In December 2025, the commercial court of Évry (Essonne) declared the judicial liquidation of Ynsect, the French start-up specializing in the production of insect-based proteins. Presented as a flagship of French Tech, inaugurated in 2021 in the presence of three ministers, the company had mobilized more than 600 million euros in investments, including around 148 million in public money, according to the Ministry of the Economy. Results five years later: a ghost factory, 200 jobs lost and a legitimate question about the use of public funds in the food transition sector.
Which sector should we support to make our food more sustainable? The question arises urgently when we examine the current situation: livestock farming occupies 77% of the world’s agricultural land, while providing only 18% of calories. Food production generates 35% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, more than half of which comes from animal products.
The hidden health and environmental costs (diet-related illnesses, GHG emissions, soil and water pollution, etc.) of this model were estimated at 14,000 billion dollars (or just under 12 billion euros) in 2018. With meat consumption continuing to increase globally and vegetarianism remaining marginal for the moment, investment in alternative proteins therefore appears necessary.
But resources (financial, political, industrial, etc.) are limited and so is the time to act on the climate. Each euro invested in an unpromising sector is a euro which is not used to develop a more efficient alternative and as many emissions which could have been avoided. In a study recently published in the journal NPJ Science of Food (Nature group), we compared for the first time four major categories of alternative proteins:
- Plant-based meats produced from soy, pea or wheat processed to imitate the taste and texture of meat;
- Single-cell proteins, resulting from the fermentation of microorganisms (yeasts, fungi, bacteria or algae) in vats, such as mycoproteins marketed under the Quorn brand for forty years;
- Cultured meat, produced from animal cells that are proliferated in a bioreactor containing a nutrient medium (amino acids, glucose, vitamins, growth factors);
- Insects, eaten whole or transformed into flour to be incorporated into various food products.
We evaluated all of these alternative protein sources across four dimensions: environmental impact, large-scale production capacity, consumer acceptability, and animal welfare. The goal: identify where to focus efforts.
Plant-based meats lead on the environment
The most solid finding from our analysis concerns the environmental impact. Plant-based meats made from soy, peas or wheat have an impact approximately 50% lower than that of conventional meat. The advantage is particularly clear over beef: plant-based substitutes emit up to ten times less greenhouse gases and require up to thirty times less land. This last point is crucial: the land freed up by a decline in livestock farming could be restored into ecosystems capable of storing carbon and protecting biodiversity.
Single-cell proteins, including mycoproteins produced by growing microscopic fungi in fermentation tanks, and approaches power-to-foodwhich transform CO2 in proteins thanks to micro-organisms, also have advantages. Their footprint is particularly small and their carbon footprint can be excellent, provided you have largely carbon-free electricity.
Cultured meat shares this energy dependence, but on a completely different scale: it consumes on average 5.5 times more energy than conventional meat. Consequently, a climatic advantage compared to chicken or pork is possible, but requires a largely carbon-free energy mix.
As for insects, recent assessments are less encouraging than the first studies. By integrating real constraints (heating in a temperate climate, regulatory limits on substrates), their emissions are not necessarily lower than those of chicken. Above all, only 7% of insect-based products launched on the market are meat substitutes, the vast majority are pasta, protein bars or biscuits, which do not replace meat but foods whose impact is already low. The real environmental benefit is therefore greatly put into perspective.
Producing at scale: a gap between alternatives
But creating a virtuous product is not enough. It is still necessary to be able to produce it at a cost and volume sufficient to compete with conventional meat. Plant-based meats are best placed here. They already represent a global market of 6.6 billion dollars in 2025 (nearly 5.6 billion euros, around 1% of the meat market) and rely on existing agri-food infrastructures. Their main obstacle remains the price, on average 82% higher than meat, but this gap is gradually reducing.
Single-cell proteins occupy an intermediate position. Mycoproteins, marketed since 1985 in the United Kingdom under the Quorn brand, demonstrate the viability of the model, but at prices even higher than those of meat. The approaches power-to-foodstill at the pilot stage, could ultimately become competitive if the cost of renewable energies continues to fall, although many uncertainties remain.
