FSI Launches Sustainable Protein Action Lab, Hires Industry Leader Liz Specht to Lead New Innovation Platform

The transition to sustainable proteins will require scientific breakthroughs that make products tastier, more affordable, and easier to scale. Yet many of the most important research opportunities fall into a critical funding gap: they are too applied for traditional academic funding, but too early-stage, risky, or broadly beneficial for individual companies to invest in alone.

To address this challenge, today, Food System Innovations (FSI) announced the launch of the Sustainable Protein Action Lab (The Action Lab), a nonprofit innovation platform focused on identifying and solving the highest-leverage scientific bottlenecks facing the sustainable protein sector. Through in-house research, strategic partnerships, ecosystem coordination, and open-source innovation, the Action Lab will accelerate the next generation of sustainable protein technologies.

To lead the Action Lab, FSI has hired Dr. Liz Specht as Vice President of Science & Strategic Initiatives. Dr. Specht is one of the sustainable protein sector’s most respected scientific and strategic leaders, bringing experience spanning biotechnology, biomanufacturing, applied R&D, ecosystem development, and innovation strategy. Most recently, she served as a Fellow at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), where she supported initiatives related to food system resilience, agricultural defense, and biomanufacturing. Prior to DARPA, she served as Senior Vice President of Science & Technology at the Good Food Institute, where she led a global team advancing scientific and technological innovation across the alternative protein sector.

“Some of the most important challenges facing sustainable proteins fall into a gap between academia and industry,” said Dr. Specht. “They are too applied for traditional academic incentives, too early-stage for most companies to pursue alone, and too broadly beneficial to be solved by any single organization. The Sustainable Protein Action Lab was created to address exactly those challenges by bringing together scientific rigor, entrepreneurial execution, and a commitment to generating knowledge that benefits the entire field.”

As its first major initiative, the Action Lab has launched the Data Garden, an open-access ingredient intelligence platform designed to accelerate sustainable protein innovation. The Data Garden generates standardized performance data on alternative protein ingredients, helping food companies, ingredient suppliers, and researchers better understand how ingredients behave across a range of functional and sensory applications. The initiative is led by Dr. Daniel Westcott, who served as Head of Protein and Texture at plant-based cheese company Bettani Farms (formerly Climax Foods). Daniel brings industry experience in applied protein science and a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley to this nonprofit research model dedicated to solving pre-competitive challenges for the sustainable protein industry.

The Data Garden functions as a bridge between ingredient suppliers and food manufacturing companies, translating complex performance data into practical insights for ingredient improvement and product development decisions. Suppliers gain visibility into how their ingredients perform in real-world applications, while brands can more confidently select ingredients based on validated functionality rather than trial and error.

“The Data Garden was built to remove one of the biggest bottlenecks in sustainable protein innovation: the lack of comparable, trusted data,” said Dr. Westcott, Data Garden Director. “By making this research open and actionable, we’re helping both ingredient suppliers and CPG brands move faster, reduce development costs, and ultimately bring better products to market.”

The Data Garden screens commodity-level protein crops using a suite of analytical tools linking protein functionality to product applications. By extracting protein from plant sources along common isolation routes, the Data Garden is creating a growing, standardized dataset of plant proteins, with three practical uses:

• Buyers get access to a growing catalog of plant-protein performance data, with the details they need to make smarter decisions and improve product outcomes
• Suppliers get a full report of their ingredients using our analytical pipeline, and get their products in front of procurement teams
• Researchers build on it and utilize it as an ML-grade, structured dataset

The platform launches with data on 10 commercially available plant-based ingredients, including pea, soy, hemp, and fava, and is designed to expand over time into a growing public resource for ingredient evaluation and product development. By reducing uncertainty around ingredient performance, the Data Garden aims to help organizations make smarter R&D decisions, shorten development timelines, and bring better products to market faster.

The Data Garden has assembled an industry and academic advisory panel including:
Julian McClements, Distinguished Professor of Food Science of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Braulio Macias Rodriguez, Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, Dr. Jing Zhao, San Diego State University, School of Exercise and Nutritional Science, Dr. Jack Yang, Wageningen University and Research, Dr. Gilad Kaufman, Head of Research and Development at Tofurkey, Sandeep Patel, CEO of Bettani Farms, and Michelle Hofer, Business Development Manager at Prairie Fava.

Food companies, ingredient suppliers, and researchers interested in contributing ingredients, accessing data, or participating in future testing initiatives can learn more at: www.sustainableprotein.org.

About the Sustainable Protein Action Lab
The Sustainable Protein Action Lab (“Action Lab”) is a nonprofit innovation platform focused on accelerating scientific and technological progress across the sustainable protein sector. By identifying critical industry bottlenecks and developing open-source research initiatives to address them, the Action Lab helps bridge the gap between academic discovery and commercial application. Through applied research, ecosystem coordination, and strategic partnerships, the Action Lab works to improve the performance, affordability, and scalability of sustainable protein technologies. Learn more at www.sustainableprotein.org.

About Food System Innovations
Food System Innovations (FSI) is a philanthropic impact platform advancing science, markets, and society to improve food systems. FSI is a strategic hub that accelerates change by combining multiple tools and approaches, acting as both a funder and operator, directly implementing programs while empowering others through grants, investments, and capacity building. Learn more at www.fsi.org.

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Rachel Stoczko

PR for Food System Innovations

Food System Innovations

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