硅谷的新顛覆對象 傳統食物

After phones, cameras and taxis, Silicon Valley is looking to disrupt a rather more mundane American mainstay: fast food.

繼手機、照相機和出租車之後，硅谷正着眼於顛覆一種美國人生活中習以爲常的東西：快餐。

Start-ups are trying to revolutionise the food industry and have received hundreds of millions of dollars in funding from venture capitalists to do so.

一批創業企業正試圖掀起食品行業革命，併爲此獲得了風險資本家數億美元的融資。

Many are motivated by a desire to wean humanity off meat and other foods that have big environmental and social impacts, whether in the methane emissions and land use of cattle herds or additives in typical processed food.

其中許多公司是受到這樣的願望驅使：讓人類不再依賴會對環境和社會造成巨大影響的肉類及其他食品，不管是甲烷排放和養牛佔地方面還是一般加工食品中的添加劑。

“The traditional food system is broken in every way,” says Seth Bannon, founding partner at Fifty Years, an early stage venture fund in San Francisco that has invested in food technology companies. “It’s terrible for the environment, it’s economically unfavourable and it’s not great for human health.”

“傳統食物體系正在被從各個方面擊破，”投資了幾家食品科技公司的舊金山初創階段風險基金Fifty Years的創始合夥人賽斯.班農(Seth Bannon)表示，“它對環境有害，不具備經濟效益，而且對人類健康不是很好。”

The best-known of these would-be disrupters is also the most extreme in its approach. Soylent was founded in 2013 by a group of Silicon Valley engineers trying to cut the time and money they spent buying and preparing food. The company has expanded from producing a powder that was mixed with water to ready-made drinks and nutritional “food bar” snacks.

這些“準顛覆者”中，最有名的一家也是創新手法最極端的。Soylent由一羣硅谷工程師於2013年創立，這些工程師想減少他們花在購買和準備食物上的時間和金錢。Soylent最初生產一種需要跟水混合的粉末狀食品，後來發展爲生產成品飲料和有營養的“食物棒”。

The company takes its name from a 1966 Harry Harrison science-fiction novel Make Room! Make Room!, which explores the impact massive population growth could have on world resources. In the book, “soylent” is made of soy and lentils and is used to feed the world. A film version in 1973, Soylent Green, took this theme further by portraying the main global food stuff as dead human beings being sold as biscuits.

Soylent之名取自1966年哈里.哈里森(Harry Harrison)的科幻小說《Make Room! Make Room!》，小說探討了人口劇增可能給全球資源帶來的影響。在書中，由大豆和扁豆製成的“soylent”成爲全球的食物。1973年，小說被改編成了電影《綠色食品》(Soylent Green)，影片進一步挖掘了上述主題，講述死人被作爲全球主要食物原料，製成餅乾銷售。

The Soylent company, now based in Los Angeles, says its “intelligently designed” food offers “affordable, complete nutrition”. A serving of its deliberately tasteless gloop costs as little as $2.

如今總部位於洛杉磯的Soylent公司表示，其“精巧設計”的食物能夠提供“價格合適、全面的營養”。吃一頓該公司生產的故意做成沒有味道的半流狀食品最低只需花費2美元。

“It’s not surprising to me that Soylent has become the darling of Silicon Valley and computer programmers,” says Amy Bentley, a professor of food studies at New York University. For one thing, she says, it does away with the social interaction that food often involves but tech nerds are not renowned for. “You don’t have to talk to people, you can just fuel.”

“Soylent已成爲硅谷和電腦程序員喜愛的食品，對此我一點也不奇怪，”紐約大學(New York University)食品研究教授艾米.本特利(Amy Bentley)表示。她說，首先，它消除了進餐往往會牽涉到的社交，畢竟這些幹技術的書呆子們並不以社交能力聞名。“你不必跟人說話，你只管補充能量。”

However, Soylent has also illustrated some of the hazards of pioneering new food. Two months after they first went on sale, Soylent halted sales of its food bars after some customers said they had caused episodes of violent vomiting, and in October removed its powder drink from sale for the same reason.

然而，Soylent的經歷也展示了在食品創新方面充當先驅可能面臨的一些風險。該公司的“食品棒”首次上市銷售才兩個月，就因爲有顧客抱怨食用後導致了強烈嘔吐，不得不下架。今年10月，出於同樣的原因，該公司撤下了其粉末飲品。

Soylent said that while its tests had come back “negative for food pathogens, toxins or outside contamination”, one ingredient, derived from algae, may have triggered intolerance. A new formulation will be released next year, sooner if possible.

Soylent表示，其檢測顯示在食品致病菌、毒素或外部污染物等方面結果爲陰性，但一種取自海藻的成分可能引起人體不耐受。新配方將於明年發佈，如果可能的話會更早。

“We are just beginning to learn about what our bodies need,” says Ms Bentley. “Turns out when we try to engineer stuff, we figure out nature did it pretty well in the beginning.” She adds: “Humans need variety.”

