February 22, 2022 • 20 mins
Everyone wants a service dog and the demand for these helpful pups has led to the rise of an industry with almost no regulation and it can be pricey. Organizations can charge anywhere from $15,000 to $40,000 for a fully trained service dog depending on the type of ailments they are supposed to help with. Trainers for their part do incur a lot of costs for boarding, training and feeding and must also account for some 60% of dogs that don't make it through the training process. Some families in desperate need of these services opt for buying their own dog and then getting them trained which could be a gamble. Markian Hawryluk, senior Colorado correspondent for Kaiser Health News, joins us for the 'Wild West' market of service dogs.
Next, like many industries, the pandemic has taken the plant-based food industry on a rollercoaster ride. Early on, regular meat prices rose by about 40% which led to sales of plant-based meat as an alternative rise by 65%. However, by the end of last year sales were down leading many to think that maybe the novelty had worn off and the industry had peaked. The reality is that there is still a lot more to come, whether it be in the form of more fast food launches or other products beyond meat alternatives such as chicken, seafood, and bacon. Kenny Torella, reporter at Vox, joins us for the pandemic highs and lows of the plant-based food industry.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Tuesday, February. I'm Oscar Ramiers in Los Angeles, and
this is the daily dive. Everyone wants a service dog,
and the demand for these helpful pups has led to
a rise of an industry with almost no regulation, and
it can be pricey. Organizations can charge anywhere from fifteen
(00:20):
thousand to forty thousand dollars for a fully trained service dog,
depending on the type of ailment they're supposed to help with. Trainers,
for their part, do incur a lot of costs for boarding,
training and feeding, and must also account for some six
dogs that don't make it through the training process. Market
and Horror Look, senior Colorado correspondent for Kaiser Health News
joined us for the Wild West Market of service dogs next.
(00:42):
Like many industries, the pandemic has taken the plant based
food industry on a roller coaster ride. Early on, regular
meat prices rose about which led to the rising sales
of plant based meats as an alternative by sixty However,
by the end of last year's sales are down, leading
many to think that novelty had worn off and the
industry had peaked. The reality is that there's still a
(01:04):
lot more to come, whether it's in the form of
more fast food launches or other products beyond meat alternatives
such as chicken, seafood and bacon. Kenny Terrella, reporter at
Vox join us for the pandemic highs and lows of
the plant based food industry. It's a goos about the noise.
Let's dive in. You know, when there's demand, an industry
(01:28):
pops up to meet it. So there have been all
these sort of backyard trainers that have created, you know,
for profit companies to train service dogs and they're charging
you know, sometimes like the thirty dollars for fully service
fully trained service dogs. Joining us now was mark In
Horror Luck, senior Colorado correspondent for Kaiser Health News. Thanks
(01:49):
for joining us, mark In, thanks for having me. I
wanted to talk about an interesting subject, service dogs, and
the demand for service dogs that have has gone up
really high right now. It's kind of spurred this industry
where people are training dogs, giving them to people, charging
thousands of dollars for these services. And since there's really
(02:12):
no regulations surrounding an industry like this, a lot of
times dogs maybe aren't well trained. Uh, there's a lot
of problems that are going on with this and obviously
for the families in need of a service dog for
a variety of reasons, right whether whatever the illness that
the dog is catering to. You know, things don't pound
out there. They're out a lot of money. So Mark
and help us walk through some what are we seeing
(02:33):
with this surge and demand for service dogs. You know,
it's really interesting because it used to be that service
dogs were primarily trained by these large kind of nonprofit
groups that raised their own money and provided these dogs
to be families for free. But as you know, we
learned how incredible dogs are and then all the things
they can do. You know, there's there's just so many
(02:55):
more patients that could be helped by dog. You know,
kid has autism or epilepsy, their dogs that could help
them manage that. And so the waiting list became so long.
And you know, when there's demand, an industry pops up
to meet it. So there have been all these sort
of backyard trainers that have created, you know, for profit
companies to train service dogs and they're charging you know,
(03:18):
sometimes up to thirty dollars for fully service to fully
trained service dogs. You did profile a family who is
in need of dogs, possibly two dogs. Tell me their
story just to kind of paint the picture of what
it looks like. Yeah, I spoke to a mother, Jenny Manus,
who uh, you know, She's first thing she told me was,
you know, I'm not that much of a dog person,
(03:39):
but you know, it's got three kids, all of which
have have some health issues. And her oldest daughter, Sriah,
was diagnosed with autism and then her her second oldest kid, Phoenix,
was diagnosed with epilepsy, and doctors have kind of recommended
that she get service dogs to help both of them.
