The healthier, more efficient way to make meat

We at Emergent believe that pushing your product concept and brand positioning sufficiently to the right or left of center is desirable to author a new category, one that your brand can own and thus define as state of the art. This action delivers a unique opportunity to be No. 1 in a new business segment controlled by the brand. With a bold move like this, an emerging challenger can radically differentiate itself in an otherwise murky “sea of sameness” – in this case, among all-too-similar novel protein brands. 

Of course, category creation comes with unique challenges related to pioneering a new idea in the face of consumer behavior that is systemically wired to avoid any perceived risk. Overcoming this consumer-perceived risk isn’t as easy as you might think, and that task stands as the primary barrier to mainstream market adoption of anything new and different.

Today we’re taking a closer look at an emerging success story in alternative proteins, a Boulder, CO-based animal-free meat maker that has managed to integrate nutrition density with an amazing animal meat taste but without having to resort to “highly processed” formulation wizardry to get there.

Meati is the brainchild of Tyler Huggins and his team of MushroomRoot™ experts who are on an expansion drive at food retail to bring their muscle meat chicken and beef products to everyone with a taste bud. They’re offering a compromise-free meat solution that replicates the animal version, only at a fraction of the environmental and resource consumption impacts of livestock agriculture.

Here is our deep dive interview with Meati founder and CEO, Tyler Huggins. Emergent’s brand building guidance follows the Q&A, so stay with us.

How is our legacy food system currently contributing to global warming and what changes must occur to stay within the Paris Climate Agreement ceiling of 1.5˚ Celsius?

Huggins: Stepping back and recognizing the overarching principle that demands greater attention from all of us is crucial. In essence, efficiency is the key to success. We need to strike a better balance between the resources invested in food production and the outcomes of that process.

This principle strongly influenced our business, known as Meati Foods, but legally registered as Emergy – a term denoting the total energy expended in creating something. Our mission is to create significantly more delectable and nutritious food while minimizing resource usage. This approach leads to less strain on our ecosystems and reduces the factors destabilizing them.

How important is sustainability readiness (responsibility) performance to your brand narrative and to consumer preference for Meati?

Huggins: Sustainability is becoming or has already become a normalized expectation for consumers — it is no longer a distinguishing feature or distinct selling point. Still, it is absolutely essential. There are different degrees of sustainability, but the main takeaway is that what we produce and consume to run our societies must use far fewer resources, pollute far less, and regenerate and protect nature’s riches. It’s the efficiency issue described above. If you cannot demonstrate sustainability, it will be noticed, and you won’t be considered if there is another good-enough option that does. Sustainability is table stakes, just as taste, texture, and nutrition are in the food business. We took years to find a type of MushroomRoot™ with natural characteristics that allow a vastly more sustainable way to produce a scalable, delicious, and high-quality source of nutrition that is affordable and easy to work into familiar cooking routines.

Sustainability has transitioned from a unique selling point to a standard expectation among consumers. Nevertheless, it remains absolutely vital. While sustainability can manifest in various degrees, the primary message is that our societal production and consumption must significantly reduce resource usage, pollution, and actively regenerate and safeguard nature’s resources. This aligns with the efficiency concept mentioned earlier. Failing to demonstrate sustainability will not go unnoticed, and if there is another viable option that meets the required standards, it will likely be chosen over non-sustainable alternatives. Sustainability has become a fundamental requirement, just like taste, texture, and nutrition are essential in the food industry.

The retrenching of Impossible and Beyond has poured cool water on the ‘plant-based meat for meat lovers’ hype machine while serving a reality check on brand strengths and weaknesses in alt. proteins. What is Meati doing to secure sustained business traction with consumers that will help avoid these hiccups and convince retailers your new category isn’t a one hit wonder?

Huggins: It’s important to acknowledge that there was a considerable amount of excitement surrounding Impossible and Beyond, and rightfully so. They were pioneers, turning futuristic visions into a reality in the present. They deserved all the attention they received for leading the conversation about the food system and the environment. Over time, the world has become more accepting of alternative proteins, and the stock value and demand are now stabilizing at more realistic and sustainable levels.

However, the fundamental desires of people have not changed. The current food system exacts a heavy toll on the environment without adequately meeting people’s needs, especially with a growing global population. As income levels rise, more individuals crave a meat experience. To become a staple in people’s regular diets, our approach has been to fulfill every essential criterion for a successful protein today: deliciousness, check; irresistible texture, check; nutritional value, check; use of simple and natural ingredients, check; significantly more efficient and sustainable, check; convenience and easy integration into familiar cooking techniques, check; and scalability to ensure affordability and accessibility, check.

The time has come for “and/and” products that offer it all, without compromising on any aspect. Our company is built on this philosophy, and we have carefully chosen our star ingredient to achieve precisely that.

For decades people have been taught that meat from animals is always the best source of great tasting protein. Old habits die hard. How are you currently working to convince serial risk-avoiding consumers to switch to Meati?

Huggins: A funny recurring story related to this is that we’ve heard from our restaurant partners that people who order our cutlets sometimes come back declaring the restaurant made a big error and served them chicken. The point there is that we think the product speaks for itself. Still, you’ve got to get people in the door and taking that first bite, right? To achieve that, it’s a mixture of approaches to reach people at different stages of comfort or interest in animal-free meat made from MushroomRoot. A big part of that mix is enlisting folks whose opinions about food are respected, sought out, and trusted. That can mean we work with famed chefs like Dave Chang reaching millions of people in a video of him cooking with a Classic Cutlet. We may work with lesser-known influencers who have smaller but passionate audiences excited to explore with them. We’re also being mindful of collaborating with people and brands that are all about practical, varied, and realistic solutions to eating well for health and the planet.

Flexitarians fit into this category, and they’re often great at connecting the animal-based food universe with other types of food. Rachael Ray is a great example. Derek Jeter is another one — here is a star athlete, someone who clearly understands nutrition and performance, who was happy to announce he is investing in Meati.

Consumers now care more about your brand’s “why” than either how or what you do. What is Meati’s higher purpose, mission and beliefs that transcend the usual mix of balance sheet considerations such as increasing investor returns?

