered vehicles on U.S. roads today. The key challenges for FCEV adoption include:

• High Production Costs: Intricate technology and specialized equipment required lead to high production costs.

• Low Energy Efficiency: Hydrogen leakage during transit and energy needed to liquefy hydrogen diminish overall energy efficiency.

• Environmental Concerns: Industrial-scale production of hydrogen fuel often relies on fossil fuels, negating some of the environmental benefits associated with the technology.

• Infrastructure Challenges: Lack of hydrogen refueling infrastructure limits widespread adoption.

Despite these obstacles, there have been significant advancements in hydrogen fuel cell efficiency and durability in recent years, driven by efforts from both private entities and public institutions. It remains to be seen whether FCEVs will achieve widespread adoption.

Lessons Learned

While each industry follows its own unique trajectory, these stories reveal several common threads:

• Low Prices Trigger Demand: Cost reductions are crucial to the growth of any industry, often leading to a tipping point for broader adoption. The continual drop in solar panel prices has been central to the solar industry’s remarkable growth. Over the past decade, the price of solar electricity has declined by 89%. The key inflection point occurred when the price of solar modules fell below $1 per watt in the 2010s. At this price, solar power became economically viable for a much broader range of consumers.

• Government Participation is Essential: The role of government funding, policy, and regulation is crucial in shaping the trajectory of industries. The EV industry, in particular, has greatly benefited from government funding, incentives, rebates, tax credits, interest subsidies, and support for charging infrastructure, among other forms of assistance.

• Innovation Drives Progress: Innovators are constantly pushing boundaries despite challenges and setbacks. While both the biofuel and FCEV industries have yet to reach their plateau of productivity, innovators continue to make progress, whether through advanced biofuels or green and blue hydrogen. Successful industries are the result of countless small, successful iterations.

• Success Begets Success: Success stories serve as catalysts, igniting momentum and fuelling growth. The biopharmaceutical sector witnessed multiple success stories in the 2010s, including the use of CRISPR-Cas9 as a gene-editing tool to treat sickle cell disease and the application of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy to target cancerous mutations.

• Cycles Getting Shorter: The pace of innovation and market dynamics is accelerating, with product cycles shrinking faster than ever. The PV industry took 60-70 years to reach the plateau of productivity, while biopharmaceuticals took 40-50 years. The EV industry reached this stage in just 25-30 years. The onset of AI and its applications across all industries will only heighten this pace.

Meatless Harvest?

Let’s re-examine the alternative protein industry through the lens of the learnings above. From the day the first lab-grown burger was produced for $330,000 in 2013, the industry has experienced more technological advancements and cost reductions than many other disruptive technologies. However, as of 2023, the average price premium for plant-based meat and seafood still remains 77% higher than conventional products, according to GFI. The price gap for precision-fermented ingredients and cultivated meat is even higher, but it is closing due to ongoing technological advancements, process improvements, and economies of scale. The inflection point will likely occur when these products either reach price parity or demonstrate superior taste and texture, establishing their value as premium, cleaner-label options. We continue to see ongoing innovation in both areas.

The progress of the alternative protein industry has occurred with limited support from the public sector to date. In contrast, public sector assistance has fuelled the growth of other novel technologies, including semiconductors, EVs, and biotechnology. According to the IEA, governments worldwide provided roughly $40 billion in direct purchase subsidies for EVs in 2022. That dwarfed the $635 million in total government support for the alternative protein industry in the same year. However, we are seeing the winds of change. During the COP28 gathering in 2023, the Bezos Earth Fund announced a $1 billion commitment to transform food and agricultural systems. The organization has since invested $100 million in three alternative protein centers across the globe. The alternative protein industry is also gaining regulatory support with cultivated meat now approved for sale in three countries – Singapore, the U.S., and Israel – with Hong Kong recently joining the ranks by allowing sales. However, for the industry to achieve its full potential, governments must step up their support manifold.

Despite sector headwinds, innovation continues unabated. Founders are learning from the first generation of companies and evolving their approaches to meet current market needs. Entrepreneurs in the sector today are building companies that are specialists within the sector rather than the vertically integrated companies that preceded them. Instead of building expensive facilities, they prefer ‘capex light’ models, and are focused on near-term commercialization with the help of partners or contract manufacturers.

The alternative protein industry is increasingly embracing artificial intelligence (AI) to drive innovation and efficiency. AI is being leveraged for upstream strain engineering, optimizing production processes, developing new ingredients, and improving product formulations. AI is also being used to improve supply chains, reduce costs, and scale production. As it continues to evolve, AI will be a key enabler to drive progress in the alternative protein industry.

It is easy to dismiss the alternative protein sector because consumers didn’t like the first wave of plant-based products. However, it is worth noting that innovators are working relentlessly to fill the gaps. Much of the innovation hasn’t yet reached the hands (or mouths!) of consumers. Government support will further accelerate the industry. As the new generation of consumers begins embracing a new generation of products, it will signal the ascent of the industry on the Slope of Enlightenment and its eventual arrival at the Plateau of Productivity. With each passing day, we come closer to a time when ‘alternative proteins’ will simply be called ‘proteins’ as they see mainstream adoption.

As this will be our last article of 2024, we look to the future with cautious optimism:

We thank you for reading Good Signal and wish you happy holidays! It has been our pleasure to be connected with you in our journey to distill insights from the sector.

"You can judge a (hu)man's true character by the way he treats his fellow animals."

– Paul McCartney

So, how did dogs become ‘man’s best friend’? Over the course of history, animals moved from being seen as a source of food to becoming a source of companionship. The concept of pet ownership is still relatively new, emerging over the past 250 years. As people became more distanced from animal rearing and agriculture, animals gradually ceased to be seen solely as a food source, likely because fewer people directly witnessed their meat being grown on a farm. Over time, the domestication of animals transitioned from merely being functional to having pets, as we know it today.

Pet ownership has jumped significantly over the past three decades. Today, approximately 33% of households worldwide own pets. This is led by the United States where about 66% of households have at least one pet, followed by Europe at around 46% pet ownership.1 From companionship to emotional support, pets are a vital part of their owners’ lives, so it is not surprising that 97% of pet owners in the U.S. consider their pets to be a part of their family.2 This makes pet care (including pet food) an increasingly important industry. For a long time, pet food primarily consisted of discarded human food. However, with the growing numbers of pets and the increasing bond people share with them, this is now beginning to change.

Bark to Basics

While pet ownership was already on the rise, the pandemic further accelerated this trend. According to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), one out of five households adopted a pet during the pandemic. Dogs continue to be the most popular pet, with 477 million pet dogs worldwide followed by 373 million pet cats.3 Millennials make up the largest age group (33%), followed by Gen X (25%) and then baby boomers (24%).4 Globally, these trends vary. The U.S. has the highest pet fish population followed by France, while India has the fastest-growing pet dog population globally.5 The amount of money spent on pet food and care has been rising steadily, too. In 2022, Americans spent US$136.8 billion on their pets, up nearly 11% from 2021.6 As spending has ramped, so has the demand for healthier, clean-label, and better-sourced pet food.

Conventionally, pet food has been available in two formats:

• Processed: Dry food most commonly consists of kibble – made of dried meat, grains, and vegetables that are shaped into small pellet-sized pieces. This is mostly produced through extrusion, a process widely applied to plant-based human food production. Wet food is available either as canned or semi-moist food and consists of cooked chunks of food preserved in 60-75% water.

• Unprocessed: Raw meat-based diets (RMBDs) have been an alternative source of pet food for those who believe that dry and wet food is nutritionally deficient. However, RMBDs are shrouded in controversy as they increase the possibility of disease spread due to salmonella or E. coli not only to the pet but also to humans through saliva or feces. Home-cooked fresh pet food is an increasingly popular category that allows pet owners to curate the ‘perfect’ diet by choosing every ingredient. The key downside is the lack of convenience and higher cost involved in the preparation of the food.

Conventional dry and wet pet food has been the most popular among commercially available options, consisting of several key ingredients that contribute to a balanced diet:7

• Grains like rice, barley, and oats provide energy and serve as a bulking agent. They aid digestion and add fiber. Corn is the most used ingredient in pet food by a wide margin due to its low cost, high energy (carbohydrate) content, binding ability, and high palatability.

• Animal By-Products can include organs and bones to meet the protein and nutritional requirements. Chicken, the most commonly used animal by-product, includes discarded parts of the bird such as skin, bones, and internal organs.

• Vegetables and Fruits such as peas, carrots, sweet potatoes, and blueberries, which are unfit for human consumption, provide nutrients, antioxidants, and fiber.

• Fats and Oils like chicken fat, fish oil, and vegetable oils are crucial for energy and for maintaining healthy skin and coat. They also support the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins.

• Vitamins and Minerals are added to ensure a complete diet. These include calcium, phosphorus, zinc, and various vitamins (like A, D, and E) that support overall health.

• Preservatives and Flavorings, natural or synthetic, help extend shelf life and make the food more appealing to pets.

However, over time, two co-dependent issues have emerged in the conventional pet food sphere – low-quality ingredients and a lack of regulation and enforcement.

Paws and Reflect

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the U.S. is responsible for both pet and human food regulation. The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA) of 1938 was the first federal legislation that addressed the labeling of human and animal food. However, pet owners have lamented for years about the ambiguous labeling conventions that allow large corporations to get away with providing minimal details about the ingredients used in pet food products. Things took a turn for the worse in 2007 when a melamine and cyanuric acid contamination in pet food led to a large-scale recall of almost every big brand’s product – Nestle Purina, Del Monte, Royal Canin, Kirkland, among others – and caused the deaths of over 500 pet dogs due to kidney failure. A follow-up investigation revealed that contaminated rice and vegetable powders from China were a contributing factor. As a result, calls for increased pet food regulations surged, culminating with the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) introduced in 2011 which expanded the FDA’s realm to pet food-focused regulations.8

Despite the progress, legislation is hampered by insufficient guidance and ambiguous labeling requirements. Even the Pet Food Institute comprising almost all pet food companies in the U.S. stated that there is too much latitude on this matter from the FDA. Non-profit organizations such as the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) tried introducing balanced guidelines that were initially accepted as the norm by certain state governments and eventually, the FDA as well. AAFCO’s rules address the labeling issue as follows:

• The 95% Rule stipulates that pet food products that list a product by name must contain at least 95% of the ingredient by weight excluding water. For example, in Chicken and Mackerel Dog Food, 95% of the ingredients must be chicken and mackerel. Additionally, the quantity of the first ingredient (in this case, chicken) must be higher than the second ingredient.

• The 25% Rule requires that specific descriptor terms such as ‘entrée’, ‘dinner’, or ‘platter’ be used on the label if the product contains at least 25% of a particular ingredient by weight. ‘Lamb dinner for dogs’ is an example of this rule.

• The “With” Rule specifies that the term ‘with’ can be used on the label if an ingredient makes up at least 3% of the food. As an example, ‘Cat Food with Salmon’ requires at least 3% of salmon.

• The “Flavor” Rule clarifies that if a product contains only a detectable amount of an ingredient, the word ‘flavor’ can be used instead of divulging the exact percentage of the ingredient included.

Since all ingredients are required to be listed in descending order by weight, pet food producers have found a way around disclosing the exact ingredient quantities – fractionation. This refers to the splitting up of ingredients into smaller components and listing them individually. For example, soybean, ground soybean, soybean meal, and soybean gluten meal might be listed on the label separately as a way of making soybean appear further down on the list of ingredients as most pet owners prefer products with meat-first labels. The table below lists the most used ingredients in dog and cat food products in the U.S. Notably, ‘meal’ is a word used to indicate a processed ingredient obtained by rendering animal by-products such that a protein-rich slurry remains at the end.

As pet owners become more aware of these issues, they are moving away from conventional kibble diets toward alternatives such as raw diets, freeze-dried options, and simple home-cooked recipes. These alternatives often prioritize high-quality, whole ingredients and avoid artificial additives, providing pets with cleaner, more nutritious options. However, they lack the convenience and cost-efficiency of conventional pet food. A survey conducted in 2023 asked over 600 pet owners in Belgium, France, the U.K., Canada, and the U.S. about their feeding preferences for their pets between homemade, fresh, frozen, dehydrated pet food, and biologically appropriate raw food (called BARF – a questionable acronym but popular pet food choice). Among these options, fresh pet food was the most popular (fed by 52%) with homemade close behind (tried by 48%) and dry pet food in third position (fed by 45%). About 25% of all respondents fed their pets BARF, that is, raw pet food in the last six months.9 This indicates a clear shift away from processed dry and wet pet food toward healthier and fresher options.

Pet-ential for Change

The humanization of pets has clearly led to greater scrutiny and more innovative approaches toward pet food. Pet owners look for whole, recognizable ingredients and high protein content, often favoring real meat over by-products. Consumers increasingly seek transparency regarding sourcing and manufacturing practices. In the face of these challenges, the pet food industry is embracing innovative options like plant-based, fermented, and cultivated ingredients to meet the growing demand for healthier and more sustainable pet diets. Plant-based pet foods utilize ingredients like lentils, peas, and sweet potatoes, offering a rich source of protein and essential nutrients. Fermented options enhance digestibility and support gut health. Cultivated choices promise to deliver on the ‘animal’ component of the pet diet while eliminating health risks caused by contamination and reducing dependence on animal by-products. A comparison of conventional pet food and alternative protein offerings is provided below.

A survey conducted by The Vegan Society in 2022 in the U.K. revealed that 25% of dog owners and 20% of cat owners were willing to move their pets toward vegan diets. However, the British Veterinary Association stated that there is not enough scientific evidence to promote vegan diets for these canines and felines. This poses a dilemma. A prevailing point of view is that while dogs, as omnivores, can transition toward vegan diets more easily, cats are carnivores who require animal products. The answer may be fermentation-derived or cultivated pet food ingredients that can replace the animal components. Some examples include:

• In July this year, the U.K. became the first European country to approve cultivated pet food from Meatly for sale. Meatly also initiated the FDA approval process for their freeze-fried treat product, Noochies. Bene Meat Technologies had earlier registered their cultivated meat as a pet food ingredient in the E.U. last year.

