S6 Ep14: How to Accelerate Protein Transition with Chris Bryant
“Some people have an intuition that [alternative proteins] might be somehow bad for the environment because it’s unnatural and that might upset the balance of nature. But in reality, animal products are one of the worst contributors to climate change and many other environmental metrics that you can think of. So reducing the consumption of animal products is one of the major ways that we can reduce our own environmental footprint currently.” — Chris Bryant
Protein is the building block of life, and it's crucial that we get enough of it in our diet every day. But we're hard-wired to crave meat, plus, we know how challenging it can be to find healthy foods that match up to the rich flavor profiles of meat. That's why there's so much excitement around plant-based proteins: they're taking over the market!
This transition is not only beneficial for our health but it also helps us move toward greener solutions for our health while reducing our carbon footprint. Making this shift can bring about tangible benefits such as improved air quality, reduced waste and emissions, and healthier communities. Moving away from traditional methods of production is essential in order to achieve these goals.
Bryant Research UK is one of the leading experts in advancing protein transition. Their team of experts in social science, market research, and policy analysis helps mainstream meat reduction and alternative proteins. Besides conducting independent research, they also collaborate with alternative protein companies and animal protection non-profits to help speed up this initiative.
In this episode, Bryant Research UK Director, Chris Bryant offers empirical evidence on how protein transition can help create a more sustainable future for everyone. Justine and Chris also talk about what makes protein transition so urgent, how culture and background shape people’s choices, what labels really say about animal welfare, how alternative proteins have progressed over the years, how misinformation affected how alternative proteins are perceived, and how businesses can make a successful transition in this trend.
Connect with Chris:
Chris Bryant is the Director of Bryant Research UK. He is an expert in alternative proteins and has published dozens of papers on the social dimensions of the protein transition. He has his MSc in Policy Research from the University of Bristol and his PhD in Psychology from the University of Bath.
Episode Highlights:
01:43 Moving Protein Transition Forward
05:13 What Survey Says
10:03 What Labels Really Say
14:24 The Truth About Alternative Proteins
17:46 Facing the Horrible Truths of the Meat Industry
20:06 How Businesses Can Make the Transition
Tweets:
The future of food is transitioning from meat protein to plant protein. This week, @jreichman and Chris Bryant of Bryant Research UK share why protein transition is beneficial for all stakeholders involved and what we can do to make this transition easier #podcast #entrepreneurship #socialgood #inspiration #impactmatters #NextGenChef #EssentialIngredients #BryantResearch #ProteinTransition #AltProtein #MeatAlternatives #PlantBasedProtein #diet #nutrition #environment #CrueltyFree #research
Inspirational Quotes:
03:37 “It's so important to better understand what's going on because it helps shape people's choices” —Justine Reichman
06:52 “People who are working in the meat industry were less likely to be eating meat than everybody else. There's definitely a bit of psychological proximity if you are the one who is literally sticking the knife in as opposed to the general population for whom it's quite easy to keep those things out of sight and out of mind.” —Chris Bryant
07:56 “A lot of people might have some idea that there's kind of some morally questionable stuff that goes on behind the doors of a factory farm and a slaughterhouse but don't want to be obliged to stop eating meat… And so a lot of people will actively avoid thinking about engaging with these things for that purpose.” —Chris Bryant
10:23 “A lot of the labels that we get on some animal products don't mean what we would hope they mean in terms of animal welfare. I don't think there is a way to guarantee that animals are treated well.” —Chris Bryant
15:02 “Some people have an intuition that [alternative proteins] might be somehow bad for the environment because it's unnatural and that might upset the balance of nature. But in reality, animal products are one of the worst contributors to climate change and many other environmental metrics that you can think of. So reducing the consumption of animal products is one of the major ways that we can reduce our own environmental footprint currently.” —Chris Bryant
Transcriptions:
Justine Reichman Welcome to Essential Ingredients. I'm your host, Justine Reichman and with me today is Chris Bryant, Director of Bryant Research. Welcome, Chris.
Chris Bryant Thanks very much for having me on, Justin.
Justine Reichman Welcome, Chris. It's great to have you.
Chris Bryant Thank you for having me on, Justin.
Justine Reichman Yeah, of course. So I'm excited for everyone to get to know you. I was really quite intrigued when I read your profile, and got a peek at what you're doing. So I'd love for you to share a little bit about Bryant Research and what you guys are doing before we get going so everyone can kind of better understand what it is you're doing. Sa as we have these conversations, people know what it is we're talking about.
