Annie Ryu doesn’t think choosing a plant-based diet should be a sacrifice.
“When you’re going to eat food for the day…you want to enjoy it,” said Ryu, the 33-year-old founder of The Jackfruit Company and jack & annie’s, brands specializing in turning jackfruit into tasty, healthy meat-alternative food choices. On July 30, she sat down with Natalia Paine, Rare’s Senior Program Manager of Sustainable Food for a Rare Conversation entitled “What’s the Recipe for a Healthy Climate?”
Ryu’s story began in 2011 when she traveled to India as a pre-med student from Harvard College focusing on maternal and child healthcare. While walking past colorful fruit stands, Ryu noticed a large, spiky, lime-colored fruit that she had never seen in her home state of Minnesota.
It was a jackfruit, a high-fiber, low-calorie fruit native to the global South. It’s drought-resistant, easy to grow, and one of the highest-yielding crops in the world. The texture of jackfruit, before it’s completely ripe and the sugars fully develop, is similar to meat. But unlike meat, it has no saturated fat or cholesterol, and according to Ryu, has a 94% lower carbon footprint than beef.
While it has been used in the cuisines of various Southeast Asian countries, jackfruit has never quite garnered the attention of the international food supply chain.
“It was basically money growing on trees that farmers would be able to access, if we could build the supply chains to get it to market,” she said.
Ryu’s business model is based on sustainability and improving the livelihoods and market opportunities for families already growing jackfruit as a shade or border crops for other, more traditionally marketable crops.
“So these are farmers who farm other things, and happen to have jackfruit, because the jackfruit itself is so helpful for a healthy ecosystem,” said Ryu.
So far, the company’s farm-to-fork supply chain supports over 1,700 farming families, providing 10-40% of their income.
Back in the United States, the conversation around healthy eating and meat alternatives has gained much attention. According to research from Rare’s Center for Behavior and the Environment (BE.Center), about one in three Americans say they’re trying to eat less beef. But, the current market around plant-based meat alternatives, according to Ryu, has not lived up to consumer standards.
“Plant-based meat came in with really loud messaging around it, like ‘bleeds like meat,’” she explained. “I think the expectation was set really, really high that this is going to be just like meat. But you can’t have your cake and eat it too.”
That’s where jackfruit comes in. As a naturally meaty plant, jackfruit, Ryu believes, has the potential to start helping Americans turn their desires to eat less meat into action.
“’Just eat healthier’ or ‘eat more plants’ is really hard for people,” said Ryu. “And we’re not going to try to get people to change their behavior and start eating Sri Lankan jackfruit curries tomorrow.” Instead, the focus for both producers and consumers should be how to make plant-based options more accessible and enjoyable.
“So, we’re going to make jackfruit available to people…and help people shift their behavior in a positive way,” she said. “That’s [an] incremental shift towards better.”
To watch more Rare Conversations, click here.