Earth's population will expand to about 10 billion people by 2050, putting incredible strain on our ability to feed everyone. Added stresses from climate change will only increase pressure on the planet's natural resources. Heading off these challenges means we need to start getting creative about food production now.
Thankfully, some companies in Asia are already making headway in the fast-growing alternative foods industry by exploring the potential offered by sustainable sources of protein, such as insects, seaweed and algae.
Finding palatable protein sources that are more sustainable than traditionally farmed meat is a relatively simple affair. After all, people have been eating grubs and kelp for thousands of years, and plant-based meat products have recently taken the food industry by storm.
However, the key challenge lies not in making new types of food, but in using these alternatives as ingredients in foodstuffs that are already popular and ensuring they are nutritious and tasty at the same time.
There will be challenges in introducing some of these alternative proteins to a global market. For example, people in some countries might baulk at the idea of trying a grasshopper while having no issue with eating a prawn.
Many companies in the industry are also becoming increasingly high-tech in the race to develop sustainable, cost-effective, mass-market food supplements.
The Spanish company NovaMeat has created a process in which a 3D printer uses pea and seaweed extracts to mimic the microscopic structure of beef or chicken, resulting in a steak that looks and feels like the real thing.
There is also the relatively new field of molecular farming, in which plants are manipulated at the molecular level to create analogues of animal proteins, resulting in unique plant-animal biomolecules. This will lead to food that has the cost structure of a plant-based diet with the benefits of cell-based food.
Asia Insect Farm Solutions, based in Singapore, promotes the use of grasshoppers in our diet. These insects require almost no water or land, emit a fraction of the greenhouse gas emissions that pigs or cows do, and contain about the same amount of protein as beef. The company freezes the grasshoppers and turns them into flour, which is used to make cookies, bread, nachos, pasta and more.
The edible insect market has plenty of room to grow, according to data by Meticulous Research that was cited by Barclays. It predicts the sector will reach nearly US$8 billion by 2030 with annual growth of about 25%.
Thai companies are getting on board too. EnerGaia in Bangkok grows spirulina, a highly nutritious micro-algae, which it sells in pasta, paste and powder form.
In fact, some observers say algae, not insects, is the future of alternative foods, with China expected to lead this market over the coming decades.
China Touyun Tech Group, a giant packaging producer, has established a subsidiary to partner with a US-based company to produce micro-algae on a commercial scale. Last year Chinese scientists from several labs established a programme to map the genomes of 10,000 protist species, of which algae is a member. To date, only about 400 of these single-cell species have had their genome data published, which gives some idea as to the scale of the project.
Seaweed is another high-potential product. Asia has traditionally dominated this $8-billion market, to which European venture capitalists are now paying close attention. The Seaweed for Europe Coalition has gathered entrepreneurs, scientists and investors to study seaweed's potential in Europe, and has an action plan in place to start raising awareness.
The alternative food industry is changing quickly, and in the right direction. Considering the progress made in only a few short years, it will be fascinating to see what new foods we'll be eating in a few decades.
Suwatchai Songwanich is an executive vice-president with Bangkok Bank. For more columns in this series please visit www.bangkokbank.com