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Solutions

Our interviews with food system experts, alt protein analysts, entrepreneurs, and investors revealed many potential ways of building the alt protein industry’s benefits for the common good. Here is a collection of their suggestions for each of the stakeholder groups below.
  • For the Alt Protein Industry

Infrastructure

Solutions related to thoughtful infrastructure development included prioritizing worker well-being through innovative manufacturing equipment and recognizing the different labor needs of alt protein production. To increase positive societal benefits while meeting the different labor needs of alt protein manufacturing, our respondents recommended converting existing animal agriculture facilities and/or locating new alt protein plants in rural areas currently reliant on the meat and feed industries. Experts also highlighted the value of investing in shared, multi-use facilities with the potential to support local food processing co-benefits.

Sourcing

To maximize co-benefits such as environmental and social resilience, alt protein producers can source from environmentally friendly and socially just agriculture, favoring domestic sourcing wherever possible. Alt protein producers can also create important positive signaling and transition support within the supply chains for key inputs by committing to longer-term purchase contracts for farmers transitioning away from producing farmed animals or their feed crops. Additional strategies include focusing on ingredient streams diverted from conventional meat supply chains, and considering alternatives to genetically modified alt protein ingredients whenever feasible.

A diverse sourcing plan contributes meaningfully to small farm economic benefits, broadens opportunities for BIPOC farmer participation, keeps money in local economies, improves articulation with sustainable agriculture, and increases supply chain resilience.

Emma Sirois, National Director of Healthy Food in Health Care, Health Care Without Harm

Reducing the length of supply chains is probably one of the most effective changes that can be made right now. Reducing reliance on imported ingredients wherever possible will shrink the carbon footprint of plant-based products even more.

Carl Jorgensen, Agriculture Consultant, The Plant Based Foods Institute

Supply Chain Coordination

Adopting digital supply chain management tools could enhance co-benefit potential by contributing to better food system resilience, lower waste, and greater product transparency within supply chains. Improved supply chain articulation and management can be a critical tool for establishing the alternative protein industry as a restorative value chain rather than an extractive supply chain.

Value chain coordination could offer transparency around product attributes— where was it grown, how was it grown, what kinds of certifications or claims? The more information the value chain can retain, the better, and the more able institutional purchasers are to categorize those products and purchases. Blockchain tech is really exciting.

Emma Sirois, National Director of Healthy Food in Health Care, Health Care Without Harm

Business Philosophy and Growth

Viewing the gathering of material inputs for alternative proteins as a value chain could help alt protein companies see opportunities for increasing social and environmental benefit at each step in the chain, contributing to shared risk and shared wealth. Acquiring relevant certifications could deepen each company’s commitment to broader societal benefits. Where possible, alt protein producers may be able improve their commitment to common-good benefits by seeking investments that operate on a longer growth timeline than typical VC and accommodate early and seasonal cash-flow challenges.

Communication

The common good is served both by transparency in consumer messaging about ingredients, product additives, and nutrition and by more proactive communication with input producers and processing factory workers. Authentically forging more open communication with these parties, as some industry pioneers have done, can illuminate ways of better aligning alt protein production with benefits to workers and rural communities. Plant-based alt protein industry could also deepen its benefits to the common good by engaging more with lobbying efforts related to alt protein regulation and labeling.

Lobbying efforts would benefit quite a lot if companies would more actively support our shared goals. Small businesses can do a lot to influence local congresspeople if they can find the right arguments and tell an effective story about what they are doing and why they are doing it.

Bruce Friedrich, President and Founder, Good Food Institute

Companies can donate and fund projects, give back to groups that are trying to improve the health of communities. It’s not ok to exploit or use [social] issues as marketing. When some companies reach out to Black and Brown communities, it feels fake. I want to see companies that will allow their employees to unionize, pay them living wages from bottom to top of supply chain.

lauren Ornelas, Founder and Senior Programs Director, Food Empowerment Project

Community Accountability and Social Impact

The alt protein industry could increase common-good benefits by allowing for workforce unionization and ensuring that alt protein processing exceeds the employee benefits and safety standards of the incumbent animal protein industry. Additionally, companies can recruit from educational pipelines that currently serve the animal agriculture industry and broaden access to alt protein career training. In both educational settings and recruitment, it would benefit the common good if alt protein companies strongly support diversity and act in genuine allyship with BIPOC populations that traditionally face greater barriers to involvement.

  • For Government and Policy Advocates

Supportive Policy

Common-good benefits of the alt protein industry could be maximized by strengthening land conservation incentives, realigning product subsidies, and improving public support for improved value chain coordination. Expanding and strengthening conservation programs could provide transition incentives for farmers and bolster domestic plant-based input production. Adding subsidies for crop production with fewer negative environmental and social externalities and reducing public support for farmed animal and feed crop industries would help level the playing field that currently disadvantages plant-based alternatives—and the common good—in a price-parity race to the bottom.

