As far as siblings go, we'd say Elon Musk is a difficult one to follow. Particularly if you're only a year younger than him and your boyhood fantasy of hanging out on Mars became his life goal.
But Kimbal Musk isn't following Elon. He's walking an equally ambitious path beside his brother. Clearly cut from the same cloth, the two started their monopoly of Silicon Valley in the Nineties, when they founded a Google Maps-esque service called Zip2. And went on to sell it for a few hundred mill ($307 FYI) before investing in a small thing called PayPal.
With a healthy bank account, Kimbal moved toward food while his brother continued into tech. A stint in culinary school with a penchant for farm-to-table cuisine and his goal became bigger than taste.
His aim is to entirely change the way Americans consume food by replacing an industrial food system which pumps out low-nutrition, high-calorie food with one that produces real food (that's organic, nutritious food with no weird stuff like corn syrup added) at an affordable price.
America's problem with food, like many things stateside, is far from small. At the tip of the iceberg there's a well-documented obesity problem, unequal access to organic, quality ingredients and a poor education when it comes to nutrition.
It's an issue Musk been working on in the background for years, but he's ready to share his multi-pronged attack in GANT's new TV show Couple Thinkers, hosted by ex-The Late Late Show and all round funny man Craig Ferguson and his wife Megan.
It goes a little something like this. First, get kids into food because, not only are they susceptible to change (and trends, looking at you fidget spinner), they are undoubtedly the future. Then hit the entrepreneurs with opportunity to create something better than what exists. Finally, begin to make it as accessible as a Maccers.
To achieve stage one, Musk has built what he calls "Learning Gardens" in 400 schools across America, focussing on areas with less access to real food.
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One of the original #LearningGardens at the @theculinaryinstituteofamerica So fun visiting the world's future chefs today. #realfoodforeveryone ???A post shared by Kimbal Musk (@kimbalmusk) on Jun 21, 2017 at 10:45am PDT
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The kids grow vegetables from seed to salad-ready and through the process learn about where food should come from and the benefits of a nutritional hit. Giving the Naked Chef a run for his money, what the kids grow in the gardens goes into salad bars in the school cafeterias.
The expectation is that kids will then go home and tell their parents about the great food they have tried, encouraging the familial heads with the money (and therefore power to spark consumer change and thus demand) to start buying real food.
Which makes sense, but what about the millennials and their expectations? Musk has an answer for that too, through another project called Square Roots, which allows young entrepreneurs to start a small farming business in urban areas in what is essentially more productive allotments and sell direct to consumers.
This is no hippie appeal, though it may be Brooklynite cool. There is more money in farming real food than there is in industrial farming - and there's a demand for it.
Supermarket chains are minimising frozen food and microwaveable meal aisles in favour of expanding their fresh and organic ones. Encouraging a generation of entrepreneurial heart and mind to capitalise on this - while also giving them an easy way to have better life quality that more in line with their #goals (even Kylie Jenner wants to leave her mansions to live on a farm and raise chickens) - future-proofs the change he's setting about.
And the big dogs are taking notice too. After spending years on his passion project, Musk knows that the industry is aware that something needs to change, for both the planet's sake and our bodies'. Here's a stat for your next heavy convo in the pub: we're currently producing 20% more food than it would take to feed the entire world (albeit unequally distributed). And most of the industrial stuff is contributing to rising diabetes, malnourishment and obesity, while contributing to a huge environmental issue.
Although his plan would mean less meat (be still your beating heart), it would make for better meat and therefore better burgers. Which is where the final stage comes in.
To showcase how real food can meet the access demand of our restaurant habit, late last year Musk made plans to expand his restaurant chain Next Door, which only serves locally sourced meat and vegetables, deliciously and for around $10 a meal (around the same as a Chipotle). By the end of this year, there should be seven restaurants across the US, and 50 by the end of 2020 to set the precedent.
Ultimately, Musk believes food is the new internet, with massive opportunities. And when a Musk tells you there's an opportunity, you best invest your time, if not dollar, into it.
To find out more about whether real food can feed the world. Watch Kimbal Musk chat to Craig and Megan Ferguson on 'Couple Thinkers', the TV show that champions GANT's never stop learning philosophy. Watch the full episode below:
