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Is lab-grown meat a game-changer for animals and would you try it?
268 Plays5 months ago
With the world's population growing, and so many farm animals needed to keep everyone fed, is our food system sustainable? And what are the consequences for animal welfare? Broadcaster and journalist Kate Quilton chats to Riley Jackson, Head of Partnerships and Marketing at Ivy Farm Technologies, about one possible alternative - lab-grown, cultivated meat; and whether it could revolutionise where our food comes from, and society's reliance on animals. Kate also chats to Professor David Halpern CBE, President Emeritus at the Behavioural Insights Team, or the 'Nudge Unit'. He talks about the role governments have played in 'nudging' us to think differently about food - including making the humble potato a Royal delicacy! David discusses the role such strategies could play in encouraging the public to consider a future where lab-grown meat and alternative proteins regularly feature on our supermarket trolleys.
The Animal Futures podcast is part of the RSPCA Animal Futures Project, which explores five possible scenarios of what the world could be like for animals in 2050. People listening between 5 and 28 February or 17 March to 6 April 2025 can join The Big Conversation. After that, you can find out more by playing the interactive Animal Futures game.
Host: Kate Quilton
Guests: Riley Jackson and Professor David Halpern CBE
Produced by: Mark Adams, Chris O'Brien, Emily Prideaux and Jo Toscano.
Animal Futures Project: https://www.rspca.org.uk/whatwedo/latest/animalfutures
Animal Futures Game: https://www.rspca.org.uk/webContent/animalfutures/
Animal Futures: The Big Conversation: http://rspca.org.uk/bigconversation
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Transcript
Introduction to Lab-Grown Meat
00:00:01
Speaker
RSPCA presents Animal Futures, hosted by Kate Quilton. Episode 2. Is lab grow meat a game changer for animals? And would you try it?
00:00:12
Speaker
Welcome back to Animal Futures. I'm Kate Quilton, journalist and broadcaster. Now I love today's conversation. I spent much of my career reporting on food and how we sustainably feed the planet. So this topic really fascinates me. Today we're talking about alternative proteins and lab grown meat and what this could mean for animals in the future.
Understanding Cultured Meat
00:00:35
Speaker
Our first guest is Riley Jackson, Marketing Manager at Ivy Farm Technologies, a company developing alternative proteins.
00:00:47
Speaker
Hey, do you know what? I'm really excited to speak to you. I'm thrilled to be here. I can't wait to get going. Because, you know, I guess I feel like the last 13 years of my life, I've lived in food factories, food science labs, traveled the world, seen amazing things happening. They are seeing amazing developments in laboratories. And so I've tracked the story pretty closely.
00:01:14
Speaker
in terms of cultured meat, how it's going, where it's going, what happens next. And I would just yeah love to hear where you're at. But do you know what? Firstly, Riley, let's start with what exactly is cultured meat? Can you explain? Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think like you, I've been tracking this space for a really long time. I have originally come from the plant-based space. And I think the biggest thing to note first and foremost is we make actual meat, um actual animal meat. So cultivated meat is pure muscle, pure fat cells. And what it is, is we'll go much like taking a cutting of a plant um that you want to replicate and and grow into a much larger plant. We go to our desired animal. So in our case, it's a Wagyu or Angus beef cow.
00:02:04
Speaker
and We'll take a small sample of that and then we'll take it back to our headquarters here and we'll break it down into um the muscle and the fat that we would like and then we put it into one of our bioreactor vessels. We give it the nutrients that it needs to grow to healthy cells and then now we harvest those and and make really amazing products with it. um Basically, we get to have the meat that many people love um without having to grow an entire animal and slaughter it, which is really exciting for those of us who are into you animal welfare.
Advancements and Cost Reductions in Cultured Meat
00:02:39
Speaker
Wow. I mean, it is incredible. It is yeah an incredible technological scientific advance. And I saw it for the first time.
00:02:50
Speaker
I think probably about seven years ago, I went to San Francisco, met an amazing startup out there and they were growing effectively um fish. Their focus was fish. So they were growing fish cells effectively in the Petri dish. um Yeah. And I had a try and it was incredible.
00:03:16
Speaker
Well, and also what's wild about this space too, if you think about it is how quickly it moves, right? I think a lot of the time a scientific discovery like that's the science we're doing doesn't exist, which I think is absolutely striking. And um like when Mark posted his first burger tasting back in, I believe 2013, it was, I want to say about 330,000 pounds um for a quarter pound burger.
00:03:46
Speaker
Right now we're under no way because of all the research and all the development that had gone into making that one burger effectively. Yeah, exactly. And I think it's also about how we're building the systems in which we're doing these experiments and where we're testing and learning. And I think moving from pharmaceutical tools and and processes to food grade, where we're going to be able to scale and and process and make real food. ah That is a huge part of the price of the meat as well. So just the ah for those of your listeners who follow the industry, it's striking how much less expensive it is now. It's absolutely crazy.
00:04:32
Speaker
And so Ivy Farm focused specifically on Angus beef and wagyu beef. Is that right? Yeah, exactly right. And tell me a little bit about how it tastes. Have you done a taste test where you've tried wagyu beef alongside your cultured wagyu beef?
00:04:48
Speaker
Yeah. So I mean, it depends honestly on um what you mix it with, but the cells is at their core actually recently had the pleasure of trying them on their own, which we hadn't done before because we don't grow scaffolding, right? So if you think about the muscle of a cow, um it has all sorts of sinew and and connective tissue that we don't make because we don't grow the entire animal. We just grow the the muscle and the fat cells. so um We cooked up a little a little bit of it. and kind of I mean, it tasted like meat. It was absolutely wild. um So right now, most of our product development focuses on mixing with different fibers. right So soy, pea, wheat, plant-based fibers, and also mixing with traditional animal ah burgers. So we can try to have, let's say, a burger on shelf that's 20% cultivated meat, 80% farmed meat, and then you have just that 20% reduction in environmental and welfare um that we really
00:05:48
Speaker
Neat as our population expands but most of the time when we have um product tastings we will do comparisons like that to really dig into is the um Texture correct is the mouth feel right? Is it delivering on those things? It will make consumers change their mind and and make a better choice So yeah, those comparisons are often made um and I can't speak for other companies who do things like chicken or lamb or fish but I think All of us are very aware of the sensory experience of eating meat um and how important it is to emulate that if you're asking people to make a change. So um so yeah, those those comparisons are made. And so for you, ah you've had an interesting journey as in you worked for eight years in plant-based. Now you've moved over to cultured meat. Do you think there's room for both? Do you foresee cultured meat overtaking plant-based in the future? How are they going to sit alongside each other?
