Do you think they are still doing a good job?
i will do it. I think they changed the narrative. I think they took something that was a threat to them and characterized it in a negative way. And I think people believe that, so I think it was effective. Yeah.
I’m in the UK, and McDonald’s has been selling McPlant burgers using Beyond patties for a few years now. Why was it discontinued in America?
Hmm. [Pauses.]
Without commenting specifically on McDonald’s (I really don’t want to), let’s consider the structure of the United States. you have [Michigan]South Carolina and Tennessee have auto industries, right? In addition to these three states, several more could become very powerful in Washington, DC.
Now imagine that almost every state has a lobby. It’s the lobby of the agricultural industry, right? Animal protein lobby. They have a lot of control over Washington. So here in the U.S., it creates a different environment in terms of being able to communicate directly with consumers. In general, we tend to serve consumers better in Europe than in the United States.
Speaking of Washington, RFK Jr. is President Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services. He is quite against processed foods. How does “Beyond” fit into the “Make America Healthy Again” agenda?
To be honest, that should be at the forefront, and some of the views I’m hearing, there are some things that actually excites me.
First of all, do you know about the Nova system, which happens to include plant-based meat in the processed foods category? It’s not coming from the Sermon on the Mount or anything like that, it’s just a group of people putting together a characterization. And we don’t belong to that party. we don’t want to be there. We are food that goes through a series of steps to get to the result, which is better than the process people go through when consuming factory-farmed meat.
Considering the benefits to humans and the environment, that’s a huge win. I believe I can convey this difference to this administration.
The second work, from early in Kennedy’s career, is about the concept of restoring nature. Our ability to rewild large parts of the planet is unparalleled. One notable statistic is that 93% less land is used to manufacture the product than animal protein. With that land available, we can not only extract methane, but also rewild the remaining land to extract carbon from the atmosphere.
Have you contacted RFK Jr.?
Not yet, but I hope so.
