What do consumers really want to know about food?

Posted on December 18, 2019 by Christophe Pelletier

My previous article about what consumers know about food is only part of the equation. What is as important is to know what they want to know and why. When it comes to knowledge of food, consumers can be divided into three main groups. There are those who know about food and most are always interested to learn more. Then, there is the (large) group of people who do not know. Some are willing to learn. Usually, they are confused by all the contradictory points of views that they hear or read and they just do not know who they should believe. This open-minded sub-group gathers people from all walks of life. They may have their biases but they are willing to change their minds. Another sub-group among those who do not know much about food gathers people who do not know and do not care as long as their food is safe, tastes good to them and has the right price. Then there is the third group, the difficult group of those who think they know but don’t. Usually, they are not willing to learn because, well, they already know it all and they are certainly not looking forward to have their certainties challenged. This group can be divided into two sub-groups, too: those who think they have the monopoly of science and those who think they have the monopoly of morals.

In this article, I will focus on the people who have the willingness to learn about food. What would be the point of trying to spend time if that willingness was not there? Also, all I can tell is my personal experience when meeting with people who are asking questions about food and where it is all going. Actually, I always found that the conversations I have had with people asking me about food and agriculture went quite well. I guess the secret for that is to not try to force people into any conclusion. Let them decide for themselves. People do not like being told what they should know and believe. It is a very normal reaction, and that is why so-called “educating” the consumer will never really achieve much. Just have a relaxed talk without any particular agenda other than to listen and respect each other’s point of view.

Further, even though marketing experts always like to define specific areas of attention, the mapping of consumers is not all that useful when it comes to the food conversation. Of course people are concerned about health, environment, origin of product, production methods, etc… When you look at what consumers want to know, it really comes down to two main issues. One is “How do I know that my food won’t make me sick -or worse?”, and the other one is “Can I trust the food producer?” These two issues are quite interconnected and not easy to address for food suppliers. The first issue, which really comes down to the topic of food safety is work in progress. There has never been full absolute food safety in the past and it will not be possible to guarantee that in the future, either. A large part of food safety issues actually happen in the consumers’ homes because of poor food handling. Many consumers do not know the basics of proper food handling. But even at the producer’s level, no production system is immune. Problems happen just as well with industrial production as with farmers’ market type of food. It happens with large producers just as it happens with small producers. This is where the issue of trust plays an important role. Consumers want to know which suppliers they can trust for food that does not contain anything harmful or/and weird. In previous posts, I have raised the issue of trust many times and mentioned how difficult it is to earn. Why do some food producers earn trust and others not? It has been the idea of brands since day one: the consumer can recognize the producer easily and know that the product is reliable every time. In our world flooded with information, rumours and stories of all sorts, and with a reach like never before, this is not sufficient anymore. If the question of how to earn trust is often difficult to answer, another way of looking at it is to do what I like to do when I cannot get an answer: to look at it from the opposite angle. The question then becomes what makes consumers not trust a producer? I am sure that you can make a list of reasons very quickly. Here I can give you a few: not knowing the producer, bad or unknown reputation, unreliable quality, regular problems, hiding information, not answering questions, lying to the customer, saying one thing and doing another, etc… It has a lot to do with quality of the product and quality of the communication, and consumers want to know what the quality of both is.

Traceability and transparency address those concerns to some extent. They are certainly helping by creating a much required communication and openness. However, the question remains whether food suppliers are on the same wave length as what consumers want to know. Traceability and transparency are not new concepts. They were part of my dealings with my customers some 25 years ago, and I still have the same reservations today as I had by then. I can state without any doubt that traceability is essential but I would like to see it become a proactive tool, instead of about just recording history. I remember telling one of my customers by then that I thought that traceability in order to be able to explain on rather short notice what went wrong was really short changing the customer. With today’s mass digitalization, which makes getting the information about the records even quicker, I believe that my point has become even more important. Traceability cannot just be about finding out the cause of a problem after the customer has found out. I always have considered that the customer can never be the quality control of a supplier. If producers have traceability systems that allow them to tell within moments what went wrong, then the system has to be able to prevent the problem from happening. The traceability system has to be connected with the quality assurance system. With the rise of sensors, internet of things, data collection software and artificial intelligence, the traceability system must become the frame for quality assurance and the high-tech devices will have to allow a real time 100% quality control on physical, chemical and biological quality criteria. It will have to be able to shut down the production line as soon as a deviation from the quality standard occurs. Traceability will move from “writing history” to “making (clean) history”. There are already a lot of possible quality defects that are prevented from being sent to consumers but it has to be even better in the future. Ideally, the objective must become zero recall, because even if recalls help prevent problems from getting worse, their incidence is creating a feeling of insufficient safety.

Regarding transparency, I believe that there is a disconnect between what food producers are doing and what consumers are looking for. Of course, the best way to be fully transparent is to put every bit of data and information in the system. From a consumer’s point of view, what is transparency really about? Do you know anyone who wants to check every detail of the production of what s/he buys? Consumers might be interested to know from which farm their food comes from. They might be interested in knowing the farmer’s name and see pictures. Will they want to be interested in digging as far as to know when chickens were born and when, what feeds they ate during their life and where the feeds came from and what they were made of and where the ingredients used for the feed came from and when they were produced, or would they really be interested in knowing the genealogy of the chickens and look up for where the parents and grandparents were raised, or have the production details in the slaughterhouse? I doubt it. In my opinion, the highest value of transparency for consumers is that the food producer has it and is willing to show everything if questions arise. In other words, the producer is not trying to hide or misrepresent anything. After all transparent means exactly that: you can see for yourself through the window and you do it without having someone telling you what and where to look. More than the content of information presented, it is the food producer’s attitude that matters. The role of social media also amplifies the need for transparency, but it also may contain some pitfalls for producers. A recent survey by Deloitte shows that Millennials and GenZ assess producers by their values a lot and that their loyalty will be to the values and not to the brand. I believe that values are going to be a critical aspect of how consumers choose from whom they will buy their food, and anything else. The combination of social media with heightened sense of individualism (some would say narcissism) and yet at the same time a strong trend towards polarization and tribalism around sets of values and beliefs means that food producers will have to navigate skillfully in the future.

How much do consumers really know about food?

Posted on December 3, 2019 by Christophe Pelletier

Perhaps it is a case of multiple copy-and-paste events but I was surprised to read and hear recently in several occasions something that intrigued me. According to some research, millennials would know a lot more than their parents and previous generations about food and how it is produced. It surprised me because I wish I could bump into millennials who know something about food. Actually I wish I could bump into people from any generation that would have some significant knowledge of food and agriculture. I also disagree with those who claim that people have never known as little about food and agriculture as nowadays, but those have their own hidden agenda.

The main reason marketers are interested in the millennials is that this group has much more money than previous generations, or at least that is the thinking. Since the world population has more than tripled since 1950, representing an increase of more than 5 billion people, it is no surprise that millennials represent a financial force. However, one should look at the average individual financial situation of a millennial compared with previous generations. If the group has more money as a whole but less on an individual basis, their consumption pattern might not be as expected. Also, it would be wise to compare between regions as the boost might be different depending on whether they live in emerging countries or mature developed countries.

So, have I been sleeping too much lately or do I meet the wrong people? Or is it a matter of confusing terms as it seems to happen more and more. Do millennials have more knowledge about food, or is it perhaps that they have access to more information? As Einstein supposedly said, “Information is not knowledge” and this might be truer more than ever in today’s world where we are constantly buried in information, some of it being accurate and most of it being not so, sometimes by accident and sometimes on purpose. It would be good to think about several concepts that we tend to consider synonyms while they are quite different: data, information, fact, knowledge, truth and wisdom. I will try to explain the difference by using a very food and agriculture related metaphor.

Imagine data as a field of potatoes. There are plenty of plants and potatoes in the field and you are going to harvest. All you do is to collect all the potatoes from the field and eventually bring them to a place where you will sort out what you have harvested. At that stage, potatoes are just like data. It is raw units without any processing of any sort. All you can tell at this stage is how many potatoes you have, what they are and what the total volume is.

Once the potatoes have been harvested, you are going to look at them in more detail. You are going to sort out the small ones from the larger ones. You are going to sort out the ones that may have been damaged or are not proper to send to market. Depending on the criteria that are useful for you, you are going to distribute your potatoes into small groups according to various qualities and uses. Each group or package has a particular relevance. You want to make these groups in such a way that they are useful, practical and to make something good out of each group. Each group contains information that either your customers if you sell the potatoes or the person who cooks will use to decide what to do with the potatoes. Are they for mashing, for frying, for sautéing, for baking, etc…?

Once the potatoes have been sorted out, you have information and that information could fit on a label. If the label is accurate, anyone using the group of potatoes will have some knowledge of what the bag contains, but they will not have all the knowledge. Will other users know when the potatoes have been harvested, what variety they are, how they have been produced and by whom and if they are safe to eat? Here is why regulations, traceability and transparency increase the amount of information to the user who will use the batch of potatoes. As long as the information is correct, it equates to some knowledge. If the information in incomplete, so is the knowledge. If the information is incorrect, it is neither knowledge nor truth and can lead to wrong decisions by the user. If the information is incorrect on purpose, it is deception and even fraud (think about the case of horse meat that was labelled as beef in Europe a couple of years ago, the numerous cases of fraudulent fish names or the fact that many honey pots might contain more corn fructose syrup than honey but labelled as if it were all pure honey). Here is a case for information vs. misinformation vs. disinformation vs. deception and lies.

