Public research funding
The Dutch €60 million is one of the largest government investments in cellular agriculture anywhere, but it's small next to public spending on, say, renewable energy. EU research funding is also modest.
Career guideAlternative proteins
Work on alternative proteins from the Netherlands
Factory farming causes suffering on an enormous scale. Alternative proteins could reduce it without asking everyone to change what they want to eat, and the Netherlands is one of the best places in the world to work on them.
About 10 minutes to read. Written by Linne van der Meulen in 2023, updated by our team in November 2026.
At a glance
- Factory farming is huge and neglected
- The Netherlands is a world leader
- Funding, scale-up and EU approval hold it back
- Policy work in Brussels is very neglected
- Build skills that would travel
For the global picture, see the Good Food Institute's career portal and Animal Advocacy Careers.
Part 1: Why it matters
A huge problem with a promising fix
More than 80 billion land animals are slaughtered for food every year, and estimates for fish run into the tens or hundreds of billions more (Our World in Data). Most farmed animals live in intensive systems. Chickens are bred to grow so fast that many struggle to carry their own weight. Pigs are kept so close together that piglets have their tails docked to stop them injuring each other.
Even if you give an animal's experience only a small fraction of the weight you'd give a human's, the numbers make this one of the largest sources of suffering in the world. Yet only a tiny share of charitable giving goes to farmed animals.
Animal farming also drives climate change, nitrogen pollution, deforestation and biodiversity loss, and it raises the risk of antibiotic resistance and new pandemics. The Netherlands knows the nitrogen problem well.
Why alternative proteins
Alternative proteins are made from plants, grown from animal cells or produced by fermentation. The Good Food Institute has a clear introduction.
Decades of campaigning haven't brought meat consumption down much worldwide. Changing what people eat is hard. Alternative proteins offer another route: food people already like, without the animal welfare and environmental costs. Once they match conventional meat on price, taste and convenience, many more people may switch.
Four main approaches
- Plant-based
- Already made at scale and often as cheap as meat, but many products still fall short on taste and texture.
- Cultivated meat
- Real meat grown from animal cells, without raising or slaughtering animals. It's still expensive to make at scale. Singapore, the US, Israel and Australia allow it to be sold, and the UK has approved it for pet food.
- Precision fermentation
- Microorganisms make specific proteins, fats or enzymes normally taken from animals, such as whey protein. It could make plant-based products taste much better, but scaling up production and getting EU approval are hard.
- Biomass fermentation
- Microorganisms such as fungi are grown as a protein-rich food in their own right. Quorn is the best-known example.
Part 2: Where the Netherlands fits
One of the best places in the world for this
- Research
- Wageningen University & Research is one of the world's leading universities for food and agriculture, and does a lot of alternative protein research. Utrecht, Maastricht, Delft and Leiden are active too.
- Companies
- Mosa Meat in Maastricht, co-founded by Mark Post, who presented the first cultivated burger in 2013, is one of the field's leading companies. It has applied for EU approval of its cultivated beef fat. The Protein Brewery in Breda won EU approval for its fermented protein Fermotein in 2026. Vivici makes whey protein by precision fermentation.
- Government support
- The government committed €60 million from the National Growth Fund to cellular agriculture in 2022, run through Cellular Agriculture Netherlands. This money has paid for research projects and, from 2025, two open-access scale-up facilities.
- Tastings
- In 2023, the Netherlands became the first EU country to allow controlled tastings of cultivated meat before EU approval. The first took place in 2024.
- An ecosystem
- Foodvalley connects companies, researchers and government around Wageningen. Food research companies such as NIZO help startups scale up.
It hasn't all gone well. Investment in the sector has fallen sharply since its 2021 peak, and the Dutch cultivated pork company Meatable closed at the end of 2025 after failing to raise new funding. Build skills that would still be useful if your first employer doesn't make it.
Part 3: What's most needed
Three bottlenecks
Manufacturing capacity
Many products work in the lab but can't yet be made cheaply in large volumes.
A path to market in the EU
Approval can take years, and no cultivated meat has been approved in the EU yet.
How EU approval works
Under the novel food rules, a company submits a dossier, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) assesses safety, and then member states vote in a committee: a product needs the support of at least 55% of member states representing at least 65% of the EU population.
The first cultivated meat applications, from Gourmey (2024) and Mosa Meat (2025), were still in the process in late 2026. Meanwhile, Italy and Hungary have passed national bans on cultivated meat, which the European Commission has criticised.
Part 4: Career paths
Three ways to help
Policy and advocacy
Winning public funding and workable rules, in Brussels and The Hague.
Good fit if you like persuading people and want to learn how the EU works.
