what is your view on the current food space – production, supply chains & retail.

Production is going through a renaissance at the moment. New emerging technologies like ours are enabling food manufacturers to rethink the fundamentals of food itself and they are beginning to embrace these innovations as they start to become more and more commercially viable. Food manufacturers themselves are also investing more heavily into R&D in food science and food formulation leading to whole new categories of products including, but not limited to, the booming emergence of plant-based meat and dairy alternatives.

Supply chains are currently being affected heavily by COVID-19 and also by global political shifts e.g. US elections/Brexit. While this represents a challenge, it also presents an opportunity to build a more resilient global food supply chain moving forwards. Food security and localised food production seem to be getting higher up on the agendas of politicians and rightly so. It’s easy to see how global warming and continued political instability could only put further pressure on these supply chains so now is a great time to strengthen.

Food service has been severely immobilised by COVID-19. While surging demand for food delivery has provided a revenue stream for restaurants, I see this as mostly negligible and not sustainable. Retail through supermarkets has been booming and provides a stable revenue stream throughout COVID-19. While I’m not entirely sure of how successful direct-to-consumer offerings have been, given the fierce competition for supermarket shelf space, I imagine food manufacturers (especially smaller/independent ones) have been trying to build out these channels to be able to drive up their own order volumes.

what are the issues and changes you have been noticing in the food world that have motivated you to research ‘novel’ foods?

There is an issue and a change which when combined motivate me to research this area.
The issue is that many of the foods we currently produce are produced in efficient ways. This inefficiency is usually reflected in natural resource use (land, water, crops) and/or in the harmful bi-products (carbon emissions). The change is that science and technology has now reached the point where we can do something meaningful about this; a fundamental shift in how we go about producing food; an inflection point kind of like how we moved from the horse & cart to cars.

is the impact of current changes homogeneous across geographies?
do you notice relevant similarities or differences?

The underlying issues are global, however like with anything there are early adopters.
More advanced economies and those that have invested more heavily in science are the ones paving the path at the moment (US, Europe, Israel and Singapore). There is more awareness in their general populations (thus driving consumer acceptance and demand) and they are also the ones who are nearer to mobilising these technologies and so understand them more.

do you see resistance towards what you do?

Generally speaking there is more acceptance than resistance to what we do.
On a high-level people understand that producing dairy from cows may not be the most efficient way of producing it. They also appreciate that if we continue with current dairy farming practices that there could be severe repercussions, most significantly environmental repercussions due to greenhouse gas emissions. Over time we will likely experience some resistance, especially and most impactfully due to the efforts of lobbying by existing dairy conglomerates. An example of this behaviour is the recent Amendment 171 passed in European parliament which aims to restrict/obscure the labelling of plant-based dairy products. Despite these efforts however, plant-based adoption is still growing substantially and so while this resistance places additional hurdles in the path, the inevitable is still the inevitable.

forced isolation, uncertainty and remote working seem to be keeping us more and more in our homes and our neighborhoods. we spend more time by ourselves, reflect, becoming more ‘subjective…

People live busy lives and so this forced isolation has provided a period of reflection across the board.

This time has given us all an opportunity to think about and prioritise the things we care most about and so naturally we are all becoming more passionate and more in tune with our inner belief systems. This is reflected in how we see our relationships, our life goals, our career choices, our health and of course the external impact all these decisions have on the wider external world. An output of this is the change in the way we eat.

Anecdotally I believe that there are two categories of people, one who are overburdened by the stress of covid and who are currently making food decisions based on this. This category is more likely to be following unhealthy diets and are currently stuck due to stress. The other category have through conscious effort or through sheer luck managed not to succumb to the stress and have been able to use this opportunity to eat healthier/more nutritious foods as well as eating foods more in tune with their inner belief system (e.g. plant-based). We are yet to see the long term implications of this period of forced isolation, but it is my hope that these good habits stick and the people who are currently stressed become alleviated of this stress as the world opens back up so they can better their health, eating habits and general being.

what do customers want: taste or ethics? Is there space for both?

When it comes to food, in my opinion taste and nutrition is everything. Of course it is more nuanced than this but in my mind it is very simple. We eat either for functional benefits (for nutrition, to raise energy levels, to build muscle) or for the experiential benefits (the flavours, the serotonin hit, the enjoyment of food, the cultural enjoyment of eating with other people). Where ethics comes in is that the customer no longer gets the experiential benefits; as the mental anguish they face due to ethnical dilemmas outweighs the experiential benefits, thus making the eating experience unenjoyable.

While ardent vegans might disagree I believe they are currently sacrificing experiential benefit for “the greater good” or for this ethical reason when choosing many vegan products e.g. vegan cheese. This is also a limiting factor in more non-vegans converting to veganism as the trade off between experiential versus ethical is so high.

At Better Dairy we are trying to reduce this trade off. The implications being that these benefits are not at odds with each other but instead, by innovating, we no longer have to compromise on one or the other.

how do you think pandemics, natural disasters and food shortage issues caused by climate change will impact on the acceptance of novel foods?

Innovation in food is only at it’s infancy. Pandemics, natural disasters and food shortages will only spur on more investment and focus into this innovation out of necessity. This is across governments, corporate, investors and startups and all of this leads to wider acceptance across the board. If the ecosystem is aligned to will this into existence then it will happen. Given the conversations we’ve had and continue to have over time I have no doubt that in 10 years from now that a large proportion of our foods will be produced in new and interesting ways. It builds on the past decades of work across selective breeding of crops, modification of plants to have higher yields and many other innovations that have already occurred and are embraced in the foods we eat today.

how have changes and current events affected you as a person/consumer do you buy your groceries differently, as a businessperson: is anything you are considering/planning differently?

On a personal level I am eating more healthily for sure. While I do also occasionally succumb to stress/ give in to the draw of unhealthy food, for the most part I am eating more of a healthy diet containing a better balance of proteins, fats and sugars.