70 Time February 3, 2020
consumers polled by Michigan State
University who said they were already
eating plant-based meat, nearly half
were under 40. Besides, the companies
say, their products are healthier. Con-
ventional meat contains cholesterol and
doesn’t have the fiber and complex carbo-
hydrates that plant-based meat has, says
Bruce Friedrich, executive director of the
Good Food Institute, which advocates for
cultured and plant-based meat. Crops
grown locally in vertical farms are fresher,
so people will eat more of them, and since
they’re grown indoors, they don’t use pes-
ticides, companies like Plenty say.
But traditional food companies have
challenged food-tech companies at every
step. “What’s hiding in your plant-based
meat?” the Center for Consumer Free-
dom, a nonprofit supported by restau-
rants and food companies, asked in a
full-page ad directing consumers to a
website that compared plant-based meat
with dog food. Chipotle CEO Brian Nic-
col said meat substitutes “wouldn’t fit”
into Chipotle’s menu because of the “pro-
cessing” required to make a plant taste
like meat. Congressional lawmakers have
introduced a bill supported by the U.S.handful of countries, including the Neth-
erlands, Japan and New Zealand, have
funded research into lab-grown meat.
Startups are thinking beyond meat
too. Indoor- agriculture companies such
as Plenty in California and AeroFarms in
New Jersey, which grow food in tightly
packed towers called vertical farms, have
together raised more than $300 million.
A competitor, Crop One, is partnering
with Emirates Flight Catering to build
a 130,000-sq.-ft. vertical farm in Dubai,
which will be the world’s largest. Exo,
which makes cricket protein bars and
sells whole-roasted crickets, was acquired
by the Aspire Food Group in 2018, and
Soylent, a meal- replacement beverage,
has raised more than $70 million.
“We’re on the cusp of some break-
throughs in the development of food,”
said Jeff Housenbold, a partner at Soft-
Bank who headed the firm’s investment
in Plenty, a vertical farm.
But the billions of dollars being poured
into startups may not change farming any-
time soon. Some scientists are dubious
that the many companies that say they
can grow fish and steak from cells will ac-
tually be able to do so on a large scale in
the next decade. Plant-based-meat com-
panies, which have reached millions of
consumers, are still scrambling to make
a burger that tastes as satisfying as con-
ventional meat. Vertical farms are expen-
sive to run because they have to use power
to provide the one thing that’s free in tra-
ditional farming: light from the sun. “The
timescales of disrupting the agriculture
industry are not what they are in the soft-
ware industry,” says David Lobell, director
of the Center on Food Security and the En-
vironment at Stanford University. “People
who have come from tech and get into ag
are often frustrated by the pace of change.”
Consumers seem to be in no hurry
to change their food habits, despite cli-
mate concerns. More than a decade ago,
after a U.N. report found that farmed ani-
mals produced 35% to 40% of all meth-
ane emissions, newspapers including
the Baltimore Sun encouraged consum-
ers to “save the planet with a vegetar-
ian diet.” But despite a plethora of other
reports since then suggesting that eat-
ing meat contributes to climate change,
meat consumption has climbed and is at
an all-time high in the U.S. Global meat
consumption rose by an average of 1.9%
a year in the decade leading up to 2017,
about twice as fast as population growth.
The money poured into food startups
may just reflect wishful thinking on the
part of investors who want to do some-
thing about the climate, even if consum-
ers won’t follow. “The idea that new tech
can fix a major problem that threatens the
life of your grandchild is very tempting,”
says Benjamin Aldes Wurgaft, the author
of Meat Planet, a book about the future of
food. “People hate to feel disempowered—
they always want to have a lever to pull.”
The August U.N. report put a number
on just how much the agricultural system
contributes to climate change. From 21% to
37% of greenhouse- gas emissions caused
by humans derive from agriculture and
food processing, according to the report.
Using land in different ways, like planting
more trees instead of grazing cattle, can
help mitigate climate change, said Cyn-
thia Rosenzweig, a senior research scientist
at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space
Studies and one of the authors of the report.
But as the world’s population grows, trees
are instead being cut down to grow crops.
“There’s the potential for real competi-
tion between mitigating climate change
and ensuring food security,” she said.
Food startups are quick to tout their
environmental benefits. BlueNalu cul-
tures fish tissue from cells to help avoid
overfishing at a time when demand for
seafood is growing. Plenty, the vertical-
farming company, says it can grow the
same amount of fruits and vegetables on
a space the size of a soccer goal as is usu-
ally grown on a football field, while using
1% to 5% of the water of a traditional farm.
Just egg products, which are made from
mung beans, require a fraction of the
water and carbon dioxide needed to pro-
duce other proteins, including beef, pork,
chicken and even tofu.
Food-tech companies say younger
generations care more about the planet
than older ones, and so will choose
climate- friendly foods. Of all theGetting people
to give up
hamburgers or
sausages is tough