• CULT Food Science has several initiatives in progress. Its subsidiary, Further Foods, is working with the FDA on cultivated pet food trials. CULT is collaborating with Umami Bioworks, a Singapore-based cultivated technology company to develop Marina Cat, a cultivated cat food product that includes a blend of ocean snapper. The company is also partnering with South Korean company Everything But to introduce cultivated chicken ingredients in pet food.

• Pet food giant Hill’s Pet Nutrition acquired two metric tonnes of precision-fermentation derived protein from BOND Pet Food for R&D purposes.

• Friends & Family Pet Food Company recently announced a collaboration with Novel Farms, a cultivated meat startup, to produce cultivated meat for cats and dogs. A collaboration with Umami Bioworks is also underway to develop a cultivated seafood product for pet cats.

Chews Wisely

As new companies race to gain FDA approval, today, the pet food industry is dominated by a few large players such as Mars Petcare (including Royal Canin), Nestle Purina, Hill’s Pet Nutrition, J.M. Smucker, and General Mills. These five companies collectively command a 70% market share in the pet food industry.10 While barriers to entry are relatively low in the pet food industry from a regulatory perspective, gaining market share is an uphill battle for new alternative pet food companies.

Incumbents have been active in industry consolidation. The pet food industry witnessed 28 M&A announcements in the first six months of 2024 with the highest activity in emerging segments such as raw, natural, and organic pet food. This is on par with 2021, when the industry recorded 58 deals. 2022 and 2023 were more muted, with 38 deals and 27 deals, respectively.11

Today, there are more pets in households than ever before, and their roles within families are evolving. Pet owners increasingly refer to themselves as ‘Dad’ and ‘Mom’, treating their pets like children. These ‘parents’ are seeking healthier food alternatives to support their kids’ well-being and longevity. As the bond between humans and pets deepens, the industry must adapt to meet their needs. Fortunately, the advent of new technology is creating new possibilities, ushering in an era where pets can finally have food that is both tasty and healthy. In this regard, we may have more in common with the canines and felines roaming our households than we think.  

“Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.”

– Gustav Mahler, Composer

Deeply rooted traditions and cultural practices shape individuals and communities. People find comfort in familiar foods passed down through generations, seeing them as essential to their heritage and family connections. Cultural norms dictate not only what is eaten but also how food is prepared and shared, making dietary shifts challenging. As a result, the global food system has been slow to change for decades, if not centuries. Although technological advancements, such as improved efficiency and yield, have emerged, the basic approach to growing crops and raising livestock largely persists. Cheese production is similar, where local cheese varieties are seen as integral to respective culinary identities globally.

Cheese-making dates back thousands of years, making it one of the oldest human-made foods. While the exact origin of cheese is unclear, it was likely a result of an accidental discovery, possibly occurring when milk stored in containers made from animal stomachs (which contain rennet, an enzyme that triggers coagulation) separated the milk into solid curds and liquid whey.1

Aged to Perfection

The first evidence of cheesemaking comes from pottery fragments in what is now Poland, dating back to 5500 BCE, which show signs of milk fat.2 Early cheese was made by curdling milk with natural bacteria or rennet, separating curd (solid) from whey (liquid). This process allowed milk to be preserved for longer periods, which was crucial for ancient civilizations. Archaeological evidence from ancient Egypt, including tomb paintings, shows cheesemaking as a common practice.3 Clay tablets found in Mesopotamia mention 20 varieties of cheese.4 In ancient Greece, cheese was a highly valued food. Homer mentioned ‘tyros’,5 the Greek word for cheese, in The Odyssey, where Cyclops (a mythical one-eyed giant) is described as making cheese from sheep's milk.

The Romans developed more sophisticated cheesemaking techniques, creating aged and diverse varieties of cheese. They introduced cheese to conquered lands, spreading the practice throughout Europe.6 Cheesemaking continued to develop through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, with increased trade, exploration, and advancements in agricultural techniques. European settlers brought cheesemaking to the Americas, but cheese did not become widely popular in the United States until the 19th century. The first cheese factory in the U.S. was established in New York in 1851,7 producing Cheddar, which became the dominant type of cheese in the country. The introduction of mechanised equipment in the 19th century enabled large-scale cheese production.8 As cheese factories appeared, the process became more standardized and efficient. The mid-20th century saw a resurgence of interest in traditional, small-batch cheeses, particularly in Europe and North America. The farm-to-table movement and growing consumer interest in quality, heritage, and craftsmanship have led to the rise of specialty cheese markets.

Image Credit: Designed by FreePik

Curdling Transformation

The word cheese comes from Latin caseus, from which the modern word casein is also derived.9 Cheese is produced from the curdled milk of cows, goats, sheep, or other mammals. Over a thousand types of cheese exist across the globe. Cheese can be classified based on various criteria, such as milk source, flavour profiles, geographical origin, fat content, production method, texture, and the aging process. Among these, the latter two classifications (described below) are most commonly used:

The style, texture, and flavour of the cheese depend on various parameters such as the origin of the milk (including the animal's diet), whether it has been pasteurised, the protein-to-fat ratio, the bacteria and mould, the processing, and how long it has been aged. These parameters can be fine-tuned during the production process (described below). Some steps can vary depending on the type of cheese being produced.

Each step from milk collection to aging plays a vital role in developing the cheese's unique characteristics, including its texture, flavour, and aroma, though culturing and coagulation are the foundational steps in the cheese-making process.

• Culturing: Culturing refers to the process of adding specific strains of bacteria, known as starter cultures, to milk before the coagulation phase. The bacteria ferment lactose, the sugar in milk, into lactic acid. This lowers the pH of milk, creating an acidic environment that is essential for curd formation. Different bacterial strains also impart unique flavours, aromas, and textures to the cheese.

• Coagulation: Coagulation is the process of transforming liquid milk into solid curds through the addition of rennet or acids, such as lemon juice or vinegar. The use of acids is more common in the production of fresh cheeses like ricotta and cottage cheese. The texture and firmness of the curds depend on the coagulation method, the duration of the process, and the specific cultures used. During coagulation, casein protein, which comprises about 80% of the protein in cow’s milk, forms the curds, while whey protein, accounting for the remaining 20%, separates out into the residual liquid.

Not So Gouda

Owing to ongoing process improvements and innovation, global cheese production reached 22 million metric tons in 2023. The European Union was by far the top producer of cheese worldwide, with a production volume of 10.4 million metric tons or ~47% of global production.10 In dollar terms, the market was estimated at US$ 195 billion in 2023. Cheddar accounted for the highest share at 36.5%.11 Cheese production is growing with negative implications for animals, people, and the planet.

Animals: Many dairy operations use intensive farming methods that prioritize high milk production. This can lead to overcrowded conditions, limited space, and psychological stress for the animals due to the inability to form natural herd dynamics. Often, calves are separated from their mothers shortly after birth to maximize milk production for cheese. This separation can cause distress for both the mother and the calf. Dairy cows are also often culled when their milk production declines.

Additionally, rennet used in cheese production was traditionally derived from the stomach lining of young cows, sheep, and goats. The use of conventional rennet in cheese production has declined in recent years because of the increasing use of microbial rennet and plant-based enzymes. As per recent estimates, approximately 5% of rennet used in cheese production in the U.S. is animal-derived.12

People: Although cheese is a rich source of protein, calcium, vitamins, and minerals that support bone health, it is often high in saturated fat, sodium, and caloric density, which can be a contributor to chronic diseases. Further, processed cheeses contain artificial additives, preservatives, and emulsifiers which also have negative health effects. The use of dairy also poses a risk for 68% of the global population that is lactose intolerant to some degree,13 a figure that exceeds 90% in regions like East Asia.14

Planet: The environmental impact of cheese production is significant due to greenhouse gas emissions from dairy cattle, land use for dairy farming contributing to deforestation and biodiversity loss, and the use of significant water resources both during animal rearing and cheese processing. The energy-intensive nature of cheese production, from farming to processing and transportation, further compounds its ecological footprint.

Say (Alt) Cheese!

Alternative cheese offers the advantage of a lower carbon, land, and water footprint and promotes animal welfare by eliminating the need for dairy farming. It is also suitable for those with dietary restrictions. Alternative cheese can be made from a variety of plant-based, microbial, or cell-based sources. Caseins play a unique role in creating conventional cheese-like textures in alternatives since they are responsible for the structure, stretch, and meltability of traditional dairy cheese. As a result, they have been the focus of innovative developments in alternative cheese:

• Plant-based cheese: Typically made from nuts (almonds, cashews), seeds (sunflower, pumpkin), legumes (soy), or starches (potatoes, tapioca), it doesn’t contain casein but it relies on fats, starches, and gums to replicate the taste and texture of conventional cheese. However, replicating the functions of casein, especially in terms of melting and stretchiness, has proven to be challenging using this approach given the lack of proteins.

• Fermentation-derived cheese: Precision fermentation is often used to express bioidentical casein proteins from yeast or other microbes which are then formulated into cheese products. These caseins mimic the functional qualities of animal-based caseins, allowing for alternative cheese that melts, stretches, and has a firmer texture.

• Plant-molecular farming (PMF)-derived cheese: Involves the use of plants as bio-factories to produce dairy proteins. Plants such as soybeans, beans, spinach, or even tobacco are genetically engineered to express specific dairy proteins, which are then harvested and used in alternative cheese production. PMF holds the promise of replicating the texture, flavour, and functionality of conventional cheese while embracing more eco-friendly production methods.

• Cheese from cultivated milk: Bioidentical milk is produced using cow cells in this approach. This cultivated milk can then undergo the same cheesemaking process as conventional milk.

• Hybrid cheese: Combines plant-based ingredients with fermentation- or PMF-derived caseins to get the best of both worlds – offering the sustainability and lower cost of plant-based ingredients combined with the functional properties of casein proteins.

Culturing the Micelle

Micelle formation can significantly enhance the quality of alternative cheese by improving the texture, mouthfeel and meltability. Let’s understand the micellization process a little better. Caseins – a group of closely related intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) – are central to the micellization process.15 There are four different types of caseins - αS1, αS2, β and κ-casein. When rennet or acid is added to milk, the pH drops, causing casein molecules to bond together and form larger structures called micelles. The casein proteins held together by calcium phosphate, which stabilizes the micelle structure. The micelle consists of a hydrophobic (water repelling) core and a hydrophilic (water attracting) shell. The core is mainly composed of α-casein (αS1 and αS2), which is hydrophobic, while the shell is made up of κ-casein, which is hydrophilic. β Casein is distributed throughout the micelle, contributing to its stability and structure. The size and stability of these micelles influence the texture and properties of the final cheese product. However, the structure of a casein micelle is sensitive to changes in environmental factors (pH, temperature, ionic strength), which can alter its functional properties.

While micelle formation is often considered the holy grail of cheese production, it remains a poorly understood process. Many startups are working to solve this challenge with varying degrees of success. It remains to be seen whether cost-effective micelle formation can be achieved at scale in the alternative cheese space.

Moo-ve Over Dairy

The shift toward alternative cheese represents a pivotal moment in food innovation, allowing us to preserve the rich traditions of cheesemaking while transforming the food system’s relationship with animals. While classic techniques and flavours remain valued, the transition to alternatives emphasizes a more sustainable approach to dairy production. This evolution redefines the role of animals in our food system, advocating for a kinder, more responsible future. So, we end with a tribute to the coming age of cheese:

From Europe to America and lands afar, 

Cheese travelled the world, a culinary star.

Fresh, aged, soft and hard,

Crafted from milk and rennet, with lives left marred.

But times have changed, new winds now blow,

With plants and science, new flavours grow.

Innovating cheese in a kinder state,

A future unfolds, as we recreate.

Tao Zhang is the Co-founder of Dao Foods International and Managing Director of Dao Ventures. Prior to this, he was the Global COO of New Ventures housed at the World Resources Institute. In this role, he led the organization’s office in Washington, D.C., and helped its local centers in Brazil, China, Colombia, India, Indonesia, and Mexico double their collective investments to nearly $400 million within two years. Tao also has extensive investment and operational experience in the telecom and high-tech sector, through roles as assistant president of Asia-Pac at Convergys. He has also held a leadership role at Strategic Venture Investments in Asia at Verizon.

Length: 17 minutes

Chapters

• 00:17 - Introduction to alternative proteins in China

• 04:00 - China’s unique characteristics

• 05:00 - Characteristic 1: Tradition

• 06:50 - Characteristic 2: Technology

• 08:56 - Characteristic 3: Investment

• 09:43 - Characteristic 4: Consumer

• 13:40 - Characteristic 5: Policy

• 14:17 - Consumer-driven versus policy-driven growth

Download Presentation Slides

About Dao Foods

Dao Foods is an impact-oriented investment and advocacy firm that invests in and supports plant-based and alternative protein companies based in China and focused on the Chinese market, as well as non-Chinese companies that have some strategic value to China in terms of its protein diversification. Their mandate is to support entrepreneurs who can play a role in capturing the mind and wallet shares of mainstream Chinese consumers, serving as their investor, their cheerleader, and their value-added partner.

Additional Resource

For more information, Tao’s TED Talk can be viewed here.

“Tradition becomes our security, and when the mind is secure it is in decay.”

– Jiddu Krishnamurti, Indian philosopher

So many of us live our lives with a healthy respect for tradition. There is value to it. It preserves our culture, binds us together, guides our morality, and creates stability. Like yin and yang, there is another side. Tradition can impede progress, perpetuate exclusion and discrimination, sustain harmful practices, and decimate clarity due to blind adherence. It therefore must be said that just because we have done something in the past doesn’t mean we should keep doing it.

