I'm so happy I read this old interview, it opens up your mind on a lot of interesting topics. I wonder if, after three years, some of the points debated still hold up. For example, there was a mention of a coffee crisis and I didn't even know about lab-grown coffee: what's the current situation?
These are good points! In terms of the coffee crisis, I'd argue that's still around and the progress we've made in solving it is minimal: I wrote a piece a few weeks ago about how research shows there's money in coffee, but it never reaches farmers in the way it should. The problem seems easy to solve, but money gets caught downstream by retailers, it seems.
On the lab grown thing: I'm not sure that's gained traction, but new VC funded businesses keep popping up for "beanless coffee," which boils my blood. Not because of the product, but a lot of marketing is about how this is more sustainable since coffee farming can contribute to climate change, but that argument seems disingenuous to me. Let's remove the potential for income from farmers to give to some VC-backed company claiming they're more sustainable?
Anywho, these are good questions! Might be worth doing a longer piece revisiting old interviews and seeing what's changed and what's held up.
I'm so happy I read this old interview, it opens up your mind on a lot of interesting topics. I wonder if, after three years, some of the points debated still hold up. For example, there was a mention of a coffee crisis and I didn't even know about lab-grown coffee: what's the current situation?
These are good points! In terms of the coffee crisis, I'd argue that's still around and the progress we've made in solving it is minimal: I wrote a piece a few weeks ago about how research shows there's money in coffee, but it never reaches farmers in the way it should. The problem seems easy to solve, but money gets caught downstream by retailers, it seems.
On the lab grown thing: I'm not sure that's gained traction, but new VC funded businesses keep popping up for "beanless coffee," which boils my blood. Not because of the product, but a lot of marketing is about how this is more sustainable since coffee farming can contribute to climate change, but that argument seems disingenuous to me. Let's remove the potential for income from farmers to give to some VC-backed company claiming they're more sustainable?
Anywho, these are good questions! Might be worth doing a longer piece revisiting old interviews and seeing what's changed and what's held up.