As these intellectuals become spokesmodels, professional models seem to be increasingly photographed with books. In May 2019, Kendall Jenner was seen lounging near a pool in Cannes reading “Literally Show Me a Healthy Person” by Darcie Wilder. In December 2019, Ms. Jenner was snapped on a boat in Miami reading “Tonight I’m Someone Else” by Chelsea Hodson.
Both Ms. Wilder and Ms. Hodson have said that their books sold out on Amazon after the photos circulated online. “This capitalistic boost benefited me monetarily and, if I do say so myself, her culturally,” Ms. Wilder wrote in an essay for The Outline, because it signified Ms. Jenner’s interest in “a more imperiled creative class.” Ms. Jenner has since shared a number of books online, including “How to Cure a Ghost” by Fariha Róisín.
Celebrity book mentions can also bump book sales. The author Alisson Wood, whose book “Being Lolita” was featured by Ms. Gerber and Ms. Ratajkowski, said she saw “huge jumps” in sales and her follower count, “which, for a book that’s not a best seller, that’s a big deal.”
Ms. Wood believes that this new authors-as-models and models-as-bookfluencers dynamic is a consequence of society’s growing comfort with “beautiful women to also be smart, and for smart women to also be beautiful,” she said. “Amanda Gorman is a brilliant poet, but she can also model because she’s beautiful. Kaia Gerber is gorgeous, but she’s also really smart and loves books and wants to talk about books.”
Ms. Róisín has yet to see material gains from Ms. Jenner’s photos, but is impressed that she is engaging with the issues in her book, which “is about unlearning white supremacy and patriarchy,” she said. “It’s talking about abuse and trauma, so the fact that Kendall Jenner is reading that book, and that she’s been reading it consistently, is pretty wild.” And of the supermodel’s other reading material, given to her by her agent Ashleah Gonzales?
“If Kendall Jenner is reading Lydia Davis, that’s pretty cool.”
Harry Styles at the Strand
Ms. Gonzales, too, shares “Alt Lit” reading recommendations with her roughly 78,000 followers. “If I read something I love or something that I find relatable, I’ll pop it on Instagram to share sort of in that moment,” she wrote in an email.
As more consumers become interested in the sustainability of what they eat, what role can ‘hybrid’ products made from meat and vegetables play? After all, early launches haven’t always succeeded, writes David Burrows.
The debate over sustainable diets is about all or nothing. Either you eat a meat product or you eat a 100% plant-based one. Consumers are left to choose between an Impossible Burger made from plants or a traditional one made of beef. Some are swayed one way or the other – either by the novelty, the environmental or health benefits, or concerns over animal welfare (or a combination of all of these). But most are not.
Indeed, the market value of processed meat alone was worth US$519.41 billion in 2019. Plant-based managed $11.1bn (according to Statista), so 2% of all processed meat. The category is growing fast of course and could reach $35.5bn by 2027. But processed meat is expected to reach $862.97bn by then, giving plant-based a 4% share. That’s nowhere near the shift required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve public health.
“Consumers say they will eat less meat but look at per capita consumption levels and it’s increasing,” explains Marija Banovic, associate professor at Aarhus University’s MAPP Centre in Denmark. “It’s difficult to say we are doing everything we could.”
So Banovic, together with academics at the UK’s University of Reading, Ireland-based meat processor ABP Food Group and the Spanish National Research Council, has been looking at a solution in what she calls “healthier” processed meats. Sausages with less pork and beef burgers with less beef, that are then bulked out with vegetables and pulses. Arguably these ‘blended’ or ‘hybrid’ meats offer the “best of both worlds”, she says.
Natasha Maynard, nutrition and scientific affairs manager at UK-based industry researchers The IGD, says such products also provide “familiarity and are viewed as a low-risk option for families”, adding: “They reduce the sense of loss to consumers making changes [to their diets] as they are still getting the goodness and taste of meat, but with some additional benefits.”
Let’s Rebel
Indeed, chicken nuggets launched by US poultry processor Perdue Foods and US ingredients start-up The Better Meat Co. in 2019 were targeted at “flexitarian families” trying to add vegetables to their diets with the minimum fuss and expense. The nuggets, which blended chicken with cauliflower, chickpeas and plant protein, were part of a flurry of activity in the blended meats space in a matter of weeks in summer 2019.