Research and development
Making products better, cheaper and scalable, in universities, startups and institutes.
Good fit if you have, or want, a background in biology, chemistry, food science or engineering.
Business
Marketing, strategy, consulting or founding a company.
Good fit if you're commercial, comfortable with risk and like building things.
Policy and advocacy
More public funding and fair, workable rules could speed up the whole sector, so this may be one of the most valuable paths. Because so many rules are made at EU level, work in Brussels can matter more than work in The Hague, and only a small number of people lobby for alternative proteins there.
Organisations to look at
- GFI Europe
- The Good Food Institute's European branch, a think tank and policy group for alternative proteins.
- Eurogroup for Animals
- The main animal welfare coalition in Brussels.
- Industry associations
- Food Fermentation Europe, Cellular Agriculture Europe and Plant-based Foods Europe.
- ProVeg Nederland
- Campaigns for plant-based eating in the Netherlands.
- Larger organisations
- Environmental and consumer organisations could do more on alternative proteins.
Behind good lobbying sits a lot of research: policy briefs, market analysis and evidence on environmental impact. These roles are at the same organisations.
Getting in
- As a student or graduate
- Send open applications for internships. Learning how Brussels works is the most important thing you can do early on.
- Mid-career
- Watch for vacancies at the organisations above.
- Either way
- Build an understanding of food and agricultural policy, of the sector and its key players, and of how the EU institutions work, and practise persuasive writing and speaking.
Civil service and politics
- The European Commission
- The relevant departments are Research and Innovation (RTD), Agriculture and Rural Development (AGRI) and Health and Food Safety (SANTE). Graduates usually start with the Blue Book traineeship. Experienced people can apply as contract staff or sit the competitions for permanent posts through EU Careers.
- The Dutch government
- The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security and Nature (LNV) and the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy shape the Dutch position in Brussels. The government's traineeships are a good way in, and our policy guide has more.
- Politics
- Work as an assistant to a Member of the European Parliament. The committees that matter most are Agriculture and Rural Development (AGRI) and Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI), which covers novel foods. Working for a member of the Dutch parliament is another route.
Research and development
There's a lot of research to do: on the products themselves, their health and environmental effects, what makes consumers accept them, and policy.
- Academia
- A PhD or postdoc in food technology, biotechnology, nutrition or biochemistry is the classic route, and research on consumer behaviour is valuable too. Wageningen is probably the best place in the Netherlands for this. As a student, join the Wageningen Alt Protein Project or the Alt Protein Project at Utrecht. New Harvest funds research fellowships in cultivated meat.
- Startups and companies
- The key roles are research scientists, product developers, who work on taste, texture and nutrition, and process engineers, who take production from the lab to factory scale. Knowledge of biology, chemistry, food science or engineering helps most. Startups tend to hire many people at once just after a funding round, so that's a good moment to look.
- Research institutes and think tanks
- GFI Europe, TNO and NIZO do applied research and analysis.
Business and entrepreneurship
- Marketing and sales
- Helping people understand and want new products.
- Business development and strategy
- Finding markets, building partnerships and planning growth in a fast-changing sector.
- Consulting
- Advising food companies on trends, regulation and strategy.
- Founding a company
- Risky, but the sector needs it. If you'd rather start a nonprofit, Ambitious Impact's incubation programme helps people found effective charities, including for animals.
Part 5: Jobs and resources
Where to look
Jobs
- Our jobs boardFrom usAlternative protein roles you can do from the Netherlands.
- AltProtein.JobsA job board for the sector.
- Food Impact CareersJobs in food systems and alternative proteins.
- GFI's career portalJobs, plus a talent database you can join.
Learn
- The Protein TransitionGFI's free online course.
- KET mapsMaps of companies across the sector.
- Protein DirectoryA database of alternative protein companies.
- 80,000 Hours podcastAn interview with Seren Kell of GFI Europe.
Events and news
- New Food ConferenceProVeg's conference on alternative proteins.
- GFI eventsWebinars and conferences from the Good Food Institute.
- VegconomistNews on the plant-based and alternative protein business.
- Future of Protein ProductionNews and analysis on the sector.
Beyond your career
Other ways to help
- Give
- Donating to effective animal charities is one of the most cost-effective ways to help animals. Animal Charity Evaluators recommends charities, and our effective giving guide explains how to give well from the Netherlands.
- Eat differently
- Buying alternative proteins helps grow the market.
- Talk to us
- Book a virtual coffee and we'll help you think through your options and introduce you to people in the field.
Want to talk it through?
A call with our team is free. We'll help you think through your options and introduce you to people working on alternative proteins.
Written by Linne van der Meulen in 2023 and updated by EA Netherlands in November 2026. Any mistakes in this update are ours.