Increasing public support for value chain coordination is critical for supporting farmers transitioning to new crops and new markets. We currently rely on farmers being very entrepreneurial to find markets. We could support that better through government programs.

Pete Huff, Co-Director, Wallace Center at Winrock International

Funding Collaboration between Alt Protein and Government

Expanding public-private partnerships can help plant-based companies provide greater co-benefits at all stages of production. Government support of impact assessment, research and development, standard-setting and financial assistance is important, as the alternative protein industry’s profit motive may not position it well to prioritize expanding common-good benefits without government support. Government-facilitated collective marketing efforts for alt proteins—perhaps similar to existing checkoff programs for meat and dairy—could help advance entire sectors of the alternative protein industry. Expanding government-supported loan guarantee programs would help to enable and de-risk large investments in building or transitioning commercial alt protein production plants. Government investment could provide critical support for capital expenditures early in alternative protein companies’ growth, an area where VC is especially hesitant to invest.

Externalized public funding would be especially helpful for financing capital expenses related to hard infrastructure and processes, where VC hesitates to invest. This would be one opportunity for ensuring enhanced common good benefits can be meaningfully baked into the industry from the beginning.

Lisa Feria, Managing Partner and CEO, Stray Dog Capital

On the CapEx side, that’s where we need government to provide the infrastructure for companies to grow. In the US, we are definitely seeing signs of that in federal and state-level funding for facility buildout and state incentive programs. We need much more of that if we’re going to meaningfully impact this industry. I also think that governments need to think about this investment in a more joined-up way; it’s about national security, climate change, net zero, food security, biosecurity. There’s some joining of the dots between these issues of national priority in the US with biomanufacturing. We need more of that thinking instead of siloing food as its own thing not considered relevant to the rest.

Rosie Wardle, Co-founder and Partner, Synthesis Capital
  • For Investors

Vision and Leadership

Ask about Impact: When investors ask about products’ impacts on the common good during due diligence or even after investment, it raises those issues’ priority with start-ups and normalizes the ask. Prioritizing impact data and standardizing requests among investors could improve and expedite data-gathering for the entire industry. Investors can support start-ups in adopting best practices such as solid HR systems or diversity, equity, and inclusion policies. Investors can also fund the use of impact assessment tools on behalf of start-ups in their portfolios.
Consider Investing in Underfunded but Crucial Areas: Investors who are willing to think outside of the typical VC realm could have an outsized positive impact by investing in areas of plant-based supply chain inefficiency or lack of competitive advantage. For example, correcting the lack of domestic (US) processing infrastructure, organic-certified processing plants and processing plants, and grain elevators.

Collaboration and Coordination

Consider Flexible and Integrated Funding Structures: Improved access to nondilutive and longer-term funding sources remains one of the greatest pathways for alt proteins to realize broad co-benefits. Another concrete way investors can support plant-based alt proteins’ benefits to the common good is by investigating opportunities to invest through and alongside models of integrated capital that can fill unmet needs. For example, low- to no-interest loans could help farmers transition to the production of alt protein input crops or build processing facilities, and grant funding could support publicly available alternative protein research.
Engage with Government Policy: Investors can engage with government policy through collaboratives such as trade associations, where investors do not need to engage with policymakers directly but have their interests represented collectively.
Greater availability of sources of non-dilutive funding could be very helpful for freeing companies to pursue greater benefits to the common good. Existing non-dilutive funding sources (e.g., research grants, the X Prize) are difficult to access, taking significant time and resources to obtain as well as requiring rigorous documentation and reporting processes.

Christie Fleming, CEO, The ISH Food Company
Rescue and Preserve Intellectual Property: The alternative protein industry is currently experiencing a scarcity of funding which has shut down a number of companies. Investors could play a role in rescuing and preserving the IP from these closing companies and others on the brink of closure.
  • For Advocates and Educational Institutions
Adopting a broad understanding of food system transformation can strengthen corporate standard watchdog activities and help make potential areas for common good benefits from alt proteins more visible. Ways of increasing the movement’s power to create positive change include finding respectful synergies among the many sides of the food system transformation movement, avoiding and countering meat industry narratives, and believing in the possibility of systemic change to benefit people and animals.

In corporate engagement, working the sustainability leads in food and meat companies that own plant-based start-ups may help these individuals champion aligned values internally. In consumer messaging, highlighting plant-based benefits beyond “taste, price, convenience” may help to broaden societal appeal.

Educational institutions play a vital role for advancing alt proteins. Broadening access to alt protein internships, scholarships, and related educational pipelines will help to strengthen the workforce and promote equity in the field.

