At this year's IFFA 2025 in Frankfurt - the world's leading trade fair for the meat and protein industry - Dagmara Weckowska and Luise Lallinger took the stage to talk about different aspects of responsible innovation related to protein transition.

Dagmara Weckowska presented the "Innovation Radar for Alternative Proteins: Challenges in Anticipating Innovations' Potentials and Impacts." The presentation focused on the ongoing transformation in the production and consumption of proteins-particularly the rise of alternative proteins-and highlighted the importance of responsible innovation in shaping a sustainable and equitable future for the sector. Central to the talk was the Innovation Radar method, a tool developed in our RI-ProT project to help stakeholders systematically explore and assess emerging innovations. The presentation sparked engaging conversations and drew significant attention from both established industry players and forward-looking startups.

Luise Lallinger co-presented about "Meat alternatives: Strategies for combining extrusion and cultivation" which can be summarised as follows. For the successful industrial implementation of cultivated meat production, food-grade structures for muscle cell adhesion need to be developed. In the research project “Vegan scaffolds for cultured meat” a hybrid approach is pursued.Firstly, in the top-down approach, scaffolds are created by extrusion and optimized cultivation conditions are researched. In the future, these scaffolds could be made of oil seed press cake protein, further reducing environmental impact and improving texture. Secondly, in the bottom-up approach, 3D-bioprinting is used to create vascularized structures containing cells. Herein, the bio-ink formulation is optimized to fulfill several requirements: biocompatibility, animal-free composition, and printable rheological properties.

We were also pleased to make many new connections during the fair and are excited about the opportunities these dialogues may lead to.

Thank you to everyone who joined the sessions!