The first use of fur dates back 120,000 years. In ancient Egypt, it was worn as a status symbol, which carried through to the Middle Ages in Europe.1 With the advent of global exploration, the fur trade flourished during the Renaissance via trade routes spanning North America, Russia, and Scandinavia. Fur was considered highly fashionable in Europe and North America through the 19^th century. Its mass production began in the early 20^th century, increasing its popularity. Fortunately, the past 100 years have brought greater awareness about the ethics and ramifications of fur production. It’s time we shed fur and move on.

A Material for the Ages

Fur is composed of two parts: hair and leather. The hair includes underfur (a softer, denser, and shorter layer of hairs closer to the skin) and guard hairs (longer, coarser layer of hairs that extend above the underfur). The underfur provides thermal insulation by trapping air and retaining body heat, while guard hairs protect the underfur from moisture and dirt. Over millennia, fur has seen a myriad of uses. It provides warmth when worn facing inward, or outward as an exterior lining, which is considered more fashionable. It is used for coats and jackets, hats and gloves, scarves and stoles, trimmings, and linings, as well as rugs, throws, and furniture upholstery. More frivolous uses include trophies, wall hangings, and arts and crafts.

Fur is prized as it offers an attractive blend of properties:2

Fur is made from a variety of animals, including beaver, chinchilla, coyote, fox, mink, rabbit, raccoon, and sable, as well as dogs and cats. Each offers a unique texture, color, and aesthetic appeal. Fur from a beaver is durable, that of a fox is luxurious, while fur from a mink offers a high sheen. Mink is the most farmed fur animal, accounting for 85% of all animals raised for their fur. 50% of mink farms are in Europe. China is the largest fur consumer and producer globally, accounting for half of total production, with its domestic market purchasing 80% of fur garments produced in the country. 90% of animals used for fur come from factory farms.3

The size of a ‘pelt’ (skin with hair) can vary depending on the species as well as the individual animal. Fur is priced based on its density, softness, luster, length, uniformity, weight, and color or pattern. This creates dramatic variance in the prices of fur garments. A high-end mink coat costs between US$1,000 and US$50,000, while a sable coat, considered among the most luxurious, can cost up to $200,000. Altogether, the global fur trade is $40 billion in size.4

The process of making fur involves several steps:

1. Farming & Trapping: Animals are raised on fur farms in cages and fed a controlled diet, or trapped in the wild using snares, body-grip traps, or leg-hold traps.

2. Harvesting & Skinning: Animals are ‘harvested’ when their fur is in prime condition. The pelt is carefully removed, often by hand, to ensure minimal damage. Sometimes, animals are frozen to ease this process.

3. Processing & Sorting: Pelts are cleaned to remove blood, dirt, and debris and then tanned with chemicals to prevent decay, increase durability, and maintain flexibility. After tanning, pelts are stretched and dried. Some pelts are dyed to achieve the desired color or pattern. Pelts are then graded and sorted based on quality, size, color, and other characteristics.

4. Cutting & Finishing: Pelts are cut according to patterns required for garments or accessories. Cut pieces are then sewn to create the final product. Fur garments are lined with fabric, and final adjustments are made such as trimming or adding decorative elements.

Image Credit: Igor Batenev/Shutterstock

The Fur Trap

The true cost of a fur coat goes beyond the money paid for it, causing irreparable harm to animals, people, and the planet.

Animals

To make one fur coat requires up to 12 beavers, 15 wolves, 30 raccoons, 40 foxes, 80 minks, or 120 chinchillas.5 To cut costs, animals are packed into small cages. Confinement is particularly distressing to minks, who occupy up to 2,500 acres of wetland habitat in the wild. This anguish leads minks to self-mutilate, biting their skin, tails, and feet and frantically pace and circle endlessly.6 Foxes, raccoons, and other animals cannibalize cage mates in response to high-density confinement. In the wild, birds, cats, dogs, and other animals, including endangered species, are inadvertently crippled or killed by traps. Trappers call these animals “trash kills” because they have no economic value. The American Veterinary Medical Association reports that trash kills can account for up to 67% of the total catch thus posing a major threat to wildlife and causing unintended ecological consequences.7 Regulations require that traps be checked daily to weekly, leaving these animals suffering for extended periods.8 The steel jaw trap is considered so barbaric that it has been banned in over 100 countries. The trap’s jaws slam on an animal’s limb, mutilating the animal’s foot or leg. Trapped animals that survive the blood loss, dehydration, hypothermia, infection, or gangrene may be killed by predators. A pole trap is a form of steel-jaw trap that hoists the animal in the air, hanging by the caught appendage until the trapper kills them. Conibear traps crush animals’ necks, applying 40 kilograms of pressure per square inch, causing the animal to suffocate in three to eight minutes. Factory farms don’t fare better, as animals are killed using methods that prevent blood from staining their pelts. They are electrocuted with rods pushed into their bodies, poisoned with strychnine, or gassed. Investigative footage by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) of the China fur trade reveals animal cruelty at factory farms that is shocking and difficult to see.9

People

Workers in the industry face a potent mix of health risks. Exposure to animal dander, fur, and feces can lead to respiratory problems.10 Thirty-three toxic chemicals banned across Europe are used to process fur in China.11 The surfactants, solvents, acids, tannins, fungicides, dyes, and bleaches used in fur dressing can cause both acute and chronic health issues for workers, ranging from skin and eye irritation to cancer.12 Fur skins are dressed in formaldehyde and chromium, both listed as carcinogens and toxic to humans. Seeing animals kept in poor conditions and slaughtered can lead to stress, anxiety, and depression.13 This is compounded by low wages, poor working conditions,14 and a lack of job security due to fluctuations in demand and increasing regulatory pressure.15 Workers are also at risk of contracting zoonotic diseases, which can be transmitted from animals to humans.16 Fur farms densely pack minks in close contact with one another. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Denmark ‘culled’ 17 million minks in response to outbreaks at 200 mink farms.17 As of late 2020, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), “Six countries, namely Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Italy, and the United States of America have reported SARS-CoV-2 in farmed minks.”18 According to Eurogroup for Animals, fur-farmed species could act as ‘mixing vessels’ for human, avian, and swine influenza viruses, promoting the emergence of new pandemic viruses.19

Planet

Animal fur is not green. It is energy-intensive, highly polluting, and detrimental to the environment. To produce one fox fur coat, requires one ton (1,000 kg) of feed, while a single mink coat requires three tons (3,000 kg).20 The energy required to create a real fur garment is approximately 20 times a synthetic one. The carbon footprint of 1 kg of mink fur is 31 times higher than the same weight of cotton, 26 times higher than that of acrylic, and 25 times higher than that of polyester.21 Each animal produces approximately 20 kg of feces, resulting in millions of tons of waste annually based on the total number of animals slaughtered. Animal waste contains high concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorous, the most common form of water pollution in the United States. Air pollution arises from gasses released by animal waste, as well as the disposal of animal carcasses by incineration, a common method. Emissions from mink fur are 150 times higher than the same quantity of polyester, 215 times higher than that of cotton, and 271 times higher than that of acrylic.22 Air pollutants include carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NO_x), sulfur dioxide (SO₂), hydrochloric acid (HCl), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), dioxins, particulates and heavy metals. The European Union called tanning “a potentially pollution-intensive industry”, while the World Bank rates fur dressing and dyeing industry as one of the five worst industries for toxic metal pollution to the land. A 2011 study by CE Delft on European mink fur across 18 environmental themes revealed that fur had a higher environmental impact compared to other textiles.23 Chemicals used in dressing and dyeing processes listed by the U.S. government as toxic include aluminum, ammonia, chlorine, chlorobenzene, copper, ethylene glycol, lead, methanol, naphthalene, sulfuric acid, toluene, and zinc.24 Contrary to common belief, fur is not easily biodegradable following processing. In fact, chemical treatments are applied specifically to prevent fur from rotting. The Fur Commission states that, “After processing, fur pelts are soft and pliable, and the natural beauty of the fur will last for decades.”25 Needless to say, something that will ‘last for decades’ is not easily biodegradable.

A Finer Fur

Replicating the mix of properties that fur offers (Table 1) is no easy feat. A mink coat contains over 600 million individual hairs (that’s 24,000 hairs per cm²), which must be duplicated in an artificial fur product. Artificial fur (also called fake fur, faux fur, or mock fur) was first introduced in 1929 and composed of shredded hair from the South American alpaca. Acrylic polymers transformed the development of artificial fur by the mid-1950s, leading to the innovation we see today. While alternatives have improved in texture and appearance and are less costly, they face issues with biodegradability, sometimes faring worse. Most synthetic fur today is a source of profits for the petrochemical industry and contains microplastics in addition to chemicals such as dioxins, nitrous oxide, hydrogen cyanide, flame retardants, antimicrobials, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and other pollutants.26 It is clear that more work must be done.

Fortunately, innovators are mounting a challenge to creating fur without the animal using several compelling next-gen approaches:

Further On

Growing consumer resistance to fur has emerged globally, and for good reason. Younger consumers are leading the shift in attitude.27 The United Kingdom became the first country to ban fur farming in 2000. Israel became the first to ban the sale of fur in the fashion industry in 2021. Over 20 countries have implemented bans on fur farming to date, though some haven’t yet gone into effect. In the United States, California, which accounts for a quarter of fur sales in the U.S., became the first state to ban the manufacture and sale of new fur starting in 2023. Other countries such as Switzerland have implemented stringent animal welfare laws that effectively make fur farming unviable. More than 1,500 fashion brands have committed to go fur-free, including Armani, Burberry, Kering (owner of Gucci), Prada, and Versace.28 As a result, the slaughter of fur animals globally has fallen from 140 million in 2014 to 42 million in 2021.29 Yet, fur farming persists, with ominous outcomes for animals, people, and the planet.

In Disney’s classic tale, 101 Dalmatians, the antagonist Cruella de Vil exhibited an obsession for Dalmatian fur, which ultimately contributed to her demise. It is easy to understand the allure of fur due to its attractive properties in the early days of human existence for surviving in a cold, harsh environment. But those times didn’t offer the comforts of modern technology and millennia of progress, nor did they have factory farms that brought untold animal suffering, cruel traps made from steel, processing plants with chemicals that impact workers’ health, and cause environmental damage from their runoff. It’s time to move past a legacy that no longer serves us. Better alternatives exist; we must use them and continue to push the boundaries to create superior ones. In these modern times, perhaps Stella McCartney puts it best with her conclusion, “Fur has no place in any compassionate society and today its use is unnecessary and inexcusable. Plainly, fur is immoral, cruel, and barbaric.”30

“If a man aspires towards a righteous life, his first act of abstinence is from injury to animals.” 

– Albert Einstein

Birds are the only animals with feathers. They use feathers not just to fly, but to attract mates, blend in, keep dry, stay warm, show off, and in exceptional cases, to sing. The number of feathers varies dramatically by species. A hummingbird has 1,000 feathers, swans have 25,000, while an emperor penguin houses up to 80,000 feathers. A duck lies in the middle of this range with 10,000 feathers, while its brethren, the Canada Goose, has double that number.1

Waterfowl, such as ducks and geese, are mid- to large-sized birds that are commonly seen around water, and have down feathers which grow under stiffer exterior feathers. Located near the bird’s skin, they have a distinct three-dimensional structure that traps air next to the bird’s warm body, which retains heat yet is exceedingly lightweight. Wool, cotton, and polyester are significantly heavier. At the same time, down is three times as warm as any made-made fiber. It is so efficient that humans have yet to create anything better.

The quality of down is measured by ‘fill power’, defined as the number of cubic inches that one ounce of down can fill. It usually ranges between 300 to 1,000. A higher fill power indicates that the down has more loft (fluffiness), can trap more air, and provides better insulation with less weight. Today down is used mainly in apparel, bedding, and outdoor gear. It requires the feathers of 75 birds to fill one down comforter. The size of the down market was $7.5 billion in 2023, projected to reach $16 billion over the next decade.2 270,000 metric tons of down are produced annually. 80 percent is produced in China, and 90 percent comes from ducks.3

Image credit: Wildsight/Shutterstock

The Upside of Down

As a material, down is compelling. It offers a unique set of properties that are hard to duplicate for its size and weight:

Down is readied for consumer use through the following process:

1. Sorting & Grading: Down is sorted by hand or machine from feathers and debris, then graded based on quality, determined by size, maturity, and loft.

2. Washing & Drying: It is then washed in large, industrial machines multiple times using detergents, soaps and/or antimicrobial agents to remove dirt, dust, oils, and other impurities. Tumble dryers are utilized for drying at controlled temperatures.

3. Sterilization & Treatment: This step utilizes heating and chemical treatments to remove bacteria, fungi, or other microorganisms and assign favorable properties:

   1. Antimicrobial and antifungal chemicals are commonly applied to protect against microorganisms and prevent odors during long-term use.

   2. Bleaching agents may be utilized to whiten the down for aesthetic appeal.

   3. Sticky ‘glue’ chemicals are sometimes used to bind dust and fibers to down clusters, increasing the perceived volume and weight of the product.

   4. Silicon-based compounds are used as water repellents and to maintain loft and insulation when exposed to moisture.

   5. Curing or heating processes are employed to set chemical coatings onto down fibers.

4. Blending & Packaging: Down is blended with flight and body feathers or other materials, then packaged in sealed containers for transport and use.

Down is sourced from different birds, offering varying attributes:

• Goose down has larger clusters, which provide superior insulation and loft. Considered the highest quality down with fill power ranging from 600 to 900, it is used in high-end bedding, luxury jackets, and other premium products.

• Duck down has comparably smaller clusters and is less expensive than goose down. With fill power typically between 300 and 700, it is used in mid-range bedding, jackets, and outdoor gear.