Chris Bryant Absolutely. Yeah. Well, we are social scientists and researchers that includes things like public opinion, polling, social experiments, and also policy analysis. So our main purpose is to move forward the protein transition away from animal products and towards plant based, cultivated, fermentation derived and other alternative proteins.
Justine Reichman Wonderful. So I mean, that's very innovative. That's really new and innovative and it's quite, you know, what everyone's talking about right now. And so I'm excited to have this conversation with you. Equally, I'm curious, you know, what inspired you to get into this space and then specifically focus on that niche?
Chris Bryant Yeah. Well, it's good question. I've been vegetarian for about nine years and vegan for about four years. And I think there's just so many important reasons why we need to be moving away from animal products. And when I first went vegetarian, I was very reluctant to do so because I really liked eating meat. And I thought I can't be the only person in this situation who has the idea that there's very good reasons to stop eating animal products, but equally doesn't want to give them up for kind of pragmatic reasons. And around that time, I came across the concept of cultured meat. And that was the focus of my PhD at the University of Bath. I've gone on to do research on a bunch of different alternative proteins, and the psychology of meat reduction, as well.
Justine Reichman Wow. So What year was this?
Chris Bryant I first went vegetarian about 2014, 2015. And that was around the same time that I met Mark Post, who is the CSO of Mosa Meat, cultured meat company here in Europe. And yeah, at the time, I was a recent vegetarian and had been in a philosophy class and basically been argued into caring about animal rights, which is something I'd never thought about previously, frankly. And quite quickly, I was thinking about how important it is for us to move away from factory farming in particular. So we're processing so many animals each year for food purposes and, you know, worldwide, over 90% of those are on factory farms. So they have very low animal welfare, very cramped conditions. They frequently get sick. They mutilate them for our purposes. And so it was immediately obvious that this is something we very urgently need to stop doing.
“It's so important to better understand what's going on because it helps shape people's choices” —Justine Reichman
Justine Reichman I mean, it gives me the chills just talking about it makes me feel nauseous. And I do eat meat. Right? And I do try to eat more plant forward and I think that it's so important to better understand what's going on, because I think it helps shape people's choices as it did yours.
Chris Bryant Yeah. Absolutely. I think that most people are, as I was for most of my life, just haven't really thought about it. Going vegetarian is just, you know, something that, you know, maybe 10% of people do. And it's just not something that is we're encouraged to think about very often. And when we look at survey data, we can see, you know, most people are in what they call a pre contemplation stage. So it's not that they're thinking about it, they've decided there's good reasons not to do it. They just haven't even thought about it. That's the case for about 60% of people and some recent survey data.
Justine Reichman Wow. And so where are you doing most of your surveying and what's the population?
Chris Bryant Well, we do a variety of things. We do a lot of things here in the UK. And we'll always get representative samples. So we'll launch the surveys online. And we'll go through a nationally representative sample. For example, here in the UK. I've also done things in France, Germany, the US, I've also done things in China and India. So it's pretty wide ranging. And yeah, just wherever there is work to be done to move things in the right direction, I'm interested in doing it.
Justine Reichman Like yeah, I can imagine because I think the impact can be so it can be so great, right? And I'm curious what differentiation you're seeing between the different countries, or continents even because, you know, as you said, you're talking about Europe versus Asia versus the US. And I'm curious what the surveys are showing you and what you're learning?
Chris Bryant Yeah. That's a good question. So Europe tends to be less progressive than other parts of the world on this kind of stuff, although we do have some good animal welfare legislation in the past few years. When we think about alternative proteins, we see much more openness in Asia and the US. Within Europe, the UK is one of the most progressive places with respect to meat reduction and alternative proteins. Also, Germany and the Netherlands are quite advanced in this respects. But there are many cultures here in Europe, for example, the French, which are much more, let's say traditional about food. And you know, a bit more stubborn in terms of behavioral change with respect to eating less meat, and so on.
Justine Reichman And what is some one-- I'm so curious. I've got so many questions. So, you know, from the surveys you've done, what are some of the greatest learnings that you've found that you did not expect?
