My Journey from Fresh Pork to Cell-Based Meat

I attended the 2019 Cultured Meat Symposium in San Francisco last week and can without hesitation confirm that Cell-Based / Cultured Meat products will play a role in feeding the 2 billion more global consumers that we will need to account for by 2050.

My professional background is unique in the sense I’ve worked for large, traditional Agriculture and Consumer Product Good (CPG) Co-Ops and Companies like Dairy Farmers of America, the Campbell Soup Company and Smithfield Foods and now work for a global engineering firm, Black & Veatch, in their NextGen Ag division . 

On the surface, all of these large, Fortune 500 sized Agriculture and CPG companies may not seem likely to share some of the same mission, vision and values as the start-up companies represented at the Cultured Meat Symposium. However, if you peel the onion back just one layer, you’ll start to see commonalities and shared visions that all revolve around humanely treating animals, being stewards of the environment and providing quality products consumers will enjoy although the methods of these are achieved may vary.

Mission & Vision Statement Examples

Dairy Industry

Dairy Farmers of America: Enriching Communities and Consumers’ Lives Through All the Possibilities of Dairy. vs. Perfect Day Foods: We want people to enjoy the dairy foods they love — products full of delicious taste and luscious texture — all while making the world a kinder, greener place.

Protein Industry

Smithfield Foods: Passionate about Producing Good Food, Responsibly. vs. Beyond Meat: Creating the Future of Protein. Made From Plants. vs. Memphis Meats: Bringing delicious and healthy meat to your table by harvesting it from cells instead of animals.

Feeding the Planet

In order to feed the projected nine to ten billion humans in the year 2050 it is likely traditional animal protein, plant-based meat/protein, cell-based meat/protein, and who knows what else, will all play a role. Each of these industries already understands they must continue to evolve. There is not only a need but a necessity to strive for transparency and cooperate vs. strictly compete. 

Paul Shapiro, CEO and co-founder of The Better Meat Co. and author of Clean Meat: How Growing Meat Without Animals Will Revolutionize Dinner and the World. spoke about the need for lots of different alternatives to satisfy the demand of the ~100 billion lbs. of animal protein sold annually in the United States.

There are still many hurdles for the Cell / Cultured Based Meat industry to overcome in order to make this a commercially viable option. Advancements continue to be made to the product itself, scaling up production and of course lowering cost to be more competitive. However, I’m confident the industry has and will continue to find solutions for these challenges. The questions have shifted to when rather than if.

Two of the most important challenges that still need to be understood and addressed rest outside the hands the hands of the Cell / Cultured Based Meat Industry itself and could prove to be the most challenging to overcome. These include both FDA and USDA regulations and ultimately consumer acceptance of the technology.   In order to overcome these challenges education and transparency may prove to be the most important factors.

Max Elder, Research Director, Institute for the Future, challenged attendees at the 2019 Cultured Meat Symposium to use our imaginations and visualize what images and future food innovation artifacts should be associated with cell-based meat and if the current public perception of these images is what the industry wants to be associated with.

I would challenge all of you to take a moment and visualize what you want the food chain to look like in 2050 and what are you personally going to do, to help make your vision, the worlds reality. 

Interested in Learning More?

Black & Veatch and our NextGen Ag division are uniquely qualified to help clients who are developing novel approaches to disrupt conventional food and agriculture production as well as help companies set or obtain environmental and social sustainability or corporate responsibility commitments. If that resonates with you, I’d love to continue conversations of how we can add value to your organization.