Plant-based and cell-based animal product alternatives: An assessment and agenda for food tech justice

As a response to the varied environmental, public health, and animal welfare challenges of contemporary animal food production, advocates of plant-based and cell-based animal food alternatives have championed those products as key to feeding the growing global population. This review offers an overview of key arguments in favor of and in opposition to animal product alternatives, and from there situates the debate within literature on food system change. It concludes that animal product alternatives are most likely to be incorporated as reforms within the corporate food regime and are generally incompatible with food sovereignty perspectives. Whether animal product alternatives could align with the food justice approach, however, is less clear. An agenda that operationalizes plant-based and cell-based animal product alternatives through a lens of “food tech justice” might offer a productive path forward for food system health, equity, and sustainability.