Interviews: Ask the Hampton Creek Team About the Science and Future of Food

samzenpus writes Hampton Creek is a food technology company that makes food healthier by utilizing a specially made egg substitute in food products. The company was selected by Bill Gates to be featured on his website in a story called, The Future of Food, and has raised $30 million in funding. Hampton Creek's latest product is called, Just Cookies, which is an eggless chocolate chip cookie dough, but it is their eggless mayo that has been in the news lately. Unilever, which manufactures Hellmann's and Best Foods mayonnaise, is suing Hampton Creek claiming that the name Just Mayo is misleading to consumers. Named one of Entrepreneur Magazine's 100 Brilliant Companies and one of CNBC's Top 50 Disruptors, Hampton Creek has picked up some impressive talent including the former lead data scientist at Google Maps, Dan Zigmond. With Thanksgiving just around the corner, Dan and the Hampton Creek team have agreed to answer any questions you may have. As usual, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one per post.

Comments

Let's talk about the obvious

[i kan reed]

To really be the "future of food" there's one critical, fundamental hurdle to cross, regardless of economics, marketing, food quality, and business sense:

Net energy.

Making eggs the natural way is requires about 100x the calories in the egg in solar energy to feed the chickens, due to the metabolism of the chickens and plants involved in that process.

If your process can't beat nature, you're never going to save the world with your technology, because you're going to be less efficient than the real thing.

Can you beat nature? Hypothetically? In the future?

Why would you call something Mayo that isn't?

[Maxwell]

Why would you call something Mayo that isn't?

Are your other product names as equally misleading?

Re:Why would you call something Mayo that isn't?

[DutchUncle]

Agreement. I have no objection to a vegetarian alternative to egg-based mayonnaise; OTOH I can see Hellman's point that calling it "just mayo" isn't right. When I first saw the name "Just Mayo" I assumed it was non-preservative, or no-added-whatever, or non-GMO, or some other health-food variant of "pure"; I did NOT infer that it was other-than-dictionary-definition-of mayonnaise.

In contrast, I don't have the same issue with "soy milk" or "almond milk" not being some mammal's milk, like the dairy industry is complaining about, because the non-milk-base ingredient is right there in the name.

Re:Why would you call something Mayo that isn't?

[Maxwell]

Why not let the Food and Drug Administration an the Code of federal Regulations Title 21 tell you, exactly, what the legal definition of Mayonnaise is?

To quote:

a) "Description. Mayonnaise is the emulsified semisolid food prepared from vegetable oil(s), one or both of the acidifying ingredients specified in paragraph (b) of this section, and one or more of the egg yolk-containing ingredients specified in paragraph (c) of this section."

source:
http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/cfrsearch.cfm?fr=169.140

Now that that is put to bed, care to explain how something that doesn't include eggs, as specified by the FDA, can be called Mayo?

Re:Why would you call something Mayo that isn't?

[blue9steel]

Which is why Soy Milk should be labeled Soy Juice.

Eggs = Good

[unixcorn]

Eggs are one of the best sources of protein, are natural and can be produced easily in a back yard chicken house. I have also read that most of the rhetoric about eggs being unhealthy has been debunked. Unless you are producing specifically for people with allergies, what's the point of an eggs substitute.

Does Shortening a name change it?

[turning in circles]

Hi, I assume you argue that "Mayo" is a different word than "Mayonnaise," so there is no problem marketing "Just Mayo" or "Chipotle Mayo" as a mayonnaise substitute (without the word "substitute" on the front of the label). How would you feel about going to the store and getting some "OJ" that had no juice from oranges? If I read a label that said "Just OJ", I would assume it had only orange juice.

How would you feel about putting an image of eggs and a cross through them or some other way to quickly identify this is eggless mayonnaise substitute, and not mayonnaise?

Re:What is it?

[kesuki]

chickens are omnivores. they eat everything, grass, bugs, other chickens if they get bloodlust... they will even eat dirt and fecal material... my uncle raises his own chickens and feeds them with some feed and garden greens...

there is also a neat organic chicken method where they are in a moveable, large area cage, which forces them to eat grass and dirt, which they usually avoid as they seek bugs as primary food... it takes grass 7 days to recover from this organic feeding method so you don't need a huge area to do it in. the reason old farms had no problem with bugs was by making the chickens free range in farmland and they would seek shelter (hen house) and without fences you just need a dog or two to keep the chickens on your land... true factory farms produce eggs faster but it is more resource heavy than local farming practices. which we know are sustainable because we have old villages where at one point people were subsistence farming.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/homesteading-and-livestock/raising-free-range-chickens-zmaz84jazloeck.aspx

they claim you don't need dogs, but dogs also deter chicken raiding foxes or wolves.

Re:What is it?

[blue9steel]

Hmm, so to get an egg you need many gross things (chickens, hormones for the chickens, vaccines for the chickens, food for the chickens, fertilizer for the food for the chickens, etc etc etc) and yet to get peas you need a seed, sunlight, and water. Yep, let's go with eggs as being more natural!

Wait, you're comparing factory raised chickens with organic peas? Chickens only require two things food (pasture or feed) and water. All the other stuff is just to raise productivity. Commercial Ag peas use things like fertilizer, pesticides, etc. not just "seed, sunlight, and water".

Why would I buy your product?

[futuresheep]

Your product offers no benefit in calorie intake compared to regular mayo and none of the nutritional benefits of mayo made with eggs. Eggs are one of the most nutritionally sound food items I can buy. As a component in other foods, they're low calorie, high protein, and chock full of vitamins, minerals, and amino acids addition. Just Mayo is also more expensive than real mayo. So tell me, why should I buy your product?

Re:What is it?

[Agent0013]

And yes, you simply don't CARE about the unending suffering of billions of animals. Care to explain why?

And why don't you care about the suffering of the plants? Do you think they don't feel pain? They certainly do. They even communicate to each other when being attacked by insects or bacteria and viruses. You care about one life form over another, but that does not mean anything in the grand scheme. You probably have no problem swatting a mosquito that is biting you, or pulling a tick out of your skin and killing it. Life feeds on life. Get used to it!