• Eiderdown comes from the eider duck. The rarest form of down, it is utilized in luxury bedding and high-end garments. Although its fill power ranges from 400 to 700 (lower than high-end goose down), it is highly valued for its ability to naturally cling together and create an interlocking structure that is incredibly soft, and lightweight and provides exceptional warmth and insulation.

Falling Down

As a co-product of the meat and materials industry, the harvesting and production of down inflicts harm on animals, people, and the planet.

Animals

3.4 billion ducks and geese are slaughtered every year in the production of down and feathers for use in the fashion industry alone.4 There are three methods to remove down from a bird’s body – post mortem (taking feathers after the bird is killed for meat), gathering (collecting fallen feathers or brushing/combing to remove feathers), and live plucking (ripping feathers from live birds).

Live plucking is the most brutal of these practices, where a goose or duck is held down by their neck or wings as the feathers are torn from their skin. When skin rips, it is sewn up, usually without painkillers. This process begins when the bird is 10 weeks old, and repeats every six weeks until slaughter. Live plucking is the prevalent method, as it produces higher quality down material, fuelling greater use of the practice. These birds are typically kept alive longer so their down clusters get larger and thus offer higher fill power. According to a survey by the European Down and Feather Association (EDFA) and the International Down and Feather Testing Laboratory (IDFL), 98 to 99 percent of total production is a byproduct of the food industry.5 However, an investigation by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) found that out of 66 Chinese suppliers, nearly half sold wholesale quantities of live plucked down.6 A Swedish documentary also revealed that 50-80 percent of the down on the market was coming from live birds.7

Gathering is no picnic either. Birds naturally undergo ‘molting’, whereby new feathers replace mature ones. While naturally shed feathers are collected, methods such as brushing and combing are sometimes used to gather the feathers that are about to be replaced. However, in most operations, hundreds of birds at different stages of molting have their feathers collected at one time. Similar to live plucking, this process also involves catching, carrying, and restraining birds. A European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) panel revealed that bones may be broken or dislocated during the gathering process and some birds suffocate. Further, live plucking ‘by accident’ adds to potential harm due to torn skin, hanging wings, and death.

People

Despite its ability to keep people warm, wearing duck and goose feathers can pose a risk to human health.8 Dust mites, which are microscopic, insect-like pests that live in house dust, can accumulate in down products over time, triggering allergic reactions. Down is often treated with chemicals and antimicrobial agents that bind dust and fibers to down clusters, known as ‘glue down’. This poses health risks, including respiratory issues and skin irritation. Prolonged use and improper storage of down products can lead to the accumulation of dust mites, bacteria, and other allergens. Thus, bacterial contamination becomes a significant concern. Over time, exposure to allergens may lead to more serious conditions such as lung inflammation, known as ‘feather duvet lung’.9 Symptoms can develop weeks to years after exposure to down, and if left untreated, can cause scarring in the lungs. Additionally, large-scale farming of animals fosters disease which can sometimes spread to humans.

Planet

Untreated, down is biodegradable and environmentally friendly compared to petroleum-derived fabrics such as polyester and water-intensive natural fabrics like cotton. However, chemical treatments such as dyes, waterproofing, or anti-microbial finishes significantly reduce its biodegradability. Synthetic dyes release toxic substances that harm the environment while waterproofing agents like polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) persist in the environment without readily degrading.10

Large-scale geese and duck farms as well as slaughterhouses consume significant amounts of water and discharge blood, feces, antibiotics, and other pollutants directly into waterways.11 Disproportionately located in low-income areas, they contaminate drinking water and cause health issues like asthma, infections, birth defects, and cancer in nearby communities.12 Animal agriculture releases ammonia, methane, and other gases into the air which can negatively impact the quality of air and also contribute towards climate change. Further, converting natural habitats to duck and geese farms can lead to a loss of biodiversity.

Raising Our Standards

Ethical down certifications include the Responsible Down Standard (RDS) and the Global Traceable Down Standard (GTDS). Both certify farms where birds are free from unnecessary harm, including no live plucking or force-feeding, with respect for the Five Freedoms of animal welfare: (a) freedom from hunger and thirst (b) freedom from discomfort; (c) freedom from pain, injury or disease; (d) freedom to express normal behavior; and (e) freedom from fear and distress. Patagonia started GTDS, while RDS was started by a partnership that included The North Face. In addition, the DOWNPASS certification developed by the European Down and Feather Association (EDFA) focuses on responsible and sustainable down production that incorporates criteria from the Five Freedoms assessment. While these organizations deserve credit for charting an incrementally better path forward13, the Five Freedoms model has its limitations given its focus on the lack of negative states, an alternative model such as Five Domains may be better placed to address animal welfare systematically.14

RDS certifies both home goods, such as pillows and comforters, and clothing, while GTDS primarily certifies clothing. GTDS certification is slightly stricter than RDS, as it reaches further back in the supply chain by certifying farms where waterfowl are kept, even if down is not harvested there. Products that are RDS- or GTDS-certified are labeled as such and can be traced using the Track My Down service to verify their authenticity. Other certifications exist as well such as DOWNMARK, a Canadian certification, focusing on quality standards and ethical harvesting practices or approval from the American Down and Feather Council focused on accurate labeling.

Looking Upward

Fortunately, a range of down alternatives exist. According to the Material Innovation Initiative (MII), at least 15 companies are working on innovative solutions in this area using both plants and synthetic materials.15

Natural plant-based fibers like cotton, bamboo, and Tencel (made from wood pulp) are well suited to provide warmth and breathability. Bamboo, which ranks highly on sustainability, is particularly interesting. Global bamboo fabric providers such as ProECO (United States), Tenbro (China) Well Fabric (Vietnam), and Spinning King (India) offer an ample supply that can be utilized for a panoply of products. Other alternatives include:

Synthetic solutions for both textiles and insulation are emerging as well. These include Thinsulate^TM (3M), THERMOLITE^® (The Lycra Company), ThermoPlume^® (Primaloft), Power Fill^TM (Polartec) and Ecodown^® (Thermore).16 Several are made from recycled materials and offer superior properties for specific applications such as packaging, insulation, and clothing. However, utilizing recyclables creates the issue of an unreliable supply chain, and eventual degradation of the utilized materials resulting in disposal into landfills in the long term. The promise of creating a truly circular process remains elusive, though these materials move us in the right direction. Ongoing research is essential to provide ever-better alternatives to down.

Learning to Fly

It is a curious twist of human nature that when we do something long enough, it takes on an air of normalcy even in the face of absurdity or cruelty. An industry has been created that plucks feathers from live birds, force-feeds them until their livers bulge to ten times their size (to produce foie gras), creates allergy and disease in humans, and harms our communities and the planet. Particularly disturbing is that this happens when viable alternatives exist that reduce or eliminate these outcomes. Down may seem innocuous at first glance, but it is a lucrative co-product of the meat industry, increasing the value of each bird, thereby funding practices that harm animals, people, and the planet.

One way to evaluate our current path is to consider the consequences if everyone adopts the same path. What if everyone used clean energy? Or drove electric cars? It is not difficult to imagine a better world by altering our actions. Consumers can impact the down industry with their purchasing power and practices by (a) raising awareness about issues with down production, (b) educating themselves on down alternatives to make more informed choices, and (c) if compelled to purchase down, do so only from certified suppliers. The only way to move forward is one step at a time, even if it seems like a small one. The downside of down products is beyond question. A better path exists; it’s time we chose it.

“Examine our every action through the lens of how we would feel if it were to become front page news.”

– John Mackey

Sheep are perhaps the most versatile of livestock species, providing meat, milk, leather, and of course, wool. Sheep wool is durable, offers insulation, can be made into yarn for knitting, and dyed for a broad range of applications. Over the course of a year, a sheep typically produces 4.5 kilograms (about 10 lbs.) of wool, providing 10 meters of fabric, enough for six sweaters, three suits, or to cover one large sofa.  About 900 different sheep breeds exist around the world.1 Wool grows continuously on their bodies. To obtain wool, sheep must be sheared every year. Although taken primarily from sheep, wool can also come from alpacas, camels, goats, llamas, and rabbits. Varieties include cashmere, tweed, Merino wool, and Angora wool.

The story of wool begins in Asia 10,000 years ago. Primitive man used sheep for the three basic human needs – food, clothing, and shelter.2 The practice of spinning wool into thread started about 5,000 years ago. Between 3,000 and 1,000 B.C., wool spread throughout Europe thanks to the Greeks, Persians, and Romans. The Romans built the first wool plant in England in 50 AD. Between the late 13^th and 15^th centuries, England’s ‘empire of wool’ saw the material turn into a major industry. Cloth made from wool accounted for 90% of England’s exports by the 1550s. Christopher Columbus brought wool to Cuba in 1493; Hernán Cortés brought it to the United States shortly thereafter.

After its ‘empire of wool’ peaked, England tried to discourage wool trade with its colonies in North America. Despite England’s restrictions, the wool industry flourished in America. By 1665, 100,000 sheep had been smuggled to North America. Massachusetts passed a law that required its younger population to spin and weave. The eldest unmarried daughter in the family, responsible for spinning duties, was known as the ‘spinster’. New technologies like combing machines, the spinning jenny, and water-powered looms further fueled the industry’s expansion. At the turn of the 18^th century, wool reached Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.3 Today, Australia is the top producer of wool, accounting for 25% of global supply. Other large wool producers include China, New Zealand, Argentina, South Africa, and Russia. The global wool market is currently valued at $35 billion and is expected to reach $47 billion in the next decade.

Image credit: Christian Bullinger/Shutterstock

Taking Wool

About 2 million metric tons of wool is produced annually, 60% of which is used to make clothing. Other uses include bedding, blankets, carpets, insulation, and upholstery, as well as protective garments worn by firefighters and soldiers. Several steps are involved in making wool products:4

1.     Shearing & Grading: A wool’s fleece is removed by a shearer using a machine or blade. This typically occurs once a year in the spring. Wool classers divide wool into four categories (fleece, broken, bellies, locks).

2.     Scouring & Carding: Wool is washed or cleansed to remove contaminants, such as lanolin (wool fat), dead skin, sweat residue, and pesticides through the scouring process. Vegetable matter is often removed by chemical carbonization. Carding aligns and untangles wool fibers.

3.     Spinning & Dyeing: Fibers are spun to make a strand. Strands are spun to make thread. Threads create yarn. Dyeing may occur at various stages of the process.

4.     Knitting & Finishing: The yarn is woven or knitted into fabric or other products.

Wool can be finished using a mix of treatments to impart desirable properties such as heat resistance, moth-proofing, and stain release.

As a material, wool offers compelling properties:

The Cost of Wool

The wool industry has gone to some trouble to paint a picture of sheep grazing in lush meadows, and gentle harvesting of wool, resulting in an eco-friendly, biodegradable, and sustainable fabric. A deeper look reveals that the reality is considerably different due to industrial production practices.

Animals

More than 1.2 billion sheep are farmed for wool globally.5 Wool shearing is widely seen simply as a ‘haircut’ for sheep. However, the process is substantially more involved and troublesome.

• Breeding – Genetic selection has increased the birth rate such that up to six lambs are born at a time. Unfortunately, these lambs often have a low survival rate, particularly in the cold winter months. Ewes may be forced to leave their offspring behind to eat and stay with the flock; some choose to stay and die with their offspring.

• Growth – Within a few weeks of birth, lambs’ ears are hole-punched, tails are chopped off, and males are castrated without anesthetics. During hot months, the unnatural excess of wool causes many sheep to collapse and even die of heat exhaustion. The wrinkles in their skin collect moisture and urine, attracting flies that lay eggs in the folds of skin. These eggs hatch into maggots, which can infest the sheep, causing suffering.6

• Shearing – Left alone, sheep don’t require shearing. However, they are bred to maximize wool production, which creates a dependency on humans for shearing. Shearers are paid by volume (not hourly), which incentivizes them to work quickly without regard for animal welfare. Parts of skin, tails, and ears are often cut off during shearing. Holding and pressing down the animal creates injuries that may be left untreated or sown shut without medical gloves, disinfectants, or pain relief. Sheep are prey animals. Shearing requires sheep to be ‘handled’ repeatedly, which is highly stressful for them. Before shearing, sheep are deprived of food and water in order to limit resistance. According to one shearer, “Imagine if someone attacked you after … you’d been starved for 24 hours – you wouldn’t have much of a fight.”7 

• Mulesing – To prevent the onset of flies, farmers perform a barbaric procedure called ‘mulesing’. Sheep are forced onto their backs, with legs trapped between metal poles so that parts of the skin can be cut off the animals’ backs, often without painkillers. The result is scar tissue, which doesn't attract flies if it heals properly. It also means that the animal suffers for weeks with an open wound. Although this is not the only method of prevention available, it is considered the cheapest.

• Winter Lambing – To maximize the ‘production’ of lambs, farmers often overbreed sheep during the winter months. This practice aims to produce the highest number of lambs at the lowest cost, as it allows farmers to wean the lambs in spring when the paddocks are most fertile. However, lambs born in winter are often too small and weak to keep warm on their own and may not survive more than 48 hours. The industry accepts these ‘losses of stock’ as part of conducting its business.

PETA has captured video footage that reveals cruelties in 117 wool operations across the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and South America.

People

Sheep rearing involves physically demanding tasks such as shearing, lambing, feeding, and moving animals. Farmers often work long hours, especially during lambing season, which can lead to fatigue and burnout. Workers in the industry also face a range of health-related issues. A study of 2,153 workers in wool textile mills in the United Kingdom revealed respiratory problems which included coughing, wheezing, chest tightness, and breathlessness along with rhinitis, conjunctivitis, chills, nosebleeds, and chest illnesses.8 Chemicals used in the wool production process – for degreasing (diethylene dioxide, synthetic detergents, trichloroethylene), disinfection (formaldehyde), bleaching (sulphur dioxide, chlorine) and dyeing (potassium chlorate, aniline) – exacerbate health problems. Risks include gassing, poisoning, eye irritation, lung irritation, and skin conditions.9 Dealing with animal deaths and making difficult decisions about livestock can also be emotionally taxing.