Future of Proteins: Coexistence of Plant-Based and Cultured Meat
00:06:47
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I try to look at when you walk into a grocery store and you see the whole wall of all the different meat options, right? You have everything from jelly, turkey to ah chicken liver to, I mean, you name it, right? There's there's a ah product for every taste under the sun. um And they think the same will continue forward for all alternative proteins as well. So I'm a huge proponent of the yes and that you hear Andy Jarvis of the Bezos or fund use a lot. um I think that's a really wonderful way to think about it. If you look at the world, especially today, it's obvious that everybody has very different preferences and and many senses. So I think that having protein options and food options that span the wide breadth of those tastes is going to be the way that we make change. right Meet everybody where they are. um
00:07:41
Speaker
And I think with such diverse products, that's the only way to do it. And with, I guess, population growth, expected to grow to 9.7 billion by 2050.
00:07:54
Speaker
Do you think, I mean, this is a tough question, is our current food system able to cope with this?
00:08:02
Speaker
As it stands today, um no. We, as a society and as a species, have thrived because one, we're so adaptable and two, we're so good at adapting our environment to ourselves. And like anything, there's a limit.
00:08:21
Speaker
So we need to be as adaptable as we always have been without being maybe as ah tragedy of the commons with the hit where we need to be so careful that something that might not impact our neighbor could impact. Someone on the other side of the world or somebody in the next town over and i think adopting that mindset when we think about the food we eat all the way down to what happens to the food that i don't eat on my plate.
00:08:47
Speaker
And what are the environmental impacts of making a meal that's too big or making a meal with tuna that's from Japan when I live in California? um We don't have to do that. There's a lot of people that are coming up with incredible innovation, much like us all over the world, that are using things all the way from cell cultivated beef to kelp produced in some hydroponic, you know, I mean,
00:09:15
Speaker
That's obviously not my field, but there are cool things happening. Do you think at the moment people are wary of
Consumer Hesitation and Adoption
00:09:21
Speaker
cultivated meat? Yeah. I think it's human nature to be wary of change, and I think naturally we're very curious about the food we eat. So when something is completely new, there's going to be a lot of curiosity, and I think For a lot of people, that means almost ah a level of fear, um which as a marketer and a partnerships gal, I am wary of that too. And I think what's interesting is I've talked to a lot of farmers. um I've seen a lot of research come out, a lot, a few papers, but for for me in my industry, that's a lot, um come out about how people feel about it. And one of the most interesting ones was here in the UK. It was the Royal Agricultural University.
00:10:07
Speaker
um and It was basically what do firmers think about Cultivated Me? I think it was called Culture Clash, a clever name. and Basically, the gist of it for me was that it's a lot less fear and a lot more curiosity. I want to know more.
00:10:27
Speaker
Because farmers here, for example, are struggling a bit. It's not the most lucrative industry. It can be really hard on on families and livelihoods, um which we don't want. hate Agriculture is the backbone and of of society pretty much all over the world. So we want to support those people 100%. And I think if this is positioned and and developed as a help instead of a replace, which we never want to do, um then I think It gives the opportunity for, let's say, farmers to have um the ability to choose more humane practices, smaller herds, more environmentally friendly practices, um and have the space to innovate and and do their best as well to lessen their impact. And I think, going back to your original question in terms of consumers overall,
00:11:16
Speaker
I am constantly surprised by data. um Not fundamentally, but I think consumers are more open to things like this than you would imagine. And we won't really know until it gets out into the market. But the things I do know is, number one, it is essential that it tastes as good or better than whatever it's claiming to ah replace or or be like. um So if we're claiming Wagyu, it better be Wagyu-ish. It'd be delicious.
00:11:46
Speaker
um And there's got to be the same price or cheaper, right? um People don't change just because so we have to make sure we're really showing up and I think from my time in plant-based there were companies that rushed to the market and Launched something that was good, but it wasn't delivering. It wasn't inspiring. Yeah, I mean I absolutely think you're right as in I think what we've seen if we look at plant-based In recent years, you know, I mean, at points, it's literally been the fastest growing category in the supermarket, hasn't it? And interestingly, when you drill down into the numbers and look at, okay, who is adopting this? I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, but there was a huge amount of over sixties adopting it and their reasons were for health. Yep.
00:12:37
Speaker
Yeah. So it's interesting because you kind of assume, you know, i I know, I mean, I guess I kind of make a content in this space, you know, but, um, you assume, Oh, it's the kids. It's, you know, it's, it's Gen Z and it's people kind of switching to plant based, but actually when you kind of drill down into the numbers.
00:12:55
Speaker
um It's fascinating that you know there is adoption occurring kind of over sixty s four different reasons often you know and it can always be for a range of reasons but i am. Yeah reset suggest that house was the leading reason.
00:13:10
Speaker
Um, for that demographic. So it's interesting, isn't it? I think, yeah, people are curious and and they're changing habits of a lifetime, you know? Yeah. And I think that's, it goes back to our original, uh, or a previous conversation we were having about how, um, the data is surprising us all the time and you need solutions that span.
00:13:28
Speaker
a whole host of of needs. right um With alternative protein, we need the same approach. eight We need focus on health, we need focus on environment, focus on animal welfare, and um and of course taste and price. so I think the great thing about cultivated meat and um and kind of the more um technologically advanced food replacements is we get to learn from the patterns of the past.
00:13:57
Speaker
Yeah, interesting and exciting space. So how far away do you think we are now from seeing it on the shelf?
UK's Role in Alternative Proteins
00:14:04
Speaker
Oh my gosh. Well, that's the golden question. um So it really comes down to to a couple main things. The first one, of course, is regulatory approval. and There are some fantastic people all over the world in food regulation that are working very hard to build processes to make sure that this is really safe. And of course, we are in 100% full support of that.
00:14:27
Speaker
um and have been working with um the government here in the UK, the government in the US, and in Singapore as well, um to showcase our product and and move through that regulatory approval process, which without, we can't go to market. So that's number one, that's the most concrete timeline. And then of course, scaling up.
00:14:49
Speaker
um So that has to do with the bioreactors that we use making sure that our processes are um allowing us to go up into food grade manufacturing um so of course economies of scale the more you make the cheaper and more accessible it is. um And then of course bringing the cost down so if you think about when you feed animals one of the most expensive things is what you feed them um so making sure that we're feeding our ourselves the most.
