I haven’t done one of these in a while, so here’s my latest collection of articles on what the plant-based meat and dairy alternative industry is up to.  This seems especially appropriate for St. Patrick’s Day.

I “borrowed” the photo from this site (thanks!).

The plant-based market isn’t doing all that well?

• The terrifying truth: the addressable market at retail for plant-based meat offerings is not that big after all: By now, we are all familiar with the recent topline ‘problem’ in retail plant-based meat. The slow-down is visible in Beyond Meat’s latest earnings call itself. Foodservice and international sales are driving all of the brand’s growth. And it appears to be a velocity, not just revenue, slow-down, which, if true, is never, ever good when your supposed growth sector is far from its rosy market share dream objective of 10% of all meat (retail and foodservice)…. Read more
• As plant-based meat growth stalls, what does it mean for the category?  Earnings reports last week for Beyond Meat and Maple Leaf Foods showed flat or negative growth — and no clear way to jumpstart sales.

Plenty of companies are still in this arena, domestically as well as internationally:

• Clif expands plant-based product mix as consumers get back to pre-pandemic bustle: New research from Clif Bar & Company found the majority of Americans are returning to their pre-pandemic routine – with 72% admitting to snack even more frequently than they were prior to the outbreak of COVID…. Read more
• Plant-based 3D printing: China and Australia identified as key markets for new Wagyu launch: Hong Kong 3D food printing firm Alt Farm is eyeing China and Australia as its first key target markets, revealing it hopes to launch a prototype plant-based A5 Wagyu Beef product in the next 12 to 18 months…. Read more
• China Focus: Plant-based yoghurt, hybrid meat products, China-based nutrition studies and more feature in our round-up: Plant-based yoghurt, hybrid meat products, China-based nutrition studies and more feature in this edition of China Focus…. Read more

Plant-based ingredients are of great interest:

• Plant-based protein in focus: from Pongamia to chickpeas: Plant-based proteins continue to dominate the so-called ‘alternative protein’ category, but will this still be the case in 10 years’ time? And which emerging plant proteins – from canola, barley and hemp to Pongamia, lupin, and chickpeas – will become the next soy, wheat, and pea?… Read more
• Fat… the final frontier for meat alternatives? Designer fat co Lypid raises $4m to commercialize microencapsulated vegan oils that behave like animal fat:  Plant-based meat alternatives are getting ‘meatier’ by the day as brands reverse engineer animal products and put them back together with plants. But getting plant-based fat to behave like animal fat has been a major stumbling block for the industry, says foodtech startup Lypid, which has just raised $4m in seed funding to help commercialize its ‘PhytoFat’ platform…. Read more 
• Impossible Foods sues Motif FoodWorks over its plant-based heme product: The meat alternative maker says the ingredients manufacturer could get non-public information about the way its key ingredient is made and is infringing on its patent.

Some skepticism seems warranted:

• As Investors Bet on ‘Milk Without Cows,’ Questions About Transparency Loom: Perfect Day and other companies making milk with precision fermentation promise animal-free, lower-carbon products through technology. They may also benefit from a lack of consumer understanding about the science.

Yum?

For those of us who have long argued that it would be good for kids and for society if they were fed meals in school, no questions asked.

Nothing makes more sense to me than universal school meals.

• All kids get fed
• No stigmatizing of poor kids
• No school hassles over which kids qualify
• No lunch shaming
• No administative costs for policing school meal eligibility

I the pandemic did any good at all, it was to make school meals universal well into the second year.

It worked.  Kids got fed.  Schools didn’t have to police.

Yes it would cost money: an estimated $11 billion.

Let’s put that in context; it’s barely a rounding error.   If I’ve done the math right, $11 billion = 0.007% of $1.5 trillion.

Our national priorities are clear from this chart.  Defense is 48%, and all agriculture and food programs together are less than 0.02%.** 

Or, to show what this looked like visually in 2019:

Politico explains the background

Under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, passed in mid-March 2020, the Agriculture Department was first given authority to issue waivers for a slew of regulations….The authority now expires in June. School nutrition program operators have been optimistically assuming that the waivers would get extended one more school year to help them transition

back to normal, as supply chains continue to short schools of basic staples like chicken and whole grain bread, and food costs remain high and staffing is so low it’s approaching crisis levels.

You can read about the politics in the Politico article as well.

