A new report by GFI has found that alt-seafood sales in the US grew by 23% in 2020 compared to the previous year. The figure rose from $10 million in 2019 to $12 million in 2020.
Plant Molecular Farming: A Fourth Emerging Alt Protein Category?
GFI has released its trio of State of the Industry reports, discussing the pillar categories of plant-based, cultivated, and fermentation-enabled proteins. The reports also hint at a fourth emerging category — plant molecular farming (PMF). PMF works in a similar way to fermentation, but the process takes place inside plants instead of bioreactors. This could eliminate the scaling challenges of producing proteins in large fermentation tanks, with the process instead taking place in greenhouses or even open fields. According to GFI, there are already 12 known companies working in this area. These include the US’ Nobell Foods, which uses soybeans to grow animal-free casein, and New Zealand’s Miruku, which uses this method to produce dairy proteins, sugars, and fats. Similarly, Israel’s BioBetter uses tobacco plants …