Proteins produced through fermentation and cultivated cells hold enormous promise for the future of food. Yet, bringing these innovations to market remains a significant challenge. Europe, despite being home to many pioneering ideas and companies, is struggling to stay competitive. Scaling and commercialization are tough, and without coordinated action, we risk losing momentum to benefit economically from our early-stage efforts.
The path forward requires collective effort to create a thriving future for alternative proteins in the EU. And that’s exactly what we did on October 8 and 9 at the NEMO Science Museum in Amsterdam.
Planet B.io actively participates in the EU-funded APROVALS project, a consortium of innovation clusters from across Europe aiming to remove policy and regulatory bottlenecks to speed up the emerging sector of cellular agriculture. Crucially, we believe that those directly affected must be at the table, which is why a diverse group of companies has joined us in this project. On October 8, we officially kicked off this powerful and unique collaboration of 18 partners from 14 EU member states.
Together, we explored real-world experiences that companies have had with EFSA (European Food Safety Authority) and other European authorities influencing product approval and market access. By identifying bottlenecks, we began formulating specific recommendations for improvement. An expert with EFSA experience joined us to provide the perspective of regulators and assess whether our proposed actions are both feasible and aligned with EFSA’s current mandate.
In the afternoon, 10 additional experts joined to work one-on-one with companies on key topics such as industrialization in the EU, securing funding, navigating IP strategies, and building public trust through strategic communication. This marks just the beginning of our project. Over the next year, we’ll continue to collaborate with companies and experts, both to help them strategize and prioritize critical topics, and to distil sector-wide policy insights that can be shared with policymakers across Europe.
Besides regulation, our sector has other challenges to solve. Therefore, on day 2, we joined forces with Invest-NL and Cellular Agriculture Netherlands (CAN) to bring together the broader Dutch cellular agriculture community, with over 220 registrations. To amplify the impact of APROVALS we shared the methodology and first findings with the diverse crowd. Invest-NL introduced a new framework designed to help investors and ventures navigate the complex European regulatory landscape, while CAN shared updates on their work on education and research. The event also featured inspiring presentations from Sofinova, Vivici, Mosa Meat, and Those Vegan Cowboys who shared their growth journeys and lessons learned.
Together with APROVALS, Invest-NL, CAN, and our many dedicated partners, Planet B.io remains committed to building an environment where cellular agriculture can thrive, and where Europe can lead in shaping the future of protein.