Huggins: As a registered public benefits corporation, Meati has ingrained its commitment to more than just the bottom line into all aspects of our operations. Our mission statement encapsulates our core purpose: To elevate humanity’s collective health and longevity through the limitless power of MushroomRoot.

We firmly believe that the world requires innovative and superior solutions that allow us to care for the planet while still indulging in the pleasures of good food and the communal experience it brings. We understand that people genuinely care about the environment, but they often need support from companies like Meati to provide them with accessible tools for making a positive impact in their daily lives. Our aim is to assist individuals in making a difference without entirely upending their meal planning, sourcing, preparation, cooking, and eating habits. We strive to offer convenient and practical options that empower people to contribute to a better future for the planet.

Meati is made from a unique ingredient – MushroomRoot. Please explain your technology and process to deliver an authentic analog eating/taste experience to animal-based beef and chicken products?

Huggins: The beauty of our process lies in its simplicity, which is immensely appealing to consumers who are tired of lengthy ingredient lists and heavily processed foods. It shares similarities with the art of brewing beer or crafting cheese. We start by placing spores of our MushroomRoot (also known as N. crassa mycelium) into a tank along with sugar, water, and nutrients, and then it grows rapidly. Once harvested, we combine it with other wholesome ingredients and gently shape it into our various cuts.

That’s about it — all the texture that people love in animal-based options is naturally present in our animal-free MushroomRoot. This is a major reason why we explored various types of mycelium before discovering this incredible one. Its inherent texture sets it apart and ensures an enjoyable culinary experience for our customers.

Is MushroomRoot a farmed ingredient? How do you source this ingredient and how will your supply chain offer an improvement over existing vulnerabilities in supply?

Huggins: Depends on what you mean by farmed! But, yes, we would say it is farmed. All you need are the spores of our type of MushroomRoot, and you can go from there. Once we have the spores, we simply keep regrowing them from a batch of MushroomRoot and reusing them. Picking them up is as simple as finding a provider of all types of spores or tracking it down in the wild, but we’re well past needing to do that. We grow and prepare it completely in-house, which does indeed make our supply chain less complex — we need only our MushroomRoot spores, sugar, water, nutrients, energy, a modest amount of other ingredients like natural flavors, a tiny slice of land to house everything, and the equipment similar to what you might see in a beer brewing facility. We don’t need to rely on external partners halfway around the globe to prep critical components of our products.

To boot, we can do all this indoors — we’re not beholden to radical weather shifts impacting our growing cycles. If we’re facing any issues in the supply chain, they’re low in quantity and of a generic quality — they are issues common to all types of companies operating in a post-COVID world. When it comes to the supply chain issues that may affect the few ingredients, we do use outside our own MushroomRoot, we also have a lot of confidence in getting a hold of them, because we’ve aimed to work with experienced suppliers in extremely developed industries who are as near to us as possible. We always knew achieving supply chain simplicity would be essential in a more chaotic world, and the simplicity of our MushroomRoot also helps us realize this goal.

No offense intended towards farmers, but we proudly identify ourselves as ranchers. Our process starts with a mere spoonful of spores, and from there, we nurture and cultivate our MushroomRoot, creating the perfect conditions for it to flourish and yield a variety of nutrients, including protein. All of this takes place within our specially designed “Mega Ranch,” a name befitting one of North America’s largest end-to-end meat production facilities.

One of the remarkable aspects of our approach is that we don’t need to rely on distant external partners for crucial components of our products. Everything happens under one roof. This indoor setup provides us with stability, unaffected by radical weather shifts that could otherwise disrupt growing cycles.

By streamlining our supply chain and partnering with a select few experienced suppliers from well-established industries, located as close to us as possible, we have achieved significant simplicity. We have always recognized the importance of simplifying our supply chain, especially in an increasingly chaotic world. Our MushroomRoot’s inherent simplicity plays a vital role in realizing this essential goal.

Meati is in-market and rapidly expanding. What key learnings can other alt. protein brands take away from Meati to accelerate the commercialization of their businesses?

Huggins: To succeed, you must showcase sustainability and a genuine dedication to safeguarding the environment. However, it’s equally vital to satisfy consumers’ valid expectations concerning taste, texture, nutrition, price, availability, convenience, and culinary versatility. Food holds a deeply personal place in everyone’s daily life—it’s both ordinary and sacred. When we select and savor our meals, it’s only natural to momentarily set aside broader concerns and concentrate on the individual sensory pleasures and experiences that elicit the heartfelt declaration, “I love this food.”

Our primary goal is for everyone to express this sentiment when they try our food. We aim to provide an unforgettable culinary experience that captures people’s hearts and taste buds while reassuring them that they are contributing positively to the planet in the process. Balancing these aspects is what drives our mission—to create food that brings joy to people’s lives while also caring for our precious environment.

One of the biggest challenges alt. protein companies have on the path to market is scaling their production. What advice would you offer to others coming up as the best and most efficient path to manufacturing at sufficient scale to supply demand? At what level of production do you reach price parity with the products Meati replaces?

Huggins: First, our goal is not so much to 100% replace this or that product, but to offer another option that people can work into their diets that makes it easy to adjust mealtimes to be better for the planet without sacrificing joy. People love animal-based meat and will continue to do so, but it does come with immense costs that we may start seeing very clearly present in its price, so it’s important to have another option to scratch that “meat experience” itch that does not feel like a compromise. Other than that, my general advice would be: Pick your ingredients carefully! We spent years researching different types of mycelium looking for one that naturally possessed all the characteristics of a great and sustainable food and scalable food.

We are already reaching price parity with certain cuts of organic and super high-quality animal-based meat. We’re confident that as we ramp up to millions of pounds of Meati, we’ll start to see exciting shifts in the price. At the same time, again, it is very likely the price of animal-based meat will start to rise in the face of supply chain chaos, health emergencies, weather patterns, and reduced externalization of environmental costs.

What three things should consumers know about Meati that will influence them to give it a try?

Huggins: Delicious with the just-right texture, easy to cook with, and nutrition like you wouldn’t believe.

The next chapter in food has arrived

Meati is an iconic example of the future of food – new processes that help us reimagine where food comes from and how it is produced. The changes we’re witnessing are the most pervasive and fundamental to how we feed ourselves, since the domestication of plants and animals 10,000 years ago.

