The last year has been extraordinary for a sector that was niche until recently: alternative meats or, as they say, “meat without meat”.
As we know, the consumption of animal meat has been decreasing worldwide for years, due to a greater sensitivity towards animals and the conditions of breeding and slaughtering and a greater awareness of the environmental footprint, ie how much “a farm weighs” compared to to crops.
In such a context, the food market, as always, adapts to the choices of consumers by distributing alternative meats not so much as a niche product only for vegans or vegetarians, who make up less than 10% of the population, but for new users, called flexitarians. , or flexible subjects, who consume meat and will always consume it, but are ready to partially replace it with vegetable products as long as they are tasty, nutritious and cheap. Even fast-food chains are betting on vegetable proteins by offering hamburgers, hot dogs and pseudo meat nuggets.
But is eating “meat without meat” healthier? In general, eating vegetables is good for you. Likewise, many people may think it’s obvious that plant-based meat is healthier than regular meat. But this is not entirely true: we are talking about a safe food, not a healthy food.
Plant-based means that they are all ingredients that come from plants, but this does not mean that we are consuming a salad or a bowl of broccoli: they are still processed foods. Additionally, most meat alternatives attempt to mimic meat as closely as possible, including in the macro-nutrient profile and calorie content – if veggie burgers weren’t as filling as real burgers, they would likely leave consumers unsatisfied.
As part of the periodic event, Meat.it will discuss all the implications of this market (nutrition, health, production, distribution, marketing) in comparison with the traditional one.

Program

• Current market demands for animal derivatives
  Claudio Truzzi, Quality Manager Metro Italiana
• The success of the alternative meat market
  lessandro Driussi, AD Conbio (Unconventional Burger)
• Development of lightened cured meats: hygienic problems and current technologies
  Giuseppe Comi, University of Udine
• The evolution of the plant-based meat market
  Massimo Ambanelli, AD Hifood
• Regulatory issues in vegetable or synthetic meat derivatives
  Afro Ambanelli, Studio Legale in Parma