Welcome to The Vegan Report, my name is Ryan
and do you think ending factory farming is possible?
If yes, what form of activism do you believe
will stop factory farming for good? Institutional
change? Street protests? Legal reforms? Well,
our guest today, Bruce Friedrich, founder of
the Good Food Institute, thinks ending factory
farming is possible. But activism is not the
answer. For him, the solution to this issue is
cultivated meat, the perfect replacement for
regular meat because it would taste the same,
cost the same, but with no health risks, no environmental
damage, and certainly no animal suffering. He
recently published a book titled Meat. How the
next agricultural revolution will transform humanity's
favorite food and our future, which details his
proposition and gives us a behind the scenes
look into a much talked about industry. I highly
recommend the book. You can order it now by following
the link in the episode notes. And in this episode,
we discussed the new MEK veggie. that has launched
in Canada, the consolidation of power in the
hands of a few big food corporations, the Campbell's
Soup 3D printed lab -grown chicken debacle, and
the opposition to cultivated meat by some animal
advocates. Many of them have appeared on the
show. I will add links in the description to
all those episodes, including an amazing debate
hosted by United Poultry Concerns featuring Bruce
himself. For more thought provoking episodes,
follow the show, share the podcast with the vegans
you know, leave a good review. I greatly appreciate
your support. Thank you. So let me start with
this plant based meat alternatives are not doing
very well. And right now I'm thinking about a
product I really like a brand I really like,
which is Beyond Meat. You know, their stocks
are in the garbage. When I go grocery shopping
for Beyond Meat products, I find them in the
plant based aisle, which I think was not the
goal at first, you know, we wanted them. with
the other meat products. Here in Canada, where
I am, there are so many, you know, B2B partnerships
that just went nowhere. They had their breakfast
sausages with Tim Harden's that lasted for a
few years, no, few months. What lasted for a
few years was their partnership with ANW. Now,
ANW has a their own in -house, you know, patty
option. And, you know, when I look at that, when
I look at, you know, how unsuccessful they were,
I worry about, you know, the prospects of cultivated
meat. So I guess my first question for you is,
how do you explain the recent failure of plant
-based meat products? Yeah, I mean, I dive into
this in the book, especially in chapter seven,
which is specifically about plant -based meat.
And the theory of change is not that people are
going to pay more for products that they don't
like as much, which is what's required for the
current products, almost all of them, to succeed.
When Nectar, which is a project of food system
innovations, when Nectar, N -E -C -T -A -R, last
year tested 124 plant -based products. They found
six that most meat -eaters liked as much as meat.
And even those six products still, when you actually
did the calculations, were not at, if 1 .0 is
taste parity with meat, they did not reach 1
.0, but they came close. and the Beyond Burger
was one of those products. I think four of them
were impossible products. And all of those products
cost significantly more. So the plant -based
beef costs about twice as much at retail, and
the plant -based chicken and pork cost even more
than twice as much at retail. So if you look
at the history of really every innovation, it
takes time for the products to get better, and
it takes time for the products to come down in
cost. And it is when the products get better
and come down in cost that they have the capacity
to really succeed. So as a couple of examples,
and I have a whole bunch of examples in chapter
eight of the book, but at the turn of the last
century, so circa 1900, between 1900 and 1910,
more than 500 car companies failed, including
Henry Ford's first car company. And that was
because the cars were hard to start. They broke
down a lot and they were too expensive. And the
Model T was launched in 1908. It was the first
car that was not hard to start. It was the first
car that was relatively easy to operate and wasn't
constantly breaking down. and it came down in
price by, it was a third the price that it launched
at after about five or six years. And so 500
car company failures didn't mean that cars were
not long for this world. It meant that they needed
to come down in price and they needed to get
better. Flash forward 100 years from that to
the turn of the last century. And we have the
dot com bubble where the NASDAQ dropped by 80%,
literally trillions of dollars. Amazon fell from
$213 to less than six. So 97 % drop in value.
Most dot coms, most internet commerce companies
went out of business, including famously pets
.com. And the commentary was brutal. Whoever
thought somebody would want to buy pet supplies
online? when is this Jeff Bezos character ever
gonna turn a profit? And here we are, just 26
years later, and Chewy, the replacement for pets
.com, has a valuation north of $13 billion, which
is more than 30 times the maximum value that
pets .com ever got to, $400 million. And I'm
pretty sure I haven't looked recently, but I
think Amazon is doing OK. So it is just the nature
of innovation that a lot of companies fail and
that the products need to get better and the
products need to come down in price. And so the
book is really focused on making the case that
although we don't have products that are price
and taste competitive now, we also have not tried
very hard. And it's an optimistic case that I
believe we can get there if we bring the will
and I talk about how I think we can make that
happen. Yeah, let's get into that. You know,
how do you define the price and taste parity?
You know, because if I think about the price
aspect of it, you know, meat prices fluctuate.
And so what is that, you know, fixed definition
of a Parity, what is the goal that we want to
reach? And how do we measure that exactly? When
somebody goes to the grocery store or is ordering
off a menu, the products need to be indistinguishable
or better. Right now, nothing is indistinguishable
or better on a plant -based side, and they need
to cost less. So because the products require
so many fewer resources, the things that give
these products significant benefits from an environmental
standpoint and from a global hunger and malnutrition
standpoint, the fact that they are so much more
efficient also mean that as they scale up, prices
will come down and they will end up significantly
less expensive than what they're replacing. In
the same way that renewable energy has been coming
down and EV battery costs have been coming down,
And they're not going to stop at parity with
conventional. They will continue to fall. At
some point, it will level out. But there's not
any indication on the solar side that we're close
to that leveling out. There's something called
Wright's law, which says for every doubling of
capacity, costs fall by a consistent amount.
