Plant-Based Food Use Rising ‘Unbelievably Fast’: Catalyst Update

Demand for plant-based food is rapidly growing, helped by the pandemic and a young population, Matias Muchnick, founder and Chief Executive Office of vegan startup NotCo, said Wednesday at the Bloomberg New Economy Catalyst virtual event.

Lawmakers and industry executives from around the world are debating climate change and its impact on food supply, energy and the economy at the conference. Gro Intelligence is working with finance institutions to make climate an “asset class” while Shiok Meats is targeting slashing selling prices of cultured seafood.

The event will also feature discussions on cryptocurrencies, revolutions in life sciences and Covid-19’s impact on e-commerce. Bloomberg New Economy Catalyst is being organized by Bloomberg Media Group, a division of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.

Key highlights:

• Plant-based food demand is surging, NotCo says
• Gro Intelligence helps prepare for climate change risk
• BluePhin robots to collect litter from rivers and seas
• Fossil fuel systems key to achieving climate targets, C-Zero says
• Australia’s renewables capacity gives it key opportunity
• Response to Covid-19 shows climate change can be tackled, panelists say

Here are the 31 people in the Bloomberg New Economy Catalyst list

(All times Eastern)

Shiok Meats Targets Slashing Selling Prices (6:58 a.m.)

Shiok Meats, a Singapore-based cultured seafood startup, is aiming to bring down selling prices to about $50 per kilogram by the end of this year, according to co-founder and CEO Sandhya Sriram. Prices are currently just below $1,000.

To get there, Shiok is optimizing nutrients that help convert stem cells into meat. Eventually, the process will involve 100% plant-based and edible nutrients, she said. The company, which has raised over $20 million in funding, plans to launch new products in the next two years.

Plant-Based Food Demand to Grow: NotCo (6:24 a.m.)

The market for plant-based food is not even close to peaking, according to Matias Muchnick, founder and Chief Executive Officer of NotCo, a vegan milk startup backed by Amazon.com Inc chief Jeff Bezos. The company started selling plant-based burgers in its home country of Chile more than 10 months ago and now accounts for 5% of the local burger market, he said.

“It’s accelerating unbelievably fast,” Muchnick said. “Covid accelerated this adoption of plant-based foods, because today younger generations are convincing their dads to change.”

The food industry has been operating with obsolete technology for the last five decades and the consequences have been profound for the environmental, the use of resources and efficiency, he said.

Gro Intelligence Plans Climate ‘Asset Class’ (6:08 a.m.)

Data analytics company Gro Intelligence is working to bring together some of the biggest financial institutions to launch a new “asset class” around climate, according to CEO and founder Sara Menker. The company is using a subset of data to better understand climate conditions such as drought and floods.

“We need to prepare financial markets for how that risk will be managed,” Menker said. “Otherwise it is doomsday.”

Cracking the “affordability code” on the path to sustainability is important for achieving equitability amid a greater need for affordable and nutritious food. Climate change and its threat to food safety and human health is worrying, and solving the issue is going to be critical, Menker said.

Carbo Culture Ramping Up Carbon Capture Capacity (6 a.m.)

Carbon sequestration startup Carbo Culture is scaling up capacity and hopes to remove about 13,000 tons of carbon dioxide annually from the environment once works are completed, CEO Henrietta Moon said. The company turns biomass into almost pure carbon that can be stored or used for filtration, absorption or soil enhancement.

“This carbon form cannot be eaten by microbes or fungi,” Moon said. “It essentially remains stable for a thousand to potentially a million years.”

BluePhin’s Robot to Clean Water Bodies (5:53 a.m.)

Marine waste startup BluePhin Technologies is developing a robot that will be able to collect litter from rivers, canals and coastlines thanks to a waste detection algorithm. Co-founder and CEO Simran Chowdhry is targeting a full-scale prototype that will be ready to deploy by the end of this year, or the first quarter of 2022.

The startup is focusing on rivers in India and the Philippines, where waste management practices are not being implemented.

Easy Solar Can Drive Power Demand Through Microgrid (5:40 a.m.)

Easy Solar, which provides a range of solar and battery systems in West African countries that lack access to a power grid and banking services, can raise electricity demand through greater access, according to company co-founder Nthabiseng Mosia.

The key is making the systems affordable by using a lease-to-own model with financing options from six months to three years, she said. The U.S. needs to do more to finance off-grid investments in order to improve universal energy access, according to Mosia.

Using Fossil Fuel Infrastructure Key for Net-Zero (5:35 a.m.)

Using existing fossil fuel infrastructure is critical to achieve net-zero emission targets, said Zach Jones, CEO of C-Zero. The hydrogen company is funded by investors like Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Eni SpA and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. It expects to have a pilot plant online by the end of next year and produce commercial quantities of the fuel by the end of 2024.

C-Zero focuses on turquoise hydrogen technology, which combines hydrogen made from renewable electricity and that from natural gas, with carbon dioxide emitted during the process being sequestered.

“Thinking about hydrogen as a Swiss army knife that can just do everything is probably an oversimplification,” Jones said. “There will be some applications where hydrogen really has a strong value proposition. One of those is making zero-emissions electricity to complement intermittent production from renewables, like wind and solar.”

Sierra Leone Caught in Vicious Climate Cycle (5:20 a.m.)

People in Sierra Leone are caught in a cycle of running away from the impact of climate change which in turn has contributed to more pollution and environmental damage locally, according to Freetown mayor Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr.

“The devastation from climate has lead to abnormally heavy rainfall and unpredictable weather patterns,” she said. That, in turn, has led to people migrating to cities, an increase in pollution and deforestation which has deteriorated soils and caused more landslides.

Australia’s Clean Energy Potential Gives It Key Climate Role (5:15 a.m.)

Australia needs to consider its role as an emitter at a time when the European Union is weighing taxing greenhouse gas emissions of the products it imports from abroad, said Australian Greens Senator for South Australia Sarah Hanson-Young. There’s an opportunity for the country to play a bigger role in global efforts to slow climate change because of Australia’s renewable energy potential.

“We are getting to a crunch point where the cost of business as usual is starting to create a burden on jobs and the economy into the future,” she said. “We’re in a crucial decade right now.”

Response to Virus Shows Tackling Climate Change Possible (5:10 a.m.)

Swift reaction to the coronavirus pandemic shows tackling climate change is possible, panelists at the first session of the conference said. But nations and global leaders need to play a much larger role in reducing carbon pollution.

“If climate risk materializes, it will be far more difficult for us to try to reverse the trend” than it has been to contain the pandemic, said Ma Jun, director of China’s Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs. “China’s vast expansion of coal consumption have been brought into certain control -- this has built the confidence that there’s a way to try to decouple growth with pollution.”

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