So imagine that the gossip mill now says that your potatoes have been contaminated by some disease or some creatures roaming in your field. How can you tell and how can the user of your potatoes tell? You grew the potatoes and you sorted them out, so you can tell if there were signs of disease, such as for instance black spots. You grow potatoes and you know what kind of disease of defect that may mean. How do you know and how do you translate the information (presence of black spots) into the knowledge of what the cause is? You know from experience, and that is exactly the difference between information and knowledge. Experience can be your own or someone else’s that you consult on the problem at hand. You and they have gathered experience into knowledge. Experience links information and facts into knowledge and understanding. Acquiring knowledge is a learning process. Reading information is not. So, what will happen with the person at home buying a bag of potatoes and finding black spots? If they do not have the experience, their imagination can go wild and they will enter their interpretation into the gossip mill (aka as social media). Many people without knowledge will forward the posting. Since they have no knowledge of potatoes they will not know if they should or not blow life in the gossip, but since something “weird” happened, how could they resist the urge to share and they will forward the information to the larger community and add their own comments such as “ew!!” , “gross!!”, “unacceptable!!”, “shame!!” or even “boycott Christophe’s potatoes because they are weird and probably not naturally grown, etc…” and that is how a simple little problem can spin out of control and how ignorance and basic human nature attraction for gossip will change the fate of my growing potatoes.

Information is one thing and knowledge is another, but what about the truth? If I come with facts to explain what the deal is with my potatoes, two things can happen: people will believe me or they will not. Trust is an essential part in having customers believing the explanation. If people do not trust me, there is a good chance that they will not believe me. If they trust me, that is not a guarantee that they necessarily will trust me. Trust is always difficult to earn. It is difficult to earn the first time. It is incredibly easy to lose. To regain a second time, it is much more difficult than it was the first time. Trust depends on other people’s beliefs and it depends on the ability to convince. But when you take the broader picture of the gossip mill, in which other people will bring arguments against my explanation, there is competition for trust, whom do they trust more, me and my explanation or the social media mob? People do not necessarily trust those with knowledge, they trust those they believe. That can be dangerous. After all, it is easy to have an opinion. Everyone can have one on everything. having an opinion is not the same as to be an expert. No knowledge is required to have an opinion. usually, all it takes for people to give their opinion is to believe they know. Perhaps, this is the worst when it comes to information: people who think they know but don’t. I come across quite a few of those. Beliefs always weigh more than facts, and that is why facts alone are not helpful when it comes to telling the true story about the potatoes. Being disappointed by my potatoes would not be a rational experience. It would be experienced by the users as a breach of confidence in the produce and the supplier. The first step is to connect at that emotional level of the disappointment. Only by connecting emotionally is it possible to gradually bring the conversation to more rational aspects. The other important part in regaining trust is to make sure to not disappoint again. People accept one mistake but they do not take well the same mistake when it is made again.

So, do the younger generations know about their food is produced? They may truly think that they do, but that is not the same as actually knowing. I also have mixed feelings about opposing generations. It is likely that millennials have different concerns, different values and different beliefs than their parents and grandparents. Yet, I have the strong feeling that I see more variation within a generation than I see between generations. Millennials may be exposed to a lot of information, but do they sort out the information in a rational way or do they simply choose the information coming from people they believe or who share the same values? I believe (I won’t be bold as to say I know) that the latter prevail. The difference may not be that one generation knows more about food and agriculture but that they are more concerned about it. That is not the same and it has little to do with knowledge. I also suspect that the concern is not just about food but it is more of an existential concern in times of uncertainty. It always seems that people are more critical about their food when they are pessimistic about the future. When everything goes well, those concerns do not seem to weigh as much.

What effect it will have on future food and agriculture depends largely on whom future consumers decide to believe. Psychology plays a very important part in food choices and I do not expect that to change any time soon. It has advantages but also disadvantages. Is it wise to think this way? Wisdom is the ability to discern the truth from beliefs to make the right decisions. The future will tell if wisdom will go in parallel with information.

What’s ahead for plant-based foods?

Posted on November 27, 2019 by Christophe Pelletier

Over the past year, there has been quite a bit of talk about alternative proteins and in particularly the so-called plant-based products. Let’s face it; the hype (which I already mentioned in my previous article about cow farts) has been very well organized to inflate what has been going on in the markets. Probably, it is part of the culture of “disruptive” tech start-ups. They are quite good at using social media, making the wildest claims about how they are all going to change the world. When it comes to food, what will happen before you know it is that there will be no need for farms anymore. Just take a look at Sci-Fi movies and it is there! Yeah, right. The problem, well one of the problems, I have with this is that I have heard it before. Actually, I heard similar things before today’s disruptors were even born. In the 1970s, after the Apollo programs, we would not eat traditional foods anymore. No, our meals were going to be contained in pills. Yeah, right. It did not happen. Around the turn of the century, we had the new economy, not just a new economy, but the new economy thanks to dotcoms and internet. The old economy was history, for ever. Yeah, remind me how the dotcom bubble burst and how a few years later the old economy demonstrated it was still alive and kicking through its Great Recession. More recently, we all heard that Amazon was going to “disrupt” retail so much that brick and mortar retailers were going to go down. Yes, Wal-Mart was finished. Not. Actually, Wal-Mart is doing quite fine and for a simple reason. Solid businesses follow what is happening in their markets and they make the proper changes. And that is exactly what happened with most retailers around the world. They went digital and they started to sell online and deliver to customers. Similarly, e-books were going to kill paper books and online diplomas were to mean the end of universities. Well, paper books and bookstores certainly have had difficult times but they did a nice comeback. And universities are still very much alive, while the MOOCs are the ones that seem to have left the building. There is more to life than digital versions of the original products and services. Silicon Valley and co suffer of a good dose of hubris. Maybe, they should attend to that before it might become their demise some day.

The thing with so-called disruption is that the only businesses that actually get disrupted (in the true sense of the word, not the trendy sense) are the ones that are asleep and not paying attention. They would have died anyway. The businesses that are awake adapt. That is pretty basic business stuff. Since I got started about disruption, I would just say that I do not like that term because as I mentioned earlier, it is taken in its new trendy meaning, which really means nothing else than innovation and change, but those words are too mundane. I will agree that disruption sounds more dangerous. It makes you feel like a rebel and a threat. Yeah, isn’t it something that we all fantasize over when we are kids, being a tough rebel?

Let me be clear, I am all for innovation and for having implemented changes in a number of businesses; I know that it is a constant of life, but I am interested in change that is a natural evolution toward real improvement. I am much less interested in gadgets and made-up hypes that have as primary goal to fill the pockets of a few. I guess I am not easily impressed and it is not because something is the flavor of the month that I forget about my good old well rooted-in critical mind.

So let’s go back to the plant-based protein products. First, they are nothing new, even if the current business owners want to make us believe that their products are jewels of high-tech. If so, how come that so many companies are going in the very same market on such short notice? The answer is simple, those products are not difficult to replicate. Plant-based alternatives are not new and they have been around for a couple of millennia for some of them such as tofu, koftas and falafel. Soy burgers have been around since the 1930s, really becoming mainstream in the 1980s.

What makes the current ones so different? Honestly, not that much at all. So why the hype? For two reasons mostly. One is the use of social media which are great tools to inflate whatever message you have and that so many people are willing to relay for you without even knowing what they are talking about. But it makes them feel part of the tribe for as long as it lasts. The other one is that this time big money has been invested in those companies and wants to cash in big, so they are putting their resources and their relationships at work to reach that goal. When your product is the talk of the day every day in every media outlets, it sounds like it has taken over the world. It’s just good old-fashioned smoke and mirror tactics. Just find out which billionaires and venture capitalists have put money in these companies and you will realize that it is a beautiful exercise in investor-driven social-media-led push marketing for a production-driven commodity business. Here in Canada, we have seen the exact same pattern with cannabis stocks after the country legalized cannabis sales a year ago. A lot of hype was aimed at having money buying stocks so that the founders could make great capital gains. It almost sounded that because of the new legislation, every Canadian would splurge on pot, either breathing it or eating and drinking it. Yeah right. As if making something legal would inevitably turn people into addicts. Pot users could already find all they needed before the legalization, as is the case everywhere in the world. So, the market was already well defined. Nonetheless, cannabis stocks shoot up like rockets because when greed kicks in people get gullible. Actually, I suspect greed is as addictive as drugs. Early investors sold on time with big fat capital gains and one year later, the share price of cannabis stocks are stagnating to low levels again. I expect something similar to happen with plant-based protein stocks. It is already kind of happening already, especially with Mr. Big Bucks-who-blames-cows-for-farting-for personal-gain having sold his Beyond Meat stocks quite conveniently before they started to stumble.

What is ahead for plant-based meat alternatives?

