Bezos, Billions and Bacon

Last week Bezos Earth Fund Vice Chair Lauren Sanchez announced an initial $60 million commitment to establish Bezos Centers for Sustainable Protein as part of the Bezos Earth Fund's $1 billion commitment to sustainable food systems transformation.

Why?

18% of global greenhouse gas emissions come from animal factories per the United Nations Environment Programme (U.N.E.P.). However, AgTech gets only 2.5%-4e% of the clean tech investment according to the World Bank. Investment in protein diversification gets only a sliver of that.

The World Bank says that $300-$400 billion annually will be invested in food systems transformation over the next 10-15 years. Bezos Earth Fund's $1 billion investment, with $60 million specifically going to taste and texture research for diversified proteins, is just the beginning of the blended capital (philanthropic, government, venture, and Wall Street funds) that are anticipated to flow into the sector.

It is important to note that the Bezos Earth Fund, also one of the funders behind The State of the Climate Action Report, inclusive of the global tipping points research, is not the first major investor in the space. As I note in an article I co-authored, entitled, 'Forget the Race to Space. We Are All in a Race for Food and Water' for the Chartered Alternative Investment Association, China, Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Holland, Germany, Singapore and the U.S. are all investing into the Plant-based Innovation and diversified proteins sector. This is primarily driven by food inefficiency, food insecurity and, thus, national security concerns.

The Gates Foundation, along with other significant family foundations, some who prefer to remain anonymous, have also been significant investors in the sector.

The Good Food Institute noted that in 2021 just over $5 billion of venture capital was deployed on Plant-based Innovation of all sorts: novel proteins from microbial fermentation, cultivated meat technology, supply chain improvements and technologies and Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) products, including bacon, to name a few.

At VegTech? Invest and through our Plant-based Innovation ETF, we are focused on Wall Street's participation and potential benefit from the growth of the sector up and down the supply chain. We invest in the novel AgTech innovations in sustainable regenerative agriculture and emerging synthetic biology technologies, the ingredients and texture technologies for novel products, and the sustainable end products themselves. We are focused 80% on food systems transformation and 20% sustainable materials transformation as the two are often intertwined.

As food innovation becomes the low hanging fruit for reaching 2030 sustainability goals when fossil fuel reduction alone won't do it, funding is expected to rise to be in line with the problem, going from a low of 2.5% to around 18% or 20% of the climate tech investment.

This is a potential jump of over 700%.

Indeed, at COP28, Subject Matter Expert on Food Systems and Financing, Geeta Sethi noted that Food Tech investing is Climate Tech investing and that portfolios should reflect this.

The investment opportunity here is that the public markets haven't yet priced in the fact that food innovation funding could skyrocket, and that increased company R&D budgets could produce profitable, novel, sustainable food and supply chain products.

Thus, investing now, before the markets catch up, could be a golden opportunity.

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