Cargill enters the alternative meat production market.

[Cowabunga]

Today Cargill, a century and a half old agrifood supplier, broker and trader, including being massive in the meat industry, launches its own meat alternative to compete with Beyond Meat and Impossible Food and other fledgling alternative protein innovators. It will allow others to buy and blend and rebrand its products.

This has the potential to seriously undermine the massive market for mince, which is the bedrock that maintains a minimum beef meat price.

We are only seeing the tip of the iceberg here because it is only a matter of fairly short time before these companies are likely to launch pork, lamb, chicken and even fish substitutes which will, over the next decade, be able to be produced for a fraction of the cost of real animal meat and milk.

Make no mistake, Cargills commitment to this sector is highly significant and very likely to be major disruptor of the status-quo over the next few years. Cargill is a massive supplier of meat and mince and its entry to alternative protein production inevitably points to an intent to cut out the primary producer, conventional-agriculture/farming, for itself to be vertically integrated by being its own primary producer. Expect an exponential growth in such ventures over the next few years.

 

[Yale]

Agree,I’m sure ready meals will be diluted with soya type mince to increase margins.

Reminds me of the rabbit and horse sausage joke,50:50,one horse to one rabbit.

 

[delilah]

Good. Am delighted that Cargill have got involved. Being a name that everyone on here will know, perhaps it will help folks realise that the real threat to farming is not the green movement but global corporations.

In a similar vein. For all those fans of McDonalds on here, as Cowabunga has previously pointed out, Ronald will have no qualms in dropping your beef the moment he feels the time is right.

 

[Cowabunga]

Good. Am delighted that Cargill have got involved. Being a name that everyone on here will know, perhaps it will help folks realise that the real threat to farming is not the green movement but global corporations.

It is indeed likely to be global corporations and BIG MONEY. Even relative start-ups like Impossible Foods are valued at 3 to 5 Billion Dollars and can raise $2-300million for investment in R&D and plant and equipment at the drop of a hat. This is going to be seriously disruptive over the next decade and presents the prospect of an almost a complete remodelling of agriculture and food production as we know it, and have known it for a thousand years, over the course of maybe a decade and a half.

However, the threat is coming from all sides, not just one. Greens will cause added costs and regulations while we also have to compete with alternative commodities that are centrally [or 'locally' to towns] produced at probably half the price per kilo as is viable on farms, thus pushing demand and prices way down. 'Environmentalists' could well jump on the bandwagon and promote these new alternatives because it releases land for dedicated 'carbon capture and offsetting' and reduces pollution and farm waste and so on and so forth.
It also has huge implications for our supply industries, from fuel, to fertiliser to tractors and even combines. A significant proportion of arable land also supplies the livestock industries. Chicken pork and lamb will also be threatened as well as, eventually, both offshore and onshore fishing.

 

[Hilly]

So what are we to do about it ?

 

[curlietailz]

So what are we to do about it ?

I don’t have any animals ( arable farmer) but I’m going to embrace it. Grow the buttercups and rewild etc and take the environmental payments and have an easier life

 

[Hilly]

I don’t have any animals ( arable farmer) but I’m going to embrace it. Grow the buttercups and rewild etc and take the environmental payments and have an easier life

I don’t blame you, I might join you.

 

[Hilly]

So what exactly is it ?

 

[Cowabunga]

I don’t have any animals ( arable farmer) but I’m going to embrace it. Grow the buttercups and rewild etc and take the environmental payments and have an easier life

Assuming you have enough debt-free land to live off whatever social payments are available to you, yes, that would be the sensible answer I regret to say.

I suspect that the issue for most farmers, or a significant majority, is to get into a debt-free, cash rich situation and to avoid riding the snake down into ever deeper debt as commodity prices plunge. It would only take a 3% substitution for dairy products and a 5% to 10% substitution for meat, to cause prices to plunge to depths never seen before. There is also, in the short term, the risk that some of this substitution could come from tariff free imports, accelerating the local UK downward trend significantly.

 

[delilah]

So what are we to do about it ?

just keep paying your levy, AHDB will do the rest .

Beyond that. There has to be a fundamental awakening by the agricultural industry - you lot on here - with regards to who your friends/ enemies are. You then form alliances with your friends, as together you have a strong voice that politicians, the media and in turn the public cannot ignore. On your own, your p!ssing in the wind.

And by 'fundamental awakening', and 'friends', I refer you to the observations made here:

https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/star-trek.308030/

 

[steveR]

I don’t blame you, I might join you.

In the words of Terry Pratchetts character, "foul ole Ron"....bugger'em

 

[Hilly]

will any of you eat this stuff ?

 

[Bill the Bass]

will any of you eat this stuff ?

only unwittingly.

 

[Hilly]

only unwittingly.

Wouldn’t that be against the law ?

 

[unlacedgecko]

will any of you eat this stuff ?

Having been brought up on Quorn and textured vegetable protein (soya mince) there's not a fuking chance I will eat this latest generation of lab grown shite.

If animal ag becomes totally uneconomic (and I don't think it will) I will make a living another way. But I will retain enough live protein sources to fulfil the dietary requirements of my immediate family.

 

[T Hectares]

will any of you eat this stuff ?

No, I won't eat it in the same way that I avoid processed meat products as much as possible, well most processed foods really.

 

[primmiemoo]

In the words of Terry Pratchetts character, "foul ole Ron"....bugger'em

Buggrit. Millennium hand an' shrimp!

He's not wrong, neither.

 

[Bill the Bass]

No, I won't eat it in the same way that I avoid processed meat products as much as possible, well most processed foods really.

We try to as well but my other half likes a Salami Sausage despite me telling her she is far better satisfied with my good ol' girthy Cumberland..

 

[steveR]

Should not the title to the thread be......

Cargill enters the fake or imitation meat production market.

Which is not to echo the concern that this should be to livestock producers....

 

[T Hectares]

We try to as well but my other half likes a Salami Sausage despite me telling her she is far better satisfied with my good ol' girthy Cumberland..

As long as you stay away from these she should be satisfied...