Jeff Stier, Senior Fellow of the Consumer Choice Center, will today call on the private sector and the public health community to innovate their way towards a better world.

Speaking at the annual industry conference, the Global Tobacco & Nicotine Forum, in London, the innovation and harm reduction advocate will call on companies to follow the example set by Impossible Foods, the US makers of The Impossible Burger

Stier will point out that Impossible Foods founder, Dr. Patrick Brown, recognized in 2009 that the academic and regulatory approach to harm reduction wasn’t working, and that his response to that was to raise the necessary investment, recruit experts, and spend the next five years developing The Impossible Burger. Through innovation Impossible Foods have recreated the taste, look, sizzle, texture, and smell of a traditional beef burger, which even “bleeds” like one, but is made with plants-based products, and no animal products.

Stier will tell delegates that the “Recipe for a Better World” is to follow the example of the Impossible Burger by innovating in the same way to reduce the harmful impact that products such as combustible tobacco can have on people:

• Whereas The Impossible Burger uses leghemoglobin to replicate the taste of a traditional burger, Stier will say that tobacco and nicotine companies should continue to innovate in the same way to develop a product that replicates the same sensations of cigarettes until every last smoker is satisfied with a reduced -risk product.

He will add that innovation should replace regulation as the primary method of reducing harm, as it has proven far more effective than any intervention by State regulators in changing the behavior of consumers:

• The rise in e-cigarettes over the past five years is proof that innovation works, while the introduction of TPDII by EU regulators is being blamed for the slower growth in products replacing cigarettes;
• Regulators should instead follow the example set by the FDA in the US which acknowledged that leghemoglobin contained in The Impossible Burger was generally recognized as safe, instead of rushing to overregulate or ban it.

SPEECH AND INTERVIEW REQUESTS

Jeff Stier will speak at 14.20 UK time today at the Rosewood Hotel. If you wish to interview Jeff Stier we will do everything we can to accommodate you. Please either submit your request for interview by email (david@davidroach.co.uk / info@davidroach.co.uk) or WhatsApp on +44(0)7757 719 948 / +44(0)7909 036 011.