Plant-based meat substitutes used to be confined to the aisles of health food stores and stands in farmers markets. However, with the explosion in discussions around the environmental and health consequences of eating meat, plant-based foods are growing in popularity on an international level.
In this episode of Plant-Based Revolution I chat with Christie Lagally, founder and chief executive officer of Rebellyous Foods about her transition from a mechanical engineer to meat replacements and her drive to bring plant-based to the mainstream.
I asked Lagally about being a senior scientist with the Good Food Institute, she says, “when I did decide to really dive into learning more about the food industry and specifically the meat industry which I cared about due to a wide variety of social justice issues, I decided that a good way to do that would be to volunteer and then later I was hired by the Good Food Institute. Which is a think tank and nonprofit organization that supports the evolution and the advancement of the industries of plant-based meat.” She adds, “Clean meat, fermented or cultured meat and essentially any products that need to be brought forward and advanced for the purpose of replacing animal products.”
Lagally talks about the discrepancy in how much plant-based meat is available in the United States, she says, “the meat industry produces over one hundred and eight billion pounds of animal based meat and even today in the heyday of meat alternatives, we're only producing one half of one percent of that one hundred and eight billion pound volume of plant-based meat versus animal-based meat.” “Fundamentally what prompted me to start Seattle Food Tech which is our corporate name for Rebellyous Foods which is our brand name and I decided I wanted to start a company that would fundamentally change the course of how big the plant-based meat industry is and that's precisely what we're doing. Rebellyous Foods is making enough available and affordable plant-based meat for everyone,” Lagally adds.
Lagally shares how Rebellyous Foods utilized the venture capital funding to set up infrastructure and invested into the development of technology to further their efforts faster. Rebellyous Foods can be found in stores, ballparks, hospitals, national school lunch programs and more.
To hear about the patents, full automated production systems and how Rebellyous Foods is working to make plant-based meat more available and affordable, listen to this episode of Plant-Based Revolution.