I don’t know if you feel a little disgusting, but in the future, you may be drinking cockroach milk and eating beef grown on the machine. There is one thing that everyone

I don’t know if you feel a little disgusted, but in the future, you may be drinking cockroach milk and eating beef grown on the machine.

There is one thing that everyone knows: the current meat industry chain needs to be transformed.

From a hidden slaughterhouse to a nutritionally deficient fast food meat, the ins and outs of meat food make people dare not think about it.

The current commercial meat industry is an accomplice of global warming and ecological deterioration, and has also cultivated generations of obese people for the United States. However, the fat, tender and juicy beef is so tempting, and these old problems are simply vulnerable compared to it.

Fortunately, even for the hard-boiled gourmets who need meat the most, some healthier foods can successfully attract their attention. For example, the Beyond Meat that the Gold Medal Consultant is going to talk about today.

1. What is Beyond Meat

Simply put, Beyond Meat ("Beyond Meat") is a manufacturer of meat alternatives in Los Angeles that manufacture 100% whole plant ingredients. Founded in 2009 by its president Ethan Brown.

His investors include: KPCB, venture capital companies Obvious Corporation, Bill Gate, Biz Stone and the American Humane Society.

Since 2013, Beyond Meat products have been available on Whole Foods Market nationwide.

Beyond Meat is mainly committed to producing imitation meat foods with pure plant-based ingredients to eliminate the negative impact caused by the production process of the meat industry.

BrownThe inspiration for the establishment of Beyond Meat came from his own farm where he often went on weekends when he was a child. It is located in the rural area of ​​Maryland, near the border of Pennsylvania. Brown contacted Xie Fuhong and Harold Huff, two professors at the University of Missouri , from the beginning, who have been studying refining plant proteins for many years.

The two of them spent nearly ten years in the university laboratory testing the extraction of mixed soybean and bowl of soybean protein under different temperatures and pressures, hoping to make plant proteins that are most similar to real chicken regardless of appearance or texture. It took them another five years to make the first product of Beyond Meat, which was the "Chicken-free Chicken Wraps" launched by their company in a limited area in 2012.

Ethan Brown believes that the environmental resources consumed for raising animals are much greater than the nutrients that animals themselves can provide, so directly ingesting nutrients from plants is a good choice for human health and environmental development.

Beyond Meat further emphasizes that their products eliminate the physical burden brought by eating meat, reduce the risk of chronic diseases, and have nutritional value beyond meat. He once said that his long-term goal is to create a product that can meet global meat demand markets, especially markets like India and China.

Beyond Meat develops and produces a series of foods based on plant-based proteins. These vegetarian meat are composed of soy and pea protein isolate, yeast and other ingredients.

By 2014, they launched a series of products such as "Beyond Chicken" and "Beyond Beef".

In 2015, a vegan burger bar with no soy ingredients was launched, named "Beast".

Currently, Beyond Meat's products mainly include plant chicken and plant beef, including chicken wax, meat sauce and meatballs and . They can cook various dishes such as beef pasta soup, beef mushrooms, pumpkin coconut milk chicken curry. Its products are available in retail packaging to purchase, or you can go to a restaurant to enjoy meals made from their products.

Beyond Meat's factory is located in Columbia in . The plant's annual production capacity is about seven million pounds (three million kilograms) chicken alternative.

Beyond Meat product has received a lot of praise. " New York Times " food review writer Mark Peterman has such a comment: "You can't eat anything different from real chicken products that surpass meat. At least I think so by making a living with this (commentary food)."

The richest man in the world Bill﹒ Gates also wrote on his own blog: "I can't eat the difference between meat products and real chicken.”

In 2013, celebrity chef and food show host Alton Brown made such a comment on the “Beyond Chicken” product that goes beyond meat: “This is the most meat-like imitation food I have ever eaten. ”

2. financing

Obvious Ventures is a venture capital company established by Twitter co-founders Evan Williams, Biz Stone, and Jason Goldman. The company began to invest in Beyond Meat in June 2013.

Bill Gates also started investing in their company in 2013 after tasting Beyond Meat’s product samples. Bill Gates said: “I can’t tell the difference between chicken-free products beyond meat and real chicken. ”

In the same year, KPCB, a venture capital firm in Silicon Valley, also became one of the funders of Beyond Meat, which was their first food-related investment. The American Humanitarian Association is also among the investors in Beyond Meat. In 2016, Tyson Foods purchased Beyond 5% of Meat shares.

