There’s a conspiracy that I think could’ve been a big deal. In 2022 or so, there was a shortage, especially beef in Burgerland. That’s right, burgers were starting to become scarce in Burgerland, causing prices to rise, resulting in people getting chicken instead. What was interesting though was that I am friends and family with a lot of farmers and ranchers, many of whom had cattle. Lots of cattle. There was no shortage on their end, things were business as usual for them.
Coincidentally, there became a lot of ESG pressure on farmers and there was also a yuge and bigly press for people to get into Beyond Meat, Impossible Meat, etc. I believe the “shortage” was entirely artificial and was an attempt to push people off of meat, cattle specifically. It stopped after 2023 because it was a failure and would’ve been a campaign issue for the 2024 elections. Suddenly we heard investors pull out of Beyond Meat and beef became more readily available again. I think this was completely artificial.