Food Entrepreneurs in Action to Reduce the Impact of the Food Industry on Climate Change
- Isabella Perez
- Jun 6, 2024
- 3 min read
Brice Klein co-founded both Momentum Foods and Paul’s Table, which specializes in producing meat products containing 90% plant-based ingredients and 10% collagen and fat. This unique blend represents a more hybrid approach to meat alternatives, incorporating both animal and plant-based components. Meanwhile, Sam Strickberger, a Penn graduate, is the founder of Impact First Ventures, a venture capital firm dedicated to supporting social impact initiatives on college campuses.
What is most attractive about Paul’s Table burger to me is that it is not 100% vegan meat like some burger meats out there, which usually don’t have a very great taste or quality, but it is 90% plant-based and 10% collagen and fat. It was not until I read this article that I found out people, like Brice Klein, were creating hybrid options of plant food with animal fat. I believe this a very innovative approach to food production as it can help reduce the impact that traditional meat production has on climate change, it can improve our health while having a good cost profit, and most importantly of all, you can reach a greater amount of people with this product. As not everyone in the world considers themselves vegan and has worries about vegan nutrition, now they can be offered an alternative meat option.
Traditional meat production is one of the great contributors to global warming with its releases of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, commonly caused by cow burps, and our excessive food waste that ends up in landfills producing gases. As the food system is indispensable providing 40% of the global workforce, we need to inform ourselves and recognize the effort that young social entrepreneurs are making in approaching business management with a focus on climate change. In the world where we live today, there are many categories with unresolved issues that we need to approach. But as we inform ourselves of the people that are already focusing on a problem and taking action, we can get inspired and realize all the categories from which we can create an impact and help to save the world. Klein’s initiative is indeed valuable and encouraging, just as Guac, the AI startup that prevents food from ending up in landfills calculating consumer demand called, and as Strella Biotech which produces food biosensors to reduce food waste, and many other companies designed to grow healthier food.
At the end, it is about all the businesses that focus on addressing specific and different environmental problems, together they all contribute to solving the bigger problem and encourage others to follow that path and address complementary issues.
And what is even more exciting to me is that not only technology startups are the ones involved in change, but also entrepreneurs who are not tech-driven are changing their practices to reduce methane emissions from cow burps, and creating roving chicken coops to fertilize the land. It is exciting to see how social entrepreneurs are taking action from each of their different fields without excuses or limitations and it makes me hopeful about the future of our planet and business and its newer humanitarian and environmental approach.
One problem related to climate change and food that I would be most likely to tackle is the problem of the use of pesticides in food crops. As they might be important to kill insects and prevent farmers from losing their harvest, they release GHG emissions, increase nitrous oxide production in soils, which is a greenhouse gas harmful to humans and plants, and contribute to the production of ground-level ozone. Some ways in which I would try to solve this problem would be by creating a company that promotes the use of biochemical pesticides, which control insects in a more natural and non-toxic way, and help farmers implement crop rotations and pest prevention instead of eradication in their farms.
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