THE PROBLEM: BEEF PRODUCTION
Despite voracious consumer demand for beef globally, current meat production processes are proving increasingly unsustainable in the face of growing concerns about climate change. Within the last 15 years, demand for meat has grown by a whopping 30% due to a growing population and increasing prosperity in the developing world. Yet current beef supply chains are increasingly damaging and unscalable because they both contribute to climate change and are adversely impacted by climate change. Beef production – as part of current animal agricultural production practices – produces significant greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation, land and water pollution, and water shortages.
Animal agriculture alone is the second largest man-made contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions from cattle-generated methane. The animal agriculture supply chain is also highly resource intense, for about ⅕ of the global water use (with 98% of water use attributed to animal feed), and taking up 83% of global agriculture land. Despite these massive resources inputs, animal production is highly energy inefficient, accounting for only 18% of global calorie intake. Deforestation, coupled with significant quantities of fertilizers used and manure produced in the process of raising cattle, also pollute valuable land and water sources resulting in soil infertility, limited clean water availability, and biodiversity.
Existing beef supply chain processes will also be adversely impacted by the very climate problems the current sector’s production processes perpetuate. According to a report by the U.S. National Climate Assessment, the ill effects of climate change – rising temperatures, drought, downpours, wildfires. – are expected to negatively impact meat production productivity. In addition, land and water degradation (via current supply chain practices and climate change) poses a potential existential threat to the future availability of these key components (i.e. land for agriculture) for the current beef supply chain.
Given the tension between rising demand and problematic supply chain practices, there exists a significant opportunity to rethink how we produce meat to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change.
IMPOSSIBLE FOODS, A SOLUTION?
In this context, Impossible Foods, similar to competitor Beyond Meat, is a company that develops plant-based substitutes for meat and dairy products. While Beyond Meat focuses on end consumers through grocery stores, Impossible targets B2B channel. Impossible’s hit, “the Impossible Burger”, can be currently found in 7,000+ restaurants worldwide.
When it comes to the raw materials that Impossible Foods uses to substitute meat, soy and potato are the main sources of protein, while the characteristic flavor of a burger actually comes from the same molecule: heme. Finally, as for fat, coconut and sunflower oils explains the Burger’s juicy sizzle. One Impossible Burger (as compared a to burger made from cows) is claimed to have the following impact:
Impossible Food began in 2011 and the company’s mission is to “drastically reduce humanity’s destructive impact on the global environment by completely replacing the use of animals as a food production technology”. According to its CEO, Pat Browner, “the company will be on track to eliminate the need for animals as a food production technology by 2035”.
HOW THE BUSINESS MODEL WILL BE AFFECTED BY CLIMATE CHANGE]
In contrast to many established players, Impossible positioned itself to take advantage of climate change. Its business model will not be affected by climate change in an explicit way since it has very little exposure to the environment (e.g. operations do not depend on weather conditions). On the contrary, climate change will provide HUGE opportunities for The Impossible.
With more signs of climate change and increased media coverage consumers are becoming more aware of the effects of meat consumption on the environment and thus, seek alternatives (vegetarianism/veganism). According to the Vegan Society going vegan was predicted to be the biggest food trend in 2018. While the primary reason for moving away from meat consumption is animal welfare, the environmental impact becomes more and more important in the decision-making. Between 2007 and 2013, the awareness on the environmental impact of eating meat has increased significantly from 14% to 31%. Thus, there is a huge market segment that would be interested in purchasing meat from The Impossible.
At the same time, policymakers are increasingly interested in working towards the SGD goals and deploying resources in a sustainable way. Agencies are working towards implementing policies to accelerate the research into plant-based foods. One example is the EVU (European Vegetarian Union) that published a position paper on “The New Regulation on Novel Foods Is Law – Now Make It Work for Plant-based Foods” in 2016. It demands that the “Food 2030 – European Food Research Area”, launched by the European Commission intensifies research and encourages and financially supports it.