And so they started going through and looking through the
(04:00):
process and they think they've kind of found a cheaper option.
They're they're they're hoping that they can buy dog, do
this sort of basic obedience training themselves, and then have
that dog trained as a service dog. But it's still
going to cost them ten dollars per dog. And this
is a family that lives below the federal poverty line,
so it's it's a huge burden. And to you know
(04:21):
your point about you know, this family is going to
buy their own dog and then have it go through
the training rather than picking out a program dog. So
somebody a dog that you know, the program, the people
that are training it, they get it, they board the dog,
they trained the dog, and when it's all set and
ready to go, they'll place it with a family. There's
a lot of dogs that drop out of these programs.
(04:42):
They're just not equipped to truly be a service dog.
You know, some of them are can be very nice
and all, but you know they can't handle the training
or do the job as effectively. So there's a lot
of dogs that don't make the cut, and that could
be possible for this family too, and other families that
are going that route. Yeah, absolutely means it's part the
reason why the costs are so high, as they have
(05:02):
to cover the sixty of dogs that will wash out
of training as well as the ones that actually get placed.
But you know, for the Manas family, they're going to
you know, breed their owner. They're going to buy a
bread dog and then train them. And when it goes
to the service training, there's a very real possibility that
dog won't be able to handle it. So they're they're
gambling that the dog will make it through and they'll
(05:24):
save money, but in the end they could end up
with just a really expensive family pet. And still not
have that service dog that they need. There's really no
certification process for the service dogs. I know these companies
and trainers will train them to handle specific illnesses and
ailments and all that, but that's they're saying this dog
is ready to help. There there's no overall governing board
(05:46):
or something that gives a certificate to that dog. There
are companies that have popped up where you can register
your animals as as a service animal. And we've obviously
you heard all the stories about people taking the peacocks
onto the plane and things of so it's an unregulated industry.
But even on the dog training side, there's really kind
of no regulation or oversight. There is a nonprofit sort
(06:10):
of industry group for the North American Board of the
Assistance Dogs International, and they do accredit service dog trainers,
but that accreditations voluntary. Only nonprofits are allowed to be accredited.
It takes a few years to do it, but it
does give folks, uh some reassurance that this is a
legitimate outfit training dogs, that they know what they're doing.
(06:32):
But even those dogs, when you know when they come out,
you don't get any sort of certificate to say, oh, yes,
this dog has passed some sort of trials, so we
know that they can know what what the nonprofit has promised.
We're talking about this kind of rise of an industry,
right where a lot of people are training dogs. There's
always bad actors, unfortunately, and this is part of the story.
(06:53):
So you had a couple of examples where there were
some attorneys generals in different states that actually filed lawsuits
again trainers for not providing what they you know, they
were supposed to. And in these cases they were I
think one of them charged the family twenty seven thousand
dollars for a dog, just huge sums of money. Yeah,
it's it's you know, part of the unregulated industry. You know,
(07:16):
there's there's no oversight and there's really very little recourse
for families. I mean, in this case, you know, in
Virginia and North Carolina, these two dog training outfits that
were sued by the training general. The families were able
to get, you know, somebody at the state level to
take up their cause and file suit. But for most families,
you know, if you get a dog that isn't properly trained,
(07:36):
you're just kind of out the money and you don't
really have have much recourse there. Um, it's also a problem.
You know a lot of these trainers rely on volunteers
to do parts of the training. You know, they to
to take the dogs out into public and you know,
they get college students they'll take the dog with them
to class and things of that sort. And the deal
is that the trainer is supposed to pay for their
(07:57):
food and their vet bills and things of that sort
while they're doing this training. And some of those college
students get you know, left out to dry as well
when these companies go under or when they're just simply inscrupulous.
So it's very much, you know, sort of a Wild
West situation out there and sort of buy or beware.
