Slate Money: Food – Alternative Meat

April 28, 2020 | Host: Felix Salmon with guest Tad Friend (staff writer at The New Yorker)

Episode Overview

This episode of Slate Money: Food dives into the booming world of alternative meats, with a special focus on plant-based meat innovations like Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat. Felix Salmon is joined by New Yorker journalist Tad Friend, who spent six months reporting on this industry. They discuss environmental impacts, the science behind plant-based meats, business models, cultural trends, and the global future of food.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introduction to Plant-Based Meats

• Tad Friend’s background: Staff writer at The New Yorker; extensive reporting on plant-based meat industry and Impossible Foods' CEO Pat Brown.

  "I spent about six months writing about the world of plant based meats and focusing particularly on the CEO and founder of Impossible Foods, Pat Brown... who started the company with the idea that if ... they could grow it, that eventually ... they could get rid of all animal food products across the globe by 2035." (00:32)

• Mission of Impossible Foods: Not just about burgers but a radical ambition to eliminate all animal food products globally by 2035.

2. From “Fake Meat” to Meat Substitute

• Debate on terminology: Makers of plant-based meats object to “fake meat.”
• Personal journeys: Tad began as a non-consumer but now eats more plant-based products, influenced by both reporting and family (e.g., his daughter’s vegetarianism).

  "Every time I eat a cow based burger, I kind of can't help but think of clouds of methane going up into the atmosphere..." (01:36)

Cooking and Taste

• Cooking Impossible Burgers: Texture and doneness can be controlled like real burgers, but the margin between rare and overdone is slim.

  "It's very easy to go from having it be look still Sort of pink and then suddenly it's like crispy. It's very hard to get it exactly medium rare." (01:36)

• Key ingredient – Heme: The component that delivers “meaty” taste and color, produced by genetically modified yeast.

  “The main thing is a molecule called heme... in this case happens to be made from genetically modified yeast in 50,000 gallon tanks..." (05:47)

• Fat simulation: Uses coconut oil to mimic animal fat's role in taste and texture.

  "They both use sort of coconut oil to marbleize and give you that sort of marble texture that ground beef has..." (06:44)

• Morality in choice: Moral calculus for Tad is more about planetary impact (methane, carbon emissions) than animal welfare alone.

  "...my sense of the injury to the planet... particularly from growing animals for meat was so much greater than I had thought...” (07:45)

3. Consumer Adoption & Ethics

• Motivation for plant-based diets: Younger consumers (e.g., Tad’s daughter) driven by ethics and taste; others struggle to fully abandon meat.

  “So she's now what she calls a baco pescatarian. She will eat bacon and fish ... so she's not a kind of yucky steak." (09:40)

• Industry founders as vegans: Most leaders (Pat Brown, Ethan Brown, Josh Tetrick) are vegans, but recognize most consumers are motivated more by taste and planet than animal rights.

  "They all realize that people... are more receptive to ideas of taste and to sort of saving the planet. That seems to be a better way to go..." (10:12)

• Effect of dietary reduction:

  "...the effect on the planet is much bigger if a lot of people eat less meat than if a minority of people eat no meat." (11:02)

• 2050 challenge: If global meat consumption continues to rise (especially in developing countries like China and India), environmental effects will become catastrophic.

  "By the year 2050... our planet... will have 10 billion people. If meat growth continues... there will be no forest left, there will be greenhouse gases everywhere." (11:44)

4. Global Scale & China

• Strategic focus: Major companies race to enter developing markets, especially China and India, where meat consumption is quickly rising.

  "That's why these companies are all trying to as quickly as possible leap from America to places like China and India." (13:34)

• IP challenges in China: Risks of process theft don’t deter Pat Brown, who prioritizes planetary impact over profit.

• Pandemics and meat markets: Arguments connecting meat markets, pandemic risks, and alternative proteins are compelling but underutilized.

  "If he's right and if he's successful and he somehow miraculously manages to rid the world of meat markets by 2035, there wouldn't be this... zoonotic transmission chain..." (14:23)

• Powerful messaging opportunity:

  "If we are told a vegetarian diet will prevent a global pandemic like this one... that is an incredibly powerful argument to put to people..." (15:17)

5. Grass-Fed Vs. Grain-Fed Beef

• Environmental impacts reversed: Contrary to intuition, grass-fed beef results in higher methane emissions due to slower growth and harder-to-digest feed.

