Speaking at the Fortune Global Forum in Paris, Nestle CEO, Mark Schneider said that he would like Americans to adopt Plant-Based Food and cut down on Meat Consumption. He said,
“In the western world, in particular, no one talks about cutting out animal proteins,”, but consumers in countries like the U.S. are so “over-indexed on animal proteins” that reducing their intake would lead to automatic health and environmental impact.
Americans lead the race when it comes to ”Hamburgers”
Schneider argued that about 50 billion hamburger patties are consumed in the U.S. every year which is about 3 per week for every American adult in contrast to that of France, where adults eat on average a burger a month.
For Mark Schneider, although the US consumption stats present a rosy picture he is not too enthusiastic about it and instead is looking bringing down overall U.S. meat consumption by getting consumers to trade in their cow patties for plant-based ones. He is of the opinion that this is essential to make progress on public health and sustainability.
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Raise plants says, Schneider
“Think about raising plants first to feed an animal so that animal then feeds man, as opposed to raising the plants right away and with those plants feeding man,” Schneider said. “It’s so obvious it doesn’t need explanation, so over time making progress on that is key.”
Nestle has been at the forefront of growing plant-based burger industry with what Schneider calls its “triple play”—a bacon cheeseburger. Schneider said that some companies do a good plant-based patty, a good cheese, or good bacon, but Nestlé does all three of them well.
“We wanted to show our quick service partners that if you partner with us,” Schneider explained, “you can get a complete kit from one hand.”
Nestle working on plant-based protein since the late 1980s
According to Schneider, Nestlé started working on plant-based proteins since the late 1980s and that its expertise has helped the company to get market-ready products today. He said it took just 18 months from the moment the company decided to do a plant-based burger to the moment it was on shelves.
“Clearly if you have a lot of accumulated experience,” he said, “it’s easier for you to make that progress happen.”
Sounding optimistic, Schneider mentioned that plant-based foods more generally are “coming out of the specialist corner” and into the mainstream. Pointing to the growing interest of masses, he pointed to the “incredible” stock valuation of companies like Beyond Meat and the growing interest in fast-food chains to add these items to their menus.