In sum, market conditions for The Impossible are highly favourable and will provide a good springboard to accelerate its growth.
Description and justification of what additional steps you think the organization should consider implementing
Considering the soaring demand for the Impossible Burger and the fact that it reduces environmental impact by more than 85% compared to a beef patty, the most immediate step the company should look at is how to ramp up production to meet the demand in its current locations and how to expand geographically. In other words, the more beef demand that can be substituted with Impossible Burger, the better.
Further, Impossible’s ability to construct meat-like food from plant materials appears to be a unique competitive advantage and so as a next step, Impossible should consider expanding into new products. As mentioned above, there is a large and growing demand for meat worldwide and given that meat production is one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gases, if other types of meat can also be substituted with plant-based material, there would likely be a direct contribution to slowing global warming.
Another step the company could look at is to lobby for subsidies, which would help them to scale. A longer-term goal could be for them to improve the energy usage in their supply chain further as although it is far better than conventional meat producers, it is still carbon positive.
Renée Ros, Ashini Kothari, Irene Salas, Julia Streuli, Hana Shashaa
References:
http://blog.ift.org/climate-change-and-the-future-of-food
https://www.new-harvest.org/the_world_s_leading_driver_of_climate_change_animal_agriculture
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0594-0
https://www.onegreenplanet.org/news/impossible-burger-lowers-greenhouse-gas-emissions/
Very interesting and this article addresses one of the key environmental challenges currently faced around the consumption of meat. This industry is of the most polluting industries and this dilemma has been purposefully avoided by most governments as this is a very sensitive topic. The new businesses described here are indeed doing very well but their potential is still limited due to the very strong “meat lobby”. Therefore, my main question on this topic is how the meat replacements can be marketed and politically presented in a way that meat replacements can be adopted on a global scale? If done succesful, this can result in potential meat taxes to incentivize more sustainable alternatives, or a governmental marketing strategy to educate people on the bad impact of meat consumption.
Overall, a very exciting topic with a lot of potential industry disruptions in the coming decade.
As a meat-eater, I have been reading with interest about more and more of these plant-based substitutes coming to the market. I am still yet to try an Impossible Burger, although I am definitely keen to do so.
Having said this, there has been some interesting literature around both the healthiness and morals of this fledgling industry – one of the biggest issues with meat is around the scale of its production, and there are some concerns about whether other damaging issues might arise as a result of production of meat-free burgers that becomes mainstream, as opposed to the current more niche product that it is. Furthermore, some vegetarian / vegan scholars are dismayed by the public equating of plant-based food with healthy food – indeed, some plant-based food can be heavily processed, and not nearly as healthy as people claim.
Overall, I think this is a really interesting avenue and definitely one that should be explored, but I think we need to be cautious about diving head-first into a new flavour of mass production without making sure we learn from the mistakes of the past.
Source – https://qz.com/1611878/the-messy-morals-of-eating-silicon-valley-backed-veggie-burgers/
Impossible burger has a rising demand because of the growing trend of being vegetarian or vegan. Once the trend steadies out, will the meat eaters consider moving towards the impossible burger? Out of experience, I would say probably not. I think the key is in reducing the meat consumed and not eliminating it by mimicking it.
Let’s organize a plant-based burger bbq soon! good job!
Very interesting idea to address a key issue, that will become more and more relevant as the population will keep grow in the next years.
What I would be interested to know more is what are the costs related to the production of this kind of burger and the marginality for the producer: is it sustainable? is it comparable to the regular meat burger? A too expensive burger, in fact, will prevent customers to easily switch.
As a Brazilian, I know very well how damaging animal agriculture can be in environmental terms – especially when regulators are lax. I heard the recent buzz around the “Impossible Burger”, but I had not yet read anything on the topic as structured as this post. Great job, folks!
