Leonardo DiCaprio Invests In Beyond Meat For Latest Planet Saving Venture
Leonardo DiCaprio is joining Beyond Meat as both an investor and advocate, the company behind the plant-based Beyond Burger announced today. While the Beyond Burger has been around since June, DiCaprio has characteristically been prepping the role for far longer. "Leo was helpful early on in providing feedback on our burgers as we readied them for launch," Beyond Meat CEO Ethan Brown revealed, conjuring up images of a freezing actor sample various iterations of the "bleeding" burger after a long day of potentially toxic raw bison livers.
“Livestock production is a major contributor to carbon emissions," says DiCaprio, who, when not filming his Oscar-winning portrayal of Hugh Glass, works to advocate for environmental causes. "Shifting from animal meat to the plant-based meats developed by Beyond Meat," continues the actor, who last year produced and narrated global warming documentary Before the Flood, "is one of the most powerful measures someone can take to reduce their impact on our climate.”
The addition of the Titanic star follows Beyond Meat's expansion to, potentially, tens of thousands of new outlets, ranging from grocery stores, to burger chains, to educational facilities worldwide, which should hopefully end its earlier days of instantly selling out. With meatless proteins on the rise even among meat eaters, there's definitely demand.
Of course, as Leonardo DiCaprio points it, what's even more important is that "the company's ability to create appealing, healthy meat directly from plants will go a long way in helping every day consumers take action on climate change." Though it also helps that the "plant-based" burger, which uses beet juice to "bleed," is about as close in taste and texture to meat as you're going to get (and tastes very good). As DiCaprio joins a list of investors that somehow includes both former McDonald's CEO Don Thompson and the Humane Society, let's hope this is the inception of a brighter burger future.
