The marketplace is chock full of distracting messages. Thus it has always been, but in the post-pandemic era I feel the communications tornado is reaching record intensity. Along with the usual marketing exhortations (Eat this, not that! We have something for everybody! We don’t have much but what we have is the best!), some of the communications have taken on a certain cringe-fringe quality.

Meat folks rail at the messaging from some alt-meat producers that blame animal ag for most of the planet’s environmental challenges. Alt-meat manufacturers have to deflect a few outrageous claims, as well: One theory has it that the alt-protein industry is trying to put the global conventional meat industry out of business in order to starve millions of people to death in developing countries, thus solving the question of over-population.

Beware those who tinker in such margins: A financially solid business requires 360° situational awareness, but such claims will not determine the course of the protein sector. Only the market will determine who wins and who loses in the global protein supply race. Success hinges on the same factors it always has: price, taste and texture, and availability.

Another example of tinkering in marginalia: The federal government’s efforts to refashion the meat supply chain. I’ll cheer for David against Goliath every time, but fostering businesses where the fundamentals aren’t favorable is potentially destructive. If a certain location has failed to support a profitable meat business for the last 10-15 years, how much will a family or a community stand to lose when the government grant money runs out and the latest effort can’t stand on its own?

The basics are worth keeping in mind as the protein market changes. Despite the recent spate of doom-scrolling headlines, the alt-meat market is here to stay, although time will tell which products and technologies will be around in 10 years. Consumer preferences are showing long-term changes around meat consumption, too: stagnant or even declining in developed economies, exploding in areas like Central America and Southeast Asia. For U.S. producers and processors, exports will be ever-more important.

Does your business plan take these macro-shifts into account? Do you have the operational flexibility and the financial resilience to thrive in a changing market?

Or are you too busy reading, and writing, notes in the margins?

Beware the margin-tinkerers

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