UNSTUCK 020: Top 5 Consumer Takeways From The Asia-Pacific Agrifood Innovation Summit

The Asia-Pacific Agrifood Innovation Summit aims to accelerate innovation around agri-food technologies and adoption across Asia-Pacific, bringing together global industry leaders, investors and innovators, who gathered last week in Singapore. It’s also significant as the birthplace of UNSTUCK – attending the event last year brought into focus our frustrations with the lack of consumer mindset and capability across the industry. We decided to do something about it, and the idea for UNSTUCK was born.

There are multiple posts on the takeaways from the week circulating, but here are the definitive consumer ones, with plenty to celebrate beyond our birthday.   

1. The customer and consumer are finally on the agenda

Scanning through the Summit program, you could easily walk away with the impression that the customer and consumer are matters to be ticked off with one 45-minute panel before moving on to more serious matters. But actually attending the sessions last week you can see that they are a much bigger part of the agenda across a range of topics then they were last year. Whether it’s from startup founders or plant equipment makers, the consumer and customer came up again and again.

 “The consumer is the biggest unsolved problem of the industry” – Stephan van Sint Fiet, CEO of Vivici

The sentiment with many CEOs and senior leaders is that there’s substantial progress on many fronts. Regulation is moving ahead. Product development is getting the right focus. Even investor money is available for the right opportunities. But understanding and delivering on customer and consumer needs is lagging and is a big unsolved problem, as well as a strategic point of leverage for companies that get it right. We couldn’t agree more.

2. It’s about value, not price

We wanted to break into a resounding round of applause as the re-framing of price to value is starting to become visible. Sure, there was still plenty of talk about price parity which is the north star for industry thought leaders who are focused on substitution, rather than demand building. When certain technologies are so far away from cost price parity this north star helps to keep the industry at large focused on enablers of cost price reduction.

 “We have a responsibility to ensure what we do fits within the value proposition of quality vs price” – Jeff Tripician CEO of Meatable

BUT when we flip the conversation to one about the consumer - the concept of value is emerging. The best example is in marketing strategies for cultivated meat.  At one end we have Gourmey and Vow with their high-end cultivated foie gras, creating unique dining experiences, and in some markets (where foie gras is banned) making the inaccessible, available. At the other we have Meatable focused on being a supplier to the meat industry, plugging directly into their processing plants with a customer offer of efficiency and predictability.   

Both of these make sense, because they offer value and will have a corresponding price tag connected to that value.  An industry can’t go from close to zero market penetration to mass adoption by mere parity.  It has to build demand, and that requires clear value propositions.

3. Stop putting the technology cart before the consumer horse

Design thinking has taught us to look for opportunities at the intersection of three key factors. They are desirability or what the consumer wants, feasibility or what we can actually produce, and viability or what makes sense as a business.

 “Big food companies always start with desirability, as an industry we can’t keep starting from feasibility” – Sam Perkins, CEO of Cellular Agriculture Asia

As an industry, alt protein has been obsessed with feasibility first. Here’s our beautiful new process or here’s a new format of meat, now let’s try and sell it. Companies try to develop value propositions around these, but fail because they end up with unfocused blanket solutions that are largely meaningless. The consumer doesn’t care how pretty your bioreactor is. 

Instead we need to behave more like food companies and start from desirability and what the actual consumer wants. A mother of a toddler who’s a picky eater needs to figure out how to feed her child and keep them healthy, without nightly battles at the dinner table. If a product delivers that, she’ll pay more regardless if it’s made from conventional meat, alt protein, or a blend. 

4. Alt-protein is becoming pet friendly

A startup challenge organized by Big Idea Ventures and Mars has put a spotlight on a new segment of the industry this year – pet food. It’s a fast-growing category that ballooned to $125bn globally last year and accounts for about 20% of global meat production. In a sign of things to come for developed countries at least, dog strollers outsold baby strollers in Korea last year.

 “Pet nutrition is already fully optimized and we’re very clear about what we need from startups to plug into our supply chain” – Senior FMCG Executive

The obvious play here would be to ride on this humanization of animals – as people adopt alt protein into their diets, they may reflect their own choices and values in the diets of their pets. This is the path that UK startup Meatly is taking and has become the first cultivated meat of any kind to get UK approval. Unfortunately it is making the same mistake that many human alt protein companies have made with its “cultured not killed” messaging which will limit its potential to a animal cruelty and sustainability niche.

There is an alternate dynamic, however, that came up during discussions. Perhaps alt protein could become part of pet diets first, ahead of human ones. Whether it’s because of pet nutrition being more standardized, or simpler regulatory or sensory requirements (your dog probably doesn’t care about Michelin stars for the next meal), this path to adoption could help normalize alt protein with pet owners and give the category crucial scale early on. It’s a reverse-humanization of sorts, and a space we’ll definitely be watching since FMCG giants like Mars and Nestlé span both domains. 

5. B2B is not a shortcut

There’s been a swell of thinking within the industry that B2C is too hard and expensive, and pivoting to B2B (foodservice or customer brands) will be an easier path.  At Agrifood the mood was “nothing is easy” and quite rightly so. This isn’t a matter of doom and gloom, rather a positive understanding that is leading to focus. It was encouraging to see companies with absolute clarity on their route to market, whether as a B2C company, a B2B supplier or a technology company licensing their IP. Some have strategies to start as one and ultimately become another, allowing them to build demand and capture value now whilst the industry develops. This is not dissimilar to CPG start-ups where a brand may start life as a direct to consumer (DTC) business but ultimately supply through major channels when they are ready to scale and have proven demand. 

 “Our big learning this year has been that we’ll never get to the eater unless we figure out the ten steps before that” - Andrew Janis, Head of Regulatory, Vow

As a start-up it’s easy to get excited because you won someone over - whether that’s a chef, a big company food scientist or a broker. The maturity is now understanding there are multiple people to win, before you get a signature on a contract and food on a plate. That could be the importer, the distributor, the procurement team and the restaurant manager - all to get to the chef, with possibly multiple people at each stage. Each of those people will have different priorities and metrics they are working towards that you need to understand and ensure your value proposition and business model allows you to meet.

Agrifood Asides

💬 Quote of the Week: “We’re not in the business of beautiful bioreactors”

🤝 Word of the Week: “Collaboration”

🍽️ Dish of the Week: Vow’s cultivated foie gras

❄️ Pet peeve of the Week: Arctic aircon levels at Marina Bay Sands

😊 Made our Week: “UNSTUCK is the only industry newsletter I actually read”