Podcast, Interview, Fireside Chat
a16z Podcast | Old Food, New Tech -- 'Clean Meat'
- Global population growth to 10 billion over the 21st century necessitates scaling production and distribution, as current animal agriculture inefficiencies are projected to fail feeding 9.7 billion people by 2050.
- Continuing current meat consumption trends renders meeting Paris Agreement obligations and limiting climate change to two degrees Celsius by 2050 a "literal and scientific impossibility."
- Plant-based meat is predicted to rank among the top six technological innovations transforming humanity in the "fairly near future," while clean meat products are expected to reach the market within the "next five years."
- It is deemed "very unlikely" that a global shift to vegetarianism or veganism will occur in the "near future," with plant-based and clean meat sectors expected to create a market competing directly with conventional meat.
- Product viability depends on solving texture challenges and delivering superior taste to address consumer "craving" before environmental rationality is accepted.
- Resource substitution is projected to save 95 percent of land, a quarter of water, and an eighth of greenhouse gases per unit, with costs expected to drop and become cheaper than conventional meat once scale is achieved.
- Technology-driven cost reductions in sequencing, which saw a million-fold decrease over 15 years, are anticipated to similarly lower clean meat production costs.
- As prices decline, products are expected to compete for market share regardless of consumer understanding of environmental benefits, eventually raising questions about the default status of conventional meat.
- Future technological advancements will drive "radical transparency" regarding food origin, environmental impact, and nutritional value within five to ten years.
- Over a ten to twenty-year horizon, the normalization of meat alternatives may make current animal enslavement for food production socially unimaginable.
- Innovations in safer, healthier, and personalized food are expected to result in a "big leap in longevity," attracting further industry investment.