00:15:17
Speaker
nutritious and high quality inputs so that they in turn can um can be the most nutritious and high quality product that we can have. um So those three things are really what are determining when we'll be on shelf. I would say if you're defining on shelf as ubiquitously available in retail grocery stores, I would say we're probably two years away.
00:15:43
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, well, not conservatively. Let's say that's my best guess. And it really depends on if everything goes well. So optimistically, let's say that. And then I think you'll see it in some restaurants. And your focus is on UK. Yeah. So bring it to market in the UK.
00:16:00
Speaker
Right now, yeah, um trying to be homegrown as best we can. And also the UK people are very receptive to alternative proteins. um They had one of the highest household penetration rates in plant-based a few years ago.
00:16:14
Speaker
um so I think when you're looking at when is this product going to be available, as soon as we have regulatory approval, we'll start selling to whatever partners can match the scale that we're producing at at that time. um so That will probably be relatively small at first. so um restaurant partners events things like that and then will scale up into larger restaurants and and grocery eventually um so that's the plan right now. Fingers crossed all goes well. So interesting that you said the UK has one of the highest rates of adoption of plant based.
00:16:53
Speaker
Why do you think that is? So I might not be the best person to answer this because I've only been living here for almost 11 months, which has been lovely. It is quite good. You can be quite objective, don't you think? Do you know what I mean? I mean, I think the Brits in my experience so far, and this is 100% my own opinion, but the Brits so far are very pragmatic. um So when you think about ah choices they make, um what the environment, how they're aware of the impact of their food. I think it makes sense that um you have a pretty concentrated population that is um educated and and aware of their impact. It makes sense that they're looking for alternatives.
00:17:38
Speaker
um but I think something to look into because whatever inspired all of them, we should sure use it to inspire more of the world too to make that swap every once in a while because they have a very healthy, flexitarian population here. Yeah, it's interesting. you know I make um a food program here. It's called Feed Unwrapped.
00:17:58
Speaker
And we made a vegan special a couple of years ago, and I would say it was kind of, I guess, around peak plant based, you know? So. Oh yeah. Like 2022. Yeah.
00:18:11
Speaker
Exactly. The glory day. The glory days, the heady days when everyone was drinking oat milk. But um what was what was interesting about it is that the vegan special actually, it was one of our top racing episodes ever, which was fascinating. It went out in January, which is kind of you know peak telly watching time because it's cold and everyone skims and they can stay in and watch TV.
00:18:34
Speaker
but um But yeah we had a vegan special that went out and um it did really well actually and it was it was kind of surprising we didn't expect it to do that well and it was a sign back then in twenty two. Wow this is really got legs and it totally correlates with you know the numbers in the supermarkets people buying plant based foods you know.
00:18:54
Speaker
Yeah, one I think what I love about being in this space is, again, going back to what we were talking about earlier, that curiosity that you see in so many people around um being, one, aware of the impact of their food choices, and then two, being curious about how they can kind of be more at choice with that, right? So a lot of people maybe don't want to think about how the meat finds its way from farm to plate or they don't want to think about what happens to their meal after they put it in the compost or not. um So I think you see a lot of curiosity like the viewers of your show around, hey, like what is this? Do I
00:19:37
Speaker
Could it be me? Could it not be me? um And because vegan is such an identity moment for a lot of people, um I think it scares some off, right? So if they don't identify as vegan, they're like, oh, it's not for me. um So that's one of the most interesting things too about this space is how it food is so wrapped up in how people identify.
00:20:02
Speaker
Oh my goodness. It's the juiciest, for lack of a better term, the juiciest topic because there's so many different points to hit on. but I think for our space, I'm excited to see when we do get to be in restaurants, you get a lot of feedback. right and The staff picks up what people think and I think when we're bringing our product to market, it'll be really interesting to hear what people say.
00:20:27
Speaker
You probably know about this, but Henry Dimbleby led on a food review for the UK government. And that review wants to see ambitious targets for meat reduction consumption in the UK. Are the sorts of products Ivy Farm researching the answer to achieving this, do you think?
00:20:46
Speaker
I mean, not to overuse this term, but I think yes. And there's a lot of space for other solutions as well. um So everything from better farming practices to plant-based alternatives to more fruit and veg and cultivated me. um I think what we're seeing right now is that we put a lot of pressure onto a few crops, a few animals.
00:21:11
Speaker
And it's just one, not the healthiest option because as we know, we need lots of different fruits and vegetables to thrive. um And two, if you have a farm that has just cows.
00:21:23
Speaker
You're going to have fewer birds, fewer bugs, fewer plants, um and a lot more monoculture. And if you have ah ducks and chickens and all those different kinds of stock animals, even just having more than one species, you have better soil health. You have normally a typically healthier population around the farm. And and that biodiversity um is so essential. So I think the more balance we look for,
00:21:52
Speaker
the happier nature is going to be because it's constantly trying to achieve balance. um so I think that for me is what is exciting about cultivated meat is we're trying to balance technological advancement with health and welfare. It's going quite well so far, a little slower than most of us would like, but Rome wasn't built in a day. it Why is it a little slower, do you think?
00:22:19
Speaker
Yeah, so God, that's a great question. I think scalability comes into play. So um one, the science doesn't exist. So we are building those systems from the ground up. We're finding the best cell lines that can replicate. We're training those cells to Be able to withstand growing up in a bioreactor because they just have to be a little bit tougher um We have to know what signals to send them and when um What's the perfect constellation of nutrients to feed the cells to make sure they're quite healthy and happy? and producing great product um But I also think that
00:22:56
Speaker
regulatory is is can be challenging at times because we can't um conduct tastings and things like that, which of course, safety is the most important thing, but it's just the nature of of um crossing all the T's and dotting the I's, I think. um Then I think also,
00:23:16
Speaker
Past scalability, past regulatory, the science is just progressing. right and and We have to make those discoveries and test and learn and and do it the right way. um so Slow and steady wins the race. It's the name of the game right now. and There's all sorts of companies all over the world that are also trying their own ways. so I think that makes me very optimistic because we're each going to have our own discoveries and it's a very collaborative space. so ah Best practices are slowly emerging.
00:23:46
Speaker
which is very inspiring and reinforces the idea that collective effort is really the way to make systemic change. One thing that I think we don't talk enough about that I think is really interesting is one, that it is a relatively natural process that we're just replicating, and two, that it's quite clean. So if you think about the process of of butchering meat, there's a lot of exposure to contaminants, unfortunately, that make ah over a quarter million people a year sick just in the US alone. So I think our process really, there's no contamination because if any any kind of bacteria gets into the vessel, our cells aren't very competitive. They're they're very delicate. They like their space. They like their time.