  "Because grass fed beef... grows much more slowly and therefore produces much more methane. And also grass is harder to digest... produces more methane than grain is." (16:30)

• Regenerative grazing: Theories exist about its positive potential (“virtuous cycle”), but scientific evidence remains uncertain.

6. Corporate Control, Patenting, and the Future

• For-profit model dominance: Plant-based meat industry led by innovative private companies; government shows little interest in driving this change.

  “Yes, in the sense that the way America ... tends to be privately rather than the government building mousetraps. And the government has no interest whatsoever in building a better burger, better for the planet." (19:55)

• Legislative barriers: Some US states ban companies from marketing plant-based products as “burgers”, creating legal obstacles.

• Open model vision: Pat Brown envisions eventually giving away Impossible’s formula to jumpstart global adoption (with royalty arrangements), but this is at odds with shareholder pressures.

  "His plan is ... give away the formula to all these different, not just meat, but also pork and sausage and chicken as he rolls those out to other companies and say, go, have at it, improve this, tweak it..." (20:51)

• Scaling challenge: Plant-based meat is still less than 1% of global intake; to meet ambitious goals, production would have to double every year.

  "They have to double production every year ... growing more than 30,000 fold, which is huge and impossible." (22:40)

7. The Business of Alternative Meat

• Beyond Meat’s volatile share price: Reflects wide uncertainty—potential for massive industry disruption, but still dwarfed by conventional meat.

  "What the market is telling us is that no one has a clue ... the range of outcomes is so enormous that you can tweak your assumptions just a little bit and the value of the company whipsaws all over the place." (25:41)

• Incumbent brands join the fray: Traditional food giants (Kellogg, Nestlé) release their own plant-based products (e.g., “Incognito,” “Incredible Burger”), though knockoffs sometimes disappoint.

  "Incognito is a meat substitute made by Kellogg." (26:40)
  "...these sort of kind of flexitarian mashups that satisfy no one and just dissatisfy everyone." (27:01)

• Investor sentiment: Buying into Beyond Meat is "investing in the story" and the potential for societal shift toward plant-based foods.

  "...if you're investing in it, you're investing in the story, you're investing in the belief that this can, you know, eventually this whole way of engaging with animals and plants is going to change." (27:38)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On taste vs. ethics:

  "I think the higher the moral outrage, the lower the bar for taste." —Tad Friend (07:17)

• On entrepreneurial zeal:

  “Pat Brown, because he's a missionary and a zealot and an evangelist, his plan is within a few years ... give away the formula to all these different ... companies and say, go, have at it, improve this..." —Tad Friend (20:51)

• On environmental realities:

  “...if meat growth continues to grow and it's grown 400 times in China since 1961 … there will be no forest left, there will be greenhouse gases everywhere." —Tad Friend (11:44)

• On investing in alternative meat stocks:

  "If you're investing in it, you're investing in the story, you're investing in the belief that this can ... eventually this whole way of engaging with animals and plants is going to change." —Tad Friend (27:38)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:32 – Tad Friend introduces himself and Pat Brown’s 2035 goal
• 01:36 – Personal eating habits and Impossible Burger cooking discussion
• 05:47 – Science of heme and color in Impossible Burger
• 07:45 – Personal environmental awakening during reporting
• 10:12 – Vegan founders and strategy to win mainstream consumers
• 11:44 – The 2050 “meat problem” and global scale
• 13:34 – China’s role, IP risks, and pandemic/food system links
• 15:17 – Citing pandemics as an argument for plant-based diets
• 16:30 – Grass-fed vs. grain-fed beef: methane emissions
• 19:55 – Corporate, for-profit dominance; legal obstacles to branding
• 20:51 – Pat Brown’s open-source vision for Impossible Foods
• 22:40 – Mathematical improbability of displacing all animal products
• 25:41 – Beyond Meat’s volatile market value and incumbent competition
• 27:38 – Investing in alternative meat as narrative, not just profit

Conclusion

This episode provides a nuanced, science-informed, and industry-insider perspective on the rise of alternative meats. It highlights the moral, environmental, business, and culinary debates shaping the sector, while exploring the dreams and limits of “meat without animals.” From personal tasting anecdotes to global market maneuvers, it’s a comprehensive look at a rapidly evolving food frontier.