Millions of animals are dying every single day to produce the food we eat. Every day 205 million animals are killed, cut up and consumed across the globe. The food industry wreaks havoc on climate and biodiversity, making it not only bad for animals but the planet too.

Modern animal agriculture isn’t beautiful Alpine meadows or wandering flocks of hardy mountain sheep. This is a vast industry spanning the globe involving billions of animals. From the moment they are born, they are on a bloody conveyor belt that ends on our dinner plates.

What if we didn't need animal-based proteins like meat, cheese and milk but could produce them another way using animal-free protein technologies like plant-based, cultured meat or one of the most exciting new technologies – precision fermentation. Seems like a no-brainer, right? 

These new technologies could change everything, but they need scaling up and fast. We can’t afford to wait for the private sector, we need the EU, and member states to push these technologies forward - just like they did with wind and solar power.

Imagine a world where millions of animals a day aren’t slaughtered, where we can restore swathes of land to nature, and where we can vastly reduce greenhouse gas emissions - all whilst eating perfect meat, milk and cheese that tastes the same as the products we now get from killing animals. This world is a real possibility. 

Precision fermentation takes tiny friendly microbes and turns them into protein producing machines. These groundbreaking techniques mean that perfect, taste-identical, but now animal-free meat, milk, and cheese are within reach for European consumers. But not without the EU urgently making this far-sighted investment.

Unfortunately, the food industry is a powerful player in Brussels, and it doesn’t want to change, so if we are to be heard, we need as many people as possible to sign this petition to Ursula von der Leyen demanding the EU makes this moonshot investment.

We know the EU responds to public pressure. People-power has forced the EU to rethink gigantic global trade deals and forced it to respond to people’s concerns over pesticides. If we can get the EU to invest in these technologies now, it will help create jobs, save millions of animals from slaughter, and help stop biodiversity loss and climate change.

Will you join us? 

Ursula von der Leyen and EU leaders: Invest at least 5% of the EU’s €500bn Green Deal Budget into groundbreaking animal-free proteins like cultivated meat, to end the slaughter of millions of animals, create 1000s of highly-skilled jobs and help stop runaway climate change.