{"id":364213,"date":"2017-03-21T02:30:12","date_gmt":"2017-03-21T06:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/grist.org\/?post_type=grist-50-profiles&amp;p=364213"},"modified":"2017-03-21T02:30:12","modified_gmt":"2017-03-21T06:30:12","slug":"liz-specht","status":"publish","type":"grist-50-profiles","link":"https:\/\/grist.org\/grist-50\/profile\/liz-specht\/","title":{"rendered":"Big food ideas need big money. Liz Specht brings investors to the table."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"g50-profile__stats-block profile__stats-block--profile-364213 \">Senior Scientist, The Good Food Institute<br \/>\nBoulder, Colorado<br \/>\nAge: 28<\/aside>\n<p>Animal agriculture is a complex tangle of issues, all pulling in different directions: culinary tradition, animal welfare, methane emissions, deliciousness, deforestation. As a senior scientist at the Good Food Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to finding foods that will displace animal meat, Liz Specht looks for technological fixes to the beefy meat problem.<\/p>\n<p>Specht spends her days researching ways to engineer plant-based foods that taste better, cost less, and consume fewer resources than animals. She then points startups toward the food technology that\u2019s likely to work for them, and helps venture capitalists differentiate between companies proposing flashy BS and those who know their stuff. She\u2019s an entrepreneurial matchmaker.<\/p>\n<p>[pullquote share=&#8221;true&#8221; tweet=&#8221;\u201cThis is truly a pivotal moment for our food system.\u201d -@LizSpecht&#8221; via=&#8221;grist&#8221; hashtag=&#8221;Grist50&#8243;]\u201cThis is truly a pivotal moment for our food system.\u201d[\/pullquote]<\/p>\n<p>Specht lives in an RV, working remotely and roaming from state to state. Everywhere she goes, she steps into a store to see what plant-based products are available, where they are placed in the store, and how they are advertised. Making meat replacements might be a technical problem, but Specht is acutely aware that technology must move with culture. \u201cI think of technology&#8217;s role as that of a dance partner to society, following its leads and anticipating its future moves,\u201d she says. Time for the food industry to listen to the music.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This scientist connects investors to new food tech.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57007830,"featured_media":490299,"menu_order":10,"template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"coauthors":[10],"class_list":["post-364213","grist-50-profiles","type-grist-50-profiles","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","grist-50-economy","grist-50-food","grist-50-13"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.2 (Yoast SEO v27.2) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Big food ideas need big money. Liz Specht brings investors to the table. - Grist 50<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Big food ideas need big money. 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