For solar, and I think also for EV batteries,
that's every doubling of capacity costs fall
by about 20%. We don't know what that is yet
for plant -based and cultivated meat, but we
do know that Musa Meat, the company that created
the 250 ,000 euro burger back in 2013, their
costs are down by a factor of 100 ,000. So their
costs are down in less than 13 years by 99 .999%.
And costs are going to continue to fall and they
should go well below the costs of conventional
meat because the products require so many fewer
resources. The plant -based products require
something like a ninth the resources and the
cultivated products require something like a
third the resources and they also have fewer
stages of production. So as production scales
and as the ingredient manufacturing ramps up
and catches up with demand, the prices will fall.
Well, let's say, you know, we achieve that parity
of taste and price. Then, you know, what does
it mean for let's start with meat consumption?
You know, let's say a year later, you're probably
going to go out shopping for a car. and you will
buy one car. You will either buy an electric
vehicle or you'll buy a gas powered vehicle.
In the same way, people will go out and buy burgers
or they'll buy whatever it is that they're buying.
And the plant -based products or the cultivated
products will be healthier, less likely to have
bacterial contamination, less likely to have
drug residues, and they will be identical in
taste or better eventually, and they will cost
the same or less. And so many consumers will
select the plant -based products or the cultivated
products instead. And over time, as the concept
of plant -based meat and cultivated meat are
socialized, there will be a steady more and more
replacement. Do you have a timeline in mind of,
you know, how long would it take for those meat
products to be mostly or maybe entirely replaced?
Well, I mean, it's going to require getting to
price and taste parity. And so we'll get to price
and taste parity for burgers, at which point
ground beef, plant based or cultivated beef,
whichever gets there first. will shoot up the
S curve of adoption to whatever point is the
substitution rate. For cultivated meat, I think
it will get very, very high, 95 % or more. For
plant -based, it's a lot harder to know how many
people are going to prefer animal -based beef
to plant -based beef, even though the plant -based
beef will have less fat, less saturated fat,
some fiber. more protein. It's a healthier product,
but there will certainly be some people who just
really want animal meat. And my guess is probably
40 to 65, 70 % will go for the plant -based if
that's the product that gets there first. If
we have price parity and taste parity for both
plant -based and cultivated beef. So you've got
plant -based beef, cultivated beef, and conventional
beef. It'll be really interesting to see what
the split is between plant -based and cultivated.
And there are hypotheses that there will be people
like Michael Pollan and Alice Waters who want
animal -based beef, but it will be regenerative,
grass -fed, high -welfare alternatives. And then
also people like Joe Rogan and RFK Jr. probably
in that same boat. But once we have plant -based
and cultivated products at price and taste parity,
I don't think there will be an incentive for
the meat industry itself to continue to raise
animals in factory farming conditions. I want
to go back to the Joe Rogan and RFK people of
this world. It deeply fascinates me, you know,
their reaction to cultivated meat. But, you know,
first, the impact of cultivated meat success
on plant -based meat. I feel like if cultivated
meat arrives at parity first and has that level
of success, then people will just stop purchasing
plant -based options. I think I would do that
as a consumer. I think I would prefer uh, the
best option, um, the one that has parody and
I don't care, you know, if it's plant -based
or, um, you know, the, the real thing, um, at
that point, um, because what I'm looking for
is, you know, that level of protein and also
that taste. So have you thought of, you know,
maybe how cultivated meat might have, you know,
a negative impact on the cells of plant -based
meat? That's interesting. I mean, when you ask
people why they're eating plant -based meat,
despite the fact that it costs more and doesn't
taste as good, people say they're eating it for
the health benefits. My hunch is that plant -based
meat already is healthier than animal -based
meat. The macronutrient analysis is just much
better. And the studies indicate that plant -based
meat is better for your health, better for your
heart, better for your weight, better across
all of the things that are tied to weight gain,
et cetera. So I would be surprised if we had
plant -based meat and cultivated meat that tasted
the same. I'm not gonna be surprised if a lot
of people go for cultivated meat because animal
-based meat just has this sort of aura around
it and lots of people believe that it is incredibly
healthy. But a lot of people know that hamburgers
are not healthy. A lot of people know that chicken
nuggets are not healthy. So if you've got a plant
-based product that has some fiber, less fat,
less saturated fat, no cholesterol, more protein,
I think there's probably a pretty significant
market for the plant -based meat products, even
in a world of cultivated meat, because it will
be, the cultivated meat is exactly as healthy
as animal -based meat, but without the bacterial
contamination or the contamination of the drugs
that are fed to the animals, et cetera. So that's
the health benefit, but it's not a macronutrient
health benefit. The plant -based meat will still
have the macronutrient health benefit. Interesting.
Something fascinating happened recently here
in Canada, McDonald launched its very first vegan
option, which is the Mac veggie, I think. And,
you know, I've had I haven't tried it yet. But
surprisingly, the Mac veggie does not imitate
the taste of meat. It is the good old, you know,
veggie patty option. How do you explain that
choice from McDonald's to release that product?
Yeah, it's interesting. I just pulled it up.
