The 2019–2020 biennium saw accelerated growth in the ecosystems of innovation of both climate-controlled agriculture and alternative proteins. The number of new start-ups, the volume of investments, and the growth in markets created an atmosphere of euphoria regarding their disruptive possibilities. The high point was the public launching on the New York Stock Exchange in May 2019 of the leading company in alternative proteins, Beyond Meat. The initial offering of US$25 per share was quickly oversubscribed, and by closing time the stock had risen to US$65. A year later, with ups and downs, the stock was valued at US$91.53. Beyond Meat, worth an estimated US$14 billion, had become mainstream, present in 50 countries, and distributed by major brands – McDonald’s, Starbucks, KFC – in both the North and in Asia.

Contrary to expectations, 2021 did not repeat the performance of previous years and sales of plant-based meats in the United States that had increased 46 per cent in 2020 over the previous year stagnated in 2021, up just 0.5 per cent. An influential Financial Times article in January 2022 sounded the alarm by suggesting that alternative protein markets might have already peaked. One explanation advanced by the authors Terazono and Evans draws on the Gartner hype cycle of new technologies developed by the consultancy firm of the same name.1 This cycle identifies five phases, all bearing fanciful names: ‘innovation trigger’; ‘peak of inflated expectations’ ‘valley of disillusionment’; ‘slope of enlightenment’; ‘plateau of productivity’. According to this interpretation, the beginning of 2022 corresponded to the ‘valley of disillusionment’. In an optimistic view, this would pave the way for a period of consolidation and subsequent increase in efficiency leading to a resumption of growth but at a more moderate rate. At the start of 2022, Beyond Meat was worth less than US$4 billion and in 2023 its shares dropped to below US$10 and its valuation to under US$1.5 billion. On the other hand, investments in the sector in 2021 increased, reaching US$4.8 billion according to the AgFunder 2022 report, with a significant increase in public funding by various countries of over US$600 million based on GFI's calculations.