The patent mania of big protein

August 2022

There's a new concentration of power looming in the food system: Big Protein.

The bulk of our protein needs comes from animals, but apparently "animals have just been the technology we have used up until now to produce meat ... What consumers value about meat has nothing to do with how it's made. They just live with the fact that it's made from animals." (Impossible Foods CEO).

Now, it seems, we need to learn to live with the fact that the technology we use to produce 'meat' is shifting from the fields to the factories. That is, to mega-facilities which will extract and purify protein from plants such as soya, wheat, and peas [1], or which will brew animal muscle cells in giant vats [2]; or which will grow bacteria in huge bio-fermenters [3]. The missing meat-like qualities, such as taste, micro-nutrients, texture, fat and blood will be produced in supporting factories. Indeed, "A radically reshaped future is rushing towards us" (Fassler).

If all this sounds like a niche market for wealthy, middle-class animal-lovers who don't mind how processed their food is so long as it doesn't make them feel guilty, be assured that there are big players who expect Big Protein to be a big game.

"At the moment, the cultured-meat space is attracting funds from super-rich celebrities, such as Bill Gates and Richard Branson, conventional meat giants, such as Tyson and Cargill, food processing magnate, Nestlé, and a stack of venture capitalists."

(FAKE REAL MEAT PRESSURE ON GOVERNMENT - July 2022)

By early 2021, there were 80 companies formed to produce fake meat, fake-meat ingredients and the equipment to manufacture all of these. Qatar aims to host the world's first mega-factory for cultured animal cells. A string of veggie-protein burgers is already on the market [1], the most meat-like one so far being the Impossible Burger, the first alternative-protein burger which bleeds, although more bleeding burgers are set to follow.

Despite the eye-watering $1.8 trillion set-up costs, and the super-human technological effort still to be achieved before fake-burgers can become a household item [2], all these investors obviously anticipate a successful and lucrative outcome.

This may not be as flaky as it sounds. The Impossible Burger comes with 15 patents, covering everything about it from the method for protein extraction and purification, plus its composition, flavours and aromas, to the GM yeast which make its fake blood, plus the finished "ground meat replicas". Where there are patents, there are profits. No one is going to get a chance to make sneaky profits from fake fake-burgers.

Any imitation meat with a GM content could earn a patent as long as a piece of string, extending from factory to fork and anything in-between.

There's every sign that all these little start-ups profiting from their own patent-burgers will be bought up by the big guys, and we'll end up with yet another concentration of power in our food system, dictating what we eat.

We urgently need to:

• Put in place laws and treaties to remove the incentives to consolidation and to oversee transnational corporations
• Make a shift towards diversified and decentralised innovation, locally-applicable knowledge and open access technologies
• De-consolidate the mainstream supply chains, using integrated food policies which promote short supply chains, innovative distribution, and exchange models
  

OUR COMMENT

Inevitably Big Protein will mean Big Business which will mean processed, uniform, environmentally-unfriendly and gut-unfriendly.

"... Micro-organisms (in our gut play) a key role in making nutrients available, in excluding pathogens, and in the immune systems of all higher forms of life..."

(UNIVERSAL MICROBIOME DECLINE - June 2022)

" ... Disturbances in our digestive tract flora have been linked to numerous chronic diseases, for example, allergies, autoimmune disorders (such as type 1 diabetes), arthritis, obesity, cardiovascular problems, cancer, learning and memory impairment, anxiety, stress, depression, autism and dementia. Our gut bugs play a leading role in neutralising a huge range of environmental pollutants before they can harm us, and in keeping pathogens at bay..." (A TALE OF MICROBES, YOUR GUT AND DISEASE - December 2019)

What are the chances these new-fangled, processed meat-like fabrications will support the health of your gut microbiome and of your body?

Demanding no patents on life or food would be a good place to start. For example, check out www.no-patents-on-seeds.org

Background

[1] IMPOSSIBLE, INCREDIBLE, AWESOME, BEYOND ... - January 2020

[2] FAKE REAL MEAT - July 2022

[3] CANCER BURGERS IN BACTERIAL BUNS - November 2021

SOURCES:

• Philip Howard, The Politics of Protein, www.ipes-food.org, April 2022

• Seth Itzkan, Opinion: Software to Swallow - Impossible Foods Should Be Called Impossible Patents, https://sethitzkan.medium.com, 25 May 2020

• Joe Fassler, Lab-grown meat is supposed to be inevitable, www.thecounter.org, 22.09.22