An essay on the discursive state of Sustainable Food Transitions : A discourse analysis of an experimental food company’s marketing material, the “Liberation of Protein Production”

Abstract: The thesis' purpose is to investigate the discursive state of sustainable food transitions by examining how Industry, as exemplified by an experimental food company namely Solar Foods at the forefront of the field, communicate and add to this discourse, as observed in their marketing video series Liberators of Protein Production, as well as how it reflects hegemonic discourses, chiefly seen to the amalgamated actors Government and Populace. Discourse theory is used and established as an admittedly austere methodological apparatus as well as analytical framework to collect data and map the discursive landscape, meaning what discourses are communicated and their relations to each other as well as said hegemonic discourses. The thesis' contribution is chiefly said apparatus and framework which may be used to efficiently develop understandings of this (or other) discourse(s) and what futures they ultimately promote. Findings center around three observed themes, rather marketing objectives as they are presented, in the discourse: Demonization of current, "the old and bad", agriculture; Idolization of the new cellular agriculture, by means of Solar Foods' technology; Accommodation of this technology's new product in today's world.  Summarily, the "Food Revolution" presented is essentially yet another season of Creative Destruction: as climate collapse and consumer guilt devalues the current agricultural food market, Solar Foods' merely position to usurp demand, replacing one product with another, albeit more climate friendly, like product under the same flag of an inherently schizophrenic monetary formula. Thus, I argue, they scarcely refurbish the current, unsustainable market logic while forfeiting a tangible opportunity to inaugurate a new, needed Food-narrative in any adequate way.