This congressional decision is nothing short of disgraceful.  Congress should be ashamed.

What to do?  Scream and shout to your congressional representatives to get this reversed.

• The $1.5 trillion spending package
• The omnibus appropriations bill is here.
• The House Appropriations Committee summary is here.
• The President’s proposed budget is here.

** Added note: Several readers wrote me to say that the Vox figures above refer to discretionary spending but leave out entitlements such as Social Security and SNAP.  Others said the figures underestimate military spending because they do not include veterans benefits and other such items.  Adding in all this would make the percentage for school meals even smaller.

My NYU department is hosting a discussion of this issue: Feeding Resistance and Refugees of Ukraine: The Humanitarian Crisis in Eastern Europe.  March 22, 1-3 pm (EDT).  Free, but register here.

This panel brings together experts and scholars studying Eastern Europe to share their observations and reflections about food access; local, regional and global supply chains; food production and sovereignty; as well as the unfolding humanitarian crisis. Participants include Agata Bachórz (Sociology, University of Gdańsk, Poland), Eszter Kovacs (Geography, University College London), Simone Piras (Agricultural and Food Economics, The James Hutton Institute, UK), and Mihai Varga (Sociology, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany).  Moderated by Diana Mincyte (Sociology, CUNY City Tech) and Fabio Parasecoli (Nutrition and Food Studies, NYU)

And now, for the items I’ve been collecting.   Not much good news to report.

The big picture

• FAO: The importance of Ukraine and the Russian Federation for global agricultural markets and the risks associated with the current conflict: The Russian Federation and Ukraine are among the most important producers of agricultural commodities in the world. Both countries are net exporters of agricultural products, and they both play leading supply roles in global markets of foodstuffs and fertilisers, where exportable supplies are often concentrated in a handful of countries. This concentration could expose these markets to increased vulnerability to shocks and volatility.
• Food Safety News: FSA and others monitring potential food impacts of Ukraine invasion: The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has added its voice of support to the people of Ukraine while reassuring those in the United Kingdom that no related food safety risks have yet been detected. The agency joined a growing list of those expressing backing for those affected by what is happening in Ukraine and concern about… Continue Reading
• Food Dive: How food and beverage companies are responding in Russia: Mars, Nestlé, PepsiCo and Danone are just a few of the large CPGs to stop investments, sales, advertising or other activities as the Ukraine invasion continues.
• Confectionary News: The cost of war on the food front: The list of companies shutting operations in Russia grows daily, however, dozens remain to help out with a different, but no less severe, humanitarian crisis…. Read more

Disruptions in global food systems

• Al Jazeera: Ukraine-Russia war poses new threat to global food security: The crisis in Ukraine and Russia, one of the world’s main sources of grain, fertilisers and energy, presents new challenges in securing food.
• Economist: War in Ukraine will cripple global food markets: But the damage to global food supply will extend far beyond the grain—and last longer than the war itself.
• The Guardian: Ukraine war piles pressure on global food system: Households are facing the prospect of even higher food prices owing to the war in Ukraine, threatening hikes of the kind seen in 2008.
  
• BBC: Ukraine war ‘catastrophic for global food’: The war in Ukraine will deliver a shock to the global supply and cost of food, the boss of one of the world’s biggest fertiliser companies said.

Immediate effect: rising food prices

• Reuters: UN agency warns Ukraine war could trigger 20% food price rise: International food and feed prices could rise by up to 20% as a result of the conflict in Ukraine, triggering a jump in global …
• BBC: War in Ukraine: Crisis is unleashing ‘hell on earth’ for food prices: The head of the World Food Programme, David Beasley, has warned the conflict in Ukraine could send global food prices soaring.
• Time: Shoppers Scramble as Ukraine War Hikes Global Food Prices: The war has already driven wheat prices 70% higher in Chicago this year and is threatening to upend global food trade.
• Bloomberg: War in Ukraine Compounds Global Food Inflation, Hunger Crisis:  Russia’s invasion of Ukraine means the food inflation that’s been plaguing global consumers is now tipping into a full-blown crisis.

And a small ray of sunshine

This is another example of my seeing the title of a paper and wondering right away who paid for it.  The paper is displayed as a research article, but reads more like an analytical opinion piece.

