Veggie Digest #16

Futuristic pest control, plant-based meat slowdown, all-new vegan baking channel, and much more!

Welcome to the latest installment of the Veggie Digest, the newsletter that keeps you on top of the latest in sustainable food innovations. 

Headlines and Trends

A curated roundup of interesting food tech news from the past week.

10 Things Investors Should Know about the Plant-Based Foods Market (Visual Capitalist)

This slick infographic provides a helpful overview of the plant-based meat industry and important consumer trends. One trend is that plant-based alternatives are rapidly growing beyond just meat substitutes; plant-based eggs saw rapid sales growth in recent years and plant-based cheeses and dips are also fast-growing segments. Another trend is the rise of the “flexitarian,” people who still eat meat or fish, but are actively reducing their meat and dairy consumption (in favor of more plant-based ingredients).

Despite the fact that this is considered “sponsored content” on the source site, there’s still a lot of useful information packed into this piece.

📰 Miyoko Creamery Launches YouTube Channel for Vegan Baking (The Beet)

Miyoko Schinner—founder and owner of dairy alternative company Miyoko’s Creamery—is making plant-based cooking more accessible this holiday season. The company announced its new YouTube channel that will feature acclaimed chefs cooking with Miyoko’s plant-based butter. The Vegan Butter Channel is showcasing how Miyoko’s vegan butter melts, bakes, spreads, and works as a perfect substitute for any recipe. The plant-based series will provide recipes for baked goods as well as savory dinners to present Miyoko’s butter as a feasible and sustainable alternative to traditionally used animal-based butter.

📰 Tate’s Bake Shop Launches Vegan Cookie Line (Veg News)

Tate’s Bake Shop just launched its first line of vegan cookies. The new line contains plant-based butter and egg substitutes to maintain the same buttery taste as the original cookies. Tate’s vegan cookies are available in Chocolate Chip and Vanilla Maple flavors, and they are now available at Whole Foods Market and Amazon.

📰 Tcho Chocolate to Become 100% Plant-Based (Food Dive)

California-based chocolate maker, Tcho, is introducing new plant-based bars using oat milk, cashew butter, and coconut sugar. All of its products will be animal-free by 2023, and as of today, all of its retail chocolate bars will be 100% plant-based. Instead of adding one plant-based option that may or may not be picked up by retailers or consumers, Tcho is completely reinventing itself by discontinuing all of its existing bars made with dairy. The six new plant-based varieties being launched are Toffee Time, Choco Latté, Born Fruity, Holy Fudge, Dark Duo, and Aww Nuts! This change was inspired by the company's ethos of “ethical and sustainable chocolate.”

📰 What the Heck Is Causing the Plant-Based Meat Slowdown? (The Spoon)

The plant-based meat industry has faced a puzzling slowdown in sales year-over-year. Beyond Meat, for instance, recently reported a 14% drop in sales in its latest quarterly earnings report and has revised future earnings estimates downward (the stock is down nearly 25% in 2021). Industry observer Michael Wolf suggests several reasons driving the slump. First, curious consumers were testing plant-based meat products, but haven’t become habitual users of these products. Second, the meat industry is pushing back against plant-based meat marketing efforts. Lastly, as COVID restrictions are loosened, more people are dining out—data suggests that most plant-based meats are consumed at home rather than in restaurant settings.

Food Lingo: “Bacillus thuringiensis”

There’s a lot of jargon in the food technology and sustainability space. Each week I highlight an important concept to improve your food lingo literacy.

Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) is a naturally occurring soil bacterium that produces proteins that are active against certain insects detrimental to crop health. Plants can be engineered to express the Bt gene which is beneficial because the increased use of Bt engineered crops has led to a reduction in toxic, conventional, chemical insecticides. Bt is the most widely used biological pesticide in the world today.

📰 On-Farm Study Of Futuristic Corn Rootworm Management (AgriNews)

Modifying plants to contain Bacillus thuringiensis can lead to the emergence of resistance in target insects. Since some pests attack multiple crops, not only would this rise in resistance affect the advantages of the Bt plant, it could also lower the efficacy of Bt formulations used on other plants as an effective pest management tool. Scientists at the U of I Department of Crop Sciences will start a 4-year project on soybean-Bt corn rotated crops to evaluate the effectiveness of alternate methods combined with Bt corn in rotated crop fields. They plan to monitor rootworm beetle populations with drones, apply entomopathogenic nematodes to prey on corn rootworm larvae, and plant cover crops in experimental fields with rootworm abundances. These techniques can increase crop protection from pests in a more sustainable way.

Sustainability Beyond Food

A handful of non-food-specific pieces to keep you abreast of other environmental items of interest.

🎙 What’s the Environmental Impact Each Time We Hit ‘Buy Now’ (NPR)

The American economy is driven by consumption. Consumer goods account  for 70% of the gross domestic product (and during the holidays, people buy even more stuff). According to the U.N. panel that studies global natural resources, consumption is the leading driver of our environmental problems worldwide. It drives deforestation, toxic pollution, climate change, mining, fisheries, and the extinction of species. During the beginning of the pandemic, when the economy ground to a halt,  we saw the largest drop in carbon emissions ever recorded.  The economy needs us to keep shopping, but the planet needs us to stop. 

📰 U.S. Should Create National Strategy by End of 2022 to Reduce Its Increasing Contribution to Global Ocean Plastic Waste, Says New Report (National Academies)

Plastic waste is ubiquitous and increasing, around 8.8 million metric tons of plastic waste enter the world’s oceans each year. Unless we do something to fix this, plastic waste will keep accumulating and continue to impact the oceans' health, marine life, and communities. The U.S. needs to create a national strategy by the end of 2022 to reduce its ocean plastic waste. A report from the National Academies of Sciences has laid out six intervention stages that the strategy should address.  The stages include reducing plastic production, innovating design and materials to develop substitutes that degrade more quickly, decreasing waste generation, improving waste management, capturing waste in the environment, and minimizing at-sea disposal. Establishing a monitoring system to track plastic pollution will allow us to understand the scale and sources of the plastic waste problem, set reduction and management priorities, and measure progress in addressing it.

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