Meat produced by cell culture faces obstacles of a completely different magnitude. Despite recent progress, an empirical study reached a cost of around 14 dollars (around 12 euros) per kilogram for a hybrid product (half animal cells, half plant). Production costs remain very high and infrastructure requirements dizzying: to cover barely 0.4% of the global meat market, bioreactor capacity would be required twenty-two times greater than that of the entire global pharmaceutical industry.
In terms of costs, the initial promise of feeding insects with cheap waste comes up against a set of regulatory, logistical and health constraints.
For insects, the economic situation is just as severe. Human food is considered unpromising by the sector itself, which explains why it only represents around 5% of the sector’s investments. In terms of costs, the initial promise of feeding insects with cheap waste comes up against a set of regulatory, logistical and health constraints, which render most of these substrates unusable, requiring the use of more expensive foods. Added to this is the heating required in temperate latitudes, which considerably increases the energy bill.
Consumers also have their say
But the best alternative on paper will mean nothing without the support of consumers. Plant-based meats are again the best accepted: for example, according to a 2022 British survey, 60% of people said they were ready to try them, compared to 34% for cultured meat and 26% for insects.
Single-cell proteins remain little known to the general public, which limits the available data. The few studies suggest intermediate acceptability, lower than that of plant-based meats, but higher than that of cultured meat and insects.
Cultured meat faces a powerful psychological obstacle: disgust and the feeling that it is an “unnatural” product. Acceptability varies greatly depending on the region: Asian consumers are clearly more open than Europeans and, even within Europe, the differences are marked, with for example a third of French people ready to consume it compared to almost two thirds of Poles. Age and gender also play a role: young men, for example, are more favorable to it.
Insects face the strongest resistance. The literature reports an acceptance rate generally below 30% in Western countries. Interestingly, this rejection has more to do with psychological barriers than taste; people who have tasted insects often evaluate them more favorably. However, it should be noted that the acceptability of all alternative proteins changes with familiarity and repeated exposure, suggesting that current studies may underestimate their long-term potential.
Is insect farming compatible with animal welfare?
Finally, our study integrates a dimension often absent from these debates: animal welfare. Plant-based meats and single-cell proteins do not involve any animals.
Cultured meat only requires a very small number, mainly for initial cell sampling. The question of fetal bovine serum, a by-product of the slaughter of pregnant cows which has constituted the standard for eukaryotic cell culture in biology since the 1950s, clearly illustrates this trajectory. Cultivated meat logically relied on this existing know-how at its beginnings, but today tends to free itself from it: its high cost and its variability make it an industrial obstacle that almost all companies in the sector are actively seeking to eliminate.
Insects, on the other hand, pose a unique ethical problem. It takes around 9,000 mealworms to produce a single kilogram of protein. Recent work on sentience – that is, the ability to have subjective experiences, including feeling pain or stress – of insects suggests that they may be capable of suffering. Faced with this uncertainty, several researchers recommend applying a precautionary principle.
Prioritizing support for alternative proteins
Our comparison results in a clear hierarchy. Plant-based meats come out on top: robust environmental benefits, industrial sector already in place, better acceptability. Single-cell proteins offer complementary potential, in particular thanks to their very small footprint. Cultured meat could find its place if it manages to win over consumers that other alternatives do not reach, but the technical and economic obstacles remain considerable. Insects, finally, combine fragilities: economic obstacles, low acceptability and unresolved ethical questions.
What do these results suggest for public action? Several avenues appear coherent: concentrate funding on the most mature alternatives, investing in improving their taste and price; encourage their distribution by integrating them into collective catering (canteens, hospitals, administrations); and contribute to rebalancing competition by gradually integrating the environmental costs of intensive farming into the price of meat. The Ynsect affair shows what it costs to bet big without asking the right questions. Research now makes it possible to ask them better.
