New Nutrition Business Podcast: Recent Episodes
New Nutrition Business
We'll tell you all about the latest trends in the business of food, beverages, nutrition and health. Find out more at new-nutrition.com.
Beyond Meat, the California-based meat substitute brand, will one day be a business school case study of failure. The company's CEO famously declared that his aim was to "to completely replace animals in the food system by 2035". What happened? Beyond has never made a profit in 12 years. Each $1 of product it sold in 2025 cost it $1.95 to make and it has $1 billion of losses on its balance sheet. Beyond is not alone. The plant-based dairy and meat substitute delusion sucked up $20 billion of investment capital only to detonate on contact with reality. Plant-based substitutes sales are sliding across the board. The biggest lesson may be not to allow ourselves to be fooled again by the fantasies of consulting firms and university researchers.
Time: 20 minutes
No-one predicted that meat snacks would become one of the biggest and fastest-growing categories in the American supermarket, totallyaligned with the needs of the health-conscious consumer. Nor did anyone imagine that "grass-fed" would be one of the messages that some consumers would value most, alongside the word "protein". Demand for grass-fed is quietly growing. Sales of grass-fed beef in the US are measured in billions and were up 35% last year. So perhaps it's no surprise that PepsiCo is getting into the grass-fed beef snack business. OK, so at NNB we did in fact predict, back in 2020, that meat snacks would grow, so we're taking a lap for that one. But we didn't get the PepsiCo prediction. Time: 14 minutes
Long overlooked as a wacky concept that was only successful in Australia and China, A2 dairy is breaking out. A2 is showing up in mainstream supermarkets from LA to Barcelona, in foodservice and now in one of Nestlé's biggest brands in Asia. A2's "feel the benefit" effect for people who want digestive wellness, plus its heritage of "farming as it used to be" and its "real food" identity are a powerful combination which is driving change and 30% annual sales growth.
Time: 12 minutes
Consumer interest in dairy protein emerged among gym-goers in the 1990s and became mass-market 7 years ago. In this podcast, we introduce two emergent strategies from our annual 10 Key Trends report that explain why consumer demand for dairy protein will keep growing for many years to come. One strategy is protein quality, an idea that's unknown to consumers but it is dairy's untapped competitive advantage. Danone, Meijiand Nestlé are leading the charge in Asia, introducing the message of protein quality tothe influential sports and fitness consumers. The other is creatine, a long-established, science-backed sports supplement now crossing over into foods, with emerging benefits for muscle, energy and cognition. Pioneering brands are blending creatine and high-quality protein. Opportunities for innovation will surge.
Time: 25 minutes
We made this podcast to help food producers work out how to meet the needs of people using GLP-1a drugs. It goes past the hype that you hear from consulting firms. We explore the nuances and show what you can do to reduce your risks (and the risks are real) using real-world examples. It also covers: 1. Why GLP-1 is one of only six drivers changing people's consumption habits (and not the most important one) 2. Which categories are struggling and which are growing. 3. Why GLP-1a may decline from where it is and how to manage that risk so that your business still survives and thrives.
Time: 28 minutes.
Billions of dollars have been invested by companies using precision fermentation to make "animal-free" dairy proteins in a factory. Around 40 companies are aiming to replace large parts of the dairy industry and they claim that their alt proteins behave in the same way in the human body as real dairy proteins. However, a recently published scientific study suggest that these animal-free proteins in fact don't. They may have a different effect on the gut and immunity. Meanwhile no alt protein company has been able to produce a single study that backs up their claim of equivalence to the natural dairy matrix.
Time: 16 minutes
For a growing number of consumers "grass-fed" is one of the strongest health and sustainability messages. So it's no surprise that demand for foods from grass-fed sources is growing steadily. In the US, for example, sales of grass-fed meat are three times those of the much-hyped plant-based substitutes and grew by 31% last year. And at least one former vegan ice cream brand is now thriving by offering grass-fed dairy ice cream. If you are thinking about the future of food, this development and what it says about humans is one you have to understand.