Hormel Foods, another US business centred on meat, also told an investment conference in Paris it would look to continue its development of products containing meat and other proteins. (It already had the Applegate Blend Burger). And, perhaps most strikingly, Tyson Foods, one of the largest players in the meat sector globally, rolled out a new brand – Raised & Rooted – which included ‘The Blend’, a burger made with ‘beef and plants’.
“This is not about vegans and vegetarians, it’s for people that want to make a good call today and be just a little bit healthier,” Susie Fogelson, a New York-based food marketing strategist who runs her own consultancy, F&Co., told just-food at the time. “It’s a big market.”
Yet Tyson recently pulled its blended burger from the market. And these products remain incredibly niche – so niche in fact =the likes of Kantar don’t collect data on them. Why?
The short answer, according to Mark Cornthwaite, industry and marketing team leader at DuPont nutrition and health, is that it’s too early. “Brands are too focused on making the best plant-based burger they can,” he explains. “That’s where the research and development is.”
The hype is with anything plant-based currently, and major food companies will be loath to lose any market share as sales continue to grow. Further fragmentation into new products and sub-categories risks confusing shoppers. Instead, retailers and manufacturers are solidifying their plant-based portfolios, says Andrew Moberly, director of category solutions at retail branding firm Daymon.
Research from Nielsen published this month by the Smart Protein Project shows the European plant-based food sector has grown by 49% in the past two years, reaching a total sales value of EUR3.6bn. It’s an impressive leap but again remains a drop in the ocean of the overall meat market.
Much is expected of the plant-based movement but are we asking too much? Research on how long vegan commitments last is mixed but meat is undoubtedly proving hard to give up (based on sales figures). “Plant-based meat replacements have 0.6% of the total meat market in Germany,” says Philipp Stangl, co-founder and CEO at Rebel Meat, a producer of blended meats based in Austria. “Why don’t we try an additional way of reducing the other 99.4%?”
The beef balance
Rebel offers a 50:50 burger, with half made of beef and half ‘plant-based products’, mostly mushroom. Companies in Spain, the Netherlands, Australia, Israel and the US are also looking to blend mushrooms with soya and pea proteins, according to Steve Solomon from The Mushroom Council.
In April, Rebel is launching another four products made from pork or beef and a mixture of vegetables other than mushroom. These will be sold through supermarket chain Billa, part of Germany-based grocer Rewe, as well as at restaurants as and when they open up from lockdowns. “Our initial strategy was to build the brand in foodservice [as Impossible and Beyond did] but we had to change that due to Covid,” says Stangl.
Meat processor Danish Crown also went 50:50 in its pork and beef mince products, launched in August 2019. The vegetable mix has been adapted to complement the meat: ‘Grønt & Gris’ (vegetables and pork) contains carrots, peppers and chickpeas, while kidney beans have been used instead of carrots in ‘Grønt & Okse’ (vegetables and beef). Both variants also carry the Nordic Keyhole label (only 6% fat).
Others are working to a 70:30 ratio (Tyson reportedly got nowhere near this with its Blend, causing some to question whether it really was a blend at all). Maintaining the taste, texture and pleasure of meat is critical for wider adoption so each product needs to be carefully balanced. “The goal is first of all quality,” explains Emily Buckley, VP of meals portfolio at Freshly, the US fresh-prepared meal delivery service bought by Nestlé in October. “It still needs to resemble a meatball or burger.”
“It’s not ‘this’ or ‘that’. It’s somewhere in the middle”Freshly’s new ‘masterful meatballs’ manage a 60:40 blend of meat with mushrooms, onions, oats and ras el hanout spices. Buckley feels the “middle ground” offered by blended products will have greater reach than the binary approach of meat-free one day per week. The World Resources Institute (WRI) has estimated replacing 30% of the meat in the 10 billion burgers a year Americans chomp through with mushrooms would cut greenhouse gas emissions by 10.5 million tonnes. “It’s not ‘this’ or that’,” she explains, “it’s somewhere in the middle.”
This can create problems though. Blended meats fall between two worlds – 100% meat and 100% plants – and it’s hard not to get lost in between them, says Rebel’s Stangl. “As humans we don’t typically like the [concept of] less,” he adds.