Our interviews with food system experts, alt protein analysts, entrepreneurs, and investors revealed many potential ways of building the alt protein industry’s benefits for the common good. Here is a collection of their suggestions for each of the stakeholder groups below.

Infrastructure

Solutions related to thoughtful infrastructure development included prioritizing worker well-being through innovative manufacturing equipment and recognizing the different labor needs of alt protein production. To increase positive societal benefits while meeting the different labor needs of alt protein manufacturing, our respondents recommended converting existing animal agriculture facilities and/or locating new alt protein plants in rural areas currently reliant on the meat and feed industries. Experts also highlighted the value of investing in shared, multi-use facilities with the potential to support local food processing co-benefits.

Sourcing

To maximize co-benefits such as environmental and social resilience, alt protein producers can source from environmentally friendly and socially just agriculture, favoring domestic sourcing wherever possible. Alt protein producers can also create important positive signaling and transition support within the supply chains for key inputs by committing to longer-term purchase contracts for farmers transitioning away from producing farmed animals or their feed crops. Additional strategies include focusing on ingredient streams diverted from conventional meat supply chains, and considering alternatives to genetically modified alt protein ingredients whenever feasible.

A diverse sourcing plan contributes meaningfully to small farm economic benefits, broadens opportunities for BIPOC farmer participation, keeps money in local economies, improves articulation with sustainable agriculture, and increases supply chain resilience.

Emma Sirois, National Director of Healthy Food in Health Care, Health Care Without Harm

Reducing the length of supply chains is probably one of the most effective changes that can be made right now. Reducing reliance on imported ingredients wherever possible will shrink the carbon footprint of plant-based products even more.

Carl Jorgensen, Agriculture Consultant, The Plant Based Foods Institute

Supply Chain Coordination

Adopting digital supply chain management tools could enhance co-benefit potential by contributing to better food system resilience, lower waste, and greater product transparency within supply chains. Improved supply chain articulation and management can be a critical tool for establishing the alternative protein industry as a restorative value chain rather than an extractive supply chain.

Value chain coordination could offer transparency around product attributes— where was it grown, how was it grown, what kinds of certifications or claims? The more information the value chain can retain, the better, and the more able institutional purchasers are to categorize those products and purchases. Blockchain tech is really exciting.

Emma Sirois, National Director of Healthy Food in Health Care, Health Care Without Harm

Business Philosophy and Growth

Viewing the gathering of material inputs for alternative proteins as a value chain could help alt protein companies see opportunities for increasing social and environmental benefit at each step in the chain, contributing to shared risk and shared wealth. Acquiring relevant certifications could deepen each company’s commitment to broader societal benefits. Where possible, alt protein producers may be able improve their commitment to common-good benefits by seeking investments that operate on a longer growth timeline than typical VC and accommodate early and seasonal cash-flow challenges.

Communication

The common good is served both by transparency in consumer messaging about ingredients, product additives, and nutrition and by more proactive communication with input producers and processing factory workers. Authentically forging more open communication with these parties, as some industry pioneers have done, can illuminate ways of better aligning alt protein production with benefits to workers and rural communities. Plant-based alt protein industry could also deepen its benefits to the common good by engaging more with lobbying efforts related to alt protein regulation and labeling.

Lobbying efforts would benefit quite a lot if companies would more actively support our shared goals. Small businesses can do a lot to influence local congresspeople if they can find the right arguments and tell an effective story about what they are doing and why they are doing it.

Bruce Friedrich, President and Founder, Good Food Institute

Companies can donate and fund projects, give back to groups that are trying to improve the health of communities. It’s not ok to exploit or use [social] issues as marketing. When some companies reach out to Black and Brown communities, it feels fake. I want to see companies that will allow their employees to unionize, pay them living wages from bottom to top of supply chain.

lauren Ornelas, Founder and Senior Programs Director, Food Empowerment Project

Community Accountability and Social Impact

The alt protein industry could increase common-good benefits by allowing for workforce unionization and ensuring that alt protein processing exceeds the employee benefits and safety standards of the incumbent animal protein industry. Additionally, companies can recruit from educational pipelines that currently serve the animal agriculture industry and broaden access to alt protein career training. In both educational settings and recruitment, it would benefit the common good if alt protein companies strongly support diversity and act in genuine allyship with BIPOC populations that traditionally face greater barriers to involvement.

Supportive Policy

Common-good benefits of the alt protein industry could be maximized by strengthening land conservation incentives, realigning product subsidies, and improving public support for improved value chain coordination. Expanding and strengthening conservation programs could provide transition incentives for farmers and bolster domestic plant-based input production. Adding subsidies for crop production with fewer negative environmental and social externalities and reducing public support for farmed animal and feed crop industries would help level the playing field that currently disadvantages plant-based alternatives—and the common good—in a price-parity race to the bottom.

