Welcome to “the last bite,” an end-of-week food and ag roundup from the Minnesota Star Tribune. Reach out to business reporter Brooks Johnson at brooks.johnson@startribune.com to share your news and surprising ways you’ve encountered AI at work.
A solid way to convince the world to go vegan is through economic incentives, according to Impossible Foods founder Pat Brown.
“The best possible product at the lowest possible price,” said the meat-substitute maven.
Brown spoke alongside Miyoko Schinner, founder of vegan dairy company Miyoko’s Creamery, at Food Ag Ideas Week on Monday in Minneapolis. And both shared their prognostications on the future of the nonanimal-product food industry.
“Economics is the biggest driver of behavior change, and, in fact, is probably the biggest driver of changes in cultures,” Brown said. “I still believe it’s completely realistic that within a couple of decades, driven purely by innovation and consumer choice, animal-based food production will be … in the rearview mirror.”
Schinner sees a similar fate, but she no longer shares the same faith in the market to deliver it.
“The approach has to be through the embracing of culture and the embracing of community,” she said. “Changes happen only through awareness [and] our adoption of certain foods and developing them, not just top-down, but bottom-up from a grassroots setting, from just ordinary people in their kitchens, cooking.”
The plant-based pioneers, who are no longer with their companies, agreed the shift needs to happen to prevent and reverse climate change and preserve the planet’s ability to provide food and habitat for future generations of people and animals.
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