With the dawn of a new food system and the entrance of a host of new brands creating various forms of protein using fermentation techniques, cultured solutions and evolutionary improvements to plant-based version, come unique challenges to securing marketplace traction.

• Even today, in the ramp up phase for many new brands, the storytelling, value propositions and brand imagery are remarkably similar business to business. Sameness is a calcifying phenomenon that works hard to commodify brands. Distinctiveness is necessary and harder to achieve because it requires an intentional push towards radical differentiation.

The great lesson embodied in Tyler Huggins’ organization is the effort to establish a new category that is unique to the Meati brand. Consumers always think category first and brand second – like Mexican beer and then Corona. Category ownership is a power position and enabler of competitive advantage. Retaining the edge and distinctiveness over time isn’t easy – it requires constant attention and occasional refurbishment to stay ahead of those who will

rush to mimic your success. Being first with the most is an incredible advantage.

The coming revolution of new food brands and categories, all competing for share of mind, stomach, wallet, shelf space and devotion will elevate the premium for sound strategy, well-executed.

Here are some fundamentals to stay ahead of the pack:

Refined higher purpose

You would think that new tech food brands would be the industry darlings of mission and higher purpose thinking, yet all-too-often we find that isn’t the case. A quick pass on a change-the-world origin/founder story may appear to be checking the higher purpose box. However, building a sound mission, values and belief system for a brand requires more work and a defined process to thoroughly vet the details of a relevant and resonant purpose-driven platform. Posers not allowed.

Inspiration and education, not manipulation

The path to engagement between brands and consumers is paved with recognition that consumers (and trade customers for that matter) are human beings and biology is at work in how we make decisions and take action. People are not fact-based, analytical decision-making machines. We are feeling creatures who think and not thinking creatures who feel.

Thus why a brand’s “why” – its purpose and deeper meaning served with a honed beliefs system – is the path to inspirational, emotion-resonant communication. Emotion drives decisions and actions, not feature and benefit selling. This rightfully places insight to behavioral psychology in the center of strategic planning.

Education, coaching, guidance are the tools and role brands play in successful communication – the consumer is always the hero of our storytelling. Inspiration not manipulation is the path to building a community of brand advocates and evangelists. Want to have a deeper relationship with consumers, then imbue your brand with deeper meaning.

Symbols, symbols everywhere

Consumers now look upon the brands that matter to them as flags and symbols of who they are, what they value. Is your brand communication intentionally designed to help them signal to the world around them the meaning you bring and thus amplifying how they see themselves?

Your brand communication and digital channels need to supply the symbolism they want to convey. This is intentional and designed to help them “feel” a certain way when they are in the presence of your brand.

The path ahead

Tyler Huggins and his team are working on the next generation of food products that deliver on taste and nutrition but at a fraction of the environmental and natural resource impact of conventionally made foods. This is how we will affordably feed 10 billion souls by 2050, and without further damaging the planet we call home. The great news: we can accomplish this mission while amplifying and enhancing our love of great taste and elevated eating experiences. If this story raises questions about the right mix of strategic tools to breakout from the sea of brand sameness, use this link to ask questions and start an informal conversation.

Looking for more food for thought? Subscribe to the Emerging Trends Report.

Confronting the immutable truths ahead

This report is ultimately a call for renewal of purpose and commitment to sustainability policies, principles and behaviors that consumers are increasingly demanding. It is also a roadmap for alternative food technologies to regain momentum after a period of honest reassessment on the fundamentals of taste, nutritional composition, price and brand sustainability narrative.

Stay tuned for more guidance – but first a look at the current conflagration.

Two steps forward. One step back.

At the moment we are in the midst of a tug of war on sustainability commitments and performance. Despite mounting evidence of environmental trouble, some organizations over inflate their progress (greenwashing), while others green-hush by downplaying practices or abandoning them all together.

Progressive large food industry organizations like ADM and PepsiCo continue to lead the charge, working to secure improvements at the farm level. Others such as McDonald’s, who earlier addressed their ESG commitments head on have receded, horns pulling inward. Further some brands tempt a flame out on the path to redemption by intentionally hiding the ESG candle of achievement, preferring to operate in the dim shadows away from public or media attention.

We inquire: what’s going on here

We are confronted daily with the epic impacts of climate change. The situation is worsening. Evidence is all around us that carbon emissions and the resulting planet warming outcome is playing havoc with the balance of nature. Yet political considerations remain powerful deterrents to some organizations, apparently afraid of special interest criticism or concerned their current actions will be deemed subpar by climate watchdogs.

The fossil fuel industry tries to preserve the status quo by casting doubt on the efficacy of climate science. Some political groups snarl over “woke” capitalism even as our global “Rome” burns around us as violins play Emperor Nero style.

In a recent Fast Company article about current disinformation tactics taking aim at the plant-based meat industry, Sara Aniano, an analyst at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, was quoted stating, “Anything that strays from what’s deemed natural, primal, or masculine is automatically deemed dangerous. Innovative food products are seen as a dystopian consequence of leftist politics.”

Yet we know this July was officially the hottest on record for planet earth.

Our food system already represents nearly 24% of global greenhouse gas emissions, more than all transportation systems combined. Increasingly, people believe companies have an obligation to address and mitigate System 3 (GHG) emissions now rather than wait for any future regulatory mandate. Moreover, there are only 7 more harvests on the run-up to 2030 as we face the prospect of irreversible climate change impacts if emission reductions aren’t realized.

Meanwhile “fake it ‘til you make it” greenwashing gets harder to pull off as deep knowledge about credible sustainability best practices becomes more pervasive among media and consumers. No matter what, the in-parallel denier criticisms are getting more difficult to defend in the midst of real-world crisis after crisis related to climate change impacts that manifest in floods, droughts, hot oceans and wildfires. The reality of climate turmoil is at humanity’s proverbial front door now.

What comes first: the sustainability chicken or the egg?

Stated another way which must come first, actions taken by brands and business to mitigate environmental impacts? Or second, the universal acceptance of these remedies as normal, practical, required and sought after by every conceivable audience and constituency a business might encounter?