Time: 25 minutes
Our first podcast about food history. Why history? Because if you're involved in producing food and in innovation, it's good to have a handle on the history of food and the timeless lessons about humans that food history can teach us - and that we can still apply today. Time: 15 minutes
A fall in the breakfast cereal market in Europe has led to Nestlé closing a factory, with the loss of hundreds of jobs. It's an illustration of what happens when consumer trends reach a tipping point. Rising consumer preferences for eggs, dairy protein and health-centred, small entrepreneurial brands have sealed the fate of traditional breakfast cereals. More in this podcast.
Time: 14 minutes
Animal protein has become the most important growth trend in the business of food, nutrition and health.
Consumer demand for dairy protein has been growing strongly – witness surging demand for cottage cheese – and red meat is now on the same path. Meat snacks are a hugely successful category in the supermarket, and one of the fastest-growing brands in America is a meat snack.
Consumers are putting the brakes on meat-reducing, veganism is shrinking back to its niche, and cardiologists and doctors are re-thinking the role of red meat in a healthy diet.
We're not alone in spotting rising demand for animal protein; Whole Foods Market, the leading natural foods retail chain in the US, reports that health-conscious consumers are now prioritizing animal protein.
But how is this possible, after years of plant-based push? Dairy protein and red meat tick many boxes for consumers: “real” whole foods, nutrient-dense, versatile and good-tasting.
Tune in to learn more!
Time: 38 minutes
Quorn has been - for over 30 years - the case study that everyone in the food industry can learn from. Quorn's successful creation of a new category, based on patented technology, was a rare and inspiring example. Now it's a case study of how, when consumer trends turn, even successful businesses can hit trouble. Despite that, Quorn can still have a future. But for the many companies who have invested hundreds of millions of dollar to copy Quorn's mycoprotein meat substitute technology, the outlook is bleak.
Time: 16 minutes
Humans don't want to eat technology. They prefer to eat real food. That's why the most successful strategy in the food industry, for the past 25 years, has been taking traditional foods and adapting them to the needs of modern consumers. One of the best examples is in Japan, where falling sales of tofu were reversed by a company figuring out how to reinvent tofu as a convenient and good-tasting snack for younger consumers. It's a strategy that also explains the success of Greek yoghurt, skyr, kefir and many others. This podcast sets out the success factors for reinventing a traditional food.
Time: 19 minutes
Do you want to know how to create a successful healthier food product? Here are my favourite Seven Steps for Success, created as a result of our 20+ years of research, creating case studies and advising companies. Take these into account and you will be making a good start! Time: 20 minutes
The failure of the meat substitute business will be the must-read case study for the next decade. It shows what happens when companies make assumptions about consumers and their motivations instead of doing deep research and thinking. It shows what happens when products fail the taste test. And it shows what happens when you don't give anyone a compelling reason to buy your product. As the economic outlook darkens, the future isn't bright for this stumbling category.
Time: 11 minutes
A press release from Harvard stated that a new study had found that consuming meat increases your risk of diabetes. It was reproduced - almost word-for-word - by hundreds of media outlets within a few hours of its publication. Did the media follow up and report the tens of nutrition experts who raised question marks over the study? Not so much.
When the media slavishly reproduces a press release right after publication it tells you that the journalists haven't actually read the study or done any investigation. Research by New Nutrition Business found that's normal practice now in mainstream media, much of which exists to reproduce press releases. And that means they are often producing misinformation.
Time: 15 minutes
This podcast provides lessons you can use about innovation, new health benefits and reinventing a traditional food, told through the frame of three probiotic success stories. One is the story of how a trusted brand in Japan brought a sleep and anxiety benefit and created the most successful product launch - anywhere in the world - of the last 20 years. Two are from the US, where innovative and hard-working Turkish and Russian immigrants used tradition and technology to create something totally new for Americans.
Time: 25 minutes
Oatly's classic Silicon-valley inspired business model from 2012 is facing nemesis. Oatly aimed to get to $1 billion in sales. Unfortunately, in focusing on a big sales number the company seems to have forgotten that it's a good idea to make a profit now and again. In the first six months of 2023 each $1 of product it sold cost it $1.38 to make. With the oat milk business changing and the global economy facing tough times, it's hard to see when, if ever, Oatly can get to break-even.
