Why alternative proteins need the non-profit sector
..and why it's not enough to leave it to the market
I've been happily vegan for several years now — but I'll admit: In the back of my mind, I'm really banking on alt proteins to come to my rescue and allow me to eat the foods I used to love, cruelty-free. But this wouldn't just be good for my tastebuds... 🍖
Imagine a world where cultivated and plant-based meats are not only affordable but just as delicious and accessible as conventional meat. In this world, the demand for factory-farmed products plummets, ushering in a food system that's kinder to animals, people, and the planet.
And we're getting closer - the food I'm eating now is already miles better than what was available when I first started eating more plant-based food.
This is one of the potential paths to beating factory farming, and at first glance, it seems like profit-driven companies should be able to make this vision a reality on their own. After all, the reason solar and wind energy are being rolled out at massive scale today is simple: There is a profit motive, and the economics work.
So why do alternative proteins need non-profit support?
The answer is that even the most promising innovation faces obstacles on the road to growth – and that includes solar and wind! First, we need to level the playing field so that for-profit alternative protein companies have a chance to compete and win. Second, we need to provide the kind of additional support that many of the most beneficial technologies need to reach large-scale adoption. Finally, we need to address the market failures that hold back much needed innovation.
To get to the bottom of this, we’ll need to go back to economics 101. Let's explore the crucial roles for non-profits in making alternative proteins thrive.
The Challenge: An Uneven Playing Field That Needs Rebalancing
Despite the potential of alternative proteins, they face significant obstacles in competing with traditional animal products. Not only is the current playing field uneven, but there's a strong case to be made that it should be intentionally tilted in favor of alternative proteins. Why? Because pro-social technologies often need extra support to reach commercial adoption, as we've seen with solar, wind, and electric vehicles.
This imbalance manifests in four key areas:
1) Investment Disparities
Here's a wild one: Only 3% of the EU and US research and innovation budget for protein went to alt proteins from 2014-2020.1 That's like trying to solve climate change while giving 97% of energy research funding to fossil fuels
Public spending on production and commercialization heavily favors meat and dairy industries2
Alternative proteins, at a critical stage in their development, require substantial investment to reduce costs, while traditional protein sources are mature industries that can largely self-fund
2) Regulatory obstacles
Alternative proteins face numerous regulatory barriers:
Restrictive labeling laws in the EU limit the use of terms like "milk" and "cheese" for plant-based products3 (For those hung up on 'technically correct' definitions: if you think oat milk shouldn't be called milk, wait until you hear about peanut butter... or baby oil... or jellyfish.. I’d hate to be around when you correct an adopted child calling their adoptive parent “dad” because they’re not technically their parent *cringe* — these people clearly know very little about language and how common is it to define words based on function rather than physical makeup)
Both the EU and the U.S. have made additional legislative attempts to restrict the labeling of meat and dairy substitutes4
Some regions have outright bans on lab-grown meat, including Florida5, Alabama6 and Italy7. Similar proposals have been made in other countries, like France8
Ironically, it’s often the same groups that cry 'free market!' whenever regulators consider banning the cruelest practices in factory farming that support regulatory restrictions on alt proteins competing in the market at all. It just goes to show that any ideology they purport to have is really driven by what’s convenient for their self-interest.
Besides cases where regulation explicitly blocks alternative proteins out, many governments make it very difficult to rule them in: For example, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) approval process for novel foods is lengthy and complex, potentially taking years.9 As of now, EFSA has not even begun evaluating cultivated meat.10 These challenges are exacerbated by the significant lobbying power of the animal agriculture industry, which outspends alternative protein advocates by a factor of 200 in the US.11
3) Information failures
The third reason the market is failing to deliver the food system innovation we need at scale is information failures: The modern consumer is very divorced from where their food comes from.
This is partially due to urbanization which means that most of the population lives far away from where most farming happens.
However it’s also by design, with the many factory farming facilities located near residential areas made to be deliberately inconspicuous. As Paul McCartney pointed out, if slaughterhouses had glass walls, people would feel very differently about where most of our meat comes from today.
Meanwhile, the image painted of factory farms by the industry’s marketing tells us a blatantly false story, but one that we have a strong incentive to believe, as wilful ignorance of where our food comes from is far more comfortable than confronting reality.
As a result of being misinformed about how our animals are raised, consumers aren’t factoring the full cost of factory farmed meat to animals, to human health and to the environment into their purchase decisions. We can’t rely on the market to make sure the better products succeed when people aren’t able to make informed choices.
