The curtains have fallen on the FIFA World Cup: Lessons for Alt-Prot
Protein · Football · Africa
Lessons for Alt-Prot from the FIFA World Cup
Eight lessons from ninety minutes of football — for a movement that mistook fundraising for progress, and forgot the crowd.
The 2026 FIFA World Cup drew audiences in the billions. And on the very day the final whistle blew in New Jersey, 2.6 billion people — very nearly a third of humanity — still could not afford a healthy diet. Two tournaments ran at once this summer. One ended in gold and confetti, between a half-time spectacle and a closing show. The other has barely kicked off.
For alternative protein has spent the better part of a decade — and something on the order of nineteen billion dollars — learning, at ruinous expense, lessons that ninety minutes plus extra time rehearsed for nothing. Let me set out eight, on the honest understanding that a metaphor pushed past its breaking point betrays the man who leans on it. Football is not protein. So each lesson must pay its own way, or be struck out.
Lesson One
Systems beat superstars — and systems win on margins, not marquees
Rodri, a Manchester City midfielder, sat on Lionel Messi for the length of the final; Spain out-shot Argentina twenty attempts to three. The collective ground down the man. But the deeper reading is the harder one. Winning technologies rarely prevail because they are scientifically superior. They prevail because they become cheaper, easier to manufacture, simpler to regulate, and more profitable to distribute. Football rewards goals. Markets reward margins. Cultivated meat was the superstar signing — and it has collapsed by roughly ninety per cent from its 2021 peak, because its economics never balanced. What quietly became the investable side of the pitch was the portfolio whose numbers did add up: fermentation, mycoprotein, single-cell protein.
Here is the concession the argument must make before it is made for me. Spain were not plucky average men who merely stuck together. They were European champions and pre-tournament favourites, a squad of collective quality. Coherence multiplies excellence; it does not manufacture it. A portfolio of mediocre technologies on thin margins still loses one-nil, and deserves to.
Football rewards goals. Markets reward margins.
Lesson Two
Petfood is the proving ground, not the consolation
Ferran Torres came on in the sixty-second minute and scored the only goal of a World Cup final — the substitute nobody had circled. In alternative protein, the substitute left on the bench is petfood, dismissed as beneath serious ambition. Yet the single cultivated-meat clearance Europe has granted to date — the United Kingdom’s approval of Meatly — was for petfood. Petfood is where manufacturing, nutrition, the regulatory pathway and commercial scale can all be proven before a molecule goes anywhere near a human plate. One caution, kept honest: palatability is species-specific — a dog’s receptors are not ours — so what petfood proves is the discipline of palatability and the machinery of scale, not a flavour that walks across the counter. Even so, the bench wins finals.
Lesson Three
Brilliance cannot save a broken structure — and capital cannot buy product–market fit
Emiliano Martínez made twelve saves in the final, the most ever recorded in a World Cup final, and still finished the evening a loser. Brilliance spent inside a broken structure wins nothing. The industry knows this by its dead. Believer Meats — once Future Meat Technologies — had raised over three hundred and ninety million dollars, cleared the FDA, and built a finished plant in North Carolina, only to fold in 2025. France’s Ÿnsect, with more than six hundred million dollars behind it, went into judicial liquidation. More than sixty ventures have shuttered or merged at distressed valuations since 2024. Too much of the field mistook fundraising for progress. Capital can buy laboratories. It cannot buy product–market fit. The scoreboard is the only line item that ever clears.
Capital can buy laboratories. It cannot buy product–market fit.
Lesson Four
Know when the legend has aged out
Messi, marked out of what is almost certainly his last World Cup, turned away as Spain celebrated their goal. Star fatigue, made visible. The paradigm of 2019 to 2021 — Beyond, Impossible, cell culture as wholesale replacement for the animal — is fatigued in exactly this way; Beyond Meat trades more than ninety per cent below its peak. You do not build the next team around a hero past his summit.
And yet — the concession, credited honestly — this is maturation, not death. Fermentation still drew more capital in Europe last year than either plant-based or cultivated meat. Messi remained the finest of his generation to the final whistle; the technology was, and is, real. But the last tournament’s hero does not win the next one. The category must find its Yamal.
Lesson Five
Choose the pitch where the defence — and the referee — are not set against you
There were two defences on that field, and only one was playing an own goal. The first is the EFSA novel-food gate — exacting, slow, and principled. Not one cultivated-meat product has yet been authorised in the European Union; Gourmey’s foie gras and Mosa Meat’s beef fat sit under review to this day. That is a keeper doing his job. The own goal is the pre-emptive ban: Italy’s Law 172 of 2023, passed before the Union’s own standstill period had even elapsed; with France, Romania, Poland and Hungary attempting their own versions, and Florida, Alabama and Mississippi running the American edition. That is a defender clearing the ball into his own net to please the crowd in the stands: the farm lobby.
But the sharpest move on this pitch is to refuse the frame that this wall is your wall. Fungal mycoprotein and single-cell protein are fermentation, not cell culture; they sit outside the cage entirely, and petfood is a third pitch again. The obstruction that actually holds you is quieter — the March 2026 ruling that spared “burger” and “sausage” but banned the word “meat” and thirty-one other everyday terms for alternative proteins, and the Protein Action Plan’s land-based metric that renders your tonnage statistically invisible. That is not a defender tackling you. That is the referee, marking you absent from a match you are winning.
Lesson Six
Consumers are the crowd, not the referee
The regulator is the referee. The consumer is the crowd — and it is the crowd that decides whether the stadium fills. Consumers are not referees. They do not buy technologies; they buy trust. No fermentation titre, no life-cycle assessment, no elegant gene circuit has ever ordered itself for dinner. The reckoning that swept the sector was, at bottom, a failure to earn the crowd — products engineered to impress investors and destined to repel shoppers. Win the crowd’s trust through taste, through price, and through honesty on the label, or play out your seasons to empty seats.
Lesson Seven
Africa is still playing catch-up — in the one match where it holds the ball
The furthest any African side travelled was Morocco’s quarter-final — beating Canada and the Netherlands before falling to France — a step down from their semi-final in 2022, and no African nation has ever reached a World Cup final, let alone lifted the trophy. In football, still catch-up. In protein research, the same story, and it stings the more because of what lies beneath the sprinter’s feet. Africa is the resource-rich Cradle: the Cradle of humanity, and the cradle of the very feedstocks that fermentation devours — the biomass, the crop residues, the agricultural sidestreams. The substrate is African. The bioreactors, the patents, and the value capture are not.
And the numbers are turning the wrong way precisely where it matters. While the global inability to afford a healthy diet eased slightly, Africa suffered the largest increase of any world region between 2023 and 2024; undernourishment on the continent has now passed one person in five; and of the 512 million the FAO projects will face hunger in 2030, nearly three in five will be African. The world is walking off the pitch as Africa’s match grows harder. The concession is due, and I make it gladly: the fertiliser subsidy was real relief, the digitisation of public services a genuine convenience. But a continent cannot dine out forever on having been the beginning while others own the peak. To be the Cradle is not a destiny. It is a starting whistle.
Lesson Eight
The trophy is not won in the final
In Nandi reckoning, eight is the number of manhood — the count at which a boy is summoned to become a man. Let the eighth lesson be the one in which the field grows up.
No trophy is won in the final ninety minutes. It is won years earlier, in the academies, the scouting, the coaching, the infrastructure, the patient continuity that the cameras never show. Spain’s victory was built in a youth pipeline that Luis de la Fuente himself had coached, upon an identity of possession refined since 2010; and Arsenal, who lent Spain three of their champions, finished runners-up three seasons running before the title finally came. Likewise, alternative protein will not be won by a single breakthrough. It will be won in the unglamorous off-season — regulatory science, scale-up, manufacturing, ingredient quality, sensory science, consumer acceptance, and the relentless reduction of cost.
