Italian Meat and Pesticides

If you’re the type of person who roots for the underdog in movies, this may be a rough one for you. But here at Food Jungle, we are ALWAYS looking for a reason to be optimistic. Let’s dig in.

This week:

🥩 Italy bans lab-grown meat.

⚖️ The European Union votes in favour of pesticides.

🚴 Deliveroo wins a crucial court case in the UK.

🌽 Farmers in Argentina welcome the new president.

👗 Clothes get made from shellfish and mushroom waste…

CLIMATE
ITALY BANS LAB-GROWN MEAT

To kick things off, Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, banned the production and sale of lab-grown meat last week, citing that cultivated protein was a threat to the “country’s culinary heritage”.

Italian food culture is known to almost anyone with taste buds and, to many conservatives, this move felt like a protective measure for farming communities that have been around for literally CENTURIES. Not to mention that the possible side effects of eating lab-grown meat are still largely unknown.

To many others, especially the younger generations, it seemed as though Meloni both yielded to meat industry lobbyists, protecting a €30 billion-a-year business, and made her aggressive stance towards Italian food innovation incredibly obvious.

ZOOMING OUT: Violations of the new law may result in fines of up to €60,000. So, for those who idealised the sustainable possibilities of lab-grown meat, this was a major loss. And for those governments yet to decide, a choice must be made: tradition or venturing into the unknown. 

POLICY
EU SAYS “YAY” TO PESTICIDES

Last Wednesday, The European Commission’s Green Deal - which aimed to halve the use of chemical pesticides and promote the uptake of non-chemical treatment methods - was REJECTED by EU officials.

To use incredibly technical language, these pesticides are BAD. Having been linked with increased rates of cancer and Parkinson’s, environmental degradation, and declined pollination, it seemed like a no-brainer to restrict their use.

Numerous farming lobbyists, however, argued that food security is a top priority, given current geopolitical tensions. European farming must remain competitive on the world stage if Europe itself is to survive. If that means using pesticides, then so be it.

ZOOMING OUT: 1 million EU citizens petitioned for a complete phaseout of pesticides within the bloc earlier this year. So, it seems the question now comes down to this: do we have to sacrifice the long term sustainability of European farming for short term food security?

BUSINESS
DELIVEROO WINS BIG

Food delivery service giant, Deliveroo, may have gulped a MASSIVE sigh of relief last week as the UK’s Supreme Court ruled that the company’s workers were not allowed to engage in collective bargaining as part of a trade union.

BASICALLY, this means that the guys who deliver your stone-cold pizza are not technically employees. So, they can’t technically bargain for more money, employer-sponsored benefits, a company healthcare plan etc. etc.

Deliveroo “riders” can work for competitors, appoint substitute riders, and control their working hours, which is not something, the Supreme Court argued, “employees” can do.

ZOOMING OUT: For many unionised Deliveroo riders, this comes as a shock since freelance Uber drivers received employee benefits just two years ago. Whether this story will evolve remains to be seen. For now, though, Goliath won the day.

SUPPLY CHAIN
ARGENTINIAN “DE-TAXIFICATION”

While many audibly GASPED as Argentinians elected Javier Milei - a right-wing populist - as their next president, no one was more excited than the country’s farmers. Just LOOK at that photo. The man’s crazy.

Argentina is the world’s fourth largest producer of beef and one of the largest exporters of soy, wheat and corn. But the current left-leaning regime has also created a whole HOST of issues that have stunted any hopes for future growth:

• A 140% inflation rate is just ridiculous,

• High taxes have made exports too expensive,

• Farmers have to sell goods at a super strict exchange rate,

• Only specific types of beef cuts are permitted to be sold.

Add to that a CRIPPLING drought, and you get ANGRY farmers who want to make some more dolla-dolla bills y’all.

ZOOMING OUT: Milei haș vowed to deregulate, de-taxify, and “dollarise” the Argentinian agriculture industry. And, by eliminating export taxes and moving to a single exchange rate, the president-elect could make it insanely cheap to export crops and beef. Whether this is achievable, only time will tell.

THE BRIGHT SIDE
A FASHION AND FOOD COLLAB ACT

For TômTex, “waste is the new luxury”. More specifically, this New York-based company is using shrimp shells and mushrooms to create alternative leather fabrics!

By mixing a biopolymer abundant in seafood exoskeletons and mushrooms - called chitosan - with coffee grounds, TômTex is able to create a durable material that resembles leather AND is 100% biodegradable.

The company raised $4.15 million in funding just last week and, already, their materials have been used for both New York Fashion Week and Paris Fashion Week.

What’s more, whether from coffee grounds or insects, the chitosan can be extracted from any organic matter! You’re feeding two birds with one scone, really: eliminate food waste and reduce fast fashion’s carbon footprint. Food Jungle approved ✅ 

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BEFORE YOU GO…

• US private equity investor, Carlyle Group, will sell its stake in the Chinese operations of McDonald’s due to growing geopolitical tensions between the US and China.

• The price of olive oil has hit €8 per litre in Spain, a 150% increase over the past two years.

• The Federal Trade Commission is investigating the $10 billion purchase of Subway for anti-competitive behaviour.

• Disgraced “crypto king”, Sam Bankman-Freid, pays for his haircuts in prison with dried mackerel.

• Catering for the COP28 summit will be 66% plant-based.

• Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of coffee and cocoa risk being destroyed after a new EU law prohibits imports from recently deforested areas.