• Can you be a responsible sustainability transition plan implementer, and also present your organization publicly as a neutral Switzerland on the climate policy-making front?

No.

“One of the most important and challenging missions that I think one company could try to do, which is basically to replace animal farming as the primary source of protein production for humanity, is very much the reason why we started the company,” said Andre Menzes, CEO of alt. chicken protein company, Tindle Foods.

Despite Tindle’s enviable progress, why the current backslide for plant-based meat?

The media flourish over “plant-based meat for meat lovers” saw the Impossible and Beyond Meat businesses rapidly accelerate; both brands hoping to jump the normal new category creation arc and leap instantly into mainstream acceptance. This required attracting consumers who are more price sensitive, more demanding on taste and less “environmental issues” motivated at a time when inflation was running up the prices of groceries right and left.

Weaknesses in the brand story around the reality of “healthier” (sodium?) left the door open to  “highly processed” attacks that stole precedence over the earlier perceptions of meat-like eating experience. Hype machinery ground to halt when declining sales performance tarnished the golden meat-from-plants goose. Revenue for Beyond Meat plunged 30.5% in the second quarter this year, prompting CEO Ethan Brown to call (finally!!) for more education on their better-for-you improvements and sustainability bona fides.

So is plant-based a fading fad? Absolutely not. This is a blip as brands optimize and improve taste, the ultimate decider on marketplace traction alongside input cost management to finally reach pricing parity.

• Plant-based must win more fans.
• Precision fermentation deserves its protein game-changing shot.
• Cultivated meat will earn its time in the shining retail sun.

Why? We simply can’t continue to endlessly add more animals as the primary source of protein in our diets. Animal meat on the menu isn’t going away. However, the composition of our dietary decisions and choices should adjust. Improvements from new protein technologies that come at a fraction of the environmental impacts of conventional food creation deserve our support.

Still, it’s a noisy fickle environment right now…

Why are companies afraid to plant their sustainability flag in the sand?

Escalating impacts surround the planet begging for mitigation attention.

Consumers increasingly demand action from business to solve the sustainability crisis.

Plant-based takes a step back amid criticism of its formula composition bona fides.

(Heavy sigh)

Landing on the side of the angels

• What is the essential truth here? For one, our food system is an actor in the carbon emissions build-up. The impact of global warming is escalating, and you can see the tipping point on the horizon. Food technologies that answer the crisis with a fraction of conventional food system carbon impacts are coming but desperately need more investment to close the last mile to commercialization.

• Sustainability performance matters. Science-based LCA level analysis of carbon footprints should be happening everywhere because you can’t know where you’re going until you know where you are. Boulder, CO based Meati, with its novel mycelium-based meat products, is already in retail distribution with an eye-opener on replicating the eating experience of muscle meat cuts of chicken and beef. Their story is a sustainable solution.

• Brands that look to help address the food and beverage industry’s carbon footprint are operating on the side of the angels and should do so fearlessly knowing the consumer is going on the journey with them. We have little time to solve the industry’s climate impacts so special interests should put down the quill of complaint and take up the mantle of participating in advancing change, not resisting it.

Guidance in the months ahead

• Taste and price optimization are job one. It’s table stakes for growth.
• Investments in Sustainability education for consumers and stakeholders should get more energy and funding, right now.
• We have ample data and evidence that sustainability readiness commitments backed with consumer-facing outreach to inform stakeholders of this progress is a recipe for balance sheet benefits and marketplace competitive advantage.

Can we climb back on the horse of wisdom knowing these shifts are vital to keeping our planet safe, and to nourishing people affordably in the future?

Sustainability isn’t a hassle, it’s a business-building opportunity if we play our collective cards right.

Your brand can make a difference. Yes, sound strategy is needed. Linking sustainability expertise with marketing know-how is a loop that must be closed to gain business benefits from climate-responsible performance.

• Let’s renew our vows at the altar of sustainable best practices. Time is not on our side, and we have policy ground to cover in a relatively short span of time.

Can we agree change is needed and desirable? We have a responsibility here to protect the future for our families and many others coming in the decades ahead. We have designed the recipe for success. We need to implement and keep at it as we move from friction around the birth of new ideas to transformation while new behaviors take root.

If you believe further guidance and fresh thinking on the path to sustainability performance excellence is in order, use this link to ask questions or start an informal conversation. We’re here to help.

Looking for more food for thought? Subscribe to the Emerging Trends Report.

Reclaiming higher purpose renews brand energy…

Most brands with a strong higher purpose (a refined “why” that informs behaviors and decision making) got that way because the founder(s) injected beliefs from their own sense of mission.

Staying true to the founder’s core purpose/vision and retaining the brand’s deeper meaning over time can be challenging. If higher purpose is intentionally woven into the fabric of how the organization operates, the belief system can be steadfast generationally. If the mission is largely a reflection of the leader’s ethos and the company experiences regime change, the “why” can disappear in the hands of executives who manage most often for profit and loss priorities rather than refueling the company/brand belief system.

• Apple lost its way when Steve Jobs was forced out in 1985. The company suffered as a result. When he returned in 1997 the higher purpose roared back. Business boomed.

• Starbucks began with religion around changing the coffee experience, from better beans to establishing the Italian espresso beverage traditions in its unique “3^rd Place” setting. When Howard Schultz left, the “why” went with him and subsequent leadership focused on operational efficiencies and expansion. Business declined until Schultz returned.

“Why” is influential to how a brand is built and sustains – providing a true north that transcends changing conditions and cultural shifts over time by securing a devoted community of true believers. It is fundamental to how brands engage successfully with core customers. It flies in the opposite direction from commoditization pressures and an unproductive focus on the competition.

• Nonetheless “why” can be left behind if new leadership isn’t entrenched with the same point of view as the founders.

Our brush with half-baked “why” – A mini case study on reclaiming purpose

In 1949, Chicagoan Charles Lubin was trying to figure out how to send his epiphanous cheesecakes to a man in Texas enamored with his sweet, dense creations. But cheesecakes (and baked goods like them) generally didn’t travel well; thus, why the bakery industry of the era primarily consisted of smaller businesses servicing a local trading area.