And here is the team already doing precisely that while others argue on the touchline. While Europe debates definitions and America debates investment cycles, China quietly builds capacity: a biomanufacturing sector worth around one hundred and fifty billion dollars by 2025, already producing more than seventy per cent of the world’s fermented bioproducts, with microbial protein and synthetic biology written into two consecutive Five-Year Plans as national priority under its “Big Food” doctrine — the one technology in the coming plan named both a core technology to be mastered and a future industry to be grown. Championships are not won by the loudest supporters. They are won by the team that spends the off-season building the capacity to win.
The trophy is not won in the final. It is won in the off-season.
The Grand Finale
The match that matters is still ahead of us
So take the measure of the two tournaments. A World Cup is won every four years, and there will be another in 2030. The race to nourish ten billion — the number the world will reach only late in this century, and only once — has no rematch. The whistle in New Jersey has blown; the gold trophy has been handed across a rope line between a half-time show and a closing act, before crowds who were never once hungry. But the match that matters has barely sounded in Africa — in Nandi, in Tinderet, in the shade where a barefoot herdsboy from a family of squatters once minded other men’s cattle and knew, without needing the word for it, exactly what a shortfall of protein does to a growing body, and grew up to argue this from Lower Saxony. That is not biography for colour. It is the credential, and the reason I am permitted to stand on both touchlines at once.
The final whistle has blown in New Jersey. It has barely sounded in Africa. The grand finale is still ahead of us — still to be won — and Africa, of all the teams on the field, cannot afford to keep playing catch-up in the one tournament where it already holds the ball.
Dr. rer. nat. habil. Dr. Seronei Chelulei Cheison
Langwedel, Niedersachsen
Alternative proteins commercialisation in petfood: Learnings from Interzoo 2026
By Dr. Seronei C. Cheison, Sinonin Biotech | 21 May 2026 | 9 min read
Interzoo 2026 (Nuremberg, 12–15 May) drew approximately 2,400 exhibitors from ~70 countries across 150,000 m² — and unveiled an unusual concentration of alternative-protein commercial launches. Photo: Thomas Geiger / WZF, via petfoodindustry.com.
Between 7 and 16 May 2026, five commercial milestones in the United States, the United Kingdom and continental Europe pushed alternative proteins from a sustainability side-conversation to a named, dated commercial product category inside the USD 140 billion global pet-food market. Mycoprotein, cultivated meat, precision-fermentation animal protein, and algal omega-3 all booked first-of-kind commercial events inside a single ten-day window centred on Interzoo 2026, the world’s largest pet-industry trade fair. Here is what happened, why it happened in that order, and what I think it means for the future of protein production well beyond pets.
Key Highlights
- Five alternative-protein commercial milestones occurred within ten days in May 2026: an FDA Letter of No Objection for precision-fermentation lamb protein (Bond Pet Foods × Hill’s Pet Nutrition); the European launch of the first complete-and-balanced cultivated-meat dog food (FORZA10 × BeneMeat “Coolty Meat”); the first commercial mycoprotein petfood product (Enifer × Rovio Pet Foods, PEKILO®); the inaugural Interzoo Sustainability Award for algal omega-3 (dsm-firmenich); and Meatly’s £10.4 M Series A for a 20,000-litre cultivated-meat pilot facility in London.
- Coolty Meat is a complete-and-balanced dog food at 26 % cultivated meat inclusion, classified as a hypoallergenic mono-protein dietetic diet under EU PARNUT legislation. That is a step-change from the 4 % cultivated-chicken inclusion in Meatly’s UK treats launch only fifteen months earlier.
- The BeneMeat “Try & Share” consumer programme — ~350 dog–owner dyads across 25 European countries (Sept–Dec 2025) — reported ~88 % “dogs liked it”, ~85 % “visibly excited” and ~83 % “as good as or better than what they normally eat”, to my knowledge the largest published consumer dataset for cultivated petfood.
- Three controlled in-vivo studies published in 2024–2026 (Linde et al. on 12-month canine plant-based diets; Mioto et al. on defatted black-soldier-fly meal at 0/7.5/15 % chicken replacement; Enifer’s 60-day PEKILO® trial) substantially close the long-standing evidence gap that had held adoption back.
The week that changed pet food
I have argued in long form — most recently in a peer-reviewed perspective with my co-author Raluca-Ioana Alexa — that pet nutrition is the lead translational market for the next generation of protein technologies: the regulatory environment is more flexible than human food, pet owners pay a premium for innovation, and the sensory bar imposed by carnivorous species forces real engineering rather than greenwashing. Interzoo 2026 made the same case in compressed form.
The cluster is not coincidence. It reflects technology pipelines that matured at the same time, regulatory frameworks in the US, UK, EU and Asia-Pacific that quietly aligned through 2024–2025, and a deliberate strategic choice by the technology developers themselves to launch into petfood first.
The trade fair itself was the largest edition on record: 2,400 exhibitors from approximately seventy countries, 150,000 square metres of exhibition space, 87 % international participation. Sustainability and alternative proteins ran as dominant themes through both the main programme and the pre-event Petfood Forum Europe and the inaugural Interzoo Sustainability Conference held on 11 May. But the substance was in the five commercial events.
What happened at Interzoo
Coolty Meat — the first complete-and-balanced commercial cultivated-meat dog food, debuted at Interzoo 2026 on 12 May. Image: via petfoodindustry.com.
Coolty Meat: cultivated meat hits 26 % inclusion
The most visible launch was Coolty Meat, debuted on 12 May 2026 by the Italian brand FORZA10 (Nasta Pet Food group, Trento) with the Czech cultivated-meat developer Bene Meat Technologies. Both companies describe it as the world’s first commercial complete-and-balanced cultivated-meat petfood product — distinguishing it from cultivated treats already on the market.
The formulation is a wet dog food with 26 % cultivated meat from rodent (murine) cells, integrated with plant carriers, supplemented to AAFCO-comparable nutritional adequacy, and free of antibiotics, hormones and preservatives. It is sold as a hypoallergenic mono-protein dietetic diet under European PARNUT (Particular Nutritional Use) legislation, with a recommended three-to-eight-week initial feeding period under veterinary supervision. Retail is planned for Q3 2026.
Two design choices are worth dwelling on. The choice of rodent cells rather than bovine, porcine or avian was made by BeneMeat principally on technical grounds — amino-acid profile, suspension-culture characteristics, and a non-allergenic positioning that supports the dietetic indication — not for novelty value. And the 26 % inclusion is materially higher than the 4 % cultivated chicken in the Meatly × THE PACK “Chick Bites” treats launched in the UK in February 2025. A 26 % inclusion at competitive cost lands inside the 25–35 % meat-meal range typical of conventional wet diets. That is the difference between a proof-of-concept and a replacement ingredient.
Internal palatability testing returned a 9/10 acceptance rate, 10/10 long-term preference, and 9/10 overall palatability across the tested cohort. But the more interesting data came from BeneMeat’s “Try & Share” programme: ~350 dog owners in 25 European countries took the cultivated treats home between September and December 2025. ~88 % of owners reported their dogs liked them, ~85 % reported visible excitement, ~83 % rated them as good as or better than the products they normally feed. These are consumer-survey figures, not controlled-trial data — but to my knowledge they constitute the largest published consumer-acceptance dataset for cultivated petfood, by a wide margin.
A 26 % cultivated-meat inclusion at competitive cost is not a treat-format demonstration. It is, in principle, an ingredient-replacement event.
PEKILO® arrives commercially: mycoprotein in pet food
Enifer’s PEKILO® mycoprotein — produced by biomass fermentation of Paecilomyces variotii on agro-industrial side-streams — launched in a semi-moist dog treat with Rovio Pet Foods at Interzoo 2026. Image: via LinkedIn.
