After a few hours of weeding, any gardener knows the job isn’t done. The weed grows back, and without vigilant attention, the garden will be overrun again in no time.

Success is fleeting. Currently, many in ag might be feeling pretty good. Fake meat company Beyond Meat is laying off 20% of its staff. McDonald’s stood up to HSUS and kicked a shareholder resolution to the curb. Meanwhile, there is a good chance the Supreme Court will overturn or delay implementation of California Prop 12, an animal-rights law attempting to impose animal husbandry standards nationwide.

After years of suffering smear campaigns and COVID disruptions, it’s OK to feel good about where things are. But it’s easy to overreact. Many farmers see Beyond Meat stock falling and wrongly extrapolate that the market for fake meat is crashing.

I see it differently. The buzz around fake meat taking off was largely media-driven. Stock prices of IPOs are often inflated on media hype and have no relation to underlying or prospective value. The price is driven by a “feeding frenzy” (pun intended) of people not wanting to miss the next big thing in the stock market. But bringing sky-high stock valuation of one company back to earth only reflects the original reality of a new product having an evolutionary vs. revolutionary impact on the market they seek to dominate.

The fake meat industry has plenty of money to innovate and pivot. In 2021 alone, $5 billion was invested in fake meat companies. The industry is full of smart scientists, food industry veterans, and clever promoters. They’re working every day to get taste, texture and price aligned with natural meats. Laying back and betting on them to fail is like going bare without insurance in a flood zone.

The last few years showed many Americans were curious about fake meat, but ultimately the interest was casual.

Gone unchallenged, however, has been the narrative that real meat is bad for your health and the environment. Surveys show the primary reason (beyond curiosity) people try fake meat is a “better for you” perception. Full stop. My firm just surveyed 300 nutritionists. A strong majority agreed that natural meats are better for you. Why not give a louder voice to their position? Do industry leaders expect nutritionists to take out their own ads?

And the perception remains that meat is environmentally destructive to produce. And it’s increasing in intensity. This year, media stories about meat and climate change are on track to be double what they were in 2017. For consumers in their 20s, protecting the environment is a large reason for buying fake meat more often.

A recent report by The NPD Group, which tracks consumer attitudes on food, found nearly 20% of Gen Z teenagers say they watch their carbon footprint. Additionally, 14% say they eat fake meat, and 23% plan to reduce their meat intake.

When kids who are currently in middle and high school enter the working world, what will their purchasing attitudes be? It depends on whether anyone is communicating with them now. Ask yourself, on fake meat, who in the industry is thinking strategically on communication and doing it? It’s a very short list. George Bernard Shaw famously observed, “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” Writing opinion pieces like this one doesn’t convince many consumers!

Looking at European or Asian trends on plant-based gives a very different picture of the promise for consumer acceptance. A majority of consumers surveyed in France, Spain, and Germany believe an alternative to conventional animal agriculture needs to be found. And in Singapore, lab-grown meat (or what the companies like to call “cultivated meat”) is continually being tweaked to produce taste, texture and price that is competitive with natural meats.

So what does a sober analysis dictate for a more vision-minded industry?

First, if you have enough capital you hedge your bets and join the parade. And it is what the bigger players are doing. For a large or public company, it is a sound solution to a potential market getting away from them where every 1% in sales is a big number.

For the farm community, the challenge and opportunity is different. Consider self-driving trucks or electric vehicles. Business interests who hate the idea highlight every accident or the inconvenience of charging your car. Bitcoin and other new money are often dismissed by vested interests who take every opportunity to say why these are bad investments.

So what about synthetic meats?

Why do the cattle, pork and poultry industries wait when there is such a target-rich environment today to explain to consumers there are better ways to waste their money? Grade schools, universities, hospitals and public venues are all introducing fake meats. Restaurant companies are regularly experimenting with new fake products.

In the short term, the infant fake meat industry has predictable problems. But look beyond the current horizon. There is a long growth runway and a growing acceptance happening below the radar. If favorable perceptions are left unchallenged, they will change behaviors.

Don't let success breed complacency

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