Interview, Fireside Chat
#20 - Bruce Friedrich on inventing outstanding meat substitutes to end speciesism & factory farming
- GFI projects operating budgets of approximately $4 million for 2018 with 38 staff at the end of 2017, aiming for 20% annual growth and a hard commitment to establishing plant-based and clean meat research centers at universities in 2018 following outreach starting within the next year.
- Product availability is forecasted with GFI expecting partly plant-based and clean meat blends within a couple of years, full clean meat nuggets and burgers within about five years, and cost competitiveness with cheap animal-based meat in about a decade.
- Experts Uma Valeti and Mark Post align with timelines for full clean meat availability within five years and cost competitiveness with grass-fed organic beef in about five years, while also anticipating cost parity with cheap meat in about a decade.
- Pat Brown predicts 100% of meat will be plant-based by 2035, and GFI expects the combined market share of plant-based and clean meat to reach 100% by 2050.
- Commercial rollout expectations include the Impossible Burger becoming available nationwide by the end of 2017 and Alpha Foods entering Walmart stores widely by the end of the year, with Beyond Burger expected in major grocery chains across the country.
- Market analysis indicates plant-based meat sales were around $500 million last year compared to $200 billion for animal-based meat, though total per-person consumption is rising with 2016 slaughter numbers reaching historic highs in the US.
- Industry shift scenarios suggest major corporations like Tyson, Purdue, and Hormel will move toward clean meat once it achieves price and taste competitiveness, while the meat industry itself is not considered wedded to traditional farms if more efficient profit motives arise.
- Environmental and health benefits are projected to include clean meat causing up to 95% less climate change, eliminating antibiotic and drug residues, and solving bacterial issues through production in "meat breweries."
- Potential failure modes are defined as either plant-based meat or whole foods plant-based diets becoming so successful they render clean meat unnecessary, or a massive public groundswell for veganism occurring if clean and plant-based meat fail to take off.
- Workforce trends indicate a need for marketing expertise, with consultants having four to five years of experience expected to be marketable, alongside a belief that bioengineering PhDs will face "borderline limitless" job opportunities in clean meat science.
- Broader impacts include the expectation that solving price points for clean meat will revolutionize therapeutics like skin grafts through reduced costs, and that 98% of people currently participate directly in animal cruelty based on slaughter statistics.
- Future landscape predictions suggest the sector will be "radically different" in five to twenty years, with the Impossible and Beyond burgers eventually achieving the necessary price and taste profiles to drive mass consumer adoption.