On the same day, the Finnish biotech Enifer Oy and Finnish manufacturer Rovio Pet Foods unveiled a semi-moist dog treat formulated with Enifer’s PEKILO® mycoprotein. PEKILO® is produced by biomass fermentation of the filamentous fungus Paecilomyces variotii on agro-industrial side-streams. It delivers more than 60 % protein by dry weight, with an amino-acid profile that approximates animal meat-meal patterns, and contributes functional fibre — β-glucan and chitin — consistent with glycaemic moderation and satiety properties characterised across the broader biomass-fungal literature.
The launch followed Enifer’s first 4-tonne commercial production run in March 2026 and a US FDA GRAS dossier filing the same month, building on prior self-affirmed GRAS status. Enifer’s internal 60-day study in sixteen adult dogs returned high apparent digestibility, no adverse stool effects, and biomarker shifts consistent with immune activation and improved oxidative balance — and palatability strong enough to anchor the semi-moist treat format.
What it means commercially is straightforward. Enifer’s €33 million biomass-fermentation facility in Kantvik, Finland — entering operation in the second half of 2026 with ~3,000 t/yr nameplate capacity — now moves from a pipeline asset to one with secured offtake against a launched product. The downstream partnerships already confirmed — Skretting (aquafeed), Nestlé Purina (petfood), Valio (dairy) — suggest the same pattern will repeat in adjacent sectors over 2026–2028.
Industry endorsement of algal omega-3: dsm-firmenich wins the inaugural Sustainability Award
On 11 May, the eve of the trade fair, dsm-firmenich received the inaugural Interzoo Sustainability Award for the development of algae-based omega-3 ingredients positioned as an alternative to marine fish oil. The winner was selected from 28 submissions by a combined audience-and-jury vote at the Interzoo Sustainability Conference; the other finalists were i Tail Corporation and ADM. Elliott Harris, former United Nations Chief Economist and Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development, presented the trophy.
Trade-fair awards are partly promotional, but two things make this one significant. The selection criterion was credible substitution of marine fish oil at industrial volumes, not future potential. And the seniority of the jury — combined with the rigour of the brief — reads as mainstream-industry endorsement that algal omega-3 has now moved from a niche premium category to a credible, scale-competitive substitution route across mid-tier and premium petfood.
That signal was reinforced by the parallel announcement that MiAlgae (Edinburgh, UK) had commissioned its Grangemouth scale-up facility in early Q2 2026. The Scottish plant will increase DHA output more than tenfold, recycle ~36.1 million litres per year of Scotch whisky industry by-products as heterotrophic feedstock, and is backed by up to £3 million of joint UK and Scottish government investment. MiAlgae’s commercial supply agreement with Butternut Box (London) for fresh refrigerated dog food, signed in March, lands the algal omega-3 substitution story squarely in the premium mainstream rather than the experimental fringe.
The bracketing milestones outside Nuremberg
On 12 May 2026 the FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine issued a Letter of No Objection on Bond Pet Foods’ GRAS Notice for Lamb Protein Yeast — the first precision-fermentation animal protein cleared for use in US dog food. Image: via feedandadditive.com.
Bond × Hill’s: the FDA’s first precision-fermentation green light
Two further events of comparable weight bracketed Interzoo. On 12 May 2026 — the opening day of the trade fair — the FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine issued a Letter of No Objection on the GRAS Notice for Lamb Protein Yeast, a precision-fermentation-derived animal protein developed jointly by Bond Pet Foods (Boulder, CO) and Hill’s Pet Nutrition (Topeka, KS, Colgate-Palmolive). The clearance supports use at up to 15 % of finished food in healthy adult dogs, supported by a six-month longitudinal feeding study at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
This is the first precision-fermentation-derived animal protein cleared via the FDA GRAS-Notice route for US dog food. It establishes a procedural precedent that other notifiers with engineered-yeast and engineered-bacterial platforms — Calysta, KnipBio, Enifer and others — can be expected to invoke. Bond and Hill’s have already signalled that a feline submission is in preparation.
Meatly Series A: capital backs the cultivated-meat infrastructure
Five days earlier, on 7 May 2026, Meatly (London) closed a £10.4 million Series A funding round to construct a 20,000-litre cultivated-meat pilot facility — what the company describes as Europe’s largest cultivated-meat production site. The cost trajectory the company disclosed is, in my view, the most important quantitative datapoint of the entire ten-day window: chemically defined, protein-free growth medium fell from ~£1 per litre in 2024 to £0.22 per litre in 2025, against an industrial-scale target of £0.015 per litre. The pilot-scale 320-litre bioreactor was built for ~£12,500. Stainless-steel incumbents at comparable working volume run an order of magnitude higher.
Together, Bond × Hill’s and Meatly bookend a four-day window in which the regulatory, commercial-launch and capital-formation dimensions of cell-derived alternative proteins in petfood all advanced materially.
Why this isn’t just five news stories
Petfood is now the lead translational market for the next protein wave. The Interzoo 2026 cluster is the most concentrated evidence to date for that proposition.
Three reasons I read the cluster as a structural inflection rather than a series of coincidences.
First, the market is now too large to ignore. Pet food alone has expanded at >6 % per year since 2020, with the global pet-care category now over EUR 189 billion when services are included — an addressable market for alternative-protein ingredients in the low tens of USD billions by 2030 at even single-digit inclusion levels. North America accounts for roughly EUR 84.6 B, Europe EUR 52.4 B; the rest sits in Asia-Pacific and Latin America, both growing fast.
Second, the evidence base has caught up. Three controlled in-vivo studies published in 2024–2026 — Linde et al. (12-month plant-based diet in 15 dogs, all clinical parameters within reference range), Mioto et al. (BSFL at 0/7.5/15 % chicken replacement, no adverse markers, palatability parity), and the Enifer 60-day PEKILO® trial — close the controlled-trial evidence gap that had held adoption back. Combined with the BeneMeat Try & Share consumer dataset, what was previously dismissed as enthusiast advocacy now sits on a measured, dated, citable evidence base.
Third, regulators across four jurisdictions are now visibly aligning. The US has Bond × Hill’s GRAS precedent plus AAFCO BSFL (2021) and defatted mealworm (2024). The EU maintains BSFL, mealworm, mycoprotein and microalgae in its Feed Materials Catalogue, just authorised UV-treated Tenebrio molitor powder for human consumption (Reg. (EU) 2025/89, 20 January 2025), and accepts BeneMeat (2023) and BioCraft (2024) petfood notifications. The UK FSA published in January 2026 the world’s first dedicated guidance on cell-cultivated foods for human consumption. Singapore granted Asia’s first cultivated petfood approval in June 2025 and cultivated duck approval (Parima) in April 2026.
The persisting Italian prohibition on cultivated meat is real but does not at present block the European-level petfood pathway, because cultivated petfood is regulated under the EU feed-materials and feed-additives framework rather than as a novel food.
Business lessons: who broke, what works
Two business models, one sector inflection: the B2B ingredient-supply + brand-partnership pattern of the May 2026 winners (top) against the vertical-integration pattern that broke in 2025 (bottom). Diagram by author.
The May 2026 cluster lands against a much less benign capital backdrop than 2021–2023.
Ÿnsect — once Europe’s flagship insect-protein scale-up — was placed in judicial liquidation by a French commercial court in December 2025 after restructuring attempts failed. The flagship Dole facility is being wound down; a smaller pilot continues as an insect-fertiliser venture. Ÿnsect had raised in excess of EUR 600 million. Earlier in 2025, Wild Earth — the US plant-based petfood brand — entered Chapter 11 restructuring.
Both episodes have become canonical cautionary cases against highly capital-intensive, vertically integrated business models that try to scale production and create a consumer brand simultaneously while subsidies and headline funding rounds substitute for working revenue.
The five May 2026 winners offer the textbook contrast. Bond Pet Foods, BeneMeat, Enifer, dsm-firmenich and Meatly all operate principally as ingredient or technology suppliers to established petfood brands rather than as vertically integrated branded businesses. Bond supplies Hill’s. BeneMeat supplies FORZA10. Enifer supplies Rovio, Skretting, Nestlé Purina and Valio. Meatly’s 2025 launch was through THE PACK, with Pets at Home as retail partner.
