A shift to plant protein as a replacement for animal protein is “desperately needed” as the UK’s food system is “fundamentally broken”, according to the Vegan Society.
By Katia Merten-Lentz, partner at Keller and Heckman, and Oliver Hartmanm, legal consultant at Keller and Heckman
Pressure is rising for the development of a legal definition of ‘vegan’ and ‘vegetarian’ food in Europe but national governments are moving ahead of the European Commission in this regard.
Denmark’s Aarhus University has opened its iFOOD Centre to support research into “science-based” solutions to the biggest challenges facing the food sector today.
Chr Hansen has developed cultures for lacto-fermented soy and coconut yoghurts with the taste, texture and healthiness of traditional dairy. ‘It’s still niche but we want to be the first innovators here,” the firm says.
Nestlé has said that it wants to deliver “industry leading volume growth” by leveraging key consumer trends. The company detailed exactly how it intends to achieve this at its investor summit in London yesterday (26 September).
Compared to crickets, grasshoppers and even meal worms, the fruit fly is minuscule, but according to the co-founders of Flying SpArk this tiniest of insects could prove to be a more bountiful, sustainable and efficient source of protein.
Good news for ento-entrepeneurs: Finland's food safety authority Evira will publish guidelines on using insects for food, ending a loophole that forced firms to sell products as 'ornaments'.
Consumption of soy-based foods could be used to help tackle the global obesity crisis thanks to its high protein and isoflavone content, new research suggests.
Students at the University of Udine in Italy have developed a product with the appearance and characteristics of a hard-boiled hen egg that is made entirely from plant-based ingredients.
Whey protein hydrolysates are superior to normal whey proteins for sports nutrition according to nearly two thirds of consumers, who cited improved muscle building and recovery amongst its purported benefits.
Love Taste Co. started as a smoothie stall in London’s Borough Market. Today, it generates retail sales approaching £40m a year. Founder Richard Canterbury talks growth, flavour trends and the “explosion” in demand for vegetable-based smoothies.
Insect company Protix is to add mealworm, cricket and locusts to its burgeoning portfolio with the acquisition of Fair Insects in a deal that follows a €45m round of funding in June this year.
Wessanen’s Whole Earth brand is extending its sports nutrition snack, Power Balls, beyond health channels and onto supermarket shelves as health-focused consumers become more “mainstream”.
Insect protein firm Flying SpArk are among ten start-ups invited to join IKEA’s first accelerator program as the food tech company look to develop products containing its fruit fly-derived protein.
Expensive and energy intensive methods to purify protein may not be necessary because 'impure' proteins can perform as well as, or even better than, pure ones for functionality, a two-year Wageningen-led project has found.
French food manufacturer Fleury Michon aims to strengthen its innovation processes and improve competitiveness through a reorganisation programme that it also hopes will boost profitability.
Plant proteins such as hemp, brown rice and pea have complex taste profiles that work best with tailor-made flavours. But it's not always obvious that sulphur pairs well with strawberry...which is why it helps to have a flavourist on board to explain.
Plant-based vegetarian diets, especially vegan diets are associated with lower total cholesterol (TC) and ‘bad’ cholesterol levels, finds a new meta-analysis published in Nutrition Reviews.
A series of trials to reduce the sodium content of plant-based, vegan and vegetarian meat alternatives has been completed successfully by Salt of the Earth.
Promises of 'clean' meat that negates the need to raise and kill animals continue to attract both headlines and investment, meaning progress towards getting affordable cultured meat on supermarket shelves has been swift.
Demand for alternative proteins – beyond traditional meat, fish and dairy sources – is expanding across Europe as consumers turn to products they view as healthier and more environmentally friendly and food makers work to drive excitement through innovation.
Quorn has been using a mix of R&D and marketing to ferment growth and capitalise on rising demand for meat-free products at home and overseas, CEO Kevin Brennan tells FoodNavigator.
The University of California, Berkeley, is establishing a new programme focusing on the alternative protein space as it seeks to deliver “actionable solutions” to address the “real problems” facing the sector.
Researchers claim that almost 150 million people (1.57% of the world’s population) may be placed at risk of protein deficiency by 2050 if levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere continue to rise.
'Reducetarian' eaters are bringing plant-based foods from the niche to the mainstream. But is industry doing enough to tap into this trend, and does it have an interest in doing so? We caught up with the president and founder of the Reducetarian...
The dairy industry should stop patrolling supermarket shelves for crimes such as 'soy milk' or 'tofu butter' and focus on innovation in its own sector, according to Packaged Facts analyst David Sprinkle.
Will an acceleration in the meat reduction trend and the hunt for substitutes spell eventual doom for the feed sector and the livestock industry it serves? Yes, says Paul Cuatrecasas, CEO of Aquaa Partners. He claims there is increasing evidence that...
Could be the future of sustainable eating be plant and meat protein blends? We put the question to three experts at this year's IFT. "There’s an untapped market there," says one R&D scientist at DuPont Nutrition & Health.
Italbugs is preparing to market a high-protein flour derived from silkworms, a by-product of the textile industry, that is suitable for use in sports nutrition and bakery products.
A quartet of sports food industry associations are calling for clearer product labelling and clarification for the safe use of sport and nutrition products within the European Union.
A breakfast cereal made from French popped quinoa with a one-word ingredient list (quinoa - and that's it) is finding success as consumers use it for croutons and salad toppings thanks to the lack of sugar. "We're targetting intelligent...
PepsiCo announced today the eight European nutrition start-ups it has chosen for the first Nutrition Greenhouse programme, offering one winning company €100,000.
Plant protein uptake is still being hampered by poor solubility and limited functionality, but the right kind of enzymes can boost stability and foaming properties, say Finnish researchers.
Roquette will invest €40 million to increase the capacity of its Northern France pea processing site in Vic-sur-Aisne in a bid to meet growing global demand for plant-based protein.
As Europe’s processed meat lobby presses the Commission to ban vegetarian products from using meat names, FoodDrinkEurope (FDE) and the European Vegetarian Union (EVU) are close to agreeing on a definition of vegetarian and vegan.
Substituting beef for green beans has more of an effect in reducing greenhouse gases than placing restrictions on vehicle use or manufacturing processes, a study has found.
Cricket farming can be a sustainable means of producing foods for human consumption, a study suggests, as its environmental impact compares favourably to broiler chicken production.
Horsemeat close to becoming part of the national Spanish diet, says author of report showing link between environment where horses bred and omega-3 levels.
Novel-textured, high-protein desserts may soon become available thanks to a method that uses whey protein and polysaccharides to reduce the calorie content of high-fat foods such as ice-cream.
The Year of the Pulse may be over but pulses are still a trending ingredient, although industry needs to invest in greater consumer awareness if it is to benefit from the buzz, according to researchers.
What’s next for the €250k lab burger? Can bugs and canola really replace beef and chicken? And why might novel proteins come up short when it comes to shifting consumer behaviour? Five things we learned at last week’s Future Proteins summit.
An unwillingness to eat foods like insects may have more to do with food appropriateness than its actual taste as findings could have implications for consumer acceptance of other protein sources.
