One week in a post #52: Red Packs, Greenwashing, Cocoa, Off-take Agreements, Pastoral Nostalgia.
One week in a post #52: Red Packs, Greenwashing, Cocoa, Off-take Agreements, Pastoral Nostalgia.
Food and climate highlights on my radar!
[Three pieces of news]
🧼 Greenwashing and misleading labels
Attorney General James sued the world’s largest beef producer (JBS) for misrepresenting environmental impact of their products. *This is HUGE. JBS USA has claimed that it will achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040, despite documented plans to increase production, and therefore increase its carbon footprint.
This is unfortunately a surging trend in the food sector, as more and more companies are trying to find a space at the intersection of food and climate (and that’s a hard one to find). And, as institutions are pushing back on non-animal based products’ labeling choices. Some highlights on the topic:
From the assessment Changing Markets Foundations did last year: Aldi, Lidl, Nestlé’s KitKat and Unilever’s Magnum ice-cream made carbon neutral claims which only rely on offsetting; Saputo’s Cathedral City cheese is marketed with images of cows grazing green pastures, which apparently is not the case (pastoral nostalgia?); Burger King advertised a reduced methane Whooper, which it claimed that feeding lemongrass to cows would reduce methane emissions by 30%, when the real figure is closer to 3%.
The Freedom Food Alliance's debut Disinformation Report analyses how the animal agriculture industry uses disinformation to block progress towards plant-based foods, despite environmental and health benefits. Check out Irina’s post for a TL;DR.
The French government has banned the use of ‘meaty’ terms like ‘steak,’ ‘entrecote,’ ‘ham,’ ‘butcher,’ and ‘cutlet’ on plant-based product labels, claiming that they confuse and mislead consumers.
UK trade standards group is pushing for new guidance to ban the use of alternative descriptors like ‘mylk’, ‘cheeze’, or ‘yoghurt-style’ on plant-based dairy packaging.
🎨 The power of colors
New study finds meat eaters are more willing to try plant-based products when packaged in red. Survey participants associated red with good taste, green with health and eco-friendliness, and blue (their favorite color) with budget consciousness, but also quality. * This is not very surprising to me, but it is a good reminder that the non-animal industry has to pull some of the leverages used by traditional industries to get to mainstream. Let’s stop being too hippy.
🍫 The chocolate industry on the news
* I’ve been talking about cocoa a lot recently — but it keeps on coming! The pain seems real.
The Financial Times wrote a nice piece about this. The article discusses the supply constraints caused by poor weather conditions in major cocoa-producing countries like Ivory Coast and Ghana, coupled with structural issues such as climate change and underinvestment in cocoa plantations. As a result, cocoa farmers are struggling, facing low incomes and diminishing yields, which, coupled with initiatives such as the EU's plan to ban the sale of cocoa grown on deforested land, raise substantial concerns for the industry. Despite the rising demand for chocolate globally, even major players like Barry Callebaut and Hershey's have been announcing layoffs due to financial pressures.
[Three raises/M&As]
🍄 Mycoprotein / Cargill has invested an undisclosed sum into ENOUGH as a “top up” to its recent series C and signed commercial off-take agreements. *As startups, can we sign relevant off take agreements without giving away equity? I’d love to see examples. If you have some, please share!
🧁 Sugar / Zya is out of stealth! They developed an enzyme that can convert sugar into fiber inside a person’s digestive system after they’ve eaten. So far the team has raised £4.1 million. *I love seeing this coming during the current peak of the unsustainable Ozempic era.
🌽 Vertical farming / Oishii, which primarily produces berries, secured $134 million Series B funding in a round led by Japanese telecommunications firm NTT. *I found interesting seeing indoor farming being able to attract big capitals despite the challenges.
[Three products]
🥛 Milk / Califia Farms Complete, a plant-based milk made from a blend of pea, chickpea and fava bean protein, that promise nutritional parity.
🍦 Ice-Cream / Unilever is launching a lactose-free chocolate ice cream made with Perfect Day’s precision fermentation animal-free whey protein.
🥚 Eggs / Last week JUST Egg celebrated half a billion eggs sold since 2019 launch!
🔥🔥