If you are at all interested in healthy eating, veganism and the future of food, this recent article by Denna Shanker published by Bloomberg is an absolute must read (but you may need to register to get a free article per week and access it on their website).
At 4000 words, it’s more of an essay than an article but it is fascinating as it reviews the progress of vegan meat alternatives and firms such as Beyond Meat that are pursuing that market sector. The overall conclusion is that these plant-based, meat-substitute products are not doing as well as many hoped, and there are signs that they are already declining in popularity. The article’s title sums it up – “Fake Meat was supposed to Save the World. It Became Just Another Fad.”
Firms such as Beyond Meat Inc were pioneers and initially achieved huge market valuations. Beyond’s beef substitute would persuade meat eaters that they could have the look, feel and taste of dead cows, with the satisfaction of knowing they weren’t contributing to the environmental and animal welfare issues related to the globally huge beef industry. Agriculture generally is a major contributor to global emissions, and within that beef production is by far the biggest culprit. The difference in emissions between meat and plant production is incredible – to produce 1kg of wheat, 2.5kg of greenhouse gases are emitted. A single kilo of beef creates 70kg of emissions.
So coming up with a great plant-based beef substitute has obvious attractions, and firms such as Beyond and Impossible Foods have even come up with burgers that “bleed” when you bite into them! However, that is when we might start analysing why these products are not setting the food world on fire, and looking for the flaws in the proposition. For a start, most vegetarians / vegans I know don’t like that “bloody” aspect of meat eating, so many presumably see this as a negative, not a positive.
However, these products are probably aimed more at meat-eaters either converting or (like my family) wanting to cut down on meat consumption without going totally plant based. But that perhaps highlights another issue. In our house, if we are not eating meat maybe 2 nights a week, we don’t feel we have to have a product that looks and feels like beef on those “vegetarian nights”. We’ll still eat meat or fish most days – so it’s no hardship to have a ratatouille pasta, a three bean chilli or a nice Spanish omelette every so often!
The nutritional backlash against these products has also gained strength. Whilst some of it may have been stirred up by the meat lobby, there is some truth in the warnings that these are not necessarily “healthy” products. As Shanker says in her article,
Beyond buys fats such as expeller-pressed canola oil and refined coconut oil, which Fischer processes into “little pellets or cryogenically frozen balls of fats …. Cryogenic Processors sends the fatty balls back to Beyond to mix with water, rice protein, cocoa butter, methylcellulose and more than a dozen other ingredients found in the Beyond Burger”.
There is emerging evidence now that what are now termed “ultra-processed foods” have negatives from a health and nutrition perspective, including evidence that those who eat more are likely to die earlier (a pretty major negative). These non-meat burgers generally fall into that category definition.
Beyond’s sales are declining, and its share price was down 93% from its peak (at the time of Shanker’s article, anyway). The most enthusiastic consumers of the products do appear to be vegans, but meat eaters are not making the transition.
That’s a shame from an emissions point of view, but it certainly does not mean that other meat substitutes won’t be developed that could be genuinely tasty, healthy, and affordable. That would be good news for the planet. But the other take-away from this is something I’ve observed in almost every aspect of the sustainable / purposeful business agenda – simply that these are almost invariably complex issues. Whether it is carbon offsets, the pros and cons of supporting minority-owned businesses, or moving to plant based “meat”, little seems to be as clearly good or bad as it might first appear. If humanity is going to make progress, it is essential that individuals and organisations learn, improve and gradually increase our understanding of what good practice looks like in all of these critical ESG-type issues.
But maybe don’t replace all the meat on your staff cafeteria menu with Impossible Burgers just yet!