
Alternative Protein Solutions Database
Discover ideas for new startups, commercial ventures and products, research projects, ecosystem support, and investment opportunities for plant-based, cultivated, and fermentation-derived proteins.
Opportunity | Production platform | Solution category | Value chain segment | Technology sector | Maturity level |
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Guidelines for cultivated meat starter cell selection
Improving our understanding of the relative advantages and disadvantages of different cell types for cultivated meat would enable companies to make these decisions more effectively with less duplicative effort. |
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Research | R&D Raw Materials, Ingredients, & Inputs | Cell line development | 1 – Inception |
Plants as a recombinant protein expression platform for functional food ingredients
Crop plants used as recombinant protein production hosts could offer benefits of minimal processing, cheaper equipment, and fewer downstream purification costs. |
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Commercial Research | Production R&D Raw Materials, Ingredients, & Inputs | Crop development Ingredient optimization | 2 – Early adoption |
Forging product development partnerships among ingredient suppliers and manufacturers
Opportunities exist to coordinate product development partnerships between ingredient suppliers, strategic partners, and product manufacturers to directly engage more holistically on product formulation. |
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Commercial Ecosystem | End Products Production Raw Materials, Ingredients, & Inputs | Cell culture media Crop development Feedstocks Ingredient optimization Scaffolding | 1 – Inception |
Systematic investigation of growth factor needs and effects
Open-access research into growth factors required for proliferation, maintenance, and differentiation of cell types relevant to cultivated meat will support both academic and industry research efforts. This research could include… |
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Research | R&D Raw Materials, Ingredients, & Inputs | Cell culture media Target molecule selection | |
Expand capacity for demonstration-scale and mid-scale co-manufacturing
Companies entering the alt protein space often struggle to secure line time at demonstration-scale and mid-scale commercial production facilities. Greater availability of mid-scale contract capacity would reduce capital outlays and… |
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Commercial Ecosystem | Production R&D Raw Materials, Ingredients, & Inputs | Bioprocess design End product formulation & manufacturing | |
Infrastructure and equipment leasing fund
Infrastructure leasing for production and processing facilities as well as capital equipment would enable alternative protein companies to rapidly expand capacity without large upfront capital investments. Having leasing funds and… |
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Commercial | Investment Production Raw Materials, Ingredients, & Inputs | ||
Growth factors from conditioned cell culture media
Rather than relying on recombinant growth factors, cultivated meat companies could use conditioned media from animal cells producing high levels of these molecules. |
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Commercial Research | R&D Raw Materials, Ingredients, & Inputs | Cell culture media Target molecule selection | 1 – Inception |
Producing animal-like fats through microbial fermentation
Microbial fermentation may be able to help us produce lipids that are identical or similar to animal fats—especially saturated fats, which are exceedingly rare in the plant kingdom. |
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Commercial Research | R&D Raw Materials, Ingredients, & Inputs | Host strain development Target molecule selection | 1 – Inception |
Establishment of cell line repositories and standardized isolation protocols
Development of humanely-sourced and thoroughly documented and characterized cell lines from a variety of common food species—together with a mechanism for licensing and distributing these lines to researchers and companies—will… |
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Commercial Research | R&D Raw Materials, Ingredients, & Inputs | Cell line development | |
Plant-based ingredient analytical and characterization service
Plant protein ingredient characterization tools or as a service. |
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Commercial Research | R&D Raw Materials, Ingredients, & Inputs | Bioprocess design Ingredient optimization |
Get involved
If you’d like to fund a research project, work on any of these solutions, share information about related efforts that are already underway, or elevate new ideas for advancing the alternative protein industry, we’d love to hear from you!

Explore key innovation priorities
Review commercial whitespaces, research gaps, technological needs, and investment priorities at each stage of the alternative protein value chain.
How we built this

Full report
Delve into the full report on the motivation, methodology, rationale, and key findings and recommendations of the Solutions initiative.

Futures wheels analysis
Explore our framework for uncovering second-order or third-order consequences and implications of hypothetical future scenarios to support better decision-making in the present.

Future-proofing
Discover key findings from GFI’s premortem analysis of potential threats to the widespread adoption of alternative proteins, including strategies to avoid or mitigate the most pressing risks.