I’ve been reading up on Maple Leaf Foods’ move into plant-based meats, which is actually more than just a move. The company so far has invested a good $1 billion in acquiring and growing brands in the category.

Sure, Maple Leaf is just one of a growing number of North American meat industry peers that see a commercial opportunity in plant-based proteins. The category is growing by double-digit percentages and teeming with upside as plant-based meat analogues, for example, still make up less than 1% of the total volume of meat production in North America. But perhaps more than any one of those peers, the Toronto-based meat mogul is making plant-based protein a part of its identity. Without it, the company cannot achieve its goal to be the most sustainable food company in the world.

I’m interested in learning more about what it takes to blend the two cultures of decades-old meat processing companies and, in some cases, decades old plant-based companies. Long-established mindsets and beliefs on both sides have often been divisive, to put it mildly. But I think that type of understanding will be instructive as the sides increasingly blend in order to meet soaring global demand for protein in general.

And so I found it interesting to see that author, activist and vegan Paul Shapiro interviewed Maple Leaf execs about the company’s foray into plant-based proteins on his podcast, “Business For Good.” Here was a former executive with the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) — an organization many see as working to end animal agriculture — discussing a 100-year-old meat company’s staggering step onto his and his audience’s turf. Among the highlighted discussion points was whether Maple Leaf would be displacing some portion of its meat products with plant-based proteins (the answer to that question later).

With that as one of the primary questions, and based on my own preconceptions, I thought that the direction of the discussion might go more anti-meat in tone. So I was surprised most of all when Shapiro said he felt that scaling up plant-based proteins and making them more accessible and affordable to consumers won’t be possible without the conventional meat industry’s investment and R&D applications in the category.

I found that statement to be refreshing. For one thing, I agree with it, wholeheartedly; for all the vitriol that vegans or vegetarians might sling at the meat industry, they cannot expand their portfolio of products and improve their quality and taste without it. (It won’t be possible without meat eaters, either, because the growth driver in the plant-based category now are flexitarians.) Secondly, it showed to me that even someone often identified as an enemy of the meat industry, at least by way of his former association with HSUS, has a necessary understanding of reality.

I suppose that is all somewhat ironic. Also ironic, as Shapiro noted, is a historic meat processor like Maple Leaf acquiring a vegetarian brand like Lightlife and then doing an overhaul to make all of its products vegan. (Maple Leaf also owns Field Roast Grain Meat Co., a vegan brand that, along with Lightlife, falls under the company’s plant-based unit Greenleaf Foods.)

Also refreshing, though, was Maple Leaf’s response to the question of whether plant-based products would displace some animal production or be supplemental, which was more of the latter. Adam Grogan, a 20-plus-year Maple Leaf veteran who now serves as COO for Greenleaf Foods, said the company doesn’t see animal protein’s place in the human diet — of which it has been an integral part for hundreds of thousands of years — changing.

What is changing is that demand for protein on this planet is soaring, and it cannot be met without a diversity of proteins. “We think there needs to be a better relationship between animal and plant proteins,” Grogan said. “That’s super important for dietary needs and long-term global sustainability.”

Whether more meat companies will make plant-based as much a part of their identity as Maple Leaf Foods has remains to be seen. Whether they do or don’t, consumers’ insatiable demand for protein is forcing the questions and conversations that might change how both sides identify with one another.

Isn't it ironic?

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