The investor-screening question now widely discussed in the sector — “is this business a brand pretending to be a technology company, or a technology company executing a focused brand strategy?” — has acquired sharp practical force.
A second pattern is worth flagging. Magic Valley, the Melbourne cultivated-meat developer that launched the “Rogue Pet” cultivated-pork dog-treat brand in Australia in March 2026, positions its petfood programme explicitly as an early-revenue and learning channel that funds a longer-range human-food cultivated-meat objective. Petfood is the on-ramp, not the destination. I expect this pattern to recur across the cultivated and precision-fermentation segments over 2026–2028 as more developers face the same lead-translational-market choice.
What’s next: 2026–2030
Three predictions follow.
One. The 2026–2028 window will see a succession of further commercial firsts in cultivated and precision-fermentation petfood: feline cultivated-meat products (BeneMeat, BioCraft Pet Nutrition); cultivated-seafood cat products (Friends & Family / Umami Bioworks across Singapore, the UK and EU); a feline FDA clearance for Bond and Hill’s; commercial cultivated chicken and turkey ingredients in US dog food via further GRAS-Notice precedents; and likely an inaugural EU petfood-specific cultivated-meat authorisation under the feed-additives or feed-materials framework.
Two. Cultivated and precision-fermentation ingredients will begin to displace mainstream meat-meal inclusion at the 5–15 % level in mid-tier dry petfood, not merely at the 1–5 % level in premium or therapeutic formats. The Coolty Meat 26 % inclusion in a complete-and-balanced wet diet is the immediate proof point.
Three. The cumulative pet-channel data — controlled studies, consumer-acceptance datasets, real-world post-market surveillance — will be the principal input into the parallel human-food regulatory dossiers being prepared by the same technology developers. Petfood will continue to serve as the translational learning ground, with measurable lead times.
Three risks bound the optimism. Financing-cycle exposure remains the dominant sectoral risk. Cell-line provenance and welfare considerations for cultivated meat (especially the use of rodent or other non-traditional cells) will become a higher-salience consumer-communication challenge as inclusion levels rise. And the EU human-food cultivated-meat framework — currently working through national positions, including the Italian ban — will continue to set the political backdrop against which petfood operates.
The bottom line
Between 7 and 16 May 2026, alternative proteins crossed the commercial threshold in pet nutrition. Mycelial, cell-cultivated, microalgal and precision-fermentation proteins are no longer pipeline assets — they are ingredient categories with named, dated commercial product launches addressing a USD 140-plus billion market. Petfood is now the lead translational market for the next protein wave, ahead of aquaculture and well ahead of human food.
The most resilient operating models are B2B ingredient suppliers partnered with established petfood brands, not vertically integrated standalone consumer brands. The cautionary cases that have become canonical — Ÿnsect, Wild Earth — make that screening question concrete.
I expect the next 24–36 months to deliver more of the same: faster, denser clusters of commercial firsts, increasingly cross-jurisdictional, increasingly mid-tier rather than only premium. Interzoo 2026 was the inflection point. The work now is in the execution.
About the author. Dr. rer. nat. habil. Dr. Seronei Chelulei Cheison is the founder and CEO of Sinonin Biotech GmbH (Langwedel, Germany). He holds a Habilitation with Venia Legendi in Food Biotechnology from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and brings more than twenty years of international experience across food science, dairy and protein biotechnology, and pet nutrition and petfood palatability — including senior roles in the petfood industry prior to founding Sinonin Biotech. His current work focuses on alternative-protein ingredients and translational strategy across pet nutrition and petfood palatant innovation and adjacent markets. He writes on alternative protein themes in the petfood space and serves on the industry Advisory Board of the Protein Production Technology.
Cite this post: Cheison, S. C. (2026). Five milestones, ten days, one $140 billion market: lessons from Interzoo 2026. Sinonin Biotech blog, 21 May 2026.
Alternative protein industry failures
Headwinds in the Alternative Protein Space
As ambitious startups go bankrupt: An analysis of structural failures across plant-based, cultivated, and fermentation protein ventures
The alternative protein industry, once celebrated as the vanguard of a global dietary revolution, is currently experiencing its most severe period of contraction. Between late 2024 and early 2026, more than 40 publicly reported alternative protein ventures across segments such as plant-based, fermentation, cultivated meat, and insect protein have either shuttered, merged at distressed valuations, or filed for bankruptcy.
Investment in cultivated meat has suffered a dramatic decline—funding has dropped by roughly 90% since the 2021 peak. Beyond Meat’s stock price has declined by more than 90% from its 2021 peak. France’s Ÿnsect, the flagship insect protein company with over $600 million in funding, was placed into judicial liquidation, accompanied by a cascade of failures among smaller insect farming ventures throughout Europe.
This opinion examines the interlocking structural, consumer-behavioral, technological, and macroeconomic forces driving this industry-wide shakeout through detailed analysis of failed ventures including Believer Meats, Meatable, Beyond Meat, Oatly, Ÿnsect, and Impossible Foods.
Key Takeaways
- 40+ ventures across plant-based, cultivated, and insect protein segments have shut down or merged since late 2024
- 93% funding decline in cultivated meat since 2021 peak (from $989M to $65M)
- Four structural headwinds: Consumer acceptance gap, capital intensity trap, regulatory hostility, ultra-processed food backlash
- Path forward: Hybrid products, niche targeting, patient capital, unit economics over growth
The Protein Pivot: A Reckoning
Around 2020, concerns about the environment, pandemic-related supply chain issues, and investments from celebrities fueled a wave of enthusiasm for alternative proteins. Startups raised billions of dollars, and experts predicted that plant-based and cultivated meats would take significant market share from traditional animal agriculture by the mid-2030s. Beyond Meat’s 2019 IPO was seen as proof of this trend, Impossible Foods became a mainstream sensation, and companies like Ÿnsect, which farm insects, were celebrated as models of the circular economy. The core message was persuasive: feeding a growing world population with less land, water, and climate impact.
However, while the narrative still exists, the challenging business realities are becoming more evident. According to the Good Food Institute, U.S. retail sales of plant-based meat and seafood dropped by 7% in 2024 to $1.2 billion, with unit sales declining by 11%. In response, retailers reduced shelf space for these products—distribution points for plant-based meat fell by 9% in conventional stores and 15% in natural food outlets. Additionally, surveys show most consumers who tried these products switched back to conventional meats.
The Anatomy of the Hype Cycle
The alternative protein industry has closely followed the Gartner Hype Cycle. Between 2019 and 2021, media buzz and investor enthusiasm drove up valuations and market expectations beyond what product readiness or customer demand justified, with cultivated meat firms raising over $1.6 billion in funding. Afterward, reality set in as consumer preferences, competition from traditional animal agriculture, and high capital needs hindered growth, and rising interest rates further shifted investment toward lower-risk sectors like software and AI.
The sector’s correction has been unusually rapid and severe, exacerbated by overpromising and premature scaling, with a major hurdle remaining: consistently creating products consumers want at acceptable prices.
Case Studies: Anatomy of Failure
The following case studies illuminate the range of structural problems that no single company, however well-managed, could have overcome alone.
| Company | Segment | Total Raised | Status | Primary Failure Driver |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beyond Meat | Plant-Based | $1B+ (IPO) | Declining | Demand collapse, debt burden |
| Believer Meats | Cultivated Meat | $390M+ | Shut Down | Capital exhaustion |
| Meatable | Cultivated Meat | $105M | Shut Down | Funding drought |
| Ÿnsect | Insect Protein | $600M+ | Liquidated | Cost vs commodity feed pricing |
| Meati Foods | Mycelium | $450M | Sold for $4M | Lender covenant sweep |
| Impossible Foods | Plant-Based | $2.01B | Struggling | Persistent unprofitability |
| Oatly | Plant-Based Dairy | $1.5B+ (IPO) | Declining | Execution failures |
| BIOMILQ | Cell-Based Dairy | $24.5M | Bankrupt | IP dispute / uninvestable |
Beyond Meat: The Public Face of Decline
Beyond Meat remains the most visible symbol of the alternative protein industry’s struggles. The company’s journey from $239 per share at its July 2019 peak to trading below $6 in late 2025 reflects a fundamental misalignment between initial market expectations and enduring consumer demand. The company carries over $1.2 billion in outstanding debt while facing persistent revenue declines.
