The Brief

A woman wearing what can only be described as rags struggles to push something large, round, and yellow up a mountain. She lets out a primal scream. A female comedian’s face appears overhead, shimmering through ominous clouds. This is not the cold open for a wacky alt-comedy web series — it’s an ad for a plant-based cheese company.

The company in question is called Plonts, and the large yellow thing is, of course, a humongous wheel of (plant-based) cheese. From here, things get weirder: The comedian whose face looms large in the sky is Kate Berlant, a performer known for her screwball and self-referential work. As Berlant quibbles with the woman on the mountain, her wry and goofy presence instantly sets the ad’s tone. With this tongue-in-cheek approach, Plonts seems to be saying that this is not a regular plant-based cheese brand — this is a cool plant-based cheese brand, one that doesn’t take itself too seriously and doesn’t want you, the consumer, to either. This ethos is aptly summarized by the ad’s tagline: Buying Plonts “won’t save the planet,” it reads. “But it probably won’t hurt.”

In the plant-based protein space, Plonts is zigging where other brands are zagging. Many plant-based brands — whether it’s oat milk or fake-beef burgers that really bleed — introduced themselves to consumers by hyping up the environmental benefits of a plant-based diet. But as they’ve learned that sustainability isn’t a deciding factor for most customers, alternative protein brands have pivoted in recent years, putting more emphasis on things like taste and nutritional benefits. 

Using humor in climate messaging

Rather than relying too heavily on any of these messages, Plonts’ new ad makes a show of playfully shrugging off its climate advantages — and calling into question whether consumerism can really get us out of the climate crisis.

If nothing else, this tactic makes the company stand out. “The category of plant-based foods, I would say, has had a pretty uniform ethics or party line,” says Jason Moran, creative director on the marketing team at Red Antler, a branding agency.

That line has traditionally been hyper-focused on the environmental benefits of eating more plants and less meat. A vegan diet results in 75 percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions than a diet high in meat. Because animal agriculture tends to require both land for grazing and cropland to grow inputs for animal feed, livestock also uses a disproportionate amount of the Earth’s agricultural land — about 80 percent.

These statistics once seemed like the key to swaying consumers to eat less meat. A decade ago, plant-based protein companies made an earnest case for the environmental benefits of fake meat. When Beyond Meat launched its “beef-free crumbles” in 2014, CEO Ethan Brown told reporters that addressing “all this doom and gloom about climate change” is “as simple as changing what’s at the center of your plate.” At times, plant-based companies doubled down on that rhetoric, practically pleading with audiences to see the writing on the wall. In a 2016 TED Talk introducing the world to Impossible Foods’ hyper-realistic veggie burgers, company founder Pat Brown (no relation) said that the global appetite for meat “is the main reason behind an ongoing wildlife holocaust.” Eliminating animal agriculture might sound like a tall order, Brown said, but it “has to be done.” The oat milk brand Oatly once took out a full-page newspaper ad on “how the pursuit of profit without consideration for the planet should be considered a crime,” according to the company’s creative director.

Now, the same companies are trying different approaches. Market research has shown that consumers are motivated by factors like taste, familiarity, price, and nutrition more than plant-based foods’ “altruistic attributes,” like sustainability. Earlier this year, Impossible Foods announced “a new brand identity inspired by the craveability of meat.” This kind of brand positioning alludes to meat’s climate impact without saying the word “climate” directly — and instead by repeating the word “meat.” (“[W]hy not solve the meat problem with MORE meat?” reads one page on the Impossible Foods website.) Oatly, meanwhile, has continued to highlight the environmental benefits of a plant-based diet, but in surprising, off-the-wall ways. The brand’s cheeky “Help Dad” campaign is aimed at convincing reluctant fathers to make the switch to oat milk, while its recent mock-exposé attacks “the dairy industry’s lack of transparency about the climate impact of its products.”