It's carrots, green beans, zucchini, peas, soybeans,
broccoli, and corn. That's a fascinating ingredient
list. Yeah, I'd be interested in that. I know
Burger King, when they first launched the BK
Veggie, they did something similar. And that
was in the U .S. They replaced the BK Veggie,
pretty sure it's replaced, they might have both,
with the Impossible Whopper. And the reviews
for the Impossible Whopper are way better than
the reviews were for the BK Veggie. The reviews
were kind of ruthless on the latter. So maybe
they're appealing to vegetarians and trying to
get people who would not otherwise be coming
to McDonald's to come to McDonald's. But Beyond
that, I'm not sure. Right now, there aren't that
many studies on the effects of providing price
and taste competitive plant -based meats on consumers'
meat consumption. And have you thought, have
you considered funding maybe to your organization
more research on that topic? I mean, the first
principles on it are extraordinarily strong,
as I argue in the book. It is notoriously difficult
to test consumers and what consumers will want
to do with a product that doesn't exist yet.
So you have somebody like Henry Ford saying,
if I had asked consumers what they wanted, they
would have set a faster horse. And that concept
has been cited favorably by some of the greatest
innovators in history, including Steve Jobs and
Elon Musk, both of whom didn't say, hey, I wonder
if people are going to want EVs or satellites
or SpaceX or the Apple home computer, the Mac
that was launched to an awful lot of befuddlement
in the early 1980s when the Mac came out. So
to the iPhone, there was, and I talk about in
the book, all of the people who mocked the iPhone
when it came out, said consumers don't want all
of this stuff on one device. And there was a
lot of support for that as a concept. So it's
very clear that maybe one of the most consistent
findings in social sciences research that the
most important things for food for consumers
are deliciousness and affordability. And it's
also true that there have been a lot of studies
of why people eat plant -based meat, why they
stopped eating plant -based meat, why they haven't
tried plant -based meat, and literally 100 %
of the studies of why people stopped or why people
haven't tried it. the top two answers are either
I tried it, I didn't like it, and it was too
expensive, or I haven't tried it because I know
I'm not gonna like it and it's too expensive.
So it seems pretty clear that addressing those
problems is the best path forward. And with a
limited budget, funding things that feel discretionary
doesn't feel like a great use of limited funds.
I, there is a, an episode I released last week
and one of the guests is, uh, Miyoko Shiner.
And she's the one who got me interested in the
topic of cultivated meat because I had the default
position of thinking of cultivated meat as the
Messiah and how, you know, what we were doing
as animal advocates was just holding the fort.
for this technology before this technology would
come and then resolve the problem of factory
farming. Now, through Miyoko and many other animal
advocates, I discovered that this opinion is
not shared widely in the animal advocacy community.
And you know that very well because you even
debated some of those outspoken uh, people, uh,
like Johnson, but Mansu or facility, uh, Stennis
Stennis. Yeah, I think, uh, his, his last name
is, um, in any case, you know, what do you make
of that, um, distanciation from animal advocates,
from this technology? How do you explain how
they are truly skeptical? in the prospects of
cultivated meat? I mean, I think there's a pretty
complete overlap between the people who are opposed
to improvements in farm animal welfare and the
people who are opposed to cultivated meat. And
the argument is pretty similar. The argument
against welfare reforms is that we are granting
the property status of animals and that in doing
so, we're setting back veganism. The argument
against cultivated meat is that we're granting
the idea of animals as consumable and again,
setting back animal rights. I think both of those
are just transparently bad arguments and I think
they both really suggest a kind of remarkable
lack of empathy for the animals who are in those
conditions. And I really just can't even understand
it. I will say that even an awful lot of people
who are not fans of the welfare reforms are huge
advocates of cultivated meat. for example, the
founder and president of People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals, Ingrid Newkirk, may be
the biggest cultivated meat booster on the planet
and is not a fan of the welfare reforms for the
reasons that I just identified. So I think it's
a pretty small group who continue to look at,
I mean, just think about we are now eating about
65 % more meat than we did 25 years ago. That
is literally tens of billions of animals. We
are going to eat something like 50 to 65 % more
meat by 2050 on our current trajectory. So that's
literally 40 to 50 billion more animals by 2050.
The idea that anybody would look at a solution
to that and say no. Really, I think doesn't really
hard for me to allow them, you know, who am I
to say, but it's really hard for me to take seriously
the idea of somebody who has that position, as
somebody who cares at all about animals, and
can possibly empathize with what they're going
through. What do you make then of my initial
position on cultivated meat, you know, thinking
of it as the great solution to all of our issues
in this struggle for animal liberation. Do you
think this is an overly optimistic attitude?
I think it's fair. I don't think anybody should
rest on their laurels. There's a very legitimate
concern that some people have that if we present
cultivated meat as sort of the be -all and end
-all and the solution, some people might think,
oh, good, cultivated meat. I'm going to continue
to eat meat right now because cultivated meat
is coming. And I think that's a very real and
reasonable concern. But I also think that it
shouldn't stop us from doing everything that
we can to try to get cultivated meat to price
and taste parity as soon as possible. Because
that will be the beginning at the end of industrial
animal farming. And that probably is the only
way we get to the beginning of the end of animal
farming, you know, absent something catastrophic.
There is this faction in the animal advocacy
movement that really does not believe in cultivated
meat. there's that same faction in the conservative
movement of people who are all about, you know,
eating meat. And I would include Joe Rogan in
that list, although I've heard Joe Rogan talk
about how, you know, factory farming was horrible.
