Giant Leaps: A more sustainable and healthier European food system
Food systems are responsible for a third of Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG). The current global production and consumption of animal protein accounts for a significant part of those emissions, causing long-term negative impacts on both our health and the environment. In line with the EU Green Deal objectives and the Farm to Fork Strategy, GIANT LEAPS aims to transform the European food system to make it more sustainable and healthier.
Environmental and health impacts of alternative protein sources are proportional to their level of consumption. To promote the uptake of alternative proteins in European diets, they must become more accessible, affordable, and acceptable to consumers. Enabling this change in food production and consumption is a complex challenge.
Impact
GIANT LEAPS works across disciplines to foster innovative solutions, improve methods to assess the nutritional quality of new proteins, and maximise consumers’ acceptance. The project includes work on consumer insights, food processing, safety and allergenicity, health and digestibility, and sustainability and climate. It also collects existing and project-generated data into an open, cloud-based data platform and defines what future European diets could look like that balance optimal impact on health and environmental sustainability parameters.
Dr. ir. Paul Vos (Wageningen University Food & Biobased Research): “I am excited about our shared ambition to create scientific, societal and economic impact by providing a path towards healthy, sustainable, achievable and consumer-accepted diets in Europe that incorporate alternative proteins in an optimal way.”
Our ambition is to partly replace the consumption of traditional animal proteins in the European diets so that 50% of total protein dietary intake is derived from alternative protein sources - such as plants, microalgae, insects, and single-cell proteins - by 2030.
To do so, we engage with policymakers, the production sectors and European citizens to generate key innovations, methods, datasets and information that empower all players in the food system to make the necessary decisions, investments and choices to enable a large-scale dietary shift towards alternative protein-containing foods with optimal nutritional and environmental impact.
More info: https://giant-leaps.eu
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