Bunge Ltd, one the world’s biggest grain traders are investing in fake-meat startups like Beyond Meat.
No wonder many top agricultural firms want to grab their cut of the booming market for plant-based fake meat. Seed company Corteva – which spun off in June after a merger of Dow Chemical and Dupont – is studying potential vegetable seed offerings. The big agricultural firms are in part playing defence. Grain traders supply the world’s livestock farms with animal feed – a business that would suffer if fake meat sales rise at the expense of real meat. Seed companies such as Bayer AG sell to farmers who grow the corn and soybeans that are now sold mostly to feed livestock.
Cargill in August announced an additional US$75 million investment in North American pea-protein producer Puris – which supplies Beyond Meat. That triples its original US$25 million investment in January 2018. Toronto-based pork processor Maple Leaf two years ago bought US-based Lightlife Foods, a plant-based burger-maker, to expand its reach into a market with boundless potential, chief executive Michael McCain said.