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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

GMO

David Welch on GMO Controversy and Its Lessons for the Cell-Cultured Meat Industry

The introduction of GMO crops in the 1990s was a moment of opportunity for international agriculture—yet communications with consumers went wrong.

GMO crops have been called frankenfoods, mutants, and carcinogens. According to the Pew Research Center, roughly half of U.S. adults believe that GMO foods are less healthy than GMO-free foods. The Non-GMO Project reports that its butterfly graphic is “the fastest-growing label in the natural products industry.”

Now Chief Scientific Officer and Co-Founder at Synthesis Capital, an investment management firm focused on food system transformation, David Welch has a researcher’s outlook on the rollout of GMO crops. He spent his undergraduate years studying plant biology at UC Berkeley. In his later experience as a research assistant, some of his work focused on genetically modified crops like barley and maize.

Last week, I got on Zoom with Welch to unpack the parallels between the launch of GMO crops and the advent of cell-cultured meats today.

Avoiding a communication breakdown

Around the time when GM crops were first introduced to the public, the scientific community was still debating the safety implications of modified foods. Welch believes that some of that early discourse sowed the seeds of public uncertainty about the safety of GMO foods. Even once the scientific community had reached a consensus, it was difficult to clear up the confusion that had already been created.

“I’m not suggesting that you should stop negative discussions from taking place, and I think it’s fine to have some dissenting views,” says Welch. Yet the lack of clear communication regarding the underlying science of GMOs likely had an impact on public acceptance, an important lesson for the cell-cultured meat industry: “There’s an opportunity for the industry to work closely together to make sure that the science is communicated in a non-confusing way.”

Welch hopes to see companies, governments, and academics work together to develop a common language for describing cell cultivation concepts. That language could help to smooth out issues in the regulation and labeling arena, which has already proven to be a contentious zone for plant-based products.

Importantly, that common language would also help to standardize communications with the public—“so that you don’t have 20 companies talking about the science in 20 different ways, which then creates confusion,” says Welch.

Regulation and mistrust

Even in the U.S., where some GM ingredients have been widely adopted, the regulation of modified crops is notoriously arduous.

“It’s a very expensive and multi-year process to get a GMO crop approved in basically any country,” says Welch. “And I think there’s some evidence through consumer research that that leads to distrust in the technology. People think, if they have to regulate this so stringently, then it must be dangerous.”

Here, he says, lies a potential parallel between GM and cell-cultured meat technologies. In the U.S. and most other countries, the alternative meat industry is still awaiting a regulatory framework. That framework could ultimately affect consumers’ views of cell-cultured meats.

“I’m not suggesting that we should have no regulation,” says Welch. “I think that the regulatory authorities and the companies need to work together to create a regulatory pathway that is safe, but not so onerous that the public perceives the technology as very risky because there’s so much regulation attached to it.”

The future of food work

“One of the other tensions that existed with GM crops was how they were rolled out into the market and the impact that had on some farming communities,” says Welch. From the beginning, seeds for GMO commodity crops were controlled by a few large companies, a trend that has only intensified since the technology was first introduced. “Those companies ended up with a lot of control over the farmers, and I think that’s had negative effects on some farmers.”

There’s another lesson there for cell-cultured meat companies: Many consumers’ perceptions of alternative meat products could well be affected by the industry’s impact on their own communities.

“I think it’s important for the entire food industry to start talking about this,” says Welch. “I believe there’s going to be a future where there are far more alternative meats than conventional meats on the market. And we need to think about what that means for all of the people who are employed through the conventional meat and seafood industries, and what the future looks like for them in terms of new jobs.”

As cell-cultured meat makes its first forays into the U.S. market, producers are sure to face communications challenges. However, Welch notes that there are also opportunities to build trust with consumers by being transparent about the cell cultivation process.

“The way we currently produce meat and seafood, there’s that hidden step between the field—if the animal ever lived on a field—and the point where it gets to your plate,” he says. “I think it’s really exciting that consumers will be able to see how their meat is being made much more openly in the future.”

Beyond Meat’s Impending European Production Facility Marks a Move Towards Global Domination

Beyond Meat announced today that it will open a new manufacturing facility in Europe. The company is expanding its partnership with Zandbergen World’s Finest Meat, who already distributed Beyond products across Europe, to begin making plant-based meats in the Netherlands by Q1 of next year. This will be the El Segundo, Calif.-based company’s first manufacturing facility outside of the U.S.

Beyond’s impending production facility shows how the company is flexing its plant-based muscle — armed with post-IPO capital — to really get serious about global expansion. Beyond is already in 40 countries around the world, and just moved into grocery stores in the Netherlands and Belgium last month. It’ll now be able to create a wave of new foodservice partnerships and deepen its foothold in grocery stores throughout Europe.