Has there been any effort made to form some type
(08:17):
of certification process, you know, anything on the governmental level too,
to get involved with regulating this. Yeah, there really hasn't
been anything like that. You know. I asked around to
see whether there are any state legislatures or even on
the federal level people stepping in to do this. There
are some regulations around service animals on airplanes that are
written by the Department Transportation, but that doesn't really go
(08:40):
to the training of the dogs. It's it really relies
on an individual to stipulate that their dog is a
service dog and they perform certain duties to help them
and things of that sort. So there's no oversight of
this industry and and that's really leaving families at risk.
I think you talked about a group called medic Months,
(09:00):
So just it cost them eleven dollars just a board
and train the dog. Obviously they have to make a
profit after that too, if if that's part of the industry, right,
if they're not donating the dog like that. But that's
why these costs are so high. Absolutely when you think about,
you know, the cost of acquiring the dog, whether it's
from a breed or whether you're greeting those dogs by yourself.
Then uh, six months of caring for that dog, buying
(09:24):
all the supplies of food, taking into the vet, getting
his shots, and then you know, a half a year
into that dog's life he starts training to be a
service dog. And that's a very labor intensive process. So
it is an expensive proposition and unfortunately some people will
take advantage of that. One of the things that's that's
really kind of allowed this this for profit institute to
(09:46):
grow is is the ability for people to raise money
online through co fund me or Facebook or things of
that sort. You knowing that people aren't paying this, you know,
forty dollars sometimes price tag out of their own pocket.
The trainer can sort of get away with that and
and and still be able to make a profit. So
it's it's a very different world from you know, even
(10:07):
twenty years ago, when the demand wasn't as high. We
didn't know as much about what dogs could do, and
the ability to sort of crowd source the funds for
a dog wasn't existent. It's really an industry that's crying
out for some regulation right now. Markian horror Lack, Senior
Colorado correspondent for Kaiser Health News, Thank you very much
for joining us. Thanks for having me on us. You
(10:29):
appreciate it when a young industry so heavily relies on
just a few key ingredients, if the price of those
incredient ingredients go up, if the supply of those ingredients
goes down, that's going to cause problems in the supply chain.
(10:51):
And that's exactly what happened during the pandemic. Joining us
now is Kenny Terrella, reporter at Vox. Thanks for joining us. Kenny,
thanks for having me. After let's take a look into
the plant based food industry and how the pandemic has
impacted them. Obviously, the pandemic just disrupted pretty much every
(11:11):
part of our lives and all of our industries, a
supply chain issues, all the stuff that was going on.
We've been talking about for a long time. But the
plant based food industry had some interesting turns. Right before
the pandemic, it looked like it was a booming industry.
You know, sales were good, a lot of new products
were being launched, and then the pandemic hit. We saw
(11:33):
regular meat prices rise, the sales of plant based meat
products surge. Everybody thought it was a really good time.
But then things started dropping off again, and obviously they
got also got hit by supply chain issues. And right
now the picture is a little uneven. There's things that
are pointing to it being really good still other things
that are caused for some worry for those in the industry.
(11:54):
So can you help us walk through some of this?
What are we seeing? Yeah, that's right. Like so many industries,
the plant based sector was not immune to all the
volatility of the pandemic. Both you know, consumers panic buying
groceries early on in the pandemic too, then labor shortages
and supply chain disruption. So you know, there were highs
(12:15):
and lows for the plant based sector throughout the pandemic.
And so I'll just run over first the highs where
that you know, people were stuck at home, um, they
had to cook. Restaurants were closed, and so people naturally
began to experiment with cooking and wanted to try new things.
People generally just became more conscientious during the pandemic and
(12:37):
became open to new experiences. So you saw a big
rise in the purchasing of plant based products alternatives to
meet dairy and eggs in the first months of the pandemic.