Planet

Compared to a cotton sweater, a wool sweater emits 27 times more greenhouse gases and uses 247 times more land.10 The Made-By Environmental Benchmark for Fibres ranks wool as a ‘Class E’ fiber, its lowest ranking, due to its CO₂ emissions, human toxicity, ecotoxicity, as well as energy, water, and land use.11 Wool emits far more greenhouse gases than other comparable fabrics:

Sheep grazing causes serious degradation of land and vegetation. As the second largest producer of wool in the 20^th century, Argentina saw its Patagonia region undergo ‘widespread desertification’ due to sheep ranching. After the removal of sheep, biologists saw the ‘land heal’ as the grasslands ‘regained their vitality’. Domestic sheep that are not part of the natural habitat put wildlife at risk by disrupting local ecosystems. Fear of conflict with wildlife results in the proactive killing of animals such as wolves and grizzly bears. In the Australian regions of Queensland and New South Wales alone, it is estimated that 50 million native animals are killed annually due to land clearing. A number of species, such as the Tasmanian Tiger, are already extinct due to the wool industry.

Sheep rearing produces huge amounts of wastewater which pollutes local waterways. Full of contaminants from fecal waste, dead animals, antibiotics, pharmaceuticals, and insecticides, the runoff can cause eutrophication, soil contamination, and biodiversity loss. Since sheep consume large amounts of water and pastures require irrigation, this significantly impacts freshwater and marine habitats.

Beyond Wool

Wool is billed as a renewable and sustainable fiber. The industry neglects to highlight that wool is often processed with detergents after shearing, bleached to prevent moth-eating, and coated with resin or plastic for machine washing. It may also contain heavy metals and non-biodegradable substances used in dyeing. According to a 2023 report by the Center for Biodiversity and Collective Fashion Justice, the relentless ‘greenwashing’ by the wool industry “lacks any standard definitions or accountability.” Further, wool products are often blended with synthetic fibers. A study of 785 knitwear items from 13 top brands revealed that nearly 75% of wool garments were blended with synthetic materials, which significantly reduces biodegradability, utilizes fossil fuels, and causes microplastic pollution.12

Several alternatives to wool provide comparable properties but are far better for animals, people, and the planet:

At least 16 companies are working on alternative solutions to wool with compelling properties including:

• Geneus Biotech – A French company that has developed a Keratin-based technology in the luxury wool segment under the brand name LiquidWool^TM.

• KD New York – Its Vegetable Cashmere^TM is spun from pulp derived from tofu production. It is machine-washable, sensitive skin-friendly, UV and pest-resistant. 

• Nanollose – Turns liquid waste into rayon fiber for clothes with minimal environmental impact. It is derived using microbes that convert waste products into microbial cellulose.

• SMARTFIBER – A German Company whose SEACELL fiber uses sustainable technology to mix wild brown algae into cellulose fibers.

• SPINNOVA^® – A Finnish company that produces a natural, cellulose-based textile fiber derived from various sources, including wood pulp, agricultural waste, and textile waste. Its fiber is biodegradable, microplastic-free, and recyclable.

• Werewool – Produces engineered microbes that brew designer proteins that deliver performance and color to textile fibers without plastics and water pollution.

The Pull of Wool

Over the past 15 years, global clothing production has doubled. Humanity consumes 400% more clothing than just two decades ago. ‘Fast fashion’ is making planned obsolescence increasingly common, where clothes are designed to wear out faster. Rather than repurpose excess clothing, brands burn or destroy them. More than ever, sustainable alternatives are necessary. Wool production is an environmental crisis. According to a 2021 report, “wool is not a fiber simply provided by nature — it is a scaled product of modern industrial, chemical, ecological and genetic intervention that’s a significant contributor to the climate crisis, land degradation, water use, pollution, and biodiversity loss.”13 Wool, along with leather, is a key contributor to the devastating impact of animal agriculture. As Matthew Hayek, an assistant professor of environmental studies at New York University states, “Wool and leather are not byproducts of meat production, they’re co-products: producers support their livestock operations by selling meat as well as wool and hides, all of which keeps them afloat.”14

Fortunately, consumers are demanding change. In a global survey, more than one in three consumers cite a significant shift toward sustainability when purchasing products.15 This behavior is even more pronounced in the younger generation. 75% of Gen Z consumers care more about sustainability than brand names when shopping and are willing to pay 10% more to purchase sustainable goods.16 Consumer sentiment, along with technological innovation, creates both supply and demand to move toward more sustainable practices in the fashion industry. New Zealand and the European Union (EU) have banned mulesing. Hundreds of brands support banning the practice as well. Standards such as ZQ Merino and Responsible Wool Standard are a start, but don’t go far enough. Real progress is hard won, but fortunately for sheep (and our planet), the tide is turning.

“Silk does for the body what diamonds do for the hand.”

— Oscar de la Renta

Silk is the queen of fabrics. No fabric is as luxurious, or as loved. It is elegant, yet classic – shiny, soft, and smooth against the skin. Silk is strong, durable, breathable, fast-drying, and water-, wrinkle- and stain-resistant. Its allure stems from its unparalleled beauty and lustrous sheen. It is expensive and rare, as its production is a meticulous, labor-intensive process. Silk commands a price 20 times that of cotton with a market size of US$17 billion.1 One yard of silk fabric costs about US$100.

Its origin lies in China, where it was first discovered over 5,000 years ago. The ancient Greek word for China is ‘Seres,’ which literally means ‘the land of silk.’ So prized was silk that its method of production remained a fiercely guarded secret within China for some 3,000 years, with imperial decrees sentencing to death anyone who revealed the process of its production to a foreigner.2 Silk trade led to the establishment of an extensive transcontinental network in 130 B.C., later termed ‘The Silk Road’, which stretched over 6,437 kilometers connecting China, the Far East, the Middle East, and Europe. It remained in use for more than 1,500 years to facilitate the trade of both goods and ideas.

The Making of Silk

Silk isn’t so much ‘made’, as it is ‘taken’. Silk is a protein fiber produced by insects to make cocoons or webs. Although they are known as ‘silkworms’, in reality, they are caterpillars who naturally metamorphose into moths. The soft, white domesticated bombyx mori moth makes up approximately 90% of silk production.3

To form its cocoon, a silkworm spins its body in a figure-eight shape up to 300,000 times over eight days. The cocoon, which spans a kilometer of continuous silk filament, is the longest natural fiber on earth. Each silkworm will produce a single strand of silk, which is 10 times finer than a human hair. Multiple silk strands are then entwined to create silk thread. Eventually, that silk thread is woven into a fabric for commercial use. Sericulture, or silk farming, is the process of cultivating silkworms to produce silk.4 It typically involves the following steps:5

1.      Raising Silkworms: Female moths lay 300 - 500 eggs, which hatch into larvae and feed on mulberry leaves for 6 weeks. Then, they weave their cocoon over 8 days.

2.     Extracting Silk Threads: The cocoons are placed in boiling water to kill the larvae to prevent them from metamorphising, which would rupture the silk thread. Threads are then wound on a reel.

3.    Dyeing: Dyeing methods in commercial silk making have evolved from natural sources to synthetic ones to optimize cost and efficiency.

4.    Spinning & Weaving: The process of spinning unwinds the silk strands onto a spindle or cylinder. Weaving then interlaces them so that they lock around one other to create a strong, uniform piece of fabric.

5.    Printing & Finishing: Textile printers transfer artwork or patterns onto fabric. Finishing applies chemical treatment to add properties such as fire resistance and crease-proofing.

Silk can be harvested from other insects, most notably spiders, whose ‘spider silk’ is stronger than steel, tougher than Kevlar, and more elastic than rubber. Approximately 1,400 spiders are needed to spin 1 ounce of spider silk.6 However, spiders have escaped the fate of intensive commercial breeding as they are cannibalistic and territorial animals who, in captivity, also produce less silk and take a longer time to do so. Due to its unique mix of mechanical properties and biocompatibility, spider silk is sought after for varied applications including medicine (artificial materials such as bandages, prostheses, ligaments, and skin), military (body armor, parachutes, shells of tanks aircraft, and satellites), and materials (buildings, bridges, tires).7 This has motivated numerous approaches to produce it synthetically.

Image credit: Timekeep/Shutterstock

The Price of Silk

For all its beauty, silk extracts a heavy price on animals, people, and the planet. It is worth a deeper look at each.

Animals

Silk is produced by boiling silkworms alive inside their cocoons so they cannot hatch, which would rupture the silk thread. Approximately 6,600 silkworms are killed to make 1 kilogram of silk. That’s 1,000 animals for one shirt. The result is that 420 billion to 1 trillion silkworms are killed annually for silk production. Disease alone kills between 10% and 47% of worms, largely attributed to the rearing environment with inadequate disinfection and contamination.8 To optimize silk production, humans have created a domesticated silk moth that is blind and unable to fly. She lays eggs once and is then killed. Her offspring are killed before they mature and grow into a moth so silk can be harvested from their cocoons. Male moths are discarded after they mate.

Although efforts have been made to create ‘peace silk’ (also known as ‘ahimsa silk’), where silk is harvested from cocoons only after they have hatched, moths are still discarded or crushed after their ‘useful life’ and selectively kept in semi-frozen conditions until breeding season. The process also requires many more silkworms since they produce less silk that is ‘reelable’.9 ‘Wild silk’ harvests cocoons of silkworms that live in the wild and is therefore nonviolent, but like peace silk, it produces a rougher variety of silk due to its short fiber length.

The science remains inconclusive when it comes to measuring the sentience of silkworms, yet it is worth noting that they have a brain and a central nervous system, and release endorphins, which are hormones present when pain is experienced.10 A less scientific explanation is also worth considering – like all insects, silkworms will retreat when they are threatened.

People

The silk industry has faced accusations of human rights violations, human health issues, child labor, and slavery. Although it provides employment in developing countries and rural areas with little opportunity, these jobs often come with meager, unsustainable wages for workers. The industry also offers little transparency to understand and address these issues.11 China, the world’s largest producer of silk, employs approximately 1 million workers in the industry, while India, also a major silk producer, employs 7.9 million largely rural workers. A study by Human Rights Watch in 2003 estimated that 350,000 children in India worked as bonded laborers in the silk industry.12

Sericulture workers risk burns and secondary infections as silkworms are placed in boiling water and hot steam. Children who wind silk strands can suffer cuts that may become infected if untreated. A report from the Indian state of Kashmir revealed workers in the industry suffered health problems including headaches, back pain, respiratory issues, and eye irritation.13 Further, chemical exposure during processing and dyeing can cause skin irritation and organ damage to the kidneys, liver, and lungs.14

Environment

According to the Higg Materials Sustainability Index, silk has the highest environmental impact compared to all other fabrics, even synthetic ones.15 One kilogram of silk requires 187kg of mulberry leaves (a source of nutrition for growing silkworms). To ensure sufficient protein content in leaf matter and high yields, comparatively higher doses of fertilizer are applied to the growing process. Disinfectants are also often used to prevent disease outbreaks in silkworms. Additionally, sericulture facilities must be kept at controlled temperatures, which requires energy to boil water and steam, commonly powered by coal.16 The silk finishing process exacerbates the detrimental impact with the use of acid, metal, and reactive dyes that are added to acidic water in which the silk filament is submerged. Improper waste disposal can pollute the soil and local waterways. Chemical residues in the end product can also lower the material’s biodegradability.

The Evolution of Silk

Silk is utilized not just in fashion, but also in home furnishings such as bedding, curtains, and upholstery, to moisturize and nourish hair, and to create classic and modern art. The quality of silk is measured by momme weight, a more accurate measure of silk quality than thread count. Introduced by the Japanese, it has been adopted as the standard for measuring the density of silk fabric. The higher the momme, the tighter the weave, indicating a higher amount of silk utilized.17 Silk is prized due to a combination of optical, chemical, mechanical, and thermal properties that make it difficult to replicate:18

The race to create artificial silk is nothing new. Mercerized Cotton was invented in the mid-1800s, offering higher tensile strength and luster, making it viable as a silk substitute. Rayon, also called viscose, emerged in the late 1800s. It is a semi-synthetic fiber that is comprised of regenerated cellulose from wood and related agricultural products.19 Nylon and polyester came along in the 1930s as alternatives to silk. Nylon is softer and shinier, while polyester is rougher and duller. Unfortunately, both are petroleum-derived with formulations that contain chemically stable microplastics that poison ecosystems, harm animals, and fuel climate change.20

Innovation is ongoing to produce the next generation of materials to rival silk. While some approaches are biomimetic, able to replicate the structure of silk, others aim to create alternative materials that mimic its properties while minimizing externalities:

Milking Silk

As an industry, silk is a drop in the bucket of the US$1,027 billion textile market.21 Yet, as demand for luxury goods grows globally, so will the demand for silk. Unfortunately, when it comes to the impact on animals, people, and the planet, silk punches well above its weight. This heightens the need to create synthetic alternatives that can meet and beat the properties offered by silk at a competitive price while reducing the harm from the industry today. Although the demand for silk will continue rising, synthetic material innovation is marching forward alongside it. This is good news for those that love silk, and our planet too.  

“The most effective way to distort reality is to deny it …And the most effective way to deny a reality is to make it invisible.”

