Captive school markets, industry self-regulation, and public-private partnerships: Narratives shaping the development of alternative proteins in the United States, 1965–1982

Abstract

This paper examines the interplay between government, industry and other stakeholders, and the key narratives shaping the development and regulation of alternative protein products in the US in the 1960s to early 1980s, paying particular attention to how the US National School Lunch Programme was used for the development of these products. Using internal food industry documents sourced from the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Food Industry Documents Archive, we find that the US government proactively paved the way for industry to develop alternative protein products by: (a) providing government funding for textured vegetable protein product research and development; (b) opening the doors to lucrative markets; and (c) supporting a lenient regulatory environment for alternative protein products to be developed. A key market for textured vegetable protein products was the US National School Lunch Programme, which was treated as a captive market for developing new products and formulations. The motivations for introducing textured vegetable proteins in schools differed between government and industry, principally between: offering cost-savings and alleviating malnutrition and food insecurity versus developing profitable new food products. Industry actors actively sought to modify the regulatory environment to favour commercial interests, and the government was slow to regulate the alternative protein industry and relied on industry self-regulation. Our research is particularly relevant, because of what appears to be renewed interest in recent years in using school meal programs for the development of alternative-proteins, a phenomenon not limited to the US.