Protein Diversification 2024

Preface The role of emerging technologies and innovation as key enablers of food systems transformation cannot be understated. Coupled with the right investment and multistakeholder collaboration models, emerging technologies can support agrifood systems to become one of the world’s most hopeful responses to safeguard nature, achieve climate action, improve food and nutrition security and reduce inequity. Recognizing that there is no silver bullet solution, the World Economic Forum’s Food Innovation Hubs Global Initiative and the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution are working to build insights and develop frontier thinking and new models of collaboration, in-country and globally, that can strengthen innovation ecosystems to capture the pace of technology for the benefit of the world’s food systems. Achieving universally accessible protein will require multiple transition pathways:4 1) accelerating protein diversification; 2) advancing sustainable production systems; and 3) driving consumer behaviour change.5 With the demand for protein expected to rise, a robust innovation ecosystem for protein pathways will play an enabling role in driving positive impact across intertwined agendas, including food, the environment and nature, health and nutrition, livelihoods and economic growth. The vast breadth and reach of the protein sector calls for a complex system of solutions. A successful transition will rely on an appreciation of the trade- offs particular solutions will bring, recognizing both the losses and the gains and allowing for more challenging decision-making. It will also require actors to come together with a commonality of purpose, to accelerate action in support of achieving the necessary protein transitions. The future offers tremendous innovation potential for transition in the protein sector, and technological advances present significant tools to make these protein transition pathways a reality. Written by the independent C4IR Israel, the Israel Innovation Authority and the Good Food Institute Israel, this paper highlights one such solution pathway for alternate protein technologies and offers insights into the building blocks for country- led innovation ecosystems. 50% projected increase in global meat consumption by 2050 (from 2012 levels). Creating a Vibrant Food Innovation Ecosystem 4