John Baumgartner is Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst for the Food & Healthy Living sector at Mizuho Securities USA. John has followed the food, food retailing, beverages, and agribusiness industries for 20 years previously as Agriculture Strategist in Commodities Research at Goldman Sachs and in the equities markets at Wells Fargo Securities and Banc of America Securities. His areas of focus include retail sales and consumer purchasing behavior, consumer packaged goods marketing and strategy, and emerging growth categories. John holds a B.S. in Finance from Rutgers University, a M.S. in Business Analytics from the University of Virginia, and a CFA charter holder.

Panel Description

This panel discussion will focus on:

• What is your overall impression of the plant-based food industry’s health today? We hear it’s struggling from the media and the stock market but is there another side of the story from the supply chain and private investors?

• Do cultural factors influence rates of adoption of plant-based meat among countries?

• What can the plant-based meat industry learn from the continued growth of plant-based beverages?

• How does the industry cultivate the next stage of plant-based adopters?

• How will the next generation of plant-based products differ from those currently available?