Germany has traditionally been a country with high meat consumption per capita, but a new study shows that young Germans are increasingly turning to vegetarian diets. The study market analyst company Mintel followed 1,000 people aged over 16 and their results show that nearly one in five (18%) Germans aged between 16 and 24 purchase meat-alternative products. This is comparable to the one in ten (11%) doing the same across all age groups.  A major challenge for this trend to consolidate however, is that only 14% of Germans say that they enjoy the taste of these products.

This paper provides a useful overview of the effects that measures to reduce GHGs from the livestock sector can have upon the welfare of farmed animals.  It argues that most approaches geared at seek to increasing the intensity of production via changes in breeding, feeding and housing may increase productivity per unit of GHG s emitted but they come at the expense of animal health and wellbeing.

This paper explores how food retailers assist consumers to make more climate smart food choices. 17 Swedish food retail representatives were interviewed and retailer websites studied and it was found that food retailers focus on their direct environmental impact as well as on organic food to drive more sustainable consumption.

A new paper published in Environmental Science and Technology finds that measures to mitigate agricultural GHG emissions potentially risk increasing global hunger more than the impacts of climate change on crop yields itself.  The study draws upon global models to quantify:  a. the impact of climate change on yields in the absence of mitigation, b. the impact of bionergy production (as one mitigation measure) on competition for land and associated food prices and c. finally, the costs associated with mitigating the impacts of climate change by introducing a carbon tax.  Introduction of this tax is assumed to lead to increase in use of renewable fuels (wind, power, geothermal, bionenergy) and ‘abatement from non energy sources’ – which presumably includes agriculture although they do not specify what sort of abatement this would be.

A new paper published in Global Change Biology looks into the effects of increasing CO2 levels on protein in crops. The study finds that not only can increased CO2 be a problem for food security through climate change, but it can also directly impact the nutritional value of crops.

In a survey carried out by the International Trade Centre, ITC exporters reveal widespread concerns about reduced competitiveness due to climate change. Based on surveys of exporting firms in both Peru and Uganda, the new publication, Climate Change and the Agri-Food Trade: Perceptions of Exporters in Peru and Uganda, identifies threats arising from climate change and seeks to develop solutions to help the agriculture sector adapt.  The publication concludes that climate change makes existing challenges in the agri-food sector even more difficult to overcome, and argues that it is already having a highly negative impact on competitiveness.

A new consortium has been created with the aim of mapping out the influence of consumer behaviour and producer choices on the nutritional adequacy and sustainability of dietary patterns.

This Bloomberg article describes how as a percentage of all new milk products on the market in 2014, non-dairy milk products made up 24% and 31% in European and North American respectively. In addition to oat, soy and almond milk, scientists have also developed alternatives based on from hemp and quinoa. The article focuses on the case of a Swedish Oat-milk producing company Oatly – a company that has seen sales grow significantly with revenue increasing with 37 percent this year. It describes how “(t)he expanding range of options has helped broaden the appeal of products such as Oatly beyond vegetarians, vegans, and the lactose intolerant”.

This article reports that a new fish and animal feedstock product which uses methane gas may be released into the European feedstock markets from the beginning of 2018. The product, FeedKind, is currently in pre-production phase and it is described that the manufacturing process is very similar to the way in which Marmite and other yeast-extract sandwich spreads are produced.