EU ramps up future food research investments
The winners of these awards will use the funding to run projects to test and accelerate their technologies further, in collaboration with EIT Food’s network of partner universities, research centres and facilities across the continent.
This is far from the first time the accelerator has poured money into the alternative protein category. Last year, it awarded a €5,000 prize to mycelium meat maker Bosque Foods and fermentation-derived seafood producer Pacifico Biolabs (both from Germany).
It also collectively invested €1.2M to 3D Bio-Tissues, BioBetter, LenoBio, and S2aquacolab to reduce the cost of culture media for cultivated meat production, as part of its Cultivated Meat Innovation Challenge in partnership with the Good Food Institute (GFI) Europe. And this year, its Seedbed Incubator includes methane-to-protein startup ChangeBio and cultivated meat tech species ForMeat.
Members of its 2024 Accelerator Network include precision-fermented ingredient startups Melt&Marble and Ironic Biotech, Spanish vegan egg maker Uobo, fermented protein startup Fabas, cocoa-free chocolate startups Foreverland and Nukoko, and molecular farming player Amatera, alongside the aforementioned companies that won the funding under the Tech Validation Awards (except Typcal).
Courtesy: GFI Europe
This is part of the EU’s broader leadership into research funding for alternative proteins. Since 2020, the region has pumped in €252M for future food research, half of which came in 2023 and early 2024, according to GFI Europe. And this doesn’t include the European Innovation Council’s €50M investment for precision-fermented and algae-based foods.
A bulk of this funding (€117M) went to cross-cutting projects that covered a combination of plant-based, fermentation, or cultivated protein research. But in terms of publications, Europe as a whole lacks collaboration with overseas researchers and studies on certain alternative protein pillars remain underdeveloped.
The landscape was found to have an “inconsistent approach to funding and an urgent need to build a more coherent network”, according to Stella Child, research and grants manager at GFI Europe.
“To capitalise on this growing expertise and make sure innovations developed by European scientists can be commercialised here, governments and funding bodies must create more opportunities for alternative protein scientists to collaborate and provide dedicated funding to boost research in overlooked areas,” she said.
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Publish date : 2024-11-01 06:00:00
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