Time: 20 minutes.
Billionaire investors, most of the media, and many environmental activists insist that we will soon all be eating cell-cultivated meat - a substance more commonly referred to as lab meat. Arguments are raging about the technology, its scalability, cost and regulation. But ultimately the decision about whether lab-meat succeeds lies solely in the hands of the consumer. And the evidence from real-world consumer behaviour isn't looking too good for the lab-meat promoters.
Time: 24 minutes.
The fantasies of investors have collided with the reality of the supermarket. We are witnessing the long, slow death of the plant-based meat alternatives category. It was the creation of billionaire investors who want to force a 'protein transition' in order to make another billion. In the US and UK sales are falling, despite the billions invested, because the finance bros never bothered to understand the technology or the consumer.
Time: 26 mins.
Nuti-Score is a European front of pack labelling scheme which ranks the healthiness of foods on a scale from A (most healthy) to E (least healthy). It's backed by governments in Germany and France. But it's opposed in Italy and Greece. Why? Could it be because it ranks many traditional foods in the Mediterranean diet as D or E? Or could it be because it ranks whole milk (C) as less healthy than Coke Zero (B)? Nutri-Score is flawed. And the evidence suggests that it may not be of much - or any - benefit for public health. It may be the world’s best example of how public health experts’ greatest expertise appears to lie in undermining their own credibility.
We are witnessing what may be the biggest-ever failure in food industry history. The Silicon Valley idea that you can 'grow sales and profits will follow' has slammed into the reality of the food business. Plant-based meat substitute makers have made every strategy mistake in the How-to-Fail Handbook. Sales are falling. Most meat substitute makers are losing money. Products failed to meet consumer taste expectations. They couldn't even prove that they were 'more sustainable'. An echo chamber of investors, consultants and media pushed the idea that 20-ingredient substitutes would have us all ditching meat - and that plant meat companies would be worth billions. But reality turned out to be the opposite of what the billionaire investors thought would happen. Time: 23 minutes.
Oat milk is big and its success is admired! It's the fastest-growing segment of the US plant milk market. Sales jumped by an impressive 72% in 2021. But two-thirds of oat milk's growth came not from taking business from dairy milk, but by taking sales away from other plant milks. Almond, coconut and others all fell in 2021. Meanwhile, there's an even bigger and more successful product than oat - lactose-free dairy milk. It's growing faster than oat and is bigger than any type of plant milk. Time: 10 minutes.
Plant-based dairy is settling down as a niche business – contrary to what consultants and the media have been telling you. There's nothing wrong with being niche! But exaggerated claims that 'plant-based will replace dairy' always ignored food culture and food science, and the simple fact that most plant-based dairy just doesn't taste good enough. This week I focus on plant-based yoghurt and ice-cream, where sales growth is slowing sharply, and look at how plant-based under-performance has already cost one CEO his job. Time: 10 minutes.
Billionaire investors thought they could 'disrupt' livestock farming. They thought that meat substitutes would be an easy way to make their next billion. But they are having a shock encounter with reality. Consumers see meat substitutes as expensive novelties and are sticking with beef and lamb. As a result, losses are up - by 240% - at Beyond, the best-known brand in the substitute sector. Beyond's US retail sales fell by 20% at the end of 2021. Will Beyond become one of the biggest failures in food industry history?
If you want your business to succeed in health and nutrition it’s important to understand economics as much as nutrition science and consumer sentiment. Over the next 18 months we will see the chickens come home to roost for businesses that have neglected to focus on creating a successful economic model.
Oatly, probably the world’s best-known plant milk brand, has announced sales in the first nine months of 2021 up 55% compared to the same period in 2020. But every $1 of product it sells costs it $1.26 to produce and as a result its losses are also up – by 700%.
Beyond Meat, the California-based plant substitute maker which raised a billion dollars to fund its ambition to get consumers to switch away from meat, has reported falling retail sales in the key US market, a collapse in its gross margin and mounting losses. And this isn’t just a story of one brand failing – the much- hyped US plant-based meat alternative category started to decline in 2021, even as sales of meat increased.
