The Alt-Meat Movement Enters Phase 2
Plant-Based Meat Has Our Attention. Now What?
“I wish we had vastly more capacity than we do right now because the demand is high…. Having more big customers right now doesn’t do us any good until we scale up production.” – Pat Brown, CEO, Impossible Foods, Reuters
Phase One: Make a Damn Good Product
In 2017, I led an exploratory project to map the technologies, opportunities, and challenges within the plant-based meat industry — the first effort of its kind. At the time, “plant-based meat” was barely a recognizable phrase, much less a recognizable industry. We still had to convince investors and food companies that these were not your grandma’s veggie burgers.
If the taste and texture of next-generation meat alternatives hadn’t already convinced them, Beyond Meat’s unbelievable IPO undoubtedly did the trick. Since the time of our preliminary mapping of the plant-based meat industry, consumers have seen wave upon wave of new plant-based meat product launches, fast food-partnerships, and prominent headlines.
The plant-based meat industry has gotten our attention. Now what?
Plant-based meat is not competitive with animal meat. It has not led to an overall reduction in the consumption of animal meat (in fact, meat consumption is at its highest point on record). Plant-based meat has, therefore, not achieved its goals of improving public health*, reducing animal suffering, or cutting down on meat-production’s climate impact.
But, as even the meat industry acknowledges, it can. Whether or not it will depends on how the industry approaches this next phase of its development.
Phase 2: Make a Scalable Process
The once niche market of plant-based meat has achieved legitimacy and captured significant consumer demand. But hidden in the numbers behind the plant-based meat industry’s exciting rise, there are clues about what could make or break its chances of deep food system change.
(As a founder of a plant-based meat startup myself, I can confirm that deep, systemic change is a goal for many startups in the space. My team is in this to change the food system, not just to change recipes.)
At a Glance:
Times when restaurants ran out of plant-based meat: We’re not sure exactly, but this gives you an idea. (For one plant-based meat product, Bloomberg reports 1092 “shortages” up to the time of publication)
All of this begs the question: Why aren’t these companies — which create an in-demand product and are backed by significant investment dollars — able to effectively scale production?
After testing the processes and equipment commonly used for plant-based meat-making, I can tell you why. Most startups are still living in Phase 1: They are laser-focused on making their products as delicious as possible. And rightly so. A food company without good food won’t be a company for long. But plant-based meat companies will stagnate and struggle to become profitable without turning a critical eye on production technology and entering Phase 2.
The quest to churn out new products is coming at the expense of building smart, scalable processes.
The current approach to plant-based meat production is an engineer’s nightmare (literally; I had one just last night). Products are made one batch at a time. Companies are using off-the-shelf equipment designed to make foods with entirely different characteristics. Machines require skilled technicians and frequent repairs, but lack automated systems for quality control. Up to 15% of inputs can be lost simply because they gum up inside machines made to process animal protein instead of plant protein. I could go on, (and you can reach out if you would like me to!). But in summary:
Feeding more inputs, more investment dollars, and more product orders into this system is never going to be a winning strategy. At least, not if we want to achieve the scale necessary to become competitive with commodity meat. Today, we have impressive analogs for meat products, but we lack any analog for meat processing.
To move from popularity to ubiquity, the plant-based meat industry has to look inward and find ways to build efficiency and cost-savings right into its process. This can be achieved by building machines and systems that are actually tailored to the task at hand: turning plants into plant-based meat. With a focus on automation and quality control, plant-based meat production can become as efficient and even more cost-effective than conventional meat production. But there is no chance that it will if we don’t expand our focus from the flashy allure of new products alone.
Ultimately, it won’t matter how good plant-based meat is if no one can get their hands on it, or if few can afford it regularly once they do.
The plant-based meat industry has finally earned a seat at the table. Now it should focus on making enough food to bring to the dinner party.
- with regard to preserving the effectiveness of antibiotics, reducing the incidence of chronic disease associated with high meat consumption, and mitigating various other public health issues related to confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs)
