Michael Pellman Rowland: Betting On Plant Based Meat

“There’s no question that Beyond Meat IPO was a watershed event. You cannot overstate enough how big of a deal that was, because before then you had a relatively small group of folks, including myself, leading the parade, cheering as loudly as we could, and largely falling on deaf ears outside of small pockets here and there.

When that [IPO] happened, everybody on Wall Street started to take notice, not just because it went public, but it was the most successful IPOs since I think 2001 or something like that. And so, Wall Street, for better or worse, looks for where the money is being made and once they started to really look into the growth percent, the numbers in the plant based meat aisle - the success of the IPO, everybody started looking for the next one.”

- Michael Pellman Rowland

One silver lining that has come from the devastating Coronavirus pandemic has been the rise of the plant based meat industry. Business is booming. Sales of alternatives to animal flesh proteins have soared since the pandemic started and are now outpacing meat sales. This has been in part because of the meat shortage and in part because many more people have now been made aware of just how bad the meat industry is (extremely bad). They are looking for alternatives and, fortunately there are many.

So, I asked my friend, Michael Pellman Rowland to explain the latest goings on in the alternative meat space, a space he knows well. He is a financial advisor whose specialty is around sustainability and impact. And, he’s been writing about it for years, primarily for Forbes. His articles are about the future of food, sustainable food startups and technologies, and all of the happenings in the plant based food world from Memphis Meats leading the way to being the first cell-based meat company to bring its product to market to Beyond Meat being offered at Starbucks (although sadly, not in the US (yet)).

Michael is particularly excited about companies that offer innovative solutions to reduce the impact that agriculture has on human health, climate change, water scarcity, and the welfare of billions of animals, companies like: Beyond Meat, Impossible Foods, JUST, Ocean Hugger, Califia Farms, and Good Catch.

I learned a lot from Michael about many of these world-changing companies. He’s a wealth of knowledge, information, and advice; and, a really good human being.