The core issue is not production capability—Beyond Meat’s products are widely distributed and technically sophisticated. The problem is repeat purchase. Industry data shows that while many consumers try plant-based meat once, the majority revert to conventional meat. Average purchase frequency among plant-based meat buyers is approximately once every few months, making it nearly impossible to sustain the revenue projections that justified Beyond Meat’s initial valuation.
Operationally, Beyond Meat has enacted cost reductions, workforce adjustments, and scaled back its international presence. While the company has publicly denied any imminent bankruptcy, its path reflects the broader industry shift from expansion at all costs to greater capital discipline and a focus on unit economics.
Believer Meats: The Most Dramatic Collapse
Believer Meats, formerly Future Meat Technologies, raised over $390 million, secured FDA clearance, and constructed a major cultivated meat facility in North Carolina. Despite announcing readiness for commercial production in late 2025, the company abruptly closed, facing lawsuits over unpaid bills and failing to meet a crucial funding deadline.
The technical and regulatory hurdles were overcome, but the business collapsed due to financial pressures, as industry investment dropped from $989 million in 2021 to $65 million in 2025. The facility exists, the regulatory approval is in place, but the capital to operate it vanished.
Ÿnsect: The $600 Million Insect That Could Not Compete on Price
Ÿnsect, a French company once viewed as the global leader in insect protein, raised over $600 million and opened a major mealworm facility with government support. However, the company entered judicial liquidation in December 2025. The difference between initial ambitions and reality was stark: in 2023, Ÿnsect reported turnover of only €656,000, while losses exceeded €80 million. Industry commentators highlighted this gap as “500 million raised to make the revenue of a bakery.”
The downfall was not solely due to Western consumer reluctance to eat insects, as Ÿnsect focused mainly on animal feed and pet food markets. The main issue was economic—insect meal costs two to ten times more than soy or fish meal, making it difficult to compete in price-driven commodity markets. The promise of creating a circular protein loop using food waste failed, as regulations restricted many waste types from being used as feed. Ÿnsect instead relied on agricultural by-products like wheat bran, already common in animal feed, which undermined its environmental and financial rationale.
Meati Foods: $450 Million Evaporates in Weeks
Meati Foods, based in Colorado, was one of the fastest-growing mycelium meat companies and had raised about $450 million since 2016. By 2024, its Alt-Steaks were available in 7,000 stores, and it was a top growth item in the meat alternatives category.
On February 28, 2025, Meati’s lender swept two-thirds of its cash after the company breached a financial covenant related to revenue and gross profit. This move was unexpected, as the bank had assured management on January 31 that it would not sweep cash. The company soon filed a WARN notice for 150 layoffs and possible closure of its manufacturing plant. In May 2025, Meati assigned its assets for the benefit of creditors, and its operations were sold for only $4 million—less than 1% of its peak $650 million valuation.
Oatly: Execution Failure at Scale
Oatly’s experience differs from others in that plant-based milk was expected to be a more robust category than plant-based meat, and Oatly enjoyed strong brand recognition. Its May 2021 IPO valued the company at nearly ten billion dollars, but its share price has since fallen by over 94%.
The main reason for this decline was execution, not demand. Following its IPO, Oatly expanded its manufacturing footprint aggressively but poorly. Production targets were missed, resulting in supply inconsistencies. Key partners, including Starbucks, diversified suppliers to mitigate disruption. Revenue growth lagged behind projections, and Oatly was forced to raise capital at high interest rates.
Structural Headwinds: Four Interconnected Forces
The failures documented above are not isolated incidents but symptoms of four deep structural problems that affect the entire alternative protein industry.
1. The Consumer Acceptance Gap
The fundamental challenge is that most people who try plant-based meat products do not become regular purchasers. Good Food Institute data shows average purchase frequency of once every couple of months among buyers, and approximately two-thirds of trial purchasers ultimately revert to conventional meat.
This is not a marketing problem that can be solved with better advertising—it reflects genuine product limitations around taste, texture, and price that current technology has not overcome. The industry framed the challenge primarily as a technology problem, but overlooked the deeper consumer behavior problem: people who tried the products didn’t come back.
2. The Capital Intensity Trap
Alternative proteins require massive upfront capital for facilities, R&D, and regulatory approval before generating any revenue. Cultivated meat companies, for instance, need hundreds of millions of dollars to build production capacity that can achieve costs competitive with conventional meat.
This creates what venture capitalists call a “valley of death”—the company needs to raise enormous sums to reach commercial viability, but investors are increasingly unwilling to provide that capital without proof of consumer demand, which cannot be demonstrated without the commercial-scale production that the capital would fund.
3. Regulatory and Political Headwinds
The regulatory environment has become actively hostile in key markets, with legislators increasingly treating alternative proteins as threats to traditional agriculture rather than innovations to be supported.
In the United States, multiple states have enacted or proposed bans on cultivated meat sales. Florida, Alabama, and Arizona have passed legislation prohibiting the production and sale of lab-grown meat, with legislators framing these products as existential threats to ranchers and farmers. These aren’t temporary regulatory delays—they’re categorical prohibitions designed to protect incumbent agricultural interests.
Europe presents an even more complex picture. In 2020, the European Parliament narrowly defeated “Amendment 171,” which would have banned plant-based products from using any dairy-related terms, packaging, or imagery. While the most extreme provisions failed, the EU already prohibits terms like “soy milk” or “oat milk”—forcing companies to use awkward alternatives like “soy drink” or “oat beverage.” The dairy lobby successfully argued that terms like “milk” are inherently associated with animal products and that allowing plant-based alternatives to use them constitutes unfair competition.
More recently, the European Parliament has debated extending similar restrictions to meat terminology. Proposed amendments would prohibit plant-based products from using terms like “burger,” “sausage,” “steak,” or “bacon”—even with qualifying prefixes like “veggie” or “plant-based.” Proponents argue this protects consumers from confusion; critics note that no consumer has ever purchased a “black bean burger” believing they were buying ground beef. The real objective is market protection, not consumer clarity.
These labeling restrictions create genuine business challenges. Marketing products as “plant-based disc” or “mycoprotein cylinder” instead of “burger” or “sausage” increases consumer confusion, raises marketing costs, and undermines the core value proposition: that these products can slot directly into existing meal patterns without requiring consumers to learn new culinary vocabularies.
The pattern extends beyond Europe and North America. In Australia, the dairy and meat industries have lobbied successfully for similar labeling restrictions. Singapore, despite being an early leader in approving cultivated meat sales, has seen minimal commercial success—suggesting that regulatory approval alone is insufficient without consumer demand and economic viability. Even in markets without explicit bans, regulatory uncertainty creates investment risk that deters the patient capital these ventures require.
The insect protein sector faced additional regulatory constraints that proved fatal to its business model. EU and U.S. rules prevented the circular waste-to-protein loop that companies like Ÿnsect had promised investors. Regulations restricted which food waste streams could be used as insect feed, forcing companies to use conventional agricultural inputs like wheat bran—destroying both their cost advantage and their environmental differentiation.
The pattern is clear: where alternative proteins threaten established agricultural interests, regulatory frameworks evolve to protect incumbents rather than enable innovation. This isn’t a temporary obstacle that can be overcome with better lobbying—it’s a structural feature of food policy in democracies where agricultural constituencies wield disproportionate political influence.
