Rangitikei farmer Richard Morrison is optimistic about the future of New Zealand's red meat farming.

Besieged by celebrity vegetarians, our agriculture industry is taking up the challenge of finding alternatives to old-style farmed meat. Madison Reidy investigates, in Part 2 of our three-week series.

Deep in the Rangitikei, Richard Morrison and his livestock seem safely tucked away from threats. But he, like all meat farmers, is being confronted by a laboratory-grown blight that he cannot fence out.

Bullish new companies are putting meat mimic products on supermarket shelves, challenging one of New Zealand's most valuable export industries and forcing farmers to rethink their future. The options are popularising a consumer movement away from slaughtered food, causing demand for beef and lamb to drop.



Owners of 150-year-old family farms like Morrison's are shaking in their gumboots, hoping the world's red-meat cravings will continue.

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But a Sunday Star-Times/Stuff online survey of nearly 35,000 readers this week reports only 46 per cent of respondents are committed carnivores. A fifth have already cut most or all meat from their diet (17 per cent); the rest are considering cutting back for health reasons (14 per cent), budget (11 per cent), environmental (8 per cent), animal welfare (3 per cent) or personal taste (1 per cent).*

Victoria Crone, the chief executive of $300 million government agency Callaghan Innovation, attended a week-long Te Hono bootcamp at Stanford University, planning how to make New Zealand farming a global exemplar.

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The chief science officer of Impossible Foods was a keynote speaker to the room full of Kiwi agribusiness leaders. "His ambition, which he quietly and confidently stated, was to put the animal-based meat industry out of business in five years," Crone says. "This type of goal was, and should be, confronting to those in the room whose lives and business propel a good sized chunk of our economy.

Impossible Foods is a Silicon Valley company. It has spent more than $220m researching every aspect of the sensory experience of meat: how it looks raw, how it sizzles, the smell, the texture and of course, the taste.

"That is what we are up against in the alternative foods space," Crone says. "Global organisations, well funded, who are tapping into emerging consumer preferences and spare no thought for the consequences to our businesses or economy."

WARWICK SMITH / STUFF Farmer Richard Morrison reckons the meat industry can survive if it tells its family-owned, grass-fed Kiwi story better.

Beef & Lamb New Zealand chief executive Sam McIvor says farmers are asking questions. So many, that McIvor had his organisation carry out international research on alternative meat products to quantify the pending threat.

He says it exists, although it has been garnished with exaggeration. He blames the media and celebrities for promoting sans-meat diets. They are among what he calls the forces menacing our meat industry.

Environmental concerns over meat production, and health concerns over its consumption, are influencing "good old millennials" to turn their noses up at meat, McIvor says. "They are the things that are really behind it, as opposed to alternative proteins themselves being a significant issue."

Callaghan Innovation chief executive Vic Crone warns NZ farmers are contending with wealthy overseas alt-meat companies ready to run our agriculture industry into the ground.

Agriculture Minister Damien O'Connor says denial is detrimental: Farmers ignore the up and coming at their peril.

THE FARM GATE RATTLERS



In a central Auckland supermarket, fake beef labelled "grown not bred", is sold next to the bacon. It's a cheeky product placement. And one that is entirely intentional, to flaunt the boldness of meat mimic maker, the Alternative Meat Co.

Australia's Life Health Foods was a leader in the vegetarian food game. It wanted to do more to target could-be converts, so it began experimenting with plant-based meat substitutes more than two years ago. Its Alternative Meat 'chicken' strips and 'beef' chunks are already on supermarket shelves here.

David White / Stuff.co.nz New Zealand – the end of the affair with meat.

Alternative Meat spokesman Mark Roper admits its products are cheeky. "It is sort of getting in the face of a meat-eater and saying, 'hey, what about an alternative'?"

Its success is riding on cause-driven millennials who are willing to experiment with food. He says more of them are likely to be "flexitarian" – meat-eaters reducing their intake because they care about the planet.

Alternative meat makers Down Under are following in the steps of United States pioneers like Impossible Foods, one of the first to invent a meat-resembling plant-based burger pattie. It broke the mould when it discovered heme, an iron-containing molecule found in plants and animals that gives meat its bloody, metally taste.

US company Impossible Foods discovered a bloody, metally tasting molecule called heme.

At Auckland-based Sunfed Foods, chicken-free chicken can't be made fast enough. The alternative meat made from yellow peas flew off shelves when it launched in July last year.

