Periodic Reporting for period 2 - LIKE-A-PRO (From niche to mainstream - alternative proteins for everybody and everywhere)
Período documentado: 2024-05-01 hasta 2025-10-31
The growing consumers’ interest in alternative protein products as substitutes for conventional animal-based foods creates the perfect opportunity for EU diets to become more sustainable and healthier. However, despite a clear willingness to reduce animal protein consumption, more effort is needed to facilitate and accelerate the protein shift. Still, alternative protein mainstreaming faces challenges at the product development stage, resulting in low availability and accessibility of acceptable products. In fact, Europeans seeking alternative protein products are faced with limited options in terms of product types, protein sources, flavors, and textures. To enable a dietary shift, the food industry must focus on diversifying alternative protein sources and developing new appealing products, thus meeting consumer demand. LIKE-A-PRO aims to mainstream alternative proteins and products making them more available, accessible, and acceptable to all population groups and everywhere. This will be achieved by developing several new food products with ingredients from seven alternative protein sources. The project will also investigate consumers’ needs and behavioural determinants that can affect their acceptance and integration of alternative proteins in their diets. The project will also develop various governance mechanisms that can be introduced into the market by different actors to facilitate the transition towards healthier and sustainable diets, with alternative proteins as an instrument towards such goal. Activities will be carried out to understand Europeans' eating habits to find ways to adapt the products they like to consume. Middle food system actors will also be engaged to make alternative products an easy and economically viable choice.
Since its start, LIKE-A-PRO has combined consumer research with ingredient and food innovation to support wider alternative protein uptake in Europe. Studies identified motivations, barriers and demographic factors behind consumers’ choices, and created an evidence-based typology of facilitators and obstacles across food environments. With stakeholders, 17 system maps for 13 EU countries were co-created to identify leverage points that can increase alternative protein choices. A citizen-led Living Lab approach to improve food environments was developed and implemented across 11 EU countries. Four iterative cycles generated evidence on behavioural drivers and governance levers that shape real choices, informing four intervention pilots and sustainability planning. In parallel, a Food Actor Network was built, bringing together actors across the food chain to co-create transition pathways and strengthen capabilities. On the supply side, protein extraction and processing from diverse sources were optimised to improve efficiency, reduce undesirable compounds and address sensory issues, and production was scaled up to pilot and pre-industrial levels. Ingredients were characterised for nutritional quality, digestibility, antinutritional factors, functionality, safety and traceability. Using these ingredients, 63 pilot-scale foods were developed (e.g. meat, fish and dairy alternatives, hybrids and high-protein plant-based products) and assessed for physico-chemical, nutritional, sensory and microbiological performance, supporting selection for further study. Socio-environmental work progressed through the True Price methodology, European dietary data mapping and preparation of modelling to explore diet shifts. Market and economic monitoring tracked uptake and pricing trends. Regulatory and safety work classified ingredients by regulatory status and ran in vitro tests aligned with EU guidance, with no first-tier safety concerns identified. Data management and ethical compliance were maintained throughout.
Currently, the efficiency of solutions to make Food Environments more alternative protein friendly, sustainable and healthy is limited. LIKE-A-PRO aims to advance the Societal Readiness Level of a wide range of Food Environment solutions moving “from attitude to action” (to actual behaviour change towards greater alternative protein consumption). The project’s approach is to co-design practical solutions with consumers and middle food-system actors, ensuring that both the interventions and the products they promote are acceptable, affordable and feasible for everyday use. This includes shaping strong value propositions supported by marketing strategies, and co-designing guidelines for communication campaigns (frames, language and consumer-driven messaging) to be tested in real settings. LIKE-A-PRO already generated results that advance the state of the art in Food Environments, alternative protein ingredients and product development. From the start of the project to date, LIKE-A-PRO has delivered the first multi-country implementation of Food Environment Citizen Innovation Living Labs across 11 countries. Four completed Living Lab iterations generated evidence on behavioural drivers, governance levers and communication strategies that can shift actual choices beyond awareness. On the supply side, the project advanced ingredient production processes to higher technological readiness across diverse protein sources, supported by comprehensive nutritional, safety and traceability assessments. Beyond the initial ambition to develop 16 new products using ingredients from seven alternative protein sources, the project has already created 63 pilot-scale foods, substantially expanding product diversity and formats. Key needs for successful deployment include: continued validation of Food Environments interventions in real settings, support for scaling promising food prototypes to industrial production, clearer and more predictable authorisation pathways for novel ingredients, and market-oriented work to secure affordability and consumer acceptance, alongside continued capability building and cross-sector collaboration.