“我們只是剛開始瞭解我們的身體需要什麼，”本特利表示，“當我們試圖設計製造食物材料時，結果我們才發現自然從一開始就做的非常好。”她補充稱：“人類需要多樣性。”

Rivals have also emerged, including Ambronite, a nutritional drink, and 100%Food, whose maker, Space Nutrients Station, invites customers to “stop cooking — eat like astronauts!”.

競爭對手也出現了，包括營養飲料Ambronite以及100%Food，後者的製造商Space Nutrients Station邀請消費者“不要做飯了——像宇航員一樣吃！”

“The idea is that Ambronite can be any meal, says its co-founder Simo Suoheimo, “ but the idea is not to replace every meal.”

“我們的想法是Ambronite可以代替任何一餐飯，但不是代替每一餐飯，”Ambronite創始人西莫.索海莫(Simo Suoheimo)表示。

Ambronite has received $600,000 from backers, including a co-founder of YouTube, Jawed Karim, and Lifeline Ventures, while Soylent has raised more than $20m. But other food technology companies have been more ambitious. Investors have poured more than $180m into Impossible Foods, which is trying to replace meat with something that tastes and smells similar but is made from plants.

Ambronite已收到投資者60萬美元資金，包括YouTube聯合創始人賈韋德.卡里姆(Jawed Karim)和Lifeline Ventures，而Soylent已募集逾2000萬美元。還有更加野心勃勃的食品科技公司。投資者已向Impossible Foods注資逾1.8億美元，這家公司試圖用味道和氣味與肉類相似、但由植物製成的食品來替代肉食。

Ingredients such as potatoes and coconuts are fermented then combined with the “magic ingredient” of heme, a yeast extract with similar culinary properties to blood.

土豆和椰子等原料被髮酵，然後與血紅素這種“神奇原料”混合，這是一種酵母提取物，具有與血類似的烹調特性。

“You can’t get people to stop eating meat,” says Pat Brown, Impossible Foods’ founder and chief executive.

Impossible Foods創始人及首席執行官帕特.布朗(Pat Brown)表示：“你不能不讓人們吃肉。”

“We turn plants into meat more efficiently and sustainably” than animals, he says.

他表示：“我們以比動物更高效、更可持續的方式將植物轉化爲肉類。”

However, copying nature has proven tougher than Mr Brown may have anticipated. Impossible’s burgers have already been five years in the making, and only now are starting to be offered in selected, expensive restaurants.

然而，事實證明，複製“自然”要比布朗想象的還要難。Impossible的漢堡已研製了5年，現在纔開始在精選的高檔餐廳供應。

A commercial-scale manufacturing facility will not open until next year. In the meantime, a pilot facility is producing 1,200lb a week. Over the past two years, Impossible has reformulated its burgers’ ingredients and reduced costs.

具備商業化生產規模的製造工廠要等到明年才能投入運營。與此同時，一間實驗工廠每週的產量爲1200磅。過去兩年中，Impossible修改了漢堡包的成分，降低了成本。

“A cow is pretty much as mature a technology as it will ever be,” Mr Brown says. “One of the huge advantages we have over cows when it comes to making meat is we have the capability of improving every aspect of it.”

布朗說道：“一頭牛的技術成熟程度將永遠像現在這樣，相比牛，我們在製造肉食方面的巨大優勢之一是我們有能力從每一個方面來改善產品。”

Another start-up disrupting nature is Memphis Meats. The Bay Area-based company is taking a different approach — growing meats in a lab, cultivating them from real animal cells.

另一家顛覆自然的初創企業是Memphis Meats。這家總部位於舊金山灣區的公司正採用一種不同的方法：在實驗室培育肉類，利用真正的動物細胞培養。

“We identify cells that have the capability to renew themselves,” says Uma Valeti, Memphis’ co-founder and chief executive. “We breed those cells that are the most effective and growing — just like a farmer would do with animals.” Eventually, he hopes to remove animals from the equation altogether.

“我們會找出那些有能力自我再生的細胞，”Memphis聯合創始人兼首席執行官烏瑪.瓦列提(Uma Valeti)表示，“我們培育那些效率最高且在增長的細胞，就像農民飼養動物那樣。”他希望最終從人們的食物來源中徹底剔除動物。

Previous efforts to cultivate meat in this way have produced burgers that cost thousands of dollars. Memphis Meats hopes to drive down the price of its meatballs from a projected $40 a gramme in the lab-scale to a few cents per gramme by the end of the decade.

以前用這種方式培育肉類的努力，製作出的漢堡成本高達幾千美元。Memphis Meats希望到本10年末，將其肉丸價格從預期的實驗室規模的每克40美元降至每克幾美分。

Mr Bannon, of Fifty Years, who has invested in Memphis Meats, calls its approach the “second domestication”. “Traditionally we have domesticated animals to harvest their cells for food or drink,” he says. “Now we are starting to domesticate cells themselves.”

上文提到的風投基金Fifty Years就投資了Memphis Meats，其創始人班農把這種方法叫做“二度飼養”。“我們飼養了動物，把它們的細胞製成食物或飲料，”他表示，“如今，我們正開始飼養動物細胞本身。”