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Postcards: In meat-loving South Africa, climate concerns whet appetite

for veggie burgers SPONSORS
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04 November 2022
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In South Africa, a country where 'braai' all-day barbecuing is a national pastime, plant-based substitutes are
below). Inquiries
making surprising inroads despite a deep cultural love of meat and hostility from the regulator.
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That could be heartening for climate scientists, who say shifting diets from emissions-heavy meat and dairy towards
more plant-based foods is vital to the ght against climate change.

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Plant-based polony used as an alternative or meat substitute is placed on the table before being labelled at meat
processor Feinschmecker, in Germiston, in the East Rand region of Johannesburg, South Africa, on 11th October.
My Mission
PICTURE: Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko

Plant-based meat substitutes are growing by 6.5 per cent a year and sales are expected to reach $US561 million by Open Book
2023, according to Research and Markets - more than half Africa's share of a global market forecast to hit $SU162
billion by 2030.  Postcards

That is still pretty niche - South Africans spent $US15 billion on meat products in 2018 and is now the world's 9th StrangeSights
biggest per capita consumer of beef.

But the popularity of veggie alternatives

Sight-Seeing
would have been unthinkable even a decade "A lot of it's driven by exitarianism. People who
Saints of Past Ages
ago and the market is outstripping forecast want to make a bit of an effort to eat less meat."
growth for meat. The shift has so
- Alistair Hayward, Feinschmecker managing This Life
unnerved South Africa's processed meat director
industry that in June it lobbed for - and got -
The Word
a government ban on plant-based products
using words like 'nugget', 'sausage' or 'burger' on packaging.  Wow!
The agriculture department at the time said the move was aimed at preventing consumer confusion. A spokesperson
did not respond to repeated requests for comment. From the Field

Food producers remain undeterred.

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Workers prepare a plant-based polony used as an alternative or meat substitute at meat processor Feinschmecker, in
Germiston, in the East Rand region of Johannesburg, South Africa, on 11th October. PICTURE: Reuters/Siphiwe
Sibeko

At meat processor Feinschmecker, staff pour powdered soy and pea protein into vats and rehydrate them to make its
plant-based 'deli slice' - called so in anticipation of a ban on labelling it 'ham'.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
"A lot of it's driven by exitarianism. People who want to make a bit of an effort to eat less meat," Alistair Hayward,
Feinschmecker managing director, told Reuters.

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Top food producer Tiger Brands bought a stake in meat-substitute start-up Herbivoire in March, while supermarkets
SIGHT DIRECTORY
like Woolworths have introduced their own ranges. Clearly, ethical food choices are a luxury of the relatively well-to-
EXPLORING LONDON
do - a quarter of South Africans struggle to put any food on the table. 

Evidence is accumulating that curbing consumption of meat and dairy - which the latest estimates put at around a
fth of all emissions - is key to meeting UN climate goals.

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A worker looks on next to plant-based polonies used as an alternative or meat substitute at meat processor Boom's

Feinschmecker, in Germiston, in the East Rand region of Johannesburg, South Africa, on 11th October. PICTURE: classic 1971

Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko book, The

Hiding
A paper in Science in February said ending animal agriculture could stabilise greenhouse gas levels for 30 years and
Place,
offset 68 per cent of CO2 emissions this century; another in 2018 showed switching the world to a purely plant-
recently re-
based diet could slash food-related emissions - which are about 30 per cent of the total - by nearly half.
released in
Yet forgoing cheeseburgers is not something governments, many of which dole out billions of dollars to livestock a 35th anniversary edition...
farmers, are likely to propose at this month's climate talks in Egypt. To register your group (and receive our

discussion notes via email) and for more

Lowering animal consumption, then, may boil down to consumers - like Angie Raphalalani, 57. She gave up meat over
details about how the club works, head here...
climate concerns and her diabetes.

"My immediate family...were shocked," she said, after lunching at plant-based restaurant Lexi's Healthy Eatery in SUPPORT SIGHT FROM
Johannesburg. "But probably they'll follow me. I'm quite in uential in their lives."
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