Photo: Sanjay Acharya via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped. This adapted image is also licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
The Bezos Earth Fund has committed an initial $60 million to set up a network of Bezos Centers for Sustainable Protein, aimed at making plant-based and other meat alternatives cheaper, better and more nutritious.
The pledge was announced today by the fund's Vice Chair Lauren Sánchez at Aspen Ideas: Climate in Miami. According to the Bezos Earth Fund's announcement, the centers will tackle the "major technological barriers" holding back alternative proteins, and their work will cover biomanufacturing of products "whether plant based, fermented, or cultivated".
The money is part of the fund's $1 billion commitment to transforming food and agriculture, which in turn sits inside the $10 billion fund Jeff Bezos launched in 2020 to fight climate change. Where the centers will be based hasn't been revealed yet.
Sánchez said:
We need to feed 10 billion people with healthy, sustainable food throughout this century while protecting our planet.
Our world is poised for transformation, for a future not constrained by compromise.
The fund's own numbers explain the urgency. It says food consumption is expected to rise by 50% by 2050, while emissions from food will need to fall by 60%, and describes food as "the second largest cause of climate change". You can't square those numbers with more factory farms.
As vegconomist reports, the research is aimed at cutting costs and improving the quality and nutrition of alternative proteins, which is exactly where many shoppers still hesitate. Plant-based food doesn't need to wait for a lab breakthrough, of course (lentils have been ready for a few thousand years), but anything that makes the easy choice even easier is welcome.
The environmental case was settled long ago. The Oxford University study in PNAS found a global move to plant-based diets would save 8 million lives by 2050 and slash food-related emissions, and last year an Oxford study in Nature Food found a vegan diet cuts climate impact by 75%.
It's another sign the money is following the plant-based revolution Google predicted. Back in 2016 investors called for a switch from meat to plant-based proteins. Since then Oprah and Jay-Z invested in Oatly, the Dutch government put 60 million euros into cultivated meat and just this January Israel approved the world's first cultivated beef. And yes, it's the same Bezos whose company bought Whole Foods for $13.7 billion.
When the world's richest people start betting on plants, you know which way the wind is blowing.