Bill Aimutis is Executive Director for the North Carolina Food Innovation Lab (NCFIL) managed by North Carolina State University on the North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis. Prior to his current position, Aimutis was a Research Fellow and Global Director of External Innovation for Cargill, Inc. Bill retired from Cargill in September 2018. After retiring from Cargill, Bill joined NCSU to lead the design, construction, and operation of NCFIL. Bill’s team works with entrepreneurial and multi-national companies in alternative protein, fruit, vegetable, and plant-based product development and scale-up in a pilot plant operating under cGMP and FSMA standards. The NCFIL team is also engaged with multiple companies and organizations in the trend to use alternative proteins from multiple sources (plant, algal, microbial, cell culture) in food products. Bill actively participates in promoting alternative protein policy, marketing, and usage by speaking at numerous professional forums. Bill received a Bachelor of Science degree in Food Science at Purdue University and graduate degrees from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in the Food Science Department. Bill is a Certified Food Scientist, Fellow of the American Dairy Science Association and the Institute of Food Technologists, and a Distinguished Agricultural Alumnus from both Purdue University and Virginia Tech. Additionally, he was awarded an Outstanding Food Science Award from the Food Science Department at Purdue University, and the Ronald O. Ball Lectureship Award from the University of Alberta. Aimutis has served on several industry and university advisory committees and corporate scientific advisory and managing boards.

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?