00:24:29
Speaker
ah If anything gets in there, they won't grow because they won't have access to nutrients. So we know immediately as soon as there's something off. And I think for me, at least, I like to know that my food is at getting that level of care. um And also that we're able to have, in theory, quite a bit longer shelf life.
00:24:48
Speaker
Right because if you don't have such contaminants then product can survive on shelf for a lot longer and if you look at let's say disaster relief. um You can get product to some pretty remote locations that don't have dependable refrigerators in theory of course you have a test of this but.
00:25:04
Speaker
I would love to see really clean um protein be available to hurricane victims or earthquake victims and things like that. So another really amazing part of the industry is all of the different potential solutions it provides um when you're able to have such control over what you're making.
Government Support for Alternative Proteins
00:25:23
Speaker
Do you want to see governments promote alternative proteins? Yeah, I mean, I always think governments could do more to educate ah because I think humans and and people all over the world are very capable of making their own choices. um I think the question is, do they have access to enough information? um The onus of who is responsible for providing them that information, I wouldn't say that I am the expert to ask there. I think if I had a government official in front of me, I would probably ask them to talk about it. um I would say to bring some light to it. um But I would also say that ah breaking down barriers to expanding industries and innovators to be able to produce in their country. so
00:26:11
Speaker
um The UK, for example, is is putting quite a bit of cash into um studies and the regulatory sandbox they just launched that will enable companies to collaborate with them and say, this is what we do, and they're they're willing to work with us. And I think that is best in class behavior.
00:26:29
Speaker
Um, because they're, they're enabling us to progress in a safe and and controlled way. And I think that's the role of government to me, but I think again, breaking down barriers to let's say manufacturing, right? Because startups often have that valley of death where they have all of their amazing discoveries and they reach pilot plant scale.
00:26:52
Speaker
So they're able to prove the concept works, and then there is this valley of death between um that that stage in mass production and having ah some government funding to build facilities that'll get multiple companies through that valley of death. That next phase of production, I think that would be incredible. um But if if it was one ask, it would be ah lean into educating people on on how to choose healthy food that has good impact all around. um That would be my ask. And so if we were to fast forward to 2050 and with all your ah years of experience and insights in this space, where are we going to be?
Cultured Meat in 2050: A Necessity?
00:27:36
Speaker
My professional opinion.
00:27:38
Speaker
is that um I think we're going to see a lot of cultivated meat. I think we'll see it in a lot of different product SKUs. I think we'll see it in grocery, we'll see it in restaurants, we'll see it in um all sorts of different places because we need it. ah The way that we make meat today cannot support 10 billion people or 9.7 billion people. It just can't. We don't have enough space. 18% of the calories that we consume are from animals and 80% of our agricultural land is used to support that.
00:28:13
Speaker
It's just not an efficient way to feed people. um Luckily, there are some brilliant minds all over the world that know that, and there are a lot of committed investors who know that it's a very noble and and potentially very lucrative pursuit to feed people.
00:28:31
Speaker
um I also think we'll see really incredible farmers who have figured out how to produce responsibly um and support their communities and that pastoral grazing that we do need in a lot of ecosystems to have biodynamic soil and all that. um and I think we'll see some really good plant-based food because they have also been progressing and learning. and innovating in their own way. So um I feel very optimistic about 2050. I love that because, you know, with 2050 looming.
00:29:08
Speaker
Yeah, it's not always easy to find the optimism and the hope. It's just so important that we have all of those options and we we start to change things because where they're at, I mean, right now, that stat that you just gave us that 80% of our land globally is used to produce just 18% of our food. Yeah, I'm with you. Let's be optimistic. Let's be really optimistic.
00:29:34
Speaker
Well, I love talking to you, Riley. I cannot wait to come and taste some cultivated meat at one of these events that you're suggesting in two years time, which is amazing. fingers crosss totallyly sinner stay tuned everything cross all those permissions and everything moving forward in that regard and Thank you so much for joining us, Riley. Thank you. It's been a pleasure.
00:30:00
Speaker
What we use is always a hot topic, and alternative proteins have always been controversial. Does the idea put you off your lunch, or are you going back for seconds? Tell us more by joining Animal Futures, the big conversation.
Nudge Theory and Behavioral Economics
00:30:16
Speaker
Search RSPCA Animal Futures to find out more. Next, I spoke to Professor David Halpern, CBE, who is President Emeritus of the Behavioral Insights team, which spun out of the yeah UK Government Cabinet Office.
00:30:30
Speaker
He spent his career in behavioral economics and he chatted to me about why nudge theory can change our whole attitude towards what we eat.
00:30:42
Speaker
Do you know what, David? Let's start with talking about nudge theory. What exactly is it? So the whole idea of nudges up and popularized is particularly from Richard Taylor and Cass Sunstein, my opposite number in the White House, um is that rather than mandating and using the traditional instruments, we tell you to do this or we'll lock you up or we'll give you money.
00:31:04
Speaker
is it what sound like relatively gentle interventions, often linked with what's called choice architecture, make a big difference. So a classic example is, you know, when you're going to go to a canteen, you're going to hit some food and do you hit the the chips first or the salad? It's going to be one or the other, right? And so if everybody thinks, well, you know, actually we should probably eat a little bit more salad. So why don't we put the salad before the chips?
00:31:31
Speaker
is a classic example. What happens is people kind of bumble along, you got your plate, you start filling it up one thing after another. So it turns out the things that you get to, first of all, you tend to put more on your plate. So a nudge would be, well, why don't we put the salad first? You don't have to have a salad, you can walk on by. So it's basically some kind of gentle tilt prompt, often a change around instead what's called ah the choice architecture, which guides you or suggests a healthier or better option.
00:32:00
Speaker
without having to mandate it. And so the idea, particularly from its North American origins, is it so-called least choice on the table, right? It doesn't force you to do it, but it gives you this just little extra, hence nudge. And it's part of a ah wider family, I should say, of what are called behaviorally-based interventions. So the nudge is an important well-known, but not the only one. Interesting. And I guess it's something that I'm thinking maybe as a consumer,
00:32:29
Speaker
we've experienced for years. I mean, it just made me think you were talking about that example. It made me think about supermarkets putting certain things by the till just to nudge you. And when do you think governments really started adopting this as a strategy?