4. The Ultra-Processed Food Backlash
Consumer sentiment is turning against ultra-processed foods, driven by concerns about additives, preservatives, and industrial food production methods. Plant-based meat alternatives, with their long ingredient lists and industrial processing requirements, are increasingly caught in this backlash despite being positioned as healthier options.
This creates a double bind: the products must be processed enough to approximate meat’s taste and texture, but this processing makes them vulnerable to criticism as unhealthy ultra-processed foods.
The Cultivated Meat Abyss
Cultivated meat deserves particular attention as the segment that has fallen furthest from its initial promise. The 93% funding collapse from 2021 to 2025 is not merely a market correction—it represents a fundamental reassessment of the technology’s commercial viability.
The core challenge is cost. Producing cultivated meat at prices competitive with conventional meat requires solving problems of bioreactor efficiency, cell culture media costs, and production scale simultaneously. Each problem is tractable in isolation, but solving all three at once within a timeframe that venture capital can tolerate has proven elusive.
The Path Forward: What Might Actually Work
The alternative protein industry is not doomed, but it requires a fundamental recalibration. The companies most likely to survive and eventually thrive will be those that:
Focus on hybrid products rather than pure replacements—combining small amounts of cultivated cells with plant proteins, or blending conventional and alternative ingredients to achieve acceptable taste at lower cost.
Target specific high-value niches rather than attempting to replace all meat consumption—for example, precision fermentation of dairy proteins for high-end cheese applications, or cultivated fat for premium hybrid products.
Accept longer timelines and lower growth expectations—the industry must shift from venture capital’s typical 5-7 year exit timelines to patient capital willing to support 10-15 year development cycles.
Prioritize unit economics over growth—demonstrating that products can be profitable at small scale before attempting to raise capital for expansion.
Conclusion: Resilience Through Realism
The alternative protein industry’s current crisis is painful but potentially productive. The shakeout is eliminating business models built on hype rather than sustainable economics. What emerges from this contraction will be a smaller, more focused industry with realistic expectations about timelines, capital requirements, and consumer acceptance.
The survivors will not be the companies with the best stories or the most dramatic visions. They will be the ones that solved the trinity of taste, price, and convenience simultaneously—that built modular, capital-efficient production systems—that secured patient capital aligned with realistic timelines—and that positioned their products in ways that do not invite unfavorable comparisons with conventional food.
The alternative protein revolution is not dead. But it is learning, the hard way, that transformation takes longer and costs more than enthusiasts imagined. The next generation of products will be built on the lessons written in the bankruptcies documented above—and will be stronger for it.
Presentation at re:publica 2025 in Berlin on Diaspora Remittances
Our CEO, Seronei Chelulei Cheison was honoured to speak at re:publica 2025 in Berlin on 27 May 2025 on the theme “From “Black Tax” to “Business Capital” – Transforming African Diaspora Remittances“
Here is the talk
The talk highlighted the power of Diaspora remittances, a whooping US$3000/second to Africa and 10x that globally. There is an opportunity for growth.
Honoured at the Inaugural Jamhuri Diaspora Awards Ceremony – 2024
Interview: 10 questions for… Sinonin Biotech by ZEST
This article was first published on https://zest-project.eu/interview-10-questions-for-sinonin-biotech/
This section seeks to introduce each beneficiary, explain their sector, and describe their work in the project. Today it is the turn of Seronei, from Sinonin Biotech.
The main strength of the ZEST project is its multidisciplinary consortium, which consists of twelve entities from five different European countries and, specifically, the people working in them. The section ‘10 questions to…’ seeks to introduce each beneficiary, explain their sector, and describe their work in the project. Today it is the turn of Seronei, from Sinonin Biotech.
What is Sinonin Biotech?
Sinonin Biotech specializes in alternative protein and palatant enhancements for pet food. Founded by an expert in protein technology, Sinonin derives its name from the Nandi language of Kenya, meaning an evergreen highland rich in diverse flora and fauna. We are a German-based business founded by an ethnic minority and immigrant from Nandi Hills in Kenya. We are based in Langwedel, near Bremen (Germany).
What is your background and role at Sinonin Biotech?
Since September 2022, I have served as the Founding CEO of Sinonin Biotech, which was established three years ago.
What do you enjoy about your work?
I find it exhilarating to bridge theoretical knowledge with practical applications. With my background as a former Professor and an employee at a leading FMCG company, I bring a comprehensive understanding of both academia and industry to Sinonin Biotech. As a prominent innovator in palatability enhancers, I integrate in-depth product development insights with the ambitions of ingredient suppliers.
This dual perspective helps mitigate misunderstandings that could negatively impact solution acceptability. My advocacy extends to the pet palatant innovation sector, and I am a member of the Industry Advisory Board of The Future of Protein Productions eMagazine, ensuring our contributions are inclusive of the pet food sector.
Do you enjoy working on transnational collaborative projects, and why?
The ZEST project has provided me and my team, including Victor Kiprono and collaborator Dr. Raluca Alexa, a renowned expert in pet food hydrocolloids, the opportunity to engage with and learn from other consortium partners. The international diversity of this collaboration is enriching and exciting, offering a magnificent mix of talent and expertise.
Why did Sinonin Biotech join ZEST? What makes ZEST special and intriguing?
Sinonin Biotech joined ZEST to leverage our agility, expertise, and experience in pet food prototyping and validation using mycoproducts. The collaboration is particularly engaging because it allows us to transform raw materials into tangible products. Our role ensures the transition from theoretical concepts to practical, packageable products.
What’s Sinonin Biotech’s mission in the ZEST project?
Sinonin Biotech leads Work Package Five (WP5) on product formulations, in partnership with Tate & Lyle and LEITAT. Specifically, we will characterize and formulate products with proteins and chitin/chitosan for pet food applications. Our key roles include:
- Advancing Alternative Proteins: Integrating sustainable alternative proteins into pet food formulations.
- Ensuring Safety & Quality: Advocating for food safety and quality measures throughout the project.
- Prototyping & Validation: Developing model pet food recipes with significant inclusion of alternative proteins.
- Optimizing Palatability & Performance: Assessing the impact of alternative proteins on taste and acceptance in pet food.
What are you currently working on?
We are characterising the physical properties of small-scale products to analyse their rheological properties. This analysis will inform the suitability of the biomass for applications in human food, pet food, and cosmetics.
What are the main challenges you are currently facing?
Regarding ZEST, there are no current challenges. We are progressing on schedule, preparing to advance to month 12 of the project.
What are the key findings so far?
There are no findings yet as WP5 awaits products from preceding WPs. Please check back in six months as we are rearing to produce prototypes of petfood for our project panelists to taste and feel!
What do you believe will be ZEST’s contributions once the project is completed in scientific, social, and economic terms?
ZEST’s primary contribution will be demonstrating the feasibility of its biomass and product fractions in pet food, human food, and beauty products. We aim to change the focus of the conversation from “alternative proteins” to “proteins from alternative sources.” Another significant outcome will be substantial upskilling and technical knowledge transfers. New human resources, including our intern Victor Kiprono, have been hired, contributing to this transformative learning process involving AI, fermentation technology, biomass processing, and product prototyping.
#ZESTProject official launch
The ZESTProject, co-funded by the Circular Bio-based Europe Joint Undertaking (CBE JU) initiative, has kicked-off!!
Learn more about this new four-year project undertaken by twelve partners from five European countries: https://lnkd.in/d9BWnp4C
👉 HorizonEU ResearchImpactEU EU Science, Research and Innovation EUfunded
#ZESTProject Executive Board Virtual Meeting
The #ZESTProject held its first executive board meeting last Monday. During this hour-long online gathering, representatives from the organisations that support the European initiative went through various specific topics that touch on governance and oversight, performance review, and risk management.Seronei visits WIDU.africa offices
Our CEO Visited the WIDU.africa programme HQ and had a sit-down with the Kenya Cordinator, Fridah Kibuko
Our CEO Interview with the Future of Protein Summit Organiser Nick Bradley
Full Interview here
A seasoned protein chemist and serial entrepreneur, Dr Seronei Chelulei Cheison has invaluable experience in the pet food industry where he worked for MARS Petcare and led projects in alternative protein innovation and palatant development
Thank you for joining us Seronei – and for all of your help with the Summit and Protein Production Technology International magazine. It would be nice to get to know you a bit better. Could you tell us about your pathway into the industry?
