Scaling alternative proteins requires shared facilities and more capital

Dutch companies working on alternative proteins are encountering a recurring bottleneck: scaling from laboratory to commercial production requires costly installations and substantial capital, while revenues are barely in sight at that stage. Shared pilot facilities and stronger public funding are increasingly put forward as solutions, but current supply falls short.

The sector has attracted considerable investment in recent years. European investors put a combined €290 million into alternative proteins in 2023, up from €63 million in 2020. The European Commission invested €252 million in the sector over the past four years. Yet Europe's available scale-up capacity continues to lag behind that of the United States, and the gap between research and commercial production remains difficult for many companies to bridge.

In July 2026, a coalition of Dutch foodtech companies and organisations called on the government to make at least €200 million available through the EU IPCEI scheme (Important Projects of Common European Interest). That amount is expected to be able to mobilise an additional €400 million in private investment.

The gap between lab and factory

Many companies in the protein transition find themselves in a difficult position after the laboratory phase. A full-scale production facility requires capital that typically only becomes available once a technology has been proven and is commercially viable. That pre-commercial link is often missing from the existing range of facilities.

Thijs Bosch, CEO of The Protein Brewery, is developing Fermotein through biomass fermentation. The Protein Brewery's pilot plant forms the basis for a broader fermentation hub, allowing other companies to make use of shared infrastructure. This model lowers the threshold for individual companies to make large investments in equipment they would only use to a limited extent at an early stage.

In Ede, NIZO Food Research's existing pilot plant is being supplemented by a new upstream processing facility, the Biotechnology Fermentation Factory (BFF). The Nationaal Groeifonds Cellulaire Agricultuur Nederland allocated €12.5 million for this purpose. NIZO is providing in-kind co-financing and the Perspectieffonds Gelderland, managed by Oost NL, is also investing. The BFF is intended to attract new business activity to the FoodValley region. NIZO has 75 years of experience in proteins and more than 30 years in alternatives to animal proteins.

In 2022, GEA established a separate business line for what it calls 'new food', encompassing precision and biomass fermentation, cultivated meat, plant-based products and insect-based food. Application Manager Biotechnology Morten Holm Christensen and Head of Technology Tatjana Krampitz are involved on behalf of GEA in the development of process installations for this category.

Funding rounds at Dutch companies

Despite the broader scale-up challenges, several Dutch companies managed to raise capital in recent periods. Vivici, an ingredients start-up producing alternative dairy proteins via precision fermentation, raised a total of €32.5 million, with Invest-NL contributing €10 million. Stephan van Sint Fiet leads the company as CEO.

Rival Foods, based in Geldrop and founded by Birgit Dekkers, closed a Series B round of €10 million. The company has developed a patented platform for the production of plant-based meat alternatives. Revyve, a scale-up producing functional yeast proteins, raised €24 million in its own Series B. Mosa Meat, specialising in cultivated meat, recently attracted €40 million from various investors.

Stichting Foodvalley works with more than 400 partners on the broader sustainability of the food system and plays a connecting role between knowledge institutions, companies and governments in the region.

Regional ambitions and government commitment

The province of Noord-Brabant has expressed the ambition to become the 'Scale-Up Plant of Europe'. The Brabantse Ontwikkelings Maatschappij (BOM) and REWIN are contributing to this effort. In Zuid-Holland, the province is investing in an innovation cluster at the Biotech Campus.

The Netherlands has so far funded €67 million in cultivated meat research. In addition, a proposal is circulating for a 'Plantaardig Versnellingsfonds' (Plant-Based Acceleration Fund) of €63 million per year for innovation and transition, though no definitive statement can be made about the status of that proposal based on available sources.

The call for €200 million via IPCEI was co-signed in July 2026 by, among others, Cellular Agriculture Netherlands, HollandBio and the two-Michelin-star vegan restaurant De Nieuwe Winkel. Lucas Simons of New Foresight and Derk Loorbach, director of Drift, are involved in the broader policy context surrounding the protein transition. The recently launched Mulder Institute focuses on future food policy. Louisa Trindade, Professor of Plant Breeding at Wageningen University & Research, contributes from the academic side to the knowledge base underpinning the transition.

For the Dutch and European AI and foodtech scene, this development underlines a pattern also visible in other technology domains: public infrastructure and government risk capital are often a prerequisite for bringing private investors over the threshold in early, capital-intensive scaling phases. Founders and investors in adjacent sectors, from fermentation technology to bioreactor control, are therefore following the development of shared facilities such as the BFF with growing interest.