Lubin began experimenting and later innovated a new brand at retail through his pioneering of flash freezing tech – a process to preserve the taste, texture and eating experience of his baked delights. As a result, a new category was established through his single-minded mission to make high quality baked goods available to a much wider audience. Reinventing the baked goods business to create widespread access was his “why.”

Lubin’s innovation was personified by creating the iconic Sara Lee brand – named after his nine-year old daughter, who for most of her life would remain hidden in the background. He was wildly successful and eventually sold his company to Consolidated Foods. The corporation renamed itself after the bakery division (Sara Lee Corporation) even though it was largely a meat products business. After the sale, Lubin eventually retired and a series of CPG experienced leadership teams came in to run the company, expanding distribution into foodservice and adding new categories to spur growth. But along the way Sara Lee lost its why.

The company was focused on volume and balance sheet considerations, not the embedded love affair with bakery creations that touch people’s lives. With a diluted soul, the business resorted to price promotions and other commoditizing behaviors to keep the volume numbers going.

As we’ve seen before when the “why” dissipates or disappears all together, the energy underneath the business often goes with it. Sara Lee lost relevance as the focus moved from consumers to chasing the competition. Performance inevitably flagged and the parent company started to consider if it was possible to divest the Sara Lee baked goods division even though their corporate identity was tied to it. Tough to do.

In a last ditch effort to turn the bakery ship around, we were retained on a mission to restage Sara Lee Bakery and recapture the qualities and meaning Charles Lubin had originally brought with him. We needed to break with the most recent past in a big way and author a new story for the future.

• How do you quickly, decisively disrupt perceptions?  You do something over-the-top that forces consumer reassessment. You create a new story and put substance underneath it. It was time to swing for the fences.

Solution: Sara Lee’s First International Symposia on Dessert

Go big or go home. We sat down with Sara Lee, the actual person, and after many hours of conversation about our plans to rescue the business her father had started, Sara agreed to become a spokesperson for the brand named after her. To properly showcase her debut, we decided to create an event to showcase a new era at Sara Lee, complete with an updated product line. It would be done specifically for the top North American food media so the story could be told as widely as possible in a credible setting.

We decided to create a symposium on dessert – in the dessert capitol of the world, Vienna, Austria – the birthplace of sweet bakery creations and traditions beginning in the 18^th century. We also knew that a media event staged in Vienna was likely to be enthusiastically attended, and over three days we would have the full and undivided attention of our media audience 24 hours a day. It would be an extraordinary opportunity to exercise great influence, a ‘must-do’ if we were going to change the paradigm of what people think Sara Lee is.

Working with Austrian Airlines, the Austrian Economic Council and the Vienna Tourism Board, we were able to secure airline seats for 56 journalists for a song, hotel rooms at the famous Hotel Imperial at a rate more like Motel Six and free access to the famed palaces that made Vienna the cultural heartbeat of the world during the time of Mozart.

We recruited the top seven pastry chefs of Vienna to help reimagine new desserts using Sara Lee products as a base, to enchant and inspire the food media luminaries who would attend. We developed a comprehensive itinerary of educational events and experiences designed to provide so many varying story angles that any media decision maker would feel they could carve their own unique narrative around the experience.

• We brought a in a food historian who charted the emergence of sweet baked goods from the Roman Empire to modern day.

• We created a section on the psychology of eating dessert revealing the cultural issues at work between American sensibilities and European attitudes on indulgence.

• We prepared a hands-on cooking experience for all 56 media, dividing them into teams to work alongside Viennese pastry experts each challenged to work with a specific Sara Lee product.

• We brought the media to the oldest operating bakery in the world, opened in 1560, to hear a presentation on the history of chocolate.

The most important facet of all though was on the opening night where the editors gathered for a special reveal – they would be meeting the real Sara Lee and Charlie Lubin’s wife for the first time. This event, fit for royalty, was staged in a palace next door to The Hofburg, the Imperial seat of the Hapsburg dynasty. The editors were to experience a curated menu based on a 18^th century royal banquet, dining on china from the royal house. Ahead of a presentation that would whisk them forward to the modern era of baked goods and the new Sara Lee brand.

After dinner a video presentation chronicled  the history of dessert – a retrospective on the birth of sweet baking traditions and its evolution over time, a way for the brand to lock in its ‘knowledge broker’ cred on bakery expertise. At the conclusion of the video the room went dark and then Sara Lee was introduced to an awestruck crowd of food journalists (there really is a Sara Lee). You could feel the electricity when Sara walked into the room. Sara spoke of her father’s legacy, mission, values and unveiled the new product line for the editors, inviting them to join a dessert fantasy experience.

• Sara Lee’s top chefs created a dessert fantasy in the adjoining gold-gilt ballroom where Viennese pastry masterpieces were arranged near and around new desserts made with Sara Lee products. The editors were challenged to determine which was which. To a one, they couldn’t tell the difference. Perceptions were changed.

For three days it was around the clock substance interlaced with dazzle, including a specially staged concert with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra at another palace in an unusual oval shaped hall where Mozart conducted his first concert when he was six years old.

From this hosted media experience, Sara Lee Bakery dined for more than a year on story after story after story about the events and tastes in Vienna. The media showcase for new products was unprecedented for Sara Lee. A reacquiring of the brand’s “why” sat at the center of the entire venture and with it a departure from the price oriented self-promotion that had been going on for years before.

• The business results were gratifying and the project was credited at Sara Lee Corporation’s annual shareholders meeting as the reason for significant improvement in the bakery division’s results.

The most important aspect of this campaign was its ability to reframe the Sara Lee brand and product experience in a relevant and resonant way. Sara went on to be the centerpiece of  brand communication for three more years before she ’retired’ to her former and much quieter life with her family.

The lesson: when the “why” is diluted, the business resorts to manipulations to create a reason to buy, and these tactics don’t – and will never – connect in the same way as purpose, beliefs and values. When Sara Lee found its footing again, it was remarkable how that change was reflected in the brand’s performance. Beliefs, deeper meaning and mission are core to creating the emotional connections that impact consumer buying decisions and actions.

• Great care should be exercised to help ensure your company’s “why” will remain steadfast and vital over time – even if new leadership arrives to carry the torch forward.

If locking in your company’s “why” resonates with you or if your organization needs to optimize its purpose and belief system, use this link to start a conversation. We promise it will be interesting and enlightening.

