Look closer: Plant-based innovators are joining forces

Creating sustainable solutions for the food we eat around the world is the challenge and opportunity of a lifetime—impossible to solve alone, yet completely achievable together. The words of former Unilever CEO Paul Polman on collaboration ring loud and true especially as we look closer at the plant-based protein sector today, where partnerships are playing an increasingly essential role in the growth and success of this just-getting-started industry. 

Today, across the supply chain, a growing diversity of companies and organizations are collaborating to propel plant-based meat, seafood, eggs, and dairy into the mainstream. 

Many of the global leaders in consumer packaged goods and meat production, such as Cargill, Nestle, Tyson, Kraft Heinz, and others, have some level of involvement in the plant-based protein industry, including working with specialized companies, start-ups, and other innovators who are tackling the sector’s biggest challenges, notably taste, price, and accessibility. Whether through joint research, investment, production and manufacturing synergies, or marketing and distribution partnerships, these collaborations can and have played an impactful role in supporting the growth of the sector. 

The breadth, depth, and pace of such collaborations, however, are often missing from media headlines and the hot-take stories that merely scratch the surface of what’s really happening across the industry, masking and sometimes underrepresenting how the sector is working together to move the field forward in major ways. Just last week, a new, dedicated center for alternative protein science and innovation launched at North Carolina State University, focused on leveraging public-private partnerships and cross-disciplinary collaboration to diversify the global protein supply chain via meat made from plants, fermentation, and cell cultivation.  

While the first of several Bezos Centers for Sustainable Proteins marks a milestone moment in alternative protein science, it’s just the latest in a growing wave of smart, strategic partnerships that are collectively growing the sector as a whole, specifically in the areas of: 1) research and development; 2) ingredient and end-product innovation; and 3) scaling and distribution.