The first thing to think about is what those products are. What do they mimic? They mimic beef burgers mostly and sausages to some extent. They do not look as much like fresh beef burgers as they do the basic sad frozen ones. My point here is that they look like cheap commodities. And the thing about looking like a commodity is that it makes your product a commodity. The fact that so many other companies can replicate similar product in such a short period of time just confirms that it is a commodity and certainly not a niche specialty. The first rule for a niche to resist competition is that the product/service is quite difficult to replicate and match. Clearly, that basic first rule does not apply here. The only product that escapes the commoditization risk is the plant-based shrimp. Shrimps are a commodity but there is such a shortage of seafood compared with demand, shrimp prices are high and should remain high for a while. Imitation shrimp profit margins should be more resilient.

The second thing that comes to mind is the price of plant-based protein products. I can give here only what I can see in the stores around where I live in Canada. The regular price for a half-pound package of plant-based burger is CAD7.99 (that’s CAD15.98 per lbs). That is about twice the regular price of a pound of ground beef, but I can buy ground beef on ad for CAD3.99 and even from time to time CAD2.99. The price gap is quite big, and that will have to change if the plant-based burgers want to gain substantial market share. I believe this is starting to happen with a Canadian brand of plant-based burgers advertising last week at CAD4.99 for half a pound (that’s down 40% from the regular price) and this week the American brand was for sale at CAD5.99 for half a pound (25% down from regular price). Price drop has to be compensated by additional volumes to achieve profit margin goals. Here a word of advice to the CEO of that American company who expressed not being interested in hearing about his competitors (weird statement but what the heck, who can you fear when you think you are God): pay attention to your competitors because they want to take a slice of the pie and possibly your entire pie with it; their growth will not be your growth. Prices start to show some action and the big meat companies who are about to enter have not made their mark yet. That is going to be fun, because the hype created this idea that the market potential is huge and they are ramping up to produce large volumes. The meat and poultry industry has a long history of overcapacity, oversupply and profit margin destruction. I suspect that they will bring some of that experience in the plant-based imitation meat. I think things are going to be interesting. Prices are going to go down and raw materials (soybeans and peas) probably will increase in price to match demand. Prices down plus costs up is the perfect equation for squeezed margins, both for plant-based and animal protein by the way. The ones who will benefit the most are the crop farmers to some extent, but mostly the producers of protein isolates (the raw material used to produce the imitation burgers), the highest margin will be in the health and wellness protein supplement sector, basic low-cost plant-based burgers should well because of attractive pricing, and perhaps the consumers to some extent.

But for consumers, a couple of other things will play a role. One of them is perception. Do they like the product? And with perception comes value. Will the perceived value be higher than the price gap between the imitation product and the original beef? Perception is not just about the product but also about the company. So far, producers are perceived as small start-ups, which is often translated by consumers as small, brave and pure. If they knew actually how much big money and Big Agriculture is behind, I wonder how that would affect perception, and this time will come because, after all, are we not in a transparent food system by now as all food corporation like to claim?

Plant-based burgers producers brag about the many places where they have their products offered to consumers, but being on the menu of a restaurant is not the same as having consumers actually buying it, but they present it as it were, and stock markets react accordingly. There has been a lot of buying out of curiosity because of the hefty social-media hype but the perception is a different story. I have read many reviews and I cannot see any significant trend one way or another. There are those who praise the product and there those who trash it. Online reviews are notorious for the amount of fake reviews and I am sure there are plenty of those on both sides for obvious hidden agenda reasons. Fact is however that only after a few weeks in the trial, the Canadian restaurant chain Tim Hortons removed the plant-based burgers from its locations except in British Columbia and Ontario. Plant-based burgers “opponents” mention a number of characteristics they do not like: high price, highly processed products, high sodium content, long list of ingredients and some ingredients they can hardly read and have no idea what they are. I will make a mention of sodium content here. In the stores around my place, I can find only one Canadian brand and one American brand. I compared the sodium content of their products with regular potato chips. Here are the numbers: potato chips 230 mg sodium for 50 g product, Canadian brand imitation burger 540 mg sodium for 113 g (that’s 239 mg Na per 50 g of product – slightly more than the potato chips!!); and American imitation burger 340 mg sodium for 113 g product (that’s 150 mg Na per 50 g of product – that’s two thirds of the potato chips sodium content). Why don’t they add sodium and let people decide how much salt they want to put on their burger? I know the answer to that question but I will let you figure it out. I rarely buy potato chips but when I do, I buy the half sodium ones, which are lower in sodium than even the American imitation burger. You can make the same comparison with what you find in your stores and draw your own conclusions.

The third thing to expect is the push back from the animal protein producers, and that has already started. There are many fights about definition of meat and dairy. Let’s face it, the producers of plant-based products know very well that if they advertise to carnivores with an herbivore undertone, it will not work very well, so they try to make their products look more carnivore-like. There are also fights about environmental claims about benefits of plant-based vs. animal protein, many of them unsubstantiated. Altogether, plant-based products keep many lawyers busy. The fact that there many legal battles does not bode well. In France, there is an old saying: “better a poor agreement than a good lawsuit”. It will be interesting to see how that will translate for the future of plant-based. Of course, bold statements such as the plant-based sector bring the US meat and dairy sectors to complete collapse by 2030 is not a great way to make friends. Plus, please refer to the beginning of my article for why existing businesses are much more resilient that newcomers tend to think, but hey they have to attract investors’ money after all so no claim is bold enough.

Regardless of all the fights and arguments, the market will decide and as usual markets will decide on price and value. The value will be about money but also about health and environmental aspects as well. The question, though, will be whether the price differential will be worth it. I indicated prices earlier. In terms of potential market share, from reliable sources I have found it sounds like plant-based might represent 2% of the protein market in 2020 and perhaps reach 10% in 2030 in the USA. To gain more market share, plant-based imitation meat products would probably need to be offered at half the price they are now at least, everything remaining equal, further. If they don’t adjust their pricing, they will be happy to amount to 5%. Also and because the market could be crowded, plant-based protein producers will have to differentiate themselves from the competition and the characteristics that I mentioned earlier will weigh more, and so will the use of GMO ingredients or not play a role. Of course, there is a good chance that, as usual with the food industry, they all will try to differentiate themselves the same way, thus shifting their universe a bit to the right but all offering more or less the same.

If going plant-based protein is more efficient than meat, and it is because it removes one layer in the food chain, then it would only be logical that plant-based be cheaper both in price and in cost, but it’s not because unfortunately most “future of food” products are not meant to cater the hungry poor. So, here is another price to keep in mind: the price for a pound of cooked beans, peas, chickpeas and lentils is around CAD0.99 per pound. If you wish to switch to vegetarian, using the wholesome grain in the first place without industrial processing is quite a financially attractive proposition and I believe that they will be winners for the future from a global perspective, not just the US market with its First World solutions for First World problems. The thing is that the First World does not seem to know about cooking anymore, in spite of trendy flashy kitchens. The market will also decide which businesses succeed and which ones fail. Start-ups little gods or not, the percentage of failure remains the same as ever: about 75% of businesses do not make it longer than 3 years. Often, the reason is ignoring competition and not understanding that it takes much more than production methods to win over customers. As for the animal protein sector, what will be the consequences? I have written a few articles about the subject (do a search on meat and protein in the search bar on the right hand side of this page to get the list of articles). I will simply finish with a chart that show past consumption and estimates of animal protein consumption for the future based on UN FAO data and you will see that animal protein are really not expected to suffer from competition of alternative protein sources.

There will be plenty of room for everybody: animal protein, plant protein, processed or wholesome, as well as traditional products and all sorts of innovative alternatives. There is no need for cockiness, belligerent statements and inexact claims. The markets and future economics will sort out the winners. In the end, we all have to work together and the key will be about producing and consuming sustainably. Production systems will change. That is normal. And it is going to take the efforts of all 10 billion people and their food choices, not just from food producers.

The joy of independence and what’s in it for you

Posted on November 22, 2019 by Christophe Pelletier

Perhaps, it has to do with unwinding towards the end of the year after a busy period, but lately I have increasingly been feeling a strong satisfaction with my activities about the future of food and agriculture. If the time of the year may play a role, I believe that it has a lot to do with the enthusiasm and the many smiles and conversations that I have had with my recent customers and audiences. They clearly feel happy about what I brought them and I feel happy about a job well done. As such, this is not a new observation, as it has been going on since day one I ventured on my own exploring how and where we will be getting which foods in the future. It just that now it reaches the level of bliss. I feel super-energized and I guess it shows. That is the kind of stuff that simply is contagious. I totally master the subject and the topics I deal with on an on-going basis. Last week, the chair of the conference for which I was the keynote speaker introduced me in about these terms: “often we get the feedback that they [the futurists speakers] don’t understand our business, well be assured that the one we have for you today, Christophe Pelletier, understands it quite well, and I am sure you are going to enjoy what he is going to say”. The presentation went very well and I guess I made many interesting points, as the following speakers made quite a few references to my presentation to emphasize their points.