(Interesting side note: Zandbergen is also Tyson’s exclusive European distribution partner — maybe the poultry giant helped set up the Beyond partnership before the two parted ways?)

There’s certainly a demand for what Beyond is selling. According to Allied Market Research, Europe accounted for nearly 40 percent of global plant-based meat sales. Sales are expected to grow at a yearly rate of 7 percent through 2025.

Europe is one playing field that Beyond has a distinct advantage, at least over plant-based meat competitor Impossible Foods. Beyond’s products are GMO-free, whereas Impossible uses genetic engineering to manufacture heme, the magic ingredient which makes their burgers “bleed” and taste extra beefy. Europe is especially strict on regulating genetically modified foods, so if Impossible wants to sell in Europe, they’ll have to jump through a lot more hoops.

That doesn’t mean that Beyond doesn’t have any competition in the region. In the U.K. Moving Mountains makes ruby-hued plant-based burgers that taste pretty similar to Beyond, and Nestlé’s Incredible burger is already on menus at McDonald’s in Germany. European supermarkets like Aldi, Waitrose and Sainsbury’s have also been developing their own line of plant-based meats.

Beyond could also have to tackle a headache of rebrand if the E.U. decides to go forward with its proposed ban on using ‘meat’ labels to describe vegetarian products. The European Parliament is meant to vote on the measure after the just-completed May elections, so stay tuned: Beyond might have to continue its world domination not with plant-based meat ‘burgers,’ but with plant-based ‘discs.’

 

GM-No? Yield10 Bioscience is Developing Gene-Edited Corn for Increased Yields

Most of us have heard the oft-quoted U.N. statistic that in order to feed a growing global population in 2050, we’ll have to double food production. That’s a daunting challenge.

Some hold up genetically modified (GM) and genetically engineered (GE) crops as the answer to the impending food crisis. By changing the DNA of a crop, scientists can make them resistant to pests, weeds, and drought. In short: they can reduce harvest losses and preserve yield.

Yield10 Bioscience, an agricultural bioscience company, claims that it is developing crops that will not only reduce crop losses but will actively boost yield potential, allowing farmers to grow more plants with fewer inputs (e.g. fertilizer).

The Woburn, MA-based company grew out of a renewable bioplastics company, which began applying its tech in crop science before shifting its focus in 2015 to focus solely on new ways to engineer higher-yield crops resistant to common pests and weeds. “We started using our technology to answer the question: How do we make crops more efficient?” Yield10’s CEO Dr. Oliver Peoples told me over the phone.

The answer: genetic editing (you’ve probably heard of CRISPR, a gene editing technology).

Companies like Yield10 are basically trying to do what farmers have been doing since the dawn of agriculture: breed crops for more desirable outcomes, like sweeter fruit or bigger yields. Only instead of selecting the best crops from each harvest over years and years, they’re going straight to the source. “We’re like a genetic app developer,” explained Peoples.

Once Yield10 develops an app — er, seed — it plans to license the technology to large seed companies like Bayer/Monsanto and others to bring them to market. Peoples didn’t disclose prices, but said that the business model is to make money both from licensing the original product and get a percentage of revenue from the partners’ sales to farmers.

Yield10 hasn’t actually brought any of its seeds to market yet. Last month, the company announced that it is developing a new breed of corn that’s drought resistant and will produce larger yields. It expects the seed will be ready for field testing in 2020.

The vast majority of all corn grown in the U.S. is genetically modified.

Though Peoples and I started out discussing Yield10’s technology, we quickly went down the rabbit hole of varied public perception of genetically modified foods. A significant number of Americans think that GM foods are worse for our health — roughly 49 percent, according to the Pew Research Center. This despite the fact that U.S. regulatory bodies have unequivocally declared that genetically modified foods are safe to eat.

The question of whether GMO crops are “good” for us and our planet is a sticky one. On one hand, genetically modified crops that are inherently resistant to weeds and pests mean that farmers can use less fertilizer and pesticides, which translates fewer chemicals washed into local water sources. On the other hand, relying on only a few super-seeds means less biodiversity, which is critical for soil health. Plus the GE crop market is controlled by mega-corporations like Bayer-Monsanto, who don’t exactly have the best ethical or environmental track record.

Regardless of how you feel about GM foods, odds are, you’re already eating them. The FDA reported that in 2012, GE soybeans accounted for 93 percent of all soybeans planted, and GE corn accounted for 88 percent of corn planted, most of which was used for animal feed. And it doesn’t seem like farmers are going to stop using genetically modified crops anytime soon.