– Melanie Joy

As a material, leather is hard to beat. It is strong, durable, and fashionable. Long considered a luxurious material, it has a timeless aesthetic that is highly versatile in its applications. Available in varied colors and textures, leather is used to make a panoply of goods including clothing, footwear, handbags, furniture, tools, and sports equipment. It is breathable, water-resistant, and able to withstand harsh weather conditions. The strength of leather lies in its fibers, long tight strings made of collagen, like a million knotted fishing lines weaved into a single sheet. As leather ages, it becomes more soft and supple, revealing subtle changes in appearance. This ‘patina’ gives leather a uniquely warm, lived-in look. Premium, high-quality leather can last for generations. 

A Material for the Ages

Humanity’s love affair with leather started thousands of years ago. Leathermaking dates back 7,000 years when it was used for shelter, clothing, and footwear. Initially preserved by salting and smoking, the process of vegetable tanning was developed by the Egyptians and Hebrews around 400 BC.1 Through the Middle Ages (500-1500 A.D.) and the Renaissance (1450-1650 A.D.), leather saw increased popularity. In addition to tanning, leather was carved, dyed, molded, painted, shaped, and stamped. These techniques were honed during the Enlightenment (1685-1815 A.D.) when leather was utilized for book covers, shoes, hats, bags, furniture, and more.2 Chromium tanning replaced vegetable tanning in the mid-1800s, as it is faster and creates leather that is more supple and pliable. Its functional properties are myriad:

The global leather market was valued at $444 billion in 2023, growing at a 5.8% CAGR, and is expected to reach $735 billion by 2032.3 It dwarfs in size markets for other materials such as polyester ($81 billion), cotton ($39 billion), wool ($38 billion), silk ($34 billion), nylon ($31 billion) and denim ($19 billion). China is by far the largest leather producer in the world, followed by Brazil, Russia, India, and Italy. North America is the largest market for leather goods, accounting for 37% of the market, while Asia-Pacific will see the fastest growth over the next decade. Footwear is the largest product segment, followed by apparel, automotive, and handbags. Because it is seen as a luxury product, rising global affluence is fuelling increased demand for leather. According to a 2022 survey in the United Kingdom, 67% of consumers say they buy and use leather because they can trust it to last a lifetime, while 55% say it's a high-quality material.4

The Making of Leather

Today, 65% of leather in the U.S. is made from cattle and calf skins, but leather is also made from sheep (13%), goats (11%), and pigs (10%).5 However, leather can come from any land animal as well as aquatic animals. Species hunted and killed specifically for their skins include alligators, bison, crocodiles, elephants, kangaroos, lizards, ostriches, snakes, and zebras. The hides of cows raised and slaughtered for meat are then diverted toward leather production. The hides of their calves, frequently raised for veal, are made into high-priced calfskin. Sidestreams of meat, of which leather is a key component, can account for up to 26% of the big slaughterhouses’ earnings.6 As a result, the economic success of slaughterhouses and dairy farms is directly linked to the sale of leather goods.

Once the hide is obtained, the leather production process today consists of three steps:

• Preparation: May include soaking, hair removal, liming, deliming, bating, bleaching, and pickling

• Tanning: Stabilizing collagen to increase the thermal, chemical, and microbiological stability of the hides and skins by using agents such as chromium salts, vegetable extracts, or other chemicals

• Crusting: Neutralization of the residual acids from the tanning process, followed by splitting, dyeing, fatliquoring, drying, and conditioning

A Finishing process can be added, which may include oiling, brushing, buffing, coating, polishing, embossing, glazing, or tumbling.

The Cost of Leather

The leather tanning process, essential to creating a long-lasting product, involves soaking animal skin in a cocktail of chemicals to permanently alter the protein structure of the skin, preventing it from breaking down. A common misconception is that leather is natural, biodegradable, or eco-friendly. Ironically, the tanning process stops the leather from biodegrading by stabilizing the collagen or protein fibers, turning a natural material into an unnatural one. Approximately 90% of tanneries use chromium,7 which produces the toxic chemical by-product hexavalent chromium, a known human carcinogen. Other chemicals used in the process include cadmium, chlorine, formaldehyde, lead, nickel, and zinc. For its allure and benefits, leather extracts a heavy toll from animals, people, and the planet.

Animals

FAO estimates that 2.29+ billion animals were killed to make leather worldwide in 2018.8 At slaughterhouses, animals are often skinned and dismembered while still alive. A PETA short video, Hell for Leather, which exposes these practices, is disturbing to watch. While 84% of brands source leather for their fashion supply chains, just 26% of them have a stated animal welfare policy or statement.9 Almost half the leather trade is carried on in developing countries, where there is little oversight or attention to animal welfare. While understanding the species and origin of leather can provide valuable insights into the ethical treatment of animals, environmental impact, and the overall transparency of the production process, leather products may be deliberately mislabelled when it comes to both the country of origin and even the species. Short of a DNA test, there is little consumers can do to determine whose skin they are wearing. To obfuscate the process further, if an animal was skinned in China, after which skin was imported by Italy to manufacture the final product, the label will simply state it was ‘Made in Italy’. This can mislead consumers and mask illegal activity.

People

Because leather production is so unsafe, it is moving out of developed countries into developing ones, where regulations are lax, labor is cheap, and tragically, loss of health or life escapes scrutiny. An investigation into the industry in Dhaka, Bangladesh found 15,000 laborers – some as young as 10 – toil in more than 150 tanneries.10 Workers stand barefoot in wastewater with toxic chromium and handle acids and bleaches that can cause chronic skin diseases and even cancer while being exposed to fumes that can damage vision and cause severe respiratory problems without the benefit of protective goggles. Some workers lose fingers to the conveyor belts. According to the WHO, 90% of tannery workers in the region die before the age of 50.11 Those in surrounding communities to tanneries face a range of health issues, including increased cancer rates, leading to what has been termed “cancer villages”. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that the probability of developing leukemia for those living near a tannery in the U.S. state of Kentucky was five times the national average. Tannery workers in Italy and Sweden are 20% to 50% more likely to have cancer.12 Even consumers are not spared. Studies have demonstrated that finished leather products that directly touch the skin can contain high levels of chromium, which may cause skin reactions such as eczema. A German study found chromium in over half of the leather products it inspected.13

Planet

Tanneries pollute land, water, and air. Every year, over 4 million tonnes of solid waste is generated by the global leather industry.14 Producing leather is wasteful – 500kg of rawhide only produces 75kg of leather. The remainder is waste, releasing methane gas into the atmosphere as it breaks down. Processing one ton of hide requires 60,000 liters of water.15 That’s nearly 8,000 gallons of water to produce a single leather jacket.16 The toxic chemicals used to tan leather are then dumped into waterways, particularly in developing countries that have limited environmental protection. This not only kills fish and other water life, but also poisons those that drink the water including both land animals and humans. Leather’s impact extends to deforestation, as the cattle industry is the biggest culprit behind the destruction of the Amazon, a majority of which is done illegally. Pure Earth, which identifies and implements solutions that stop toxic exposures, concluded that tanneries are one of the world’s top 10 toxic industries.17

The Evolution of Leather

Sometimes, it is necessary to take a step backward to take two steps forward. The alternative leather industry, which seeks to find animal-free substitutes to leather, appears to face this conundrum. According to the Materials Innovation Institute (MII), 92 companies are focused on creating leather free of animals using a variety of approaches:

Alternative leather faces major challenges. Taking any material and using it to replicate another requires both biological and chemical acrobatics that are cumbersome and costly. This raises the price of the end product. Conventional leather is strong, long-lasting, and luxurious, and offers a range of finished product formulations. A substitute using other materials may replicate some of these attributes, but will invariably fall short of matching leather holistically. To compensate, some companies blend polyurethane (PU) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC), which are derived from fossil fuels. This runs counter to sustainability goals due to both the source and lack of biodegradability. While cultivated technology can potentially create a bioidentical product, there has been surprisingly scant innovation and funding for this technology compared to meat substitutes.

This is not to discount the incredible strides made in recent years. In the past decade, over $3 billion has been invested in next-generation materials companies, more than half of it since 2021. Still, crossing the price-performance barrier to match leather’s durability, texture and appearance has so far been beyond reach. To accelerate the adoption of alternative leather, the industry must address significant challenges, which include:

• Durability: Vegan leather lasts 2-5 years, whereas conventional leather lasts decades. During its life, leather does not dry out, peel, crack, or crease upon bending. There is no change of color due to exposure to extreme light, heat, or ultraviolet rays from sunlight, nor is there damage from water. These properties are difficult to achieve without the use of hydrocarbons (oil-based additives).

• Appearance: Alternative leather producers are targeting luxury fashion brands due to higher prices and margins. It should be noted, then, that luxury hides tend to have exotic colors and patterns along with exceptional long-term durability, raising the bar for immaculate appearance and exceptional quality required of alternative leather.

• Texture: Animal leather can feel coarse or smooth depending on its type and quality. The surface also has a natural grain along with a distinctive leather smell. Real leather is less consistent in texture, which lends it character in the eyes of consumers. It is also elastic – press your fingertip against natural leather and wrinkles form, after which the material returns to its original state.

• Cost: Conventional leather costs $3-10/sq ft for non-luxury hides and $10-25/sq ft for luxury hides.18 Bolt Threads, a leading company in the alternative material sector, says its fabric costs about $25/sq ft19, which according to the company, puts it on par with premium calf leather. 

• Versatility: Leather is used to make a range of products including shoes, handbags, clothing, furniture, and automotive interiors. For example, shoes require a thicker, sturdier material while car seats are made from a more flexible and smoother version. Alternative leather must be able to adapt to these requirements.

• Sustainability: Alternative leather has an opportunity to shine here. A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) conducted by Modern Meadow has shown that alternative leather utilizes 50% less energy and leads to 80% lower GHG emissions compared to conventional leather. It also reduces eutrophication potential, land use, and water consumption by over 95%. However, to match price and performance, the use of PU and PVC plastics can degrade these marks and cast products in a negative light with consumers. Cultivated technology also typically utilizes significantly more energy than other approaches to alternative leather.

For The Love of Leather

While animals pay the ultimate price for leather, its impact is toxic to both people and the planet. For luxury brands, leather is a cash cow. It is not so much a ‘by-product’ of the meat industry as a ‘co-product’, enabling animal agriculture to drive higher margins and increase profits. Leather is loaded with toxic chemicals; otherwise, it would degrade in the closet or the car seat. Perhaps Stella McCartney puts it best – “An animal decomposes when it’s natural, but after all of the chemical treatments [applied] to a leather handbag, it isn’t going to decompose in your wardrobe. That product is staying alive because of the chemicals that have been put on it—because if you just had a dead animal in your closet, it would be a very different situation.”20

The demand for both food and skin from animals continues to rise. Yet, technology has the power to create better solutions and deliver more than consumers expect. Think back to mobile technology before the iPhone, for example. Innovation is happening all around us today – just ask Google about the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Today, there is no serious challenger to leather at scale that meets all the requirements for mass adoption. To get there will require more funding and innovation. The opportunity is enormous, and so is the urgency.

“Food is the ingredient that binds us together.”

– Gary Mehigan

Food is a sensorial experience ­– the eyes initiate the appetite, the nose detects fragrances, and the bite reveals taste and texture. Cooking enhances the experience with the sights and sounds of grilling, frying, or sizzling, coupled with the gratification of creating a dish. Because food engages every one of our senses, we have become accustomed to demanding excellence in every facet of its preparation and consumption. To meet this standard, products utilize a panoply of ingredients to enhance the nutrition, taste, texture, or appearance. A binder or binding agent is a key ingredient that glues structural elements to form a cohesive matrix. In providing the glue, binders create magic by uniting the various components that make up the foods we have come to love. This is precisely why the food industry needs binders. The alternative protein sector is no different.

Image credit: Created using DeepAI Image Generator

The Alchemy of Binders

A ‘binder’ in food is an umbrella term used to refer to any substance that holds various components (proteins, fat particles, oil droplets, seasonings) of solid food together. Interactions at a molecular level between binders and these components lead to a structured product. The result is the creation of a food material matrix leading to structural cohesiveness, the defining trait of binders1. Beyond structural stability, binders can help in moisture retention, gelation, emulsification, and flavor encapsulation, as well as other benefits. These varying attributes both enhance the texture and mouthfeel of the product and impact nutrient digestibility and bioavailability. In essence, binders ensure that a burger patty remains cohesive through the cooking process, yet morphs from a soft, raw substance to a fibrous, chewier form, that oozes flavor with each bite. Most meat and alternative meat products simply wouldn’t come together (literally) without binders.

Today, we see binders utilized in the fanciest gastronomic creations, but they had extremely humble beginnings going back centuries. The first recorded use of binders, intentional or inadvertent, dates back to the creation of bread. Upon settling down in agrarian societies, humans started crushing grains and mixing them with water before cooking. Kneading the mixture created interesting texture profiles, which resulted from the binding properties of grains such as wheat gluten, the protein present in wheat. Today, eggs are the most popular natural binding agent, followed by flour. With the advent of modern technology, synthetic binders are now widely employed in the food industry, particularly in baked goods and meat products. 84 different binders of plant and animal origin have been classified Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS) by the USDA.

The Taxonomy of Binders

Binders commonly included in alternative meats are highly varied. They may be protein-based, fiber-based, carbohydrate-based, starch-based, or fat-based.

• Protein-based binders (e.g. soy protein, pea protein, algal protein) are highly functional due to their exceptional emulsification capabilities. These binders have high viscosity, which reduces leakage while cooking. In addition, these binders serve as a source of protein in meat analogues.

• Fiber-based binders (e.g. methylcellulose, psyllium) result in improved textural properties due to excellent moisture retention capabilities. However, it is essential to utilize them in limited quantities to avoid impacting texture negatively.

• Carbohydrate-based binders (e.g. xanthan gum, guar gum, carrageenan gum) are usually gums that can form a stable gel without a distinct color, taste, and odor. They also serve as fat substitutes and enhance shelf-stability of products. However, due to their sticky, viscous texture, their utilization must be closely monitored.2

• Starch-based binders (e.g. potato starch, tapioca starch) tend to be cost-friendly due to ubiquitous raw sources, making them an easily available binding option. However, comparably larger quantities are required to attain similar outcomes to other binders.

