Cattle producers around the world must be feeling betrayed with an investment in plant-based meat by the world’s largest meat packer.
The Brazilian meat packer JBS Inc. has invested in its own plant-based burgers under the OZO brand, which will be released in 12 U.S. states.
With operations around the globe, including Lakeside Packers at Brooks, Alberta processing one-third of Canada’s beef, JBS is number one in meat packing and processing.
The investment by this $216 billion US$ revenue company hedges its bets between real meat and the fake meat created from plant materials.
The JBS plant-based meat producer, Planterra Foods, is located in the heart of beef country, Colorado.
“We’re not saying meat is bad,” Planterra CEO Darcey Mackey told Forbes Magazine. “People getting their heads wrapped around plants can be for all different motivations, whether it’s about earth and sustainability or just not eating animals.”
To be fair to JBS, this investments in plant-based meat is a catch-up move with competitors. Competitors from Canada’s Maple Leaf Foods to Tyson Foods in the United States beat JBS into this market months, even years before the Planterra deal.
It must hurt beef producers to realize the biggest meat packer in the world is producing plant-based meat to sell side by side with the natural beef grown on the range.
Producers can take some comfort in the knowledge that plant-based meat is still a small part of the $7.2 billion retail beef market in the U.S.
According to Good Food Institute data, retail sales of plant-based meat in the United States amounted to $942 million in 2019. That equates to about 13 per cent of sales. One in every seven U.S. families has bought fake meat.
The amazing growth of plant-based meat has come from nowhere in a few years.
Good Food Institute data shows double digit growth rates for five of the 10 categories. Plant burgers grew over 45 per cent; sausage links by 25 per cent; patties by 20 per cent; nuggets and cutlets just under 20 per cent; and grounds, 17 per cent.
At this rate the plant-based meat industry could capture one-third of the beef sales within 10 years.
The future of real meat production isn’t nearly as bright as five years ago. Real meat production has relied for growth on export markets to the growing middle classes in lesser developed countries like China.
The Chinese have issued new dietary guidelines to reduce meat consumption by 50 per cent.
The real meat industry faces stiff challenges to stay competitive. The industry needs to convince consumers it has the tastier product, that it is healthy and friendly to the environment.
The industry needs to convince consumers replacing meat with plant food will not change livestock methane emissions much. The land used to grow livestock, for the most part, is marginal and unsuitable for growing plants.
It will always be used by animals, whether domestic or wild.
The livestock industry has to find a way to convince consumers and the media of the mistake the United Nations made when calculating the amount of methane emissions from agriculture — a mistaken calculation admitted to by the UN but never really publicized.
Ron Walter can be reached at ronjoy@sasktel.net
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of this publication.
