Food Advocacy Group Grants $4 Million to Researchers Working on Animal-Free Meat Innovations 

Food advocacy group The Good Food Institute (GFI) recently awarded $4 million to 21 researcher groups across nine countries working to eliminate the exploitation of animals for meat. GFI divided its competitive research grant among projects and startups—eight working in the cell-based meat sector and 13 focused on innovating the plant-based meat industry—which includes teams at University of California, Los Angeles (United States); Beijing Technology and Business University (China); and University of Manitoba (Canada). “We are thrilled to catalyze high-quality research that will produce open-access data to enable the entire sector to advance more efficiently and bring plant-based and cultivated meat to the masses,” Austin Clowes, GFI Scientific Research Funding Coordinator, said. “These projects will fill key research white spaces and help build the scientific foundation of a healthy, sustainable, and just food system.” In 2018, GFI launched its inaugural competitive research grant program in 2018 and donated $3 million to support 14 projects working in similar fields.