The Highwire with Del Bigtree - FAKE MEAT’S FREE FALL

Episode Date: March 20, 2024

Fake meat is dead! The plant based meat sector screeches to a halt as the Bill Gates-backed idea can no longer tread water amid the weight of its own untruths, false advertising and public shunning.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-highwire-with-del-bigtree--3620606/support.

With this idea of, you know, Agenda 2030 and all of these checked boxes that are trying to be checked off in one way or the other, I saw this headline and it maybe really started to dig into this story here. And let's talk about food now. We've talked about food for quite a quite a long time on the show and what, you know, how to eat healthy food. And then the switchover, Tyson Foods, one of the biggest meat producers, is investing in insect protein. This is one of the largest food companies in the world is recognized as a leader in protein. And if you go into this article, it says Tyson is not only taking a minority stake in the company, but is working alongside it to build a factory. This is the insect protein company.

That facility will use animal waste to feed back soldier flies, which will then be turned into food for pets, poultry, and fish. Tyson did not disclose the financial specifics of the deal. So technically they're not feeding this to people, but they're feeding it to the poultry that the people eat and your pets and fish that people eat. So you start looking into this and it's like, okay, this is really interesting. Why are they cozying up to this to this insect protein company? Well, I mean, you could say, well, it's sustainable and this is another way just to eliminate waste. Okay. But then you see headlines like this.

Tyson is closing four plants as chicken sales slump. And you go into that article. It's actually six plants. This is four additional plants in rural towns. And then a headline here out of Reuters, U.S. reduces beef exports as cattle herd shrinks, squeezing Tyson foods. So you can see there's a play here on meat. And we know that we're supposed to know that eating meat is bad for the environment. So there's a lot of angling going on that appears to be really hurting these companies.

And so I think back in 2017, you saw Bill Gates really entered the picture for the first time hard and make this proclamation with his funds. Bill Gates headlines an all-star list of investors pumping 75 million into meatless burgers. So that was in 2017, Gates went into impossible foods and then beyond burgers, Beyond Meat, basically, is another company that invested in both of those, Bill Melinda Gates Foundation. So in 2019, Beyond Meat goes public. Here's the headline for that as sales of plant-based meats rise. And these are supposed to be the answer. Insects, plant-based meats, this is how we fight climate change, and this was going to be the future. But then you have Bill Gates kind of slipping out the back door a little bit.

before the crashes. So Bill Gates Foundation quietly cashed out Beyond Meat stock before its epic crash. So he made his money on the way up. He kind of financed this. But after it went public, he was out the door. And so this whole industry is having a huge problem now, this fake meat, if you will. Beyond Meat is one of the leaders, or was one of the leaders, I should say. But you're now seeing headlines like this.

Class action lawsuits alleging Beyond Meat deceived customers about protein content will be combined in Chicago. So they're having a lot of issues with. that beyond meat. There's several lawsuits going on there, also about their ingredients, not being natural, and then also deceiving investors. So they have some problems here. Bill Gates, however, he's still on, he's still on the circuit over the last couple of years talking about this. Rich nations should shift entirely to synthetic beef. This is an MIT technology review. And listen to this quote. Sometimes you just fall off your chair, but it is Bill Gates. He says, I do think

all rich countries should move to 100% synthetic beef. You can get used to the taste difference and the claim is that they're going to make it taste even better over time So I know it tastes bad now, but just keep eating it. They told me they're gonna fix it Amazing, man, it's a big rib-eye fake beef steak Yeah, and this is happening. I mean this is really happening and so you look at in this article it looks at the venture capital that's That's really trying to fund a lot of these to get this this fallen fake meat industry up on its feet and this this this this chart here, she kind of really tells a story. You see in 2017, the first blips of this 2019, Beyond Meat was the initial public offering of the stocks. And then in 2021, you see it peaked,

but then here we are, they're just tanking at this point. Wow. So these, and so this perhaps is one of the reasons that the insect companies, fake meat companies are having to kind of go in with like Tyson Meets, big corporations, because they really are not finding the venture capital on their They're really not being able to make it on their own. And this headline shows that right here. Beyond Meat wannabes are failing as hype and money fade. And it says unreal food ended its pursuit of an eggless egg, remastered food, stopped developing vegan bacon. The meatless farm halted its plant-based sausages. The great shakeout in the world's fake meat sector is here and it's widening. It says with shoppers put off by excessive processing, nutritional value and taste, a growing list of alternative

protein companies are shutting down, laying off staff and selling themselves. Industry observers say more turmoil is coming before the sector stabilizes. Well, it would be interesting if it does stabilize because this is really, it seems like just an appetite shift for the American public and for other people as well. But the attack on meat and meat processing plants is not over. So this just happened last week. New York Attorney General sues Meat Packer JBS over climate claims. This is the world's largest beef producer. And this is the New York State Attorney General. And they're accusing of misleading the public about the impact of their environmental goals. So they're saying that this is Letitia James and everyone should know that name. It's been in the headlines a lot for the

dealings with Trump. But now she's going after the meat industry. And it's interesting because this is a Brazilian-owned meat industry headquarters in Colorado. And they're basically, she's basically saying in this lawsuit that they didn't really have a viable plan to reach net zero by 2040. So we're going to go ahead and push some legal action on them. And it's going to be a burden for for them. But the company itself, JBS says it aspires to meet net zero goals by 2040. There's a lot of other companies that are doing this, but this is something that's in the future. They hasn't even, haven't even gotten here yet. So this is a very interesting in telling lawsuit about what type of focus, the Attorney General of New York is focusing on a meat industry or

a packing industry, plastic industry out of Brazil that, you know, maybe hurting the rainforest, which are all admirable issues. But I mean, in this whole context of this conversation and the attack on the meat processing plants and just meat in general for climate change, it seems like this might be politically motivated. Who knows? But you start reading the lawsuit. It's like reading agenda 2030 from the United Nations. It's really line for line. Looks like it's coming right out of that. Yeah, it's really amazing when we look at this. And like I said, whatever diet you're choosing out there, I absolutely believe in freedom. And You know, everyone's got some guru telling you something different.

I have like five different people telling me five different ways to eat right now as we speak. But one thing I want to say is this, that this idea, these Bill Gates characters, these World Economic Forum, Globalist, Attorney General in New York, your job is not here to force me to comply into eating a certain way. You know, this is what living in a free country is all about. And frankly, Jeffrey, one of the things I love is that inadvertently, as we report in these things, we show you why freedom actually does work, why free market forces end up finding the right path, the right light at the end of the tunnel, because all of these things come at us.

They're all got subsidized and get pushed by Washington Post, New York Times, all these newspapers. But in the end, what happens? Just like the electric cars were reporting every other week. It's just a slumping market. in the end, the market doesn't want it. And so this shows you that voting with your dollars matters, folks, and as much as watching a high-wire episode every once in a while, have you screaming at the television set,

just bring it back and recognize that, you know, recognizing these things are happening, talking to your friends, and avoiding buying one of these things, and maybe even, you know, rib your friend a little bit when they try to order one at the restaurants and say, you really going to eat one of those? You have any idea what's in that?

If you ever ask yourself, how are they making that? grown meat? Seriously? I'm going to have the rib-eye. Thank you. Anyway, obviously, we're having an effect on these conversations. We're not that asleep at the wheel. People are doing okay. We're not as stupid as they think we are. And slowly but surely the market starts proving that out. Jeffrey, great reporting. Thank you for keeping us up to date on all of these crazy laws and issues that they're trying to bring. But the people are prevailing, and it's really exciting every time we get to celebrate that part of these stories.