The biggest failure in food industry history - part 2

07/05/23 • 26 min

The fantasies of investors have collided with the reality of the supermarket. We are witnessing the long, slow death of the plant-based meat alternatives category. It was the creation of billionaire investors who want to force a 'protein transition' in order to make another billion. In the US and UK sales are falling, despite the billions invested, because the finance bros never bothered to understand the technology or the consumer.

Time: 26 mins.

Time: 26 mins.

Previous Episode

Nutriflaw? The 10 ways that Europe’s Nutri-Score fails

Nuti-Score is a European front of pack labelling scheme which ranks the healthiness of foods on a scale from A (most healthy) to E (least healthy). It's backed by governments in Germany and France. But it's opposed in Italy and Greece. Why? Could it be because it ranks many traditional foods in the Mediterranean diet as D or E? Or could it be because it ranks whole milk (C) as less healthy than Coke Zero (B)? Nutri-Score is flawed. And the evidence suggests that it may not be of much - or any - benefit for public health. It may be the world’s best example of how public health experts’ greatest expertise appears to lie in undermining their own credibility.

Next Episode

Lab-made meat - another avalanche of hype?

Billionaire investors, most of the media, and many environmental activists insist that we will soon all be eating cell-cultivated meat - a substance more commonly referred to as lab meat. Arguments are raging about the technology, its scalability, cost and regulation. But ultimately the decision about whether lab-meat succeeds lies solely in the hands of the consumer. And the evidence from real-world consumer behaviour isn't looking too good for the lab-meat promoters.

Time: 24 minutes.