One week in a post #8: Seaweed obsession, Green Monday’s success, Cactus growth and Radical Candor
Now that climate beneficial eating is becoming more popular, and a number of individuals and organizations are getting into the space, I feel called to share with a broader audience what I encounter every single day through my work at Future Food and Food for Climate League. Weekly, I share startups I read about, products I tasted, founders I met (and a bit of personal life!). Every single concept I mention will be tracked on a public database we’re populating. The overarching goal is to increase general interest in this topic, acknowledging that the challenge is too big not to work cooperatively.
This initiative is possible thanks to our amazing Future Food Ecosystem, where our team is working diligently every single day to research, design, create, and commercialize new food solutions to help our planet.
My word of the week
NOUN
- Cell
The smallest structural and functional unit of an organism, typically microscopic and consisting of cytoplasm and a nucleus enclosed in a membrane.
Food, Climate and Innovation: three highlights of the week
Is Asia turning vegan?
Looking for a new foodie to follow? Check out David Yeung, the founder of Green Monday. One of Yeung’s life goals is to turn Asia Vegan. Moonshot? Maybe not. In March Yeung received $70 million in funding — the biggest in its field in Asia. He first started his venture back in 2012 with 5 employees. Today, Green Monday has expanded to China, Australia, and the UK with 500 employees. Additionally to introducing plant-based foods to more and more people in Asia, Yeung aims to address climate change, global food insecurity, and public health issues — all by selling plant-based meat. Over the past 18 months, Yeung said he has noticed a change in the plant-based food industry in Asia, he mentions “The landscape is exploding. You have plant-based protein, plant-based milk, cell-base start-ups and conglomerates starting to come into this space,”.
Seaweed is back on the news!
It is no secret that we need immediate action: human-created damaged have left heavy consequences to our planet Earth. Seaweed is showing up more and more as one of the potential solutions. It was from last month the news that scientists from India and Russia have developed a new edible food-packaging film that incorporates a seaweed product to help foods like fruits and vegetables stay fresh longer. “Seaweed is low-calorie, crunchy, salty, and super nutritious,” said Carolyn Brown, a registered dietitian to Health.com last week. And in a recent study, researchers who put a small amount of seaweed into the feed of cattle over the course of five months found that the new diet caused the bovines to belch out 82% less methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. That is a lot fewer cow farts. In addition, seaweed is highly sustainable — it does not require pesticides or land to grow (talk about efficiency).
Will seaweed be included in your next meal?
Is Cannabis Legalization good or bad for the food industry?
Out of the 50 US states, 15 of them have legalized cannibis for recretional use over 21. New York and New Mexico are soon to join the Green Rush. Shortly following legalization in neighboring New Jersey, New York passed legislation allowing the licensing of dispensaries.
And according to Bloomberg, it makes it the second-largest market following California. But, what does this mean to the F&B industry. Well, have you heard about the munchies? According to one study repoerted by the Academic Times, legalizing recreational Cannabis boosts junk food sales by about 6.3%. Additionally, there has been a huge increase in CBD added drinks, a few examples such as VYBES, Recess and Kickbacks’ CBD Cold Brew Coffee.
Climate Friendly products I tasted this week
Tenzing: Water
I bumped into Tenzing while looking for “carbon negative drinks”. ”TENZING Original Recipe” has a climate footprint of 0.46 kg CO2e/kg. And they it’s divided is very interesting: more than 60% comes from its packaging! What I like about them:
- Rainforest Alliance certified / Tenzing sources tea from Rainforest Alliance Certified™ farms to support a healthier planet and an improved quality of life for farming communities.
- Impact / Tenzing is now now the first soft drink in the world to display their products’ carbon footprint, and they hope to lead the new generation of planet-conscious businesses. You can find their report here.
- Outdoorsy / Tenzing is named in honour of Sherpa Tenzing Norgay. As one of the first two men to scale the world’s highest mountain, he was famed for his burning ambition, drive for adventure and eternal smile.