Marketing mix-ups
There is a feeling the products have been poorly pitched. “There’s a marketing job to be done,” says Mark Lynch, partner at Oghma Partners, a UK-based corporate finance advisory firm specialising in the food and beverage sector. Some feel brands have adopted a lazy approach to blended meats, developing them to tie in with the flexitarian trend and then expecting them to fly off the shelves with little effort. This hasn’t happened.
Buckley says she isn’t aware of any one company that has mastered the messaging around blended meats yet. At Freshly, the emphasis is on stealth. Sales of the 60:40 meatballs are consistent with the full meat version, so why rock the boat with ‘less meat, more veg’ communications.
Some products could also be struggling with a clash in messages, which confuses shoppers. Meat tends to be sold as hugely satiating, fulfilling, tasty and almost powerful products, while plants have very different associations, like healthy, vitality, bland and so on, explains Sophie Attwood, senior behavioural scientist at US environmental think tank World Resources Institute. “I’m wondering whether the two worlds kind of clash in the blend – watering each other down rather than mutually supporting [each other].”
In work funded by Belgium-based research body European Innovation and Technology (EIT) Food, Banovic has been surveying thousands of consumers in Europe and running online focus groups to determine how people feel about blended products. “A more consumer-orientated approach to hybrid is needed,” she says. “Versatility, convenience, taste and satiety are all very important.” Younger females are also better targets than older males.
The health and environmental triggers are there but not as prominent as they are for those seeking out 100% plant-based products. Banovic says in her research the ‘less but better meat’ message came through strongly. Rebel has gone for organic, grass-fed beef for instance but Stangl reckons blends could offer a route to market for products that are too expensive to mainstream currently, such as meat from regenerative agriculture systems and cell-based meat.
Don’t call meat hybrid
Meat produced by cellular agriculture has already been through a lengthy period of reflection in terms of how best to pitch the products to consumers. The Good Food Institute, a non-profit that promotes the alternative-protein sector, finally landed on the term ‘cultivated meat’. Banovic reckons blended meats need to go through a similar process. Her research with consumers in the UK, Spain and Denmark suggests ‘hybrid’, ‘blended’ and ‘enriched’ are all seen as modifications and linked to processed products, which is why she’s using the term ‘healthier meats’.
Potential nutrient gaps in plant-based eating (iron, vitamin B12, calcium and iodine) could also be plugged with blended products, suggests Barbara Bray, founder of UK-based food consultancy Alo Solutions. Uptake of vegetables and pulses could also be increased at the expense of some meat, she adds.
Banovic also found people are sceptical about these products and see them as over-processed, which is not always the case. In fact, they can actually often trump pure plant-based products. As Melissa Abbott, vice president for retainer services at US research firm The Hartman Group, explains: “There is a significant difference in a plant-based analogue that relies on hyper-processing to achieve a meat-like eating experience and a burger that relies on regeneratively-farmed meat combined with real veggies.”
Research by Hartman shows 56% of those buying plant-based products are interested in (or already buy) blended options. What’s more, 30% of those not buying into plant-based yet are interested in hybrids (or already buy them). That’s actually more than are interested in trying the Impossible Burger (21%).
Awareness (66%) and purchase intent (61%) is also higher in blended meats compared to well-known plant-based options like Impossible and Beyond Meat (57% awareness and 52% purchase intent), according to Hartman. Some 60% of UK shoppers would also consider blended meat products, according to IGD.
This is good news for the likes of Freshly, Rebel and others. Stangl says there are two typical reactions to his products. “The first is along the lines of ‘nobody needs this – I can eat meat or veg’,” he explains. “The second is ‘this is what I’ve been waiting for’.”
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BRUSSELS, March 9 (Reuters) – The European Union should impose carbon border costs on imports of certain industrial products by 2023, the European Parliament said on Tuesday.
By forcing companies to pay an emissions-based fee to sell polluting goods into Europe, Brussels aims to level the playing field for domestic firms and avoid companies leaving Europe to avoid CO2 costs – known as “carbon leakage”.
Parliament on Tuesday adopted amendments to a report aimed at influencing the European Commission’s proposal for the policy, due in June. Those amendments did not alter a draft plan to introduce the measure in certain sectors by 2023.
Parliament will rubber stamp its position on the overall report with another vote on Wednesday. (Reporting by Kate Abnett Editing by Marguerita Choy)
Programme aims to generate around €400 billion in additional investments
Companies will receive aid to get through the COVID-19 pandemic
Launchpad for investments that would otherwise be difficult to finance
On Tuesday, MEPs adopted the new InvestEU programme, which will mobilise public and private investments and guarantees simplified access to financing.
