6.3.2 Arrest Disorder

How to make money from efficiency and optimization is the main factor driving investment decision-making in the paradigm of arrest disorder. This investing paradigm tries to waste less and produce returns through promoting lean corporate processes, technical advancements in efficiency, or decreased resource usage. Investing strategies based on arrest disorders are once again linked to a specific step in the food value chain, albeit with a more thorough analysis of resource use and utilization.

Investments in food products that lessen the consumer’s effort or harm include those that are quicker or easier to consume, have fewer calories, sugar, or fat, or are less problematic from an ethical standpoint. Products like Soylent, “diet” sodas or low-alcohol beers, as well as plant-based meats like Impossible burgers or OmniPork, are specific examples. Ag-tech efficiencies, such as reduced pesticide use, lower water requirements, fewer fertilizer inputs with higher yields, farm software solutions, and labor-saving robots, are the main focus of investments in agricultural production.

Investors operating within this paradigm frequently speak in a defensive manner about the significance and validity of their strategy, which is consistent with the general attitude of Arrest Disorder. Investors in plant-based “meats,” for instance, which have a lower environmental impact than industrial animal protein production, criticize holistic rotational grazing methods that go beyond harm reduction and improve the health of ecosystems and soils. Despite public uproar against ocean pollution and the larger systemic capabilities of carbon-sequestering packaging materials sourced from sustainable forestry, plastics producers aggressively point to the greenhouse greenhouse gas emissions and water efficacy of their single-use packaging.