Fears of plant protein missed opportunity
New Zealand needs to have a discussion about how to encourage the production of plant-based high-protein foods, according to a report by Massey Universitybased FoodHQ and its Dutch research partner, Foodvalley.
But that shouldn’t be seen as an attack on the meat and dairy industries, FoodHQ business development manager Amos Palfreyman said.
He described himself as a nonvegetarian ‘‘taste-atarian’’ who, like many others, still ate meat and dairy but had opened up more to alternatives.
‘‘I like food that tastes good. I like to satisfy cravings rather than strategically set out my life around a carbon footprint.’’
FoodHQ said the Netherlands had set a target of reducing the proportion of protein that people derived from animalbased foods from 62 per cent to 50 per cent by 2025.
In New Zealand, that proportion was last measured at about 60 per cent in 2009, according to a study referenced by the Ministry for Primary Industries.
But Palfreyman believed that was likely to have fallen over the past two years as concerns about global warming, health and animal welfare prompted more Kiwis to switch to plant-based and ‘‘flexitarian’’ diets.
A separate University of Otago study has estimated that the consumption of animal-based foods in New Zealand resulted in carbon emissions that were equivalent to 60 per cent of those produced by cars and vans.
An often-quoted Japanese study once calculated that eating a kilogram of red meat was equivalent to driving a car for about three hours.
FoodHQ, whose backers include Fonterra, AgResearch
and Plant & Food Research, said increasing numbers of people were deciding to eat less meat and dairy while not necessarily going vegan.
‘‘It’s about a protein transition – a change in the balance of where some of their protein is coming from,’’ FoodHQ chief executive Abby Thompson said.
Palfreyman said a coordinated approach to building up an alternative-protein industry could help avoid a ‘‘chicken and egg’’ problem by creating new markets while also assisting in the diversification of agriculture away from meat and dairy.
‘‘There is now a real opportunity to sell New Zealand-branded products as a differentiator into that market and to create new supply chains for some of those plant proteins here.
‘‘But if everyone builds their own process for ‘extraction’, for example, we could end up with a situation where we have 50 small enterprises that are duplicating each others’ resources.’’
It would also be unhelpful if five different Kiwi companies conducted clinical trials to make health claims about quinoa ‘‘when they could combine and get New Zealand quinoa to have that overriding health claim that they could all leverage’’, he said.
Justin Hall, the director of Tahi Spirulina, one of a few dozen Kiwi and Dutch alternative protein producers highlighted by the FoodHQ report, said he would prefer to see more businesses join him in producing protein from algae, rather than the company having the local market to itself.
Animal and plant protein was not an ‘‘either/or’’, he said.
‘‘You could put a spirulina farm on 1 hectare of your property which is going to make a positive contribution to farm income. We have got a great future for our animal-based industries. Now let’s replicate that with plant protein.’’
But if the proportion of animal and alternative protein consumed in New Zealand did change to a ratio that was closer to 50:50, then that would be good for the environment, he said.
Given the strength of the existing export industries, ‘‘I don’t ever see demand for New Zealand animal-based products being threatened,’’ he said.
FoodHQ business development manager
‘‘At the moment we are missing an opportunity to fulfil demand for plant-based products because in some way we are rejecting that conversation, to defend traditional agriculture, whereas if we embraced that there is an opportunity for increased prosperity across the board.’’
Palfreyman expected more ‘‘progressive’’ European governments, including Scandinavian countries, would follow the Dutch example by setting targets for a switch to plant-based proteins.
However, FoodHQ was not advocating for a target in New Zealand, he said.
‘‘We have to be careful to get ‘buy in’ from all of the participants in the agricultural sector, and to suddenly start setting targets would be unhelpful. When you come out too strong, traditional livestock producers see it as a threat.’’
At a maximum, plant-based protein producers might build up an export industry that was worth the same as the wine industry in five to 10 years, he said.
Some meat and dairy farmers might feel sensitive about any attempt to encourage alternative food producers, he acknowledged.
‘‘If you are already frustrated with the Government over some of the freshwater regulatory changes or feel the media is bashing you as a farmer . . . I think this could feel like one more blow.
‘‘[But] it is not going to disrupt meat and dairy at scale.’’
‘‘We have to be careful to get ‘buy in’ from all of the participants in the agricultural sector.’’ Amos Palfreyman