What’s the future of meat? Join Beyond Meat, Air Protein, Meati Foods, Orbillion Bio and the GFI at Futureproofing the Food System

21-Oct-2022 - Last updated on 03-Nov-2022 at 14:24 GMT

The long-term imperative behind reducing our reliance on animal agriculture seems fairly compelling: The planet can’t sustain it. But with less engaged consumers dipping in and then out of the meat alternatives category as budgets tighten, and a subsegment of the population avoiding them altogether, where do brands go from here?

Has plant-based meat hit a technical hurdle that only cell-cultured meat can overcome, or is the issue less about the products themselves than market issues such as price, cultural barriers, the economy, supply chain woes, and the competitive environment?

Join Ethan Brown, CEO and founder at plant-based meat company Beyond Meat; Dr Lisa Dyson, founder and CEO at alt meat startup Air Protein; Dr Tyler Huggins, co-founder at fungi-fueled Meati Foods; Abena Foli, head of regulatory affairs at cultivated meat co Orbillion Bio; and Dr Elliot Swartz, lead scientist cultivated meat at the GFI, for a frank conversation about the future of meat on November 15 in the second segment of FoodNavigator-USA’s Futureproofing the Food System virtual summit (Nov 15-17) where we’ll discuss:

The evidence suggests plant-based meat is a healthier choice on a few fronts, but is that message getting across?
How meaningful are the differences between products from firms that have raised millions vs those that have knocked out a generic pea burger in a few months on a budget?
How important is closing the price gap with conventional meat?
Are retailers getting cold feet about meat alternatives?
What’s happening in the retail market? Are there too many me-too products with low repeat rates?
Cultivated meat: Are there fundamental biological limitations about animal cell culture at scale or are some of the arguments made in The Counter already out of date given recent advances in technology?
Plant-based meat: Has it hit a technical plateau? Are the products ‘good enough’ to appeal to meat eaters, and if not, what needs to improve? Do we need to add ‘animal-free’ heme proteins or cell-cultured fat or meat to convert ‘mainstream’ meat eaters?
Fungi-fueled whole cuts: Will this unlock a whole new market?
How do you sell Air Meat to consumers?
Has all the soul-searching about plant-based driven more interest in cultivated meat because it’s ‘real’ meat, or has it made investors and others more wary?

FOOD TECH IN FOCUS: The Future of Meat (1.30pm-3pm Central time, Tues November 15)

REGISTER HERE

FIRESIDE CHAT: Cell-cultured (a.k.a. ‘cultivated’) meat: Foodtech fantasy or the future of meat? Dr Elliot Swartz, lead scientist, cultivated meat, The Good Food Institute and Elaine Watson, senior editor, FoodNavigator-USA

Growing meat from cells in bioreactors instead of living breathing animals should logically be more efficient, as resources are spent on growing only the cells that make up the meat product rather than keeping an animal alive. So is cultivated meat a no brainer, or does the technology face ‘intractable’ problems at food scale?

PANEL: Meat 2.0: With weakening sales in the alt-meat segment prompting some serious soul-searching, what does the future hold for meat alternatives, how do the available options stack up, what will distinguish the winners from the losers in the category, and how do consumers feel about the next generation of meat?