Japan Is Investing $6.2 Billion In Animal-Free Food

Japan plans to invest approximately $6.2 billion in plant-based proteins and other foods made without animals.

It is part of a draft public-private investment roadmap worth $2.3 trillion, covering 17 sectors and 62 products and technologies by 2040. Four of those sectors relate to food technology and are expected to receive around $60 billion. The government has allocated approximately $6.2 billion specifically to what it calls “new foods”: functional, nutritious and non-animal-derived products, including alternative proteins. Food without animals.

It should not be a radical idea.

Japan’s Food Industry Is Changing

The proposed investment forms part of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s “crisis management and growth investment” agenda.

Japan has a long history of fermentation and food manufacturing. The roadmap highlights fermented foods, seasonings, rice flour and other established areas of Japanese food production. It also reflects a changing market. A 2025 report found that urban flexitarians were driving increased demand for plant-based tuna in Japan. Concerns about ethics, pressure on fish supply chains and changing attitudes towards nutrition were all contributing to this shift. Japanese food technology companies are also working on cultivated animal products, although cultivated meat is not included in the current investment roadmap. In May, Japan’s Consumer Affairs Agency published draft guidance for companies seeking to sell cultivated meat and fish products. The direction is clear. Animal agriculture is no longer the only food system governments can imagine funding. Alternatives exist. The research exists. The ingredients exist. What has often been missing is the scale of investment needed to make plant-based foods cheaper, better and more widely available. Japan appears prepared to provide some of it.

Plants Are Not In Short Supply

We grow huge quantities of plants already. We then feed many of them to animals, use land and energy keeping those animals alive, and recover only a fraction of the original nutrition through their bodies, milk or eggs. Researchers are now demonstrating how many overlooked plant ingredients could be used more directly.

Sunflower meal is one example.

Sunflower meal is left behind during sunflower oil production. From 100 kilograms of sunflower seeds, researchers estimate that around 40 kilograms of oil and 40 kilograms of meal can be produced after the husks are removed. Approximately 21.63 million metric tonnes of sunflower oil were produced worldwide between 2023 and 2024. That means an enormous quantity of sunflower meal is available. Much of it is currently fed to animals imprisoned on farms. Instead of feeding useful protein to animals and later eating the animals, researchers are investigating how sunflower meal could feed humans directly.

A study involving researchers in Brazil and Germany used sunflower ingredients to produce plant-based patties. Textured sunflower protein performed particularly well, providing protein, monounsaturated fats, magnesium, manganese, zinc and iron. It also had a neutral taste and aroma. In other words, an ingredient currently treated largely as animal feed could become nutritious human food.

No slaughter required.

Even Discarded Flowers Can Become Food

Marigolds provide another example. Researchers from the University of Georgia investigated whether proteins could be extracted from marigold flowers. Around 40% of marigold production is reportedly discarded. The researchers ground the flowers into powder and separated several protein extracts. Some contained high levels of glutamic acid and aspartic acid, which could provide an umami taste.

The proteins also remained stable at temperatures of up to 105°C, making them more heat-resistant than some pea and chickpea proteins. Two extracts demonstrated strong emulsifying properties, suggesting potential uses in dressings, mayonnaise alternatives and dairy-free products. Researchers now plan to develop prototypes and carry out taste testing.

Marigolds will not replace the entire animal agriculture industry. Neither will sunflower meal. That is not the point. The point is that potential ingredients are everywhere once governments, universities and companies stop treating cows, pigs, chickens, fishes and other animals as the compulsory middlemen between plants and humans.

We do not need to find one magical crop that replaces every animal-derived product. We need continued research, investment and manufacturing across a wide range of plant ingredients.

Japan’s proposed investment could help create precisely this kind of food system.

Insects Are Not Plant-Based Protein

Whenever governments use broad terms such as “alternative protein” someone pops up to talk about bugs. Insect farming is frequently promoted as a sustainable replacement for conventional animal agriculture. Supporters claim insects convert feed efficiently, require fewer resources and can consume food waste. But insects are animals.

Replacing one group of exploited animals with another is not progress for the animals being bred and killed. The claimed environmental and economic case may also be far weaker than industry marketing suggests.

A review of insect farming research identified three recurring problems: reliance on outdated environmental studies, unrealistic assumptions about feeding insects food waste, and cost projections that fail to reflect commercial conditions.

Some influential studies were based on small-scale facilities, human-grade feed and production systems that no longer resemble modern insect farms. Energy-intensive processing was sometimes excluded.

The popular idea that insects will consume vast quantities of otherwise unusable food waste also appears detached from commercial reality. Large insect farms often avoid food waste because it is inconsistent, expensive to collect, vulnerable to contamination and difficult to use safely. Grain-based feeds provide more predictable growth.

So insects may be fed crops that could have been used elsewhere, only to be killed and turned into animal feed or snack ingredients. We already know how inefficient that logic becomes when applied to cows, pigs and chickens.

Changing the species does not repair the argument.

Westerners Do Not Want To Eat Insects

Insect farming also faces a rather obvious commercial problem. Most people in Western countries do not want to eat insects.

Research published in 2025 found that only 24 to 26% of people in the UK would consider trying insect-based foods. Among those who were unwilling, 67% said nothing could persuade them.

Around two billion people worldwide already eat insects, often as part of established local food cultures. That does not mean industrial insect farming is a realistic way to reduce animal product consumption in the UK, Europe or the United States.

Plant-based foods have considerably greater public acceptance. They also avoid the ethical problem entirely.

Research increasingly shows how insects experience pain. But the insect farming industry proposes breeding and killing them in numbers that would make existing animal agriculture statistics look small. Why build another system of mass confinement and killing when plants are available? Why divert public investment into persuading people to eat animals they already reject? Why not spend that money making plant-based foods affordable, nutritious, convenient and enjoyable?

Investment Is A Choice

Governments decide what to subsidise. They decide which research receives public money. They decide which industries receive infrastructure, favourable regulation and political support.

For decades, animals have been bred and killed within a food economy built around public investment and government protection. A different food system will also require investment. Japan’s $6.2 billion proposal recognises that animal-free food is not merely a consumer trend. It is an industrial, economic and strategic opportunity. Plant ingredients such as sunflower meal and marigold protein show how much potential remains underused. These foods could reduce waste, provide nutrition and replace ingredients taken from animals.

The distinction must remain clear.

Plant-based protein ends the need to use animals. Insect protein merely selects new victims. Governments should invest accordingly.