Food

The Food Footprint: agriculture and the rise of plant-based food

Thursday, April 22, 2021 by Snacks

The avo burger can walk... and it leaves a carbon footprint. Wild stat: the global food production system accounts for more than a third of human-made greenhouse gases. Wilder stat: ~45% of Earth's ice-free land is covered by crops to feed livestock — that means fewer trees and plants to suck up CO2.

  • 10%: The portion of US greenhouse gas emissions generated by agriculture. Cows used for beef and milk are the largest emitters (they breathe out methane when they digest).
  • 28X: Cows require 28X more land and 11X more water than other farm animals... and emit 5X more greenhouse gas.

pea.protein22 has joined the chat.... Sustainability concerns have propelled the rise of plant-based foods. In March 2020, 9.7M Americans reported following plant-based diets, up from 300K in 2004. Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods say their plant burgers generate ~90% fewer emissions than beef (and require less water and land). Now, alt-food companies are gaining mainstream appeal:

  • Beyond is expanding in chains like Walmart and Subway — and recently partnered with McDonald's and KFC-owner Yum Brands.
  • Impossible launched at TJ's and Walmart, and has breakfast sammies at Starbucks and Burger King (plus, the Impossible Whopper).
  • Oatly snagged a key partnership with Starbucks (Brown Sugar Oatmilk Espresso FTW). Sales of its sustainable milk ~2X'd in 2020 from 2019. Oh, and it filed to go public this week.
THE TAKEAWAY

Food is a change-maker... UN climate head Christiana Figueres sees the food industry as "one of the main levers of change" on global warming (she's also on Impossible's board). Alt-meat companies like Impossible and Beyond are explicitly targeting meat eaters who want to cut down — not vegetarians. If they succeed in full-mainstreamification of alt-protein, it could make a big difference. The plant-based meat industry is already a $20B biz, set to grow to $23 billion by 2024. But these companies still face pushback from the "real" beef and milk industries.

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