Podcasts

Feeding 10 Billion

By the year 2050 we will have 10 billion people on our planet – a sixth of whom will be in India. If we want to feed all 10 billion of us in a sustainable, healthy and just way, we need to reimagine how we source our food. Feeding ourselves cannot come at the cost of global health, worsening greenhouse gas emissions, excessive land, water and resource use, zoonotic diseases, antibiotic resistance, and needless suffering. Last season, we brought you a ringside view of the next food revolution that is rethinking the future of protein. Companies like Memphis Meats, Impossible Foods, Beyond Meat and JUST Egg had a blockbuster year making meat, eggs, and other animal-sourced foods from plants, or cells, or other ingredients that are delicious and nutritious for us, and vastly better for the planet. The Covid-19 pandemic has only made the importance of protein diversification evident. If you want to be part of the future of food and work on solutions to some of the biggest problems of our time, join the Good Food Institute’s Varun Deshpande and Ramya Ramamurthy on Season 2 of Feeding 10 Billion

Cultivated meat brings to mind different associations for everyone, but one thing is clear: it isn’t science fiction anymore. It’s here, it’s now. At the close of 2020, after a year ravaged by one of the worst zoonotic disease outbreaks we’ve ever seen, Singapore became the first country in the world to approve the commercial sale of cultivated chicken bites. But we still have a long way to go when it comes to increasing investment in R&D and driving down the cost of producing cultivated meat.
Luckily, competitions like the XPRIZE Feed the Next Billion are designed to do exactly that. If you’ve been listening to previous episodes, you will recall that the prize offers $15 million to finalists who come up with innovative solutions to combat challenges within the smart protein ecosystem..

To go a step beyond and understand what exactly we need from a technological standpoint when it comes to building a viable future for cultivated meat, our host, Varun Deshpande, sits down with Dr. Kate Krueger. The founder of Helikon Consulting and a technical expert for XPRIZE, Kate tells us about her pioneering work around advancing cellular agriculture, making smart protein accessible — particularly in the developing world — and her hopes for the impact that the XPRIZE’s diverse participants can have on our food systems.

Resources for further reading:

XPRIZE Feed the Next Billion and the competition’s semifinalists

(https://www.xprize.org/prizes/feedthenextbillion)

(https://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Article/2021/07/14/XPRIZE-unveils-semi-finalists-in-15m-global-Feed-the-Next-Billion-competition)

Eat Just’s mission to serve up cultivated chicken in Singapore

(https://thespoon.tech/eat-just-makes-the-worlds-first-sale-of-cultured-meat/)

The science behind cultivated meat and the impact it has on the environment

(https://gfi.org/science/the-science-of-cultivated-meat/#:~:text=Cultivated%20meat%2C%20also%20known%20as,and%20farm%20animals%20for%20food.)

(https://www.greenqueen.com.hk/cultivated-meat-has-92-lower-climate-impact-will-reach-price-parity-by-2030-says-new-research/)

McKinsey’s report on cultivated meat, highlighting consumer insights and industry concerns

(https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/agriculture/our-insights/cultivated-meat-out-of-the-lab-into-the-frying-pan)

Follow Kate:

Twitter: twitter.com/KateKruegerPhD

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ktkrueger

You can connect with Varun Deshpande:

LinkedIn | Twitter

Find GFI on Social Media:

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