The paper: Nutritionism in a food policy context: the case of ‘animal protein’.  Frédéric Leroy, Ty Beal, Pablo Gregorini, Graham A. McAuliffe, and Stephan van Vliet. Animal Production Science –   Published online: 21 February 2022

The rationale: Reductionist approaches to food focus on isolated nutritional criteria, ignoring the broader physiological and societal benefits and trade-offs involved…Among our present-day array of issues is the disproportionate stigmatisation of animal-source foods as harmful for human and planetary health.

The problem: “…animal-source foods (reduced to the notion of ‘animal protein’) are represented as an intrinsically harmful food category that needs to be minimised, thereby falsely assuming that ‘proteins’ are nutritionally interchangeable.

The solution: “…we suggest referring to said foods as ‘protein-rich foods’, while acknowledging the expanded pool of non-protein nutrients that they provide and their unique capabilities to support a much broader range of bodily functions. Several essential or otherwise beneficial nutrients are generally more bioavailable in animal-source foods than in plant-source foods.

The overall solution: “A more appropriate way forward would consist of combining and integrating the best of animal and plant solutions to reconnect with wholesome and nourishing diets that are rooted in undervalued benefits such as conviviality and shared traditions, thus steering away from a nutrient-centric dogma.”

Funding: FL acknowledges financial support of the Research Council of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, including the SRP7 and IOF3017 projects, and in particular the Interdisciplinary Research Program ‘Tradition and naturalness of animal products within a societal context of change’ (IRP11). GM is funded by Soil to Nutrition (S2N), Rothamsted Research’s Institute Strategic Programme supported by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) (BBS/E/C/000I0320). SvV grant support by SvV reports grant support from USDA-NIFA-SARE (2020-38640-31521; 2021-67034-35118), the North Dakota beef commission, the Turner Institute of Ecoagriculture, the Dixon Foundation, and the Greenacres Foundation for projects that link agricultural production systems (including livestock and crops) to the nutritional/metabolite composition of foods and human health. PG and FL acknowledge financial support of the project ‘Grazing for environmental and human health’ funded by the New Zealand Royal Society’s Catalyst Seeding Fund.

Conflicts of interest: FL is a non-remunerated board member of various academic non-profit organisations including the Belgian Association for Meat Science and Technology (President), the Belgian Society for Food Microbiology (Secretary), and the Belgian Nutrition Society. On a non-remunerated basis, he also has a seat in the scientific committee of the Institute Danone Belgium, the Scientific Board of the World Farmers’ Organization, and the Advisory Commission for the ‘Protection of Geographical Denominations and Guaranteed Traditional Specialties for Agricultural Products and Foods’ of the Ministry of the Brussels Capital Region. PG is an Associate Editor of Animal Production Science but was blinded from the peer-review process for this paper. SvV reports financial renumeration for academic talks, but does not accept honoraria, consulting fees, or other personal income from food industry groups/companies. All authors consume omnivorous diets.

Comment: I too am an omnivore, do not disagree with much of it, and could have written a lot of this myself, particularly the concerns about nutritionism (the use of nutrients to stand for the foods that contain them) and the concluding sentence in the Abstract: “Humans do not consume isolated nutrients, they consume foods, and they do so as part of culturally complex dietary patterns that, despite their complexity, need to be carefully considered in food policy making.”

But the purpose of this piece is to defend meat as a nutritious source of protein.

Why feel the need to take this on?

That’s what made me wonder who paid for it and whether authors had ties to the meat industry, which of course they do.

Reference: For research on why and how industry sponsorship can influence opinions and study outcomes, see Unsavory Truth: How Food Companies Skew the Science of What We Eat.

Tamar Haspel.  To Boldly Grow: Finding Joy, Adventure, and Dinner in Your Own Backyard.  GP Putnam’s Sons, 2021.  

I did a blurb for  this book:

In To Boldly Grow, Tamar Haspel gives us a warm, thoughtful, and thoroughly entertaining account of how she and her husband committed to eating and, therefore, growing, gathering, and, yes, hunting “first-hand” food every day.  This is a love story with an inspiring message: if she can raise her own food and have so much fun doing it, you can too.

I copied a few choice quotes, to give you a taste.