You may ask where does the feeling of satisfaction come from? It is not just about mastering the subject. It is in the way that I reach that quality and to me the most important thing is my being independent, not just as a business but even more so as a mind. I do not think I could deliver the quality that I do if I were not so totally independent in my thinking. I put a lot of effort in exercising critical thinking. If forces me to be both open-minded and never take anything at face value, even (or more so especially) if the information that I review comes from so-called influencers. I am naturally suspicious of influencers. I double check about everything I read and hear. I also have a special ability to quickly do math mentally and see if all the information presented adds up. The words always sound great but when you quantify, you quickly realize that the numbers often do not support much of the story. When I was hired by BP Nutrition (which later would become Nutreco), and started my professional career, 32 years ago, I told my bosses that I had serious second thoughts on the use of antibiotics in animal production and I thought it could be dome with much less. I also expressed my concerns about housing systems for calves (boxes), for hens (cages) and sows (tethering). Needless to say that those were bold statements from a rookie to a solidly well-established agribusiness corporation to make. Well, look how much change there has been and still is on those issues. I was lucky to have open-minded bosses who were interested to hear why I thought the way I did. I was even luckier to have a boss in the pig department who let me lead a group of piglets that I would help toughen up by boosting their immunity system through tougher climate conditions. Those piglets were indestructible. They looked more grey than pink and looked rough at the edges but healthy as can be. By then, it was too early to initiate a revolution on antibiotics but I had shown the potential. Later in poultry, I also showed how the economics of animal welfare worked on profitability and demonstrated that proper animal handling was actually financially better.

The critical thinking and double-checking are areas in which I seem to differentiate myself from many other people in my field. I see way too much cases of copy and paste reports and way too many second-hand unchecked almost facts. My approach and my process are not opaque, on the contrary. I present it to my clients and audiences, so that they understand where I coming from when I say what I say. It allows them to also react and thus, we have a conversation which purpose really is about getting to the bottom of things. It is not about what I believe vs. what you believe but it is about what you know and what I know so that we get the best of both worlds. In a way you could say that my brain is an open source for my customers. It is not about influencing through a seductive story or a pre-decided assumption of absolute expertise; it is about convincing based on solid facts. My purpose is not to tell anyone what they should think. After all I have to walk my talk because I do not like being told what I should think, either. My purpose is to bring as many elements as possible to my customers to let them come to the most rational and sensible conclusions. I was just mentioning expertise and although I guess I am perceived as an expert in my field, I really do not know what an expert really is. My angle is to connect to the day-to-day realities of my customers and to present them with information and knowledge that is useful and practical to them. I do not do presentations that are catalogues of technologies or of trendy stuff, for better word. That is easy to do. You can ask your 12 year-old nephew to do a Google search of the future of agtech or the future of food and he will present you a list of items that would make him look like an expert, especially if it is a presentation that has a limited amount of time. Recently, a member of one of the audiences was telling me he appreciated my presentation style because it did not seem learned by heart and regurgitated mechanically like he was saying he sees happening too often. That was one of the nicest compliment I could get. Indeed, I live the future of food and agriculture and I have understood, processed and integrated all the knowledge that I share. It comes naturally. Actually, I do not have any cue cards to help me. All I do is to time my presentations but for the rest I talk in the same way I would if I had a one-on-one conversation. I also like to get eye contact with audience members. To me, it is an exchange with the audience. I maybe on the podium, but I never consider myself being on a pedestal. My mind is free. My mind tells a story that has no hidden agenda, nor does it tell what I might think the audience would like to hear or would not like to hear. It has happened that potential customers would want me not to address certain things they don’t like. That is a problem, because I am not trying to shock or upset, but I cannot add value if censorship comes in. I present objective facts for which I have background information. I welcome conversation. If you have a different opinion, let’s hear about it. Conversation is how we learn and improve, and it is true for me, too.

Being a free and independent mind is important, but having an independent business is just as important. I have no conflict of interest whatsoever. Nobody has shares in my company but me. Because I have an independent mind and I work in an objective and honest manner, I do not advocate any product, service or system whatsoever. I present my views on pros and cons, though. And I explain why I think the way I think, so that we can have a constructive conversation. I do own any share of any business I talk about, or if I did I would disclose it immediately. I do not have side function in any association and I am not on the board of any company that would influence my thinking or induce a bias in my thinking. If I did, I would disclose it immediately. That independence is what allows me to add value. My customers do not have to worry that I might be pushing any particular hidden agenda. Not every consultant can say the same, and let’s face it, it is easy to spot those who have vested interests in the story they tell. In particular, beware of organizations that include terms that imply some sort of intellectually authority such as Institute, Center, Forum, Think Tank or Foundation, or which names ends with “ity”, as those very often work for -or are part of- special interest groups, sometimes they are pro-this and sometimes they are anti-that. It does not matter on which side they are, they are not on the side of independence and objectivity. But they are a perfect fit for customers and conferences that want to push those particular agendas and/or preach to the choir, but let’s be clear about that when it takes place. Those are not my target group. The line between conflict of interest –or hidden agenda- and misleading is thin. I want nothing to do with that.

Related image I remember the day I started my own business, 17 years ago. It was a strange mix of feelings. On the one hand, I felt rather alone. I remember having this visual of me all alone in front of a vast deserted area. It was like I was the only person in the world with nobody around to connect. It was a little scary to say the truth, yet I felt quite Zen. On the other hand, there was this intoxicating feeling of being so free that at last now I would be the only one to decide for myself what I would want to do and what I would not want to do, to decide what goals I would set for myself and how I would want to achieve them. It was a mix of solitude and yet of full control over my life. On the professional side of my life, I chose the purpose to be happy by making my customers happy, meaning adding value to them and help them succeed. I guess I do, because all my customers have actually found me through my blog, my books, my presentations and word of mouth. I have never had to do any cold calling ever. And that maybe what gives me the most joy: what I do is useful to my customers and they notice!

Cow farts, or quite a bit of hot air?

Posted on November 20, 2019 by Christophe Pelletier

Very likely, the only reason why one would have missed all the “commotion” around cow farts is to have been stranded on a desert island without any access to some telecom network. Who would have thought that those poor ruminants were actively busy suffocating us? Just in case anyone would doubt this is the case, some influential billionaires were ready to join the fight against animal protein and put their money to work in protein alternatives to save the world. Yeah, right. I will get back later on this with my views on the altruism of the one percent.

First things first. Cows have been blamed for climate change based on research. Actually, it is useful research, but like any research and statistics, it needs to be put in context. Here is a chart that shows the results of that research from Clark & Tilman, from the University of Minnesota.

On that chart, I have added two productions based on literature: Norwegian salmon fillet and Chinese aquaculture ponds. I did not put an emission number as it did not come from the same source and methodology as the Clark & Tilman research, but it is my best guess of where they would fit. My purpose here is to make the same point as the one I want to make on beef: there is a broad diversity of production systems and it is necessary to look at each of them on an individual basis.

The research results are an average of many different production systems, 742 in total for the entire research. The results are averages and that is a weakness because averages do not mean much if there is no mention of the standard deviation within the group. Before pointing fingers, they should analyze the variance between the various production systems for a particular type of food. Another weakness of their research is that it does not indicate which share of each link in the production and supply chain contributes to the environmental footprint. In the case of ruminants, where is the problem the largest? On the grasslands? In intensive fattening operations? In the logistics of meat? In the logistics of feed? And so on and so on. Several years ago, Brazilian beef producers were upset about a research showing that their footprint was much larger than the European Union’s, and they strongly disagreed. Yet, in the EU, most of the beef comes from the dairy herd (as you can see on the chart, the dairy footprint is much lower on average), the infrastructure is quite good and in particular, there is massive use of waterways, which have a much smaller carbon footprint than road transport by trucks, especially on sometimes terrible road conditions, on which there sometimes is massive loss of grains that fall off the trucks. Anyway, without getting into too many details, the bottom line of this story is that production and supply systems vary greatly between regions and those differences translate in differences in terms of environmental footprint. Another issue with the carbon footprint of beef from that study had also been pinpointed by another research from the Oxford Martin Programme at Oxford University that also showed that methane has not the same lifespan and long-term effect as CO2.

