What if the future of plant-based food isn't about faking meat, but inventing something entirely new? We go inside a student hackathon at Wageningen University (WUR) and follow the winning concept from whiteboard sketch to test kitchen to campus cafeteria. Along the way, food scientists and student organizers weigh in on the potential for the food industry to not always try to imitate meat.

This episode was produced in collaboration with Wageningen Alt Protein Project (WAPP).

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For more info, transcript and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/
episode106

Guest

• Melania Zanforlin, Co-chair WAPP
• Joaquin Fogel, Co-chair WAPP
• Dr. Laurice Pouvreau, Senior Protein Scientist at WUR
• Dr. Stacy Pyett, Program Manager at WUR
• Andy Bingham, Senior Food Application Scientist and Executive Chef at Kalsec Europe
• Dr. Raffaella Inchingolo, Lead Food Scientist at Kalsec Europe
• Dr. Guido Sala, Researcher in food physics and Molecular Gastronomy at WUR

Episode written, hosted, produced and edited by Melania Zanforlin. Produced and edited by Matthew Kessler. Music by Blue dot sessions.

After the 2018 African Swine Fever outbreak led to the culling of over a hundred million pigs, China moved toward larger, more biosecure, high-rise hog farms. Human geographer Ray Chan takes us inside these operations. He argues that biosecurity isn't only about preventing disease. He calls it a form of governance, deciding whose risk gets prioritized and how both people and animals are expected to behave.

For more info, transcript and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/
episode105

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Guest

• Dr Ray Chan, Human Geographer at Royal Agricultural University

Episode written, hosted, produced and edited by Matthew Kessler. Music by Blue dot sessions.

China's countryside isn't heading toward one future. Sociologist Forrest Zhang walks us through four different scenarios: suburbanizing villages turned tourist destinations, industrial-scale grain belts managed by smart phones, intensive vegetable farms facing a looming labor crisis, and aging villagers returning to subsistence farming. We explore the shift from socialist to capitalist agriculture, and ask whether the next era may take a "sustainability turn,” a door opened by a shrinking population, food oversupply, and a rising public health crisis.

For more info, transcript and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/
episode104

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Listen to China's Food Future (Part 1).

Guest

• Prof Qian Forrest Zhang, Singapore Management University

Episode written, hosted, produced and edited by Matthew Kessler. Music by Blue dot sessions.

China is currently the world's largest importer of agricultural products, buying 60% of globally traded soy. But a 2026 consultation paper by SystemIQ argues China may be approaching a turning point. In the coming decades, China could shift from being a net food importer to net food exporter of animal proteins. We dive into the analysis with the paper's authors to see how plausible that scenario might be, what it would take to get there including the role of alternative proteins in that future, and what might be the implications for global food systems.

For more info, transcript and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/
episode103

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Read the consultation paper: China's Food Future (SystemIQ, 2026)

Guests

• Anna Morser, Director at SystemIQ
• Alex Andreoli, Manager at SystemIQ
• Fengwei Ina Liu, Director of FOLU China

Episode written, hosted, produced and edited by Matthew Kessler. Music by Blue dot sessions.

In the 1980s, Deng Xiaoping's government decided not to regulate its fishing sector. What grew out of that space was extraordinary. Today China produces 76 million tonnes of seafood a year, and a mounting environmental cost. This episode follows the small farms and the global infrastructure that connects them, and asks what happens when a government tries to course correct a system it deliberately set loose.

For more info, transcript and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/
episode102

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Guests

• Han Han, Founder and director of NGO China Blue Sustainability Institute
• Xuefei Shi, Researcher at Chr. Michelsen Institute in Bergen, Norway
• James Keeley, Food and agricultural development consultant and China specialist

Episode written, hosted, produced and edited by Matthew Kessler. Sound mixing by Martin Palmqvist. Music by Blue dot sessions.

One-third of the world's rice is grown in China, on less than a fifth of the world's rice-growing area, by farmers whose average age is over 55, in a countryside that is slowly emptying. This episode asks how that's possible, and how much longer it can last.

For more info, transcript and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/
episode101

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Guests

• Lena Kaufmann, Social Anthropologist at Université de Fribourg
• Li Zhang, Prof in Sociology and Environmental Studies at Amherst Colleage

Episode written, hosted, produced and edited by Matthew Kessler. Sound mixing by Martin Palmqvist. Music by Blue dot sessions.

Today China produces roughly half the world's pork. Getting there required swine genetics from multiple continents, feed from Brazil, and a disease outbreak that wiped out hundreds of millions of animals. This episode asks how they did it, and what that cost - to the household pig, to the smallholder farmer, and to ecosystems thousands of kilometers away.

For more info, transcript and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/
episode100

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Guests

• Ron Lane, Agricultural consultant in Beijing
• Li Zhang, Prof in Sociology and Environmental Studies at Amherst College
• Gustavo Oliveira, Prof in Geography at Clark University

Episode written, hosted, produced and edited by Matthew Kessler. Sound mixing by Martin Palmqvist. Music by Blue dot sessions.

In sixty years China moved from catastrophic famine to feeding 1.4 billion people. This episode asks how that transformation happened - and what it set in motion.

For more info, transcript and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/
episode99

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Guests

• Michelle King, Prof in Chinese History at UNC
• Zhang Hongzhou, Prof in International Political Economy at RSIS
• Fengwei Ina Liu, Director of FOLU China

Episode written, hosted, produced and edited by Matthew Kessler. Sound mixing by Martin Palmqvist. Music by Blue dot sessions.