May 27, 2019

If it was any question that consumer food tastes were shifting, Beyond Meat’s IPO and Impossible Foods’ $300 million quick-to-follow private equity funding put an end to that debate. “ Alternative” and vegan are officially mainstream. Those two milestones were on the forefront of everyone’s minds—and frequent references in open discussion—at the F&A Next conference in Wageningen, the Netherlands last week, where hundreds of delegates gathered to discuss and debate the future of food and agriculture. There, however, Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods were just two among many examples of companies feeding evolving consumer appetites and global need for a healthier, more sustainable food system. Here are five other takeaways about how “alternative” food ideas, technologies and actors are shifting the mainstream as we know it.