Choose your battles – wisely

What does cultivated meat have in common with railroads? Well, more than you might think. When railroads were first introduced, there were significant health concerns. Many members of parliament were reluctant to pass legislation supporting this new mode of transportation, while farmers and landowners were wary of the idea of railway tracks cutting through their farmland, believing the smoke would damage crops and frighten their animals – leading to premature births or even death.

In other words, there was very little enthusiasm. The breakthrough technology of the railroad was viewed much like Uber or food biotechnology would be more than a century later – i.e. not exactly embraced by everyone!

Today, no sector invests more in lobbying than the agricultural industry. As the Financial Times recently reported, based on analysis by UCS, large agribusinesses, food and agriculture industry associations, and other interest groups, have spent more than US$523 million on federal lobbying in the USA alone. This is the landscape in which a small sector began to operate – a sector working under the banner of ‘alternative protein’ with very limited lobbying power, yet on a mission to disrupt one of the most powerful industries in the world. A mission to replace Goliath with David!

Any industry facing disruption and breakthrough innovation must choose its battles wisely, anticipate political headwinds, and ensure it has the resources to prevail

Such a mission naturally ruffles some feathers – which is why I use the term ‘complementary’, not ‘alternative’ protein. So far, the powerful opposition has not been idle. Unearthed, the investigative arm of Greenpeace – along with Dutch investigative platform Follow the Money – exposed the efforts of the Italian farmers’ organization, Coldiretti, against cultivated meat. One of their notable successes was rebranding alternative proteins as ‘synthetic food’, which had a profound impact on public opinion. Although the so-called alt-protein industry still adheres to its ‘replacement’ narrative, opponents have developed a stigmatizing narrative around ‘synthetic food’ – casting it as the opposite of natural food. This umbrella term conveniently lumps together all forms of complementary proteins, including precision fermentation.

The investigative journalists detailed how this played out in the political arena. If you missed it, they revealed that a former Coldiretti staffer, who was also an advisor to the Italian Minister of Agriculture, had pre-drafted a note against cultivated meat in collaboration with Austrian ministry officials. This note was based on a pre-print from UC Davis that hadn’t passed peer review. Nevertheless, the same pre-print gave rise to a sensational headline, Lab-grown meat could be 25 times worse for the climate than beef, which triggered a surge of anti-cultivated meat sentiment on social media, as reported by the Changing Markets Foundation. Even worse, the pre-print was used as evidence for an official note from some member states within the European AgriFish Council.

There is a familiar recipe at play here: create doubt with misinformation, and in doing so, fuel the political battles you want to win.

One might argue, ‘Don’t worry about the EU, just focus on the USA’ when it comes to novel foods and particularly cultivated meat. At first glance, it may seem like a wide-open market. However, I would recommend conducting thorough political due diligence before assuming the USA will remain a ‘blue ocean’ for cultivated meat (and complementary proteins in general). Given the political volatility at the state level, the regulatory landscape in the USA could shift overnight, turning blue oceans into red. The warning signs are already visible in several key states. Although the EU benefits from the single market principle and its clear novel foods legislation, in the USA, state-level laws can dictate bans. And even if outright bans don’t materialize, restrictive labeling could significantly impact investment potential.

The reality is that any industry facing disruption and breakthrough innovation must choose its battles wisely, anticipate political headwinds, and ensure it has the resources to prevail. Regulation and policy always follow politics – whether it’s AirBnB bans or cultivated meat bans. Both the far right and far left have a history of linking disruptive technologies to broader, polarizing debates, from the housing crises to the defense of traditional meat.

If you want to win these battles as an emerging industry, it’s essential to collaborate, lobby, and carefully craft your narrative!

Anna has founded Future Affairs Consulting as a boutique advisory firm for strategic communication and public affairs with a focus on breakthrough technologies that champion human and planetary health. She is a well-known advocate for climate tech and has been involved in various leadership roles across Europe, particularly in sustainability strategy and innovation policy. This article is republished from the Q4 2024 edition of Protein Production Technology International, the industry's leading resource for alternative proteins. To subscribe to all future editions, please click here