Quorn, the pioneer of plant-based meat substitutes, has today become a fully-paid up member of the UK Plant-based Food Alliance (PBFA) in a move that will strengthen the Alliance’s clout at Westminster.
“It’s fantastic to have such a strong player in the market like Quorn join us in our push for policies that promote plant-based eating in the UK,” Marisa Heath, PBFA CEO, said.
“There is so much the Government can do to encourage climate-friendly diets – in the form of trade, public procurement, research, marketing, as well as regulation – and we really need the big plant-based companies by our side as we negotiate our way there,” Heath said.
Quorn joins the Alliance, which includes industry heavyweights such as Alpro, Oatly and Upfield, at a time when the labelling of plant-based foods is under threat of restrictions. New guidance, aimed at trading standards officials but, as yet, unpublished, looks to restrict dairy descriptor terms used by plant-based products, such as “m*lk” or “alternative to X” or “yoghurt-style”.
“We have been fighting the proposed guidance to restrict plant-based labelling for over a year now and we will continue to do so because we believe that the Government should be doing all it can to promote the sector rather than hinder it,” Heath said.
“The sector very much represents the future of food, producing far less greenhouse gas emissions than the meat and dairy sector, and maturing to provide a huge range of alternatives to conventional meat and dairy products,” Heath added.
Plant-based diets are also a key to global food security: researchers have found that growing food exclusively for direct human consumption, rather than as animal feed and for biofuel production, could potentially increase available food calories by as much as 70%, which could feed an additional 4 billion people.
Food security was the reason Quorn came into existence when Lord Rank recognised in the 1960s that conventional farming could not keep up with food shortages and a rapidly growing population and that a new, sustainable protein source was needed. Quorn was born out of research to find a solution to that problem.
“Quorn is such an excellent example of a company using the power of science to come up with sustainable solutions to global crises. We know that policy makers will take notice of what Quorn has to say as a member of the Alliance going forward,” Heath said.