00:32:45
Speaker
In an overt form, really about 15 years ago, I think we can take that relatively precisely. By the way, it's not that governments never did it. you know um Governments have often, you know if you think about wartime, when you drop leaflets over enemy lines saying, are you sure you want to fight for these guys? You know you might consider that that's also sort of persuasion.
00:33:06
Speaker
but In a serious way, um in 2009 in the White House, Cass Sunstein, who was co-author of the book Nudge, went in to work for Obama. and I went in into work ah went back actually to Downing Street to work for, at that time, David Cameron when we set up what was widely called the Nudge Unit, the behavioral insights team.
00:33:27
Speaker
So I think um that's pretty much the first time in an overt way it occurs in policy. Since then it's spread very much. A recent piece of work estimates there's more than 600 behavioral insight team-like structures in governments and regulators and across the world now. So it's quite widespread. And have you got an example where a nudge has been put in place by government and there's been a change that you've been able to measure in any way? Yes, Kate, I have many examples, um but I'll give you, ah if you want, just perhaps one of the most famous that you probably have experienced that most people in Britain would have been, which is auto-enrollment in your pensions.
00:34:07
Speaker
So in 2012, there was a change that was made. It had long origins and in fact went back to when I worked for Tiny Blair. So it used to be and actually continues to be the case that government spent literally billions of pounds on using tax subsidies to encourage you to save more gate and lots of other people. So when you put money into your pension, when you join an employee,
00:34:29
Speaker
Employer pension scheme, you put in some money, your employer tops it up. Actually, the government does through a tax subsidy, too. So it should be a no-brainer. In fact, those tax subsidies are very ineffective. Most people don't understand the difference it makes. And for years, people thought, there's something wrong with these Anglo-Saxons. We don't want to save. We don't just care about the future. There's you know some defect with us. But it turns out the real thing is that we just can't be bothered to fill in a form.
00:34:58
Speaker
So when you join your employer, you're supposed to fill in the form to opt into the pension scheme. So the nudge, wait for it, drum roll, is that instead of opting in, you opt out. So now when you join you you you get your new job, if you don't want to be in the pension scheme, you don't have to be, you just fill in a form and you opt out before you had to opt in. So for eligible workers that came in in force in the UK from 2012,
00:35:25
Speaker
um 91% of people stick with the default. almost overnight because it gradually phases in, but basically more than 10 million people who didn't used to save now save for their pensions because of that nudge. It tweaks it from, as I said, an opt-in to an opt-out. So when we think about nudge theory and meat consumption, can it help us, do you think?
00:35:50
Speaker
Oh, yes, it certainly can. um see If people want to dig in more detail, as ah ah I'll refer to it a few times, but mention it now. There's a very nice piece of work on this written by the team a few years ago called Menu for Change, um which talks about this, but um I recommend that highly. But let me just jump straight in. I'll give you know an old trial from BIT, and a colleague of mine, Toby Park, was very early to notice this issue for lots of reasons, including you know, saving the planet, et cetera, it would be good if we ate a little bit less meat. And an interesting question is, well, what should you call, ah you know, here's breakfast and it's going to be the vegetarian option. Should you call it the vegetarian option or should you call it something else? So we ran this trial to see what people would choose. So if you call this breakfast meat-free at that time, this is actually nearly a decade ago,
00:36:42
Speaker
About 10% of, you know, well actually less than 10%, it's more like sort of six or seven percent of people would choose it. No, that's not terrible, but not nothing. But what else could you call it? So meat free, you're telling people what it's not. That's a strange way to sell something. It's not this, you know. So we just tested other, just simple labels. And so one would be field grown. If you call it, instead of meat free, you call it field grown. More than twice as many people would choose that breakfast.
00:37:13
Speaker
That's so interesting because if you think about, I don't know, buying a house, you're not going to buy a house for itself by them saying it's not a bungalow. Well, exactly. Well, particularly because that's reminding you in that moment, it's like, well, maybe a bungalow is a good idea. I hate those stairs.
00:37:30
Speaker
worst marketing strategy ever, right? So why would you call it that thing? So you you generally call it, you know, you talk about the positive aspect of the thing, not the negative aspect. So that would be a very simple example. I mean, I'm sure we'll, we can talk about lots of other issues that are, um, can be very effective. And just to set out the broad landscape, we sometimes differentiate between what are called sort of downstream, you know, like you know a message you you should eat more helpfully eat less donuts eat less meat you know eat more of these which is telling you personally to do stuff and change your behavior then there are things which are sometimes called midstream we call them which is that a lot of it is you know a lot of behavior is driven by things in the environment like we just touched on the example of the the cafeteria what comes first that's what we call a midstream but you make in the environment you make it easier
00:38:22
Speaker
to make the healthy choice. What would be an example? Very often, you know if you're going to a ah conference or event, it's just starting to change these days, but it would be like, you know the meal is ah meat, and let's tell us if you don't want meat option. So that is exactly enough. You have to opt out of the meat to get the vegetarian.
00:38:45
Speaker
Well, it could be that way or it could be the other way around. You could just say, you know, we've got this beautiful vegetable lasagna. If you don't want that and you want a meat option, you can opt into the meat option. Now I can pretty much guarantee people stick very strongly with the default. So which way ever way around you do that makes a very, very big difference. So these are called sort of midstream interventions. And then the the top end ones, which are sort of upstream, which are where you kind of as it were really redesign the market or you reformulate food, right? So you make it easy. You make better products available, um which, you know, for example, we did a lot of work on reducing sugar.
00:39:21
Speaker
you can go to people, oh, eat less sugar. Or why don't we just take the sugar out of all this stuff? If you want to add the sugar back in at home, you can do, but why don't we just lower the sugar levels? So that would be called an upstream intervention, which is reformulating food. So there's actually a whole landscape of leavers that are there if we want to use them. and And right now as a population, are we being nudged by the government when it comes to diet? And in what ways?
00:39:48
Speaker
It's a very interesting one. In the UK and a number of other governments, there's actually been a real unease about doing that with respect to diet, especially actually with things like meat. Even on carbon, as you'll know, there's lots of reason why you might want to eat less red meat particularly. It's not very healthy to eat less meat. A meat to treat is a good thing to do.
00:40:08
Speaker
um It will be very, very good for the planet. I mean, absolutely incredibly good for the planet if we ate less red meat. And of course, there's you know issues to do with um cruelty and humanity, as which you will know well. You may have spoken to Henry Dimbleby, who wrote a very excellent report on food systems.
