The Future of Meat: Technology, Sustainability, and the Meats of Tomorrow
Event description
Join Bruce Friedrich, founder and president of the Good Food Institute, at The Commonwealth Club of California for a conversation inspired by his new book, Meat.
Drawing on decades of work advancing science, policy, and industry collaboration, Bruce will explore how innovations in plant-based, fermentation-derived, and cultivated meat are expanding the ways we can produce the foods people love while using fewer resources and building a more resilient food system.
Whether you’re curious, skeptical, or already following the field, this conversation offers an opportunity to dig into one of today’s most important food questions—and to ask your own during the audience Q&A.
Stick around after the program for a book signing and a chance to sample bites featuring products from Impossible Foods and other innovators.
Event location
Meet the speaker
Bruce Friedrich
PRESIDENT AND FOUNDER, GFI
Bruce Friedrich serves as GFI’s chief thought leader and relationship-builder, working in close partnership with GFI’s global teams and food system stakeholders around the world.
Bruce has penned op-eds for the Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, Nature Food, Wired, and many other publications. He has represented GFI on the Ezra Klein Show, Making Sense (Sam Harris), TED Radio Hour, New Yorker Radio Hour, PBS News Hour, and a variety of other podcasts and TV programs. Bruce’s TED talk has been viewed almost 2.5 million times and translated into 30 languages.
Nature featured Bruce’s 2026 book Meat as one of its five “best science picks,” and Publishers Weekly selected Meat as one of the 10 best new releases in science, writing: “This packed account makes food science feel like an urgent and essential undertaking.”
The book has also received praise from Nobel Laureate in economics Michael Kremer, primatologist Jane Goodall, science fiction master Kim Stanley Robinson, and CSIS director of global food and water security Caitlin Welsh, who penned the foreword. Says Welsh: “This book explains the imperative to transform our food systems, and lays out a game plan to get us there…. Meat is as important as it is enjoyable.”
Find out more on the book’s website, MeatBook.org.
Bruce graduated magna cum laude from Georgetown Law and also holds degrees from Johns Hopkins University, the London School of Economics, and Grinnell College.
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Bruce Friedrich heads to The Commonwealth Club for a conversation about Meat—and why rethinking how we produce meat could shape the future of food.
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