This paper reviews the potential contribution of microbial foods to a healthy, resilient and sustainable food system. It covers three main categories: traditional fermented foods such as wine, yoghurt and kimchi; microbial biomass, where the microbes themselves are directly consumed, for example the mycoprotein used in Quorn products; and “cell factories”, otherwise known as precision fermentation, where microbes are genetically modified to produce certain molecules.

This blog post from The Good Food Institute addresses the question of whether cultivated meat (and other lab-grown foods) can reduce the risk of antibiotic resistance compared to livestock production. Antibiotics are often added to cell culture media in laboratories to prevent infection, but over a dozen cultivated food companies claim to have antibiotic-free processes.

The United States Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has completed its first pre-market consultation for a food product made from cultivated animal cells. The cultivated chicken product, made by UPSIDE Foods, still has to pass further approval stages before it can be sold to consumers in the US, including inspection of the manufacturing facilities by the United States Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service. The process described in the consultation documents uses genetic engineering, antibiotics and bovine serum at various stages, although antibiotics are not used in the main cell growth and differentiation phases.

The Singapore Food Agency has approved the sale of food products containing Solein®, the microbial protein-rich powder produced by Finnish startup Solar Foods. The production process runs on electricity, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, oxygen and small amounts of other nutrients. Solar Foods is also seeking regulatory approval in the United States, the UK and the European Union.

This paper reviews the literature on the sustainability of four technologies that are being developed for use in sustainable food systems: vertical farming, plant-based alternatives, food delivery services and blockchain in food systems. These four technologies were chosen because they have recently attracted significant investments in the Nordic region.

This paper reviews the literature on different protein sources and their implications for food security, health, ethics, environmental sustainability and socio-economic wellbeing. It classes the many contentious debates about the future of sustainable protein into three main categories or meta-narratives - “modernising protein”, “reconstituting protein” and “regenerating protein” - and analyses how stakeholders in each of these camps are seeking to reshape food systems.

This book, aimed at undergraduate students, gives an overview of how power dynamics, such as those linked to inequality and colonialism, affect global food systems and what we eat.

This paper presents a “roadmap” towards achieving net zero in global food systems by 2050 - a plan which has recently been called for by institutional investors. The authors explore 64 pathways to net zero based on implementing varying levels of four major food systems interventions: increasing production efficiency through shifting to low-emissions practices; sequestering carbon in croplands and grasslands; changing diets to reduce the global production of protein from livestock; and adopting a diverse range of “new-horizon” - i.e. emerging - technologies such as methane inhibitors and perennial row crops.

The Good Food Institute has launched a database of over 500 research papers, books, reports, patents and theses on plant-based meats and proteins. The database can be searched and filtered, for example by keyword.