“People who are working in the meat industry were less likely to be eating meat than everybody else. There's definitely a bit of psychological proximity if you are the one who is literally sticking the knife in as opposed to the general population for whom it's quite easy to keep those things out of sight and out of mind.” —Chris Bryant
Chris Bryant Great question. Yeah. Well, it's always interesting when you stumble across kind of counterintuitive findings, or things which you wouldn't have thought would be the case. I think one of the biggest counterintuitive findings that I've come across is in a survey of France and Germany, when we were asking about people's diets, and we were also asking about whether they worked in animal farming or other areas of meat production. And when we looked at the data, we were surprised to find that the people who said they do work in animal farming or meat production, were actually more likely than the general population to be meat reducers. So that included a lot of pescatarians, people who weren't eating red meat or poultry, and some flexitarians as well. But we were really surprised to find this people who are working in the meat industry were less likely to be eating meat than everybody else. And I think there's definitely a bit of psychological proximity, if you are the one who is literally sticking the knife in, as opposed to the general population, for whom it's quite easy to keep those things out of sight and out of mind.
Justine Reichman Well, that's what I was gonna say. I mean, if I was sitting there watching it, and I'm watching that, you know, and I'm part of the factory farming, and I see how they're treating them. I don't know if I could just dismiss that, right. But if you are unaware, and you're not asking the questions, and you're not curious, and you just see that prime rib, or you just see that filet, and you do not know how it got there, and how the animal was treated, it's a little bit easier and more palatable to just continue in your everyday process, because you don't know.
“A lot of people might have some idea that there's kind of some morally questionable stuff that goes on behind the doors of a factory farm and a slaughterhouse but don't want to be obliged to stop eating meat… And so a lot of people will actively avoid thinking about engaging with these things for that purpose.” —Chris Bryant
Chris Bryant Yeah, absolutely. And I think that is the case for most people. Most people just don't have a good idea of what happens in animal farming. And for a good chunk of people as well we're kind of deliberately avoiding finding out. A lot of people might have some idea that there's kind of some morally questionable stuff that goes on behind the doors of a factory farm and a slaughterhouse, but they think, Well, I don't want to be in a position where I am kind of obliged to stop eating meat. So I'm gonna stay as ignorant as I can on these things. And so a lot of people will actively avoid thinking about engaging with these things for that purpose.
Justine Reichman Yeah. On the opposite end of the spectrum, there are people out there that are doing better jobs at farming, and that are treating their animals better. I mean, they're still killing them but they are doing a better job. They're, you know, they're grass fed. They're doing all sorts of things to give them a better life. They're giving them more space. They're doing all sorts of things. You know, have you done any research around that?
Chris Bryant Well, I think there is a world of difference between factory farming and higher welfare systems, morally speaking. And I, you know, I do think that that difference is real. But that said, a lot of the labels, which we see as consumers don't really mean what we would hope they mean. So for example, with grass fed, that can just mean that they're fed straw in a factory farm, right? And it still counts as grass fed. So a lot of these labels are actually meaningless, right? There's no legal protection for putting this on any kind of animal products in general. So you know, as consumers, many people are concerned about animal welfare when you ask them about it and find the things that happen in animal farming to be largely unacceptable. But unfortunately, there's various ways that the industry can kind of obfuscate what really is going on.
Justine Reichman So as a consumer, how can somebody better understand what they're buying to buy something that, you know, if they do want to eat meat, you know, doesn't really, you know, goes to the other end is not buying something from a slaughterhouse or from somebody that did not treat their animal orally? Right. I mean, for me, I think it's better understanding the farm, better understanding the, you know, those kinds of things like by going to the farmers market and understanding who these people are that are selling. But I'm curious, from your perspective what you think?
“A lot of the labels that we get on some animal products don't mean what we would hope they mean in terms of animal welfare. I don't think there is a way to guarantee that animals are treated well.” —Chris Bryant
Chris Bryant Yeah. Well, I think that it's not uncommon for people to want to buy higher welfare, meat and animal products. In practice, most people go for the cheap things, which are going to tend to be the lowest welfare. But there's also no guarantee that more expensive products are going to be high welfare either. So a lot of the labels that we get on some animal products, again, they don't mean what we would hope they mean in terms of animal welfare. And I don't think there really is a way to guarantee that animals are treated well. There are some certification systems, but often they're poorly enforced, basically, the standards that adhere to those systems. And you know, I think that things like local farming, for example, I mean, there could be a factory farm locally, right? So I think that's no guarantee that it's high welfare either. So, you know, I think there's a really important role for alternative proteins to play. Because, you know, like me, many people are in this situation of thinking, Why they don't want to give up eating meat and animal products. It's nice to have a cheeseburger and it's nice to have a pepperoni pizza or whatever else. And fortunately, now you can that kind of stuff all of the time. I'm gonna have cheeseburgers my dinner tonight.