And that's why he was a hunter. And there was
this recent incident with Campbell. Have you
followed that story? Yeah. Well, there was an
executive at Campbell who was videotaped talking
about how the chicken in the Campbell soup was,
was love grown chicken. Those were the words
he used. And that created like a wave of dismay
in the conservative community. And, you know,
there are so many news articles and I've seen
I've heard so many independent media talking
about how, you know, this was horrible. How could
they, um, you know, do that to their consumers
and, um, lab grown meat. This is a terrible product.
And I thought, Oh my gosh, the cultivated meat
people have some work to do. Uh, you know, selling
that the cultivated meat concept and products
too. uh, to conservative audiences. Um, so what
do you make of, of that, you know, faction of
the society that truly looks at it as, um, with
suspicion, um, and you know, I, I say they are
conservative, but I think there are plenty of
moderate people who, you know, also share those,
uh, preconceived ideas about cultivated meat.
I mean, I guess the first thing to say just as
sort of a precursor observation is that he was
right. Way more than cultivated meat is lab -grown
meat. The current chicken is lab -produced chicken.
Every agricultural studies department on the
planet has meat labs and they are studying all
kinds of different things, having to do with
how to get the contamination off the meat, how
to cut out the abscesses, how to deal with cancer
chicken. There's a range of things happening
in meat labs, but when somebody refers to lab
-grown meat, 99 .9999 % of what goes on in meat
labs has to do with the meat that is in grocery
stores and in Campbell's soup right now. In the
book, I point out that in the US, and I don't
know what the regulations say in Canada, but
there are a hundred drugs that it's legal to
have them in animal meat. including things like
ivermectin and ractopamine and penicillin and
amoxicillin. These are all things that it's legal
to feed to farm animals and that it's legal to
have in the meat that we consume as long as it's
in low enough levels. We're also feeding farm
animals massive doses of antibiotic drugs. And
even when you buy meat that says raised without
antibiotics, when that meat is tested, a fifth
of it has residues of antibiotics that are still
measurable in the meat. So when you look at the
polling that's done with regard to cultivated
meat, even when you call it lab -grown, even
when you include some disgusting photo, you still
end up with north of 20 consumers, north of 20
% of consumers who are enthusiastic to consume
it. Because I think most consumers have a sort
of visceral understanding that the way that meat
is made today is not great. So we really only
need 1 % in North America to have a $2 billion
per year industry, which is a pretty massive
industry right there. So 20 % is a $40 billion
per year industry. And once you have two products
on shelves and one of them does not have any
chance of being contaminated with ivermectin
and ractopamine and antibiotics and has a fraction
of the likelihood of being contaminated with
listeria or E. coli or salmonella or Campylobacter,
I think people will go for the cleaner, healthier,
more pure product would be my hypothesis. However
much people before the products even exist, have
concerns about it. And really, I mean, it doesn't
matter that a lot of people now have a visceral,
I don't know about that response, because the
products don't exist yet. And when they do and
people are buying them, they're still going to
be sold for a premium for a while. And there
are lots and lots of people who are excited about
buying them, even for a premium. Well, you know,
it's It's something I even heard from my parents.
Um, I forgot about that, but I was mentioning
how social media was a dangerous place to get
information about, you know, veganism and all
of that. And they started talking about lab grown
meat and how this was bad and how, you know,
there were tumors and it induced cancer in people.
And I thought, what, what? I mean, it. took me
by surprise because they were consuming all of
that social media content and it seems like there
is some kind of narrative on social media about
how cultivated meat is really bad for you. Now,
who is behind that? Is it appearing from Is it
like a cultural reaction to this new technology?
Is it like an organic reaction or is there some
party funding, some kind of PR campaign here?
I mean, the only people who I know are promulgating
those sorts of things on social media are like
the Organic Consumers Association, which has
a very nice name, but they're also anti -vaccine.
They're really anti -science. And then sort of
similar other anti -science. Yeah, I mean, it's
the same people who are anti -vaccine for the
most part. There are also the organic agro -ecology
back to the land, back to nature. And again,
that's the Joe Rogan types on the one side, the
Joe Rogan RFK types on one side, the Michael
Pollan, Alice Waters types on the other side.
Although I will say Michael Pollan is actually
in favor of plant -based and cultivated meat,
which is nice. But I think he personally is more
enthusiastic. He's in favor of it as sort of
a backup plan for people who are going to eat
industrial meat. He thinks it's better than that.
but he would prefer that people go with regenerative
heritage breeds, et cetera. So it's really, it's
those folks. And that kind of thing can spread
pretty quickly on social media, but just like
the vast majority of people are taking the vaccines
that they need to take, fortunately, it's not
the sort of thing where measles can come back
because 30 % of people are not getting the measles
vaccine. As long as we have 20 % adoption, that's
gonna be overwhelmingly enough to socialize.
This is a much healthier, better alternative,
and we'll get vast majority uptake. I will also
just note, I don't know how many of your listeners
are in the United States, but. When I was researching
the book, one of the things that I found was
that during the Biden administration, the poultry
industry petitioned to have a regulation that
kept inspectors on chicken slaughter lines, looking
for avian leucosis, so chicken cancer, and were
successful in both A, having the inspectors taken
off the line, and B, changing the regulation
so that chicken carcasses that are contaminated
that have cancer do not have to be condemned.
They just have to cut the cancer out of the carcass.
