EU drafts hen cage ban; Good Protein lands $90M; foie gras ban polls 81%

EU schedules talks on a laying-hen cage ban as campaigners call the leaked 12-year transition too long

The EU plans to follow the UK in banning caged laying hens, with proposals to be discussed at a European Commission meeting on 9 December, according to a schedule published 10 November [35]. A Commission spokesperson would confirm only that draft proposals exist, so the details come from a leak that the End the Cage Age coalition says it has seen [35]. The coalition says the leaked draft includes a 12-year transition and would merge the laying hen and broiler directives into one regulation, which it warns could weaken protections for each species [35].

• 12 yearsthe transition period in the leaked draft, per the End the Cage Age coalition [35]
• 2032the year the UK, announced in January, will phase out cage systems for laying hens [35]
• 1 January 2029the deadline for certain German farmers under Germany's phased ban [35]
• Two-thirdsof the European eggs sector has already moved away from caged hens, the coalition says [35]

FromJust Food

Good Protein raises C$128 million, with Del Monte in the round, for plant-based shakes

Montreal's Good Protein, which makes dairy-free all-in-one protein shakes, closed a C$128 million round led by SEMCAP Food & Nutrition, with Del Monte Corporation among the participants [68]. Green Queen counts it as the largest sum an alternative-protein company has raised this year, ahead of Solar Foods' financing in June [63]. The shakes are stocked in more than 4,500 Canadian stores, and the money funds new products and expansion beyond Canada, though no target markets are named [68].

• C$128 millionraised, with Farm Credit Canada, Roynat Equity Partners and Fondaction alongside SEMCAP and Del Monte [68]
• €77.8MSolar Foods' June grant and loan financing, the mark Good Protein passed, per Green Queen [63]
• $56.2MMichigan's grant to Fenton Food and Beverage for a plant-based milk factory, the next-largest plant-based raise this year, per Green Queen [63]
• 4,500Canadian stores stocking the shakes, per the company [68]

Fromvegconomist the vegan business magazineGreen Queen

Survey of 5,665 US adults finds 81% back banning foie gras sales

A study summarized by Faunalytics surveyed 5,665 adults across 10 states and Washington, D.C. between December 2025 and January 2026, weighting the results to match US demographics [92]. Support for a ban was already at least 73% before any argument was made, and an animal welfare message alone was generally the most persuasive of the messages tested [92]. The authors picked states where bans were under debate and measured stated intentions rather than behavior, so the results may not hold elsewhere [92].

• 81%supported banning the sale of foie gras generally at the state level; 89% supported banning force-feeding outright [92]
• 28%said they would likely dine at a restaurant whose menu featured foie gras, versus 40% shown the same menu without it [92]
• 81%had never ordered foie gras at a restaurant, and 92% had never bought it from a store [92]
• 94%agreed that force-feeding causes unnecessary suffering after reading any of the messages [92]

FromFaunalytics

Nature Biotechnology review says cellular agriculture now hinges on scalable, affordable manufacturing

Authors from Imperial College London and Tufts University examine cultivated meat and precision fermentation through enabling technologies, food function and manufacturing economics [32]. They say the field is approaching an inflection point where scalable, affordable manufacturing matters more to commercial success than new biological technology [32]. It is a survey of the field, not a new experiment or production dataset [32].

FromRequested Evidence