Sure, my entry into alternative proteins started at MARS Inc’s Global Petcare within what was then GAST (Global Applied Science & Technology). At MARS, I was responsible for leading protein innovations to build alternatives to functional animal proteins that the business was heavily reliant on to deliver functionality for wet pet food. During that stint, I got exposed to proteins from plants and biomass like algae, novel proteins as those developed from sugar beet leaves (Rubisco), etc.
Later, I had contacts with colleagues and peers working with insect proteins and the HORIZON2020-funded project aimed at extraction and valorization of proteins from salad, olives, tomato, and rapeseeds. When I left MARS to start my own business, Sinonin Biotech, it became clear that the pet food space, especially, needed more than plant proteins for sustainability because of the absolute mismatch between the growing demand vs growth of protein sources. That is when we heard countless repetitions of the threat of imminent protein deficiency because of the ballooning human population, etc, etc.
Currently, I work with customers that are looking for sustainable plant, insect, proteins from mycelium, single-cell proteins like those from specific bacteria, and other alternative sources. It is increasingly clear that the first casualties of a protein shortage would be our four-legged friends and family member(s). Achieving protein supply sustainability means there is a need to look beyond traditional protein sources.
I started off as a Dairy Science & Technology BSc at Kenya’s Egerton University (named after Lord Egerton of Taton, UK). Then went to my academic 40-days-in-the-desert, China. I spent about four and a half years away from my young family but came up tops in my MSc and PhD classes graduating Summa cum Laude in both. That opened the door to the TU Munich, facilitated by one of my academic ‘fathers’, Uli Kulozik. In China and Munich, I majored in enzyme hydrolysis of proteins from milk, feeding the frenzy of ‘nutraceuticals’ and ‘bioactive peptides’. This was an incredible journey into the OMICS as well because that is where I saw application of advanced analytical tools, worked with industry to address some key research questions and mentored students in Food Enzymology. At the end of my TU Munich process, I wrote a thesis and earned the German habilitation (Venia legend), the equivalent of a DSc in the UK system. Then came to MARS. The rest, as we say is a beautiful story!
You have told me in our discussions that Sinonin Biotech was founded out of the realization that there was an urgent need for players in the interface between expertise in protein technology and application in the petfood space, especially because of the pressure on protein demand’. Could you explain what you can do for clients and what your USP is?
Bringing the knowledge of protein chemistry and food enzymology on the one hand and having actively worked in the pet food industry and especially in pet food product development with alternative proteins and pet food palatability on the other was an outright winner because it set us apart from most of our competitors who possess one OR the other. From the word go, we were able to secure critical partnerships and commitments to help our business partners deal with specific needs in alternative proteins selection and test criteria as well as palatant selection strategies. That has been and remains to be our USP in this fast-paced industry.
Have your peers and colleagues in this space been enthusiastic and come to you for help in this area? What challenges have you had?
Obviously, doing business in Germany takes a lot of courage for someone who is not well versed in their language. So, the biggest challenges from the word go had to do with the legalese and dealing with the mountains of documents. We made it clear that we couldn’t sign anything unless we had read first! That is quite a challenge, even for native German speakers, as this country loves paperwork. Once we identified partners and coaches, we were able to outsource a lot of the tasks that are routine or bureaucratic so that we could focus on what we are good at. Obviously, the biggest challenge is market penetration and the need to grow the market sustainably while staying at our level on quality. As we seek to expand our reach, we realize that the space is becoming more and more complex, and the players want answers faster and reliably. So, we are very choosy on what to accept since we know how wrong it can go if we are overwhelmed or accept a task for which we don’t have competence currently.
You mentioned partnerships before. How vital are collaborations in your particular field of work?
Nobody has monopoly of knowledge. Certainly not even competitors! We need to nurture win-win collaborations and encourage strategic partnerships. We look for partnerships with raw material producers as suppliers of test materials. We also reach out to them to develop specific solutions to meet the needs of our end-user customers and we are so far grateful for the willingness to collaborate and adapt. We need collaboration beyond industry, particularly with knowledge centers and universities as well as contract labs. Although the universities work on fundamental knowledge and offer this largely for free, players like us tap into that pool and action the knowledge into specific ‘applied’ science solutions with business-relevant applications.
Presumably in emerging areas such as insect proteins, there is an an immense opportunity for collaboration?
Currently, we are faced with realities about the lack of information on insect protein techno-functionality relevant to pet food application, specific reactivities in pets (allergy for example) and the suitability of traditional protein-separation technologies for insect material processing especially because of the high lipid content. For other technologies, we see an opportunity for scaling optimization to help move the technologies from ‘concepts’ to industrially exploitable opportunities. A case in point is cell culture. That meat can be developed from cells is promising. However, meat is more than a mass of cells. Structure is important. We need collaboration to develop innovative muscle structure, be it at scaffolding or cell alignment and lipid entrapment.
On the topic of cultured meat, what did you make of developments at COP27?
I love the ‘stunts’ of the Good Meat guys, serving innovative products to power where the whole world is watching is a masterstroke in marketing genius. It is not in boardrooms or scientific conferences; it has reached the power(wo)men and this is huge. The choice of when and where to storm the headlines couldn’t have been better. The next challenge is to make the products affordable to the masses.
So, Seronei, you will be appearing on a panel at The Future of Protein Production on the topic of ‘Springboarding alternatives: How early adoption in pet food can drive commercialization’. What will be the key takeaways for our delegates from what you bring to the table?
Let me start off by saying what an honor it is to be part of that select group of discussants. Leo and Nick are captains in their fields, and pioneers in insect rearing and exploitation. Insects are sustainable, rearing is scalable and the opportunities to innovate with the four main products (proteins, lipids, chitin and frass) are endless. So, to be speaking about the potential of insects in the pet food area is huge. It helps us acknowledge that not only is the ‘protein hunger” a “human food hunger”, but it is also impacting us in a holistic manner – including the four-legged members of our family.
We want our delegates to appreciate that insect products help reduce the pressure on traditional proteins. Circular economy is promoted by insects, which recycle up to 70% of the protein from wastes and it’s important to say that the quality of proteins from insects is in no way inferior to traditional proteins. We also wish to emphasize that insects provide immense opportunities for innovations and research, and we encourage academia and industry to find win-win collaborations. Bugs for Bucks is real!
We need more entrepreneurship to continue improving the rearing, harvesting, and processing technology. We want us all to appreciate that with technology, we shall be able to extract the products from insects to render them more acceptable and reduce the negative reactions and disgust. I believe if anybody were served a whole beef, or pig, we would experience similar reactions. But ‘cuts’ render the meat products acceptable and widely embraced. In a similar manner, we should encourage ‘cuts’ in terms of valorization processes to eliminate or reduce the disgust.
Finally we wish everybody walked away with a simple truth: We must work together. Smart is not walking alone. Wild animals know that to survive they have to be in a ‘pack’ or ‘school’ or ‘herd’. Collaboration is not antithetic to winning. We just have to find touchpoints and clearly demarcate out our win-win strategies. Easier-said-than-done, I know. But let us keep trying.
Finally, we wish to emphasize that insects are not alien to pets. Cats shall be seen chasing flies, grasshoppers, etc, while even fish once in a while grab insects on water surfaces.
Presumably you get to taste a lot of products in the marketplace. Which ones impress you and why?