• Fat-based binders (e.g. vegetable oils) can provide binding at increased concentrations. Oil interacts with proteins and promotes hydrophobic exchanges and aggregation, resulting in a uniform gel network.3

Other binders (e.g. esterified alkoxylated polyol) explored for meat analogues include fat mimetics, which provide enhanced binding structure while lowering fat content.4

The Allure of Binders

Binders are indispensable in delivering the desired texture of the final product. Beyond structural stability, they can provide a cornucopia of additional functionality due to their chemical interactions with other ingredients. The benefits of binders span three key categories – taste, texture, and functionality.

The Magic (and Mayhem) of Methylcellulose

With a wide range of natural and synthetic binders available, one stands out above the rest – methylcellulose. Commonly found in alternative meat products, methylcellulose is a synthetic, modified form of cellulose, a compound found in abundance in plant cell walls and considered to be the building block of all plant life. It is produced by heating cellulose with a caustic solution, followed by treatment with methyl chloride, a colorless and odorless compound. Methylcellulose is a hydrocolloid known for its unique gelling, thickening, and binding properties. Its unparalleled thermally reversible gelling properties mean that it sets when heated to 65°C (~150°F) and melts upon cooling to 35°C (~95°F)5. No other binder (except for gellan gum to a limited extent) can mimic this behavior, adding to the uniqueness of methylcellulose. It is also extremely versatile in its applications with above average water-holding properties (it can absorb 50-100 times its weight in water), thus contributing to improved moisture retention in the final product6. Further, methylcellulose is an affordable binding agent that is readily available, making it the binder of choice for conventional and alternative meat products.

The use of methylcellulose is hampered due to consumer perception that it is a ‘processed’ ingredient given its chemical origins. With the growing popularity of ‘clean-label’ foods, consumers are becoming increasingly wary of ‘hyper-processed’ products. Methylcellulose is also the main ingredient in many laxatives, leading to concerns around its usage in food. The conventional meat industry has leveraged this opportunity to paint methylcellulose (and other synthetic additives) as dangerous, leading to negative associations with products that include them. None of this refutes that food safety organizations including the FDA in the U.S., EFSA in the EU, FSANZ in Australia and New Zealand, and even the Joint FAO/WHO Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) have approved the use of methylcellulose as an additive7. Ironically, it has been used in the conventional meat industry since the 1950s. Organizations often cap the use of methylcellulose at 2% of product weight. Both Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat have gone on the record to confirm that they adhere to this limit, as indicated on their product packaging. Methylcellulose has precedence, approval, and adherence in its use. Why, then, does its utilization in alternative meats cause such controversy? The gap between perception and reality is bridged by facts. When it comes to methylcellulose, the facts deserve greater attention and scrutiny. 

In part due to these issues, numerous companies are working on alternatives to methylcellulose:

• ICL Food Specialties and Plantible Foods have introduced ROVARTIS, a product created using duckweed RuBisCo protein to replace eggs and methylcellulose.

• Meala FoodTech’s platform transforms plant-based proteins into functional ingredients, a direct methylcellulose replacement.

• Oceanium produces a seaweed-based ingredient called Ocean Health Fiber as a replacement.

• Fiberstar combines citrus fiber, agar, starch, and psyllium to create its substitute.

• Shiru, a protein discovery and ingredient creation company, has teamed up with CP Kelco and Puratos to create alternatives.

• Eggmented Reality uses bioinformatics to identify proteins with specific binding functionalities.

• Peaazz Pea Protein, a product from Merit Functional Foods, is a soluble and neutral-tasting pea protein that can serve as a replacement for methylcellulose.

• Alver’s Chlorella product is also a suitable replacement.

• ReBind Food produces multifunctional, plant-based binders that can replace eggs and sugar.

Given the abundance of innovation, the next generation of products is likely to employ a range of methylcellulose alternatives.

We’re in a Bind

While binding agents currently utilized in alternative meat products were not always designed with this purpose in mind, their versatile functional properties have led to their repurposing in the industry. Today, we see companies mix and match binders to achieve desired binding effects. As the meat analogue market continues to grow, we can expect companies to focus on refining existing ingredients and discovering novel binding agents alongside them. With time, the industry will likely boast a greater spectrum of binding agents tailored to meet its evolving needs. Perhaps we won’t get past the long names, but the basic compound that is simply trying to hold everything together is bound to bind better.

“Technology is a useful servant but a dangerous master.”

– Christian Lous Lange

Image credit: Yexl - stock.adobe.com

A Glimpse of 2050

A hovercar parks itself outside the house. Lights brighten as the doors to the house open. As I step inside, a sleek humanoid robot, Astra, springs to life.

Astra: Hope you had a great day! What would you like for dinner?

Me: Thanks, Astra! I’m starving. What are my options?

Astra: My scans reveal you have low amino acid levels, which we can address with additional protein. As a result, I suggest two dinner options:

• Meal 1: Hybrid meat with cultivated pork and pumpkin seed protein along with fermented white wine

• Meal 2: Mycelium-fused chicken with cultivated pork cells and fermented ice-cream for dessert

A holographic display of both these meals is available in the kitchen. I’ll prepare the meal once you let me know your preference.

Me: Sounds good! I’ll go with Meal 2.

I take a seat at the dining table while Astra seamlessly glides to the kitchen, maneuvering between countertops and appliances. The kitchen comes to life as Astra’s robotic arms and sensors work in harmony.

Me: So, how’s everything been today?

Astra: Well, we had a breakdown in our internal heating system. I was able to uncover the root cause and fix the issue. All systems are functioning properly now.

Me: Thanks for taking care of it!

Astra: You’re welcome!

Astra completes the finishing touches and serves dinner ­– a new dish prepared to my culinary preferences and nutritional needs.

Me: This looks amazing!

Astra: I'm glad you like it! Please enjoy your meal.

A Future We Can’t Predict

Humans can’t help themselves when it comes to predicting the future. History reveals that these premonitions range from the uncannily prescient to the wildly inaccurate. Once upon a time, the president of the Michigan Savings Bank declared that, “The horse is here to stay, but the automobile is only a novelty, a fad,” while the founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, a tech giant of its time, surmised that, “There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home.”

Whether we embrace or dismiss it, a fundamentally transformative technology is impossible to ignore once it appears on the horizon. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one such development, and it’s likely to shape our future in ways we cannot foresee. AI’s ability to analyze colossal amounts of data at unprecedented speeds, make deductions, generate solutions, and even interact with us represents a paradigm shift. It holds the power to transform industries, economies, and societies akin to some of the greatest inventions in human history. A few notable ones include:

• Printing Press (15^th Century): Facilitated the mass production of books, democratizing knowledge and accelerating the spread of information

• Steam Engine (18^th Century): Powered machinery and transformed industries during the Industrial Revolution

• Electricity (19^th Century): Its invention and distribution fundamentally transformed society, in turn catalyzing other inventions

• Personal Computers (20^th Century): Brought computing power to individuals and small businesses, democratizing access to technology

• Internet (20^th Century): Enabled instant communication, real-time collaboration, and unprecedented access to information

Just as these inventions transformed society, AI is not just disrupting sectors, but going a step further by learning from data patterns, making predictions, and displaying cognitive ability to make decisions. This will reshape industries, solve major challenges facing humanity (e.g. climate change) and bring about a more sustainable future.

From Inception to Intelligence

The evolution of AI did not happen overnight; it is the result of years of incremental progress with the emergence of capabilities spanning several decades, including:

• Big Data: Processing of large datasets in real-time, providing crucial inputs for AI models

• Machine Learning (ML): A rules-based system that involves training machines to learn from data to improve their performance

• Deep Learning: Neural networks, with multiple layers of interconnected nodes, capable of processing vast amounts of data, recognizing intricate patterns, and making highly accurate predictions 

• AI: An evolution of ML capable of learning from data and improving performance over time without human intervention, thus displaying an ability to perform cognitive functions

AI, simply put, is the simulation of human intelligence processes by machines. AI can thus solve complex problems at incredible speeds. It excels in the decision-making process which can be leveraged across industries to diagnose medical conditions, optimize supply chains, even to analyze human behavior and preferences. This has resulted in an ecosystem of new startups that are leveraging AI to be a first mover in devising a wide array of applications across industries. Though nascent, the alternative protein industry is already being impacted.

Artificial Intelligence in Alternative Proteins

AI holds immense potential to revolutionize the alternative protein landscape. Not only can it help in enhancing productivity, but AI can also spur innovation across the value chain. The impact will be pervasive:

• Research & Discovery: AI can shrink the R&D cycle dramatically. It can recommend optimal strains for recombinant protein production, predict outputs based on simulations of experimental variables and improve accuracy of R&D processes. Shiru, a California based company is leveraging Google DeepMind's AlphaFold1 to discover plant-proteins with specific functionalities via its Flourish platform. AI can also help us design new and improved proteins. Biotech startup Cradle is using generative AI to train models to natively understand molecular structures and design better proteins. AI can be leveraged for virtual human modelling to understand how proteins interact with the human body. The learnings can then be used to create superior proteins with better functionality and digestibility. Talent is starting to flow into the industry with AI and ML experts such as Noa Weiss helping startups use AI to accelerate their R&D in the alternative protein sector.

• Product Formulation: AI can be used to analyze vast datasets of ingredient properties, nutrition, and consumer preferences to optimize formulations for taste, texture, and nutritional content. It can identify unique combinations of ingredients to create novel recipes. It can also recommend substitutes to existing ingredients in formulations to achieve cost efficiencies without compromising on taste and texture. Using AI, scientists have built a tool to predict the odor profile of a molecule based on its structure which can have applications in alternative proteins2. NotCo, a Chilean alternative protein company, has identified proteins for milk replacement using ‘Giuseppe’ – its AI platform that identifies food patterns at molecular level to develop combinations of desired flavors and textures. The day is not far when AI will be used to understand the complex interplay between the entire food matrix (and not just a single component) to formulate food that can evoke desired emotions or feelings.

• Process Optimization: AI can provide greater control of process parameters leading to real time data optimization. This will result in enhanced food safety, accuracy, and productivity through precise management and adjustment of key variables. For example, integrating AI into bioreactors can allow to tightly control the entire production process. AI can be used to determine the optimal media and growth environment as well as the right duration for cell growth and differentiation leading to valuable cost savings. Bioreactors can even be replicated virtually, similar to servers provided by Amazon Web Services. AI can also be utilized in other aspects of the production process such as texturization and modelling cooling die parameters for extruders. Recognizing AI’s potential, meat giant Tyson has invested in an AI-enabled robotics startup, Soft Robotics, to boost worker productivity3.

• Supply Chain: AI can serve as a transformative tool to genetically modify crop seeds to increase yields. It can analyze data around weather patterns, soil conditions and plant health to offer guidance on irrigation, fertilization, and post-harvest management. AI can identify cost efficiencies by predicting quality, yield, waste, and throughput loses along the supply chain. This will enable transition to more sustainable practices by optimizing resource usage (e.g. land, water, energy) and minimizing environmental impact. We will see smarter inventory management by better predicting consumer demand. Thus, it is not surprising that McDonald's has embraced AI integration throughout its supply chain to improve its operations4.

• Go-to-Market: AI can spot trends to optimize the release of new products to market. It can analyze large data sets to identify the ideal target consumer segment based on consumer behavior, preferences, needs and income levels. AI can improve customer segmentation to enable companies to tailor their marketing message for each segment, thereby raising customer conversion and retention via predictions for each based on previous patterns. By comparing competitor prices and consumer purchase patterns, AI-enabled food manufacturers and retailers can discover opportunities to offer discounts. Nestle is said to be exploring the use of GPT-4 and DALL-E 2 to better market its products5.

• Consumer Feedback: Given the ongoing evolution of consumer preferences and demands, AI can monitor social media, online reviews, and purchase patterns to gather insights, which can be utilized to formulate products to meet consumer needs. In addition to gathering direct customer feedback, it will detect underlying information consumers are communicating via pattern analysis to close the ‘say-do’ gap. For example, AI Palette analyzes online data points to provide real-time predictions about consumer preferences and market trends by categorizing the trends as dormant, emerging, growing, mature, declining, and fading.

For all of this to be possible, data is foundational. The more extensive and representative the data set, the better the results. It is worth noting that the alternative protein industry may have some lengths to go before data required for intensive AI models becomes readily available. In addition, the underlying computational models can be resource intensive, requiring substantial energy for their operation. For an industry that is addressing Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, the alternative protein sector must prioritize the use of renewable resources to power these systems.

A Call for Mindful Progress

Powerful as it can be, technology can be problematic if we lose control of it. This is particularly precarious when we are dealing with technology whose intelligence can eclipse the human mind. There must be thoughtful engagement with this technology to ensure proper checks and balances. Potential risks and possible mitigations include:

• Avoiding Biases: AI models are heavily reliant on high quality training data and prone to inherit biases that may lead to errors. Using diverse datasets can avoid these pitfalls, while conducting audits can help identify and fix them.

• Data Security: Sensitive information, such as proprietary recipes and production processes, demand robust data security measures to ensure both protection and efficacy of this information.

• Reliability and Transparency: AI models must be rigorously stress-tested to ensure reliability with fail-safe measures for critical systems. Transparency, where possible, can help build consumer trust and provide inputs to improve these systems.

• Regulatory Compliance: Rapid advancements in AI run the risk of outpacing regulatory frameworks (e.g. food safety and labeling). Startups must adhere to government guidelines and work closely with regulators as the technology evolves.

• Equitable Access: Technology, for all its merits, poses the risk of deepening the digital divide. Governments, research centers, and charitable institutions can play a key role in ensuring small producers in emerging countries have access to AI tools.