Increasing public support for value chain coordination is critical for supporting farmers transitioning to new crops and new markets. We currently rely on farmers being very entrepreneurial to find markets. We could support that better through government programs.

Pete Huff, Co-Director, Wallace Center at Winrock International

Funding Collaboration between Alt Protein and Government

Expanding public-private partnerships can help plant-based companies provide greater co-benefits at all stages of production. Government support of impact assessment, research and development, standard-setting and financial assistance is important, as the alternative protein industry’s profit motive may not position it well to prioritize expanding common-good benefits without government support. Government-facilitated collective marketing efforts for alt proteins—perhaps similar to existing checkoff programs for meat and dairy—could help advance entire sectors of the alternative protein industry. Expanding government-supported loan guarantee programs would help to enable and de-risk large investments in building or transitioning commercial alt protein production plants. Government investment could provide critical support for capital expenditures early in alternative protein companies’ growth, an area where VC is especially hesitant to invest.

Externalized public funding would be especially helpful for financing capital expenses related to hard infrastructure and processes, where VC hesitates to invest. This would be one opportunity for ensuring enhanced common good benefits can be meaningfully baked into the industry from the beginning.

Lisa Feria, Managing Partner and CEO, Stray Dog Capital

On the CapEx side, that’s where we need government to provide the infrastructure for companies to grow. In the US, we are definitely seeing signs of that in federal and state-level funding for facility buildout and state incentive programs. We need much more of that if we’re going to meaningfully impact this industry. I also think that governments need to think about this investment in a more joined-up way; it’s about national security, climate change, net zero, food security, biosecurity. There’s some joining of the dots between these issues of national priority in the US with biomanufacturing. We need more of that thinking instead of siloing food as its own thing not considered relevant to the rest.

Rosie Wardle, Co-founder and Partner, Synthesis Capital

Vision and Leadership

Ask about Impact: When investors ask about products’ impacts on the common good during due diligence or even after investment, it raises those issues’ priority with start-ups and normalizes the ask. Prioritizing impact data and standardizing requests among investors could improve and expedite data-gathering for the entire industry. Investors can support start-ups in adopting best practices such as solid HR systems or diversity, equity, and inclusion policies. Investors can also fund the use of impact assessment tools on behalf of start-ups in their portfolios.
Consider Investing in Underfunded but Crucial Areas: Investors who are willing to think outside of the typical VC realm could have an outsized positive impact by investing in areas of plant-based supply chain inefficiency or lack of competitive advantage. For example, correcting the lack of domestic (US) processing infrastructure, organic-certified processing plants and processing plants, and grain elevators.

Collaboration and Coordination

Consider Flexible and Integrated Funding Structures: Improved access to nondilutive and longer-term funding sources remains one of the greatest pathways for alt proteins to realize broad co-benefits. Another concrete way investors can support plant-based alt proteins’ benefits to the common good is by investigating opportunities to invest through and alongside models of integrated capital that can fill unmet needs. For example, low- to no-interest loans could help farmers transition to the production of alt protein input crops or build processing facilities, and grant funding could support publicly available alternative protein research.
Engage with Government Policy: Investors can engage with government policy through collaboratives such as trade associations, where investors do not need to engage with policymakers directly but have their interests represented collectively.
Rescue and Preserve Intellectual Property: The alternative protein industry is currently experiencing a scarcity of funding which has shut down a number of companies. Investors could play a role in rescuing and preserving the IP from these closing companies and others on the brink of closure.
Greater availability of sources of non-dilutive funding could be very helpful for freeing companies to pursue greater benefits to the common good. Existing non-dilutive funding sources (e.g., research grants, the X Prize) are difficult to access, taking significant time and resources to obtain as well as requiring rigorous documentation and reporting processes.

Christie Fleming, CEO, The ISH Food Company
Adopting a broad understanding of food system transformation can strengthen corporate standard watchdog activities and help make potential areas for common good benefits from alt proteins more visible. Ways of increasing the movement’s power to create positive change include finding respectful synergies among the many sides of the food system transformation movement, avoiding and countering meat industry narratives, and believing in the possibility of systemic change to benefit people and animals.

In corporate engagement, working the sustainability leads in food and meat companies that own plant-based start-ups may help these individuals champion aligned values internally. In consumer messaging, highlighting plant-based benefits beyond “taste, price, convenience” may help to broaden societal appeal.

Educational institutions play a vital role for advancing alt proteins. Broadening access to alt protein internships, scholarships, and related educational pipelines will help to strengthen the workforce and promote equity in the field.

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