And I talked about this in chapter seven of the
book, but part two of that is it's the honor
system. So they have to cut the cancer out, but
there's not anybody there making sure that they
do that. So, and that was already the regulation
for pork and beef, because the pork industry
and the beef industry had successfully argued
the economics of 500 pound, or I guess it's probably
a 300 pound pig or a 650 pounds edible meat on
a cow. If they had argued that do you really
want us to, you know, the cow has cancer eye,
you really want us to condemn the entire carcass
and the USDA had said, no. Now you're looking
at a four pound chicken and the answer is still
no. You can process the rest of the chicken,
even if you've got an awful cancerous lesion
tumor, whatever on the bird. So it's a little
ironic considering what your parents said that
the current chicken beef and pork supply, at
least in the US, who knows how many of those
animals have cancer, but it's a big enough deal
that the industry asked not to have to condemn
the carcasses and in the US USDA agreed. It was,
I could not believe what I was reading. It was,
it's one of my favorite part of the book. Um,
and, and so, you know, who is in charge of creating
this marketing strategy, you know, to introduce
cultivated meat into culture and, uh, people's,
you know, um, habits and food habits, you know,
because, you know, I was looking into the response
of Campbell from that whole outcry and what they
did was just, you know, go and publish a statement
that strongly condemns, you know, the use of
lab grown chicken in their products. and they
made it clear that no LibroKrone products was
in their soups. They did not take the road of
saying, hey, actually the products we're using
and that are... you know, we call them cultivated
meat and they're better for your health than,
you know, the, the chicken, the usual chicken
that you find. And that makes us a better brand,
you know, than our competition or something like
that. So the response was really to just deny,
deny, deny. And so yeah, who, who is in charge
of, of marketing for cultivated meat? Well, I
mean, Campbell's isn't using cultivated meat.
So it would have been, they couldn't say that
they're using cultivated meat because they're
not. So it would be sort of weird for them to
talk about how great cultivated meat is since
they're not using it. So they would have to say.
Sorry, I misunderstood because you said that.
that person that was recorded on video was right.
I assumed you meant they were using actually
cultivated meat products in their lab grown meat.
So if 90, you know, if 99 .999 % of meat labs
are using conventional chicken, and that's the
stuff that has the, you know, tumors and the
abscesses and drug residues and everything else.
That is what we should refer to as lab grown
meat. not cultivated meat, which consumers will
never be eating cultivated meat that came out
of a lab. They'll be eating cultivated meat that
came out of a factory that looks an awful lot
like a brewery. And I love what Uma Vledi, the
CEO of Upside Foods, they literally put glass
walls in. They said, we will live stream cultivated
meat production. And we challenge the conventional
industry to live stream their farms and slaughterhouses.
They're not going to want to do it. But if the
idea of calling something lab -grown meat is
that it started in a lab, then 100%, well, not
100%, but more than 99 % of the current chicken
supply is there on the basis of techniques that
were developed in a lab. And 99 .999999 % of
labs that are working with chicken are working
with chicken, the kind of chicken that is showing
up in grocery stores and in cans of Campbell's
soup. So that was that was the point that I was
making. Yeah, I think it's it's part of it, you
know, that this marketing problem, because people
use lab grown meat and cultivated meat, me included
interchangeably. And, you know, it's kind of,
you know, there is no guide for, you know, What
is this and that and what compels someone to
use one term instead of the other? Well, we encourage
people not to say lab -grown meat if what they
mean is cultivated meat. Great. Yeah. I've been
trying to correct myself. Okay. Is there, you
know, you mentioned earlier that there was no
product yet. But first, your comment about those
glass walls, I found it very interesting because
now you have factory farms doing the same thing,
putting glass walls and showcasing even doing
tours of their facilities in an effort to normalize
that type of exploitation of animals, which I
find interesting. It's smart. It's smart, you
know, from a marketing perspective, it's really
smart. Maybe the cultivated meat people should
recruit their marketers. So you mentioned how
there was no product available yet, but I've
heard of many people who have tried, you know,
cultivated meat. But none of them are in my network
of animal advocates. And I think it ties back
to that faction in the animal advocacy movement
who goes against this concept and this technology.
Nobody has tasted it. I felt a bit crazy, you
know, I started going through my contacts and
asking them, have you ever had cultivated meat?
Because, you know, I've had discussions with
those people about cultivated meat, but none
of them ever tasted the product. Um, and that
includes, you know, frontline leading researchers
in animal advocacy, um, you know, entrepreneurs,
uh, even, you know, the head of a vegan, um,
label, you know, um, labeling products. So how
come, you know, no one has tasted the product
in the animal advocacy space? I mean, I think
everybody in the animal advocacy space in Israel
and San Francisco, I would guess, maybe not everybody,
but if you're in Israel, if you're in the Netherlands,
if you're in San Francisco, it's not hard to
find yourself in a situation where you're eating
cultivated meat. I've probably eaten cultivated
meat more than 50 times, I would guess. Yeah,
I'm not, I mean, it's not that surprising. It's
not easy to come by. Most of the people who have
tried it are actually working in the space, I
think. I will say that when I had cultivated
meat for the first time, I had to share half
a chicken nugget with Susie Welch, NYU professor.
