EIT Food’s Next Bite paves the way for a European food future in biotech

Drawing on this context, EIT Food is launching the European Agrifood Biotech Alliance to build a competitive, sustainable and resilient European biotech future, uniting the stakeholders of the Agrifood Biotech Ecosystem in Europe: industry leaders, research institutions, policymakers, and startups.

The Alliance will aim to drive progress in innovative areas such as protein diversification, plant and microbiome engineering, advanced cell line development, bioprocessing and more. It will do this, by

• Building a leading ecosystem: Breaking silos by connecting research, industry leaders, supply chain actors, scientists, policymakers and startups.

• Advocacy and influence: Coordinating with key EU industry organisations to shape policies and drive regulatory impact.

• Driving innovation and growth: Advancing knowledge, education, entrepreneurship and funding.

• Developing a strategic roadmap: Leading the creation of a Strategic Research & Innovation Agenda, laying the foundation for a strong public-private partnership.

To enable the transition towards a modern bioeconomy, EIT Food aim to foster talent development and skills transformation across the agrifood biotech sector, ensuring a workforce equipped for innovation, industrial scale-up and sustainability. The EU bioeconomy currently represents 8.5% of total employment, and this is expected to quickly rise to 24% by 2030.

As the European Agrifood Biotech Alliance prepares to officially kick-off in January 2026, EIT Food is calling on industry partners to join the open alliance – from employers, research and funders to policy actors and training providers.

Also shaping the biotech environment are new findings from an upcoming report led by the Consumer Observatory: Uncovering Consumer Perceptions of the Biotech Act.

As the global food system faces challenges such as climate change, rising food demand and resource competition, biotechnology can help European food production adapt in a resilient and competitive way. However, current EU legislation is not supportive of an innovative biotech sector – a gap the European Biotech Act aims to bridge.

The Biotech Act, announced in 2024 and to be launched in 2026, aims to strengthen the bloc’s biotechnology sector. But its success will ultimately lean on the level of acceptance from citizens.

The key findings of the report indicate that:

• Consumers see the potential for biotechnology to address major global challenges: nearly 43% of consumers are open to precision fermented dairy products and 35% are open to cultivated meat.

• However, the willingness plummets for products at the far end of the innovation spectrum. Only 23% are willing to try 3D printed food and just 26% for genetically altered food.

• Younger and higher-educated consumers are significantly more willing to try food produced using biotechnology: 34% of 18–34-year-olds are willing to try compared 17% of those aged 55+.

• Geographically the highest rates of unwillingness are concentrated in major markets like France (52%) and Greece (56%).

Overall, consumers take a neutral to marginally negative view of biotechnology and the regulatory framework, with concerns centring around the idea that this technology could be misused by large corporations, that the benefits will not be fairly distributed, or that food produced in laboratories is too far removed from traditional farming. This indicates that consumers are not rejecting the science, but rather the uncertainty and potential for misuse.

For the Biotech Act to succeed, it will be necessary to address general consumer fears around misuse and fairness and engage older generations and specific regions where scepticism is culturally entrenched. The industry needs to prove that biotech works and can scale impact across health, reduced climate impact and resilience.

Overall consumers placed the greatest responsibility for solving food system challenges on governments and public authorities - rather than supermarkets or retailers. This indicates a strong expectation for action at an EU level.

The full study report can be obtained upon request.