00:40:24
Speaker
and a lot of his stuff which concerns the government might more actively lean into changing you know what we eat. Governments have been very uneasy about even though historically they have done that and that would be a really, you might want to, maybe we should talk about that. There's some fantastic examples in history where governments have intervened to change our preferences about what we eat, which we we've completely forgotten because they're built into our habits now.
Historical and Future Nudges
00:40:49
Speaker
Hit me with those examples.
00:40:51
Speaker
I'll give you an old one, a fantastic one, which ah Rory Sutherland used to talk about, but I've also done work on. The potato, the humble potato, right? In the 1600s. No one ah in Europe had seen a potato before. Remember it comes from, you know, ah the Americas. South America.
00:41:06
Speaker
you know and There was a reason why governments were really keen to get people to eat potatoes. um because If you were in Europe, which was continually fighting and at war, your army turns up. If there's wheat, you can cut it, you can eat it, you're ah the the invading army can take it. and If they're not going to eat it themselves, they can burn it and starve you.
00:41:29
Speaker
And of course, your crop can fail. And if your whole population is reliant on eating one thing, wheat, you're very, very vulnerable. So some European leaders realized that it was actually strategically important that the potato could give you an alternative source of food. And really importantly, because it's underground, an invading army can't easily get it, which is quite an important detail. So they had a strategic reason to try and get Europeans to eat potatoes.
00:41:58
Speaker
never eaten a potato before. It's a bit weird. it's It's under the ground. It's dirty. So various campaigns were used to try and encourage people to eat potatoes. And there's this fascinating, you know, accounts from the time where people are saying, you know, these are disgusting. In fact, there's a famous phrase from this German village where they're writing back, they've been told to eat more potatoes. And they say, even dogs won't eat potatoes, right? Try to spit it out. Why should we eat them?
00:42:23
Speaker
So they built these first kind of campaigns and we could talk about some of them very famous to try and encourage people to eat and love potatoes, which we now take for granted, but people really didn't want to. I love this whole story. So, um, you know, in, in Germany, Frederick, the, the grade was, was trying to get his people to eat these damn potatoes. And, um, you know, he, he literally resorted to definitely not nudges. Like if you don't eat these, I'm going to cut your ears off, you know, like literally, I'm going to punish you quite severe stuff when people still like, I'm not going to eat this. And there's no mention of potatoes in the Bible. People would point out, you know, it's not as opposed to bread. You know, Jesus breaks bread. He doesn't break potatoes.
00:43:02
Speaker
So he famously did this thing where he'd given up on like, oh, this is not working. So he switched tack at this point, which says, you know what? Potatoes are a royal food. there And he said to me, you can't eat potatoes. They are for the royal family and important people. And so he started cultivating around the palaces and um had some guards on them. But he basically told the guards,
00:43:26
Speaker
don't do a very good job. So once you've told everybody, this is like the potatoes, it's only the royal family allowed to eat it, and you're in the village and you're, oh my God, do people start stealing the potatoes? Because now they're like, oh, we're not allowed to eat them. Maybe they're good. They would literally steal them. And so vi you might take that as a classic example of a nudge. It didn't really work. In fact, it often doesn't work to punish people and threaten them. It's like, oh my God, if they have to force us, how bad can they be?
00:43:53
Speaker
Where as you say no this is exclusive this is fancy this is special it's like oh my god you know the king's eating it and i want to have that she make it aspirational and so actually that's a kind of like before there were influences there are other kinds of influences as you if you make it aspirational interesting and and so you often want to get your early adopters.
00:44:13
Speaker
Do you try it out and they're the people who you admire and say oh well if they're trying it if kate's trying it jeez well maybe i want to try it too if you want a more recent example in britain. I'm just enough old enough to to cover the spam.
00:44:29
Speaker
So my parents for my parents' generation, pasta was weird in the 50s and 60s. People didn't eat pasta. like What is that? In fact, it was so notorious, the BBC famously did a program about how still and kind of folklore about how spaghetti grew on trees. People did literally know what it is. you know I mean, now how many teenagers would look entirely reliant on pasta, right? Um, so that's a ah new taste that didn't exist. And there's some water around animals. It's from wartime things, getting people to eat spam the whole generation through to lobsters actually, which are now considered very exotic. They were, they were at such volumes around the U S they were considered like, you know, horrible food that you would give. And, but now it's considered a delicacy, right? It really wasn't.
00:45:14
Speaker
So basically things that you're not used to eating seem like they're a bit weird and horrible. And one of the challenges behaviorally is you have to make the strange scene normal, right? And this is true for lots of things. When you're asking people to be about green behavior, you know, to chick switch to electric vehicles or heat pumps or eating less meat, like or eating a different kind of food. First of all, it seems strange. It seems alien.
00:45:42
Speaker
And you have to get through that. Like it has to become normal and not so strange. Oh, we all going to be eating insects. Right. It's a much discussed like, Oh my God, that's gross. And why is it gross? Why is it more gross than don dot, dot, dot? The party is just because it's not familiar to us. So you have to, know if you if you can't see it, you can't be it. Right. Why do you think it is the case right now that there's an unease?
00:46:11
Speaker
around implementing more nudges around diet? Well, there's probably a political aspect to this, which is, by the way, entirely legitimate, right? I mean, I'm a policy wonk, but it's not for me to tell you everybody else what you can and can't do. and it's you know We have democratic governments, and governments have been a bit uneasy. they and the And the word is often used nanny state, right? Ooh, don't want to be nanny state.
00:46:34
Speaker
We don't tell you what to do. I mean, the beauty of actually nudges is they don't tell you, they don't instruct you, they give you more choices if they're well done, right? That's partly the point. But there's still a question, who's the we who decides? So going back to the canteen, right? The point that Richard Taylor, my old friend, you know, who got the Nobel in 2015, by the way, for behavioral science, you know, would say there's not a neutral option. You know, when you come to that canteen,
00:47:05
Speaker
The food is in a sequence. It's either going to be the salad or the chips first, or indeed the burgers or the corn, you know? um So someone has to decide what comes first. That could just be the chef who set it out in that morning, or it could be that the parents in the school should say, hey, what do we think? well how How do you think it should be? Or the kids should say, how do you think it should be arranged?
00:47:29
Speaker
so It's a really key decision about who makes that decision. so Governments have been uneasy often about telling people, you should eat less red meat. Of course, there are some powerful lobbies there too.
00:47:40
Speaker
I'm a big believer in actually what you should do is you set out how powerful are these forces and then when do we, in a broader sense, get to make that choice? right So I'm actually quite a big believer in deliberative mechanisms where you say, i well well well, why can't the parents make the decision? Well, how do you get to decide the layout of a supermarket?
