California funds vegan school meals; Switzerland mandates cruelty labels
California earmarked $500M for schools to buy plant-based meals and milk, building on a program that already doubled vegan entrée share in the districts that used it.
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California earmarked $500M for schools to buy plant-based meals and milk, building on a program that already doubled vegan entrée share in the districts that used it [109].
02
Switzerland began rolling out labeling rules flagging meat, eggs, milk, and foie gras from animals subjected to painful procedures without anesthesia, fully in force by 2027 [141].
03
Cultivated meat pioneer Believer Meats, dark since last year's funding collapse, is now auctioning off its assets [111].
04
Misfits Health's new "Stuffed" protein bars use dairy chocolate, whey, and bovine collagen, breaking the brand's all-vegan promise and drawing backlash from its own customers [167].
05
AMSilk and Ajinomoto Foods Europe struck a long-term deal to mass-produce bioengineered spider silk protein at a new French plant, a fiber AMSilk says cuts emissions 81% versus mulberry silk [108].
06
A meta-analysis of vegetarian and vegan diets across seven prospective studies found vegetarians have 13% lower total cancer risk and vegans 23% lower, with breast and colorectal cancers down too [8].
The Stories: the day’s biggest developments, in the sources’ own words
01▲Law & PolicyStory
California budgets $500M so schools can buy plant-based meals and milk
Photo: green queen
“The expanded dietary flexibility will allow students access to meals that meet their needs, and a child who is not worried about hunger is a child who will be able to learn.”
“This is a significant win for California students, families, and school nutrition programs.”
Marjorie Mulhall, Plant Based Foods Association executive director · [109]
By the numbers
$500Mearmarked in California's 2026-27 budget for the Kitchen Infrastructure and Training program, which now lets schools buy plant-based meals and milk [109]
34%of districts in California's earlier School Food Best Practices Fund used the money to double their share of vegan entrées, from 13.5% to 26.1% [109]
25roles posted by Beyond Meat in the first half of 2026, up from just 8 across all of 2025, as it rebuilds after years of contraction [113]
34.1%of alt-protein job postings in H1 2026 were commercial roles, versus 23.7% technical, as employers pivot from R&D toward chasing revenue [113]
Early"Food Impact Partners attributes the jump to Beyond Meat rebuilding after several years of contraction" (Food Impact Partners) [113]. The claim rests on one recruiting group's read of job-posting volume, not audited hiring or revenue data.
WatchBids are open for Believer Meats' assets; no closing date has been announced [111].
FromGreen Queenvegconomist the vegan business magazine
03▲Law & PolicyStory
Switzerland mandates labels for animal products from painful procedures
Photo: mercy for animals
By the numbers
2027is the full implementation date for Switzerland's law requiring labels on meat, eggs, milk, and foie gras from animals subjected to painful procedures without anesthesia [141]
Proven"Force-feeding has been banned in Switzerland for decades because of animal welfare concerns" (Mercy For Animals) [141]. Confirmed by the country's existing ban; the new labeling rule targets foie gras still sold there that's imported from producers abroad who force-feed birds.
FromMercy For Animals
04▼Wins & CultureStory
Misfits Health drops its all-vegan promise for new protein bars
Photo: plant based news
“So disappointing to see you announce these non-vegan products. I hoped you were committed to cruelty-free food.”
3animal ingredients, bovine collagen, dairy chocolate, and whey powder, went into Misfits' new "Stuffed" bars [167]
Overstated"100 percent plant-based and vegan" (Misfits Health website copy) [167]. The company's own site still describes its full range this way even as its new Stuffed bars contain dairy, whey, and bovine collagen.
FromPlant Based News
Worth Knowing
Food & Recipes
Try the 10-minute chickpea salad sandwich: mashed chickpeas, vegan mayo, lemon, and Dijon standing in for tuna or chicken salad [69].
UK MPs urged mandatory front-of-pack nutrition labels and a ban on outdoor junk-food ads by 2027, citing obesity's £74.3bn annual cost to the country [73].
Innovation
Danone's Silk brand added a protein yogurt and a shelf-stable protein shake, its yogurt sourcing all 12g of protein from a single soy-derived complete protein [115].
South Korea's Chilgok County commercialized a vegan leather made from discarded Korean melon peels, now certified and sold as wallets and card holders [116].
The UK's Centre for Process Innovation joined a €6.3M EU project testing whether cocoa can be grown from plant cells in bioreactors instead of farmed [117].
Israel's BioHarvest won a $1.4M state grant to apply AI to its plant-cell biomanufacturing, its second such grant this year [114].
Tofu maker The New Originals Company says flexitarians, not vegans, are now driving European tofu demand, calling the food "not an imitation product" [118].
Activism & Animals
A new study found naked mole-rat queens produce a chemical, isopropyl myristate, that blocks other females in the colony from reproducing [122].
Brazil added the six-tubercled Amazon River turtle to its endangered species list for the first time, after populations fell more than 50% over 36 years, driven partly by hunting for food [128].
Law & Policy
Animal Justice called for mandatory smoke detectors and sprinklers in Canadian barns after a fire killed thousands of pigs in a barn built to hold 20,000 animals near Simcoe, Ontario [145].
Critics called a $3.3M DOJ settlement with egg producers Cal-Maine, Hickman's, and Versova/Centrum a "mockery of justice" against an alleged $3 billion price-fixing scheme [158].
Wins & Culture
Traitors star Paul Gorton said going "full vegan overnight" seven years ago was "the easiest life choice" he's made [165].
Research & Nutrition
A meta-analysis of seven clinical trials found plant-based diets significantly lower CRP, a key inflammation marker tied to heart disease risk [9].
One Good Thing
Sitesh Ranjan Deb spent years hunting leopards and wild boar in Bangladesh, following his father and grandfather, until a bear attack cost him an eye and three months in the hospital. He gave up hunting and turned his home into a wildlife treatment center, nursing bears, pythons, and slow lorises back to health before returning them to the forest. He died on July 14, but the rescue center he built call by call, with no steady funding but his own stubbornness, outlived him as proof of what one person's second chance can do [129].
vegconomist the vegan business magazine
Mercy For Animals