Parliament endorsed the provisional agreement reached with the Council with 496 votes in favour, 57 against and 144 abstentions.
With €26 billion (in current prices) set aside in the EU budget as a guarantee, InvestEU is expected to mobilise €400 billion to be invested across the European Union from 2021 to 2027. The new programme is part of the €750 billion Next Generation EU recovery package, and will foster strategic, sustainable and innovative investments and address market failures, sub-optimal investments and the investment gap in targeted sectors.
Sustainable and strategic investments
InvestEU supports strategic investments in manufacturing of pharmaceuticals, medical devices and supplies – crucial in the midst of a pandemic – as well as the production of Information and Communication Technology, components and devices in the EU.
It will also finance sustainable projects that can prove their positive environmental, climate and social impact. Those projects will be subject to the principle of “do no significant harm”, meaning they must not negatively affect the EU’s environmental and social objectives.
Furthermore, MEPs made sure that InvestEU contributes to achieving the target of spending at least 30% of EU funds on climate objectives by 2027 and that it provides support for SMEs negatively affected by the pandemic and at risk of insolvency.
Additional investments of around €400 billion
The additional investment across the European Union, expected to amount to €400 billion and the EU guarantee will be allotted to the following policy objectives:
sustainable infrastructure: around 38%
research, innovation and digitalisation: 25 %
SMEs: around 26%
social investment and skills: around 11%.
Moreover, the European Investment Fund (EIF), which will contribute to the implementation of the InvestEU programme, will get an additional €375 million.
Quotes
José Manuel Fernandes (EPP, PT), lead MEP from the Budgets Committee said during the debate on Tuesday: “The EU needs public and private investments to become more competitive, productive and to boost its territorial cohesion. Invest EU brings in additional funds to turn projects that otherwise wouldn’t see the light of day into reality. Our strategic sectors, such as pharmaceuticals, should be independent. We need to help regions that suffered the most, and EU citizens deserve investment and high-quality jobs”.
Irene Tinagli (S&D, IT) leading the negotiations on behalf of the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee added: : “We diverted more funds to meet environmental targets, to support SMEs, which suffered because of the pandemic, and we succeeded in placing Invest EU at the heart of NextGenerationEU. Since InvestEU will also help us to recover from the pandemic, we created synergies with the Recovery and Resilience Facility, allowing member states to implement part of their recovery and resilience plans through InvestEU”.
Next steps
Once Council has also formally approved the regulation, it will enter into force on the twentieth day after its publication in the Official Journal of the EU.
The waiver was adopted by the vote of a majority. For instance, 400 lawmakers voted to strip Puigdemont of immunity, 248 voted against it, and 45 more abstained.
In January 2020, the Supreme Court of Spain requested the European Parliament to waive the MEP immunity from Puigdemont, Comin and Ponsati in order to prosecute them for their participation in the 2017 Catalan independence referendum. The lifting of immunity may result in resumption of consideration of extradition requests.
The signature on Wednesday will set the Conference in motion, in order to address challenges old and new, while strengthening European solidarity.
The joint declaration on the Conference on the Future of Europe will be signed on Wednesday at 13.00 by President Sassoli on behalf of the Parliament, Prime Minister Costa for the Council and Commission President von der Leyen.
This begins the process that will enable citizens to participate in reshaping the EU’s policies and institutions. The declaration includes the EU institutions’ commitment “to listen to Europeans and to follow up on the recommendations made by the Conference” in line with their respective competences enshrined in the Treaties.
Using an inclusive, open and transparent approach, people of all backgrounds, civil society representatives and stakeholders at European, national, regional and local level will participate and set the Conference’s tone and agenda in line with their concerns, in a multitude of events and through a multilingual digital platform.
The European Parliament has voted to lift the immunity of the former president of Spain’s Catalonia region, Carles Puigdemont, and two of his associates
The move could pave the way for their extradition back to Spain and reopen the scars of separatism in the country.
The Spanish government immediately welcomed the decision by the European Union’s legislature as a victory for the rule of law and against those who sought to break the rich north-eastern region away from the rest of Spain.
The decision is likely to extend the three-and-a-half year legal saga on the fate of the three separatists by months, if not years, since many avenues for appeal remain open before any possible extraditions.
