Thread by @LizSpecht

*New analysis!* “Plant-based meat: Anticipating 2030 production requirements” examines raw materials, processing capacity, infrastructure, & investment required for #plantbasedmeat to hit 6% share of the global meat market by 2030. Insights + report/webinar links below. 1/19

Several market analyses have made bold predictions about the growth of the #alternativeprotein industry, but we wanted to dig deeper to find out what would be required on the supply side to hit these ambitious growth targets. @goodfoodinst’s new analysis is eye-opening. 2/19

Even at only 6% market penetration, we’re talking about an enormous amount of product. FAO estimates for global meat demand in 2030 are nearly 400 million metric tons, so 6% of that is approximately 25 MMT. The industry needs to scale fast to meet this. 3/19

Here are the top 2 takeaways:

#1: Without rapid investment in greater processing capacity and new ingredient solutions, there will be substantial bottlenecks for certain key ingredients, including plant protein concentrates and non-animal sources of saturated fats. 4/19

#2: This need for greater infrastructure, incl. to manuf. the plant-based meat end products, will require substantial capital from financiers like institutional investors, not just the VCs who've eagerly jumped into early-stage company funding rounds. More on this later. 5/19

By projecting ingredient demands based on generic formulations drawn from today’s ingredient decks, we find the plant-based meat industry will require up to 10x more pea protein concentrate & 3x more soy protein concentrate than will be available on current path. 6/19

Does this mean we need to grow more of these crops? Not necessarily! Reductions in animal feed demand by displacing meat demand can counteract the ingredient demand for plant-based meat. What we do need are more protein enrichment facilities to increase processing capacity. 7/19

The next likely bottleneck is fat. Lots of products currently rely on coconut oil for saturated (animal-like) fat. But by 2030, at current formulations, the plant-based meat market would require almost 20% of global coconut supply. We need new solutions, and fast. 8/19

This realization motivated @goodfoodinst’s Research Grant Program to launch a funding opportunity last fall for solutions to source animal-like fats from new plant or microbial sources, or to alter non-saturated fats to act more like animal fats. 9/19 gfi.org/wp-content/upl…

Many companies are working on solutions to address this need, including @NourishHQ, @C16Bio, @Mycorena_AB, Yali Bio, Cultivated Biosciences, Melt&Marble, & more. Researchers at @UCBerkeley & beyond are exploring fat structuring methods too. 10/19
gfi.org/researchgrants…

Now let’s talk about infrastructure. In addition to the facilities needed to produce and process the ingredients required for plant-based meat, there are infrastructure needs for manufacturing the end products themselves. 11/19

This analysis examines a mix of large and medium-sized hypothetical production facilities for high-moisture and low-moisture extrusion (the most common methods for structuring plant proteins into meat textures) and finds we’ll need about 800 production facilities in 2030. 12/19

This total capital expenditure will be on the order of $27B — that’s A LOT, but not an unheard of amount, when we’re talking about transitioning capital-intensive incumbent industries over to new, more sustainable processes in a matter of years. 13/19

For example, clean energy investment grew 7x from 2004 to 2019, from $40B to $282B—a 14% CAGR over 15 years despite high upfront CapEx, entrenched incumbents with depreciated infrastructure assets, & high R&D costs. We can do this. 14/19
wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/hand…

You know what else building 800 new manufacturing facilities means? A lot of new jobs. This was a big part of the appeal of clean energy investment & govt incentives during the great recession: construction jobs to shift our grid over to more sustainable sources. 15/19

Market adoption curves can occur v. fast in many sectors, but in food & ag, transformation entails massive ingredient supply chain & infrastructure implications plus impacts on global commodities markets, which can take time and substantial capital to manifest. 16/19

But this is an investment worth leaning into hard, both by private companies/financiers and by government programs to incentivize bold supply chain investment, ensuring that the #alternativeprotein sector can continue to grow as fast as consumer demand does. 17/19

Learn more by downloading the full report for free: "Plant-based meat: Anticipating 2030 production requirements." 18/19
bit.ly/3FZ218x

Register for our free webinar on Wednesday, January 26th, at 1pm ET to walk through the methodology and findings. We’ll also host a networking session immediately following the webinar, if you’re eager to connect with other solution-seekers. /end
bit.ly/3FZ72hr