From grams to governance: rethinking protein as infrastructure, not ingredient

From clinical validation to supply chain resilience, Adam M. Adamek, the Co-founder & CEO of Impact Brussels, argues the next phase of protein innovation will be defined less by science alone and more by evidence, execution, and control

The protein conversation has been stuck in a narrow frame for decades. It is measured, marketed, and consumed in grams, as if quantity alone captures value. Yet across healthcare, sports nutrition, and emerging biotech, a different logic has been taking shape. Protein is no longer just an ingredient. It is becoming a system, a set of interventions, and increasingly, a form of infrastructure.

That shift is already visible in how products are being designed, how data is being layered onto food, and how governments are starting to think about supply security. But it is also uneven, with progress often outpacing adoption.

Adam M. Adamek, PhD, Co-founder & CEO of Impact Brussels, has spent decades working across food, pharma, and consumer goods. His perspective cuts across disciplines but returns repeatedly to a simple idea: the industry has been asking the wrong questions.

“Grams are an input,” Adamek says. “Outcomes are the questions nobody bothered to ask. Did that protein trigger muscle protein synthesis? Did it blunt a glucose spike? Did it slow sarcopenia, feed a healthier microbiome, support recovery? For 25 years, the industry optimized for cost-per-gram. The next decade belongs to companies that optimize for cost-per-outcome.”

If you cannot attach a protein to an outcome, you are selling fillers with a badge

From grams to outcomes

The implications of that shift are immediate and far-reaching. Measuring protein in grams is easy. Measuring what it actually does inside the body is not. That is where differentiation will increasingly sit.

“In practice, that means shifting ingredient selection from ‘how much’ to ‘what physiological endpoint are we moving’ and measuring it,” he explains. “DIAAS scores, postprandial response, satiety curves, recovery data. If you cannot attach a protein to an outcome, you are selling fillers with a badge.”

That distinction separates two very different futures. On one side sits a market saturated with interchangeable claims. On the other, a system in which proteins are evaluated by their biological effect, not their label.

The tools to enable that shift are already emerging. Clinical metrics such as DIAAS are gaining visibility. Continuous glucose monitoring is moving down the cost curve. Microbiome analysis is advancing quickly. But integrating those elements into everyday food products remains difficult at the product level.

For 25 years across the food industry, we optimized for cost-per-gram. The next decade belongs to companies that optimize for cost-per-outcome

When products become protocols

Five years from now, protein products may look familiar on the surface, but their underlying logic will have changed. “On the front of the pack you might still see ‘20g protein,’” Adamek says. “Behind the label, you would see a QR code linking to clinical validation – DIAAS score, postprandial glucose curve, satiety data, microbiome signature.”

The shift, he adds, is not visual but structural. “The ingredient matrix would not be monolithic,” he continues. “It would blend pea, chickpea, mycoprotein, and precision-fermented casein or whey, engineered for complete amino acid profile and digestibility rather than for single-source theater. It would not feel like a product. It would feel like a protocol – something a consumer chooses because it has a specific job-to-be-done: sleep, recovery, cognition, metabolic health.”

Sports nutrition already offers a preview of that transition. “That shift already happened there,” he notes. “It has not crossed into mainstream retail yet. It will, and faster than incumbents think.”

Personalization, delayed

If outcome-driven protein is the direction of travel, personalization is often presented as the logical next step. The reality is further away than many assume.

“Honestly, five to seven years from mainstream scale, not one or two,” Adamek says. “Biomarker-driven nutrition works today – ZOE, InsideTracker, Levels – but at premium price points of €50 to €150 a month, reaching maybe 2-3% of consumers.”

The constraint is not scientific feasibility. It is cost, trust, and data integration.

“Three things need to break in parallel,” he continues. “Biomarker panel cost – continuous glucose monitors are already tracking toward €5 a day – AI interpretation consumers trust, and food-matrix data good enough to generate specific recommendations rather than generic nudges.”

Until those pieces align, personalization remains niche. But the trajectory is clear.

“When those converge, adoption moves from 2-3% today toward 15-20% by 2030,” he adds. “Food companies that sit this one out will find their shelf space being re-architected around protocols somebody else designed.”

The gap is not ‘can we make it?’ It is ‘will anyone repeatedly buy it?’ We built science companies when we needed commerce companies

The end of ‘high protein’

As functionality becomes more central, the industry’s reliance on broad claims looks increasingly fragile. “Too claim-heavy, absolutely,” Adamek feels. “The EU ‘high protein’ threshold – 20% of energy from protein – is trivially easy to clear and tells you almost nothing about quality, digestibility, or outcome.”

Moving toward evidence-led innovation requires a different standard. “That means three things,” he says. “RCT-grade data at the product level, still rare; ingredient-specific DIAAS scoring published, not hidden in dossiers; and third-party sensory validation like the NECTAR blind-tasting work.”

That shift will not be driven by marketing alone. “It comes when retailers start demanding proof as a listing condition, when regulators tighten ‘high protein’ and ‘supports muscle’ language, and when investors price evidence into diligence,” Adamek argues.

The companies gaining ground are already adapting. “They are building the evidence base first, claiming narrowly second,” he adds.

Where value is captured

Ingredient innovation remains important, but it is no longer where the greatest value sits. “Blending solves nutritional completeness at reasonable cost,” Adamek says. “A well-formulated pea-plus-mycoprotein-plus-precision-fermented casein matrix can hit animal-grade DIAAS without animal inputs. That is table stakes.”