Former regional education minister Clara Ponsati (Jane Barlow/PA)
In the decision on Mr Puigdemont, 400 legislators voted for the waiver of immunity, 248 were against and 45 abstained.
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The measures to lift the immunity of his associates – former Catalan health minister Toni Comin and former regional education minister Clara Ponsati – were by largely similar margins.
Mr Puigdemont and a number of his separatist colleagues fled to Belgium in October 2017, fearing arrest after holding an independence referendum for Catalonia that the Spanish government said was illegal.
In 2019, Mr Puigdemont and his two associates won seats in the European Parliament and were afforded protection as members of the EU assembly.
Mr Puigdemont’s lawyer in Spain, Gonzalo Boye, announced that the former Catalan president is going to appeal against the assembly’s decision to the EU’s higher courts in Luxembourg.
Spain’s foreign minister Arancha Gonzalez-Laya said the assembly’s decision showed that Mr Puigdemont and his two aides cannot shield behind their legislative seat to avoid appearing before the national justice system.
In a video statement, Ms Gonzalez Laya also said the decision meant that “the problems of Catalonia are solved in Spain, they are not solved in Europe”.
Dolors Montserrat, a European legislator with the centre-right European People’s Party and a former cabinet member of the Spanish administration that ousted Mr Puigdemont, told TVE: “Spain wins, Europe wins, democracy wins.”
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Carles Puigdemont and Clara Ponsati at the European Parliament in Brussels (Francisco Seco/Pool/AP)
She added the decision certified that Mr Puigdemont is “a fugitive who has to answer before Spanish courts”.
Iratxe Garcia Perez, the leader of the S&D socialist group, said “the European Parliament doesn’t judge anybody. We just guarantee that justice does its job. A clear majority, absolute majority of the parliament, supported the fact that Spanish justice should be able to do its job”.
Despite the wide margin to lift the three legislators’ immunity, Mr Boye said the assembly’s backing was not as overwhelming as Spain wanted it to be.
“It’s evident that there are people in the conservative group, in the EPP, and among the Socialists that have voted against,” he told Spanish broadcaster TVE.
The 2017 independence vote in favour of Catalonia breaking away from Spain won by a landslide but the central government in Madrid declared the vote illegal and unconstitutional.
Hundreds of people in Catalonia were injured in a police crackdown on the day of the poll.
Spain has attempted to have Mr Puigdemont returned for trial but failed to convince Belgian justice authorities to extradite him.
The country could well start new efforts now to have him extradited but Mr Puigdemont has vowed to fight on.
European Union President David Sassoli, New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern, US Vice President Kamala Harris and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen honoured women battling against Covid-19. Photo / European Parliament
Prime Minister Jacinda was one of a number of high-profile guests, including US Vice President Kamala Harris, to address the European Union Parliament for International Women’s Day.
“We need to stick together because we are all in this together,” Ardern told MPs via video yesterday (NZ time).
She said Covid-19 had exacerbated structural inequalities between women and men.
“Only by fully – and meaningfully – including women in leadership at all levels can we ensure that our responses to the pandemic meet the needs of everyone.”
She said that as leaders, “we will be tested”.
“We must resist the false promises in the face of those tests of protectionism and nationalism in our recovery from Covid-19.
“We must also do more to support women-led business to be part of the recovery, so they can more readily experience the benefits of trade.”
Ardern was followed by Harris – the first female Vice President of the United States. “We must ensure women’s safety at home and in every community.
“We must treat them with dignity at work and put in place the structures needed so that they can both care for their families and excel in the workforce.”
And she said that women need to have an equal voice in decision-making – this, she said, is essential to free and fair democracies.
“This not just an act of goodwill; this is a show of strength. If we build a world that works for women, our nations will all be safer, stronger and more prosperous.”
The session in the EU Parliament focussed on women’s empowerment and leadership during the Covid-19 pandemic.
In his opening speech, European Union President David Sassoli said: “The pandemic risks wiping out decades of achievements gained by European women’s struggle for the right to work, to share care work, for autonomy, for respect and for the right to make their own choices.”
/cloudfront-ap-southeast-2.images.arcpublishing.com/nzme/XCYNT4FPBN2FQXVXTOIZS622RI.jpg?w=696&resize=696,0&ssl=1 "Jacinda Ardern and US Vice President Kamala Harris address European Parliament")
