While there has been much policy and investor interest in plant-based alternatives in recent years, interest in alternative proteins (other than plants) as potential substitutes for animal-based products has grown in recent years. This presents an opportunity to contribute to the overall protein balance.

 

This section of the map outlines the key technical and regulatory obstacles and opportunities relating to the wider uptake of alternative protein sources for human and animal nutrition. 

 

Obstacles

 

While benefiting from increasing consumer awareness and substantial private capital investment, the alternative protein sector in the EU faces considerable obstacles. These relate to scaling up technologies and achieving commercial viability against conventional sources benefiting from subsidies and consumer familiarity.

 

However, these alternative sources might contribute to strengthening European food security and sustainability if existing barriers to their uptake were overcome.

 

Common technical hurdles include:

• optimising technologies that still require advancement, 
• expanding production capacity, and:
• reducing inputs and operational costs. 

Infrastructure limitations are challenging for all alternative sources, with insufficient processing and production facilities impeding scale-up.

 

Energy-intensive processes and reliance on high-emission feedstocks for some of the alternatives are also challenges that, if unaddressed, could add to the EU food system’s energy and environmental footprint.

 

While specifics differ, the complex set of regulations applicable to food and feed applications of alternative proteins, the limited capability (skills and resources) of SMEs and start-ups to address EU regulatory requirements, and lengthy processes for reviewing regulatory approval applications hinder EU approval and/or marketability of the alternatives.

 

There are several policy/regulatory opportunities for incorporating alternative proteins into the protein balance in the EU: recent preparatory work on a European Commission’s EU Protein Strategy, the Farm to Fork Strategy, a Sustainable Food System legislative framework, the circular economy principles in the Green Deal, and more broadly, the revised EU Industrial Strategy, which does not mention food, yet aims to reduce the EU’s dependence on imports across a range of strategic sectors.

 

Several technical opportunities could be seized across the EU. The infrastructure for production could be adapted to grow alternative proteins (i.e. existing infrastructure could be retrofitted to produce alternative proteins[1]). Energy infrastructure in the process of being decarbonised may provide the clean energy they require. Finally, conventional agriculture may find new markets and substitute for declining existing markets by growing some of the feedstocks for alternative protein production. 

 

Via the links below you can explore the sector-specific circumstances for the four types of alternative proteins in the focus of this map.