Southeast Asia turns to alternative meats as fight against climate change ramps up

Reducing meat and dairy consumption could be the key to Southeast Asia’s climate crisis, experts say.

But will consumers bite?

If the region wants to keep a lid on global warming, it must lower production of animal proteins and shift to plant-based, cultivated and other alternative sources by 2030, according to a new report by Asia Research Engagement (ARE), a Singapore-based organization focused on investment in sustainable development.

By 2060, alternative proteins around Southeast Asia and other Asia-Pacific nations will need to account for more than half of protein production, the report added.

“Achieving this will entail dedicated funding, necessitating a sustained commitment by the Asian food industry, investors, and banks,” it said.

Large-scale production of livestock is widely considered a major emitter of carbon emissions as well as the main culprit of deforestation and biodiversity loss. That’s because suppliers clear forests to grow animal feed like soybean meal and build new farms.

According to the report, livestock production leaves a bigger environmental mark than all edible crops combined because it’s more resource-intensive, and uses more land, water, animals and antibiotics.

While this is a global issue, it’s particularly important for Asian countries because the continent supplies more than half the world’s animal proteins, including land animals and seafood, ARE said in its report.

Plus, the region is home to some of the fastest-growing populations, which has driven up meat consumption.

In 2020, Malaysia and Vietnam consumed between 8.9 to 12.3 kilograms of protein per capita from meat and seafood, well above the recommended level of 5.1 kilograms recommended by The EAT-Lancet Commission, a global group of scientists, data from ARE showed.

“This is doubly problematic because a significant portion of the soybeans fed to Asia’s farmed animals is imported from Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay,” Mirte Gosker, managing director of The Good Food Institute Asia Pacific, a think tank focused on alternative proteins, told CNBC. That adds to the overall environmental footprint of animal production.

Lure of alternative proteins

Whether plant-based, fermentation-derived or grown in a lab, alternative proteins are as important to climate security as renewable energy or a reduction in single-use plastics, experts say.

Each dollar invested in the production of meat and dairy alternatives resulted in seven times more greenhouse gas reductions than green buildings and eleven times more than zero-emission cars, according to a Boston Consulting Group report in 2022.

Investors are certainly paying attention.

Venture capital invested in alternative proteins has soared from $1 billion in 2019 to $5 billion in 2021, according to The Good Food Institute.

Fermentation companies focused on alternative proteins secured $1.7 billion in investments in 2021, versus $600 million from 2020, while cultivated meat and seafood companies saw $1.4 billion in investments, compared to $400 million raised in 2020, based on data from The Good Food Institute.

Southeast Asia’s leading food companies are also taking note.

Thailand’s CP Foods, for instance, expanded its plant-based Meat Zero brand in Singapore and Hong Kong as part of a campaign to increase alternative protein consumption throughout Asia. 

While plant-based products such as tofu, tempeh and pulses have long been part of traditional Asian diets, they don’t historically function as meat substitutes in Asian food culture, ARE pointed out.

“If nations prioritize the manufacturing and development of alternative proteins, the climate payoff could be colossal,” said Gosker.

However, the production of climate-safe foods requires energy too, she noted. Cultivated meat requires electricity use at the production facility so it will need to rely on renewable energy to be sustainable.

Consumer preferences

For Southeast Asia to meet the Asia Research Engagement’s target of shifting to alternative proteins by 2030, government policy, corporate strategy and multilateral financing must align.

The wild card, however, is consumer preferences. 

Customers will be the determining factor on the future growth of alternative proteins, Michelle Huang, consumer food analyst at Rabobank, told CNBC. Currently, consumers often cite taste, texture and price as the primary barrier to consuming alternative proteins, she said. 

“We have not observed technological breakthroughs to achieve taste and price parity [or near parity] with conventional meat products,” Huang added. “Without a sustained improvement in taste and price, brands will struggle to convert the initial consumer curiosity to repeat purchases.”

Companies need repeat purchases to justify investment in building scale, which is critical to lowering production costs.

Rather than focus too much on alternative proteins, Huang recommends solutions for sustainable dairy and livestock practices.

In the dairy sector, for example, more players are becoming more ambitious in the decarbonization process by using biogas power generation, which turns cow manure into electricity, she noted.

Ultimately, experts widely agree that more investment from public and private stakeholders into research and development is needed for alternative proteins to penetrate mass-market consumption.

As infrastructure scales up, highly skilled local workers will also be needed to work in infrastructural machinery and laboratory spaces, Gosker pointed out.