“Meat” the Meat Industry’s Journalist: Lisa Keefe and Meatingplace
Release Date: 06/15/2022
Business for Good Podcast
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Tuna are like the tigers of the ocean: apex predators essential for oceanic health. And just like with tigers, humanity has been waging an unprovoked war on tuna, causing their numbers to plummet in recent decades. They may not be furry, but these finned beasts still need help, and help them is exactly what Impact Food is seeking to do. Founded in 2021 by a few recent UC-Berkely grads interested in doing something good for the world, the company has embarked on a journey to recreate whole muscle seafood without the fish. In fact, their CEO, Kelly Pan, is so interested in doing good in...
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Every piece of plastic you’ve ever used still exists somewhere on the planet, from the ziplock bag of leftovers to the bag of chips to the packaging holding in all the grapes you picked up at the store. We used to ship all of our plastic waste to China, but in 2017 they stopped taking it, so the vast majority of our plastic, including what we put in the recycling bin, at the very best just ends up in a landfill, and at the worst ends up in the ocean. Enter , an Israeli startup promising to revolutionize plastic packaging by making it fully compostable. That means you could take the bag...
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There are several dozen startups, including , laboring to scale mycelium fermentation to a point where it can start making a dent in demand for animal meat. One company though, has been doing this for decades: . While most alt-meat is made from pea, soy, or wheat, Quorn dominates the portion of the market made from mycelium, controlling more than 99% of the mycoprotein-based alt-meat sector. Partnered with , Quorn is the number one alt-meat brand in the EU, even though it’s still a smaller part of the US market. That may be changing soon, though. In this conversation, we hear from...
info_outlineIf you follow the meat or the alt-meat industry closely, chances are high that you’ve read Lisa Keefe’s work. As the editor-in-chief of both Meatingplace magazine and now Alt-Meat magazine too, Lisa has been both reporting on and editorializing on all things meat for the past 15 years. She’s also the creator of the Meatingplace podcast and is a frequent commentator on everything from trends to controversies and more in the meat space.
While she’s not a meat company executive, as a meat media (meat-ia?) executive, Lisa’s spent much of her career watching what’s happening as far as plant-based and cultivated meat goes, as well as animal welfare changes occurring in the ag industry too. As you’ll hear, she certainly views animal agriculture as a desirable industry worth keeping around, yet she’s very open-mined about animal-free proteins, as evidenced by the existence of her newest creation, Alt-Meat magazine.
In this interview, Lisa discusses her latest trip to Israel where she tried various cultivated meat products, her views on why plant-based meat hasn’t taken as much market share as plant-based milk yet, why the pork industry hasn’t advanced cage-free animal welfare changes like much of the egg industry has, and more.
I always learn from reading Lisa’s work, and I learned even more by chatting with her for this episode, and I’m confident you will too. So, if you’ve ever wondered what meat industry insiders think about the alt-protein and animal welfare worlds, now’s your chance.