Bill Gates Eats a Plant-Based Burger & Reveals the Next Major Industries Ripe for Disruption

As we move forward to the future of plant-based innovations, the businessman who changed the world with technology, Bill Gates has invested in both major vegan meat companies, Beyond Meat, and Impossible Foods. What can we learn from his forward-leaning stance on all things environmental? A lot.

The world's richest man is funding plant-based businesses, saving the environment, improving people's health, and protecting animals. Gates has a way of being ahead of the curve. Consider that growth in plant-based products is still on the rise. According to Bloomberg news, “The plant-based meat market alone is expected to grow significantly in the next few years at a CAGR of 14.8% to reach $30.92 billion USD by 2026.”

Mark Rober, a You Tuber with a love of technology and innovation, has created a video in which he serves up an Impossible Burger to Bill Gates, followed by a plant-based bratwurst. It's a good way to entertain viewers while Rober picks his brain about three valuable questions: How does the plant-based food taste? Are they good for humans? And are they good for the environment? Then Gates extemporaneously riffs about the next big areas ripe for innovation, such as steel and cement. (They say genius brains connect things the rest of us don't see... ) So, let's hear what Bill thinks.

As Gates takes his first bite of the plant-based burger, without any hesitation, he takes a second bite. And, with very little expression he says, “it’s quite good” and called it “light-years away from what they used to make,” comparing the duration of what a veggie burger tastes like to plant-based meats. (Then again he is a major investor in the company!)

Now, you might be questioning why his reaction did not seem more effusive in terms of taste. But, later he mentions that the quality of plant-based meat is going to just keep getting better. “The plant-based guys are not done innovating, eventually, they claim you won’t be able to tell the difference." So maybe his reaction will change with time. Or maybe he just has a deadpan way of delivering his opinions.

Now, YouTuber Mark Rober completely skipped over this question. He never asked Bill his opinion on the health aspect of plant-based meats and Bill never explains if he thinks plant-based meats are good for you. After all, he is not a nutritionist, he's a genius, so we still would have liked to know. For our take on sodium and fake meat, check out The Beet's chart here.

On a more serious note, Gates mentions that eating a plant-based diet is extremely beneficial for the environment because “agriculture is very inefficient.” According to Bill, “the agriculture sector is about 18% of overall emissions but livestock is about half of that 18% and almost all of that is beef.” Meaning, it takes an enormous amount of resources to make a cow, and the sector alone uses an incredible amount of greenhouse gases. Instead, we should eat plants to lower the carbon footprint and overall emissions.

When one of the most successful men, Bill Gates, gives a piece of business advice, it's better than pretty much any other bellwether of market predictions. Meaning, we listen.

“I actually thought of all the toughest climate problems, and thought livestock was going to be the toughest. Now, with these companies and other ones coming along in this space, I’d say steel and cement are now the two...  I’m still scratching my head."

Does that mean we have already put enough attention and research into plant-based companies to help environmental issues? And next, engineers and scientists need to focus on construction? Unclear, but for now we will be looking forward to new innovations in food systems. The infrastructure questions are still to be solved.