By Sanjiv Goyal Featuring Manoj Kumar

In this article, you will learn about:

• Trends in the future of food production
• How the food industry will have to adapt to keep up with population growth
• Entrepreneurial opportunities in the food industry
• Sustainable animal protein alternatives
• Why localization is the next frontier of the food supply chain

It’s hard to believe that it’s 2020 and people are still starving. What do we have to do to correct world hunger and get nutritionally rich food to everyone who needs it? I sat down with Manoj Kumar, CTO of Ripple Foods, to find out.

Ripple produces non-dairy milk alternatives made from pea proteins. The company is on a mission to minimize carbon emissions. They are cutting out the middlemen (cows) and conserving water by using crops that don’t require vast amounts of irrigation (here’s looking at you almonds).

Kumar engaged me in a fascinating discussion about the problems the food industry is facing today in terms of feeding the portions of the population that are starving and sustainably keeping up with the projected population growth to over 10 billion people by the year 2050.

Sustainably Feeding the Hungry

The primary goal when attempting to solve world hunger is feeding people. The top priority has been getting food to people, period. The focus is expanding, however, from food for the sake of calories to the nutritional value of that food and whether or not it is being sustainably produced.

According to Kumar, impoverished parts of the world population, especially children, aren’t getting enough protein to ensure healthy physical development. This prevents people from becoming productive members of society. If this is the problem, the question then becomes: how do we get an adequate amount of protein to the people who need it most?

Though you may be picturing a steak or eggs, the sustainable answer is to leave animal protein behind. Kumar and Ripple Foods asked: What can we grow sustainably and locally that will provide the right balance of nutrition for people? Apparently, peas.

The Problem With Animal Protein

We all love to have our steak and eat it too, but the math doesn’t lie. Animal protein, while delicious, isn’t a sustainable long-term solution to end hunger. It’s expensive to feed the whole world on chicken, pork, and beef. It’s costing us money and a healthy environment.

It takes hundreds of gallons of water to generate one gallon of milk. It takes thousands of gallons of water and hundreds of acres of land to produce one ton of meat. With the population increasing exponentially, humanity will have to rethink the entire food infrastructure in order to survive and thrive.

The Entrepreneurial Opportunities are Plant-Based

Plant-based food sources that are cheaper, easier to harvest, and produced locally are the way of the future. This is the shift we must all work towards on the industrial, government, and consumer levels. It’s quite an undertaking especially in terms of the supply chain. Today food is shipped all over the world. To create a system that will serve us and be good for the planet, food will need to be sourced locally and seasonally.

Non-meat, sustainable alternatives are the locus of current entrepreneurial opportunities in the food industry, especially in developing countries like India.

Do We Have Enough Farmland?

One concern is whether or not there will be enough farmland with a plant-based approach. Kumar says it already exists, but it’s being repurposed.

In the USA today, during the summer the midwest produces corn. According to the USDA, 91.7 million acres of corn were planted in 2019. Only a tiny portion of that crop is used to feed people. The rest of it is used in ethanol production and livestock feed locally and abroad.

Our precious resources — farmland and water — are being used to raise animals for dairy and meat. Rather than directly feeding people, we are using the majority of our farmland to feed the middlemen: cows, chickens, and pigs. This is unsustainable in the long run, especially when compared to plant-based proteins.

The Benefits of Plant-Based Proteins

Plant-based sources of protein and nutrition cut out the intermediary, and feed humans directly. This decreases the amount of water needed to produce food and ensures that precious farmland is being used to feed people not animals.

Ripple Foods champions pea protein as one of the best alternatives. Peas are a robust, low-maintenance crop that grows relatively easily. They fix their own nitrogen, and they don’t need irrigation. Then you harvest them and you use the protein to make milk or other products. Ripple Foods aren’t the only company that has caught on to this opportunity. Beyond Meat also uses pea protein in their products.

When you switch from an intermediate system to directly feeding people with the crops you are growing, you create a paradigm shift. This is what we have to go back to in order to meet the needs of the booming population not just sustainably, but cost-effectively. We must shift to an agricultural process with a much smaller carbon footprint that produces a lot more food. On top of making mathematical sense, it’s good business.

It’s not about being vegan or vegetarian, it’s about providing nutritious food in a way that is best for our survival and the survival of our environment long-term.

The Role Of Water

Water is the next frontier for human sustainability on this planet. We have to make it reusable (stop polluting it) and find a way to eliminate water waste.

In India, for three months out of the year water is a plentiful resource and then there is a long dry season. We must tune into the natural cycles and seasons of plenty, not just in terms of agriculture but in terms of other resources like water. During the rainy season, water in India used to get collected in ponds; now those ponds have disappeared.

We have to work with the natural cycles of the earth as our ancestors did. They knew how to make the most of when resources became available and save for the rest of the year. They used things in season. Sometimes we need to look back to go forwards. Though we have the technology to grow things year-round, perhaps that isn’t what is best for our environment.

What Will It Take for the Food Industry to Be Carbon Neutral?

According to Kumar, the typical cost to produce meat is $10/lb and milk is $3–4/lb. Even if we could match it, that would already be a vast improvement. But for those of you out there that are hungry for a challenge, imagine what it would take to drive the price of protein down to cents per pound.

The other question is, how quickly can we solve this problem? Can we end world hunger and pass down less of an environmental burden to the next generation? How can we create a network of like minds across the private sector and government to brainstorm solutions and collaborate toward a common goal for the greater good?

This year we are hoping to make the IIT Global Summit one of those collaborative spaces where we co-create paradigms for the future. Instead of focusing on technology, we are focusing on technology as a tool; a means to an end. How will tech enable new food innovation, and problem-solving in the healthcare industry and the global economy? After all, tech is like electricity: it’s everywhere, and it’s all in how we use it.

These are the topics we will be diving into at the PanIIT Global Virtual Summit 2020. We hope you can join us on December 4th and 5th. You can register here.