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Deploying the biology of effective communication

For a brand message to have any real impact, to influence behavior and seed advocacy, it requires more than awareness and publicity. It must advance a relevant higher purpose, cause or belief system that people who share your values will immediately resonate to. Only then can your message create any lasting marketplace impact.

It is not the quality of your products that causes the category to tip your direction. Absent a refined brand WHY, new innovations and technologies will rapidly find themselves playing the circular and commoditizing price-and-feature game. Your competitive advantage gets real traction when you are crystal clear about the human-relevant purpose and mission you exist to champion.

An identifiable cohort of consumers exists who share your beliefs and then want to integrate your ideas and products into their own lives. It is their ability to understand and embrace your purpose, your WHY, that causes them to embrace your brand. They view what you make as a tangible path to reflect and demonstrate their purpose and beliefs to the world around them.

Beliefs are powerful and can be enlisted to change the trajectory of brand growth

It’s important to remember that “consumers” are first and foremost real, human three-dimensional people. As such, we are hardwired to gravitate toward people, places as well as things (products) that reinforce what we believe about the world and ourselves.

• Beliefs influence our behaviors and how we see ourselves
• Beliefs are emotional and rise from deep within us to inform decisions
• Beliefs run underneath our cognizant, analytical radar to impact our feelings and decisions
• Beliefs help people understand, connect and engage with your brand
• Beliefs are respectful of human biology and how we’re wired to take action (through feelings not facts)

Yet we find that belief systems are largely undernourished in business strategy because of a flawed assumption that a better mousetrap is the motivating tool that draws in consumers. Ultimately, products in any given category will be more similar than they are unique. Frankly, there isn’t any proprietary tech advantage that can be sustained over time without competitive dilution.

Instead, people are magnetically drawn to leader-type brands that communicate what they believe. This unique approach helps consumers feel safe and special – like they belong – and are inspired to align with the brand because the story and mission resonates so personally.

Future of food brands are often mission oriented

Emergent works with emerging food brands who are reinventing how food is created with a vastly improved sustainability story. To a one, the founders and leadership teams believe they exist to improve the health and wellbeing of people while measurably improving the impact of our current food system on global warming.

Their technologies are instrumental in changing the greenhouse gas paradigm. But that is not the reason they will be successful or that people will be drawn to their offering. It is the inspiration they provide to help enable consumers in exercising their conscious consumption wishes. To improve their wellbeing with healthier food choices and create a safer future for themselves and their families. These brands understand that taste, eating experience and proper price are all table stakes and not the real reason for marketplace success. Empowering consumers to experience ‘making a difference’ is the real brand elevator.

Thus, why conveying values, mission and purpose are so vital to success rather than relying on historic tactics that attempt to leverage features, lower price or the more subtle tactical manipulations of persuasion, fear, vanity, status, shame, peer pressure and social acceptance to close a sale.

One big example: we live in a nation founded on inspiration of a better future for people

In July of 1776 the world was forever changed with the emergence of the United States, the first-ever constitutional republic – a democracy ‘of and for the people’ – now at 247 years of age the oldest of its kind on earth. A new nation founded on ideals and principles that espoused freedom of speech and press, an elected representative government, the rule of law and a promise of a better future for people.

These ideals form the foundation of an inspired sense of opportunity and the expectation of an individual’s ability to pursue their own goals and aspirations. Despite the enormous flaws and inconsistencies that dogged the nation through a Civil War 84 years after its founding, the resilience wrapped in these beliefs and sense of purpose have stood the test of time.

America is one of the most powerful examples of “Why” culture and the influence of deeper meaning writ large. It is embedded in our American attitudes, thinking and distinctive behaviors. These principles and aspirations have spread around the world, yet most of these new democratic governments are less than 70 years old and still evolving.

• We have unique stories to tell about our nation’s founding
• Symbols abound about the American legacy of freedom
• It is inspirational to how we think and see our lives
• Our societal beliefs are founded on the concept of greater good

Yet for all of the evidence of how a nation founded on beliefs and values serves as an inspiration to a brighter future over time, and the power of values to impact attitudes and behavior – this POV hasn’t rubbed off as fully as it could on business and brand development thinking.

When brands become symbols of values and beliefs we hold close

Health, wellbeing, achievement, creative exploration, better relationships, education, love, serving others – there are so many places a brand can live to inspire users and improve their lives. It is in this moment of unselfish thinking that an environment of trust is created.

The process to explore and refine a brand’s “why” begins with consumer-centricity and works backward from there. It is formative insight into your customers’ interests, concerns and desires that informs a creative exploration around brand beliefs – which should reflect and mirror your users’ aspirations.

Emergent has developed a proprietary process for this evaluation we call Brand Sustainability Analysis – in this case the word sustainable refers not to environmental concerns directly but to sustainable brand growth over time.

The six primary components include:

• Core beliefs that are consumer centric and address how the brand contributes to improving users lives and the world around them.

• Based on those beliefs, Why the company exists, its core mission and higher purpose.

• How the company will fulfill its belief-driven higher purpose and mission.

• Therefore, What business the company is truly in and assets required to fulfill that promise based on the brand purpose.

• The company BrandStand that expresses the business’ true north and becomes an embedded guide for decisions on strategy, policy, employee policy and recruitment, innovation and marketing going forward.

• Implications of the BrandStand on company operations and marketing strategies.

If you agree that inspiration is a stronger path to influencing consumer decisions than passe’ tactical manipulation, and that an optimized purpose and mission – your why – can lead to brand advocacy and evangelism, then we should talk. Use this link to begin an informal get-acquainted conversation.

Looking for more food for thought? Subscribe to the Emerging Trends Report.

Divining the formula for consistent engagement and growth…

Are you aware of the remarkable chain reaction that will unleash powerful forces to immediately increase your brand’s salience, relevance, resonance and traction? Significant brand dynamism and energy are released when this singularly vital key unlocks engagement with your intended customer audience.

