Designing for delight: why taste, not technology, will define alternative protein’s next chapter

Taste is emerging as the decisive factor in alternative protein adoption. Ahead of The Future of Protein Production Amsterdam 2026, NECTAR’s Caroline Cotto explains how sensory science and data are reshaping the path to market success

The alternative protein sector has spent more than a decade chasing parity. The goal, at least initially, was straightforward: replicate the taste, texture, and experience of meat and dairy closely enough that consumers would not notice the difference. It was a strategy rooted in substitution rather than seduction, and for a time, it worked well enough to fuel early growth.

But as the category matures, the limits of that approach are becoming impossible to ignore. Consumers are not simply looking for products that are "good enough." They are looking for products they actively want to eat again.

Caroline Cotto, Director of NECTAR at Food System Innovations and one of 12 new members joining the 24-expert Advisory Board for The Future of Protein Production Amsterdam (taking place on 4-5 November 2026 at RAI Amsterdam), believes the industry is only now beginning to confront that reality.

“The early framing was: how do we make something that looks like meat or tastes enough like dairy that people won't notice the difference? That’s a fundamentally defensive design goal, and it shows in the products.”

That diagnosis cuts to the core of a sector now grappling with slower-than-expected adoption, uneven product performance, and a growing recognition that technical feasibility alone is not enough. Taste, in all its complexity, has emerged as the defining battleground.

“You end up optimizing for absence of off-notes rather than presence of pleasure”

The problem with solving the wrong challenge

For Cotto, the issue is not that the industry lacks technical capability. It is that it has been asking the wrong questions.

“You end up optimizing for absence of off-notes rather than presence of pleasure. Taste is complex, it’s emotional, it’s contextual. Consumers aren’t running a chemistry panel when they take a bite. They’re asking: do I want more of this?”

This shift from avoiding failure to delivering enjoyment may sound subtle, but it represents a profound change in how products must be conceived. It also exposes why so many early products struggled to secure repeat purchases, even when they met basic expectations.

“The industry underestimated how high that bar actually is and is now trying to catch up.”

That bar is not defined by technical benchmarks or nutritional claims. It is defined by consumer behavior, by the simple but unforgiving question of whether a product earns a second purchase without external motivation.

Starting with the sensory brief

If taste is to become the primary design principle, then product development itself needs to be restructured.

“It means starting with the consumer experience, not the ingredient list.”

Cotto points to a common pattern across the industry: development begins with constraints such as protein source, processing method, or cost targets, with taste addressed later as a finishing step.

This inversion of priorities has implications far beyond formulation. It affects sourcing decisions, processing technologies, and even how companies define success. It also requires a willingness to move away from the idea that all alternative proteins can be approached as a single category.

“Consumers aren’t running a chemistry panel when they take a bite. They’re asking: do I want more of this?”

The underestimated drivers of satisfaction

Within sensory science, certain attributes continue to be undervalued, particularly those that are harder to quantify.

“Mouthfeel and aroma carry far more weight than most formulation teams acknowledge.”

While flavor often dominates discussion, Cotto argues that the physical experience of eating is what ultimately determines satisfaction.

“The way a product moves in the mouth, how it coats, how it releases fat, is a key part of what drives satisfaction and repeat purchase.”

In dairy alternatives, this becomes especially critical.

“You can have a technically sound product with a mildly off mouthcoating sensation and lose the consumer before they’ve even swallowed.”

These insights underscore a broader point: sensory success is not achieved through isolated improvements but through the orchestration of multiple attributes working together.

What the data actually shows

NECTAR’s work has been instrumental in bringing empirical clarity to these questions, particularly through its focus on omnivore consumers and blind tasting methodologies.

“A few things hold up across categories and markets. First, the performance gap between how the industry describes its products and how consumers actually experience them is persistent and measurable.”

This gap reflects a tendency toward optimism that is not always supported by real-world data.

At the same time, the data challenges some common assumptions about consumer resistance.

“Omnivores are far more willing to like these products than the industry gives them credit for, but they are also unforgiving when a product fails on basics. You only get one chance at a first impression.”

Perhaps most importantly, consumers evaluate products relative to familiar benchmarks.

“Consumers evaluate a plant-based cheese against what they know dairy cheese to be. Closing that gap is the work.”

Context is everything

One of the more surprising findings from NECTAR’s research is the extent to which context shapes perception.

“A product that performs modestly in isolation can score significantly better when it’s presented in the format consumers actually use it in.”

This has practical implications for how products are tested and marketed. It also highlights the risk of evaluating products in artificial conditions that do not reflect real consumption.

“In our Taste of the Industry 2026 study, I was genuinely surprised by the performance of plant-based cheddar slices in grilled cheese applications.”

At the same time, not all contexts are forgiving.

“While mozzarella couldn’t meet consumers’ expectations on pizza, multiple brands met the mark for grilled cheese.”

Even transparency, often assumed to be a universal positive, can introduce complexity.

“Consumers who are told more about what’s in a product don’t automatically trust it more. Sometimes that information becomes a liability before the product even has a chance to be evaluated on its merits.”

Treating sensory data as strategy

For many companies, sensory evaluation remains a late-stage validation tool rather than a core driver of decision-making.

“Most companies run sensory evaluation late in development to validate a decision that’s already been made. That’s a waste of the data’s potential.”

Cotto advocates for a fundamentally different approach.

“Sensory insights should be informing product architecture early, shaping decisions about protein sourcing, processing methods, flavor system design.”

Crucially, the quality of the data matters as much as how it is used.

“The data needs to be generated with real consumers under blind conditions. Self-selected enthusiast panels will not tell you what you need to know about the mainstream market.”

This is particularly relevant for smaller companies.

