Product development and sourcing: What do industry experts say?
The majority of alternative protein industry funding has gone to B2C companies, which has led to an increased focus on creating end-consumer products. Developing products and solutions, however, is no piece of cake. Identifying market needs, getting and incorporating feedback, and controlling costs are just a few crucial aspects businesses need to consider when developing successful products. Finding the right sources to fit your supply chain is also critical because these decisions will have a direct impact on product cost, competitive advantage, and consumer satisfaction.
We asked leading APAC industry experts how they managed to successfully navigate this thicket of potential hurdles. Here’s what they said:
Product development starts and ends with consumers
Clearly identify the market need
Maarten Geraets, former managing director of alternative proteins at Thai Union, emphasises that product development is a complex space, and many organisations rush into it too quickly without properly considering what they want to deliver.
He also highlights the importance of conducting or identifying trusted consumer research. “Having a solid understanding of your consumers, what they want and what they don’t want, will be absolutely key. For example, in some countries, people prefer not to have any taste enhancers, MSG, ribotides, or yeast extract. It is better to know this upfront because fixing it afterward is more painful than addressing it from the beginning.”
Jolene Lum, former head of business development at Nurasa, echoes this sentiment, saying that she advises companies to align with clear market needs, not trends. “Don’t tread the path of—‘because I have this, I do this,’ only to realise later that the market doesn’t want the product you’re offering.”
Adopt a focused view on what you want to develop
Dominique Kull, co-founder and CEO of SGProtein, says it’s important for early-stage startups to identify the category where they can have a minimum viable product (MVP) and grow from there. “You always have to have the big vision in mind, but you need to look at the first product you can win.”
Mathieu Van Giel, founder of cell culture startup Wasna, adds, “[Companies] often take too many large steps at once. Instead, focus on R&D milestones that break down your journey into clear achievable steps. This approach helped us achieve our goals in a better and sequential way. It takes slightly longer, but it’s better to pace yourself to avoid backtracking to figure out what went wrong, when you have taken too many development steps at once.”

Dumplings from Herotein
Get feedback early and frequently
Andrew D. Ive, founder of Big Idea Ventures, advises caution against working too long on developing the perfect product before testing it. “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Create a product that is good, get 100 customers together into a room, have them taste the product, and collect comprehensive feedback. Based on the feedback, figure out what needs to be improved. Then, instantly go back and improve the product. Do it all over again and get the product better and better as quickly as possible. These iterative feedback loops are really important in the development cycle.”
Simon Newstead, founding partner of Better Bite Ventures, adds that it’s important to ensure the feedback is not biased. His company will often ask founders about the feedback they have received, and the most common response is that people who have tried it loved it. Upon asking who tried out the product, it’s usually a few friends and their staff. “Getting feedback from people outside of your cohort is important; people you actually want to sell to.”
Factor in the scale and price of ingredients
“We’re not trying to replicate meat, but we’re very much in the direction of meat and want to ensure that the business can scale to a level that has a material impact on replacing meat in our food system,” says Michael Fox, co-founder at mushroom-meat startup Fable Food. “So we had to ask ourselves, ‘are these mushrooms already grown at a significant scale?’” This was one of his company’s top considerations, along with whether it would be price competitive with animal meat, how healthy it was, and how it fared in taste and texture. In the end, Fable decided to use shiitake mushrooms, which fulfilled all of their criteria. As a result, they were able to structure their supply chain and source from existing farms in a way that brought them closer to price competitiveness with conventional beef.
Be cognisant of development costs in relation to consumer price point
“Practising caution with development costs is a high priority,” Kull advises. “A new product can sometimes be a little expensive, but most consumers won’t pay a huge premium for food. It is important to work backward from the consumer price point so as to have clarity on what can go into product development.”
Leverage organisational partnerships
Mihir Pershad, CEO and founder of Umami Bioworks, says that their strategy has been to partner with companies that possess complementary knowledge sets and are interested in working on a product together. The goal is to co-develop something that will be better than if they did it alone. “Product development around seafood is very immature relative to other types of food products. Seafood flavours (made by flavour houses), for example, are worse, on average, than meat flavours. We are not in the business of making consumer products but are co-developing to kickstart the process and create a motivation for the big food companies.” Umami Bioworks is already working with big food companies like Maruha Nichiro, who really know the products they’re working on and have large product quality and development teams internally that can be leaned on for expertise. In other words, companies don’t always have to do everything by themselves. Partnerships and effective outsourcing can go a long way.
Have the right people on the team
Geraets suggests that having a strong cross-functional team (e.g., one that includes representation from the regulatory, technology, science, and commercial spaces) can speed up the development process and potentially lead to fewer mistakes. Together, this diverse team can take a more holistic view of what you want to deliver, what the product should look like, what the ingredient needs are, and what the challenges will be in selling the product to consumers or clients.
Build defensibility
“You can spend nine months on a product development process, but if someone else can replicate it the moment they see it, then you have failed,” Lum says. “Build defensibility, constantly.” That could mean locking in market share very early on, securing key supply-chain ingredients, bringing down costs very quickly, or signing letters of intent. Building trust with customers is a superpower that no one else can take away.

Crispy cultivated duck skin by Vow
Source from the right partners in the right geography
Be cognisant of the geopolitical relations when sourcing ingredients
Geraets advises companies to select ingredients based not just on their taste, functionality, and product requirements but also on geopolitical relations. Sourcing from regions that do not have strong positive relations could have implications in the form of higher duties, complexities in the supply chain, or the customer not wanting the product at all.
Aim for sourcing from local manufacturers
Geraets also notes that the location of the manufacturing site is absolutely critical to efficiently and speedily serving the market where you operate, given how small the alternative protein category is currently.
If you are selling in a particular region, consider manufacturing entities there, he said. “Let’s say a company is based in Asia, and the ingredients are sourced mainly from the U.S. or Europe; they can’t get a full container load shipped because that will be too much, and larger quantities will expire soon because of limited shelf life. Distant geographies cause long supply chains.”
Work with reputable partners for ethical and sustainable sourcing
Geraets adds that it’s important for your suppliers to be aligned with your company values and your destination market. “Work with reputable suppliers who can provide the necessary certifications, so that you know the sourced ingredient is produced according to the right standards, is regulatory approved in the destination country, is free of child labour or other such issues.” The last thing any entrepreneur wants is to prepare a big roll-out in a particular market, only to find out that they’ve got a major supply chain or perception issue that could have been caught and resolved months or years earlier.
Want to take a deeper dive into GFI APAC’s business insights? Check out our latest report on Southeast Asian consumer perceptions, or reach out to our team of experts at APAC@gfi.org.
You can find all the articles under the Insights Series here:
- Part one explores fundraising
- Part two explores product development and sourcing
- Part three explores the go-to-market strategy
- Part four explores alt protein product marketing
- Part five explores scaling up and partnerships