Interesting article! Seems like there are multiple ventures that are trying to crack this meat problem, some of them really care about taste while others don’t. I think that at some point some of the taste might need to be forgiven as it looks very challenging to hit the 100% goal.
On the other hand, I have read that a 100% vegetarian diet might jeopardize some people´s health. I am pretty sure there is an equilibrium.
In my case, I have found very challenging to change my usual diet (lots of meat) whenever I have tried, but will definitely give it a try again with these options.
Very interesting article. There is a really good discussion on whether this will become mainstream and which company will become the market leader. Impossible foods and beyond meat are definitely innovators, but are they going to be the industry leaders in 10-20 years? How the new meat production process can change the scope of the whole industry? I am curious to see new business models emerging from this new technology!
Would be interesting to see if there are any LCA studies on the impact of the ingredients used in making the impossible burger (especially impact in quantity terms, if it has to replace beef). Several ingredients used in preparing the impossible burger would require large scale cultivation of soy (which also consumes a lot of resources). Also interesting to note would be the impact of climate change in regions where the soy is grown for making these impossible burgers (and also study the impact of additional cultivation wrt climate change).
Great article! Although I support meatless initiatives to reduce carbon emissions, I remain skeptical about the adoption rates for impossible meat consumption. It certainly has potential among more eco-conscious youth, but older Gen Xers that I have talked to are less enthused; they cannot seem to get past the “fake meat perception.” Perhaps this is predominately a middle American viewpoint, though I am curious to see how older generations adapt over time.
A really thoughtful article and some of the most optimistic news I’ve heard in terms of reducing our global meat consumption.
While soy is far more sustainable to product than meat, we should also think about ways to improve the sustainability of its production. The soy industry has also been responsible for vast deforestation and displacement of indigenous communities. Hopefully as the spotlight continues to shift towards plant-based diets, proper safeguards will be put in place to ensure our increased reliance on soy does not have unintended consequences.
We’ve been studying the marketing of healthy food and non-meat products in Brand Manage,ent through the case of Burger King who introduced an Impossible Burger on their menu. While some are skeptical of the reasons behind this move, it has largely been successful and will soon expand to European menus. Other chain restaurants like Little Ceaser’s has also started to adopt meatless meat. While I understand concern about consumers warming up to these burgers, I believe the trend of vegetarianism is certain to grow and that meat eaters may start to feel more pressure with valid alternatives like Impossible Burger making the argument of not liking the taste of vegetarian food or veg foods being unavailable more difficult to justify. However, I would agree that it may not be ideal to have people switch to meatless meat long-term and it may be more productive to introduce people to more creative, innovative vegetarian meals that may have less impact on the environment than the production of soy required for these burgers.
I can’t wait to taste one of the impossible burgers! In the Netherlands, we have a similar player as Impossible Foods, called “de vegetarische slager” (the vegetarian butcher) also making meat-like products to sell to consumers. I wonder if Impossible Foods will also move to provide more insect-based food, as this is also one of the growing trends.
Although I support the great efforts made by Impossible Foods to reduce the overall meat consumption and I really hope they will be successful, I am still skeptical about the idea of imitation meat. Consuming meat is often not more than a habit, part of a culture. People eat meat because it is the main ingredient of all recipes they know. Keeping the same dishes but using ‘fake’ meat, does not change people’s consumption behavior, which in my view is ultimately required to minimize meat consumption in the long run. I believe the real challenge is to let people adopt vegetarian eating habits, including tasty, healthy alternative dishes that don’t need meat in the first place. This will also better address the growing demand for healthy food and the associated consumers’ need to understand what their food is made of.
Super interesting topic! Thanks for presenting your findings! I think consumer education is extremely critical in this scenario as I foresee a lot of pushback from meat-eaters that do not believe it is the “same”, in either taste or concept. However, I don’t believe it is impossible to change consumer behavior as we already see a lot of shifting towards greener trends for many industries. Could this be marketed as the new “organic”? Let’s hope it takes off!!