3. What investors are interested in

Artificial food startups are attracting the attention of more and more investors. Artificial food refers to alternatives to meat, eggs and other foods produced using advanced technology.

focuses on the growth of food in emerging economies, and well-known investors such as Bill Gates have successively invested in food startups.

out of the view of protecting the environment and caring for animals, the animal husbandry industry has been affected. In this context, artificial foods have attracted more and more attention as a growth field.

At present, the production of artificial meat can be divided into two types: tissue culture meat and tissueized protein food. The former uses stem cells to generate meat, which is currently too expensive and will not be popular in the short term; the latter is commonly known as vegetarian ingredients, which uses plant-based proteins to simulate the taste of meat, and is the mainstream manufacturing method of artificial meat.

1. The meat industry is interested in protein

Tyson Foods announced last year that it would set up a venture capital firm with a $150 million investment in food startups, and they claimed to be targeting companies that develop alternative proteins or innovate in food manufacturing processes. Tyson said of their investment in Beyond Meat Foods not only pays attention to animal proteins, but also all proteins. They hope to promote protein growth, but do not care about their source.

2. The market demand for meat continues to increase

Some scientists predict that the world's meat consumption will double the current by 2050, and the demand will increase a lot, which also leads to meat generation problems. The cost of vegetarian ingredients is only 1/3 of that of meat. The advancement of technology can also gradually overcome the obstacles to taste and taste, so artificial meat is gradually welcomed by the business community.

3. Environmental considerations

In addition, in Europe and the United States, criticism of the animal husbandry industry has been increasing, and people are increasingly concerned about artificial alternative foods that can provide protein without killing animals. The United Nations estimates that modern animal husbandry consumes one-third of the world's food, and about one-quarter of the global land is used for grazing. Another survey shows that more than 18% of carbon dioxide emissions come from domestic animals, so the market for artificial alternative foods is expanding.

4. The biggest challenge

1. Cost

For start-ups, the biggest challenge is to expand production while maintaining lower costs. Make artificially cultivated meat close to meat cut from animals in terms of production costs and taste. According to the US Department of Agriculture, the current production cost of an artificial meat startup is about $18,000 per pound of ground beef, while beef at a food store is about $4 per pound.

2. Regulation

Another area that has not yet been clearly defined is regulation. From the perspective of US history, the USDA regulates meat, poultry and eggs; the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is responsible for the safety of food additives. The FDA also regulates food or drugs produced by human tissues, blood, cells, and genes. But emerging artificially cultivated meat may not apply the above regulatory rules.

industry leaders need to find ways to make artificially cultivated meat products meet regulatory requirements.One of the ways is to show regulatory authorities that their products are as safe as existing foods, and there are currently no obstacles to such testing. Most food regulation methods are to place new products into the ranks of already recognized products so that they can prove their safety.

But the regulation of artificially cultivated meat may be more complicated. Because these meats are cultivated rely on cells isolated from animal muscles. They are neither animal food nor food additives, and they can be considered food.

Some people believe that USDA's rules apply to animal foods, so artificially cultivated meat does not comply with their supervision; artificially cultivated meat also exceeds the FDA's supervision because the FDA regulates products containing human cell tissue, but artificially cultivated meat does not come from humans.

In this way, artificially cultivated meat becomes food that is not regulated by the two government departments. From the US perspective, there is still no clear boundary for current regulation, and how to ensure the safety of such foods is still a problem to be solved. But it has been suggested that a new agency will be re-regulated to regulate such foods, which may be a feasible solution.

5. What other artificial food start-ups are there

1.Memphis Meats Inc.

A startup in San Francisco Bay Area . It is said that they have mastered the technology of using cattle cells to produce real meatballs, and have achieved the goal of making meat without blood. Their meatballs are still in the concept stage for the time being, but they plan to get the product on sale within the next 5 years.

2.Mosa Meat

Professor Mark Post from Maastricht University in the Netherlands successfully cultivated the world's first laboratory "Cultured Meat" in August 2013, and held a trial party in London to release this burger made of artificial beef meat patties to the global media.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin (Sergey Brin) is the funder behind Professor Post, who invested $1 million. Bolling believes this is a technology that "once you succeed, you can really change the world."

In 2015, Professor Post founded Mosa Meat, committed to commercializing artificial meat within five years; in October 2016, the improved artificial burger will be unveiled at the second International Conference on Cultured Meat, and the professor became famous in the first session.