Sales went up sixty percent for the first few months
in early going into mid And at the same time,
(12:57):
some of the issues in the meat industry were on
fold display, which caused people to kind of have a
first glimpse into the inner workings of how animals are
turned into meat. Um, you had covid ripping through slaughterhouses
causing slowdowns in production, which meant that there were some
meat shortages, and you saw the meat industry, you know,
(13:19):
making front page news most weeks and so that you know,
caused a tail wind for the plant based sector. You
saw sales growing, but like you mentioned, there were many
things that affected a lot of sectors that came for
the plant based sector eventually, such as labor shortages, supply
chain disruptions. Some companies had trouble filling orders and keeping
(13:42):
plant based burgers on the shelves and on menus, and
you know, some big players like Beyond Meat and morning
Star Farms even had earning shortfalls in the third quarter
of last year. And the fact is that this industry
is still in its infancy. It might be the case
that over the last five years at consumers have become
much more aware of these products. They've tried them, maybe
(14:05):
some they like, some they don't, They come back for more,
or they you know, give up on the sector for
for a year or two. But I think, you know,
the industry is still in its infancy and we're not
sure where it's going to go. But you know, I
spoke with an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence and she said,
she said that she predicts the plant based sector will
(14:26):
make up about five per cent of the global meat
market in right now. It's that less than one percent,
so it still is a long way to go to
get there, and consumer enthusiasm is mixed. We both see
some fast food trials of plant based meat have flopped,
while some are just starting to take off. Just this week,
McDonald's launched it's mcplant burger made with beyond meat in
(14:50):
six locations. Last month, KFC launched a beyond meat chicken
product in its four thousand locations. So yeah, we'll see
it's it's been a wild ride for the sector throughout
the last two years, and it'll be interesting to see
where goes in the next two years. Right now, we're
kind of in this mode where we're deep into the
kind of beef, the hamburger meat alternatives, the burger alternatives,
(15:13):
but there's a lot of other products on the way
of seafood chicken. We're starting to see a lot more
chicken products, different things like that that are on the
horizon that could you know, energize the industry and energize
consumers appetite for these other types of alternatives. So, you know,
a lot of these UH products currently are in different
stages of the life cycle. So while we might be
(15:33):
seeing dips right now, you know, in the future. It
could be revived pretty easily if another hit product takes place.
For a long time, you know, veggie burgers tasted more
like veggies than burgers, and then about five years ago,
Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods hit the scene and really
showed meat eaters and non vegetarians that it's possible to
(15:56):
make plant based burgers that taste more like meat than
the veg burgers in the past. And we've seen the
plant based food industry stick to a few basics, making
vegetarian versions of ground beef, of burgers, of sausages, milk
like you mentioned. And then now there's a preponderance of
(16:17):
new vegetarian chicken products sitting the market, but the human
diet is much more expensive, and so I think over
the next five years what we're gonna see is a
lot more variety. Will probably see more varieties of plant
based bacon, plant based cheeses, and yogurts, as well as
different kinds of vegan and vegetarian seafood, and perhaps even
(16:40):
more sophisticated cuts of meat like a steak, if you will.
So I think in the last five years has kind
of been introducing these products to the general public. But
I think over the next five years, we're going to
see uh, you know, growing sophistication and um, perhaps it
will strike more at the husiasm, perhaps it won't. We'll see.
(17:02):
I'm always interested in what happens with supply chain issues,
as we've seen across various industries. So what happened, at
least in the plant based industry. I know you mentioned
the article the price of yellow peas was rising because
there was a drought in Canada, and that was a
huge impact on the industry. The plant based food sector
relies on just a few key ingredients that includes soybeans, peas,
(17:27):
coconut oil, and wheat. When a young industry so heavily
relies on just a few key ingredients, if the price
of those incredient ingredients go up, if the supply of
those ingredients goes down, that's going to cause problems in
the supply chain. And that's exactly what happened during the
pandemic um in the summer of Canada, which is a
(17:48):
major producer of yellow peas. Due to severe weather saul
in a reduction in its output of the yellow pas,
which caused some issues for plant based meat makers and
actually the good Food Institute, a nonprofit that advocates for
plant based foods, has kind of sent a warning call
(18:08):
to the industry, saying that if the industry doesn't create
more diversity and its ingredients sourcing, it doesn't so heavily
rely If it continues to so heavily rely on these
four or five main ingredients, it's going to continue to
cause ingredients problems into the into the future, supply chain
problems into the future. And I think one other point
(18:29):
that I that I'd want to make here is that
because a lot of these plant based meat, dairy, and
cheese makers are so small, you know, even beyond meat
is tiny compared to say Kellogg or General Mills, that
means they're relying a lot on third party manufacturers. So
when demand increases, they can't just automatically go to their
(18:51):
own factories and increase the supply. They're relying on these
other manufacturers that are also servicing other startups and other
smaller companies. So I think right now the industry is
kind of in its toddler phase, and it's going to
need to grow up and become more independent, more self
reliant in order to avoid some of these supply chain
(19:13):
disruptions that it experienced during the pandemic and reliably stock
its products on grocery store shelves and on restaurant menus.