• This is a law of marketing physics that creates trust and enduring relationships with consumers who will join your brand as supporters, believers, advocates and evangelists. Read on…

The theory we’re working to change…

Marketing has been hamstrung for decades on a recurring, reflexive default to using various forms of manipulation as the primary currency for purchase motivation. Chasing consumers with messaging that pushes status seeking, vanity, peer pressure, fear or social acceptance, alongside a devotion to amping product features and benefits often goosed with a price incentive. All of these tactics won’t deliver on the requirement of consumer trust and relationship. Brand business built on a foundation of transactional thinking is passé and expensive. Over time these all-too-familiar tactics inevitably commoditize your brand while forcing a continuous, elusive pursuit of incremental differentiation.

• It’s a hamster wheel of strategic misfires that springs from a misunderstanding of how human beings are wired to make decisions.

Let’s take a collective timeout, step back and consider more deeply the human condition. New insight on how our minds function can indeed lead your brand to create trusted consumer relationships.

This requires moving away from a perception that consumers strictly buy “products” – and the only message that resonates is repetition of feature/benefit selling.

People aren’t buying what you do anymore, they’re buying why you do it.

Inspiration vs. manipulation

A reliable formula for repeatable, predictable results founded on brand mission and purpose is fundamentally more effective.

People are on a continuous search for deeper meaning. They innately resonate to values and beliefs that are aligned with their own views. When your brand reflects their values, you offer them a symbolic flag they wave as evidence to the world around them of who they are and what’s important to them.

In reality, this is human biology at work. Two important areas of the brain govern how we operate – the limbic and neocortex. The thinking, rational side of the brain (neocortex) governs learning, analysis and language. The limbic area informs our decisions and behaviors. It is driven by emotion. Brands want to find a home in the limbic zone that influences our decisions. It’s only there, that a brand will truly matter to the user beyond its functionality.

We know the sheer volume of data the limbic side can process per second is vastly superior to the learning area. Simply stated the limbic brain is far smarter than we give it credit for – thus, why our “gut instinct” can be so immediate and important to informing behaviors. This explains why the neocortex routinely defaults to the limbic part of the brain for our actions.

Inspiring consumers with your higher purpose, beliefs and mission – your “why” – is the pathway into the limbic brain. If you want to have a deeper relationship with consumers, then imbue your brand with deeper meaning by focusing on your why.

• Brands that fail to focus on an emotive sense of “why” end up forcing people to make decisions with only empirical evidence, reluctantly burning precious mental calories in the neocortex. This explains why those decisions often require more personal commitment of time and energy, leaving us feeling taxed and uncertain.

This is what we mean when we talk about winning hearts and minds. The heart represents the limbic feeling part of the brain, and the mind is the rational, language center. Most brands are quite adept at attempting to win minds; that usually requires a comparison of product features, benefits and price points. Winning hearts, however, takes more effort and in the long run is far more rewarding.

• Products with a clear sense of “why” give people an emotional pathway to trust them. Their purchase of your product serves as another way to tell the outside world who they are and what they believe.

In his book, Start with Why, author Simon Sinek provides a salient example:

“WHAT Apple makes, serves as the tangible proof of what they believe. It is that clear correlation between WHAT they do and WHY they do it that makes Apple stand out. This is the reason we perceive Apple as being authentic. Apple’s WHY, to challenge the status quo and to empower the individual. It is a pattern that repeats in all they say and do. Apple, unlike its competitors, has defined itself by WHY it does things, not WHAT it does. It is not a computer company, but a company that challenges the status quo and offers individuals simpler alternatives.”

There are lots of ways to temporarily manipulate people to do things – lowering price, for example. However cultivating long lasting brand advocacy is an outcome of inspiring people with your mission and beliefs. Only when your brand “why” is clear and people believe what you believe can a true consumer-to-brand relationship unfold.

It’s hard to make a case that your products or services are important to someone’s life if your efforts are founded on analytical facts and arguments the brand deems as valuable. However, if your “why” corresponds with consumers’ beliefs, they will see your products as a tangible way to help them express what they believe.

This formula for success shows up in messaging

Your brand narrative and story are either founded on your “why” (inspiration) or on what you do and how you do it (features and benefit selling). Inspiring consumers to join your brand as advocates and evangelists begins with embracing your mission and higher purpose. At Emergent we’ve created proprietary messaging process designed to refine and articulate brand higher purpose and how that manifests in characterizing the company’s mission, products and business strategy.

• We’ve learned that the journey through this experience can be enlightening for company leadership. The outcome produces a clear foundation and anchor to help inform strategies, decisions and business investments moving forward.

Importantly, the real magic here is the shift a refined “why” creates in resonance and relevance of brand communication. By replacing the outmoded manipulation selling tactics and its requisite higher media costs to generate traction, this new modality of inspiring consumers will open doors to sustainable engagement and improved relationships with your brand’s user base. This is how communities of believers are created and brand trust is secured.

If you are inspired to further investigate and optimize your company’s “why” use this link to open an informal conversation on how this can work for your business.

Looking for more food for thought? Subscribe to the Emerging Trends Report.

Doing business in the era of higher purpose and beliefs

As a brand builder focused on burnishing your organization’s most vital asset, your business goal isn’t to convince and persuade customers to buy. Consumers, weary of persuasion tactics and overt brand promotion, quickly dismiss those efforts with a simple click. To pass through the gatekeeping gauntlet, brands need to understand what consumers really want from you – and it’s not more of the same. Rather, your brand marketing goal is to inspire. You might agree motivating people isn’t easy. Thus, why you can’t build a community of committed users and devout brand evangelists by promoting improved formulations and recipes.

Yet so often we find brands preoccupied with their slightly better product mousetrap, thinking enhanced features and benefits comprise the alluring magnet to fuel growth. Not so. Instead, you are navigating in a mental and emotional ocean between the rational and the heart.

Giving people a sense of purpose, deeper meaning and belonging lie at the foundation of every sustainable brand-to-consumer relationship.

The incredible power of “why”

In the early editions of The Fast and The Furious movie franchise we witnessed the recurring testosterone-amped challenges of street racing. Inevitably, as our hero races neck and neck towards the finish line, a canister is activated next to the console that injects Nitrous Oxide into the engine. Boom, an incredible burst of horsepower slingshots our intrepid protagonist across the finish line, literally blowing the competition away.