On calculating the amount of salt you can get out of seawater:

I shouldn’t have been surprised.  I’m pretty good at math, and this was basic arithmetic.  But that beautiful pile of salt was the next best thing to creating something out of thin air.  You take water out of the ocean, put it on your woodstove, and end up with something people put in froufrou little containers and sell at the same per-pound price as wild-caught salmon.  We were mesmerized by a completely mundane process we could predict with perfect accuracy. (p. 123)

On raising turkeys:

Turkey stupidity is the stuff of legend; they can supposedly drown by looking up in a rainstorm or simply not figuring out they should take their head out of their water dish.  But ours seemed to have something going on in the brains department.  Not the kind of thing that gets you into Yale early admissions, but baseline street smarts.  From the day we brought them home, they were on the lookout for an escape route.  (p. 157)

On eating roadkill wild turkey (Kevin is her husband):

I didn’t know at the time that this bird would set the tone for so much of what we did afterward.  It was the very first time we jumped into a project knowing absolutely nothing, the first time we bumbled through successfully, the first time we made a meal of something we’d gleaned from the world around us.  And it proved we were well matched in this endeavor, because Kevin is the kind of man who brings home roadkill and I’m the kind of woman who wants it.  (p. 169)

The tragedy of the Ukraine War is beyond comprehension.  Like everything else, it affects food systems, and not just for the people caught up in it.

I’ve been collecting items, starting with Jose Andres @chefJoseAndres and World Central Kitchen @WCKitchen who are providing hundreds of thousands of meals to people fleeing from the Ukraine.

And then this one:

• Fast-food chains and food producers stay open in Russia, and mostly quiet about Ukraine. While technology giants like Apple and luxury retailers like Hermès have quickly moved to pause sales or shutter stores in Russia over the invasion of Ukraine, most U.S. food companies and fast-food chains have remained open — and largely silent.

Why the silence?

• “Unlike other chains, McDonald’s owns the vast majority of its 847 restaurants in Russia. According to a page for investors, Russia accounts for 9 percent of the company’s total revenues and 3 percent of its operating income.”
• “Last year, Russia accounted for $3.4 billion, or more than 4 percent, of PepsiCo’s $79.4 billion in revenues.”

Other items are about what this war means for agricultural trade, food prices, and specific food businesses—especially pet food.

• The Field Report: What the Invasion of Ukraine Means for the Food Supply: From the challenge of feeding millions of refugees to rising food prices and disrupted wheat crops, the war could have an outsized impact on the food system.
• Russian invasion of Ukraine: Implications for EU agriculture and dairy:   The Russian invasion of Ukraine has already led to massive destruction, loss of life, sanctions, and ramped up rhetoric on both sides…. Read more
• Russian invasion of Ukraine threatens food commodity prices, supply chains & consumer confidence: The food industry, already grappling with high inflation, supply chain constraints and transportation challenges related to the pandemic, could see surging prices of key commodities, fuel and energy following what chief of the NATO alliance described as Russia’s “brutal act of war” against Ukraine across three main fronts this week…. Read more
• Why the Ukraine conflict could spark ‘dangerous times’ for food prices and food security.  Producers in Europe fear the Ukraine crisis may result in rising prices of items such as bread, baked goods and beer that may be passed on to end consumers…. Read more
• Food and beverage companies suspend operations in Ukraine:  Several international food and beverage companies have temporarily shut down operations in Ukraine following Russia’s invasion to ensure the safety of employees while bracing for the long-term economic impact that skyrocketing commodity prices and potential sanctions will have on their businesses…. Read more
• Food Security (Even Beer) Will Suffer from Ukraine:  The stupid, senseless war in Ukraine is causing massive suffering. For anyone who is paying attention, that much is perfectly clear. Stepping back from the dire, immediate humanitarian crisis, economists are fretting about the shocks coming from oil prices. But the shock to the global food supply will also be huge.
• Nestle ‘tentatively’ reopens Ukrainian factories to restock empty food shelvesThe Swiss food giant is restarting some of its operations in Ukraine in order to support the delivery of essential food and beverages to those who remain in the country…. Read more
• War in Ukraine is ‘a huge tragedy for European confectionery family’, says BDSI: The Association of the German Confectionery Industry (BDSI) has welcomed tough sanctions imposed by the European Union on Russia, following its invasion of Ukraine, saying that the speed they were introduced shows the basic principles of the region are alive…. Read more
• What are dairy companies saying – and doing – on the war in Ukraine?  Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the subsequent sanctions imposed upon Russia, doing business with the world’s largest country is becoming increasingly complicated…. Read more
• P&G aids Ukrainian employees, curtails Russian operations:  Procter & Gamble is helping its Ukrainian employees evacuate while providing them food, shelter and financial support, P&G CEO Jon Moeller wrote in a company letter. P&G has stopped all media campaigns and capital investments in Russia and has trimmed its Russian portfolio to offer primarily health, hygiene and personal care products, added Moeller.
• Coca-Cola withdraws business from Russia while other companies remainCoca-Cola is the latest major global food and beverage giant to suspend operations in Russia as an act of protest against the Russian invasion and continued attack on Ukraine and follows similar announcements made by PepsiCo, Starbucks, and McDonald’s…. Read more 
• Abbott Condemns the War and Violence in Ukraine and Pledges $2 Million to Support Humanitarian Efforts.  Abbott stands with the international community condemning the war and the violence in Ukraine against its people, and calls for peace.  Our top priority is supporting the safety and wellbeing of our Ukrainian employees and we are taking all steps we can to assist them.  [Comment: Would this have anything to do with deflecting attention from the food safety recall of its infant formula?]

