Brittany Ferries will stop shipping live calves from Ireland to France by September, reversing a policy it revived just last year under NGO pressure [148].
02
Singapore approved Aleph Farms' cultivated beef steak, the first cultivated-beef clearance anywhere outside Israel [86][132].
03
Brazil's Lula signed a federal foie gras ban into law over French objections, taking effect January 2027 [126].
04
A Cornell-NYU study more than doubles the reported carbon footprint of cow leather, undercutting the industry's "meat byproduct" defense [111].
05
UK officials arrested four men and seized four tons of illegal meat from an unapproved cutting plant in Dudley [170].
06
AMSilk's lab-grown silk protein appeared in a Balenciaga couture gown at Paris Fashion Week [108][127].
Singapore clears Aleph Farms' cultivated beef, first outside Israel
Photo: vegconomist
“Regulatory approval in a second market, and the only one so far for cultivated beef, reflects great teamwork between our regulatory and development teams, but also the quality of our product and the discipline of our approach.”
Didier Toubia, co-founder and CEO, Aleph Farms · [132]
“Earning approval in Singapore meant meeting one of the most rigorous novel food frameworks in the world.”
Yifat Gavriel, Aleph Farms' Chief of Regulatory Affairs · [132]
By the numbers
10% to 20%cultivated beef cell inclusion in Aleph's Thin-Cut Steak, blended with a soy-and-wheat plant-protein base [86]
$147 millionraised by Aleph Farms since its 2017 founding [132]
WatchAleph targets a first-half 2027 restaurant launch with select Singapore partners, while dossiers sit pending in the UK, Switzerland and Thailand [86].
“What constitutes 'good treatment' can be pretty relative, right? I don't know what they mean by 'good treatment,' but for animal welfare organizations, there is no wellbeing involved.”
Marina Lacorte, food systems campaign manager, World Animal Protection · [126]
By the numbers
288,000+signatures gathered over six years by Animal Equality's campaign behind the bill [126]
180 daysafter publication before the ban takes legal effect, landing in January 2027 [126]
Overstated"their production does not involve animal cruelty" (French industry framing, via the Brazilian diplomat) [126]. Foie gras is made by force-feeding ducks and geese through a tube to enlarge the liver well beyond its natural size; a 2022 EU report called the practice welfare-compliant, but Brazilian campaigners dispute that finding, and Brazil's Congress voted unanimously to ban it anyway.
Study doubles leather's climate footprint, challenging the byproduct defense
Photo: ecotextile
By the numbers
2xthe previously reported carbon footprint of cow leather, once the farming phase is recalculated using UN FAO livestock data [111]
Overstated"hides are a by-product of the meat and dairy industries" (leather industry framing) [111]. A peer-reviewed recalculation in ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering by researchers at Cornell and NYU more than doubles bovine leather's farming-phase emissions once it's treated as a co-product rather than a free byproduct.
FromEcotextile News
Worth Knowing
Food & Recipes
Five ingredients, ten minutes: this vegan chocolate orange fudge sets in the fridge and keeps for two weeks [101].
Compassion in World Farming's Elena Lara says the fight now turns to blocking the next octopus-farm proposal after Nueva Pescanova's retreat [94].
Innovation
71% of US consumers are open to plant-based meat, but only 8% of the top 250 restaurant chains offer it, GFI's foodservice report finds [130].
C16 Biosciences launched a precision-fermented cocoa butter to insulate chocolate makers from cocoa's price swings [121].
The EU's Food 2040 research consultation named protein diversification a top priority for the bloc's next funding cycle [128].
Ginkgo Bioworks licensed its engineered fungal protein strains to Slovenia's Acies Bio for industrial-scale production [122].
Tyson's beef division posted a $138 million quarterly loss as the US cattle shortage drags into a second year [116].
Friends & Family Pet Food expanded its cultivated-quail broth toppers for cats and dogs in Singapore [119].
France's Ferments du Futur research consortium won €20 million for a second phase of fermentation research [131].
Law & Policy
The Every Company's OvoPro egg protein reaches commercial scale at ADM's Iowa plant just as whey protein prices top $2 a pound [167].
Wins & Culture
Simon Pegg told a podcast "maybe humans were a mistake," pointing to humanity's outsized environmental toll [173].
Vegan Olympic climber Oceania MacKenzie holds Australia's best-ever results in bouldering and lead, three years running [172].
One Good Thing
Oceania MacKenzie grew up hearing her competitors' parents mutter that a vegan kid "must not be very strong." She was usually standing on the podium when they said it. The Australian climber just finished a season where she reached every final in both bouldering and lead, on a diet of nutritional yeast, rice noodles cooked in a hotel kettle, and whatever her older sister was eating when she first went vegan as a kid [172]. No lecture, no supplement stack, just a very good climber quietly running out the clock on an old myth.
Just Food
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