The risks associated with AI implementation can be mitigated through ethical practices, robust frameworks, transparent algorithms, and ongoing monitoring and evaluation. This is particularly important for a nascent industry. Before AI applications become more prevalent in alternative proteins, proactive measures should be taken to address risks associated with its development.

The Second Half of the Chessboard

Disruptive technology requires innovative thinking and approaches for its utilization. AI is advancing at an unprecedented rate even by technology standards, doubling at a pace that far exceeds Moore’s law (2 years) or evolutionary biology (2 million years). The concept of stacked exponential acceleration means AI not only benefits from the advancements brought about by Moore’s Law and evolutionary biology, but also contributes to its own acceleration, creating a continuous loop. ‘The second half of the chessboard’6 refers to the impact of exponential growth reaching a scale that goes beyond common human understanding. We’re at the cusp of a new era. The AI revolution (in food) is just getting started.

“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”

– T. S. Eliot

Change isn’t easy. Alternative protein companies, at least in their current manifestation, emerged on the scene nearly 15 years ago with a bold and compelling mission to provide products that taste just as good, cost the same or less, yet are better for humans, animals and the planet. While it remains a noble pursuit, entrepreneurs have since discovered it is no easy feat to win the consumer palate. Alternative protein companies today have entered treacherous territory. The economy is uncertain, venture capital is down, and products are facing increased headwinds from consumers, who demand better taste, price and nutrition. Navigating this environment will require deeper focus (and some luck, too). So, to better manage the risks and achieve desired results, it’s worth understanding the challenges these companies face so they can be mitigated, and the visionaries behind them can reach ever greater heights. Six risks stand out. We consider each of them below.

#1: Technology Risk

To do things better requires innovation, whether in process, product or positioning. Companies that have an underlying technology which gives them an unfair advantage can more easily penetrate an increasingly competitive market. Therefore, as a company emerges with a technology, either owned, co-developed or licensed, we must ask two foundational questions:

(1)   Does the core technology work?

(2)   Is there defensible intellectual property (IP)?

Assuming the core technology produces the desired result, a company may choose to file a patent for offensive and/or defensive reasons or bypass the process altogether. At a minimum, the founders must ensure they have the freedom to operate, and better yet, create a competitive moat using their technology.

#2: Product Risk

For many companies in the sector, a pathway to ‘price parity’ is filled with hurdles and uncertainties. Both for ingredients and consumer products, it may instead be better to strive towards ‘price efficiency’, which we define as a price that is satisfactory to a segment of customers. This can be achieved in several ways:

• Offering an ingredient with superior functionality (e.g. cultivated fat)

• Targeting a more affluent consumer segment (e.g. with caviar or foie gras)

• Creating hybrid or blended products with unique taste and nutrition (e.g. cultivated & plant-based)

• Starting with premium offerings followed by lower-priced mass-market versions (e.g. Impossible Foods)

Two key questions emerge:

(3) Is it possible to reach price efficiency?

(4) Are the unit economics favourable?

Favourable unit economics is foundational for supporting healthy gross profit margins at scale. Unfortunately, it is particularly challenging to ascertain at an early stage of the company’s development and may require technology breakthroughs or orders of magnitude higher scalability than the company has accomplished to date, not to mention the additional capital expenditures that go along with it. A Techno-Economic Analysis (TEA) can help create a deeper understanding of the unit economics and address investor concerns.

#3: Market Risk

New products in the sector can have varying functionality, price, and regulatory requirements. In many cases, no such offering was previously available. Two key questions emerge:

(5)   Is there a large market for the product?

(6)   Are there pathways to penetrate the market?

When Beyond Meat launched its first burger designed to emulate conventional meat, it likely had little understanding of the target market or customer interest. However, the team understood that the conventional meat industry was over a trillion dollars in size and there was an opportunity for disruption for reasons spanning human health, animal welfare, climate change, and sustainability. Since then, many alternative products have emerged, providing startups today significantly more data and insight, which can be utilized to gain a better understanding of the addressable market.

Food is a crowded market with slim margins. Consumer companies look to channels such as direct-to-consumer, retail, food service and other strategies to reach their target audience. Companies operating in the supply chain can explore channels such as B2B sales, joint ventures and licensing opportunities. A company must demonstrate it can reach the market, particularly with early adopters who typically must absorb higher costs given the de minimis scale of the company in its early years. For example, Oatly led the charge for the rapid rise in popularity of oat milk, initially in the U.S. and Europe. As the company expands to other markets, factors such as existing alternatives, price sensitivity, flavour palates, and cultural nuances become important considerations.

#4: Team Risk

It is hard to overstate the potential of a team that is highly motivated to realize its vision. Therefore, this naturally garners substantial attention from investors during the diligence process. Teams have highly varied reasons behind their decision to start a company. They come together in different ways, sometimes solely to start a company, or in other cases, they may have a long shared history. However the team coalesces, there are two key questions:

(7)   Is the team driven to succeed?

(8)   Is the team structured well?

In this sector, it is not uncommon to see a founding team composed entirely of scientists. How will they structure their organization, define their roles, and complement their skillsets with other essential functions such as strategy, operations and commercialization? There must be a balance of ownership within the founding team and a plan to attract and compensate new team members, particularly leaders who will play a key role in the company’s future development.

#5: Funding Risk

Building food companies is challenging on many levels. In addition to science and product development, companies must deal with manufacturing, scale-up, inventory management, packaging, logistics, distribution, safety and regulation. All of this requires capital. Companies can tap equity, debt, and non-dilutive capital, all of which must be balanced to create an ideal mix – the right money at the right time. This leads to two questions:

(9)   Can the company access capital?

(10) Is the company capital efficient?

The sector is early in its development, and founders are using varied techniques to attract capital. Unfortunately, this can wreak havoc on the company’s ownership structure, which then requires financial engineering to fix. Companies that win will utilize simple, straightforward, ‘vanilla’ fundraising strategies and remain conservative in both raising and utilizing capital. Companies with high burn rates, or those who have not adequately considered the cost of scale-up and commercialization, may find the fundraising environment and valuation discussions increasingly challenging.

#6: Regulatory Risk

Underpinning the alternative protein sector are three technology stacks – plant-based, fermentation and cultivated – with new technologies emerging. As product innovation is happening globally, regulation becomes especially intricate when we mix both technologies and regions. Based on the company’s product and target market, two key questions arise:

(11) Are there significant regulatory hurdles?

(12) Can the company meet regulatory requirements?

Whether it’s novel ingredients, GMOs or cultivated meat, a company must find an efficient path to access its target market(s). With uncertain timelines for regulatory approval, it must be well capitalized for such contingencies. It is readily evident when a company has developed a detailed strategy and obtained early validation for its approach, whether by engaging with experts or working with regulators.

From Risk to Reward

Anything done well takes sustained time and effort. Companies in this sector are conceiving products never seen before with the intention to upend large markets and create a better world for generations to come. Producing a clear, effective answer to each of the 12 questions across six categories of risk requires intense effort, ongoing trial and error and successfully tackling new challenges at each stage of a company’s development.

These 12 questions can be linked together into a chain of sorts, which is only as strong as its weakest link. The risks these companies face are both formidable and diverse, but every worthwhile pursuit tends to involve a (huge) measure of risk. As 2023 comes to a close, we salute the founders of companies that contend with these risks every day. We call out risks so that we can mitigate them, and create better products and companies as a result. Efforts create results, which deliver outcomes, that shape a better future. We’re on our way.

As this will be our last article of 2023, we want to thank you for reading Good Signal and wish you happy holidays! It has been our pleasure to be connected with you in our journey to distil insights from the sector.

“Heroism is endurance for one moment more.”

– George F. Kennan

Taste, texture, and nutrition – for the alternative protein industry, the holy grail is as alluring as it is elusive. Time and again, irrespective of technology, product, and region, this trifecta is seen as essential to a food product’s success. The industry has responded with a panoply of innovative ingredients and raw materials to meet the challenge. Whether it’s additive flavours and colourants for taste, binders and emulsifiers for texture, or nutraceuticals and plant proteins for nutrition, products are laced with additional ingredients to garner consumer interest. Unfortunately, this is a double-edged sword. These additives may inch the product closer to satisfying consumer expectations, but the elongated, indecipherable ingredient deck sends consumers running in the other direction. Ideally, an ingredient would offer these characteristics in an integrated package to enable favourable product attributes in a concise ingredient deck. Soy leghemoglobin, or heme, does exactly this.

The Hero Ingredient

For a moment, consider what computers looked like early in their existence – a monitor, a CPU, external storage, a keyboard, a mouse, and other supplemental accessories. Laptops today integrate all these components into a single product. This integration and consolidation significantly increases productivity and satisfaction. This is the case for heme as well. While there are high-performing ingredients to deliver taste, colour and nutrition, it is heme’s ability to provide these in an integrated offering that makes it a hero ingredient. In addition, regulatory ease and scalability couple to make this hero ingredient accessible.

Globins are a class of small heme proteins found in almost all living organisms1. Hemoglobin is a protein in the red blood cells of animals that carries oxygen. Myoglobin is a protein found in the heart and skeletal muscles. Both of these proteins consist of a ring-shaped molecule called heme2. Given its unique structure, the heme molecule can carry an iron atom within it and also bind with oxygen. This is the case in all animals. Heme plays several essential roles in animals such as lending the bright red colour to blood, carrying oxygen to specific tissues, and increasing the rate of chemical reactions (catalysis)3. Leghemoglobin (short for legume hemoglobin) is found in the nitrogen-fixing root nodules of leguminous plants and is structurally similar to myoglobin. Soy leghemoglobin is the hemoglobin found in soy, a leguminous plant. 

Image credit: Impossible Foods

Essential Attributes, Exceptional Access

Soy is the fifth most-grown crop in the world (behind sugarcane, rice, wheat, and corn)4. Soybean seeds are already used for a plethora of products such as tofu and soymilk as a source of protein, and as a source of edible oils being an oilseed. In the plant-based meat sector, soy protein remains the ingredient of choice, followed by wheat and pea protein. As such, the scale at which soy is grown makes it convenient to utilise the roots to harvest the leghemoglobin, since the roots are a byproduct after soybeans are harvested. The issue with soy leghemoglobin is not the access to soy but rather the tedious process through which the leghemoglobin nodules need to be separated from the root and the soil. This led to the use of yeast to produce heme via precision fermentation. The Pichia pastoris yeast strain, which has been used in food preparation since the 1980s, was employed to grow heme. Pichia pastoris’ long lineage of use made scale-up easier5.

Heme has the advantage of offering benefits across the trifecta of essential characteristics for food products:

• Taste: Since it is an iron-carrying molecule, heme creates a ‘meaty’ and metallic taste. Its role in chemical catalysis makes it an important addition during the cooking process. The ‘meaty’ aroma during cooking is a result of its interactions with cellular proteins and biomolecules6.

• Colour: The red colour of meat can be attributed to heme and results from the interaction of the iron molecule that it carries with oxygen.

• Nutrition: Heme iron is more bioavailable than non-heme iron. That is, heme iron is more easily absorbed by the body due to its higher solubility levels when compared with non-heme iron.

Innovation using algal extracts, precision fermentation and plant molecular farming for heme is steadily picking up pace. Impossible Foods and Motif FoodWorks are early entrants in the field, but there are several others.

• Paleo is creating GMO-free heme proteins via precision fermentation.

• IngredientWerks uses plant molecular farming to produce genetically engineered corn crops that express bovine myoglobin.

• Kyomei uses plant molecular farming to produce meat proteins starting with bovine myoglobin.

• South Korean company HN Novatech uses seaweed to extract heme-like molecules.

• Back of Yards Algae Sciences debuted an algae-based heme.

• Triton Algae Innovations has developed a scalable precision fermentation platform to grow heme using red microalgae.

• tHEMEat uses food waste to create a vegan heme alternative.

Soy leghemoglobin-derived heme has been approved for human consumption in several regions including the United States (U.S.), Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E). Key markets where approval is pending include the United Kingdom and China. As more markets approve the use of heme in food products, its production will continue to expand although only a small quantity of soy leghemoglobin is needed in meat analogues. The U.S., Australia, and New Zealand allow up to 0.8% of it on a weight-on-weight (w/w) basis. This is because 0.8% is the lower end of the concentration of myoglobin content in red meat (0.8%-1.8%). Singapore allowed Impossible Foods to incorporate up to 0.45% w/w. Interestingly, Impossible Foods’ alternative beef contains 0.45% soy leghaemoglobin while the pork alternative contains only 0.25%7. The sheer power packed in tiny quantities of the ingredient is a testament to its unparalleled performance.

Given the potential of heme, it is no wonder that it has been a fierce battleground for intellectual property. A case in point is the ongoing lawsuit between Impossible Foods and Motif FoodWorks. Impossible Foods’ heme is a replica of plant-sourced leghemoglobin while Motif FoodWorks’ HEMAMI is a yeast-derived bovine myoglobin. Impossible Foods filed a lawsuit against Motif FoodWorks in the U.S. for infringing upon its heme patent and Motif countersued Impossible Foods’ patents in the U.S. and the European Union (EU). As a result, Impossible Foods’ EU patent referring to the use of heme as an ingredient was revoked by the European Patent Office8. One thing is clear – heme is such a potent and valuable ingredient that it is worth two companies (three including Gingko Bioworks, which was added to the lawsuit by Impossible Foods), spending millions of dollars for its exclusivity.

Integration is Irreplaceable

The integration of functionality, availability, and customizability makes it difficult to find an alternative that rivals heme. Heme is unique in its ability to provide numerous benefits that span taste, colour, and nutrition, making it an essential component to an array of plant-based products vying to reach mainstream consumers. While we don’t know what the future of the food system will look like, it appears that heme is poised to play a meaningful role alongside other innovations in designing the next generation of alternative protein products.