RethinkX | 6 May 2024
Modern foods will be cheaper than animal-derived products, as well as superior in every conceivable way–in taste, convenience, variety, nutrition, predictability and impact on the environment and society. In fact, these improvements will ensure that adoption of new products begins even before cost parity is reached, just as it has in some markets today.
These attributes will affect decisions made by stakeholders across society and therefore impact the speed of adoption. The importance of each one of these criteria will vary depending on the stakeholder–whether an individual consumer, business, investor or policymaker. But to all stakeholders, products made from Precision Fermentation (PF) will be demonstrably better on every parameter than food products made by conventional animal agriculture–to consumers who buy food, to businesses who supply it, to investors who help fund its production and to policymakers who influence the regulatory, fiscal and policy frameworks that determine the competitiveness of the different production systems.
When we also consider the increasing cost savings over conventionally farmed foods, our analysis indicates that the disruption of industrial food production will be dramatic in both in speed and scope.
Indeed, the conventional industrial food production system has as much chance of competing with modern foods as cuneiform clay tablets have of competing with modern computer tablets or smartphones.
At the end of the day, just as there are still people using film cameras, there will still be some artisan and subsistence farmers that continue to produce meat and animal products using animals after 2035. Individuals will not be forced give up animal-derived products, but increasing cost and decreasing convenience will drive many consumers away from these traditional products-just as in other disruptions throughout history.
We are on the cusp of the deepest, fastest, most consequential disruption in food and agricultural production since the first domestication of plants and animals 10,000 years ago.
This is primarily a protein disruption driven by economics. The cost of modern proteins will be five times cheaper than existing animal proteins by 2030 and 10 times cheaper by 2035. Eventually, they will be nearly as cheap as sugar. They will also be superior in every key attribute–more nutritious, healthier, better tasting and more convenient, with almost unimaginable variety. This means that by 2030, modern food products will be higher quality and cost less than half as much to produce as the animal-derived products they replace. Consumers will not need to give up their meat, as it will be available through artisan suppliers. However, it will be the more economic option to choose meat made through modern food methods and so the majority of consumers will be converted.
Learn more about the disruption of food & agriculture.
Published on: 12/07/23
