Horizon4Proteins is growing!

LIKE-A-PRO becomes a member of the Horizon4Proteins cluster

Press release Fraunhofer CBP / May 25, 2023

The recently funded European projects LIKE-A-PRO and GIANT LEAPS are proud to announce that they have become members of Horizon4Proteins, a collaboration launched in 2021 by four EU-funded projects working on alternative proteins (NextGenProteins, ProFuture, Smart Protein and SUSINCHAIN).

While facing climate change and natural resource scarcity, ensuring sufficient, nutritious, safe and affordable food to a fast-growing world population with changing dietary habits becomes increasingly challenging. The protein supply is in this respect most critical. Integration of a variety of new or alternative protein sources from both terrestrial and aquatic origins into new and/or existing processes or products needs to be explored, in order to develop and ensure more sustainable, resilient supply chains, featuring high consumer acceptability by a clean labelling approach and attractive market opportunities.

Sharing this goal, the four projects have been working together in key aspects such as: consumer acceptance of alternative proteins, safety and regulatory challenges, food applications and sustainability.

LIKE-A-PRO's and GIANT LEAPS involvement will ensure continuity of the Horizon4Protein initiative and, through this collaboration, both projects will support the EU transition towards a more sustainable and resilient food system.

About LIKE-A-PRO: From niche to mainstream – alternative proteins for everybody and everywhere

The interest of Europeans in alternative proteins is becoming clear and this trend is the perfect ground for the dietary shift towards sustainable and healthy nutrition and food systems, in line with the ambitions of the EU Green Deal, Farm to Fork strategy and EU’s climate goals. Yet, this interest is not reflected in the European dietary patterns, as alternative proteins are mainly consumed by early adopters, while the majority is less receptive towards alternatives or have limited possibilities to integrate them in the diets. This gap between interest and consumption is due to obstacles in the food environments such as product limited offering, suboptimal product taste, isolated product placement in shops or menus etc. Without overcoming these obstacles, alternative proteins will remain a niche.

LIKE-A-PRO aims at mainstreaming alternative proteins, making them accessible, available, and acceptable to everybody (from children to elderly, vulnerable groups) and everywhere (across Europe, in urban, peri-urban, and rural areas). To achieve this, key representatives along the entire alternative protein value chain (growers, producers, cooks, retailers, consumers, researchers) will work together in a trans-disciplinary consortium.

To improve European food environments towards fostering alternative protein consumption, practical solutions will be co-designed with citizens. This social innovation will take place in 11 living labs and in 4 real life food environments. For a diversified alternative protein offering, 16 new alternative protein products will be developed with 7 sustainable, healthy, and novel sources. To secure result deployment, the project will actively involve middle food system actors (+35,000 companies) – via co-creation and capacity building. For a maximised impact, innovative communication campaigns will be launched in 6 countries, reaching 8 M citizens in 4 years.

LIKE-A-PRO

About GIANT LEAPS: Gap resolutIon in safety, nutritional, allergenicity and Environmental assessments to promote Alternative Protein utilization and the dietary Shift

Accelerating the transition from animal-based to alternative dietary proteins – the dietary shift – is key to reducing the footprint of our food system in terms of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), energy, water and land use and other relevant environmental impacts, while improving the health and well-being of people, animals and the planet. The Horizon Europe project GIANT LEAPS delivers the strategic innovations, methodologies and open-access datasets to speed up this dietary shift, in line with the Farm to Fork Strategy and contributing to the European Green Deal target of reaching climate neutrality by 2050.

Achieving the dietary shift in practice is inherently complex due to the diverse set of actors involved and further hindered by major knowledge gaps scattered across the various alternative protein sources and the domains of health (safety, allergenicity and digestibility), environment (GHGs and other environmental and climate impacts, biodiversity, circularity) and/or barriers to adoption (technological, sensory and consumer acceptance). The GIANT LEAPS consortium consists of key industrial and scientific actors and spans all expertise to address relevant knowledge gaps and proactively engages to arrive at optimized future diets based on alternative proteins that are broadly accepted across stakeholder groups. In order to deliver required insights for short, mid and long-term decision making and impact, a range of protein sources has been selected for either targeted or full assessment based on their current level of specification. The innovations and improved methods combined with accessible and comprehensive information, generated for a wide collection of alternative proteins, will enable policymakers to prioritise changes in the food system towards the dietary shift based on desired impact, value chain actors to make strategic scientific, business and investment choices, and the general public to make more sustainable and healthy dietary choices.

GIANT LEAPS

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LIKE-A-PRO and GIANT LEAPS have received funding from the European Union’s HORIZON EUROPE research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No 101083961 and No 101059632

Press release

Horizon4Proteins is growing!

LIKE-A-PRO becomes a member of the Horizon4Proteins cluster

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About LIKE-A-PRO: From niche to mainstream – alternative proteins for everybody and everywhere

LIKE-A-PRO

About GIANT LEAPS: Gap resolutIon in safety, nutritional, allergenicity and Environmental assessments to promote Alternative Protein utilization and the dietary Shift

GIANT LEAPS

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Dr. Robert Hartmann

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Dr. Claudia Vorbeck

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Morena Silvestrini