How Denmark learned to love a plant-based diet | FT Rethink

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In Denmark they are trying to change a nation's appetite.

This is kind of a Danish traditional dish. It's the open sandwich, in Danish called Smørrebrød.

Smørrebrød.

Yes, exactly. Well done.

Traditionally, this dish is served with meat. But the version I'm eating, at this soil-to-fork restaurant, northwest of Copenhagen, is entirely plant based.

That's lovely. So good... the beetroot's so flavourful.

It may be tasty, but right now the average Dane is far more likely to be tucking into food like this, given they consume nearly three times the recommended amount of red meat in their diet. Improving people's health is one reason the Danish government wants its citizens to get more familiar with the sort of food Louise and her team prepare here.

Places like us, like our place, like Rabarbergaarden, can tell people and show people that the vegetables can taste good.

In 2023, the government launched its action plan for plant-based foods. It was developed in collaboration with groups including farmers unions and food lobbies, and it was the world's first. Maria-Louise Boisen Lendal chairs a government fund worth around $190mn attached to the action plan, which is also looking to improve the health of the land itself.

We in Denmark can acknowledge that the food and agriculture sector need to change in order to stay within the planetary boundaries.

An agriculture sector dominated by meat and dairy accounts for about a third of Denmark's climate emissions. A 2021 study suggests producing plant-based foods creates about half the emissions of meat-based products. The fund grants money to a wide variety of projects.

So now we have DKr1bn that we can give to plant-based companies, NGOs, organisations that is promoting a diet and production shifts.

60km outside Copenhagen, I'm meeting Trine Krebs. As well as being an award-winning educator and farmer, she's behind a team backed by the fund that trained chefs on how to create plant-based dishes. She's also a link between Denmark's chefs and its farmers. Farmers who grow plant-based protein crops for human consumption are eligible for bonuses from the fund.

Are you seeing a lot of farmers trying to shift into farming legumes or other crops for more plant-based diet?

Of course it's happening. But actually, we don't need so many hectares to produce the legumes that all the 6mn Danes are eating. So it's actually a very, very small area we need.

Building up the market explains why a significant majority of initial grants from the fund have gone to projects intended to boost demand for plant-based food.

That is very important right now - the demand, the demand, the demand, the market.

By 2030, that market could be worth up to $2bn and 27,000 jobs to Denmark, according to research. But to get there, the food will need to taste good. In Copenhagen, Dr Leonie Jahn is addressing that taste challenge using fungi and fermentation.

We don't want to develop these types of foods just from a very technological standpoint, but actually from a flavour perspective. A lot of things don't work at all. But then there are those hits that we follow up on and develop further and optimise.

One example - alternative seafood.

We develop an inverted oyster. Like, we get something with the texture of the oyster but with the fruity flavours. And then we add a seawater foam on top to bring in the more ocean-like flavours.

Others are approaching the taste challenge in a different way. At Organic Plant Protein in Hedensted, they make alternative meat and fish products, like this faux tuna.

Mm, that's really good.

Yeah, thanks. Yeah. It's remarkably close to tuna. It's really great for big commercial kitchens that want to make any kind of sandwich filling.

Perhaps surprisingly, the company's yet to receive grant money. And perhaps not surprisingly, here, they disagree with the fund strategy of initially focusing on minimally processed foods.

Projects which has been supported are all aiming on using unprocessed legumes to replace meat.

I see.

And you see, we are doing processing because we end up with better solutions to replace meat. We need solutions where we end up with dishes that look like and taste like what people like to eat. It's so difficult to change your habits.

If the plan is to succeed, alongside taste, consumers' view of plant-based products will be key. Researchers at the University of Copenhagen are exploring how social behaviour can shape consumers' attitudes.

Have you come up with any good strategies to nudge people into eating more climate-friendly diets?

Absolutely. Normalisation, that's the case... so support of normalisation processes. And normalisation is processes whereby it becomes more easy for people to eat more plant rich. And that can come about, for instance, if the public kitchens - or it can even be in private organisations, etc... serve meals that are more plant rich, then people can try to eat this kind of food without having all the hassle of having to buy it or cook it.

Normalisation is also why the plan has avoided terms like vegan or vegetarian to describe meals.

Research has shown that if you don't call the vegetarian meal the veggie pot or something, but calls it what it is, like Mexican chilli beans with fresh coriander and whatnot, then it sells three to four times as much.

So far, there is no definitive evidence that the project is working, and critics say it lacks measurable targets to track progress. But other countries, including Germany and South Korea, have followed Denmark's lead and launched similar style funds. So maybe this small country's grand plan to base its citizens' nutrition more closely on the land itself could ultimately affect the diet of millions beyond its borders.