Michelle Adelman: Transforming the Future of Sustainable Food with Innovation and Impact

Michelle Adelman is an entrepreneur, investor, and sustainability advocate reshaping the global food system through pioneering sustainable technologies. With a career that began in corporate transformation and evolved into mission-driven entrepreneurship, she has established herself as a leader in the future of sustainable agriculture and food production.

From Corporate Leadership to Sustainability Entrepreneurship

Adelman spent over 20 years as a Global Managing Director at Accenture, leading large-scale transformations for Fortune 500 companies. While this role gave her a deep understanding of business strategy and operational efficiency, she was always drawn to solving big global challenges. This passion led her to pivot into entrepreneurship, first leading a private equity-backed healthcare services company before founding Accite Holdings, her investment and operating firm focused on sustainable technology ventures.

Her first major impact investment was Go Fresh!, a hydroponic farming company in Botswana that dramatically reduced food miles—from 1,000 km to just 10 km—by growing fresh produce close to consumption points. She then launched Infinite Foods, bringing leading plant-based brands to four African countries. Her latest venture, Crossover Meats, introduces blended ground meat products that cut environmental impact by 50% while maintaining affordability and great taste.

With each venture, Adelman has built businesses that prove sustainability is not just a responsibility—it’s a competitive advantage. She is set to speak at EarthX, where she will discuss scaling sustainable food solutions and their impact on both people and the planet.

Making Sustainability a Competitive Advantage

For business leaders beginning to incorporate sustainability, Adelman emphasizes that it must be core to the business model rather than treated as an administrative task.

• Efficiency & Cost Savings – Sustainable practices should drive efficiency, reduce costs, and create differentiation. Crossover Meats is a prime example: it delivers a delicious, affordable product that lowers environmental impact by 50%, proving that sustainability and consumer preferences don’t have to be at odds.
• Data-Driven Impact – Numbers matter. Crossover Meats calculates that just one 4 oz serving of their product saves 1.3 kg CO₂e. If a major retailer replaced all its ground meat with Crossover Meats, it could reverse Amazon deforestation. By using data, businesses can make sustainability impact tangible to consumers and investors.
• Partnering with Customers – Sustainability resonates most when it helps customers achieve their own ESG and net-neutral commitments. Go Fresh! successfully positioned itself as the preferred supplier for safari lodges by providing sustainability data for their reporting needs. Crossover Meats equips customers with metrics to support their own sustainability efforts.

Success in Sustainable Innovation

One of Adelman’s most notable sustainability success stories is Go Fresh!, which eliminated food waste and dramatically reduced food miles. By placing greenhouses close to consumers, Go Fresh! created an innovative “pick fresh and deliver daily” model, reducing the need for refrigeration and changing customer purchasing habits. This model built deep customer loyalty, making it difficult for clients to switch back to traditional suppliers.

The Evolution of a Sustainability Vision

Adelman’s focus on sustainability began in 2008, heavily influenced by industry pioneers Jigar Shah and Ann Davlin, who were leading Richard Branson’s Carbon War Room at the time. Their work exposed her to the emerging intersection of technology, investment, and sustainability, inspiring her to take an entrepreneurial approach to climate solutions.

Over time, her philosophy evolved—she now prioritizes building businesses where sustainability is an intrinsic part of the product or service. This approach has allowed her ventures to scale without compromising profitability or environmental impact.

Balancing Profitability and Sustainability

Unlike many sustainability-driven companies that struggle with profitability, Adelman builds businesses where sustainability itself drives economic value.

At Crossover Meats, the company’s model allows consumers to save money while making a sustainable choice. However, she acknowledges that not all strategies work in the long term. For example, at Infinite Foods, her team took a low-margin approach to drive volume and increase adoption of plant-based products in Africa. The strategy was effective—until the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted supply chains and exposed financial vulnerabilities. This experience reinforced the importance of balancing long-term impact with financial resilience.

Overcoming Industry Challenges in Sustainable Meat

Crossover Meats is pioneering a new category—blended quality meats—within an industry traditionally resistant to change.

• Breaking Consumer Perceptions – Big meat companies have long blended low-quality cuts and fillers into their products (think hot dogs and processed burgers). However, these blends were driven by cost-cutting, often leading to highly processed foods. Crossover Meats is changing this narrative by focusing on quality—ensuring that blended meats enhance taste, nutrition, and sustainability rather than cutting corners.
• Educating Consumers – While 60% of consumers claim they consider sustainability in purchasing decisions, this rarely translates into action at checkout. Even in the plant-based food space, sustainability ranks among the lowest factors influencing purchasing decisions. For this reason, Crossover Meats leads with taste, convenience, and price—ensuring consumers don’t feel like they’re making a sacrifice to make a better choice.

The Future of Sustainability in Food

Over the next 5 to 10 years, Adelman sees sustainability becoming a central issue in the food industry, particularly in industrialized animal agriculture.

While major meat corporations have made net-zero commitments, most are still in the early stages of change. The challenge? Much of this shift depends on consumer-driven demand—which could mean higher prices as companies adopt regenerative agriculture and humane practices. Adelman predicts that the most innovative solutions will come from smaller, sustainability-focused businesses that build their models with efficiency and environmental impact at their core.

What Can the Average Person Do?

For individuals looking to make a difference, Adelman believes that food choices have the greatest impact—and the benefits extend beyond sustainability.

“We vote for the environment three times a day with our meals,” she says.

Animal-based foods—especially red meat and dairy—have a significant environmental footprint. Simply switching to more sustainable alternatives can create measurable change.

For example, if the average American replaced 40 lbs of ground red meat per year with Crossover Meats, they would personally save:
✅ 1 acre of land
✅ 11,000 gallons of water
✅ 215 kg CO₂e annually

Sustainability isn’t about perfection—it’s about scalable choices. And food, according to Adelman, is one of the biggest levers we have.

A Vision for a Better Future

Through her ventures—Go Fresh!, Infinite Foods, and Crossover Meats—Michelle Adelman is proving that sustainability and business success can go hand in hand. By approaching sustainability as an opportunity rather than an obligation, she continues to build scalable, profitable, and impact-driven solutions that reshape the food industry for the better.

As she prepares to speak at EarthX, her message is clear: Sustainability isn’t just a trend—it’s the future of food, business, and the planet.