Kenny Terrella, reporter at Vox, thank you very much for
joining us. Thanks for having me, Oscar. That's it for today.
(19:36):
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Allow us on I Heart Radio or subscribe wherever you
get your podcast. This episode of The Daily Divers produced
by Victor Wright and engineered by Tony Sargentina. I'm Oscar Ramirez.
This was your Daily Dive do
It's Tuesday, February. I'm Oscar Ramiers in Los Angeles, and
this is the daily dive. Everyone wants a service dog,
and the demand for these helpful pups has led to
a rise of an industry with almost no regulation, and
it can be pricey. Organizations can charge anywhere from fifteen
(00:20):
thousand to forty thousand dollars for a fully trained service dog,
depending on the type of ailment they're supposed to help with. Trainers,
for their part, do incur a lot of costs for boarding,
training and feeding, and must also account for some six
dogs that don't make it through the training process. Market
and Horror Look, senior Colorado correspondent for Kaiser Health News
joined us for the Wild West Market of service dogs next.
(00:42):
Like many industries, the pandemic has taken the plant based
food industry on a roller coaster ride. Early on, regular
meat prices rose about which led to the rising sales
of plant based meats as an alternative by sixty However,
by the end of last year's sales are down, leading
many to think that novelty had worn off and the
industry had peaked. The reality is that there's still a
(01:04):
lot more to come, whether it's in the form of
more fast food launches or other products beyond meat alternatives
such as chicken, seafood and bacon. Kenny Terrella, reporter at
Vox join us for the pandemic highs and lows of
the plant based food industry. It's a goos about the noise.
Let's dive in. You know, when there's demand, an industry
(01:28):
pops up to meet it. So there have been all
these sort of backyard trainers that have created, you know,
for profit companies to train service dogs and they're charging
you know, sometimes like the thirty dollars for fully service
fully trained service dogs. Joining us now was mark In
Horror Luck, senior Colorado correspondent for Kaiser Health News. Thanks
(01:49):
for joining us, mark In, thanks for having me. I
wanted to talk about an interesting subject, service dogs, and
the demand for service dogs that have has gone up
really high right now. It's kind of spurred this industry
where people are training dogs, giving them to people, charging
thousands of dollars for these services. And since there's really
(02:12):
no regulations surrounding an industry like this, a lot of
times dogs maybe aren't well trained. Uh, there's a lot
of problems that are going on with this and obviously
for the families in need of a service dog for
a variety of reasons, right whether whatever the illness that
the dog is catering to. You know, things don't pound
out there. They're out a lot of money. So Mark
and help us walk through some what are we seeing
(02:33):
with this surge and demand for service dogs. You know,
it's really interesting because it used to be that service
dogs were primarily trained by these large kind of nonprofit
groups that raised their own money and provided these dogs
to be families for free. But as you know, we
learned how incredible dogs are and then all the things
they can do. You know, there's there's just so many
(02:55):
more patients that could be helped by dog. You know,
kid has autism or epilepsy, their dogs that could help
them manage that. And so the waiting list became so long.
And you know, when there's demand, an industry pops up
to meet it. So there have been all these sort
of backyard trainers that have created, you know, for profit
companies to train service dogs and they're charging you know,
(03:18):
sometimes up to thirty dollars for fully service to fully
trained service dogs. You did profile a family who is
in need of dogs, possibly two dogs. Tell me their
story just to kind of paint the picture of what
it looks like. Yeah, I spoke to a mother, Jenny Manus,
who uh, you know, She's first thing she told me was,
you know, I'm not that much of a dog person,
(03:39):
but you know, it's got three kids, all of which
have have some health issues. And her oldest daughter, Sriah,
was diagnosed with autism and then her her second oldest kid, Phoenix,
was diagnosed with epilepsy, and doctors have kind of recommended
that she get service dogs to help both of them.
And so they started going through and looking through the
(04:00):
process and they think they've kind of found a cheaper option.