Back to GHG emissions of agricultural products, overall conclusion here are

Don’t jump to conclusions and especially do not generalize
Go beyond average numbers and look at the individual production system
Learn from the best to improve production and supply systems
Identify which links of the chain are the weakest ones in terms of greenhouse gasses and fix the weaknesses
For governments, subsidize the systems that are the cleanest and tax (or possibly ban) the dirtiest

Another aspect to look at when it comes to ruminants is cellulose. There is plenty of cellulose in the world and the thing is that we, humans, do not have the enzyme (cellulase) to break down and metabolize it. Ruminants can break down cellulose thanks to the micro-organisms they have in their rumen, and this is how we can indirectly eat grass in the form of milk and meat provided by ruminants. This is all the more important as the world area of grasslands is twice the size of the world area of arable land. Actually there is between 3 and 4 times as much grassland acreage as arable land, but many of such grasslands barely can sustain animal farming so with twice the size of arable land, I give a safe estimate of what is usable. The beauty of using ruminants on grasslands, besides milk and meat, is that grazing is actually an amazingly circular economy (very trendy term nowadays and that should appeal) system: the animals eat the grass, and poop their excrements on the pastures and thus fertilizing and regenerating them. Another interesting fact to know is that grasslands actually fix more carbon on Earth than forests do, so proper grassland management is actually a great tool to mitigate climate change on a global basis. Sorry to disagree with all the anti-cow hype but ruminants are very useful. In quite a few of my past articles, I have mentioned the concept of externalities, or in other words the long-term costs (negative externalities) or benefits (positive externalities). Ruminants on grasslands generate quite some positive externalities and that should be taken in the conversation. Ruminants eat grass. That is a fact of Nature, and too bad for our societies which try desperately to make us lose our connection with Nature and even our own biology by transforming us mostly in passive thought-controlled not questioning anything consuming units. Ruminants eat grass and that is why I see grass-fed beef as a winner in the future of animal protein, not in volume but in value both nutritional and environmental, and actually from a farmer’s income point of view, too. Another statistic that everyone should have in mind in the discussion about livestock is that the UN FAO estimates at 1.7 billion (yes billion with a B) the number of people whose livelihoods depend on livestock.

So, from what I just wrote, do we want to remove two thirds of agricultural land from our potential from food production and do we take away the livelihoods of another 20% of all people on Earth so that hipsters from San Francisco and opportunistic billionaires can cash in on a very artificial hype? Food production used to be production-driven, then we started to convince ourselves that we changed it into market-driven (which has been mostly marketing-driven really) and now we are in a situation of making (some) food products investor-driven, which is not really about solving large-scale problems, but a mix of production-driven marketing-driven to play on people’s concerns about health and environment to convince them to buy new products and boost the share price of start-ups. We haven’t changed anything really: we still have the same volume-driven approach of always more that we know is not sustainable. Beware the pendulum will swing back. Let people choose what they want to eat. Don’t preach because most of the preaching, like all preaching is about control. I am an omnivore but I also cook and enjoy many vegetarian recipes. I do not believe that I should eat meat at every meal or every day for that matter. I also, and that may be because I can cook quite well, I do not need to get my plant-based servings from a food processing plant. I also believe that cooking and home economics, along with agriculture, should be taught in school, because they are essential for true sustainability. Moreover, since there is sexual education in school, it only seems normal that these matters belong in everyone’s curriculum.

I would say beware of social media as it is not a reliable source of information. It is only a digital form of the good old human habit of gossiping, and as such can spread all sorts of misinformation, just like the pre-digital era gossiping used to do. The difference is the number of people that can be reached.

So, to conclude, I would like to pinpoint a couple of things:

Animal farming has indeed a higher carbon footprint than crops
Therefore, it has to be carried out in a sustainable manner and what is not sustainable must be eliminated
Therefore, animal protein production and supply systems will have to change in the future and they will change
Meat is a valuable food and source of nutrients, but it is not for recreational everyday gluttony. After all, animal had to give their lives for us to have meat, and the concept of sacrifice should be present in our minds
And to finish, a bit of a joke but not quite it either: there are indeed cow farts but there is also quite a bit of bullsh*t about the topic.

Food wasted is money wasted

Posted on March 7, 2019 by Christophe Pelletier

For a change, here is something slightly different than my previous posts. I believe it is an eye opener, though. I have published this article on a new blog that I have started recently, and that I would like to introduce here. The blog is still in the beta phase but shows a strong start. Its name is The Sensible Gourmet. It is more focused on good food, as I like to prepare it at home, sensible nutrition and home economics. My purpose is to show that anyone can make great healthy meals worth of a good French restaurants for just a few dollars. I believe that sooner or later, there will be interesting synergies between both websites. Without further ado, here is the article:

Since it has been making headlines in the mainstream media for some time, you must have heard about it. It is estimated that about a third of all food produced in the world is not eaten and wasted. Recently, I was reading that Canadian households throw about half the food they buy in the garbage. This is bad economics. Here are simple figures to make my point.

You might remember the campaign a few years ago about the challenge of making $5 meals. Those were the days of the Great Recession of 2008 when some people discovered that economy is not always up and economic hardship made them realign their priorities. But time goes by and with economic recovery, being money-savvy has become boring again and who does still care about the $5 meal challenge today? You can see in the text of my Gallery page that all the great dishes I photographed cost even (much) less than $5, so not much of a challenge if you actually can cook and have a good sense of money. So, I will take $5 for a meal per person and with two meals a day that will be $10 per day per person.

Over a year that is $10 x 365 days = $3,650 dollar in food per person

Let’s take the world average of a third of food wasted: $3,650/3 = 1,217 dollars thrown away in the garbage per person per year.

If you take a household of two persons, that is $2,434 wasted per year. For a household of four, that is $4,868 per year. In the shameful case of the Canadian average of 50% (apparently, American and Australian households do not do much differently than the Canadians), these numbers become respectively $3,650 and $7,300 per household per year.

Another way of looking at the impact on household budget is to take the share of the food budget in the entire household budget. In Western countries, food represents roughly 10% of the household budget. Then, it is easy to see that 50% food waste represents 5% of the household income, and a third would represent 3.3% of the income.

Just as in my previous article about cooking in which I presented a calculation of how much money cooking can save you, you can see how much money you can save by not wasting food. That is free money that you can use to pay your mortgage or anything else useful to make your life better now or for the future.

These two examples, cooking at home and not wasting food, save literally thousands and thousands of dollars per year to your household, and the amazing thing is that this is YOUR money. You can make it work for you or join the legions of people struggling financially because of poor sense of home economics. This is easy money to keep on your bank account. All it takes to save this money is just some sense of organization in the kitchen and a bit of discipline.

After reading the article about the poor Canadian performance (I live in Canada), I did my own estimate of how much food I throw away, and I got to a figure less than 1%! Next to that, I compost all food scraps and I use the compost in my garden where I grow my own produce, which also saves me money and it is all produce free from any chemical whatsoever!

And when it comes to food waste, there is of course the issue of waste at the level of restaurants and retailers. Don’t hold your breath too much. I have heard about this problem for about 50 years and it clearly has not improved all that much despite the active communication campaigns when the issue makes the media headlines. I recently read that the US retailers Kroger and Walmart were re-evaluating their “ugly produce” concepts as they notice that consumers prefer to pick the pretty ones, which sounds like they might give it up. So much for social and environmental responsibility that we always hear so much about. When it comes to the $$$, then it is a different tune. There is a reason why there are different quality grades and why people make the choices they make. It is called market and price. It is also about knowledge and perception. it is also about store ownership. I can tell you this: when I was a kid, I used to go with my father on the market. We made sure that we would never throw anything away and that all our products would be sold by the end of the day. It required sensible planning and also the proper commercial thinking, which sometimes included to adjust the pricing on slow days. Money always talks to customers. it also talks to business owners. Trust me when it is your money that is in the business, you look at it quite differently than when it is someone else’s.

My 2019: What’s ahead?

Posted on January 3, 2019 by Christophe Pelletier

The past year ended with its yearly ritual, the conference on climate change. The charade has become so predictable it is hardly interesting anymore. Nonetheless, they followed their traditional operation procedure:

Step 1: it will be challenging as there are strong differences of points of views between the participants
Step 2: Oh no, we might not have an agreement and we are running out of time to fix the problems
Step 3: We cannot seem to find any agreement but wait, they are going to have an additional meeting that was not on the schedule for the night in a last attempt to reach an agreement
Step 4: Hoorah! A miracle happened; the participants found an agreement and signed it
Step 5: (say it mumbling for better effect) well, the agreement did not include any of the really important points on which they cannot agree again but this is a breakthrough though, and the process will go on as next year’s conference will take place and this time we promise the points of disagreement will be discussed

I have to say it is all looking like the movie Groundhog Day. Personally, I am getting a bit weary of all the repetitions and in my field just as well. I hardly read anything new or interesting about the future of food and agriculture. Yet, there are no shortage of articles and reports but what they contain I had already written in my two books that are seven and nine years old. I even see more and more illustrations pictures of such articles that look eerily reminiscent of the cover of my second book We Will Reap What We Sow (which by the way is priced incredibly low –less than US$4.00- at amazon.com lately but apparently not on the other amazon country websites –don’t know why but it is a bargain for as long as it lasts). Here are a couple of examples of these illustrations

(From Food Business News December 2018)

(From Food Navigator October 2018)

(my book, from 2012)

If this shows that I often am ahead of the pack, which is a good thing for a futurist, I wish I were not this much ahead. In one of my previous articles, I was announcing that financial market troubles were coming back. Well guess what.

