SVOD 2018 and the future of Meat Manufacturing

My Silicon Valley Open Doors talk on Forging the Future: What’s Next? (aka Moore/Meat/Mars) just came out on YouTube.

The “Meat” was just a weak attempt at an alliterative troika. I eat meat at almost every meal, so I am a fan. But meat manufacturing has not faced a disruptive new entrant in 10,000 years. The U.S. consumes 1/3 of global meat production. When our middle class blossomed last century, meat consumption skyrocketed (as it generally does for any population rising up economically). McDonalds and Burger King shifted to “American Grade” beef. Sounds local. It comes from South America, and ever since the 1980’s, it has been the #1 cause of deforestation in the Amazon. That approach continues today — slash and burn and then move on as the soil quickly depletes. What the U.S. did to the Amazon is about to be repeated, between China and Africa.

Meat manufacturing seems like a mad cow run amok, the major methane producer, inefficiently consuming 1/3 of arable land and fresh water on Earth.