This was at Jack and Susie Welch's in their kitchen
in Manhattan. And Uma Velletti, the CEO of Upside
Foods, which was then Memphis Meats, came to
New York City and we ate half a chicken nugget,
which I'm sure cost thousands of dollars. Now
it'd be $5. The price has come down by a factor
of 100 ,000. It's not that hard to come by if
you're someplace where there's a company working
on it. You can't actually buy it in probably,
I don't know, a bunch of restaurants in Singapore,
a few in Australia and New Zealand, a few in
the US, there's one in San Francisco, a few in
Oregon. So it's not completely impossible to
come by, but it's certainly not easy. There was
a, an influencer on Instagram, handsome guy who
was, you know, defending cultivated meat. I think
his whole influencer thing was about that. And
he had the contest where you could like, uh,
one of his posts and comment, and then you get
the chance of, uh, having, uh, you know, a sample
of cultivated meat products. and I thought it
shouldn't be random strangers online. You should
send them to animal advocacy people, researchers,
and so on, including those who are outspoken
critics, because I feel like there would be a
before -after moment from having the product
in your hand and tasting it, maybe intellectually
that could play into it in the perception of
the product. So that's just an idea I'm sharing
with you. Yeah, I mean, if somebody wants to
try it, I don't think it's that hard for them
to make that happen. I'm just thinking about
how high should it be on the priority list of
the cultivated meat industry. I think not that
high. As you know in the book, I'm really focused
on the food security and the economic benefits
of plant -based and cultivated meat. Because
the goal of the book is to help with the effort
to generate government support for these technologies
in the same way that governments have supported
most, if not all, successful technologies over
the last, certainly, 50 to 75 years, if not longer.
And so what does it look like for that to happen?
governments, they're not going to put significant
amounts of money into alleviating cruelty to
animals. Most governments are not going to put
significant amounts of money into alleviating
hunger and malnutrition unless it's in their
country or the range of environmental harms.
They'll pass laws and regulations to stop egregious
environmental pollution, but it's not going to
be a top priority. of most governments to actually
like address global problems in that way. But
what governments do care about is food security,
food self -sufficiency, economic competitiveness.
So that's all of chapter nine and chapter 10
is making the pitch to governments. And as you
know, the Good Food Institute, we have about
240 full -time staff around the world. The plurality
of our team members are scientists. And our number
one goal is to build a maximally robust scientific
ecosystem. The way we think you do that is you
get governments to fund science. So you need
the best scientists in a country saying, this
is something I want to study so that governments
will see it as legitimate. But then those scientists
want government money to be there. So it's sort
of the stance where you need to be petitioning
the governments to make money available, petitioning
the scientists to apply for it. And the best
way to do that is really leading in. on the economic
benefits of the technologies, the fact that it's
a market -based intervention, and then also the
food self -sufficiency, food security, those
sorts of benefits. And we've been successful.
Seven years ago, there was no government money
for plant -based or cultivated meat other than
in Israel and Singapore. And it was in Israel
and Singapore because they're so tiny. And they
saw the benefit, both the economic benefit Israel
is the startup nation, incredibly innovative.
Israel and Singapore import the vast majority
of their food. And if they can move towards something
that is so much more efficient way of producing
meat, they saw the benefit of that. Now we have
India, Brazil, the US, Canada, Australia, New
Zealand, Japan, Korea, China, the European Union
and a whole bunch of countries in Europe. funding
both R &D and incentivizing manufacturing and
infrastructure, which is a lot of progress in
less than seven years in terms of governments
and scientists leaning in on these technologies.
The governments are funding it for the economic
benefits and the food security benefits. A lot
of the scientists are doing it for environmental
reasons or global hunger reasons or global health
reasons. Some are doing it for animal protection
reasons as well. But I do think when we're thinking
about what are the best use, you know, what is
the best use of time and resources? The thing
I was thinking about was, is the best use of
time and resources getting animal activists excited
about the technology? When in my experience,
most animal activists are already excited about
the technology and the ones that aren't. I don't
know. I mean, I don't think I had heard John's
name in years. I don't know if he's spending
any time on it, but it doesn't seem like he's
that incensed or somehow it's not breaking through
to me. And I think I would have heard about it.
So it doesn't seem like it's a big, a significant
obstacle or even an insignificant obstacle. Most
of the time when politicians publish a book,
it's because they're going to run for an office
or there's something they want to create momentum
for some political project. Is there such agenda
behind the release of your book? Is there something
big coming up that you're creating momentum around?
I mean, the book was really a response to we've
seen these articles that are basically obituaries
for plant -based and cultivated meat. And you
read the article, and in zero of the cases did
the journalist talk to a single scientist working
on plant -based or cultivated meat. I mean, remarkable.
There was a cover story in Businessweek. It was
more than 4 ,000 words. And it spent 4 ,000 words
saying the products aren't good enough. and they
cost too much without literally without talking
to anybody working in the space. Not a single
scientist. It was really quite remarkable. And
yeah, really quite remarkable. And there've been
a couple of those, but that was the most prominent
one. Similarly, there have been obituaries of
cultivated meat that say the sector has spent
$3 billion. Where's my cultivated burger? essentially.
And again, not talking to a single, there are
literally hundreds of scientists working on cultivated
meat. Incredibly impressive biomedical scientists
and others. Not a single scientist working in
the field quoted in this story that I'm thinking
of. It was more, again, more than 4 ,000 words,
like the business week story. It's just a remarkable
lack of understanding of what innovation progress
looks like. And $3 billion, that's the cost in
the US of bringing two drugs to market if you
already have a massive pharmaceutical firm. So
none of the costs of setting up a factory, none
of the costs of related to hiring your CFO and
line staff and everything else. And this is across
more than 100 companies a decade. You know, so
all of time, 100 companies, $3 billion. That's
less than the cost of one EV battery factory.