For me, the current “problem” is that I am not learning anything new and I do not see any real attempt to prepare for a prosperous future. Yet, by the sound of it, we will have plenty of food. Aquaculture will feed the world, so will insects and so will GMOs and so will organic agriculture and so will lab meat and so will synthetic foods and so will algae and so will small farms and so will industrial agriculture and so will tech and so will vegetarianism and so will vegan, etc etc… Sounds like we can sustain hundreds of billions of people, except for a couple of simple important details: all these options will compete with each other for resources, all of them will have to be profitable and sustainable… and they won’t be. Also, for as much as there are lots of start-ups and innovation (pronounce disruption if you want to sound trendy and modern), they do not really address any fundamental problems but are aimed at developing niche businesses instead with the hope to be bought by some large corporation for a high share price. Besides, the new innovation model is “innovate now, think of the consequences later”, which is the opposite of what responsible innovation should be in my opinion, but hey you have to do what you have to do to become rich quick. In the same spirit, I am rather disappointed by the so-called billionaire philanthropists who suddenly seemed to show some change of heart from their previous years of hard-nosed capitalism and greed. Since their net worth never seems to drop, I suspect that their charitable foundations and activities are just an excuse to develop financial constructions to move their money around without being hit by taxes. Actually, I do not see them donate their money but they do invest actively in start-ups or buy shares from existing corporations and cash in nicely when those are bought. The takeovers of Syngenta and Monsanto must have been great boons that made it worth their while to even promote those companies as being the future. No, they are not philanthropists; they are investors. Philanthropists give money away; investors are after capital gains. It is not quite the same. How many of these philanthropists have donated money to rebuild Puerto Rico? Have they even been there when Maria hit? And there are more examples of disasters where money that these guys do not need would have helped greatly to rebuild livelihoods but they did not show up. Let me try for a second to think of myself as a wealthy billionaire. Let’s say I would have 50 billion dollars of net worth. If I gave half of it for humanitarian goals (philanthropy from philo=loving and anthropos=human being), I still would have 25 billion dollars in the bank, which might sustain me for the rest of my life if I decided to live frugally, I suppose (yes it is sarcasm). The other 25 billion could do a lot of good. Of course, I would drop significantly on the list of the world’s most wealthy but I hope my ego could cope with that. Have you seen any of these investors rebranded as “philanthropists” actually do any such thing? Anyway, let me move on with the rest of this article.

Since I do not like to do the same over and over again, I am looking at 2019 as my last year with a focus on the future of food and agriculture. I will have done it for ten years, which is good enough and not only my writings are still as relevant as when I published them, I still see them as the most comprehensive look at the topic. I will not walk away from food and agriculture but I think I will focus on other things and my article for this year will show a shift of scope. I need change and I need variety, and it is missing at the moment. What I intend to do this year is a series of what I would call “what’s ahead” articles by presenting concise points about a number of topics that will be of increasing importance in the future. It still will be related with food and agriculture but will also take a look at the bigger picture. As such, it will be a bit of a repeat from my books but with focus on action points and breaking points. Among the topics I have in mind, here is already a tentative list:

Agriculture production location
Food prices
Water
World trade
Migration
Economy
Winners and losers
Urbanism
Social unrest
Health
Wars and conflicts
Big bang of fusion of ecology and economy

For the sake of variety, I will alternate with articles about lighter topics about proper nutrition and consumption behaviour. Expect to read quite about the following words:

Humility
Moderation
Common sense
Sensibility
Integrity
Altruism
Responsibility and co-responsibility
Pragmatism
Leadership
Courage
Respect
Vision
Incentive
Balance
Comprehensiveness
Practical
Transition
Commitment
Sacrifice
Love
… and probably many others

That’s all for now. Have a great 2019! And we will see what it will bring us.

Is animal farming really on the way out?

Posted on October 22, 2018 by Christophe Pelletier

Lately in the food world, one can read many stories about alternatives to protein from animal farming. Animal farming also gets blamed for its contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. With so much finger pointing, one can wonder whether animal farming has a future. Proponents of alternatives do all they can to convince everyone that the writing is already on the wall. Personally, I believe that things are far from being that simple.

To predict what scenarios are likely for the future, it is necessary to look at the issue from its many dimensions, both on the production side as on the consumption side. I prefer to look at it first from the consumption side because consumer markets shape production systems more than production systems shape consumer markets.

From the consumer end, there is already much to say. First, as the population is increasing and more people are able to afford protein, the demand for protein is increasing and will continue to do so in the coming decades. I wrote already many articles about this during the nine years of this blog and the topic is also part of my books. The fact that more and more people can afford food is a positive development. The problem is that more and more of them now actually consume more than they should. Overconsumption boosts the need for more production beyond what nutritional needs are. Overconsumption comes down to excess, waste and pushes our use of resources too far. The goal must be to help people to eat balanced meals and not to overeat. If the purpose of the suppliers of alternative protein is to push for consumption of their products and not address the issue of overconsumption, they will be just as guilty as the current protein suppliers. The future challenge is not just to replace one overconsumption with another. It is to stop overconsumption. Unfortunately, as long as our economic model is about volume growth, one should not have too many illusions. Future food prosperity is really about having always enough, not about always more. To achieve this goal, we must shift from sheer volume growth thinking to high quality (including production of course but also social and environmental) with faire distribution of the created wealth between all links of the value chains, and in particular a fair price for farmers through proper planning between supply and demand. The purpose is to supply affordable food instead of just cheap food with all the consequences that we all can see of the race towards always cheaper. Unfortunately, the volume-driven model is heavily subsidized in the wrong places and that will also have to stop if we want change.

Consumers also need to realize the true value of food instead of taking it for granted because future food is anything but for granted. Regardless of the type of protein, one thing is sure: it is precious and rare. This is much more so than for carbohydrates. Protein should be treated with respect. Here are two examples why I make this point. I remember in the 1990s the CEO of Tyson Foods explaining in a conference that the poultry industry is a producer of lean protein and he lamented that, in the US at least, the favorite use was to deep fry it in cheap oil, and thus completely change the nutritional quality of chicken meat. The second example was during a presentation by the CEO of a German fish fast food restaurant chain called Nordsee, who was mentioning that breaded fish was very popular, but not so much because fish is healthy but because fish sticks were used to be a carrier of ketchup from the plate to the mouth. If the true purpose of meat for some consumers is to be a carrier of oil or ketchup, then this is a problem. Never should a product that required the sacrifice of an animal be used to soak into cheap and unhealthy product when over consumed. Speaking of sacrifice, it is good to remember that the word “sacrifice” comes from the word “sacred”. It is true that often our dealings with animal protein looks more like sacrilegious. This is a useful detail to think about when considering consumption of meat. The thing is that animal protein should never really be a commodity. It should remain special. But that is not the way or economic model has decided.

From the production side, agriculture has followed a similar pattern as most other industries. It is about lowering costs (nothing wrong with that) and standardization (maybe a topic more susceptible to debate). Regardless of what people may think of intensive animal husbandry, this system is not here per accident. It is the reflection of how we look at economy and ourselves. Have no illusion about alternatives to animal protein; they follow exactly the same economic philosophy. I always say that the dominant production system is the one that matches the desires of the larger number of consumers. The saying “we are what we eat” is very true. If you look at it that way, you can see that our economy is just as much about intensive human husbandry as it is with farm animals. Economy is organized around three components: resources, labor and capital. Depending on the prioritization and distribution of these three components, we build different systems. A simple example can illustrate what I mean is mechanization: workers have been replaced by machines backed with capital investment in machines. The tricky thing about heavy injection of capital is that the system becomes capital-dependent. The capital must deliver a return on the investment and very often the only way is inject even more capital, just to keep the head above water. It is good for the bankers, but as many farmers and food producers will tell you, less so for them.

So, will animal farming eventually disappear? Of course, it is difficult to answer this with certainty. My opinion is that it is not going to happen any time soon, if it ever happens. What will change are the production systems. After all, the current intensive production systems have not been around since the dawn of times. They are actually fairly recent. They have changed and are continuously adapting. Production systems that are not environmentally sensible will disappear, simply because they will not be able to be profitable and competitive. The reason for this is simple: sooner or later they will not be able to ignore the negative externalities anymore from their production costs. Environmentally sensible systems will take over. Note that I do not use the term environmentally friendly but I use environmentally sensible instead. I believe it is a much better reflection of reality. Will this transition be smooth? It might be, but it is much more likely that it will not be.

Another question to reflect about is whether animal farming is unnecessary? My answer to this is: no! First, like it or not humans are omnivores. Our dentition can testify about that. That is the result of dozens of thousands of years and it is ingrained in our system. It is nature. We are mammals, even though there’s no shortage of groups who try to even deny our biological reality and try to reduce people –and animals- to legal entities. Between Laws of Nature and man-made laws, we will see which ones will prevail. Our first food –milk- is animal in nature. There always will be people who want to eat animal protein. Every time that economic prosperity has increased, meat consumption has increased. It does not happen per accident. When money is tight, meat is often the first thing to decrease. To get back to the question, I believe that animal farming is alright, as long as it is respectful of the environment, of the animals, and also of the farmers. I believe that animal protein is a privilege what we must cherish, not a right that we should take for granted. Animal protein is not the sole source of protein and there are many delicious dishes to make with vegetal protein. Look at Indian cuisine! If the purpose of animal farming is to stuff oneself, then yes I am with those who have an issue that approach of farming and consumption.