Peoples isn’t the only one trying to change our tune about genetically engineered foods. Just last month, a nonprofit of pro-GMO farmers launched Ethos Chocolate, a line of chocolate bars out to convince people that GMO’s weren’t evil — in fact, they might be the best way to save beloved ingredients like cacao, oranges, and apples.

Down the road, Peoples is optimistic that GMOs will follow the same trajectory as vaccines: At first people were skeptical, but eventually they became accepted as safe and, in fact, necessary.

“GMO traits benefit the farmer,” said Peoples. “It’s difficult for consumers who live in cities and have never really seen a farm. They don’t recognize it.” Maybe it’s up to farmers themselves to change the minds of the half of Americans who don’t want genetically modified foods on their plates.

Ethos is a Chocolate Valentine to GMOs

No matter your feelings about Valentine’s Day, the holiday is a great excuse to eat chocolate. I’m partial to dark chocolate peanut butter cups myself, but maybe this year I’ll branch out and take a bite out of Ethos Chocolate, a new line of chocolate bars on a mission.

Ethos is part of A Fresh Look, a nonprofit coalition of farmers that want to pull back the veil on one of the most polarizing words in food: GMOs. The bars all have cacao from the Dominican Republic, with added beet sugar for sweetness. There are four flavors, all with inspiring yet semi-cryptic names:

  • The Optimist is the simplest flavor, with just cacao and beet sugar.
  • The Survivor features papaya, which was nearly wiped out in Hawaii due to a virus. However, they were saved thanks to genetic modifications that made the fruit resistant to the virus.
  • The Trendsetter is full of blended apples, and highlights how GMO farming created non-browning apples that stay fresh longer, thus reducing food waste.
  • The Hero has orange oil and draws attention to the detrimental impact of citrus greening disease on Florida oranges, and the GMOs that farmers are using to make them resistant.

Fittingly, chocolate is one of the foods that needs GMO technology more than most. With climate change (read: warmer temperatures, less water, and new pests), scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have predicted that cacao could go extinct as early as 2050. For choco-holics, that’s very bad news.

To give cacao plants a better shot, scientists are turning to GMOs to make them more resistant to pests and adaptable to shifting temperatures. In fact, the University of Berkeley and Mars, Inc. (of Snickers and M&M’s fame) recently teamed up to research how CRISPR could alter the DNA of cacao plants to make them survive hotter and drier climates. (No, CRISPR is not the same thing as GMO — but that’s a whole other post.)

I’m honestly not sure if this is pure marketing gimmick or if it could actually help make people more comfortable with GMOs.

The Ethos website has a lot of flash and jargon, but it doesn’t exactly feature a lot of GMO facts and figures, and the chocolate packaging doesn’t have any obvious “Made with GMOs” brand. In fact, it’s not even clear if the Ethos bars actually use genetically modified oranges, papayas, or apples (and as of yet there’s no GM cacao plant), though according to Business Insider they do use GM beets.

Maybe the point is to let the chocolates speak for themselves. There’s a lot of fearmongering around GMOs, despite the fact that they have been unequivocally declared safe by numerous scientific bodies. What better way to make something less frightening than with tasty chocolate? Once people are on a sugar high, then they can peruse the packaging to get their dose of pro-GMO messaging.

In honor of V-Day, Ethos is letting you send one chocolate to that special someone. Because nothing says love like ensuring that we’ll have chocolate for years to come.

CRISPR is Coming to Our Plates

A new technique is sneaking in our lives, potentially changing the foods we eat every day. From growing resilient crops, to boosting flavor to tackling allergens like gluten, gene-edited food brings to the table a new opportunity to improve health and pleasure, as well as fight climate change. And, most importantly, many scientists say they’re working only with nature’s own tools. Given the impressive change this could potentially bring to our farms, supermarkets and tables, let’s explore how gene-editing could change the world, and the challenging questions we should be asking.  

On March 28, 2018, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) with the guidance of the US Food and Drug Agency (FDA) made a big step, saying certain gene-edited plants can be designed, cultivated, and sold free from regulation. Going more into detail, biotechnology regulations state that USDA does not regulate or have any plans to regulate plants that could otherwise have been developed through traditional breeding techniques as long as they are not plant pests or developed using plant pests. This includes a set of new techniques that are increasingly being used by plant breeders to produce new plant varieties that are indistinguishable from those developed through traditional breeding methods. Among them, CRISPR.