4) Externalities
Factory farmed meat only looks cheap because the industry doesn't have to pay for the damage it causes. Increased pandemic risk? That's on us. Antibiotic resistance? Society's problem. The suffering of billions of animals? Not on their balance sheet.
These outsourced costs are called ‘externalities’ — a type of market failure where the full costs or benefits of a product aren’t being built into its price — and they’re the final barrier to alternative proteins competing on an even-playing field. We’ve seen them in the energy sector too, where the price of coal-powered electricity is lower than it would be if the fossil fuel companies had to pay to prevent or fix the environmental and economic damage they create by driving climate change, or the massive but widely overlooked (these days) public health cost of spewing exhaust full of particulate matter into the air we breath.
The Goal: Supporting Beneficial Technologies to Scale
It’s a problem that alternative proteins don’t get to compete on a level playing field. The factory farming industry has stacked the deck. But I’d argue that the goal isn’t just to level the playing field, but to shift the advantage in the other direction.
There are plenty of technologies that would clearly benefit society if they reached scale, and could be commercially viable and self-sustaining once they get there. But we can increase the chances that they overcome the ‘technology valley of death’ and the speed at which they traverse it, by actively supporting them.
Renewable energy is the perfect example. Early for-profit investments in solar would just not have made money, but now it’s a thriving industry that’s turning the tide on climate change. Thanks to government subsidies early in the industry’s development, they were able to scale production, driving costs down by over 99% and causing the exponential growth in adoption.12
Imagine how quickly things could progress if alternative proteins received more government support..
The Solution: Non-Profit Intervention
Non-profit organizations are the missing piece of the puzzle that helps to level the playing field and support beneficial technologies to scale. They contribute in three main ways:
1. Government Advocacy and Policy Work
Here's where organizations like The Good Food Institute (GFI) and Danish Vegetarian Foundation (DVF) come in. They're the ones in the trenches, fighting to redirect even a fraction of the massive government subsidies that prop up factory farming. And when they win (like DVF securing an $100M fund for plant-based initiatives in Denmark13 ), it's a game-changer.
Non-profits like these counter the lobbying efforts of traditional animal agriculture industries. They challenge unfair regulations14, push for fair approval processes15 and guide startups through the tedious existing approvals process.
2. Research and Development Support
GFI also plays a facilitative role in alternative protein R&D:
Funding important research grants16
Creating an collaborative ecosystem that connects researchers from across the globe and brings industry and academia together17
Providing tools to make innovation easier, like databases of research ideas, grant opportunities and startup jobs18
3. Public Education and Awareness
Animal welfare charities like The Humane League and Sinergia Animal go undercover to take footage of factory farms and speak out publicly about the true costs of factory farmed products to animals, people and the environment. This can help to rectify the market failure of consumers making choices without complete information. While the cost-effectiveness of these kinds of social media awareness campaigns has been debated1920, one study found that 39% of participants who had seen an animal advocacy social media post reported reducing their consumption of animal products.21
Navigating Challenges and Future Prospects
The commercialisation of alternative proteins cannot be achieved by the private sector alone. Governments are already exerting influence over the industry, but too often for the worse. Non-profit organizations play a crucial role in filling the private sector gaps and nudging government to use their influence more wisely.
This is why I'm convinced that supporting these non-profit efforts isn't just charity - it's an investment in accelerating the transition to a food system that works for everyone. And maybe, just maybe, it'll help me get my hands on a cruelty-free version of my old favorite foods a bit sooner too.
Vallone & Lambin (2023): “Public policies and vested interests preserve the animal farming status quo at the expense of animal product analogs” –“During 2014–2020, grants for research and innovation (R&I) of NOV [novel, i.e. alternative protein] technologies represented 3% of the R&I spending for animal and novel technologies combined, on average for both regions”
Vallone & Lambin (2023): “Public policies and vested interests preserve the animal farming status quo at the expense of animal product analogs” – See Table 1 on p. 3: public spending on production of animal-based products in the EU and US amounts to respectively 33,507 million USD and 9,245 million USD, while only 27 million USD and 12 million USD are spent on alternative proteins.
Vallone & Lambin (2023): “Public policies and vested interests preserve the animal farming status quo at the expense of animal product analogs” – “In 2019 the amendment 171 to the EU 1308/2013 regulation was proposed to further restrict alternative dairy marketing, but was finally withdrawn. In the US, the Dairy Pride act was repeatedly proposed, aiming at similar targets. States in the US or countries in the EU also passed billed to prohibit the term meat on labels of cultured products.
