7 minute read
Searching for sustainable alternative proteins
Searching for the sustainable alternative proteins
With livestock-farming responsible for the biggest proportion of GHG emissions in the food chain (18% of all
emissions from human activities) 5 , exploration of alternative protein sources is a major innovation driver.
One avenue is meat analogues that mimic the taste and texture of various different meat cuts, but which are made entirely of vegetable matter, such as pea, soy, mycoprotein, and new entrants like fava beans and micro algae. Another is actual meat, produced in labs rather than in fields or feedlots. While the technology is viable, the current task is to identify affordable growth media, and ways of scaling up production and supply chains.
Meat analogues and plant-based proteins
With livestock rearing responsible for around 18% of carbon emissions caused by human activities, growing
numbers of consumers have become 'flexitarian' - that is, reducing meat in their diets. To cater to them,
R&D teams around the world have been developing vegan meat analogues that are near impossible to
distinguish from animal-derived foods they mimic in terms of taste, texture, and appearance.
A 2019 report by management consultancy AT Kearney predicted that analogues will capture a 25% chunk
of the meat market in 2040. 6
Among the best-known brands to hit
the market so far are the Impossible
Burger and the Beyond Burger. Both
replicate beef. Wicked Healthy is
now marketing Good Catch plant
based tuna (a blend of chickpeas,
lentils, soy, fava beans, navy beans,
algae and seaweed) 7 ; and UK
company THIS recently secured £4.7
million in seed funding to scale up
production of its bacon and chicken
analogues —mainly from pea and
soy protein. 8
Numbers are rounded to hundred billions Source: United Nations, World Bank, Expert interviews; A.T. Kearney analysis
Getting the meaty texture right is a major preoccupation for developers. Ojah was so determined to mimic
the texture of short ribs with its Heppi extruded yellow pea protein, unveiled at Fi Europe in 2019, that it
spent 6 years in development. 9 Barcelona-based NovaMeat, meanwhile, claims to have found the answer
for plant-based 'beef steak' in 3D printing technology and tissue engineering technologies. 10
Another hurdle is masking the off-notes in taste that can occur with plant-based proteins. This can be a
long and frustrating process, as the addition of a new ingredient can mask one off-note but exacerbate
another. Givaudan is now offering a helping hand with its SmartTools software, based on the results of 2000
sensory evaluations conducted on peas, fava beans, rice, oats, algae, and whey. 11
Until recently the plant-based analogue scene has been dominated by soy, pea, and mycoprotein Quorn.
Now, though, there is demand for more diverse plant-based sources with a high protein content and full
amino acid profile. Established companies and start-ups are investigating the likes of fava beans 12 ,
micro alge 13 , Laetiporous mushrooms 14 , sugar beet foliage 15 , and Mankai duckweed 16 , to name but a few.
A Swedish start-up called Mycorena is also preparing to launch a new fungus-based mycoprotein, one of
Atze Jan van der Goot, Professor in Sustainable Protein Technology at Wageningen University. Prof. van der Goot is also the scientific leader of the Plant Meat
Matters research program that aims to develop the next generation meat analogues. He has (co-) authored 140 peer reviewed papers and holds 6 patents.
Professor Atze Jan van der Goot, Sustainable Protein Technology, Wageningen University
Meat alternatives made from pulses are generally more environmentally sustainable than meat, but plant ingredients often are highly processed to maximise protein. Is there a better alternative?
Companies making meat analogues often focus on protein isolates and concentrates as they strive for nutritional equivalency with meat. However, less processing could improve plant-based products’ eco-credentials – and lower protein content may not be such a bad thing from a nutritional standpoint. According to Professor van der Goot, products with meat alternatives should be really more sustainable than meat, and that’s not really obvious when you look at the type of processing currently being used.
Van der Goot and his team have developed an energy efficient way of producing large pieces of meatlike structures from plant proteins, such as soy and wheat. The process, called shear cell technology, has been used previously to make fibres out of dairy proteins, but he and his team have discovered the mechanisms by which vegetable proteins form structures. This allows for the manufacture of large, fully fibrous meat-like pieces weighing up to seven kilograms.
“What’s very important for the plant-based meat alternatives market is that new
innovations that mimic meat are not just small pieces or pieces stuck together,”
he said. 18
However, in the course of this project, Prof. van der Goot was prompted to take a closer look at the sustainability of plant-derived ingredients and realised that there might be more eco-friendly approaches.
“…I started to question why it was more sustainable. I found there was really room
for improvement,” he said. “…What we clearly see is if you start eating beans
and peas and legumes directly, you make a big difference. It’s possible to just
make a flour from those materials instead of a previously processed isolate or
concentrate…We should try to limit that purification as much as possible.” 19
Many in the industry would argue that producing protein isolates and concentrates from pulses helps to improve the nutritional value of meat analogues but van der Goot says this is not necessarily the case. In fact, he says overconsumption of protein could be considered a net loss in the food chain.
“A deviation from the nutritional profile of meat is not necessarily bad. It could
even be better,” 20 he said, adding that western populations tend to need more
dietary fibre – and nearly always consume enough protein, including among
vegetarians and vegans. “We have to realise that the products we are making
help consumers replace part of their meat consumption,” he said. 21
Visit Fi Global Insights to read the full interview with Professor Atze Jan van der Goot bit.ly/sustainability-of-meat-alternatives
Lab-grown meat
While analogues may satisfy some consumers, the die-hard meat-eating habits of others have led to a race-to-market for meats produced via non-agricultural methods.
The first prototype burger made from lab-grown animal cells was unveiled in 2013 by Professor Mark Post,
later chief scientific officer of Mosa Meats and, at the time, it seemed more science fiction than viable
solution — not least because it cost €250,000 to produce. 22 But Mosa's announcement sounded the
starting gun in a race to bring the first lab-grown (also known as cultured or 'clean') meat to market.
The process involves extracting cells from an animal (non-invasively) and plying them with nutrients and growth factors (sugars, salts, pH buffers, amino acids, micronutrients and proteins). This causes the cells to proliferate and form muscle tissue, fat, or connective tissue.
As well as entailing a massive reduction in carbon footprint of meat production, cultured meats contain no antibiotics, helping to reduce antibiotic resistance and food borne disease, and the levels of fat and cholesterol can be controlled to make meat-eating healthier.
Like Mosa Meat, many of the start-ups are working on beef.
Israel’s Aleph Farms, which has produced a prototype minute
steak, is focusing on beef first because cattle are the most
environmentally problematic livestock. 23 Others are betting on
early differentiation: California-based Memphis Meats is working
on poultry; Dutch-based Meatable 24 and the UK's Higher Steaks
25 are both concentrating on pork; and Singapore's Shiok Meats 26 has
opted for cultured crustaceans.
Despite the international activity and multiple millions of investment from venture capitalists and traditional meat companies, like Cargill and Tyson Foods, the most ambitious estimates put lab-grown meat on dinner plates in about two years' time. Others maintain five years is more realistic. The main technical challenges are finding affordable growth media and production and supply chain scale-up. Moreover, cultured meat has not received regulatory approval in any market to date; in Europe, companies will have to compile and submit a dossier under the novel foods regulation.
Once they get there, the rewards will be considerable. The AT Kearney report predicted that cultured meat
will outpace even meat analogues by 2040, with a 35% market share. 27