CRISPR is a kind of molecular scissors that scientists can use to change or delete DNA sequences. The tool has been best known for its potential to prevent disease and fight cancer. But now it is being used to improve corn, wheat, rice, mushrooms, and other products. It could lead to hardier, more plentiful crops and tastier, cheaper, more nutritious food. Could CRISPR merely be a faster way of achieving what farmers have long accomplished with traditional techniques, such as seed selection, cross-breeding or mutagenesis? Probably, yes. But it’s not just this.

The possible applications are countless, from reducing food waste, water, and land usage to providing healthier fats to consumers. Some companies plan to use the popular new technology to give fruits and vegetables a longer shelf life. If successful, this could help prevent the sort of waste that comes from people tossing out vegetables and fruits deemed to be damaged or old. Each year, consumers throw away an estimated 400 million pounds of bruised and brown potatoes. The volume of waste grows substantially when you consider all of the other things we eat.

Scientists at Calyxt, a subsidiary of the French pharmaceutical firm Cellectis, developed a soybean by “turning off” the genes responsible for the trans fats in soybean oil. Compared with the conventional version, Calyxt says, oil made from this soybean boasts far more “healthy” fats and far less of the fats that raise bad cholesterol. Pennsylvania State University has developed mushrooms that do not brown, and the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory has created tomatoes suited for shorter growing seasons. Meanwhile, other universities around the country are working on plants that will withstand droughts, diseases and the ravages of climate change. Such improvements, underway in crops as diverse as oranges, wine grapes, and cacao, could protect these plants in the future while cutting down water and chemical use, experts say.

The upsides are, therefore, quite impressive. We can imagine a not-so-distant future where new resilient crops help feed the global population, farms can overcome challenges of climate change, and we enjoy nutritious food that can prevent and fight disease.

But wait a minute, are we talking about GMOs?

The short answer is no. The difference between genetically modified organisms and gene-edited crops is the fact that the latter do not contain foreign genetic material and were not made using the bacteria or viruses that scientists employed in the first-generation GMOs. In the US, the way they are regulated is different, indeed. The FDA made a sharp separation between the two cases, saying that its authority extends only to earlier genetically modified organisms methods because it’s charged with protecting plants from infections and pests. Different is the situation in Europe, where in late July, the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) came to the opposite conclusion, ruling that gene-edited crops should adhere to the same strict regulations as genetically modified organisms.

Are there proven risks?

According to the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, there is no evidence of adverse health effects directly attributable to consumption of foods derived from gene-edited crops. Studies with animals and research on the chemical composition of genetically engineered (GE) foods currently on the market reveal no differences that would implicate a higher risk to human health and safety than from eating their non-GE counterparts.

The same goes for the environment. The use of insect-resistant or herbicide-resistant crops did not reduce the overall diversity of plant and insect life on farms. However, the complex nature of assessing long-term environmental changes often made it difficult to reach definitive conclusions.

But just like with GMOs, many argue that consumers deserve a mandatory regulatory process And this is not just for scientific reasons, but for consumer and public safety and confidence.

So, why does everybody seem concerned about gene editing our food?

Lack of background knowledge, a general aversion to ingesting technological products, as well as poor labeling are primary concerns.

Most of us don’t think about it, but almost all American-grown corn and soybeans come from genetically modified seed. Wheel your cart around a supermarket, and you’ll push past aisles of GMO foods, such as bread, cereals, and crackers, as well as yogurt, milk and meat. Even cheese is made from genetically engineered rennet — the enzyme that curdles milk — instead of traditional rennet from animal stomachs.

Finally, labeling is a crucial topic. In 2016, the U.S. Congress passed a law requiring food producers to label GMOs on their food products, but those rules may not apply to new GE foods. For example, Calyxt has actually labeled its soybean oil as “non-GMO,” stating that it contains no foreign genetic material.

Unlike older genetic modification methods, the new techniques are precise, fast and inexpensive, and companies hope they will avoid the negative reputation and regulatory hurdles that hobbled the first generation of genetically modified foods. But the speed of change has startled consumer and environmental groups who say the new technology has not been adequately vetted, and they have raised alarms over labeling and petitioned regulators to add further safety reviews.

“This is hard stuff,” Federico Tripodi, Calyxt’s chief executive, told The Washington Post. “Consumers accept that technology is good in many aspects of their lives, but technology and food have been something scary. We need to figure out how to engage in that conversation.”

Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods Get Label Wins, Score Big for Plant-based Meat

Yesterday plant-based burger startup Impossible Foods officially got the green light from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that their patties are safe to eat. Impossible voluntarily submitted their burger to the FDA for testing last year and was surprised when the regulatory body came back to them with a big red flag concerning the burger’s not-so-secret star ingredient: heme.