The NOS (Nitrous Oxide System) is a secret acceleration amplifier that supercharges engine output, thus burying the other racers in a cloud of oxygenated dust. Today similar competitive advantage exists for brands that tune their value proposition with an advanced power generator of relevance and resonance. The NOS of brand marketing is a different kind of “air and fuel” chemistry, founded on an emotional alchemy of mission, meaning and values.

Just like engines of a certain size generate similar levels of horsepower, food and beverage brands focused on claims of superior taste cancel each other out because great taste is table stakes. On a technical formulation level, products in most categories are nearly identical. Competitive advantage based on assertions of technical wizardry isn’t sustainable because everyone brandishes the same wand. Literally everything we eat or drink can be reverse engineered to deliver comparable taste and texture performance.

“Why” is the catalyst for authentic relationships with your users

Here’s the news: the consumers’ worldview has changed – and relating to a brand is now fundamentally the same thing as relating to a person. When you refine and invest in brand purpose and mission, it creates an opportunity to achieve transcendence – the state of being admired – where consumers “join” your brand as members, not merely customers.

Meaning, in order to secure significant financial premiums, sustainable brand relationships must be built first on their admiration and trust of your brand. As evidence of the shift, brand advocacy is now a more important and relevant goal than loyalty.

Of note, this representation of goodwill can be isolated as a component of business value. It can result in higher margins or traffic. Moreover, deeper relationships with consumers will ultimately help reduce the cost of promotion, improving ROI and bottom-line performance. This happens because you are no longer relying on a constant (expensive) drumbeat of self-promotion to refire fleeting, fickle attention spans.

Businesses built on “why” understand that brand relationships work best on the basis of true, authentic reciprocity and humanity. Consequently, they are not superficial, opportunistic or purely transactional. In order to mine the advantages of sustainable brand relationships, marketers have a responsibility to push added meaning, trust and belief to the forefront of the relationship. This insight forms the basis for sound strategic planning.

• Consumers expect premium food and beverage solutions to meet their great taste requirement. Competitive marketplace leverage isn’t found on the factory floor. It is discovered in the hearts and minds of consumers who now care more about why you do what you do than either what you offer or even how it is made.

Mining the influence of cultural shift

Operating in tandem with a refined value and belief system is the wider influence of cultural shifts on preference and behavior.

Purchases today are largely symbolic gestures. They are flags consumers wave to inform the world around them about their lifestyle priorities – an expression of who they are that is in many ways a mirror of the cultural context swirling around them. For consideration: to what extent have you embedded symbolism and flags of meaning in how your brand story is packaged and presented to help consumers signal those values-based belief statements through purchasing your products?

Larger issues now influence food culture precipitating changes in what consumers are looking for in brands. The store checkout lane today has evolved into a form of voting booth where consumers cast their ballot in favor of a better life and world.

What do they want? Are we helping them with what they want?

More sustainable choices:

One of the most powerful cultural influences of the era we live in is the emergence of conscious consumption – a realization that our eating and purchasing decisions have a consequence. People are learning about the relationship between food production and carbon emissions impact.

• Climate change is upon us and with it comes a sensitivity to what goes on behind the curtain of our carbon-heavy food system.

Recently in Chicago, for five straight days a grey haze and smoky odor blanketed the city, sending air quality to “worst in the world” status – all due to Canadian wildfire smoke that traveled south and wouldn’t dissipate. Wildfires are occurring at record breaking levels now. These global climate events are a recurring theme.

People were advised to stay indoors. To avoid breathing the outside air given its hazardous particulate content. Meanwhile unrelenting heat waves in the south impact farm and crop viability while helping sponsor conditions that encourage deadly tornados. All of this serves as real-world evidence to everyone that climate change impacts are among us.

The outcomes of these environmental incidents and increasingly erratic (dangerous) temp and weather conditions is a cultural shift towards preference for eco-responsible and sustainable choice, although in many cases brands haven’t made it any easier to identify what is a credible carbon-friendly option.

Health, wellness and a desire to reassert personal control:

Latent pessimism reinforced by daily media reporting has most people believing the future is less certain and that conditions beyond their control may impact future quality of life. Humans resolutely look for ways to add control when everything around them appears chaotic. This has served to amp the importance of investments in personal health and wellness. This is a move to create physical (and emotional) resilience in the midst of events that suggest the environment is suffering at the hands of policies and behaviors which inflict various forms of climate damage.

No longer just a weight management motivation, healthy living is a lifestyle and “survival” choice that helps people reacquire a sense of control over their wellbeing. Gym visits, the explosion of Pilates classes, cycling exercise studios and online therapists. Similar to how consumers increasingly see the connection between food choice and sustainability, efforts to improve personal and mental health are cultural mandates increasingly embraced by a wider swath of the population.

Experiences over consumption for its own sake:

Culinary and environmental tourism, chef-inspired food and wine events, even dangerous expeditions to the deep ocean floor, serve as reminders that experiences offer a form of expectation magic that has surpassed the former thrill of the consumption economy.

We have managed to pack and stack storage facilities with the worn-out treasures of “buying stuff” – evidence that years of acquiring has left families with mountains of extra clothes, furniture, equipment and credit card debt. “Things” as evidence of elevated status and success no longer hold the same allure.  We have exhausted materialism and replaced the void with interests in adventures that reward our emotional desire for transcendent and novel experience.

Modern brands as coach, guide, advisor and enabler

All of these evolutionary changes in behaviors and desire provide one of the most positive, significant and vital opportunities for brands to acquire a valuable role in their consumers’ lives. Your brand’s number one job is to help your users on their life journey. To provide value that extends beyond the utility of the product you sell.

• How incredible is it that consumers have arrived at a place where advice and guidance are key to achieving their goals. Can we help provide it? Can we step into the breach to be an enabler of their wishes and interests? Can we impart wisdom and tools they can use to improve their lives?

Yes we can! If we finally decide that improved relationships are key to business growth more so than product feature/benefit selling. This is the challenge of the age and one, if you choose to accept it, that can result in a deeper relationship with your users founded on delivering deeper meaning and value.

• Here is a link to our one-page overview of these shifts and changes. Please take a moment to click the link to read. It may serve as inspiration for a deeper conversation with us about ways to map an improved future for your brand and business.

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