Combating Barriers in the Alternative Protein Industry

Despite the promise of alternative protein options—foods and ingredients that aim to replicate meat without livestock—the industry is experiencing a decline in sales, dampening its potential as a solution to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. Tufts University’s Center for Cellular Agriculture (TUCCA) researchers James Dolgin, Ph.D. candidate, and David Kaplan, Stern Family Distinguished Professor, recently commented on the need for industry-wide coordination in developing alternative protein options in an article published in One Earth.  

To help address this challenge, Tufts University recently launched the Innovation Hub for Food and Materials: a new research and development center intended to advance the development of products and ideas. The facility offers participants access to hard-to-find infrastructure for emerging food technologies and future food products, from prototyping and characterization to culinary testing and early-stage consumer testing. The Hub aims to centralize infrastructure and resources crucial to propelling new industry ideas forward.

Discussing and addressing key alternative protein challenges 

The Tufts duo argued that the industry must prioritize addressing limitations in the taste, nutrition, and cost of alternative protein foods, and that the most efficient way to do so is through cross-industry collaboration. Summarizing key challenges, they offered specific solutions and examples of potential coordination to establish a foundation for how industry professionals can work together to help transform the food system.  

The first challenge the team identified was that the most frequent buyers of alternative protein options are mainly higher-income households that still buy conventional meat products. The authors explained that lowering costs is essential to reaching broader markets. 

The second challenge the team identified was the limited data available to understand and improve the environmental impact of cellular agriculture. Better information sharing  and the development of  more models of energy usage and waste can help pinpoint and address sustainability issues throughout the production process.  

The authors also discussed the barriers to cross-industry collaboration, arguing that companies often operate independently because of competition and intellectual property pressures, which can prevent shared information and infrastructure.

Dolgin and Kaplan proposed a “consortia” model that centralizes the resources and goals of the alternative protein industry. 

“Coordinating efforts to improve flavor, taste, and nutrition will also be vital to delivering desirable products,” they write. “Centralized development will allow objective data from consumer panels and, eventually, automated evaluation systems to vet products side by side for fitness of replacing livestock meat.” 

The Innovation Hub for Food and Materials aims to serve as a foundational example of the type of collaboration and resource sharing that is crucial to the success of the alternative protein industry.

Learn more about TUCCA and the Innovation Hub for Food and Materials.