Here are the pet food items:

• Blog: Pet food not immune to global crises and issues: Debbie Phillips-Donaldson: As a consumer good that’s popular the world over (and becoming more so), pet food is as enmeshed in the global economy as any other product or consumer category.Read more
• Ukraine wheat, oil disruptions may hit US pet foodAny problems with Ukrainian commodity supplies could exacerbate existing supply chain problems. The Russian market was already unavailable to U.S. pet food exporters, so nothing will change.Read more
• Ukraine pet food company keeps producing, starts charityAmid the Russian invasion, Kormotech pet food in western Ukraine continues production and opens a new pet charity.Read more 

I’ve just come across this USDA report on use of bees in agriculture.  It comes with an Infographic.

The report discusses the hazards of this kind of travel to honeybees.

Transporting commercial honey bees to pollination service and forage grounds often involves long-distance travel and variable environmental conditions that harm colony health…During travel, honey bees are unable to access foraging resources and are instead fed supplements such as sugar water or fondant. During the summer, overheating while in transit can become a problem if the hive boxes, often transported on a flat-bed truck, are not configured for proper ventilation.

The report does not discuss Colony Collapse Disorder, but other USDA reports do.

• USDA’s home page on honey bees
• ARS Honey Bee Health
• Report on the National Stakeholders Conference on Honey Bee Health

Also useful

• Congressional Research Service backgrounder for Congress on bee health

I posted about this recall on February 22.

A quick review: The FDA is advising consumers not to use certain Abbott’s powdered formula products because they might be contaminated with  Cronobacter sakazakii or Salmonella Newport.

To date, one infant is ill with Salmonella Newport, and four ill with Cronobacter sakazakii with two deaths.

This is a shocking tragedy.  Formula-fed babies are entirely dependent on those products.  They are heavily regulated, or supposed to be.

The three powdered formula brands at issue are Similac, Alimentum, or EleCare.  The FDA says not to use them if:

• the first two digits of the code are 22 through 37; and
• the code on the container contains K8, SH or Z2; and
• the expiration date is 4-1-2022 (APR 2022) or later.

Abbott’s recall announcement has more information about the specific products.

Politico’s Helena Bottemiller Evich is following this case closely.

She interviewed parents of children harmed, sometimes terribly, by consuming contaminated formula.

In an earlier report, she detailed the history of FDA’s inspections of the Abbott laboratory and the agency’s surprising delay in getting Abbott to do a “voluntary” recall.

Food safety lawyer Bill Marler also has questions about the quality of production and FDA’s surprising lack of action.

Fortunately, House Appropriations Chair Rosa DeLauro has called on the Department of Health and Human Services’ Inspector General to invesigate whether the FDA “took prompt, appropriate, and effective action” in this situation.

As for Abbott, its statement says:

The company said all of its finished products are tested for the pathogens before they’re released, and samples it retained tested negative for the infections related to the complaints.  “We value the trust parents place in us for high quality and safe nutrition and we’ll do whatever it takes to keep that trust and resolve this situation.”

I have my own question: Why isn’t there far more media attention to the formula recalls?  Babies’ lives are at stake.  Parents, understanably, are frantic.

What should they do?

• Feed liquid formula.  It, at least, is sterile.
• Scream for federal action (if enough people do, it might get some).