They're they're they're hoping that they can buy dog, do
this sort of basic obedience training themselves, and then have
that dog trained as a service dog. But it's still
going to cost them ten dollars per dog. And this
is a family that lives below the federal poverty line,
so it's it's a huge burden. And to you know
(04:21):
your point about you know, this family is going to
buy their own dog and then have it go through
the training rather than picking out a program dog. So
somebody a dog that you know, the program, the people
that are training it, they get it, they board the dog,
they trained the dog, and when it's all set and
ready to go, they'll place it with a family. There's
a lot of dogs that drop out of these programs.
(04:42):
They're just not equipped to truly be a service dog.
You know, some of them are can be very nice
and all, but you know they can't handle the training
or do the job as effectively. So there's a lot
of dogs that don't make the cut, and that could
be possible for this family too, and other families that
are going that route. Yeah, absolutely means it's part the
reason why the costs are so high, as they have
(05:02):
to cover the sixty of dogs that will wash out
of training as well as the ones that actually get placed.
But you know, for the Manas family, they're going to
you know, breed their owner. They're going to buy a
bread dog and then train them. And when it goes
to the service training, there's a very real possibility that
dog won't be able to handle it. So they're they're
gambling that the dog will make it through and they'll
(05:24):
save money, but in the end they could end up
with just a really expensive family pet. And still not
have that service dog that they need. There's really no
certification process for the service dogs. I know these companies
and trainers will train them to handle specific illnesses and
ailments and all that, but that's they're saying this dog
is ready to help. There there's no overall governing board
(05:46):
or something that gives a certificate to that dog. There
are companies that have popped up where you can register
your animals as as a service animal. And we've obviously
you heard all the stories about people taking the peacocks
onto the plane and things of so it's an unregulated industry.
But even on the dog training side, there's really kind
of no regulation or oversight. There is a nonprofit sort
(06:10):
of industry group for the North American Board of the
Assistance Dogs International, and they do accredit service dog trainers,
but that accreditations voluntary. Only nonprofits are allowed to be accredited.
It takes a few years to do it, but it
does give folks, uh some reassurance that this is a
legitimate outfit training dogs, that they know what they're doing.
(06:32):
But even those dogs, when you know when they come out,
you don't get any sort of certificate to say, oh, yes,
this dog has passed some sort of trials, so we
know that they can know what what the nonprofit has promised.
We're talking about this kind of rise of an industry,
right where a lot of people are training dogs. There's
always bad actors, unfortunately, and this is part of the story.
(06:53):
So you had a couple of examples where there were
some attorneys generals in different states that actually filed lawsuits
again trainers for not providing what they you know, they
were supposed to. And in these cases they were I
think one of them charged the family twenty seven thousand
dollars for a dog, just huge sums of money. Yeah,
it's it's you know, part of the unregulated industry. You know,
(07:16):
there's there's no oversight and there's really very little recourse
for families. I mean, in this case, you know, in
Virginia and North Carolina, these two dog training outfits that
were sued by the training general. The families were able
to get, you know, somebody at the state level to
take up their cause and file suit. But for most families,
you know, if you get a dog that isn't properly trained,
(07:36):
you're just kind of out the money and you don't
really have have much recourse there. Um, it's also a problem.
You know a lot of these trainers rely on volunteers
to do parts of the training. You know, they to
to take the dogs out into public and you know,
they get college students they'll take the dog with them
to class and things of that sort. And the deal
is that the trainer is supposed to pay for their
(07:57):
food and their vet bills and things of that sort
while they're doing this training. And some of those college
students get you know, left out to dry as well
when these companies go under or when they're just simply inscrupulous.
So it's very much, you know, sort of a Wild
West situation out there and sort of buy or beware.
Has there been any effort made to form some type
(08:17):
of certification process, you know, anything on the governmental level too,
to get involved with regulating this. Yeah, there really hasn't
been anything like that. You know. I asked around to
see whether there are any state legislatures or even on
the federal level people stepping in to do this. There
are some regulations around service animals on airplanes that are
written by the Department Transportation, but that doesn't really go
(08:40):
to the training of the dogs. It's it really relies
on an individual to stipulate that their dog is a
service dog and they perform certain duties to help them
and things of that sort. So there's no oversight of
this industry and and that's really leaving families at risk.
I think you talked about a group called medic Months,
(09:00):
So just it cost them eleven dollars just a board
and train the dog. Obviously they have to make a
profit after that too, if if that's part of the industry, right,
if they're not donating the dog like that. But that's
why these costs are so high. Absolutely when you think about,
you know, the cost of acquiring the dog, whether it's
from a breed or whether you're greeting those dogs by yourself.
