Abstract

"Green Entrepreneurship in UK Foods and the emergence of the alternative meat sector: Quorn 1965-2001"

Andrew C. Godley, University of Sussex (acgodley1@gmail.com)

Despite its growing significance, there has to date been no business history research on the emergence of alternative protein technologies. The pioneer organisation was a British company called Marlow Foods, which created the world’s first mycoprotein product under the Quorn brand name. This article explores the emergence and development of mycoprotein as a technology between 1965 and 2001. This case study contributes to the rapidly growing business history literature on green (or sustainable) entrepreneurship and specifically green entrepreneurship in the food sector. Marlow Foods was itself a spin-out from two large corporations, Rank Hovis MacDougall (RHM) and ICI. Mycoprotein originated from an idea from the Chairman of RHM, Lord Rank, in 1965. This was inspired by his sense of philanthropy. Rank was a committed but unorthodox Christian and he brought these qualities into his desire to create an alternative protein source at a time when there was widespread concern about the forecast ‘Protein Famine’, a shortfall in protein for a growing global population. Despite the strong commitment to developing this sustainable source of protein for global consumption, and despite the resource made available from the parent companies for its development, the first Mycoprotein products were not made available until 1985, and Marlow Foods remained loss-making until the late 1990s. The case study supports two of the broad premises in the existing literature, that green innovation typically takes longer than non-green and that green entrepreneurs are typically values- not profit-driven. The paper then explores these premises and their consequences, which could be internally problematic. Using the case of Marlow Foods and the Quorn brand, the paper highlights the importance to business historians in understanding continuity gaps in the emergence of green entrepreneurship in food.