Today we welcomed Leonardo DiCaprio to the Beyond Meat family as an official investor and advocate. Our relationship with Leo began a few years back when he first visited our research center and subsequently provided feedback on early iterations of The Beyond Burger. Leo shares our vision that we can positively impact climate change by bringing satiating, appealing, plant-based meats to the center of the plate, and we are thrilled to have his partnership.

Cargill Inc., one of the largest global agricultural companies, has joined Bill Gates and other business giants to invest in a nascent technology to make meat from self-producing animal cells amid rising consumer demand for protein that’s less reliant on feed, land and water.

It was announced this week that all slaughterhouses in England will have to install CCTV cameras, in a Government move to try to improve animal welfare on UK farms. As a lover of animals, you’d think I would be thrilled at this news. Instead I can’t help but continue to wonder why on earth we are killing animals in the first place. It shouldn’t be a question of whether or not it’s caught on camera.

Burgers made from plants instead of animals are capturing more space on U.S. barbecue grills this summer, fueling sales in the niche products that could reach $5 billion globally by 2020. Plant-based meat foods are now available that include beet juice for color and canola oil to simulate fat. These changes are not only pulling in consumers but also one of the powerhouses in traditional meat production, Tyson Foods Inc.

The largest supermarket in the U.S. has a new name in the meat aisle. It just so happens that it’s not made of meat. The plant-based Beyond Burger, made by startup Beyond Meat, began rolling out in more than 600 Kroger-owned (KR, +0.33%) stores in June—a move that has more than tripled the burger's distribution within two months.

“What the Health” is the most recent documentary making waves from duo Kip Andersen and Keegan Kuhn, who made “Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret” in 2014 — another emotionally charged behind the scenes look at the food industry of today. “What the Health” was released in March 2017 and came to Netflix in June where it has been quickly gaining viewers.

“Every vegan seems to have their own lightbulb moment when something clicked and they stopped eating animal products,” says Cambridge University archaeologist Dr Pía Spry-Marqués, who committed to a plant-only diet two years ago as she researched the history of pork. “My son was born three years ago and I was nursing him. People looked at me funny for breastfeeding my child, and yet it was fine to drink lattes with cow’s milk, or eat chocolate spread,” she recalls to The Independent.

Australian meat sales plunged 15 per cent due to public "revulsion" over animal cruelty in Indonesian abattoirs, a court has been told. Former agriculture minister Joe Ludwig's lawyers have argued their client's decision to suspend live cattle exports to Indonesia was necessary to protect the wider industry's reputation. Mr Ludwig ordered the suspension in 2011, following a Four Corners investigation.

We can produce the food that people crave without using livestock, pledges Pat Brown founder of the ‘veggie burger that bleeds’.

The environment doesn't appreciate our meat obsession. The average meat-eater in the U.S. is responsible for almost twice as much global warming as the average vegetarian, and close to three times that of the average vegan, according to a study (pdf) published this month in the journal Climatic Change.

San Francisco-based startup Memphis Meats says it has made the world's first lab-grown chicken strips from animal cells. On March 14, Memphis Meats invited a handful of taste-testers to their kitchen to try it. And according to the company, they said it tastes just like chicken. "It is thrilling to introduce the first chicken and duck that didn’t require raising animals. This is a historic moment for the clean meat movement," Memphis Meats' cofounder and CEO, Uma Valeti, said in a press release.

It tastes like chicken. So how is this chicken made? Memphis Meats’ in-house senior scientist Eric Schulze explained the process to Eater in broad strokes. “We start by harvesting sells from high-quality, living chickens that might otherwise go into conventional meat,” he says. “The chickens are not killed in the process. We look for cells that have potential to renew, put them in environment where they can grow and feed them water and nutrients — vitamins, minerals, proteins, sugars — and let them grow.”

“The meatball that changed the world.” That was the enthusiastic prediction early last year from Uma Valeti, a cardiologist and now CEO of Memphis Meats, as he admired the freshly cooked meatball arranged gourmet-style on a plate. As a meatball, it definitely had a lot going for it. It was made by specialty chef Dave Anderson, using an Italian recipe. As it cooked in the frying pan, (click here to watch the video) it sizzled and smelled the way a meatball should. And the taste-tester gave it a thumbs-up.

As a greater number of people enter the middle class around the globe, many will turn away from plant-based diets in favor of meat-based diets. This could be a cause for concern, as meat production requires the input of substantially more resources, such as water and energy. The question of how to feed a growing world in a time when wealth is spreading and personal tastes are changing is the subject of some sustainability research.

If you like hamburgers, maybe don't watch this video.

We have all heard the perpetual argument about the meat industry. On one side, unwavering pro-meat eaters assert that some animals were put on this earth for our consumption, as a means for our survival. On the other side, vegan individuals claim that eating animals is not only cruel but evolutionarily outdated. Regardless of one’s moral compass or core beliefs, finding the facts can be difficult. Beyond “he said/she said,” there are some very tangible things happening around the globe that are a detriment to our health and to our planet.

A plant meat and a traditional meat company have announced an investment agreement whereby Springdale, Arkansas-based Tyson Foods Inc. will own a five percent stake in Beyond Meat. The undisclosed dollar value was raised through an initiative of El Segundo, California-based Beyond Meat, which brands itself as “The Future of Protein.” Other investors in the company include The Humane Society of the United States, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and venture capital company Kleiner Perkins.

Millennials! They’re not having sex! Or are they? They’re hated by other generations but beloved by thinkpiece headlines across the internet. And according to McDonald’s, they’re not eating Big Macs. According to a memo from a top McDonald’s franchisee, only one in five millennials have tried a Big

Fire up the grill and invite me over, friend. Today, we feast in celebration. The latest USDA meat production projections are out, and they predict that, after years of domination by chicken, beef will become the fastest growing meat category over the course of the next decade. Beef isn’t just going to be more available, though. It’s also going to be cheaper than it’s been in years.

The rapid growth of the world's human population raises the issue of more efficient food production; one solution to the problem is "clean meat," which is produced in the equivalent of meat fermenters, Bruce Friedrich, Executive Director of the Good Food Institute, told Radio Sputnik. The world's human population reached 7.4 billion in March 2016, having reached 7 billion in October 2011. In 2050, it is expected to reach 9.7 billion, raising the question of how to produce enough food for everybody.