All PFN ARTICLES

If plant-based burgers leave you cold and lab-grown steaks feel like science fiction, you’re not alone. Most people don’t want a lecture on sustainability with their dinner, they just want their food to taste good, feel safe, and not blow the grocery budget. Enter a new $3 million New Zealand–Singapore research collaboration aimed squarely at one thing - making hybrid future meat, consumers actually want to eat.

In a move less about shock and more about shedding the last vestiges of a fading food illusion, Beyond Meat just dropped the 'Meat' according to US reports. That’s right, Beyond Meat will simply be Beyond, and with it comes a recalibration of the alt protein narrative. Out with mimicry, in with meaning.

But forecasts don’t pay at the checkout. Grocery aisles are still ruled by price paranoia - retail inflation has shoppers trading down, not trading up. The very same study concedes stubborn production costs keep most patties dearer than the real-meat equivalent which is a handbrake on mainstream uptake. So the move is on for more hybrid meats.