Of course, most of the opposition to animal farming takes place in Western countries. It is kind of a First World problem. If certain animal farming systems are environmental time bombs, other systems are actually beneficiary. In many developing countries, having a few goats or cattle is actually essential for the economy and for the survival of farmers. Pastoral systems contribute to prosperity and social stability. Another important point is the biology of ruminants. Just as much as I was mentioning the biology of humans as the results of dozens of thousands years of evolution, the same is true for animals. Ruminants are amazing processors of cellulose. Humans can thrive on grass, because we are not equipped biologically to extract nutrients from it. Ruminants are experts at that. Since there is about twice as many hectares of grasslands as there is of arable land, grasslands represent a huge food potential and ruminants are superb transformers of cellulose in high-value foods for humans in the form of milk and meat. The key is that must be done sensibly and by taking future consequences into account. Many societies around the world know the value of farm animals. If ruminants are excellent transformers of cellulose, it is also important to mention that they have never evolved to be grain eaters, at least in large quantities. Sooner or later, this will become a much more vivid issue than it is now.

Suppliers of alternative protein bring a number of arguments why their products have the potential to replace “traditional” animal meat. The environment plays a central role, in particular the issue of greenhouse gasses. They also address the animal welfare as a driver for their products. The issue of slaughterhouse by-products is also a valid argument. Theoretically, texture proteins, lab meat, insects and vegetarian diets do address these concerns, indeed. So can alternative protein push animal farming out of business? The answer is complex and I will try to answer it as concisely as possible.

The animal protein market is huge and one cannot expect to replace it overnight. Since the demand for protein is going to increase further, alternative protein would probably happy to take only a chunk of the growth. They have to create their spot in an existing and very competitive market. Textured proteins have been around for decades and they have never represented a threat to traditional meat. That does not mean that it could not change of course. Lab meat is all new and there is at this stage no solid indication that they can even compete with traditional meat on world markets any time soon. They are still a long way of representing a force in the animal protein business. Time will tell. An important detail for both textured protein and lab meat is the number of factories, incubators and texturing lines that they need to build to replace animal farms. That will represent huge investments for which they will have to earn the money to carry out. Competing with traditional animal proteins means engage fully in a commodity markets where margins are often thin. They will compete with independent farmers who are often contracted by corporations and often hardly make minimum wage. These suppliers will have to fight against the huge animal protein corporations and deal with retailers and food service companies with strong bargaining power. Will they really want to take the road to commodity markets? I doubt it, or it will be a very long journey. When I hear or see their pricing objectives, nothing tells me that they are really willing to target the mass animal protein market. It looks more to me that they will try to work from a targeted marketing strategy and will work their way into niches for quite some time. Another hurdle is the consumer perception for their products. Vegetarian products already have exposure and are well-perceived. Lab meat may be a more difficult challenge. The mere fact that lab meat producers want to call it clean meat instead and are already facing opposition from meat producers who claim that lab meat is not real meat shows that they have not solved the perception challenge, yet. Even the term meat is not a given.

Where does that leave us for the future and the issue of animal farming greenhouse gas emissions? Considering the time that I believe it will take for alternatives, I do not see that they will play as big a role as they think and/or claim. I believe that reducing greenhouse gasses emissions will have to be enforced. Regulations on production systems will have to address this. This has to happen today already. There is no time to wait until these emerging industries will have developed critical mass. Also production volumes will have to be addressed. It is likely that if we want to be serious about curbing the environmental footprint of animal husbandry, they will not be many alternatives to capping production volumes. That will be a tough one as nobody will want to be at a disadvantage with their competitors. There will be the exact same discussions as there already are with climate change and those who refuse to participate. Neither governments nor corporations will take effective measures. The answer lies with consumers. They are the ones who have the power to reduce animal protein production and changing production systems. From an environment point of view, the only real option is a reduction of global consumption of animal protein. That is the easiest and fastest path to solve the problem, but I do not expect a massive shift from omnivore to vegetarian of such amplitude that anything significant will happen. Unfortunately and just like with anything else related to climate change and overconsumption, only a minority will really act voluntarily. On the consumer side, if prices remain too cheap to trigger a change in behavior and a reduction of consumption, then overconsumption will simply continue. What I wrote in my previous article will fully apply to the topic of animal protein and animal farming.

What is food -and implications for the future?

Posted on September 21, 2018 by Christophe Pelletier

I recently realized that in the almost 10 years that I have been active with the topic of the future of food, one question has never been asked. I never brought it up, either -until now. Yet it is an important one, especially in a time where food start-ups are popping up like we were living in the dotcom era all over again, presenting all sorts of new foods with huge investments to back them up. The question is: what is food?

The question may sound simple, but the answer might not be as obvious as you might think. Food covers many dimensions, the importance of which varies greatly, depending on whom you are asking. The most essential dimension of food is nutrition. Living organisms need nutrients to live. Without food, they die. Food is what provides the nutrients. It sounds obvious, doesn’t it? Considering the high percentage of overweight people, nutrition clearly is not a discipline that many really master. One of the reasons for this health disaster lies in the psychological dimension of food. Let’s face it, how many of you ever build a meal solely on good rational nutritional logic? No, we eat what we like and we do not eat what we do not like. The reasons for our taste preferences are plenty. They have to do with the way our parents have taught us about food, with cultural preferences, with experiences in early life, with religious beliefs and with all sorts of beliefs that have nothing to do with religion just as well. We all have our own particular systems of reference when it comes to food.

To illustrate my point, here are a few anecdotes. Being French from birth, I will start with frogs and snails. As most people know, the French have a reputation for their cuisine, although some ingredients have shocked some of their neighbours for ages. Snails and frogs legs are among the typical clichés of French food, to the great disgust of the Brits who, besides snails and frogs, are not too keen on rabbit and, even more shocking, on horse meat. In turn, the French have quite the low appreciation about typical British cuisine. Tastes differ. If snails have been a disgusting thought, they seem to turn into a desirable delicacy as soon as they are served as “escargots” (the French translation of “snails”). Yes, food is a lot about psychology. Another example of the psychological aspect of food that has always baffled me is why vegetarian products have to mimic meat. It sounds contradictory, but that is the way it is.

When I moved to the Netherlands, where I spent 13 wonderful years, one of my first visits to a grocery store included buying eggs. It might sound like the simplest thing in the world. Think again! I walked around and around in the store looking for eggs and I could not see any. I finally spotted someone from the store and asked if they had eggs. He pointed right behind me and said: there they are! I turned around and it took me a couple of seconds to finally see them, and there they were indeed: an entire stack about as tall as I am. I passed by the stack of eggs several time during my search and did not “see” them. There was a simple reason for that: the eggs were white and all I had seen in my life were brown eggs, although I knew about white eggs. My brain simply did not make the connection. All I could see was a huge stack of what I genuinely thought were ping-pong balls, because the packaging was also different from what I was used to.

When it comes to food, taste is important but many other physical qualities influence what we like or don’t like such as colours, smells, texture, how it feels when touching. Food is really something that involves our senses, except maybe for sound, which is more useful when hunting, I suppose. It is not just about number of calories, grams of protein or fat. It is how we experience it from the moment we see it and inspect it with our noses, mouths and hands.

Our senses, and how they have been trained, decide what we perceive as desirable or as repugnant. This part is not in the realm of rationality, yet it is not about being irrational, either. The irrational part is more in the domain of our system of reference and beliefs. For how irrational they may seem to those who do not share these beliefs, they are quite logical and true beliefs for those who adhere to them. In the always controversial conversation about food and agriculture, it is quite important to acknowledge these beliefs and accept that different people have different views about food. Without this acknowledgement, there cannot be much of a constructive conversation, which then always evolves into a fight.

The question “What is food?” is only part of the equation when looking forward. The other –often neglected- question is: Do people know what food is? The answer to this one is really simple: it is a resounding NO!!! I can see that every day around me, and it is appalling. With urbanization comes the detachment from agriculture and Nature. Often what is left is some vague recollection or stories from previous generations that have been gradually altered and turn into beliefs of all sorts. The result is a lot of misconceptions, prejudices and dogmas, and this on all sides regardless of people are pro this or anti that. Every tribe now has its own mythology when it comes to food and agriculture, picking half-truths and only the facts that conveniently support those half-truths. Nonetheless and regardless of what beliefs they follow, most people have only a skewed knowledge of food at best, and most have none whatsoever. One of a side effects is the old adage that in the land of the blind, the one-eyed is king. Problem is that the one-eyed is not always ruling with integrity and truth in mind but more from a power and money point of view.

With all these points in mind, the question that needs to come next is what will food be about in the future? What will be the future beliefs, because they will play at least as important a role to define future foods as rational nutrition will? In fact, I believe that the psychology of food will largely prevail over rationality in what will be on our plates in the future, just like today. There are currently many popular topics.

One of them is insects. Insects are common foods in Asia and Africa, the two continents with the largest population growth for the future, unlike Western countries where insects are not really part of the food culture. So, is it a good idea to try to push insects into westerners’ mouths or would it be better to focus on markets where insects have a much more positive image? Insects remind me of the snails story. Originally, the French were not eating snails because it was fancy. Snails were a seasonal source of protein in times when protein was not abundant. The French simply used their cooking skills to make something rather unappealing to a delicacy. Another food that can be used as an example about insects is lobster. Lobster was not always a delicacy, on the contrary. Times change and so did the lobster’s image. If you like lobster and feel repulsed by insects, just think about what a lobster really looks like: a giant insect!