Though heme is typically found in animal tissue, it also occurs naturally in plants — albeit in smaller amounts. Impossible uses genetically modified yeast to produce large amounts of the stuff, which lends the trademark “bleeding” appearance, and meaty taste, to their burgers.

While the FDA was initially wary of approving heme, stating that there wasn’t enough information to establish its safety, it reversed its stance yesterday, claiming that the ingredient is “generally recognized as safe.”

Though it has cleared the FDA hurdle, Impossible Foods still gets flack for using genetically modified ingredients. Plant-based meat competitor Beyond Meat, however, made headlines today when it officially secured its status as non-GMO after a one-year review. Though many people, including Beyond Meat investor Bill Gates, believe that GMOs are “perfectly healthy,” the International Food Information Council Foundation revealed last month that nearly half of consumers avoid genetically modified food, believing it to be unhealthy.

These pieces of news are big wins for the respective alterna-meat startups. Business has been booming lately for both companies: Impossible recently started selling its vegan burger patties at White Castle and on select Air New Zealand flights, and Beyond has been selling out in grocery stores around the country, with plans for international expansion.

Crispr Gene Editing Software May Dramatically Change Our Food — And Soon

Last week, the USDA ruled that organisms gene-edited by Crispr technology will not be subject to the same regulations as genetically modified organisms (GMO). US Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue said that the USDA currently does not, and has no plans to, regulate plants or animals “that could otherwise have been developed through traditional breeding techniques.” In other words, Crispr-edited organisms are just as safe to eat as traditional ones.

If you don’t know about Crispr, it’s a buzzy new technology that allows scientists to delete, add, or modify genetic sequences with an organism, be that a plant, a turkey, or even a human. As you might expect, it has huge implications for the food system. Crispr technology can transform genetic codes to make crops or animals grow more quickly, taste better, or be more resistant to disease and harsh environments.

Genetic modification (as in GMO’s), by contrast, involves adding genes from organisms like bacteria into crops order to change plants’ properties. The differences may seem pretty minimal, but not to the USDA; Crispr-edited organisms are subject to much less regulation than GMO’s, which have to be approved by the FDA, the EPA, and the USDA before they’re allowed on shelves.

 

Source: Agri-Pulse

This is because the USDA views gene-editing with Crispr as a sped-up version of selected breeding. So instead of humans slowly selecting and growing only the juiciest apples over decades and decades, eventually creating an extra-juicy varietal, scientists can just do this in one go by editing the genome of the apple itself.

The U.S. isn’t the first one to be lenient on gene-editing technology. In 2017 Germany and Sweden ruled that gene-edited plants were distinct from GMO, and therefore should not be subject to the same regulation. Which gives scientists working on Crispr technology a lot of freedom to manipulate crops and meat animals, at least compared to those developing GMO’s.

So what does this mean for you and your dinner plate? To start with, Crispr will enable biotech companies to develop a whole slew of modified foodstuffs. Think wheat suitable for people with celiac disease, like they’re making at the Institute for Sustainable Agriculture in Spain. Or pigs and cows that grow more quickly and with fewer health problems, which they’re developing at the U.K. livestock company Genus Breeding.

Proponents claim that Crispr technology will be used to make food more nutritious, more resistant to adverse environmental conditions, and taste better. Anti-GMO advocates, however, aren’t so keen on the new technology. They view Crispr as just another form of genetic modification; which, to be fair, it technically is — just one that’s more efficient and effective than traditional GMO processes, and which doesn’t require a transplant from another organism.

As our environment degrades and it becomes harder to produce food, CRISPR could also hold the answer to feeding our population (which the UN projects will grow to almost 10 billion by 2050). By allowing scientists to create plants that are resistant to drought, increased temperatures, and poor soil, it could theoretically help increase crop yields despite the challenges of climate change. It could also extend products’ shelf life, reducing food waste from spoilage.

If this all sounds remote and unrealistically futuristic, it’s not; Crispr-edited foods could be in supermarkets sooner than you think. Ozy.com reported that DuPont Pioneer is currently creating a strain of Crispr-edited corn that they claim could be ready for planting as early as 2019. Genus also hopes to have their meat from their quick-growing cows and pigs on supermarket shelves in 5 years. So you might be able to purchase Crispr-edited pork chops and ears of corn by as early as 2023.

The USDA hasn’t yet decided if they will require companies to inform consumers which of their foods have been edited with Crispr, which they currently do for GMO’s. But stay tuned; they’re expected to release a decision by July. No matter which way they go, their recent decision not to submit Crispr to the same regulation as GMO’s means that they’re giving enormous freedom to gene-editing technology. We’ll have to wait and see if it lives up to the hype.