Good Food Institute: Finding Sustainable Solutions Through Alternative Proteins 

To meet growing global demand, meat production is projected to increase by at least 50 percent from 2012 levels by 2050. If the world is to achieve our climate, biodiversity, public health, and food security goals, making meat differently via alternative proteins will be as essential as the global transition to renewable energy. By reimagining how meat is made, we can produce food that people love and usher in a more sustainable, secure, and just food future. 

Alternative proteins—meat made from plants, cultivated from animal cells, or produced via fermentation—are designed to taste the same as or better than conventional animal products while costing the same or less and providing equivalent or better nutrition. Transitioning toward alternative proteins can dramatically reduce emissions, require far less land, eliminate the use of antibiotics in our food system, and feed more people with fewer resources.

Good Food Institute (GFI) is a nonprofit think tank working to make the global food system better for the planet, people, and animals. Alongside scientists, businesses, and policymakers, GFI’s teams focus on making alternative proteins delicious, affordable, and accessible. Powered by philanthropy, GFI is an international network of organizations advancing alternative proteins as an essential solution needed to meet the world’s climate, global health, food security, and biodiversity goals.

Their work centers on developing a roadmap to improve the way protein is made, by identifying the most effective solutions, mobilizing resources and talent, and empowering partners across the food system to make alternative proteins accessible, affordable, and delicious. GFI accelerates alternative protein innovation, working in the most critical economies and regions for alternative protein advancement: Asia Pacific, Brazil, Europe, India, Israel, and the United States. GFI maps out the most neglected areas that will allow alternative proteins to compete on taste, price, and nutrition and meets these challenges by developing open-access research and resources, educating, and connecting the next generation of scientists and entrepreneurs, and funding research that benefits alternative protein development across the sector. 

GFI also seeks to ensure that alternative proteins are a part of the policy discussion around climate change mitigation, global health, bioeconomies, and food security. In every region where GFI has a presence, they advocate for public investment and incentives to transition toward alternative proteins and say they are paving the way for the approval of novel proteins such as cultivated meat.

Further, GFI works to replicate past market transformations by showing companies of all sizes, from startups to multinationals, how alternatives to animal products can be profitable while meeting sustainability goals.

Finally, GFI is committed to free knowledge sharing. Unhampered by IP laws or trade secrets, their research, data, and insights are open-access and support the advancement of every innovator. They believe that governments should fund alternative protein R&D and incentivize private sector research, manufacturing, and infrastructure build-out.

According to GFI, which is supported by a global community of donors, in 2022 they awarded over $4 million in grants to projects across 13 countries on five continents. Their insights and resources were sought and featured in leading global and national media outlets, and they published 50 reports, resources, and peer-reviewed papers. They have 53 Alt Protein Project student chapters across North America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia, and are growing. The future of how we feed the world is up to us, and GFI is leading the way.

Learn more about the Good Food Institute.