Alternative protein startups underscore the need for scientific and engineering talent

Though the sector is still in its nascency, we’re beginning to see promising signals of its potential to trigger widespread economic growth

There are nearly 2000 specialized and diversified alternative protein companies across the value chain creating thousands of new jobs around the globe. Governments are beginning to seize the alternative protein opportunity with landmark investments in research and training.

Leading institutions like Tufts and the Technion have established research and training hubs to nurture the next generation of alternative protein talent. Since 2020, the alternative protein sector has raked in $11.2 billion dollars of capital. However, a new GFI analysis unveils that demand for alternative protein talent continues to outpace its supply.

Late last year, we surveyed our global community of alternative protein startups on their workforce development needs. We received 130 responses*, with representation from North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and Africa. 53% of the respondents work on plant-based technologies; 34% cultivated; 20% precision fermentation; and 20% biomass fermentation; with 27% of respondents working across multiple production platforms.

The plurality (48%) of respondents were from startups with between one and four employees, which means our data is heavily weighted toward the needs of early-stage startups. Read on below for our key findings and recommendations.

*Not all 130 respondents responded to every question.

Scientific and engineering talent is greatly needed

While the alternative protein sector has been steadily growing in the last decade, startups continue to feel pressed for sufficient technical talent to drive their technologies forward. 52% of respondents reported difficulty hiring technical talent and, among them, 94% viewed technical talent bottlenecks as posing “very severe” or “moderately severe” challenges to their organization’s long-term success.

Beneath the umbrella of technical talent, there is an especially significant need for an infusion of scientific and engineering talent to bolster the sector’s research and development capacity. Of those that reported difficulty hiring technical talent, 79% reported having difficulty hiring scientists and engineers for research and development roles, with 35% and 22% reporting difficulty hiring operators and technicians for manufacturing roles and quality assurance and control roles, respectively. 

Consistent with other emerging technological fields, we expect the nature of talent needs to shift as the sector matures and increasingly transitions toward commercial-scale production when the plurality of the technical workforce will likely become manufacturing operators and technicians rather than benchtop scientists. This may already be true for startups at later stages of maturity than the ones most heavily represented in our survey data.

Cross-production platform skills are in the highest demand

When we asked alternative protein startups to select the top technical skills and backgrounds missing from their team today, we found that “general” or “cross-platform” skills and backgrounds appear to be most needed. Cross-platform skills include disciplines like food science and meat science, process development and scale-up, manufacturing, product development, and food safety, which have a wide range of applications across the spectrum of alternative protein technologies. When we asked companies to predict the top technical skills they anticipate needing most five years from now, skills related to manufacturing, process development, and scale-up, product development, and automation floated to the top.

The graph below illustrates the top 15 reported overall technical skills gaps of the alternative protein companies we surveyed, now and in five years. Example interpretation: “35% of respondents reported that food science or meat science is presently among their organization’s top 5 most needed technical skills and backgrounds.”

Specialized, platform-specific skills and backgrounds are also needed

Plant-based meat companies reported a need for more protein extrusion and food texture development experts for product development; cultivated meat companies reported a significant need for bioreactor operators and controllers, scaffolding design experts, cell culture media developers, cell line engineers, and tissue engineering experts to support research and scale-up across the value chain; precision and biomass fermentation companies highlighted a need for downstream process engineers to support scaling from lab and demo scale to commercial-scale production; and precision fermentation companies cited a need for microbial strain development capabilities. 

The landscape of talent needs will be ever-evolving as the sector reaches new phases of maturity; however, alternative proteins will likely continue to be a vast, multidisciplinary undertaking requiring talent across the science and engineering continuum. 

The charts below illustrate the top 10 most-needed skills of the companies we surveyed, now and in five years, organized by company type. Example interpretation: “40% of surveyed plant-based meat companies reported that food science or meat science is presently among their organization’s top 5 most needed technical skills and backgrounds.”

Alternative protein startups were presented with the following, non-exhaustive list of skills involved in alternative protein technologies from which to make their selection.

Awareness, training, and geography present major challenges

When we asked startups what they perceive the central reason for these bottlenecks to be, 45% of respondents selected “lack of awareness,” indicating that people with the right skills exist but don’t know about opportunities in alternative proteins; 42% selected “lack of training,” meaning that there aren’t enough people with the right skills, education, and training to meet labor force needs; and 46% selected “geographical location,” signifying that people with the right skills exist, but they reside in a different location than the organization operates and are unable or unwilling to relocate. 

While these kinds of workforce development obstacles may not be entirely unique to the alternative protein space, they present sizable challenges and opportunities for our sector.

Alternative protein startups are eager to partner with institutions of higher education to close workforce training gaps

The alternative protein startups we surveyed signal a healthy appetite for partnering with academic institutions to bridge labor force gaps. Participating startups were most interested in working with universities, independent research institutes, and technical colleges and trade schools. They were especially eager to partner with these institutions on research projects, centers, and consortia; developing internship programs and promoting existing internship opportunities; providing guest lectures for relevant courses; and participating in career fairs and on-campus hiring programs.