Justine Reichman Yeah. So tell me about that. Okay. So let's discuss the alternative protein that you're you're talking about? What are some of the options and what are your favorites? And, you know, what does that world look like? And what are you finding through your research that people are looking for there?
Chris Bryant Yeah. Great question. So here in the UK, there's really a bunch of different brands that have been sort of battling it out on the supermarket shelves over the last few years. And the great thing about that is it means that they're always competing with each other to be better and cheaper, and tastier and healthier. And these products are evolving all of the time. The products that you can get today are completely unrecognizable, from the veggie burgers that you might have come across, you know, five or six years ago. In the US impossible and beyond are really the big brands that are competing in this area, and have some of the best products in taste tests, and so on. So, you know, I think that's a really great place to start for American listeners. And that's all in plant based. But one thing that we're gonna see coming over the next few years is sell cultivated meat. So this is different from plant based, it's meat that is animal products, and would look the same under a microscope as meat from an animal, but it's produced from animal cells. So you can take a biopsy from an animal and culture that into a piece of edible meat, and, you know, will be the same as meat as if you're taking it from an animal.
Justine Reichman I think it was already on many years in Asia.
Chris Bryant That's right. Yeah. Singapore.
Justine Reichman [inaudible] is that in Asia on the menu. Have you done any research on that or surveyed people to see how they responded to it and what the feedback was?
Chris Bryant Not in Singapore, that should something in my agenda. Yeah, yeah. Singapore has been one of the most progressive countries with this, and they've been consulting with the US. And you might have seen that the FDA recently gave a positive decision to upside foods, which is a cultivated meat company there in America. So I think that you guys are probably going to get access to it before we do in Europe. But yeah, watch this space.
Justine Reichman So you're looking forward to that. You're excited about that?
Chris Bryant Definitely. Yeah. I think that's going to be a really, really positive development. But I think, you know, if we think about ourselves at a certain point in history, you know, in in 10 or 20 years, when animal products are commonly not coming from animals directly, I think it will be good to be able to say that we were on the right side of history before that was the case. And so, you know, I'm pleased that I'll be able to say that mitigation.
Justine Reichman So yeah. I think that's,you know, we're really driving that in the future of food. And so I'm curious about the, you know, the space and the research that you've done on it, and the feedback that you're getting around that. What are-- are people excited about that? Are people, you know, do they feel that that's something that they're looking forward to, that they're excited about? Or that they're cautious about it? And also the impact it's going to have on the planet? You know, when you take away, you know, animals do they feel like that's going to take away from the animals? You know, where do people fall in with that?
“Some people have an intuition that [alternative proteins] might be somehow bad for the environment because it's unnatural and that might upset the balance of nature. But in reality, animal products are one of the worst contributors to climate change and many other environmental metrics that you can think of. So reducing the consumption of animal products is one of the major ways that we can reduce our own environmental footprint currently.” —Chris Bryant
Chris Bryant Yeah. Good question. Well, there's a real range of views on cultured meat and other alternative proteins at the moment. There's a good chunk of people who are very excited for these products are going to be the early adopters and willing to pay more and you've seen this with respect to plant based products over the last number of years. And you'll see the same with cultivated meat and equally, you know, there will be people at the very end to the last people to insist on having meat from animals when everyone else is kind of moved on to alternatives already. So I think we'll see that transition over the next 10 years or so. So there is a real range of perspectives there, I think on so on the environmental question, some people have an intuition that it might be somehow bad for the environment because it's unnatural and that might kind of upset the balance of nature. But in reality, animal products is, you know, one of the worst contributors to climate change, and deforestation, and water use, and many other environmental metrics that you can think of. So really reducing consumption of animal products is one of the major ways that we can reduce our own environmental footprint currently. And many of these alternatives are orders of magnitude more efficient from an environmental perspective than animal products. So
Justine Reichman Yeah. So by driving all this research around this, what are you hoping to achieve?
