This realization stems from the fact that carbon emissions from agriculture have been largely ignored relative to the transportation or energy sector, even though the food sector accounts for 26% of global greenhouse gas emissions (Poore & Nemecek, 2018). When it comes to sustainable transportation or energy, consumers do not really have to change their habits all that much. Electric vehicles and public transportation, for example, require commuters to simply purchase a new car or carry out their daily habits without much disturbance. For the energy sector, firms supply renewable power, but the energy provided to consumers is not different from that of fossil fuels. As a result, most of us think changing policy regarding electric vehicles or renewable energies is much easier than changing the eating habits of the entire population. People see their food preferences as something set in stone and not worth the effort to try to change. This ties back to the question I had at the supermarket where the meat packaging failed to mention the carbon cost of the product. The lack of information regarding carbon emissions in food products demonstrates heavy regulation on CO2 efficiency in factories, but less regulation on farms. To make matters worse, the agriculture industry will only continue to grow: as people get wealthier, they purchase more meat, creating a cycle of meat consumption and supply.

Our eating habits are so deeply ingrained in our lives that governments and citizens place less emphasis on agricultural carbon emissions. But since this sector represents a large part of global emissions and will continue expanding, there must be more regulation and awareness on this topic.

There are a number of solutions to this problem and one of them is to create sustainable alternatives to meat products. Through this method, switching from meat to a meat-like alternative would be like switching from a gasoline car to an electric car; however, it is not that simple. Despite the hype of impossible foods and beyond meat, two companies that develop plant-based alternatives to meat, this solution has many drawbacks. For instance, the price of these novel technologies means that traditional meat can end up costing less than the plant alternative. In addition, the scalability of these companies is limited. Since these are new methods, shipping products around America and around the world to create enough of an impact to reduce meat consumption would take years and would not be guaranteed to be successful, not to mention the big elephant in the room that people would still buy regular beef burgers over impossible or beyond burgers.

Despite this final setback, one company founded in 2019, Climax Foods, is attempting to change society’s preferences of meat altogether. Climax Foods “is a data science company innovating the future of food. It has developed sophisticated machine intelligence tools to unlock smarter paths from plants to products, creating a new generation of plant-based foods that will out-compete animal-based predecessors” (The Culmination, n.d.). Instead of replicating the taste of meat like impossible foods or beyond meat, this company is aiming to outperform meat altogether using the power of machine learning and plants. Although this company has lofty goals, the CEO of Climax Foods, Oliver Zahn, believes surpassing the taste of meat is possible. There are infinite possibilities when it comes to combining different ingredients together: changing the pH or process of fermentation along with different flavors coming from proteins, fats, and carbohydrates, creating a product that is better than meat doesn’t seem too far off. Not only this, but the company is steering clear of lab-grown meat and various other lab techniques to lower costs and because they believe the diversity of plants provides more than enough flavor combinations to outshine meat products.

Currently, Climax Foods has raised 7.5 million dollars and is still in the research and development phase, creating prototypes and blind tasting to fabricate plant-based products (Watson, 2020). They are also looking into options for their business model, deciding between being the sole supplier of their food or a technology company that sells the machine learning algorithms to other food manufacturers. Either way, companies like Climax Foods alone will not solve the greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. As consumers, we need to do our part in reducing the demand for carbon expensive foods and accommodate a more plant-based diet if we are to have any chance to lessen agricultural carbon emissions.

References

The Culmination of Food Innovation. (n.d.). Retrieved November 28, 2020, from https://www.climaxfoods.com/

Day, A. (2020, November 10). How one man's philosophy of data and food science could help save the planet. Grist. Retrieved November 28, 2020, from https://grist.org/fix/how-one-mans-philosophy-of-data-and-food-science-could-help-save-the-planet/

Ho, S. (2020, November 24). They've Got Beef: Beyond Meat vs. Impossible Foods Burger Showdown: What's The Difference? green queen. Retrieved December 4, 2020, from https://www.greenqueen.com.hk/theyve-got-beef-beyond-meat-vs-impossible-foods-burger-showdown-whats-the-difference/

Poore, J., & Nemecek, T. (2018). Reducing food's environmental impacts through producers and consumers. Science, 360(6392). https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/987

Watson, E. (2020, September 2). Climax foods raises $7.5m: 'We want to replace animals as inefficient factories for converting plants into meat and dairy'. Food Navigator. Retrieved November 28, 2020, from https://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Article/2020/09/01/Climax-Foods-raises-7.5m-We-want-to-replace-animals-as-inefficient-factories-for-converting-plants-into-meat-and-dairy