“Testing only with their employees and friends and assuming that’s an accurate representation of their consumer is not enough… the data shows that investing in sensory science and R&D early pays massive dividends in terms of market share and growth potential.”

That relationship between taste and market performance is now becoming quantifiable. Analysis conducted by NECTAR in collaboration with The Good Food Institute found that the best-performing plant-based dairy categories from a sensory perspective capture up to 15 times greater market share than those that fall short.

The implication is difficult to ignore. Sensory performance is not just a product attribute. It is a commercial driver.

“Sensory performance is not just a product attribute. It is a commercial driver”

AI as a tool, not a replacement

As datasets grow, so too does the potential for AI-driven insights. NECTAR is actively exploring how its data can support predictive models.

“We’re building toward a model that can help companies anticipate how changes in formulation will shift consumer sensory response before committing to a full trial.”

The ambition is not to eliminate experimentation but to make it more efficient.

“The goal with our prediction tool is to compress development cycles and increase market success by helping teams make smarter bets earlier.”

For Cotto, the most exciting aspect of AI lies in accessibility.

“The potential to democratize access to high-quality sensory intelligence… smaller companies and startups are often making formulation decisions without real consumer data.”

However, she is clear about the limits.

“AI cannot replace the human palate. It can identify patterns, surface probabilities, flag risk. It cannot yet tell you whether something is delicious.”

The future, she suggests, will rely on a hybrid model.

“A human in the loop model.”

The case for open collaboration

NECTAR’s decision to make its findings openly accessible reflects a broader philosophy about how the sector should evolve.

“If the goal is mainstream adoption of sustainable proteins, then the entire sector needs to get better at taste, not just the companies with the largest R&D budgets.”

Shared infrastructure, rather than proprietary advantage, becomes the mechanism for progress.

“Hoarding sensory data doesn’t accelerate that. Shared infrastructure does,” she says.

NECTAR is extending that philosophy into its next phase, with plans to make its AI-driven sensory prediction tool open source and freely accessible.

This openness also enables new forms of inquiry.

“When academics and external analysts can work with the same data we're generating, the questions you can ask get more interesting.”

Partnerships have played a critical role in strengthening the work.

“Academic partners ask different questions than industry partners. They're less interested in which product wins and more interested in the mechanisms driving consumer response.”

Yet significant gaps remain.

“The biggest gaps right now are in methodology standardization and cross-market data.”

Without common frameworks, insights remain fragmented.

“There’s no shared language for reporting results. That makes it very hard to build on each other's work.”

Geography adds another layer of complexity.

“Almost all rigorous sensory research has been conducted in North American or Western European consumer markets.”

Expanding the global lens

As companies look to scale internationally, the question of regional taste preferences becomes increasingly important.

NECTAR’s next major study will focus specifically on plant-based meat products in India, aiming to build one of the first rigorous datasets on how these products perform under blind tasting conditions in that market.

“In India, the core question is how plant-based meat products perform against a consumer palate shaped by a very different relationship with spice, texture, and protein generally.”

The assumptions that underpin product design in Western markets may not hold elsewhere.

“You can’t retrofit cultural context. You have to design for it from the beginning.”

This has direct implications for product formats.

“That’s why chicken mince for dumplings is a more relevant balanced protein product for APAC consumers than chicken nuggets.”

Yet much remains unknown.

“Whether there’s a measurable difference between a consumer’s preference for plant-based burgers in England versus Germany? That remains to be seen.”

Across categories, the pace of improvement has been uneven.

“In plant-based dairy, the progress in beverage alternatives, especially in coffee applications, has been real.”

Success in these areas has been driven by application-specific science.

“Foaming behavior, stability in hot beverages, flavor performance against coffee's bitterness and acidity.”

Other categories remain far more challenging.

“The challenge remains in the cheese and cultured dairy categories… replicating that biochemical complexity with plant inputs is genuinely hard.”

In meat alternatives, the pattern is similar.

“Ground formats, like burgers and nuggets, have improved significantly. Whole-cut applications remain the frontier.”

The difference often comes down to structural complexity.

“The categories furthest from parity are those where texture is structurally complex… anything with a significant bite or pull component.”

“The sensory profile should be the brief. What does this product need to taste like for someone to choose it again, unprompted, without any moral motivation?”

Testing the promise of hybrids

Hybrid products, combining plant-based and animal-derived ingredients, represent another area of active investigation.

“The compelling case is that a small amount of animal-derived ingredient can carry an outsized sensory contribution.”

Particularly in areas such as aroma and mouthfeel.

“The hypothesis that hybrids can close the gap more quickly than fully plant-based products is worth testing rigorously.”

At the same time, they introduce new complexities around communication and supply chains.

“The challenging reality is that it complicates the marketing story, the supply chain, and the consumer’s ability to understand what they’re eating.”

Toward a more honest standard

As the alternative protein sector enters its next phase, the conversation around taste is becoming less about aspiration and more about accountability.

The tools are improving, the data is expanding, and the expectations are rising. What remains is the willingness to confront uncomfortable truths about where products stand today and what it will take to improve them.

Cotto’s perspective offers a clear, if demanding, path forward.

“The sensory profile should be the brief. What does this product need to taste like for someone to choose it again, unprompted, without any moral motivation?”

It is a question that cuts through technology, sustainability, and marketing alike. And it is one the industry can no longer afford to answer defensively.

Caroline Cotto is one of 24 experts shaping the agenda for The Future of Protein Production/Cultured Meat Symposium Amsterdam on 4/5 November 2026, taking place at RAI Amsterdam. To join +100 speakers and more than 750 other attendees, book your conference ticket today and use the code, 'PPTI10', for an extra 10% discount on the current Super Early Bird rate of €995 (closes 29 May 2026). Click here