Its creator, Shama Lee, says her company will increase its manufacturing capability here 100-fold to make enough chicken-free chicken to sell to the wider Western world.



Beef-free beef and pork-free bacon are next in Sunfed's pipeline.

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CASH COW

A wave of wealthy investors, including Microsoft founder Bill Gates, punting on what they think is the next big thing in food, has made meat-free meat a reality. It's the deep pockets behind alternative meat makers that are instilling most fear in farmers.

McIvor says the flow of capital to such companies gives them more opportunity to develop new products. He thinks the technology to make realistic fake meat "isn't there yet", but is aware that one day soon it might be.

SUPPLIED Sunfed Meats founder Shama Lee plans to increase her company's alternative meat production 100-fold.

Sunfed​ attracted $1.2m from angel investors in its first funding round in 2016. At an angel investment showcase in Auckland last year, Sunfed was a crowd favourite, fielding offers for last-minute buy-ins.

Private venture capital funds dedicated to investing in food industry disruptors are on the rise. They are all sold on the idea that the world needs to figure out new, more sustainable, ways to source food to feed rapidly growing populations. And they don't want it to involve more bloodshed.

Sunfed​ sits in two of the major funds portfolios, Stray Dog Capital and New Crop Capital, alongside US leaders in the space, Impossible Foods, Beyond Meat and Memphis Meats.

Sunfed Foods 'chicken' made from peas attracted $1.2 million of investment in its first funding round.

A MEATLESS ECONOMY?

Damien O'Connor​ says the economy is "hugely dependent" on the world continuing to eat New Zealand cuts.

"Our economy is threatened unless we front up to, and address and answer some of the concerns that consumers have."

When asked if New Zealand is somewhat too reliant on meat exports, and exposes itself to too much one-sided risk, O'Connor​ does not disagree.

"Many people, politicians and others, have been trying to diversify our economy for decades. But the reality is that we are good at farming and good at production, and there is international demand for our products.

"Until people develop and retain other industry opportunities, primary industries will continue to be very important to us."

MARTIN DE RUYTER / STUFF Agriculture Minister Damien O'Connor says farmers ignore alternative meat creations at their peril.

Statistics NZ data shows the overseas value of our meat was about half that of dairy last year.

Export revenue for all meat, including poultry, totalled $6.24 billion last year. Most of it hit plates in the US, China and Europe.

In the past year, red meat revenue dropped, especially for beef and veal. Less livestock was slaughtered last year, but the money made from what was killed to eat, increased.

DAVID WHITE / STUFF Plant-based 'meat' products are flying off shelves as more consumers choose to eat without causing bloodshed.

The annual international value of New Zealand meat has risen over the past five years, from $5.4b in June 2013 to $6.24b in June 2017.

A Government white paper from December sings optimism. The Situation and Outlook for Primary Industries document forecasts meat and wool export revenue to increase to $8.7b this year, partly driven by a higher asking price for our best red meat cuts.

STORIES FOR SURVIVAL

To name its price, McIvor admits Kiwi meat needs to be "a bit prouder and a bit louder" overseas.

"It is not about hooking into and putting down alternative proteins. We want to focus on that premium end."

To do so, Beef & Lamb New Zealand has spent a year developing a New Zealand farm assurance programme. If audited farms here meet the programme's animal welfare and environmental standards, they could use a sticker on their packaging overseas to prove it came from a decent Kiwi farm.

SUPPLIED New Zealand's meat industry plans to sell more high-value cuts.

He hopes it's not too late.

Morrison agrees farms like his need to stop being sheepish and share their story with the world.

"I think New Zealand red meat farmers produce a really good product and do it in a really good way and we have got a good story to tell behind that. If we do that successfully I think our future is assured."

Beef and Lamb NZ chief executive Sam McIvor says there are multiple forces driving a consumer movement towards alternative protein products.

It can't all be done from the Rangitikei. Morrison says farmers, processors, exporters and the Government need to work together to fight for their foothold in a market where fake meat exists.

O'Connor says his hand is up to help, but he won't give any hand-outs. Especially because he thinks the industry has not done much to help itself.

"I think the meat industry will survive, but the question is in what form and whether farmers will continue to operate profitably. These are all questions that the industry has to face up to and it has not been doing a terribly good job at it so far."

* The Sunday Star-Times/Stuff poll numbers have been updated to reflect an increased response.