Then uh, six months of caring for that dog, buying
(09:24):
all the supplies of food, taking into the vet, getting
his shots, and then you know, a half a year
into that dog's life he starts training to be a
service dog. And that's a very labor intensive process. So
it is an expensive proposition and unfortunately some people will
take advantage of that. One of the things that's that's
really kind of allowed this this for profit institute to
(09:46):
grow is is the ability for people to raise money
online through co fund me or Facebook or things of
that sort. You knowing that people aren't paying this, you know,
forty dollars sometimes price tag out of their own pocket.
The trainer can sort of get away with that and
and and still be able to make a profit. So
it's it's a very different world from you know, even
(10:07):
twenty years ago, when the demand wasn't as high. We
didn't know as much about what dogs could do, and
the ability to sort of crowd source the funds for
a dog wasn't existent. It's really an industry that's crying
out for some regulation right now. Markian horror Lack, Senior
Colorado correspondent for Kaiser Health News, Thank you very much
for joining us. Thanks for having me on us. You
(10:29):
appreciate it when a young industry so heavily relies on
just a few key ingredients, if the price of those
incredient ingredients go up, if the supply of those ingredients
goes down, that's going to cause problems in the supply chain.
(10:51):
And that's exactly what happened during the pandemic. Joining us
now is Kenny Terrella, reporter at Vox. Thanks for joining us. Kenny,
thanks for having me. After let's take a look into
the plant based food industry and how the pandemic has
impacted them. Obviously, the pandemic just disrupted pretty much every
(11:11):
part of our lives and all of our industries, a
supply chain issues, all the stuff that was going on.
We've been talking about for a long time. But the
plant based food industry had some interesting turns. Right before
the pandemic, it looked like it was a booming industry.
You know, sales were good, a lot of new products
were being launched, and then the pandemic hit. We saw
(11:33):
regular meat prices rise, the sales of plant based meat
products surge. Everybody thought it was a really good time.
But then things started dropping off again, and obviously they
got also got hit by supply chain issues. And right
now the picture is a little uneven. There's things that
are pointing to it being really good still other things
that are caused for some worry for those in the industry.
(11:54):
So can you help us walk through some of this?
What are we seeing? Yeah, that's right. Like so many industries,
the plant based sector was not immune to all the
volatility of the pandemic. Both you know, consumers panic buying
groceries early on in the pandemic too, then labor shortages
and supply chain disruption. So you know, there were highs
(12:15):
and lows for the plant based sector throughout the pandemic.
And so I'll just run over first the highs where
that you know, people were stuck at home, um, they
had to cook. Restaurants were closed, and so people naturally
began to experiment with cooking and wanted to try new things.
People generally just became more conscientious during the pandemic and
(12:37):
became open to new experiences. So you saw a big
rise in the purchasing of plant based products alternatives to
meet dairy and eggs in the first months of the pandemic.
Sales went up sixty percent for the first few months
in early going into mid And at the same time,
(12:57):
some of the issues in the meat industry were on
fold display, which caused people to kind of have a
first glimpse into the inner workings of how animals are
turned into meat. Um, you had covid ripping through slaughterhouses
causing slowdowns in production, which meant that there were some
meat shortages, and you saw the meat industry, you know,
(13:19):
making front page news most weeks and so that you know,
caused a tail wind for the plant based sector. You
saw sales growing, but like you mentioned, there were many
things that affected a lot of sectors that came for
the plant based sector eventually, such as labor shortages, supply
chain disruptions. Some companies had trouble filling orders and keeping
(13:42):
plant based burgers on the shelves and on menus, and
you know, some big players like Beyond Meat and morning
Star Farms even had earning shortfalls in the third quarter
of last year. And the fact is that this industry
is still in its infancy. It might be the case
that over the last five years at consumers have become
much more aware of these products. They've tried them, maybe
(14:05):
some they like, some they don't, They come back for more,
or they you know, give up on the sector for
for a year or two. But I think, you know,
the industry is still in its infancy and we're not
sure where it's going to go. But you know, I
spoke with an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence and she said,
she said that she predicts the plant based sector will
(14:26):
make up about five per cent of the global meat
market in right now. It's that less than one percent,
so it still is a long way to go to
get there, and consumer enthusiasm is mixed. We both see
some fast food trials of plant based meat have flopped,
while some are just starting to take off. Just this week,
McDonald's launched it's mcplant burger made with beyond meat in
(14:50):
six locations. Last month, KFC launched a beyond meat chicken
product in its four thousand locations. So yeah, we'll see
it's it's been a wild ride for the sector throughout
the last two years, and it'll be interesting to see
where goes in the next two years. Right now, we're
kind of in this mode where we're deep into the
kind of beef, the hamburger meat alternatives, the burger alternatives,
(15:13):
but there's a lot of other products on the way
of seafood chicken. We're starting to see a lot more
chicken products, different things like that that are on the
horizon that could you know, energize the industry and energize
consumers appetite for these other types of alternatives. So, you know,
a lot of these UH products currently are in different
stages of the life cycle. So while we might be
(15:33):
seeing dips right now, you know, in the future. It
could be revived pretty easily if another hit product takes place.
