In 2026, grocery aisles will reflect “back-to-basics” eating and a “return to real” when it comes to meat and dairy.
Posted by Leslie Eastman
As the calendar flips to 2026, shoppers are doubling down on the real deal.
Despite the globalist narrative drive and the mainstream media push, consumers are choosing real meat and dairy products and passing on lab-grown steaks and cricket protein snacks. After years of hype around futuristic food tech, signs show that people aren’t buying what the experts are selling.
Some recent stories show that 2026 will see the return to real food options. To begin with, Ÿnsect, once the largest insect‑protein producer in Europe, is essentially bankrupt after failing to secure the financing needed to continue its operations and execute its restructuring plan.
Ÿnsect said via a statement that it “has been unable to secure the necessary financing for its continuation plan within the required timeframe,” citing “difficulties faced by startups in climate-related or agricultural sectors in raising funds.”
Ÿnsect will close its industrial-scale facility near Dole. The Keprea facility will continue, with a new focus on producing fertilizers from insect waste.
In a statement, Emmanuel Pinto, president of Ÿnsect, said the company “now has solid technologies and an operational model, even though the required funding could not be secured in time.
“We hope that the significant technical and industrial skills developed by the teams at Ÿnsect, along with the established business relationships, will find productive use and contribute significantly to both Europe’s protein independence and the fight against climate change.”
As PJ Media’s Catherine Salgado notes, it is at least one positive sign that the population of Europe has not completely rolled over to the globalists yet:
But when people have a choice, only a very small number of them will willingly eat worms and scorpions and ants instead of hamburgers and roast chicken and bacon. Certainly, the elites never follow their own advice by cutting meat entirely in favor of crickets and grasshoppers. And globalists have not yet succeeded in so impoverishing and crushing European citizens that most of them cannot afford meat and have to grub up alternatives. So naturally, the insect production company went out of business.
Eerst Meatable en nu dit. Wat een geweldig nieuws zo laat in het jaar.
— Ing. Drs. Willy Wokkelworst (@noescom1977) December 30, 2025
Next on the list of related stories is an Israeli‑founded cultivated meat startup that developed cell‑based meat products, which also ran out of funding.
A lab-grown cultivated chicken breast made by Israeli-founded startup Believer Meats. (Courtesy)Israeli-founded startup Believer Meats, a biotechnology firm that creates chicken, lamb and beef products made from animal cells, has been forced to shut down its operations after running out of funds.
The decision was announced by Believer Meats global HR & talent leader Anne Schubert, who wrote on LinkedIn: “After two years of building something truly bold and special, Believer Meats made the difficult decision last week to cease operations.”
“While the outcome is not what any of us hoped for, I am incredibly proud of what we accomplished together,” Schubert said.
Believer Meats, formerly known as Future Meat Technologies, which has operations in Israel and the US, did not explain or share further details about the closure, and did not respond to requests for comment when contacted by The Times of Israel.
Italy and Hungary have Banned Lab-Grown Meat.
“Our land is fertile, livestock healthy, our people will not be poisoned with fake meat.”
Do you support Meloni and Orbán? pic.twitter.com/bPdQkgvF2b
— Based Hungary (@HungaryBased) December 30, 2025
Finally, over the last week, Meatable (a Dutch cultivated meat startup) is closing after failing to secure sufficient new financing.
The company was founded in 2018 in Delft and later moved its operations to Leiden. Agronomics, which invested millions of euros in Meatable, said the startup faced a mix of expected and unexpected risks and uncertainties this year and was unable to obtain adequate funding from existing shareholders or new investors.
“Although this outcome is disappointing, we believe the decision has been taken responsibly and in the best interests of all stakeholders,” Agronomics CEO Jim Mellon said in a statement.
Meatable launched seven years ago with plans to bring lab-grown meat to the market as a sustainable and animal-friendly alternative to farms and slaughterhouses. The company staged the European Union’s first-ever cultivated meat tasting, which was held in 2024 in the Netherlands, but it struggled to get its food on the shelves over safety concerns.