Low-carb diets are gaining momentum among the mainstream, and they're even being recognised as a treatment for type 2 diabetes. In this episode we talk to a UK general practitioner that has successfully been using a low carb diet to help his patients put type 2 diabetes into remission and improve the health of those with prediabetes.
For most people today, the term “cholesterol-lowering food" doesn’t ring any bells, but its history provides food businesses valuable lessons. As we find ourselves in another cycle of big investors and food companies pouring millions of dollars into the belief that they can “disrupt the food system” and “change people’s food choices”, it's worth revisiting the story of cholesterol-lowering to remind ourselves that, in food, technology isn't everything.
From soy and pea, to duckweed and moringa, plant-based proteins are having a moment. Julian Mellentin and plant protein expert Paul Hart do a deep dive into this area, and discuss why yellow split pea is the ‘new soy’, how plant proteins measure up against animal-sourced proteins, why ‘chemical’ ingredient inventories run counter to consumers’ beliefs, and more.
Sales have grown, year-on-year, for Beyond Meat, maker of plant-based meat substitutes. But comparing one quarter to another, sales have stalled. Gross margin has slumped, and not only has Beyond not made a profit in any of its four years of trading, but its losses have worsened. Currently it is incurring $9 of costs for every $8 of sales. It’s little surprise that it is highlighting to the stock market its high hopes for new deals with McDonalds, PepsiCo and others.
A major cheese snacking brand has taken a bold and innovative step which will either confound all sceptics and create a new category – or repeat a mistake that tens of companies have made before.
The UK is in the middle of an oat milk frenzy, its per capita consumption of oat milk even higher than that of the US. The frenzy has been driven by the success of Oatly, a brand which was among the fastest-growing brands in the UK supermarket in 2020. In this episode, we take a look at the brand's financial performance, marketing and communications.
Covid-19 has brought into relief the links between metabolic disease and food and nutrition. We discuss the implications with Tim Avila, president of LA-based Systems Bioscience, and a nutrition super-connector working with companies from the US to Norway and New Zealand to create science-based products that improve human health. He talks about dietary guidelines, whether they help make people healthier, and maps a way ahead with phyto-nutrients and micro-nutrients.
Investors are pouring billions of dollars into companies that hope to commercialise plant-based meat substitutes and cultured meats, produced by fermentation. They are many times hailed as a greener alternative to animal agriculture. But how exactly is cultured meat produced and how likely is to save the planet? NNB North American editor Dale Buss has been digging into this area and he discusses what he has found with Julian Mellentin.
Most of you have heard in a presentation or seen in the media that plant milks are mainstream and that they are taking over from cows' milk. Today we take a short tour around some facts to show that none of these statements are true. We look at the secret history of the plant milk business, and how the US dairy industry got to compete so successfully that just a few years from now sales of lactose-free cows’ milk will be bigger than sales of plant milk.
Everyone loves an innovation incubator! Since 2012, the corporate or investment fund that doesn't have involvement in an incubator has become a rare exception. The newest convert to the creed of innovation is Ocean Spray Cranberries, the 90-year-old farmer-owned cooperative.
Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon, is investing in a Chilean start-up that uses machine learning to create vegan alternatives to animal-based products. It’s one of many similar “vegan” investments by investors with a background in Silicon Valley, and it’s fuelled by their belief they can disrupt existing categories. It’s a belief that rests on certain assumptions – and they are about to learn how weak those assumptions are.
New Nutrition Business's market research manager Joana Maricato discusses how food & beverage companies can successfully connect to personalised nutrition with Josh Anthony. Josh is the CEO at Nlumn, where he is helping companies create personalised products with benefits that people want. He was also the founding chief science officer at the personalised nutrition company Habit.
If meat and dairy are to be redeemed with consumers who suspect livestock husbandry and conventional farming are bad for the planet, so-called “regenerative” agriculture will play a key role. Already companies, including food industry giants, are experimenting with ways of moving away from “corporate agriculture” to farming in ways that “feed” the soil in the hope of meeting emerging consumer demands for the foods they eat to have a lower environmental impact.