Alternative proteins and insects: when innovation ignores consumers

In recent years, so-called alternative proteins have been presented as the inevitable future of European food systems. Lab-grown meat, precision fermentation, and insect proteins have become firmly embedded in the language of EU food policies, described as “innovative” and “sustainable” solutions destined to revolutionise the agri-food sector. But what happens when innovation moves faster than consumer acceptance?

A Brief published by Euractiv reignited the debate by drawing on a literary metaphor as effective as it is unforgiving: Joseph Heller’s Catch-22. A reference that goes well beyond the cultural sphere, becoming a deeply political lens through which to interpret current European choices on food.

The lesson of Catch-22 applied to food

In Heller’s novel, Milo Minderbender, the enterprising mess officer, builds an absurd and self-referential commercial empire that survives not because of real demand, but through public contracts and bureaucratic mechanisms that end up rewarding inefficiency. His ingenious syndicate supplies soldiers with the finest delicacies of the Mediterranean until the operation is derailed by a spectacular miscalculation: the purchase of enormous quantities of Egyptian cotton. Left with an unsellable surplus, Milo desperately tries to make the soldiers consume it, even going so far as to coat the soft fibres in chocolate. The result, however, is simply inedible. And yet, despite the absurdity of the scheme, Milo manages to “save” his empire by selling the cotton to the State.

According to Euractiv, the follies imagined by Joseph Heller are today disturbingly similar to those unfolding across Europe. Replace cotton with insects, and the syndicate with the industry lobby, and a modern allegory of this failure emerges. After years of investments and promises, the insect protein industry is struggling to find a concrete commercial outlet in the human food market. Nevertheless, rather than questioning the absence of real demand, it is now calling for ever greater public intervention to force these products into the European diet.

Innovation doesn’t mean ignoring demand: time for a pause for thought?

Reading the Euractiv Brief, the case of a French start-up once considered the sector’s flagship, emerges as emblematic. The company set out to conquer the global insect protein market, backed by substantial public and private investment. Its collapse in 2024, accompanied by revelations of degraded facilities and serious operational shortcomings, was not merely a corporate failure: it became the symbol of a sector that has vastly overestimated its potential in the human food market.

If there is a country that has historically normalised the consumption of so-called “challenging” foods, from snails and frogs to offal and organ meats, it is France, often described as Europe’s gastronomic laboratory. Yet despite years of experimentation, communication campaigns and public support, insects have not entered the everyday diet of the French population. The response from the industry lobby, however, has not been a critical reassessment of the model, but rather a call for even more forceful policies: mandatory public procurement, dedicated regulatory frameworks and the enforced inclusion of these products in the menus of canteens and public institutions.

The issue, therefore, is not a lack of culinary creativity or investment, but the absence of genuine consumer desire. A fact that should give Brussels pause for thought, because innovation does not mean ignoring demand. When a new product requires permanent subsidies, compulsory public purchasing and “tailor-made” regulation to survive, it is no longer a market innovation, but a political experiment. In this sense, turning insect proteins into food for human consumption risks becoming a textbook case of policy-driven food, in which political strategy precedes, and ultimately replaces, social acceptance.

Insects, yes, but not on our plates

There is another element often overlooked in the debate: insects already work very well as feed. In animal nutrition, their use makes solid economic, nutritional and environmental sense. Forcing their transformation into food for human consumption introduces an artificial, costly, and inefficient step that does not address any real need. In essence, it is an “elaborate substitute” for something that already exists and functions better elsewhere.

In Catch-22, Milo’s cotton episode is a caricature of public power buying that no one wants, simply to avoid admitting a mistake. Satire is meant to expose absurdity. Yet, as the Euractiv Brief bitterly observes, satire should help prevent such dynamics, not inspire them. In the case of insect proteins, the concrete risk is that Europe is building a market not for citizens, but to justify investments already made.

Food innovation is necessary. However, without consumer consent, genuine economic sustainability, and respect for food cultures, it risks becoming a self-referential exercise. And as Catch-22 teaches us, when a system begins to feed on its own contradictions, it is no longer progress: it is merely a comedy of the absurd.