Peter, you are the CEO of Proteinish, a new food producer developing innovative plant-based products. These will be produced in Sweden from Swedish-grown and Swedish-processed raw materials.
How do you see the speed of the food transition from animal to plant-based proteins and what could accelerate the pace?

Changing our eating habits is both a big and complicated job that will take time. For a few years, the transition had good momentum, but when inflation hit, we went back to ingrained behaviors and habits. We believe there is a temporary dip in the growth of plant-based foods, as we and the rest of the food industry develop new tasty and healthy plant-based products, growth will pick up again. But the transition is complex and requires a global change in behavior that will take time. At its core, it is about changing human behaviors that we have developed over very many years, it is a communicatively challenging task to create awareness among consumers that we need to change our habits if we are to meet the climate goals. Since the food system is one of the major culprits in the drama, the system must be changed, which politicians must also take into account. In Sweden, we have the updated food strategy, which we hope will provide both clear objectives and good incentives to drive the pace of change.

What major obstacles do you see in the future for this transition?
The basis for change is the willingness of consumers to choose plant-based foods instead of animal-based foods, where factors such as taste, mouthfeel and price are decisive. It is these factors that we who develop and produce plant-based must meet to succeed in the transition.
Some plant-based foods are more expensive than animal-based foods due to the subsidies that agriculture receives, if plant-based foods do not receive corresponding help, the price will hold back the pace of transition. The meat industry has a position to defend, it is already challenged by reduced consumption but the industry will defend its position through lobbyists and other influencers to defend its market

What is your view of the food transition from 2030 to 2050?
In the best case, we have a slightly better balance between plant-based and animal-based by 2030, which creates the conditions for more resources for both the development of new technologies and new foods. There are already a number of technologies for producing what are called meat analogs, which are plant-based variants of meat and chicken products. The technologies themselves are old, but using them to produce alternatives to animal-based foods is new. The majority of plant-based foods on the market today are textured by extrusion, complemented by fermented production techniques that will be leading into the 2030s. Most capital is being invested in bio-grown meat, which many expect to become the market-leading technology, but there are still many hurdles in that technology to overcome. So for many years to come, we believe that both existing technologies will deliver good products but also that completely new ones are waiting.