The European Union does not yet permit the sale of lab-grown meat, prompting Meatable to focus on the Singapore market. It also intended to bring products to the United States, but has had difficulty overcoming concerns about cultivated meat.
I predict that in 2026, grocery aisles will reflect “back-to-basics” eating and a “return to real” when it comes to meat and dairy.
Hopefully, the American cattle and poultry markets will be protected and expand in 2026 to meet the needs of the “return to real” meat. https://t.co/FQu2vgGAvo
— Leslie Eastman ☥ (@Mutnodjmet) December 31, 2025
Had some warm weather here in Texas this week, high seventies. Bought some nice steaks at HEB and had the kids and their families over. Not a bug in sight.
If “Palmetto bugs” had steaks or could be milked, they would be.
It is the usual ‘theory and practice’ dichotomy.
Elites have been told about a ‘theory of bugs2meat for the serfs’, but have NO concept of practice.
It is as Yogi Berra was quoted to say:
“In theory, theory and practice are the same – in practice, they are not”.
There has been a sharp rise in meat prices simply to discourage meat consumption. Bug meat will not be cheap, but it will be poisonous.Let’s feed it exclusively to those pushing it.
BTW, the name: Ÿnsect was extremely cleverly chosen. Makes one want to dive right in.
Why synthetic hamburger? Why not saffron? Or truffles? Morel mushrooms? Abalone?
I’m just mad about Saffron
Saffron’s mad about me
♫⋆｡♪ ₊˚♬ ﾟ.
Surely this year it will be cake … let them eat cake 🙂
Good questions. I’m familiar with work to do just that for morels and and abalone. Morels are difficult to cultivate but the process is improving. I’d like to try them.
I have eaten farmed abalone and they are disappointingly small as they take too long to grow.
That’s the real question. The only real advantage they should market is the ability to be anything, even completely artificial made-up new taste and texture. That they only brag how close it is to the real thing while costing more is a mystery to me.
You could say the Green diet is being debugged…
I’d pay to watch Soros eat a bowl of maggot porridge.
As a former Nazi-Collaborator who uses to say ” those were the best days of my life” ,
he has most probably been eating Soylent Green for decades, and loves it.
But we better shift our Focus away from George and Schwab, as those fossils are currentlybeing phased out and replaced by son Alexander and Harari.
“and Harari.”
It’s very special to see a Jewish guy promoting population reduction (mass murder) 80 years after the Holocaust.
Not really.(and no.I’m not going the greater Israel road and Nethanyahous sponsoring of Hamas for decades this time)
Paul Ehrlich was at this since the 70ies( population reduction down to 2 billion).
Co Author of his depopulation book Eco-Science was btw John Holdren who became later Obamas climate tzar(just in case you don’t know what AGW is really all about).
The really dangerous thing about Harari is his totallitarian) relativism.
He says that humans are barely more than Amoebas etc.
This is a narrative pre built up for making depopulation and owing nothing way more acceptable.
Now I wonder if he’d go along with his own theory if someone would say this specifically about his people?
I guess in this case it wouldn’t be the brilliant display of deep thought and enlightenment but a dehumanizing crime.
He never would; professional courtesy and all!
Same old same old in today’s Independent
Ocean heat content rose by 23 zettajoules – the equivalent of detonating hundreds of millions of Hiroshima atomic bombs, or roughly 200 times humanity’s global electricity consumption in 2023 – according to the analysis published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences.
https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/ocean-heat-record-2025-b2895936.html
Where, oh where might that heat have come from?
The Japanese…
Now let’s see that increase in total ocean enthalpy expressed in kelvins rather than the hysterical Hiroshimas.
23 ZJ is equivalent to about 0.01 C in the top 2000 m of the ocean..
“… biotechnology firm that creates chicken, lamb and beef products made from animal cells, has been forced to shut down its operations after running out of funds.