Chris Bryant Well, my goal is to advance the protein transition away from animal products and towards alternatives. So I would like to see factory farming ended within my lifetime, certainly. And, you know, hopefully not too far into my lifetime as well, I think that we can be talking about, you know, a scale of around a decade, maybe. I think that we are going to see great movements away from animal products, and I'm really rooting for the downfall of factory farming. And when you ask people about this, most people, almost everybody says that the practices in factory farming are unacceptable when they think about it. But most people are very rarely prompted to think about it. So we did a survey on this in the UK, when we were asking people about these are some common things that happened in animal farming in the UK. And you know, they could indicate whether they thought this was acceptable, unacceptable or don't know. And for most of these practices, we had 90% plus of people saying that this is unacceptable, right? Things like ducking the tails from pigs, taking newborn calves away from their mothers in the dairy industry. They kill the male calves because they won't be able to produce milk. Equally in the egg industry, male chicks are ground up in [inaudible] on the day of their birth. So there's some really terrible things that go on. And you know, almost nobody thinks these are acceptable when they think about it. But it's just that they very rarely think about it.
Justine Reichman Right. That's awful. I mean, just hearing you can't help but get I mean, I it gives me a physical or emotional, visceral feeling when I hear that. I you think that when you share that, and listeners and viewers are hearing that you can't help but, you know, get connected to it and want to make a change, get curious, and ask more questions. So I'm so happy that you're able to share this information, because, you know, people need to hear what's going on. And so I'm glad that you're able to share that.
Chris Bryant Thanks very much for saying that. Yeah, it's very important to, you know, be honest, and quite frank and forthright in talking about these things. And I think I also understand that it's quite natural for a lot of people, even for a lot of vegans do want to shy away from mentioning these things, because they are kind of squeamish and unpleasant even to talk about and to think about. But you know, most people have the same reaction as you and that they're, you know, horrified and cooled by some of the practices that go on, and they find it to be unacceptable. And you know, where we can encourage people to do their bit differently so that we can start to change these things. I think that's a really positive thing.
Justine Reichman I would agree. So outside of the lab, grown meats and outside of, you know, changing factory farming, do you expect that your research is going to expand and grow into different niches? And if so, what are those naches?
Chris Bryant Yeah. So my PhD research, which I finished a few years ago, was mainly on sell cultivated meat. But since then, I've been doing more things to do with plant based and the psychology of meat reduction in general. And I'm also quite interested in a lot of policy facing areas. So you know, how public policy can be accommodating to alternative proteins, how public policy can encourage people to eat less meat, for example. And you know, how we can also use that to align the interests of alternative proteins with the interests of animal farmers, and have government programs which ensure that animal farmers are able to be a part of the protein transition that are not incentivized to be opposed to the transition in this direction. So yeah, I think there's a lot of different areas, which are very important to work on. And, you know, I'm fortunate to have a fantastic research associate with Charlotte, who works with me. And, yeah, we're looking at all different types of projects to kind of push this area forward so we're excited to keep going on that.
Justine Reichman I think it's great. It's a great resource, especially for people building those types of businesses. I think it's a great resource as these people try to gain further insight. So I'm curious for those businesses and people trying to create change in that space, what kind of information can they come to you for?
Chris Bryant Well, I work with a lot of alternative protein companies on how to formulate appealing products and how to look at the markets for these products. What kind of people are going to be interested in buying these? And how can we message about them in order to make the most appealing. And I also work with animal protection nonprofits, who are, kind of, you know, more generally connected to meat reduction, and so on, so that they can be effective in the kind of advocacy and campaigns that they're doing also. So my website is Bryantresearch.co.uk. And I have a bunch of reports up there that we've been working on. One report that we've just published, which my RA Charlotte led on was about institutional change for animals. So how can we encourage governments and big companies to kind of adopt policies which are more animal friendly and, you know, how can we campaign and encourage institutions move in that direction.
Justine Reichman Wonderful, great. So, I mean, that's wonderful. So if anybody wanted to get in touch with you, to connect with you, so that they could either propel their research further, as they're working on their business, cultivate research groups, do surveys, how be the best way to connect?
Chris Bryant Yeah. You can find my website at Bryantresearch.co.uk. You can email me at CrisBryantresearch.co.uk and I also helped to organize research group called the recap group, which is research to end consumption of animal products and that is a recap.research.org
Justine Reichman Wonderful, Bryant. Thank you so much for joining me today on Essential Ingredients. It's great.
Chris Bryant Thanks so much for having me, Justin. Really appreciate it.