3.Modern Meadow

Modern Meadow is an American startup that is able to cultivate livestock and leather in the lab. For the use of meat and leather for these cultivated livestock, the current stage is mainly to supply fashion designers and leather product manufacturers to meet the growing global demand for the goods made by these manufacturers. Of course, it should be pointed out that animals and the environment will not be harmed during the development of 3D printing.

Modern Meadow CEO Andras Forgacs once publicly stated to the media that the cells stored by the company and used to "brew" leather and livestock meat are obtained through small living tissue sections, which will not hurt, hurt or kill animals. Moreover, in the future, bioprinted meat will not only meet human needs for animal protein, but will also be beneficial to protecting the environment.

In 2014, Horizons Ventures, a venture capital company under Li Ka-shing, led a US$10 million Series A investment in Modern Meadow Inc.

4.Impossible Foods

In 2016, a vegetarian meat burger became popular in Momofuku, a restaurant by famous American chef David Chang. The vegetarian meat in this burger comes from Impossible Foods invested by Li Ka-shing.

It is understood that Impossible Foods is a project led by Patrick Brown, a professor of biochemistry at Stanford University. In order to develop vegetarian meat that not only looks like meat, tastes like meat, but also is composed of pure plants that do not add toxic preservatives, Impossible Foods spent five years and invested $80 million in R&D costs.The reason why

is able to produce such a product is due to the discovery and extraction of heme. It is understood that many animals and plants contain heme, but it is very high in animal tissues and other muscle tissues, so these foods have a unique taste. Patrick Brown is to break down the proteins in plants, and then reorganize them, allowing sugars, vitamins, plant fats, etc. to chemically react, produce a meaty aroma and show the light redness of the meat.

A foodie thought it was very good after tasting it, and this is a vegetarian burger he thinks is currently comparable to real burgers. Currently, this vegetarian burger + fries is priced at US$12. Users can even choose "meat" of different thicknesses according to their personal preferences. To the extent of cookedness, there are also: five-point cooked, eight-point cooked, full cooked, etc.

5.Hampton Creek Foods

San Francisco technology startup Hampton Creek is determined to use high-tech methods to completely subvert the traditional egg industry.

This new egg will be cheaper, cleaner and hygienic, and (speakably) taste better.

Investors include Bill Gates, famous Silicon Valley venture capitalists Peter Thiel and Khosla Ventures.

CEO Josh Tetrick said that 1.8 trillion eggs are produced worldwide every year, 99% of which come from mechanized chicken farms, and less than 1% are laid on free-range chickens. 99% of these eggs are produced in a miserable and crowded environment by cage chickens, and Hampton Creek tries to produce egg substitutes in cheaper and better ways, ending this backward production method that has lasted for more than a hundred years.

Hampton Creek's R&D team is mainly composed of biochemistry experts. They are not so-called food experts, but are proficient in the construction of proteins. They studied the molecular structure of 1,500 plants, separated and reorganized the proteins, and copied to create new foods with the same nutritional composition and taste as traditional eggs - the cost is 48% cheaper than traditional eggs. The biggest advantage of the manufacturing method of

is that it can be developed iteratively - that is, just like Windows and Apple software, it will continue to improve and launch Mayonnaise 1.0, Mayonnaise 2.0, etc. On the contrary, animal products like eggs stay at their current level and will not make any progress.

6.Farmhouse Culture

htmlOn March 8, 301 Inc, a venture capital fund owned by General Mills, led a Series D investment in Farmhouse Culture, a probiotic food and beverage company, with an investment amount of US$6.5 million. Farmhouse Culture did not disclose details of the previous rounds of financing. The food startup's products are widely sold and are available in more than 3,000 supermarkets across the United States.

Farmhouse Culture is unique in that it focuses on probiotics. Probiotics are said to improve the balance of microecology in the human intestinal body and have positive benefits for the human body. There are many types of probiotics, mainly referring to lactic acid bacteria and some yeasts. Preliminary scientific clinical experimental data show that the supplementation of probiotics may have health care effects such as maintaining the immune system, intestinal health, and preventing cancer. "Americans are now very fond of the health care function of probiotics, and they are looking for more ways to supplement healthy probiotics from food," said Mr. John Tucker, CEO of

Farmhouse Culture.

Farmhouse Culture was founded in 2008 by Kathryn Lukas and originally sold sauerkraut on the farm market in California. As the management team grows, Farmhouse Culture begins to expand its business. The company now sells a fermented vegetable called "Gut Shots" and plans to open up new categories by the end of this year.

(Gold Medal Consultant Analyst: Sha Yongjie)