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The state of sustainable ingredients for 2025

Published on December 4, 2024

 

I like the month of December; you can finally assess how you did over the year (or how good your “predictions” were in my case) and think about what is coming next. That leads us to our planned update to our report on the trends shaping the future of food (if you want a preview, let me know). Today, I’d like to share a snapshot of it with our updated view of where we are for sustainable ingredients.

First, a question of naming. We have renamed (again) this megatrend sustainable ingredient. While alternative proteins remain the most common phrase, we decided to call this megatrend “sustainable ingredients” as:

  • The discussion is moving ever more towards the double sustainability imperative: being better for the planet and humans.
  • The focus is evolving away from bulk proteins and towards ingredients with functionalities (flavours, sugars, fats…, etc.) or health benefits (such as lactoferrin).

As you can see in the trends curve below, we have mapped seven trends for 2025, two new compared to last year. Before diving into them, a note of caution as the positioning of the trends are averages on:

  • Geographies:  all the trends are not at the same stage for different areas. Some trends may even be irrelevant in some more regulatory restrictive regions.
  • Technologies could be split more thinly (such as biomass fermentation, which covers things as different as solid and liquid fermentation).
  • Applications: the curve for “sugar alternatives” would not have the same positioning of the different trends as the one for another ingredient.

In a word, if you want a company-focused view of the trends that will impact your future, this one is a good start. However, for any decision-making, you should definitely give us a call!

🍔 Plant-based is still doing poorly but has moved forward. We could be very near or already at the bottom of the current downturn. We expect things to do better and to improve (not for all categories and geographies) in 2025.

🧫 Cellular agriculture is down: many startups are going bankrupt while others are pausing their big expansion plans. There is still some consolidation ahead.

🥛 Precision fermentation is off its “excitement peak”, but not by much. As many startups have received regulatory approval in the US, we will see in 2025 how far they can scale their production. The move of many companies from bulk proteins to the “healthy ageing” space also helps as the required volumes are lower.

🍄 Biomass fermentation is still doing well (at least some parts of the ecosystem and startups): excitement is still being build around companies converting CO2 into proteins and solid-state fermentation.

🤖 Protein discovery with AI is one of the new “hot categories”: using AI or large databases of natural compounds, they can identify proteins with interesting properties (sweetener, fats, caseins…). While it is still a small ecosystem, it is getting a lot of attention from investors and large companies. Also, we should keep an eye on the companies using AI to help the scale-up of synthetic biology.

🍫 Plant-cell culture: also a “new” topic (or at least a topic that as emerged a lot in the discussions in recent months). We made a focus on this topic recently. The ability of plant-cell culture to scale faster and to have an easier regulatory path than cellular agriculture could make the difference.

🌾 Molecular farming: using genetically modified plants to produce animal proteins remains a young and unproven technology. However, it is receiving more and more attention, notably with the recent IPO of Moolec and some regulatory pre-approvals.

Then, beyond the trends themselves, there is one question that is still agitating the ecosystem: how can these companies finance the scale-up? As no obvious answer is emerging (it would require a strong government support, which is highly improbable for now), this explains the shift from proteins towards ingredients and health. That’s something we should be seeing even more of in 2025.

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