For a long time, you know, veggie burgers tasted more
like veggies than burgers, and then about five years ago,
Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods hit the scene and really
showed meat eaters and non vegetarians that it's possible to
(15:56):
make plant based burgers that taste more like meat than
the veg burgers in the past. And we've seen the
plant based food industry stick to a few basics, making
vegetarian versions of ground beef, of burgers, of sausages, milk
like you mentioned. And then now there's a preponderance of
(16:17):
new vegetarian chicken products sitting the market, but the human
diet is much more expensive, and so I think over
the next five years what we're gonna see is a
lot more variety. Will probably see more varieties of plant
based bacon, plant based cheeses, and yogurts, as well as
different kinds of vegan and vegetarian seafood, and perhaps even
(16:40):
more sophisticated cuts of meat like a steak, if you will.
So I think in the last five years has kind
of been introducing these products to the general public. But
I think over the next five years, we're going to
see uh, you know, growing sophistication and um, perhaps it
will strike more at the husiasm, perhaps it won't. We'll see.
(17:02):
I'm always interested in what happens with supply chain issues,
as we've seen across various industries. So what happened, at
least in the plant based industry. I know you mentioned
the article the price of yellow peas was rising because
there was a drought in Canada, and that was a
huge impact on the industry. The plant based food sector
relies on just a few key ingredients that includes soybeans, peas,
(17:27):
coconut oil, and wheat. When a young industry so heavily
relies on just a few key ingredients, if the price
of those incredient ingredients go up, if the supply of
those ingredients goes down, that's going to cause problems in
the supply chain. And that's exactly what happened during the
pandemic um in the summer of Canada, which is a
(17:48):
major producer of yellow peas. Due to severe weather saul
in a reduction in its output of the yellow pas,
which caused some issues for plant based meat makers and
actually the good Food Institute, a nonprofit that advocates for
plant based foods, has kind of sent a warning call
(18:08):
to the industry, saying that if the industry doesn't create
more diversity and its ingredients sourcing, it doesn't so heavily
rely If it continues to so heavily rely on these
four or five main ingredients, it's going to continue to
cause ingredients problems into the into the future, supply chain
problems into the future. And I think one other point
(18:29):
that I that I'd want to make here is that
because a lot of these plant based meat, dairy, and
cheese makers are so small, you know, even beyond meat
is tiny compared to say Kellogg or General Mills, that
means they're relying a lot on third party manufacturers. So
when demand increases, they can't just automatically go to their
(18:51):
own factories and increase the supply. They're relying on these
other manufacturers that are also servicing other startups and other
smaller companies. So I think right now the industry is
kind of in its toddler phase, and it's going to
need to grow up and become more independent, more self
reliant in order to avoid some of these supply chain
(19:13):
disruptions that it experienced during the pandemic and reliably stock
its products on grocery store shelves and on restaurant menus.
Kenny Terrella, reporter at Vox, thank you very much for
joining us. Thanks for having me, Oscar. That's it for today.
(19:36):
Join us on social media at Daily Dive Pod on
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Allow us on I Heart Radio or subscribe wherever you
get your podcast. This episode of The Daily Divers produced
by Victor Wright and engineered by Tony Sargentina. I'm Oscar Ramirez.
This was your Daily Dive do
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