00:48:03
Speaker
right hey let's get a group of ordinary citizens say what do you think it should be on the way that the layout should be how do you want it to be right. And then the government, as it were, isn't just telling you. It's like you're empowering citizens to to shape the world around you about those choices, the choice architecture. So I think, myself, that's a powerful way forward of dealing with this unease of governments that are terrified. ah If they say, well, you know what, Kate, we're going to change the formulation of breakfast cereals, you know, and they'll be hit by nanny state. It's like, well, if you don't want to do that, you are elected, but, well, why don't you ask parents what they want?
00:48:43
Speaker
Let them decide. Because arguably at the minute, we are being nudged possibly thousands of times a day. Yeah, absolutely. But you know it's ah there's a commercial incentive there. People often don't realize the power of those forces. And there's a very particular twist, actually, in in Western psychology, which is a part of the story. It's sometimes known as weird, weird psychology, Western educated, industrialized, rich, blah, blah, blah.
00:49:11
Speaker
And we overemphasize the individual personal factors. And Henry Dimbleby has simply talked about this, for example, with respect to diet. So, you know, if you read the newspapers and so on, you and you're an alien coming down from, you'd think, oh, so what drives your behavior and what you eat is your choice about what you decide whether we eat, you know, how many donuts or whatever. And by the way, how much you exercise is all about your willpower.
00:49:37
Speaker
Well, that's a part of the story, but it's not a big part of the story. It's driven by this kind of environment about you know how the supermarkets are arranged and what choices are given to you and your kids and all the rest of it, which aren't individual factors. And just to be geeky for a second, psychologists have got a name for this. They call it the fundamental attribution error. When you look at someone else's behavior and try and explain it, we over attribute the causes of behavior to the individual, but we don't see the wider context.
00:50:07
Speaker
That's just true for lots of areas. right So we see someone who's like struggling with a diet. Maybe they you know they put on a few pounds and are like, oh my goodness, they're lazy. they you know What are they doing? They should get a grip on their diet. But we're much less good at seeing the environmental forces that are influencing what we're eating.
00:50:26
Speaker
So one of the things that Bayville science needs to do is help us all see like, oh, you know, the reason why I'm struggling with my weight or but something called but my good intentions are to do something like be more green. And yet I'm failing to do so. It's not just because of my personal willpower. We built a world within which it's really easy to eat unhealthily and not be very green in our behaviors. Like you really have to work hard to do the healthy thing.
00:50:54
Speaker
Where's it's really easy to do the unhealthy thing and i would argue from what i know about this space and you know i mean. I guess i spoke with a lot of people about food desert me get into the numbers around chicken shops and schools and proximity.
00:51:12
Speaker
you know You feel like the needle is too far on the kind of commercial end of this. you know There needs to be more control in place at a government level. There needs to be greater checks and measures around this stuff.
00:51:24
Speaker
you know Our evolution makes us want to eat high sugar, high fats, certain kinds of food. so um and This way, it's called the implementation intention gap. you know When you say to someone in advance, hey, what do you want to do? And they're like, well, actually, I should want to eat more salad. And by the way, literally, they large majorities in most ah Western countries now want to be more green. They often want to aspire to eat less meat, for example, as well. But that's not what they do.
00:51:51
Speaker
It's like, oh my God, why did that happen? It's like, well, why do you not get one? Maybe you do, care but why do you get to the gym every day? How many people are like, oh, I'm going to exercise more. And then they don't do it. Right? It's because we haven't built a world within which that is easy, but we have built one within which it's very easy to live unhealthily. And so this is why it comes a bit back to the collective choice because look, end of a long day, you're busy, whatever, blah, blah, blah. There's a really easy option, which is pick up a burger or whatever it is, you know,
00:52:20
Speaker
you know okay well i'll just use I'll eat healthily tomorrow. um So you get kind of defeated in that moment when you're exhausted. And so partly what we do sometimes the word is called commitment devices is you you say, how do you want the world to be? And then you try and commit and you try and that's why you you try and change the choice architecture. um And um there are things that you can do, I mean, be it RSPCA or be it governments, if you don't want to go full blown paternalist and tell people, I mean, one simple example to say is,
00:52:50
Speaker
You know, supermarkets are very competitive between them, right? theres yeah Anywhere you live, there's probably within two miles a dozen supermarkets. Well, I live right in the middle of nowhere. So I'm quite somewhere in the middle of nowhere. But I've got to say, since moving to the country where it is a long trip to get to the shops or a supermarket, I eat better because, no, I'm not an interplanter of London. I can't get anything I want delivered to my door. You know, I'm planning ahead and, you know, I factor in, okay, well, I can't go to the shop every day. I can't just get what I can't see. And so as a result, yeah, my diet definitely is better.
00:53:29
Speaker
By the way, there's some evidence, it's a small effect, but when people switch to buying food online rather than in person, they marginally um choose healthier options because they don't have the same temptation. I've tried a few times to say governments, you know, what you might want to do is, you know, can you tell easily online when you Google it, what is the supermarket which offers you the healthiest options, the healthiest menu, you know, as it were, whereas the best prices are the most humane, right?
00:53:58
Speaker
Because if you then switch at a very tight competitive market and say well i'll go to this supermarket a rather than be because generally if i go in there it's got more healthy options. That changes the market forces.
00:54:14
Speaker
So one of the most powerful things you've got as a consumer is to use that consumer power, even at the margins, say, well, you know, well, I'm going to try and make that decision. And then you're not making it at the level of the individual product. You're making it try and choose a supermarket which offers you healthy and humane options, right? What's the website that tells you which supermarket close to you is the healthiest, most humane in its options?
00:54:39
Speaker
right They're all telling you, they're all saying, we're greener, we're better, we're not healthy, we're cheaper. Like, okay, which one really is? I mean, for me in the back end, because you know I spend, I guess, ah my working life in supermarkets and also on farms and in factories. And for me, because it's really important, you know that supermarket farmer relationship, that is how I want to shop. you know I want to shop for at the supermarket that treats the farmers right and gives them a good price for whatever they're offering up to the supermarkets. We are potentially at a pivot point and in Britain. So where's the new Secretary of State? you know They're doing a big consultation at the moment.