Another popular topic is plant-based protein. In my opinion, that is really not a novelty in the sense that people used to not eat that much meat and most of their protein used to come from plants: beans, peas, lentils and the entire family of legumes have always been a great source of protein. Also, textured soy burgers have been around for decades. In the future will such products made from these ingredients but processed and transformed into meat-like products really take over meat? I do not have the answer. Just with any new trend, the question is what will be short term and what will be long term. In times when processed industrial products have a poor image and are blamed for a number of nutrition-related health issues, one contradiction that I see, but food consumers are full of contradictions, is whether processed industrial products will be an appealing solution for the future.

Speaking of processed foods, a number of food start-ups that claim to re-invent food, are working on developing foods that sound more like synthetic foods. Perhaps some science-fiction writers from the 1950s and 60s had an amazing sense of foresight, or perhaps they are just a source of inspiration for producers who want to bring new products on the market. How will these foods of the future compare with our current system of reference? It is difficult to say. While currently, consumers long for authentic and natural, how do manufactured and synthetic answer their desire? And how will consumers’ desires evolve in a couple of decades from now? I have my views on it. The future will tell.

Another currently popular topic regarding the future of food is lab meat or clean meat or incubator meat. Although the claims that such products will be competitive with meat coming from an animal that has been slaughtered, the dollar numbers still are quite far from being so. When I wrote Future Harvests, the Dutch company that was at the front end of lab meat claimed it would be competitive and on the market in five years. That has clearly not materialized, yet. The same thing is true about the price at point of sale for incubator blue fin tuna flesh, which a start-up is developing. But maybe those products are only aimed at the 1% richest people. Regardless of those considerations, the big issue with these innovative protein products is the name. There is already a growing debate about the names “meat” and “milk”. Of course, it is convenient to use those names because it creates enough a confusion to lure meat and dairy eaters to alternative products. Of course, the producers of the “real thing” will argue that the alternative products are not meat or milk. After all, soy or almonds do not indeed have udders and nipples… Here, too, similar question as “What is food?” need to be asked: What is meat? What is milk? In an environment where most people could not answer what food is, it is easy to imagine the confusion between traditional century old ways of looking at food and new concepts. Let’s face it, the debate will not be over any time soon and many clashes are on the way, not so much because the outcome is complicated to reach. It will be difficult because, both sides will want to win the debate instead of looking at it as just more alternatives in the market. All sides of the debates will want to win because they will be so afraid that losing the debate could mean their end as food businesses. That is the price to pay when truth matters less than perception.

However, it is also important to not forget that unlike food innovation, human physiology, human metabolism and human biochemistry have barely changed over the past few dozens of thousands of years. The needs for nutrients and the mechanics of food inside the body will still have to meet the same physical specific requirements. Food is a unique connector between humans and Nature, even though many seem to have lost the awareness of this connection, often to their detriment. Like it or not, we come from Nature and Nature rules over us. The foods of the future must not ignore our biological nature if they want to be beneficial. They must not ignore all the psychological, culture and social roles that food fulfils and are a source of happiness and mental health as well.

Almost nine years of The Food Futurist and a new approach

Posted on March 26, 2018 by Christophe Pelletier

Time flies by. It feels like I started this blog yesterday. Yet, next April, it will be nine years ago that I started to write some random thoughts without any much other purpose that put them in writing. I had not thought that what was coming next would be as successful as it has been. So let’s review quickly a bit what has happened in the past nine years and where it will head in the future.

First, it is good to remember that nine years ago the world was experiencing a major economic crisis and commodity prices were at their high. As a result many people were concerned that agriculture would not be able to adjust production to meet future demand. The topic of the future of food and agriculture was rather hot. For this reason, interest for my articles was growing as I was posting more of them. This led me to expand and compile my material. My first book, Future Harvests, was born and published. To my surprise, the book sales exceeding my expectations and my name started to circulate. Customers started to come to me. It is remarkable in a way that I never had to prospect for customers. The interest for the topic and for my work led me to publish my second book, We Will Reap What We Sow.

The rather modest blog has delivered. I did many presentations and participated to many conferences internationally. I have been interviewed many times by both mainstream media as specialized media from a number of countries. My articles and books seem to have found their ways in high schools and university in many countries, too. Customers came to me to have my views on what is coming and appreciated my approach. The outcome has been very positive. Personally, beyond the assignments, I am quite happy to see that my predictions have been accurate and that I could see future developments earlier than others. This is why and how I truly add value to my customers. This sense of anticipation is a complete part of who I am. It has always been. I have no idea where this intuition and sort of sixth sense comes from but it is there and quite real.

On the other side of these positives, I have to admit that I am a little disappointed, in a relative manner though. If I can be proud to be ahead of the pack and see things earlier than most people, it also means that they do not anticipate the changes and the opportunities to come as well as they should and could. I find this worrying especially in the case of large organizations, be it corporations, governments or NGOs, because considering the resources that they have, I should be irrelevant and the one to be left behind. On my FAQ page I give a couple of examples about the FAO, but I could make a much longer list of similar cases. Believe you me, if I had their resources, I would be a rocket launcher. Another source of disappointment, although not to common fortunately, has been those who clearly felt threatened by the knowledge I was sharing with their organizations. It was truly amazing to see that particular global corporate senior executive, in charge of group of almost 100 strategists from all over the world, monopolizing the microphone for an endless attempt to show he knew more than I did anyway. I don’t know if he did and I don’t care but it was an awkward situation and quite a few of his employees were exchange looks with me showing the same kind of awkwardness I was experiencing. There have been other occurrences of people who simply do not want to have an open mind because they have difficulties with disruptive change coming their way. They can cling to the present but they won’t last. Pity because all the predictions I presented them have now materialized. As I said, such negative experiences have been rare and I never quite understand why any organization would want to hire someone like me if all I could tell was stuff they already know. Where would be my added value then? They should have been happy that I was presenting them a new vision of the future and should welcome the opportunities that they offer.

Change happens everywhere and for everyone. That is true for me, too. This is why the time has come for me to rethink my role as The Food Futurist. For how accurate my predictions may have been, as time goes by, more and more people have become aware of things to come. I do not see the point for me to keep on telling the same stories over and over again. The added value fades over time and I do not like to be in the herd.

The first change that I want to implement is a shift from the likely future towards the desirable future. So far, I have been focusing more on the rational and factual aspects of the future and the changes happening. This more analytical approach is somehow easier in the sense that people are, believe it or not, rather predictable. History tends to repeat itself. By shifting to the desirable future, I will be able to bring more of my own vision and in particular pinpoint the absurdities of our current systems and why keeping on doing more of the same, although in a slightly different packaging, will result in the same results.

Bringing in my personal opinion instead of rationalizing the dynamics of change will also allow me to focus more on philosophical, and possibly, political aspects of the future. It is my strong conviction that when it comes to the future of food and agriculture, there is a strong imbalance between the technological aspects and the human aspects, the latter being gravely neglected and if we do not change our attitude about this, there will be negative consequences. The future of humankind is really about humans. Unfortunately, we do not think enough about the future in human terms. I will explore this further. Forecasting the future of technology is easy. What everyone talks about nowadays is what I have talked about years before. Only those who sleep haven’t read or heard about all the tech possibilities. Time for me to go beyond what everyone can find online easily. I won’t add value to you and to myself by settling in the herd and talking about same stuff as dozens others do. Anyone with half a brain can do a Google search and write a book about future technologies. There is all you can find. There is the realistic and the fantasy just as well. What does it matter, since the future is later? Technologies that will not deliver will be forgotten and for technologies that deliver results, it will be easy to say “told you so”.

My goal will be to develop a vision that is centered on human prosperity and happiness. It must be clear that I do not intend to neglect new technologies because future tech developments will affect our lives. Instead of looking at the future from a futuristic point of view, I will do that from a quality of life point of view and look at the practical consequences of change, even more so than I have done so far. I wish to engage in a reflection process more than simply play futurist/consultant because the latter too easy and the former hardly anyone really does. I like to be ahead and I like to be different.

In the future, I might talk less about food and agriculture specifically and more about big picture and connecting the dots between food and agriculture and all the other dimensions. My philosophy in life and in business is simple. Everything I do, I do not do for my personal glory. I could care less about that. What I do is for you, for my customers and help others expand their horizons and think more. The thinking part is becoming more and more of a necessity, especially in a world where everything seems to be aimed at distracting people from thinking too much (having a brain and using might be subversive you know) or simply inhibiting them from thinking thanks to political correctness which is no different in its purpose and functioning as a thought police and insidious form of dictatorship.

For the future of this blog and of my work, there will be more love and more tough love. I will be more direct and outspoken. I will challenge leaders, because they really need to be challenged. I won’t do this in an aggressive manner but I will pinpoint the weaknesses and demand higher standards. The “me here and now” leads only to disaster. I will bring more of “the others somewhere else and later as well”.

The Food Futurist

A Sixth Sense for Food & Agriculture – Your Trusted Futurist & Strategist since 2009

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