Florida Government (2024): “Governor DeSantis Signs Legislation to Keep Lab-Grown Meat Out of Florida” – “Today [1st May 2024], Governor Ron DeSantis signed SB 1084 to prohibit the sale of lab-grown meat in the state of Florida.”
Robledo (2024): “Alabama bans lab-grown meat, joining Florida among US states outlawing alternative proteins” – “Alabama became the second U.S. state to ban lab-grown meat”
Kirby (2023): “Italy bans lab-grown meat in nod to farmers” – “Italian MPs have voted to back a law banning the production, sale or import of cultivated meat or animal feed (...) For now, the law will have little effect, as cultivated meat has so far only been approved for human consumption in Singapore and the US. The EU has not yet given any lab-grown meat, described as ‘novel foods’, the green light. If it does, however, Italy's new law could be challenged by the European Commission.”
The National Agricultural Law Center (2024): “France takes up plant protein labeling and cell-cultured meat” – “...France [more specifically the party Les Republicains] also proposed legislation to ban the manufacture of cell-cultured meat”
Van Teutem (2024): “Kweekvlees is de toekomst - en Nederland kan de weg wijzen” – “Hille van der Kaa, director of Those Vegan Cowboys: “Just waiting for approval to be reviewed can take up to a year. With any luck, you'll finally be allowed to submit your application. After that, the admissions process can take years.”
The Brussels Times (2024): “Cultivated meat: Is EU falling behind in approving novel food and ensuring global food security?” – “Out of the around 240 novel food applications we have received for safety assessment since the implementation of the new regulation in 2018, we have not yet received any applications for risk assessment concerning cell culture-derived food applications of animal origin,” a spokesperson of EFSA told The Brussels Times.”
Vallone & Lambin (2023): “Public policies and vested interests preserve the animal farming status quo at the expense of animal product analogs” – See Table 2 on p. 4: lobbying spending, as share of gross value added of the agricultural sector is 0.002% for the US animal-based industry and 0.00001% for the US alternative protein industry.
Dansk Vegetarisk Forening: “Background on plant-based foods in Denmark” – “In October 2021, the Danish Government and Parliament (including almost all parties) agreed on a reform of Danish agriculture and food production. A groundbreaking part of the agreement was the decision… to set up a Fund for Plant-Based Food Products with 675 million DKK over 8 years”
Good Food Institute (2024): “Research community” – “GFI builds an alternative protein researchers directory, which can be used by researchers “to connect with European researchers who are active in the alternative protein space or are looking to apply their expertise to this field. This directory also indicates what kinds of collaborative work researchers are interested in exploring with students, labs, and companies.”
Animal Charity Evaluators (2023): “The Humane League Review” – “...we think that The Humane League’s social media achievements are less cost effective, largely because we generally consider social media campaigns and online ads to be a lower-priority intervention”
Good Food Institute (2024): “Alternative Protein Solutions Database” – “Discover ideas for new startups, commercial ventures and products, research projects, ecosystem support, and investment opportunities for plant-based, cultivated, and fermentation-derived proteins.”
Animal Charity Evaluators (2023): “The Humane League Review” – In the table in the section “Our Analysis of The Humane League’s Impact Potential” Social Media and Online Ads are rated as an intervention of “Moderate priority, high uncertainty”
Polanco et al. (2022): “Planting Seeds: The Impact Of Diet & Different Animal Advocacy Tactics” – Figure 5 on p. 20 shows that 39% of all participants that have seen animal advocacy social media or blog posts, reports reduced animal product consumption.
Gertner (2024): “Challenges and breakthroughs: contextualizing alternative protein progress” – “The alternative protein industry was not immune to these trends [less disposable consumer income and difficulties for companies to acces financing]. According to SPINS data commissioned by GFI and PBFA, year-over-year (YOY) plant-based meat sales fell by both dollars (-12 percent) and units (-19 percent) in U.S. retail [...] That said, according to Euromonitor, the global market for plant-based meat experienced slight growth in 2023, as did the global market for conventional meat and seafood. [...] The sales and investment slowdowns in 2023 weren’t unique to the alternative protein industry, but as a relatively nascent sector relying on private investments to navigate early-stage operations and strong sales performance to secure favorable placements on retail shelves, they played outsized roles in the sector’s 2023 performance.”