Rich Investors Ask Food Corporations to Use Less Meat

The consortium, Farm Animal Investment Risk & Return (or FAIRR), is headed by Coller Capital, a firm specializing in secondaries (meaning they acquire existing investments from other companies), and includes Aviva Investors, Boston Common, and some Swedish state pension funds. (The consortium boasts that it has $1.25 trillion in assets from its investments.)

On September 26, FAIRR announced that it had sent out briefings to food companies including Whole Foods, Kraft Heinz, Unilever, Nestle, Walmart, and General Mills laying out the case for animal protein as a bad investment in all senses: bad for the environment, bad for the economy, a bad bet money-wise. FAIRR further argues that all of these issues will eventually become a catastrophic disaster for the environment. (They’re not exactly alone in that thinking; the UN has issued several giant briefs on the subject.)

What’s interesting about the FAIRR briefs is that they’re relying on their specialty for the argument: money. They cite a recent study from Oxford University, which found that a reduction in meat consumption around the world could have huge, positive effects on both healthcare costs and on climate damages, to the tune of $1.5 trillion by 2050. And FAIRR also notes that sources of plant-based protein are a very hot investment ticket right now, with the founder of Coller noting that they expect plant-based protein markets to rise 8.4 percent over the next five years.

Reuters reached out to the companies named in the brief, and, weirdly, found that most of them hadn’t actually received the note yet, so didn’t have much of a response. Others declined to comment, although Nestle did say that it hardly produces anything with animal protein. (We’re not sure about that one; among the thousands of brands Nestle owns are meaty brands like Hot Pockets, DiGiorno’s, Stouffer’s, Lean Cuisine, and pet foods like Purina, Friskies, Fancy Feast, and Alpo. Admittedly, pet food is a tougher nut to crack than human food; it’s tough to feed a cat, which is an obligate carnivore, quinoa.)

You can read FAIRR’s full statement here.

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