In San Francisco, even the eggs are high-tech. Just, a food-tech start-up launched in 2011, created a software program to scour more than 350,000 plants for proteins, nutrients and properties that make them good to cook and eat. After four years, it discovered how to make eggless scrambled eggs from mung beans.
在旧金山，甚至连鸡蛋都是高科技。创建于2011年的食品科技初创企业Just开发了一款软件程序，旨在筛选35万多种植物，寻觅蛋白质、营养成分以及让它们好做又好吃的特性。4年后，该公司发现了如何用绿豆制作不含鸡蛋的炒蛋。
I recently visited Just’s headquarters in the Mission district with Jay Timmons, the chief executive of the US National Association of Manufacturers. He was on a state-by-state tour to drum up support for American “makers”.
最近，我与美国全国制造商协会(National Association of Manufacturers)主席杰伊.迪蒙斯(Jay Timmons)一起访问了Just位于旧金山教会区(Mission District)的总部。迪蒙斯正对各州进行访问，以争取对美国“生产企业”的支持。
Just researchers travel to biodiversity hotspots such as the southern Amazon basin in Colombia, bringing back powdered leaves or freeze-dried pulp seeds that are then stored in plastic tubs in a cold room. In another lab, scientists grow stem cells into slabs of animal-less meat.
Just的研究人员走访生物多样化的热点地区(例如哥伦比亚的亚马逊盆地南部)，带回磨成粉末状的树叶以及冰冻干燥的果肉和种子，然后把它们存放在一间冷藏室的塑料盒中。在另一个实验室，科学家们在用干细胞培养片状的人造肉，让人一瞥不用屠宰动物的未来。
One of Just’s first products was an eggless mayonnaise. But in 2015, the US Food and Drug Administration ruled it could not be called mayonnaise. It is made from Canadian yellow peas, another of the unappreciated proteins that the company is turning into more recognisable foods. This “Just Mayo” is now sold across the US in Walmart and Kroger, and is served in the cafeterias at the New York Stock Exchange and the Department of Homeland Security.
Just的首批产品之一是无蛋蛋黄酱。但在2015年，美国食品药物管理局(FDA)裁定，这种产品不能叫做蛋黄酱。它由加拿大黄豌豆制成，这是另一种尚未得到充分重视的蛋白质来源，而该公司正把它制成更容易辨认的食品。这种“Just Mayo”现在在全美各地的沃尔玛(Walmart)和克罗格(Kroger)超市有售，还进入了纽约证交所(New York Stock Exchange)和国土安全部(Department of Homeland Security)的食堂。
Timmons describes Just, whose latest efforts include plant-based cookies and ice cream, as the “most unorthodox food stop” on his tour. He asks Josh Tetrick, its CEO, if the mayo is vegan. Tetrick shudders at the V-word. “Like ketchup is a vegan product,” he says defensively.
Just的最新产品包括基于植物的饼干和冰激凌。迪蒙斯把Just称为他此次旅程中“最不正统的用餐地点”。他问该公司首席执行官乔希.蒂特里克(Josh Tetrick)：“Just Mayo”算不算严格素食产品(vegan，除了不吃肉之外，也排除乳制品和禽蛋等所有动物制品——译者注)?蒂特里克对这个V词明显感到不快。他辩白说：“就好像番茄酱是一种严格素食产品一样。”
Just’s vision is not to have its products adopted only by vegan San Franciscans. Tetrick wants to feed everyone, from residents of his hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, to undernourished children in Liberia. He says he founded the company to address the global food shortage. Realising that big food companies rely on a limited set of tools — soy, corn, processed sugar — he wanted to find and create alternatives.
Just的愿景不是只让旧金山的严格素食主义者选用其产品。蒂特里克希望让所有人享用，从他的家乡——阿拉巴马州伯明翰——的居民，到利比里亚营养不良的儿童。他说，他创建这家公司的目的是应对全球粮食短缺。在意识到大型食品公司依赖一套有限的工具(大豆、玉米、精制糖)后，他希望找到和创造替代品。
Just has found itself in some serious scrambles. Before the FDA ruling, it faced a lawsuit from Unilever (since dropped), which took exception to the term mayonnaise for an eggless product.
Just发现自己遇到一些大麻烦。在美国食品药物管理局做出裁决之前，该公司曾遭到联合利华(Unilever)的起诉(后来撤诉)，后者反对用蛋黄酱来描述一款无蛋产品。
Then there was a federal investigation into whether it was buying up its own product from supermarket shelves (the company said this was for quality control purposes, and the probe found no wrongdoing). Turbulence at the top has led to the firing of three senior employees, and six board directors have left in the past two years, including representatives of major investors.
接着，该公司受到一项联邦调查，焦点问题是它有没有从超市货架买下自己的产品(该公司表示，此举是为了质量控制，而调查没有发现不当行为)。高层动荡导致3名高级雇员被解雇，过去两年还有6名董事离职，包括大投资者的代表。
Tetrick doesn’t dwell on those struggles but admits he underestimated how hard mass manufacturing is. He has found that even if the company can create interesting products in the lab, it needs to be able to tell factories how to manufacture them at scale.
蒂特里克不想多谈这些困难，但承认，他低估了大规模生产的难度。他发现，即便该公司能够在实验室创造出有意思的产品，它也需要能告诉工厂如何量产。
“We are not shipping code in an iPhone, we are making food for brothers and sisters to put in their body,” he tells me. But he says he has been humbled by the experience. This is impressive — it is unusual for entrepreneurs to acknowledge the difficulty of achieving goals outside the Silicon Valley app-sphere.
他告诉我：“我们不是在发运iPhone的代码，我们是在生产让我们的兄弟姐妹咽到肚子里的食物。”但他表示，这些经历让他变得谦逊。这令人印象深刻：企业家致力于实现在硅谷app领域以外的目标，并承认有难度，这是不同寻常的。
At the end of the tour, I tried Just’s scrambled “eggs”. The chef picked up a shapely bottle of Just Scrambled and poured what looked like whisked eggs into a pan. The mung-bean mix cooks just like eggs, in swirls of translucent liquid that solidifies into yellow fluff.
此行结束时，我品尝了Just的“炒蛋”。厨师拿起一瓶Just Scrambled，瓶身优美，然后把看上去像打散的鸡蛋的东西倒在一只平底锅里。这种绿豆混合物在烹调时的表现就像鸡蛋一样，半透明的液体打着漩涡，随后硬化为黄色蓬松物质。
I pick up a fork and taste. In my mouth, it feels like scrambled egg. At the tip of my tongue, it tastes like eggs. But — and this may have been all the bean talk — by the time it reaches the back of my throat, I can detect a slight beany-ness. Maybe it needs a little vegan ketchup.
我拿起叉子品尝。它在我嘴里感觉像炒蛋。舌尖上的味道也很像鸡蛋。但是(这可能是因为之前在谈论豆子)在咽下去时，我尝得出略微的豆子味道。或许，它需要一点素食番茄酱。