Be Cool - Part 2

Yesterday, I published Part 1 , a more generic article on the need for a person or a product to be cool to be bought. There is a notion of coolness in anything, even a saucepan (Tefal) or a wine bottle opener (Screwpull Leverpull).

Both plant-based and cultivated food have the potential to offer many benefits to consumers and the planet, such as reducing animal suffering, environmental impact, health risks, and food insecurity. For all these reasons, these products should be deemed “cool” if not “sub-zero”. However, both also face some barriers to adoption, such as high costs, low availability, regulatory uncertainty, consumer skepticism, and cultural resistance.

I believe that plant-based food has fallen in the uncool category. Consumers seem less willing to try plant based and investors don’t see this sub-segment asset class as a winning proposal (Beyond, Oatly..). Others might argue that we are just at the low point of the “J” curve.

You need to be either cool or remarkable (see Purple Cow – Seth Godin ) for people to want to get involved with you and more importantly talk of you.

By launching too early half backed products, plant based has let us down on price, taste, convenience and healthiness. On sustainability the jury is still out. Plant based food producers were na?ve insofar that they believed that omnivore consumers would take-on immature products as they would be actively combatting climate change. Plant based creates a sense of compromise and dissatisfaction by being a poor substitute for the real thing. The plant based mimicking pursuit made it lose its appeal to customers who value taste and authenticity (if anything, margarine should have taught us something ).

When assessing their products, I always wonder if the plant-based meat producers have put it to the teenager acid test? Will they eat it, will they eat it a second time (and a third...).

For cultivated food, coolness remains; eating the same product but with no animal cruelty, no more depleting the ocean, no more mercury, no more antibiotics, no more fat… Cultivated food is customizable (taste, healthiness, nutrition values…). One gets all the benefits with none of the drawdowns. The only issue is investor fatigue: ROI seems to be in a distant future and will outlive most funds maturity. So, while the “concept” is cool it might run-out of fuel.

So, is it too late? If not, what can be done?

One alley I would refrain from exploring

I think offering consumers hybrid products that mix plant-based and cultivated ingredients is a poor idea (already available in Singapore). We already have enough drama over whether plant-based food is “clean” or “processed”, and now we want to add another layer of confusion. Let’s not forget that both industries (plant-based and cultivated) are up against powerful lobbies that will fight tooth and nail to protect their interests. While there might be a niche market for pet food, for human consumption, the novelty factor will wear off quickly after the first bite of the almost-cultivated meat.

In Part 1, I mentioned that Tesla was cool while the hybrid Prius was uncool, and I stand by that comparison. Hybrid products are like mullets: they try to be two things at once, but end up being neither.

I'd like to add that a study on the composition of chicken nuggets, found the chicken content to seldom exceed 50% meaning, in itself, it is already a hybrid product...

Open-source

While it is unrealistic to think that for cultivated food we could move to an open-source platform, there seems to be insufficient convergence of technologies and talent given the scarce resources (altogether, less than $2bio invested in cultivated food). How can we foster a more collaborative approach? What needs to be done to protect each-other IP while expediting the development phase?

Marshall Plan for Foodtech and AgTech

We all agree that we need to do something for the planet. Foodtech and agtech can address, more or less, 30% of the environmental issues. There are some national and international initiatives that support this goal (such as the Green Deal or the Inflation Reduction Act), but we don’t see enough public funding reach the VC space. When it comes to electric cars, consumers get generous subsidies on both sides of the Atlantic. We need similar programs for plant-based and cultivated food (and I am not talking about taxing meat here).

Being pragmatic amongst investors (VCs)

Quite a few companies in the plant-based BtC food space are currently struggling. The funding window has shut on them and there are no signs that it will re-open soon. Their investors should keep an open dialogue and work together to salvage what they can by merging companies (vertically, horizontally and across markets) and preserving IP, talent and market share within the sector.

Solutions will be found, the market will find it’s way.