In the season finale of our 10 part series Feeding 10 Billion, we focus on one word that has come to dominate our discourse and perfectly captures our theory of change - leapfrog. The themes in our podcast this season have given you an inkling of the range of work happening in the new protein sector - from cultivated and sustainable seafood to plant-based protein enriched foods. We hope it has also underlined the fact that however you approach this - be it through the lens of climate change, public health, malnutrition, farmer incomes, water shortage, land use, species extinction or animal welfare - we need to leapfrog over the industrial animal agriculture that has led to a broken food system. The analogue to mobile telephony or digital payments exist but to create new pathways in food (which is also socio-culturally loaded in our country) we need all the insight we can get. This episode we speak to Michelle Adelman, the CEO and Founder of Infinite Foods, who also heads the companies, Go Fresh and Accite Holdings. Michelle works in South Africa, Botswana and beyond to bring the most exciting plant-based foods like Beyond Meat, JUST egg and Miyoko’s cheese as well as Oatly milk to these developing markets. Her lessons from this continent have tremendous import for the work to be done in India. And with that, it’s a wrap on this season of Feeding 10 Billion. We hope you enjoyed this season, and we will catch up with you again in the new year in 2020!

Organizations, Institutes and Companies:

M-Pesa M-Pesa is Africa's most successful mobile money service. It provides access to financial services to the millions of people who have a mobile phone, but do not have or have only limited access to a bank account. M-Pesa provides people with a safe, secure and affordable way to send and receive money, top-up airtime, make bill payments, receive salaries, get a short-term loan and much more.

Accite Holdings Accite is a boutique project development and impact investment firm that focuses on technology-led, sustainable commercial agriculture projects that spur economic diversification and employment of youth and women. Accite’s investment philosophy marries proven western technologies with localized business models to create pioneering businesses. Accite believes that technology-led, sustainable agriculture is a viable growth sector for Africa’s transformation.

Infinite Foods Infinite Foods is a go-to-market platform for the best tasting plant-based food brands to reach Africa and emerging markets faster, with low risk. Infinite provides a turn-key capability to manage the regulatory environment, educate consumers, create markets, amplify brands, sell, distribute, source ingredients and enable manufacturing while being responsible corporate citizens.

Go Fresh! Botswana Go Fresh! Botswana’s vision is to improve the quality of life for people and the environment by growing Grade 1 fresh vegetables year-round. Using hydroponics and controlled-environment greenhouses, Go Fresh! Botswana uses a fraction of both the land and water used in traditional irrigated farming to provide people with the freshest locally-grown produce.

Additional Reading

• Read more about Infinite Food’s mission in this article in Vegconomist and read more about Michelle Adelman’s work in this article about helping Africa leapfrog to plant-based foods in Forbes.
• Watch Michelle Adelman’s interview about plant-based burgers on CNBC Africa here
• A quarter of US millennials claim to be vegan or vegetarian. Read more about that here
• Why India is a priority for plant-based and cultivated meat innovation: GFI Blog
• Meat is the new mobile - Leapfrogging our way to the future of food - Varun Deshpande, TEDxKITCoEK

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