NEWS FROM THE FRONTIER

DEVELOPMENTS DOWN UNDER

• v2food has launched its v2mince and v2bugers in Drakes supermarkets across South Australia and Queensland. CEO Nick Hazell said their Victoria-based production facility is prepared to quickly scale up production as demand rises.
• Aussie company vEEF, by Fenn Foods, has announced its next plant-based beef alternative made with pea protein will be 100% carbon neutral.
• Australian family-owned bakery chain Ferguson Plarre has launched a plant-based meat pie, citing the increasing demand from flexitarian customers. The new options are now available at their 66 stores across Victoria.

GLOBAL DEVELOPMENTS

• UK company Higher Steaks has created the world's first cell-cultivated bacon and pork belly, though the CEO notes consumer availability remains a few years away.
• Dutch cultivated meat company Mosa Meat has produced a new cell-culture medium that circumvents expensive alternatives to reduce production costs by 88%.
• KFC has continued its explorations in alternative proteins, launching another trial of its plant-based Beyond Fried Chicken in California, and testing 3D printing nuggets with cell-cultivated chicken meat in collaboration with a Russian bioprinting company.
• Sales of plant-based meat alternatives have soared across Asia, with analysts and research experts citing increasing health awareness amongst consumers, as well as anxiety over food safety triggered by COVID-19.

WHY ALTERNATIVE PROTEINS?

New research supports the increasing calls from scientists for government dietary guidelines to do more to protect both the health of their populations, and the planet. The University of Oxford research determined that if Australia adopted a “planetary health diet,” which recommends developed nations reduce red meat consumption by three quarters, Australia’s food-related emissions would fall by 86% and there would be 31,000 fewer deaths from lifestyle-related diseases.