Bloomberg Businessweek (January 23, 2023)

Год выпуска: January 23, 2023

Автор: Bloomberg Businessweek Europe

Жанр: Бизнес

Издательство: «Bloomberg Businessweek Europe»

Формат: PDF (журнал на английском языке)

Качество: OCR

Количество страниц: 76

Fake Meat Loses its Sizzle

Ever since founding Beyond Meat Inc. in 2009 with the then-fantastical idea of making meat without animals, Ethan Brown has been giving the equivalent of one extremely long TED Talk. In 2013 he took the stage at the Wired Business conference, explaining that the world had a very real greenhouse gas-emitting meat problem and that venture capitalists could make a bigger impact investing in fake meat than in solar energy. At Toronto’s annual Ideacity gathering three years later, he said his goal was to replicate the “blueprint of meat.” By the time he appeared at Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s Builders & Innovators Summit 2019, he explained that his mission demanded the urgency and scale the US mustered for World War II and that his products would simultaneously help solve heart disease, diabetes, cancer, climate change, natural resource depletion and animal welfare. Just like technology had rendered the horse-drawn carriage obsolete, he told the crowd at the New York Times' climate conference this past fall, so, too, would his system of breaking down plants transform the protein at the center of the plate. “This,” he said, “is something that I feel is inevitable.”

Silicon Valley didn’t need much convincing that a better veggie burger could become the next world-changing disruption. Whereas the quinoa-and-bean patties of yore were for the crunchy set, Brown’s beef facsimile, concocted in a lab to look and taste like the real thing, meant the vast majority of meat eaters could give up their burgers without having to give up anything at all. Along with the venture capitalists came investors from every corner of culture-Leonardo DiCaprio, the Humane Society of the United States and former McDonald’s Corp. Chief Executive Officer Don Thompson. Even Tyson Foods Inc., the biggest maker of real meat in the US, invested and then invested again, catapulting the young El Segundo, California-based startup to a $1.3 billion valuation by 2018.

Bill Gates wanted in, too, backing not one but two companies with veggie burgers that “bleed” like real beef-Beyond, as well as its rival Impossible Foods Inc. Brown had licensed someone else’s process, but Impossible was the brainchild of a Stanford University biochemist named Pat Brown (no relation to Ethan). When Pat founded Impossible in 2011, his big breakthrough was realizing that a molecule called heme was the key to meat’s meatiness. He made heme with genetically modified yeast and patented the use of what the company called its magic ingredient: soy leghemoglobin...

Fake Out

• Hyped as a world-changing innovation, plant-based burgers fade to food fad

American Coyote

• Smugglers in the US can be as vulnerable as the migrants they transport

IN BRIEF

• Debt ceiling time
• Greta gets cuffed
• Brazil bumper crop

OPINION

• Winter blackouts highlight the need for more clean energy

AGENDA

• Southwest’s bumpy fourth guarter
• 50 years of hip-hop

REMARKS

• China’s reopening brightens the outlook for global growth

BUSINESS

• Carlsberg brews a recipe for more sustainable beer
• Biotech startups look for injections of cash

TECHNOLOGY/ LAYOFFS

• What job cuts say about Silicon Valley and the US economy
• Carmakers race to snap up tech talent
• When employees depart, sensitive data may go with them
• Newly unemployed workers take stock and look ahead

FINANCE

• Crypto paradise becomes a nightmare for the Bahamas
• Talking diversity pays for CEOs—even if it’s all just talk
• How the Treasury might sidestep the debt ceiling fight

ECONOMICS

• Russian entrepreneurs try to fill the foreign-brand void
• US-China trade ties show no signs of unraveling

SOLUTIONS/SUSTAINABILITY

• Short hops point the way to electric air travel
• A Dutch startup has big plans for large batteries
• The search for greener fertilizer

PURSUITS/THE SLEEP SPECIAL

• Is your sleep tracker keeping you up at night?
• Sheets you’ll want to get between
• A guide to a more restful road trip
• Freguent flyers’ tips for managing jet lag
• Skin products to maximize your beauty sleep
• Therabody’s massaging goggles are a feast for the eyes

LAST THING

• The Winklevii join in on the crypto finger-pointing