The premium layer sits above that foundation. “The margin lives in data – wearable integration, outcome claims, personalization layers,” he explains.

That shift changes how products are designed. “Startups often try to win as a single-ingredient hero,” he notes. “That is brittle. Platforms that blend and layer compound over time.”

No company scales on capital alone; it scales on signed commerce

The commercialization gap

The science is no longer the limiting factor. “Precision fermentation runs at scale, mycoprotein is commercial, plant protein isolates are mature, cultivated meat has regulatory approval in multiple jurisdictions,” Adamek says. “That is not the bottleneck.”

The challenge lies elsewhere. “The question is not ‘can we make it?’ It is ‘will anyone repeatedly buy it?’” he says. “We built science companies when we needed commerce companies.”

The numbers reinforce that gap. Alternative protein private investment fell from US$5.1 billion in 2021 to roughly US$1.1 billion in 2024 – a 78% decline. Around 40% of plant-based SKUs were delisted by major UK and US retailers across 2023 and 2024.

Moving from lab to market introduces a different set of constraints. “There are three repeat mistakes,” Adamek says. “First, leading with the technology instead of the job-to-be-done. Second, no drop-in format. Asking a manufacturer to retool a production line is commercial suicide. Third, pricing disconnected from the commodity reality – three to 10 times parity never crosses into mainstream retail, full stop.”

From a buyer’s perspective, the bar is simpler. “The ingredient that wins is not the best one in the lab,” he adds. “It is the one that passes a buyer’s quarterly review without drama.”

When complexity kills adoption

Communication remains a major barrier. “The industry is largely founded by scientists, and it shows,” Adamek says. “Consumer research keeps confirming the same thing: ‘fermentation’ confuses shoppers, ‘microbial protein’ alarms them, ‘brewed like beer’ lands well.”

The same applies on the commercial side. “Procurement directors at Tesco, Carrefour, and REWE are not PhDs,” he notes. “If your ingredient deck requires one, you do not get listed. Overcomplication is not a branding issue. It is a commercial defect.”

Simplifying the message does not mean simplifying the science. It means making it usable.

The missing middle

Beyond communication and product design, the constraint becomes structural. “Bankability,” Adamek says. “The gap between technical readiness – TRL 7 or 8 – and commercial readiness: signed offtake agreements, retailer commitments, reliable co-manufacturing.”

That gap defines the current bottleneck. “No company scales on capital alone; it scales on signed commerce,” he argues. “Europe funds science well and starves commerce.”

The consequences are already visible. “We build pilot plants and neglect the middle – toll processing, logistics, credit terms, contract stability,” he adds.

Protein as infrastructure

The conversation is now extending beyond markets into geopolitics. “Sustainability is the cover story. Sovereignty is the headline,” Adamek says.

Europe’s reliance on imported protein underlines the risk. “Europe imports roughly 75% of its protein feed – primarily soy from Brazil, Argentina, and the USA,” he notes.

That dependency leaves systems exposed. “One trade shock, one sanction, one drought across the US Midwest, and European livestock systems wobble,” he warns.

Recent disruptions have made that fragility more visible. “COVID, the war in Ukraine, and Red Sea disruptions showed how fragile supply chains really are,” he adds.

Protein diversification, in that context, becomes strategic. “It is about autonomy,” he says. “It sits alongside energy, semiconductors, and pharmaceuticals.”

The industry needs to raise its voice on who sets the standards, who owns the strains, and who benefits when microbial protein becomes a commodity

Building resilience

A resilient system requires coordinated structural change. “It comes down to four pillars,” Adamek says. “One: diversified sources – legumes, mycoprotein, precision fermentation, algae, insect protein in feed. Two: distributed production – regional fermentation hubs rather than single mega-facilities.”

The remaining pillars move into regulation and policy. “Three: a novel foods pathway under 12 months, rather than the current median of 2.5 to three years, with some files taking more than four. And four: protein sovereignty metrics embedded in the Common Agricultural Policy, alongside nitrogen and emissions,” he continues.

The timeline reflects the scale of the challenge. “At the current pace, we are 10 to 15 years away. With focused policy and infrastructure investment, five,” he says.

Who controls protein?

Beneath all of this sits a deeper question, according to Adamek. “Governance. Who decides what ‘protein’ means in 2030?” he asks.

Those decisions are already being made. “DIAAS thresholds, novel foods pathways, labeling rules, feed approvals, IP around microbial strains – they are being set with startups, SMEs, and the public largely absent from the table,” he says.

The risk is structural, not technical. “It is regulatory capture – incumbents writing the rules for a market they will then dominate,” he warns.

The pattern is familiar. “If we are not careful, we repeat the seed-industry consolidation story, only faster,” he adds.

The implications run across the entire system. “Health, commercialization, and resilience all sit downstream of who owns the governance layer – and right now that is being decided while most of the sector is still arguing about grams,” he says.

The industry has spent years refining inputs and scaling technologies. The next phase may be defined less by what proteins are made of, and more by who defines the system around them.

“The industry needs to raise its voice on who sets the standards, who owns the strains, and who benefits when microbial protein becomes a commodity,” Adamek concludes. “That is the conversation we are not having loudly enough.”

Adam Adamek 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

(Main photo courtesy of Teo Kolev)