Securing Scale-up Funding for Alternative Proteins (Ambitious Impact)
Securing Scale-up Funding for Alternative Proteins / Summary
Description
We review a charity idea to lobby governments to introduce financial tools (like loan guarantees) to help alternative protein companies scale production. High capital costs block the expansion of alternative proteins, despite the strong potential for climate and animal welfare impact. Drawing lessons from industries like clean energy, the charity would push for policies that reduce investment risk and unlock private capital.
Counterfactual impact
The intervention is modeled as averting 3–51 Suffering-Adjusted Days (SADs) per dollar and reducing CO₂ equivalent emissions for $0.54-$10.17 per tonne.
Scale this charity could reach
If successful, the charity could catalyze millions in government investment in a single country. Based on the size of previous infrastructure grants, we think that a new charity could raise $2M-14M per year per country.
Potential for success
Robustness of evidence
Historical examples from clean energy and biotech show that government financial tools can transform emerging industries. The experts we spoke with largely agreed this could apply to alternative proteins, noting some caution that policy wins alone may not guarantee private investment flows. The Good Food Institute (GFI) has also been successful in lobbying governments to secure R&D funding.
Others have estimated that for each dollar spent, GFI raised $1.67 in funding. We expect that a new charity could see similar success for scale-up funding. However, we note that scale-up funding has been historically underinvested in compared to R&D funding. 16 grants have been made across eight countries for scale-up funding vs. 336 grants made across 28 countries for R&D.
Theory of Change
A new non-profit will identify policy opportunities, engage decision-makers, and advocate for financial support measures. This work relies on the assumption that governments are open to the economic, national security, sustainability, and food security arguments for alt proteins, and that modest advocacy costs could unlock substantial funding. The experts we spoke with think that a new charity could achieve this.
Neglectedness
The focus on scaling support for alternative proteins is highly neglected. GFI only has two FTE working on securing government commercialization funding. This leaves room for new actors to add significant value. Experts from GFI and Food Solutions Action believe that work alongside them would be synergistic with their efforts lobbying for financial incentives for R&D.