And people are writing the obituaries of these
industries. So the book was basically a response
to that. And the idea of the book is to be optimistic
about the science while being realistic about
the fact that a scientific endeavor can be perfectly
sound and still fail. if you don't bring the
will to the effort, if you don't try hard enough.
So the book is basically saying all of the evidence
indicates that the science is sound. The question
is, will we do what we need to do to make sure
that the technologies succeed as soon as possible?
So that's basically why I wrote the book. To
close this chapter on you know, people against
cultivated meat. Is there any like actual evidence
that would make you reconsider, you know, developing,
supporting, promoting this alternative, you know,
proteins, products? Sure. I mean, if, if there
were I mean, if the preponderance of the scientific
analysis were that we can't get to price and
taste parity with either of the products, that
would cause me to think we shouldn't work on
that product, probably. I mean, it's interesting.
You read the book Abundance by Esser Klein and
Derek Thompson, and they make a pretty strong
case that something like mRNA many years in this
sort of scientific wasteland, and it ended up
being the COVID vaccine. And there's that sort
of the concept that science progresses funeral
by funeral, because there's just sort of a common
wisdom in science, something's not possible.
And then the young scientists come along and
they do it anyway. So if I were convinced that
the science wouldn't work, or for some other
reason that price and taste parity for the products
wouldn't work, or for some reason price and taste
parity for the products wouldn't shoot us up
the S curve. There are a variety of things that
would convince me not to proceed, but all of
the evidence is in diametrically the opposite
direction. And I mean, when we started GFI, we
didn't expect to be working on Cultivated Nate.
When we started GFI, we thought we were going
to try to create an ecosystem of competitors
with Impossible and Beyond to try to turn plant
-based meat into a commodity product, essentially.
And then Uma Valetti started Upside Foods at
about the same time we were starting the Good
Food Institute. We literally share a birthday
on February 1st, 2016. And Uma convinced us that
cultivated meat was a lot farther along scientifically
than we believed it to be. And two of GFI's first
six staff members were scientists. One of them
was charged with figuring out the scientific
viability of plant -based meat. The other one
was charged with figuring out the scientific
viability of cultivated meat. And I will say,
as I mentioned, the preponderance, I mean, the
plurality of GFI's team members around the world
are scientists. And the more they dive in, the
more optimistic they become about the viability
of the science. Yeah, you go into that story
in the book and it's truly fascinating. I do
really recommend the book to people because for
me, Cultivated Meat had a bit of lack of transparency
problem, I think, and I could not see where this
was coming from, the mechanisms behind it. what
is driving this industry, who are the people
driving this product? And this is what this book
offered me, you know, a look at behind the scenes.
And this is what was most precious to me, you
know, from the book. One last point before we
stop the recording. In the beginning of your
book, you talk about different, you know, approaches
that were tried to stop people or at least convince
them to diminish their intake of animal products.
And, you know, the traditional ways we, we do
activism and, and how, you know, this had the
ceiling and that cultivated meat could help us
go beyond that ceiling. And, you know, I, I felt
like, you know, the, the number of initiatives
you named despite their success. are truly limited
in their scope. I feel like cultivated meat is
really a product of creativity, innovation, thinking
outside the box, you know, but there are other
ways of doing activism that are, that have been,
you know, and exploited that are also innovative
and that, you know, activists just do not engage
in an example of that is outreach to conservative
people, you know, never been done. What about
religious, you know, based activism and outreach?
I know you're religious yourself, but you know,
like, there aren't that many organizations and
they're not well funded that, you know, do outreach
to conservative to religious institutions and
religious communities and make the religious
argument for caring for animals. And so, do you
really believe this is the ultimate solution
or is there something else that excites you in
the realm of activism? Well, I mean, I'll say
two things. The first is that I don't think you
could possibly be more successful than Matthew
Scully was with his book, Dominion. So, Dominion
came out. George Will wrote about it for Newsweek
magazine and the Washington Post, and that was
syndicated. Charles Cronhammer, who at the time
was probably the most famous and well -respected
conservative thinker. It got a cover story in
American Conservative, got a cover story in New
Republic, which is the sort of house organ of
the conservative establishment. I mean, Matthew
Scully, he was speechwriter for George W. Bush
for all of Bush's governorship and then for the
first four years of Bush's presidency. So one
of the three speechwriters on Bush's speech writing
team leaves to write a book about religious and
conservative reasons to care about farm animals
and not eat them. was just way more successful
than anything that has ever happened from the
other side. Yeah, I mean, just massive impact
among conservatives and religious people. So
I'm not sure what else to say other than that.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't keep doing that.
I wouldn't be here if not for education and activism.
And I think that's true for most of the people
who started the companies, the plant -based meat
and the cultivated meat companies. It's true
for a lot of the scientists and a lot of other
people who have gotten on board. So I'm not saying
it's not successful at influencing individuals.
And I'm certainly not saying that we shouldn't
do more of it. What I am saying is that it is
unlikely to change the massive upward trajectory
of meat consumption globally. meat consumption
globally has gone up every single year for more
than 60 years, and probably every single year
since forever, absent something like a massive
pandemic or the bubonic plague or a war or something
like that. As long as population is going up
and people are getting wealthier, GDP is going
up, meat consumption is going up. And that has
happened every year since 1961, which is the
year the UN Food and Agriculture Organization
started measuring. So we need at least more tools
in our toolkit. I'm not suggesting that anybody
stop doing anything. I am suggesting that we
add this tool to our toolkit. The one thing that
feels to me like it is underrepresented in activism
is concerted university focused activism. So
I really like what for us, our senior is doing
with allied scholars for animal protection ASAP.
