Fake Meat Is Failing. Could Jeff Bezos Save It?

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Lauren Sánchez, vice chair of the Bezos Earth Fund and Jeff Bezos’ fiancée, announced Tuesday that the fund would commit $60 million to establish Bezos Centers for Sustainable Protein. These centers plan to research and create new fake meats that ostensibly taste better, are better for us, and cost less to manufacture. The commitment is part of the $10 billion pledge that Bezos made in 2020 through the Bezos Earth Fund to fight climate change over the next decade.

“We need to feed 10 billion people with healthy, sustainable food throughout this century while protecting our planet,” Sánchez said in the announcement. “We can do it, and it will require a ton of innovation.”

$60 million is a huge chunk of change, to be sure, but it’s important to remember the true enormity of Bezos’s wealth: He is reportedly worth about $200 billion. By some calculations it would only take Bezos seven hours to earn the $60 million he committed to the new center.

Still, the fake meat industry is not in a great place, and Bezos’s investment comes at a time when other cash infusions have shriveled. While venture capital deals in the alternative meat and dairy space peaked at just under $8 billion in 2021, according to PitchBook, they’ve petered out to a little over $2 billion as of 2023. The stock price of Beyond Meat, one of the most popular alternative meat brands, has tumbled 52% over the past year. Both Beyond Meat and one of its largest competitors, Impossible Foods, laid off 20% of their workforces in 2023.

Bezos’s endeavor has the potential to actually tackle some of the big issues facing alternative meat right now. Although they’re plant-based, fake meats are not all that much better for us than the real kind. And, of course, there’s the taste issue. After a series of scandals at Beyond that bruised the company’s public image, like a mold and listeria outbreak and an equally notorious nose-biting incident, there’s room in the market for a newcomer with a fresh slate (and fresh cash).

This is all to say that Bezos’ funding is very welcome in the alternative meat space, although it is facing a steep challenge. I look forward to whatever better-tasting alt-meats the Bezos wizards will whip up—whatever they make can’t be worse than what we’ve got, right?

Elsewhere online

Denmark-based chef Rasmus Munk, known for his Copenhagen restaurant Alchemist’s multidimensional, fake-tongue-licking dining experience, is quite literally taking diners to another dimension in his next project—namely, space. For a cool half mill, you can nosh on Michelin-starred fare in a massive space balloon with seven other diners, dripped out in a custom-made space suit designed by French sportswear brand Ogier. It all feels conspicuously dystopian, sort of tone-deaf, and overall superfluous—as the food access gap widens, maybe we don’t need a multimillion dollar restaurant floating in the stratosphere. —Li Goldstein, digital production assistant

Supermarket sushi holds a special place in my heart—it’s relatively cheap and you know exactly what it’ll taste like before you eat it. A serviceable lunch. Costco, beloved stalwart of budget shopping, is getting into the game with its own sushi counters. It already excels in the ready-made food arena (rotisserie chicken, $2 pizza slices, perfectly bare-bones hot dogs), and I’m confident its sushi endeavor will be a raging success—I, for one, would happily participate. It has already tested the concept in Washington, as well as many locations in Asia, which leads me to believe that its sushi will be a cut above the rest in the supermarket sushi department. —L.G.

Last weekend’s Oscars saw the celebs decked out in designer, as per usual. One fashion choice piqued my interest: Paul Giamatti’s In-N-Out cufflinks. For his performance in The Holdovers, Giamatti has been a familiar face in this year’s awards season, notching a heartwarming win for best actor in a comedy at the Golden Globes, after which he celebrated at California’s favorite burger chain. The cufflinks ostensibly nodded to this cultural moment. The celebs love to make a surprise In-N-Out appearance in black tie (Kim Kardashian’s birthday is top of mind), a trope that my cynical mind reads as performative. But charming and extremely likable Giamatti is an exception. I don’t make the rules. —L.G.