The decision was announced by Believer Meats global HR & talent leader Anne Schubert, who wrote on LinkedIn: “After two years of building something truly bold and special… “
But, but… don’t chickens, lambs and cattle create chicken, lamb, and beef animal cells – very efficiently?
The aspect of killing and butchering animals that would not have been alive in the first place had they not been grown as food, that aspect is quite distressing to the ecology activists.
I disagree, but there are those that feel very strongly about this.
”Ecology activists”? Vegans/animal
rights activists! Banning lab grown meat sorta heads off PETAs demand that only lab grown be allowed.
The issue is having the fortitude to
tell the vegans to sit down and shut up.
Look, I don’t care if vegans want to eat lab-grown meat. What I truly object to is them telling the omnivore majority what they have to eat.
Vegans will try to convince the airheads that farmed meat is “cruelty”, and seek to ban it. I used to live in California, and that scenario is plausible there.
Spot on.
On Wednesday, January 7th, the US Dept. of Agriculture released a new ‘food pyramid’ that put proteins and healthy fats back on top, where they belong. This will drive a steak(sic) further into the heart of fake protein manufacturers.
Hey, where’s the Cheetos?
RFK jr. would slap the orange dust out ya’ mouth!
That is a separate food group, sorta like Meg’s (Twister) gravy.
Don’t forget about the collapse of America’s own Beyond Meat.
It lost something like 85% of it’s value in 2025 alone. And 98% of it’s value from it’s own peak hype.
Next up Beyond Food. Real food is so last millennium. Become a breatharian today.
Had 2 cheeseburgers for supper last night. Yum.
BTW, animal protein provides essential amino acids for developing children.
An unanswered question is how many of the 50,000 COP30 attendees ate bugs and veggie burgers and how many snarfed down steak and chicken, etc.?
Those bug producers did not contact me and ask to look at my basement. Plenty of protein there for free!
“ grocery aisles will reflect “back-to-basics” “
Grocery stores here in central Washington (I live in cattle country) never had much shelf space for fake meat. (omitting reference to the fake stuff in packaged meals of various sorts). My regular store had, perhaps, two feet for the fakes and 20 feet for bacon. I will have to take note of what is there the next time I visit. There are lots of beef cuts and some folks are buying steaks at $12 to $20 per pound. I think the fake burger was about that price, double that of natural.
[Whenever someone mentions beef, I get an image of Chuck Schumer placing cheese on a raw patty.]
“ grocery aisles will reflect “back-to-basics” “
Grocery stores here in central Washington (I live in cattle country) never had much shelf space for fake meat. (omitting reference to the fake stuff in packaged meals of various sorts). My regular store had, perhaps, two feet for the fakes and 20 feet for bacon. I will have to take note of what is there the next time I visit. There are lots of beef cuts and some folks are buying steaks at $12 to $20 per pound. I think the fake burger was about that price, double that of natural.
[Whenever someone mentions beef, I get an image of Chuck Schumer placing cheese on a raw patty.]
Sounds like this old commercial has finally sunk in!
https://youtu.be/1FZNYXKHwNw
The market has better sense than any government, this news has made it clear.
I wonder how great the demand for these meat substitutes and insect-based foods was at the most recent COP conferences? Chances were good that they weren’t even on the menus
Just finished carving up a pork roast, and put it in the fridge; where it joined the leftover prime rib, leg of lamb, and 1/2 lb. lamburger patties that I use for green chile, bacon cheeseburgers now that beef prices are so high. Why anyone would eat artificial meat when you get badly needed fatty and amino acids in the proper ratios and amounts from the REAL thing continues to mystify me.
Note to self: make sure the next half lamb includes a leg of lamb roast; that was delish on New Year’s Eve! You can have my tomahawk ribeye when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers!
Marketing is only effective if the product fulfills the hype. Fake meat taste and chews like, well, fake meat.