00:55:17
Speaker
I hope that will be a a sincere engagement with the public to say, well, what do you want? like you know um That's the way I would play it, is I would just say, honestly, guys, what is it you want that thing to be? And then that to some extent gives government permission, right? Because I would be pretty i We've literally run deliberative forums in other parts of the world where you ask people what do you want about food? um When people get to understand the food system better, they get quite radical. They're like, oh my god, I didn't realize all this sugar and additives and can can we please have a, you know, do it as a tax or, you know, healthier options or better labeling.
00:55:53
Speaker
So the public, when you're given the information, are often much, much more radical. But bear in mind, you know, if you think you're a minister, you try and do on this, that you're going to be hit with wall-to-wall stories in the Daily Mail and everywhere else saying, oh my God, Nanny State, they're trying to take away your fried chicken, you know, whatever. So I think, you know, either you can try and lead the debate in governments, and and good governments can do that, particularly if they're not ideological.
00:56:19
Speaker
Or you genuinely engage the public right and say, what do you want to do, guys? um And then you you get that kind of power back. right um So i I feel like this can be done and one could be optimistic about it. I feel we should be optimistic. um And you can either do it slowly, but kind of guerrilla action and you know a few influences changing the way and whatever. And some of course commercial players can also do it. but You know it's it's a kind of it's a we decision we got to collectively decide. How we want our food environment to be. um You know that that's to me the way forward believe actually in democracy in a deep sense like yeah really ask the people or if you're a supermarket ask chip ask your customers. I'm trying to sell you know but they'll say you gotta do it together. So if you want supermarket you do a bit you know but if if the pressure is not all of them. It'll tip.
00:57:13
Speaker
This stuff is so expansive and it is all pervading, isn't it? And it's a huge part of our lives and we might make a hundred to a thousand decisions a day, even more about what we put into our bodies.
Evolving Food Systems by 2050
00:57:25
Speaker
And there's so many dials that can be adjusted and it is no mean feat looking at this and how we move forward. And if we do fast forward to 2050.
00:57:38
Speaker
What do you think needs to happen? And where do you think we might be in 2050? So rightly or wrongly, I feel relatively optimistic. Let me just frame it. When we had the strategy unit in the Blair era, one of the phrases is that people overestimate how much they can do in the short term and underestimate how much they can do in the long term. but it's and It's a tough thing to do right now because it requires early adopters to change their pattern and innovators and it looks hard.
00:58:04
Speaker
but actually markets can tell pretty rapidly i'm gonna go back to pasta mean. My parents when they were kids would never be pasta my kids couldn't imagine the world is not for the pasta i think there's there's lots. that That can be done you know if you're prepared to tell me one thing i was just tweak it in the your marks early is you said we make thousands of decisions every day.
00:58:26
Speaker
That's not quite right. They're non-decisions. That's exactly the point. You're distracted. Your phone keeps going off. You've got a million other things, blah, blah, blah, and then someone sticks some, you know, ah high sugar, high fat thing, and you, oh, well, we'll eat that. Oh, you're watching TV. It was our decision.
00:58:43
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. It was a decision, 100%. So you have to make it a decision. that so That's why I think you have to make it a collective decision where you say, what do you want our supermarkets to be full of? buts we Yeah, we do want some sweets, but do we need a whole aisle for it?
00:58:57
Speaker
you know like More on those menus and elsewhere is that you can you can tilt that and it makes a much much bigger difference so you're you're stacking the deck in your favor as opposed to against you so the real question is will governments mobilize around this and you know do key commentators in the media and they could equally be campaigning for this shift although again where's the revenue coming from.
00:59:20
Speaker
So you can tilt these forces. So I'm quite optimistic, which is, you know, with a wit and a wisdom and a slightly brave government and or a few people mobilizing around it, you know, we can do it. We can do the Dimple B proposals. They're all written down. It's a very good piece of work in my view. Let's do it, guys. Let's do it. You know, let's have a bit of bravery. You say by 2050, it's very easy to imagine a world in which we are eating, he knows all kinds of Probably meat a little bit less, quite a bit less maybe, red meat. All kinds of interesting new foods, as you know, there's interesting work around, be it lab-grown or, you know, micellar protein, for God's sake, don't call it that. I feel like there are lots of very difficult things in the world which are quite intractable. This is not one of them.
01:00:02
Speaker
you can really quite see a glide path towards a better food system, right? um Which works for consumers and works for farmers and works for retailers. Like it is definitely within our grasp and certainly by 2050. Don't you think so? I think so. I mean, you know, you only have to observe changes in the supermarket in recent years and you know, the shell space that's given to alternative proteins, there is definitely a shift.
01:00:28
Speaker
There is something which changes from your early adopters. and When you think about 2050, something called the you know the adoption curve, you get your early adopters who are the kind of freaky, weird people who are like trying the new stuff. and One problem that can come in is that everybody else looks at them and thinks they're a bit strange. When you move up the adoption curve, you have to normalize it. That's really important. i mean We've had some fun in that conversation today, but it's like, how do you make it normal? In the same way you go back to Europeans eating potatoes,
01:00:57
Speaker
How do you get it to, oh, actually, lots of people are doing this. And that's a really nice recipe. And I didn't realize that's got potato in it. What a weird thing, you know? So you have to kind of make it mainstream, which is one of the reasons why I think restaurants shouldn't have the vegetarian option separate. So that's partly why I feel like in the end, we should harness the big commercial players because they have to make it mainstream to enable us to have more fulfilled and fulfilling lives and be in that sense deeply sophisticated consumers almost isn't the word right. You know better at living our lives so that's one of the reason i feel i think i'm optimistic. Is that it's not a zero-sum game you're not describing a future world which is gonna be all gray and horrible and
01:01:44
Speaker
you know, and all your food's gonna taste horrible. Actually, no, it's gonna be a richer experience, right? That's why I feel like we ought to be able to be optimistic for 2050. Well, look, I'm on board. I'm on board. Absolutely. Endless optimism for 2050. 100%. Because, you know, look, there's people like you with skin in the game. There's loads of brilliant people who have got their heads on this and are working towards a different future. So I'm optimistic.
01:02:17
Speaker
Lab-grown meat has a long way to go until it's on our supermarket shelves. But there's potential to revolutionise what we eat and ultimately change the lives of billions of farm animals reared and slaughtered every year. Find out more about this topic and others by searching ah RSPCA Animal Futures. Until next time, thanks for listening. Animal Futures was hosted by Kate Quilton.
01:02:46
Speaker
with thanks to our guests today, Riley Jackson and David Halpern. The series is produced by Mark Adams, Chris O'Brien, Emily Prado, and Joe Tuscano.