I have been meat-free now for quite a few months and in that time, I have had occasion to sample the ‘chicken’ and ‘fish’ as well as ‘vegan cheese’. They all tasted better than I had assumed and despite the chicken and fish being relatively ‘dryer’, I thought the product developers did a wonderful job to compensate for those ‘weaknesses’. I guess one potential risk I see going forward is what I call ‘extrusion fatigue’. Luckily, some disruptors like our friends from Umiami are claiming extruder-free texture technology! Can’t wait to sample their products!
How vital do you think it is for future generations that we make this shift to alternatives to meat?
In my opinion, the benefits are way more than a safer, cleaner, and responsible care for a planet. The shift into alternative protein space is shaping business and research and innovation beyond the agro-food sphere. Whereas it affirms care for a sustainable exploitation of our resources, it also spurs a mutually beneficial relationship between the innovators and auxiliary services including business managers. Some of us are good at the technology but we probably need finance gurus to run business models for us and work on fundraising pitches as well as manage the business to profitability. The future generation finds an expanded business space! It is up to them to stretch it beyond the future we shall bequeath them.
I think this next question will be quite personal for you. In the developed world, people ‘live to eat’ and can therefore afford some ‘value-added’ food, but we should not forget that there is a huge part of our global population for whom a meal a day is a miracle. How do alternative proteins fit into food security?
I grew up under ‘eat to live’ circumstances until around age 18. In Kenya, choice is not about what else food brings on as value, rather whether my stomach is filled. Because the next meal is not a guarantee. And we are not even talking a quality meal. For a part of our population, protein hunger is real. I grew up eating ‘potato soup’ as a ‘vegetable’ and we used to eat ‘ugali’ (maize meal product that is the staple food for most African populations). Imagine potato starch on maize starch for food! So, the most important ‘wellness’ for them that still find themselves in that paucity of options is sufficient proteins. That is why I think, despite making a career out of bioactive peptides and functional protein derivatives, it is nutrition first before we pressurize the supply chain to supplant pharma in that respect. Of course, I can’t stop whoever affords to from accessing that aspect of food sitting in the interphase between nutrition and pharmaceuticals. However, the nutraceutical aspect of food may be delivered more by non-protein materials such as polyphenols and food color complexes which would not necessarily impact protein supply.
We live in a big world with lots of countries, lots of regulators. Do you think we should come up with a global standard to simplify the advancement of alternative proteins?
If you mean harmonizing standards and specifications, I would say it is both good and debatable. It is always important to harmonize a couple of critical aspects: safety and regulatory aspects. This would reduce complexity and allow transversal movement of products across borders and continents. I mean, if we had a harmonized global standard for fermented proteins to define toxicological ‘watchouts’ such as heavy metals, biogenic amines and residual DNA/RNA materials, for example, it would make it easy to have a producer release a product with a standardized global specification that could be acceptable anywhere on the globe. The challenge is as we see today even in traditional proteins, there is sometimes some clear trans-Atlantic tension in terminologies and specs. Having one spec enables costs to be cut, prices drop and stabilize, and movement of commodities would be less complex and faster!
We cannot have one of these interviews without talking about scaling. Where do you see the challenges and the solutions here?
The challenges are more technology-related. For cell-cultured and ‘pharmented’ proteins, the challenges are mostly bioreactor level. For plant proteins it is related to separation technologies. I think one key enabler is artificial intelligence and ‘smart bioreactors’ (not sure that even exist today). The other challenge I see is related to the technologies employed to make products out of alternative proteins that are generally less functional in one aspect or the other. There is sometimes an inordinate over-reliance on some ingredients like methylcellulose and I don’t know whether we shouldn’t ask how we can disrupt that ‘glue’. With it is the challenge of a long list of additives that are used to ‘simulate’ meat, for example. Maybe the alt protein enthusiasts ought to admit that giving up animal proteins comes with a loss of some attribute that must not be over-engineered using an endless list of other ingredients. I insist we should think of how to move to ‘clean label’ for alt protein products.
We saw a boom in 2020-2021 in investment into the sector – some crazy figures. We have had a much more challenging year when it comes to attracting finance. What do you make of it all?
I have seen this in the same way I saw ‘crypto craze’. Everybody runs into it until everybody runs out! It is not going to slow down. With today’s ability to invest €50 million here and €100 million there, the glitzy business cases will always find an angel and some enthusiastic crypto-investors. I think the one super-encouraging aspect of financing, at least in Europe, is the deliberate injection of EU grants through respective Member States and regional governments. Governments have been forthcoming with capital incentives and incubator efforts to nurture startups in the alternative proteins space. There will be false starts, failed attempts and some huge winners. I see challenges in the fifth and tenth year as most businesses ought to have broken even. The biggest challenge at the moment is a lot of duplication and startups working on what would look like parts of a bigger puzzle. We should see mergers and/or acquisitions to help stay afloat.
Remaining on the topic of finance, do you think food-tech /alt proteins can weather the storm of the current global economic climate? Or, as they offer a long-term solution to climate change, do you think they will come out the other side relatively unscathed?
At some point alternative proteins shall be ‘proteins’. Just that. If they tarry a little longer, they may be ‘proteins from alternative sources’. The mojo runs out, fatigue in the financial markets, tied up cash from investors and some ‘whales’ muddying the waters. Alternative proteins must move innovations to get incorporated into more food solutions to avoid playing the outsider role. We must move mainstream. And we must do that fast! In terms of money matters, ‘alt protein-friendly’ governments in some countries will guarantee healthy flow of grants, especially with respect to climate change. But that might change. I hope we have not forgotten how hostile a previous US government was to the talk of climate change and the impact of human activities! Having said that, this (money for alt proteins) is way above my punching weight!
What fills you hope about the alt proteins sector – and, conversely, what gets your back up about what you are seeing today?
I am super excited about the ‘adventure’ of the consumers and the concomitant care for our planet. It is inspiring to see that we all care for our appetites (and stomachs) with the same zeal that we care for tomorrow’s generation. We hope that as technology solves our pressure for quality proteins and sustainable nutrients, the cost of those products shall become increasingly affordable. I am also excited that the start-up culture is not restricted to computing. The most irritating thing about the sector is the slow pace in the evolution of the regulators to catch up with the adventures of innovators. We need disruption in regulation as well. Now I get the feeling that regulatory space is dominated by redundant and reactionary mindsets rather than pioneers who are in sync with the immense talent pool of innovators.
What we love about you particularly Seronei is your positivity. So, tell us you hopes and dreams for the industry? And where do you see Sinonin Biotech fitting in to this future?
My hope is that #AltProteins shall cease to be so labeled as such over time as they become mainstream and gain respectable marketshare. We are probably going to see #ProteinsFromAlternativeSources as a trend soon. I see Sinonin Biotech playing in the two main domains: protein innovations and palatability. The growth in alternative technologies used to produce proteins invites partnerships to valorize and upcycle potential waste sidestreams for protein recovery or flavor/palatant development. I expect to see more growths in palatability solutions from ‘animal-free’ proteins and we are well positioned to provide expert knowledge to drive innovations in the respective categories, human and pet food.
When I learnt about a Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH programme called hashtag#WIDUAfrica, I didn’t know it was going to take me this far.
I was merely driving what I love doing: connecting those in need to opportunities.
Tonight, 13th Dec 2024, I was awarded the Jamhuri Diaspora Award.
Mostly because of what those who’ve heard me talk about it, embraced WIDU and pursued the channel to support family and friends establish sustainable businesses that enable us in diaspora to escape the endless trap of dependency and handouts.
Thank you State Department for Diaspora Affairs | Kenya for the recognition. I commit to enhance my commitment and zest for WIDU’s mission in pushing for the Smart way to Create Sustainable Jobs in Africa.
We’ll continue giving back and are happy at Sinonin Biotech GmbH and Sinonin Food Innovations to enhance technology transfer to upskill our people. Our flagship project, Kipkenda Poultry, remains an example of innovation and commitment with incredible WIDU support.
Thank you and congratulations to all the other nominees.