“In 30 years or so, I believe we will look back and be shocked at what was the accepted way we killed animals en masse for food. I think that in the future clean and plant-based meat will become the norm, and in 30 years it is unlikely animals will need to be killed for food anymore.”
Richard Branson wrote this, and he is putting his money where his mouth is. He, Bill Gates, and other high flying venture capitalists have put $22M into Memphis Meats. Other food tech start-ups have received large infusions of capital, as well.
I respect Richard. I even follow him on Twitter and love his activities and motivational tweets. But I wonder if he and others really understand what is truly healthy to determine long-term trends.
Let’s look at some of the alternative beef products that are currently out in market or about to be.
Plant-Based Burgers
Impossible Foods sells a plant based burger that gives the impression of bleeding. To give it the meaty flavor, the company uses Heme, which is an iron-rich molecule of animal proteins. Their marketing efforts are focused on meat eaters, and they spend a good amount of efforts on explaining the negative economic cost of current beef production. They are B-to-B and do not sell to the end consumer.
Short-term, they are doing well and will continue to do so. When I had a sample at a conference, I didn’t think it was bad, but the burger was also smothered with a thousand island/big mac type of dressing, so it was hard to really taste it.
There are some questionable “healthy” ingredients in it. First, I didn’t know that it had gluten in it, so no thanks to the Food conference in alerting me and others. There is also a genetically modified ingredient, soy leghemoglobin, that still needs FDA approval. Given the ingredients in their current products, I am not as bullish in the long-term.
Beyond Meat is another plant-based meat imitation company. Unlike Impossible Foods, they do 
sell to the end consumer. Also, unlike Impossible Foods, Beyond Meat does not have gluten,soy, or GMO’s, so I like the long-term potential better than Impossible Foods.
However, it’s disappointing that their advertising methods demonize meat by providing stats that animal meats increase cancer risk and heart disease. Then, in small print, they say that the data is for processed meat. Yes, regular consumption of processed meat isn’t the healthiest thing. On the other hand, grass-fed beef is healthy for you. There is a difference between these meats, and I wish that Beyond Meat would do a better job in explaining this difference.
Clean Meat
I am very excited about the potential of clean meats like Memphis Meats and Just Meats. They grow meat in the lab by harvesting stem cells.
The cost to produce is still extremely high right now (about $3,800/lb. to produce versus $18,000/lb. originally), but they expect to be able to reduce it considerably. The manufacturing of a product like this will be fascinating.
So, just like Branson, I am optimistic about the long-term trend of clean meats.
I’ll give clean meats a 10 out of 10 regarding a long-term trend.
Since Beyond Meat is gluten free and GMO free, I’ll give them a 9 out of 10. I’ll give Impossible Foods (as the product is right now) a 7 out of 10.
If you want to get further thoughts from me, and if you haven’t already done so, please: