The Good Food Institute Europe

📰 December newsletter 📰 Check out this month's edition of the GFI Europe newsletter, including how we worked to broaden the conversation about protein diversification in 2024, a whistle-stop tour through the UK’s exciting new research centres, and the scientist who hopes her innovation can replicate fat in plant-based products. All this and more here 👇

📝New discussion paper! 📝To deliver protein diversification on the urgent timescales required, the expertise of those groups pivotal to delivering change is essential, and farmers are top of this list. The EIT Food Protein Diversification for Future-Fit Farming discussion paper has just been published, exploring ways of bringing Europe's farmers into conversations about building a healthier and more sustainable food system. As consumer demand shifts towards more climate-friendly food, the report offers insights into how farmers can take advantage of new opportunities: 🚜 Farmers need targeted support, including access to investment, to successfully transition to sustainable systems such as growing crops for plant-based foods while ensuring their businesses are profitable. 🚜 Innovations such as precision fermentation – alongside digital tools and data-driven solutions – are essential for improving efficiency, reducing waste, and minimising the environmental footprint of farming. 🚜 The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and other frameworks play a vital role in guiding and incentivising sustainable farming practices across the EU. As policymakers consider the future of agriculture in Europe, this discussion paper – with insights from GFI Europe's Acacia Smith and Ellie Walden alongside farmers, businesses and researchers – can help point the way towards a more progressive future, benefiting European consumers and food producers.

🎉 We’re excited to welcome our latest team member Lea Seyfarth who joins GFI Europe as Policy Officer to drive policy impact in Brussels and beyond on alternative proteins. Lea will focus on regulation and labelling considerations in the EU and support our research and innovation workstreams on alternative protein funding. Lea joins us from a background in EU policy and working with Members of the European Parliament. Welcome to the team, Lea! 🙌

🥛New life cycle analysis finds significant environmental benefits of precision-fermentation milk compared to cow's milk. Conducted by French startup Bon Vivant in collaboration with independent experts from the French national research institute for agricultural science, INRAE, the life cycle assessment adds to the growing body of research underlining the potential of precision fermentation. Governments must invest in infrastructure to help scale climate-friendly, nutritious foods such as these to help give consumers the option to keep eating the foods they love sustainably. Read the full LCA report here: https://lnkd.in/e3yYXH8K

🎊 A warm welcome to our new team member Frida Beulshausen who joins GFI Europe as Administrative Coordinator to support the smooth running of our operations, helping our team to become more efficient, effective and better connected. Frida brings diverse experience from working in roles in higher education, event coordination, project management, the organisation of language courses and exams, as well as translation. We are excited to have you on board, Frida! 🙌

✨We're incredibly proud to have been selected as highest impact climate charity of 2024 by Doneer Effectief and the University of Amsterdam - Amsterdam Business School! Read more about the recommendations in full here: https://lnkd.in/e3XWGcmv

🐣 It’s a chicken or egg situation: many startups need access to expensive pilot facilities and infrastructure to show potential investors their innovations can scale, but they also need funding from those investors to build such infrastructure in the first place. For this reason, better access to such facilities that don’t require a startup to build them from scratch is crucial to support scale-up of emerging innovations. In answer to this, Swiss companies Migros, Givaudan, and Bühler Group have opened The Cultured Hub – a new facility that enables fermentation and cultivated meat startups to scale up their processes from proof of concept testing to 1,000 litre pilot operations. Based in Kemptthal, Switzerland, the centre is capable of hosting three companies simultaneously and aims to bridge the gap between research and commercialisation. More centres such as this – along with other similar centres built through public private partnerships such as Belgium’s recently-expanded Bio Base Europe Pilot Plant – will play a crucial role in enabling European companies to bring sustainable products to market. #scaleup #startup #infrastructure Learn more: https://lnkd.in/dDcFkiM6

💪 Microscopic but mighty! 💪 How can tiny organisms like yeast help develop game-changing new foods through fermentation? Fermentation has been used in food production for thousands of years to preserve foods, create alcoholic drinks, and enhance the nutritional value and bioavailability of foods. Over the past century, the role of fermentation has expanded beyond its historical uses, and it is now applied in diverse fields –  innovative food ingredients being a particularly exciting avenue of research. But what exactly is fermentation? And what are the advantages of leveraging it to produce alternative proteins? Check out the carousel 👇 for quick facts on this fascinating method of creating animal-free meat, eggs, dairy, and seafood! Visit our website to learn more: https://lnkd.in/e3MByV4x #Fermentation #AlternativeProteins

🎊 A warm welcome to our newest team member Emily Burton who joins GFI Europe as Donor Engagement Officer to build strong and meaningful relationships with our wonderful family of donors, and communicate the impact of the work that they make possible. We are excited to have you on board, Emily!