I think the one of the things that's really worked.
It seems to me with things like the young Republicans
or the Federalist Society is a long view that
focuses on things where you can go for four years.
of ensuring that people understand your perspective
and then they go out into the world with that
perspective. What seems like it works less well
is hoping that somebody will read something,
go back into their daily lives, which are going
to be just completely populated with people who
are not vegan or vegetarian or animal sympathetic
to the degree that they're gonna change their
diets. and expect them to stay changed. So I
do think that that's the one thing that feels
to me like it is underutilized as a mechanism
of change, but I don't think even that is going
to change the massive upward trajectory. One
of the things that's really great about market
-based mechanisms and alternative proteins, alternative
beads as a market -based mechanism is that once
you've got price and taste parity, it can scale
globally. Whereas with anything that requires
behavior change, even if you make a massive difference
on one campus or even in one city or even in
one country, there's not some obvious way that
that is going to scale beyond that endeavor.
So one of the really great things about renewable
energy, like I am in favor on the fossil fuel
front of encouraging people to ride bikes and
walk. I think we need bullet trains and great
public transit and energy efficient everything
from light bulbs to buildings to everything else.
But we also need renewable energy. The same thing
is true here. Sure, absolutely. Let's lean in
on education of conservatives and religious people
and everybody else. But my guess is that we're
also going to need alternative proteins. Yes,
we love Farah as he was a guest on the show too
and I think he works for you for the good food
Institute too Yeah, I think you know the book
was really popular and I know Matthew but We
need to look at how politicians do it. They create
a community. They are always there. They are
always in contact. It's more than just releasing
a book. It takes more to instill those values
into the culture. And yeah, I do think it takes
more of an organized effort and more of a systematic
effort. Okay, my last question for you, Bruce,
before I let you go, this, I mentioned how Miyoko
was the one who got me interested in the whole
debate around cultivated meat. And I asked her,
you know, does she have a question for you maybe?
And her question for you was this one, who is
in control of the food system once, you know,
cultivated meat becomes a success. And I think
she's referencing to this tendency in the market
of, you know, food products becoming more and
more owned by the same, I think, big five for
corporations, which is a problem. So what do
you make of that question? Yeah, I mean, as you
know from reading the book, I lean in on that
question in chapter 10. And what I, GFI was formed
to try to turn plant -based meat into a commodity
product that isn't controlled by just a couple
of companies. So for people who are concerned
about that question, the thing that surprises
me is that like people who are concerned about
that question, their response to the concern
is to not get involved. I would think the response
to the concern would be to get involved. So our
number one goal, as I mentioned, is scientific
ecosystem building. And the goal of the scientific
ecosystem building is to have as much open access
science as possible. The alternative to that
is consolidation in a few startups or the current
industry and IP that is controlled by a very
limited number of actors. So as you know from
reading the book, what I hope is that we'll move
toward commodity products and that this will
allow us, because it will free up so much land,
because it will free up so many resources, it
will allow us to move in the direction of a significantly
more egalitarian agricultural reality that is
in particular good for the environment, good
for farmers, and a shift away from get big or
get out. So get big or get out has been the mantra
and agriculture has been consolidating since
the early 1970s when Earl Butz brought that to
the United States. And every single year, more
and more farmers and ranchers go out of business,
even as more and more meat is produced. And that's
because of agricultural consolidation. And as
long as we're going to need to produce 50 % more
meat in 25 years, it's really hard to think about
how that process can possibly reverse. But if
we can start producing meat in a way that requires
a tiny fraction of the resources, and that frees
up vast quantities of land, that gives us the
opportunity to recenter agriculture in a way
that's better for the environment, better for
farm families. And you can imagine a world in
which the current consolidation, if we're basically
starting over with the way that meat is made,
I mean, good luck reversing where we are now.
But if we start over in how meat is made, then
we can start over in a way that is a lot more
focused on smaller scale production. And I guess
my challenge is to people who are concerned about
this issue, think about how you affect it. Opposing
plant -based and cultivated bee is not gonna
be helpful, but advocating for open access science
will be successful. and challenging an IP dominated
food system. So I mean, you know, that's, that's
what I would suggest. Thank you so much, Bruce,
did you want to add something for we stopped
the recording? I mean, I hope people will check
out the book. The website for the book is just
meet book dot org, any at book dot org. And if
you do read it, I would love to hear what you
think. I do think it's a classic of animal rights.
I don't know if you want me to say that, but
I do look at it as that. Bruce, this has been
a pleasure. Thank you so much for having taken
the time to answer my questions, some of them
challenging. Hopefully you found them interesting.
I really appreciate your willingness to confront
even the most challenging ideas. and to have
written this book to address them or at least
a big chunk of them. And thank you for all of
your work. It's hard to be the builder at the
front line and doing the innovation work because
then you get all of the criticism and all of
the. Yeah, so I see that, you know, and and I
think you're brave in your fight. So thank you
so much, Bruce. Thank you everyone for listening.
I kindly invite you to share this podcast with
the vegans you know. Let's encourage more people
to take action. Again, thank you so much for
caring, and I will see you next Tuesday for a
new episode.