One week in a post #49: Second Thoughts on Cultivation, The Power of Pleasure, Fast Foods Shutting Down, Canadian Wild Salmon.
One week in a post #49: Second Thoughts on Cultivation, The Power of Pleasure, Fast Foods Shutting Down, Canadian Wild Salmon.
Food and climate highlights on my radar!
[Three pieces of news]
🥩 Cultivated Meat On The Spot
The Italian parliament passed the law banning cultivated meat production and sale, which also prohibits the use of terms describing plant-based products as meat. This decision holds particular significance given Italy’s self-sufficiency rate for beef of 42.5%. The EU hasn’t approved the sale of lab-grown meat, yet. In the meantime in the US (where cultivated meat has been approved) Florida House Republican Ryler Sirois introduced a new bill, aiming to make it illegal to manufacture, sell, hold, or distribute lab-grown meat within the state. I’m not surprised. Members of the Parliament and Italian Regional Presidents mention “protection of Chianina or Fassona” as main reasons for their support to the law. When something truly disruptive comes in, it’s human to try to protect what we have, make money from, and feel proud of. Italy might be in the same position once in-person tourism will be truly threatened by groundbreaking and affordable VR experiences. While I agree that the future of meat cultivation is still unclear as result of its scalability challenges, if those potential road blockers will be overcome, and more countries will grant regulatory approval, Italy will eventually conform. I’m sure there was a time when someone tried to ban cars in favor of horses, until the point where people using cars were just too many to be stopped.
🧠 The power of the irrational
This week the Italian-American company Thimus has announced the launch of Thimus’ T-Box, a tool capable of collecting high-quality data on brain activity for measuring, explaining and predicting human behavior in food experiences. The goal is to leverage neuroscience for more impactful product and communication development. There are two reasons why I find this interesting: 1/ I see too many companies having groundbreaking technologies able to positively impact the world, lacking to reach mass markets because they products fall short in providing pleasure(read my article on the World Economic Forum for more on this!); 2/ Understanding and influencing eaters’ behaviors is crucial and so far we’re still having a very hard time doing that.
🍔 Is the fast food assumption still holding?
There has been a series of bankruptcies among franchisees of major brands like Burger King, McDonald’s, Popeyes, Hardee’s, and Wendy’s. These are franchisees: companies that own and manage tens or hundreds of branded stores. These bankruptcies represent a broader trend affecting over 100,000 franchise owners in the U.S. Among the causes they mention “a combination of post-COVID consumer habits, ever-increasing costs to do business, and significantly higher interest rates”. Firstly, this is interesting because it’s been undiscovered by media until now. Moreover, many of the companies with more sustainable food offerings are targeting fast foods as their best bet to get to scale. I’m today wondering if this will still be true in 10 years from now.
[Three raises]
🐠 Salmon / Three Canadian businesses (New School Foods, Liven Proteins, and NuWave Research) received $11.4M to produce a realistic vegan alternative to wild salmon for Canada.
🍶 Packaging / Le Fourgon raises €10M to rehabilitate the use of returnable glass bottles.
📦 Materials / Material Impact has announced their $352 million fund III to back inception-stage companies innovating in materials science.
[Three products]
🐝 Mellody / Bee-free honey (now entering D2C segment!)
🥛 Alpro / Oat and almond milks’ prices capped at €2 in Belgium (nice to see the “alt” sector playing the big promo game).
🥕 Pulp Pantry / Chips from upcycled pulp (that just tested bulk packaging in some select Google cafes and MicroKitchens!)