My full analysis here.
Tia Lupita’s: Cactus Tortillas
Tia Lupita’s offers authentic flavors with minimal and clean ingredients from Mexico. What’s spacial about them:
- Authenticity / Tia Lupita’s foods only use ingredients that the founder’s “…mom would find in her pantry back home in Mexico”.
- Ingredients / The tortilla are made of a Superfood Cactus and Nixtamal Corn blend.Each tortilla has 4g of net carbs, 2g of fiber, and only 30 calories.
- Future 50 Foods / Cactus is one of the Future 50 Foods by Knorr and WWF. Also known as succulents, cacti store water, which allows them to grow in arid climates and tolerate drought. They also contain substantial amounts of vitamins C and E, carotenoids, fibre and amino acids.
Toast Ale: Beer
I remember tasting this beer back in New York a few years ago. And this product is still in my mind, which I believe is a good sign! 😉 This is what I like about them:
- Sustainability focus / Toast is a craft beer brewed with surplus fresh bread. By using surplus bread to replace virgin barley, they use less land, water and energy, and avoid carbon emissions to produce their beer.
- Advocacy / They go far beyond selling beer. They “Rise Up” series aims to educate and activate communities to act against climate change.
- Market / The beer industry is dominated by a series of giant companies, always looking for smaller, impact-driven concepts to support / invest in.
My full analysis here.
My reading of the week
Radical Candor, Kim Scott
I read this book for the second time. I remember my first reaction to it last year: a mix of fascination and panic. I’ve been raised with this concept of being extremely kind to everyone. And I tend to be extremely emphatic. A combination who made me very afraid to create sadness, disappointment and discomfort in someone else. Even if this came to my detriment.
I many time received the feedback that it was hard to disagree with me, and it this could be a problem in the future. Strong and clear opinions are good to have and share, although they might create disagreements. Silicon Valley helped my with that, I found that people here are just very much used to vomit everything they think to your face. Without really asking themselves if you’re ready for it. But is there something bad about it? Maybe not.
This book builds on the idea that it’s more than ok to give difficult feedback, if the person you’re giving feedback to knows that you care personally for them. This framing is really useful when you’re a manager: one of the most important tasks a manager may do is to give good, actionable feedback to her team; radical candor shows you how to do so without being an asshole.
Scott’s formulation of the problem provides some nice levers: she points out that you may now evaluate anypiece of feedback along two dimensions — the care personally dimension and the challenge directly dimension. Scoring low on either dimension throws you into one of the lousier quadrants:
- High on ‘Care Personally’, Low on ‘Challenge Directly’ — this is Ruinous Empathy, and it’s what you do when you ‘just want to be nice’. This leads to outcomes like ‘not telling nice-guy Joe from customer support that he treats clients like they’re beneath him, and that he either needs to work on that or get out of this line of work’.
- Low on ‘Care Personally’, Low on ‘Challenge Directly’ — this is Manipulative Insincerity, and it’s what happens when you say things you don’t mean to get someone out of your hair. For instance, Sarah did badly on her sales presentation, but you don’t like Sarah because you’ve judged her to be a terrible person, and so you tell her that she ‘did a good job’ so that you can go back to your own work.
- Low on ‘Care Personally’, High on ‘Challenge Directly’ — this is Obnoxious Aggression, which basically means you’re an asshole. Ironically, Scott notes that Obnoxious Aggression is the only alternative form of feedback after Radical Candor, which explains why sometimes assholes get ahead. They get ahead because they err on the side of actually giving feedback — and honest, actionable feedback is what is needed to deliver performance as a manager!
The Future Food Institute believes climate change is at the end of your fork. By harnessing the power of our global ecosystem of partners, innovators, researchers, educators, and entrepreneurs, FFI aims to sustainably improve life on Earth through the transformation of global food systems.
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