Food Matters Live, Ascot – keynote: pioneering the future of sustainable protein

At Food Matters Live in Ascot, Dr Rodrigo Ledesma-Amaro, Professor of Engineering and Director of the Bezos Centre for Sustainable Protein and Microbial Food Hub at Imperial College London, opened the conference with a compelling keynote on the pathway to resilient food and nutrition. His message to the audience was: building a sustainable and equitable food future depends on collaboration across science, technology, and policy.

Dr Ledesma-Amaro began by highlighting the urgent need to transform the global food system. “One-third of human-generated greenhouse gas emissions come from food production,” he reminded delegates, noting that most habitable land is used for agriculture — yet much of it goes toward feeding livestock rather than people. With 30% of food wasted and nearly half of the UK’s food imported, he warned that the system’s inefficiencies are unsustainable in the face of growing populations and rising demand for protein.

His keynote explored three pillars of alternative protein innovation: plant-based, cultivated, and microbial foods. Each, he explained, offers enormous potential but faces distinct challenges — from improving the sensory quality of plant-based products to tackling the high production costs of cultivated meat. Microbial and fermentation-based foods, he suggested, could hold the greatest promise, leveraging biotechnology to create nutritious, scalable, and sustainable protein sources.

“The UK now has one of the strongest ecosystems for alternative proteins in Europe,” he said, pointing to government-backed investments, cutting-edge academic research, and a growing number of start-ups. The Bezos Centre, based at Imperial College London, is currently running more than 60 active research projects across the field, while also leading global collaborations with sister centres in North Carolina and Singapore.

Beyond research, Dr Ledesma-Amaro emphasised the importance of education, entrepreneurship, and regulation. The Centre recently launched the world’s first PhD programme dedicated to sustainable proteins and is developing new accelerator and training initiatives to help turn research breakthroughs into real-world solutions.

“Science alone isn’t enough,” he concluded. “We need to connect academia, business, and regulation to create food that is sustainable, healthy, affordable, and accessible for all.”

As Food Matters Live looks ahead to its 2026 events, Dr Ledesma-Amaro’s address set a powerful tone for the industry’s direction — one where innovation and collaboration shape a truly resilient food future.