Rarely, though, has a plant-based protein brand knowingly leaned into the ambiguity around consumerism as a meaningful lever for climate action, as Plonts is doing. In the ad, Berlant suggests that the woman on the mountain needn’t huff and puff on that ragged path upwards — an act meant to symbolize eating a plant-based diet to save the planet. Instead, the woman can buy Plonts. “Fighting climate change is too hard,” the company declares on its website. “Just eat some plant-based cheese instead.”

Here, Plonts takes an honest stab at having it both ways: The company acknowledges the environmental impact of eschewing dairy without overstating the power of individual choice. “It’s really frustrating to be up against this massive problem where, you know, realistically, our individual sacrifices aren’t going to move the needle on climate change,” said Sophie Moscovici-Troyka, brand manager at Plonts, who previously worked at Impossible Foods. “At the same time, you see a lot of mission-driven companies putting the pressure on consumerism as the answer to climate change, which has all sorts of paradoxes within it. We wanted to poke fun at that tension.”

To sidestep the guilt that can come with eating meat or dairy on a warming planet, “We definitely took inspiration from different comedians and brands,” said Moscovici-Troyka. On the comedy side, that includes comic and actor Julio Torres, who has joked that the hardest part of being vegan is all of the apologizing. (“People ask me if I miss meat or dairy,” the joke goes. “I mean, I miss being liked.”) On the brand side, Moscovici-Troyka cites Oatly and the canned water company Liquid Death for their arch, irreverent approaches to marketing.

Making food choices

Plonts also seems to be part of a new wave of plant-based cheese companies promising to compete with dairy milk on taste. Its cheese is made by adding cultures, enzymes, and salt to plant-based milk, in a process similar to making dairy cheese; the resulting product is then aged to enhance its flavor, and additives are introduced to give it the ability to melt. Currently, the vegan cheese is only available to order at restaurants in New York and San Francisco, but the company hopes to break into retail in the future. It may be too soon to tell whether the brand’s messaging is resonating with consumers; just a few weeks out from its launch, the company declined to share sales numbers. Right now, the Plonts ad is appearing on social media and video sharing platforms.

A view of the exterior as Carl's Jr. & Beyond Meat Partner For First-Ever Plant-Based Meat Menu Takeover in Glendale

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One of the best things any brand can do when establishing itself, says Moran, is picking an audience: knowing both who you’re trying to sell to, and who you’re OK not reaching. He suggests that even if Plonts’ approach doesn’t resonate with everyone, it’s on the right track.

If Plonts is speaking “directly” to the people who are “unsure or who are not actively making food choices to save the environment,” said Moran, that may be good business. While only about 4 percent of Americans identify as vegetarian (and even fewer as vegan), a 2020 report found that more than half of Americans would be willing to eat more vegetables and less red meat. A slightly smaller percentage, 46 percent, said they’d be willing to try nondairy alternatives to products like milk and cheese. For many, making environmentally-friendly dietary choices just isn’t top of mind: Two-thirds of survey respondents said no one has ever asked them to eat more plant-based foods. Courting those eaters, said Moran, “I think is powerful.”

Got a taste for ducks cooked the Chinese way? Your quest may take you to a quiet suburban backyard in South Pasadena.

That's where That Peking Duck Guy cooks and sells his birds. His clients, he said, include Phil Rosenthal and Roy Choi.

The guy behind That Peking Duck Guy is Hong Pham, who started the social media account in late 2025 as a way to document his latest culinary obsession: making the perfect duck, be it Peking or Pipa (deboned and flattened into the shape of the namesake Chinese string instrument).

The intention was not to sell. "I have a day job," Pham said. A radiologist, to be precise.

"I was actually making so many that neighbors wanted to claim it and offered to buy it," he added. "So I'm like, 'OK, that makes it easier 'cause I don't have to eat it all.'"

Soon came DMs from strangers asking for the same thing.

These days, That Peking Duck Guy caters events and holds takeout pop-ups where people can purchase and pick up a duck (which comes with sides and duck soup) from his South Pasadena backyard — right where he cooks them.

Peking duck from That Peking Duck Guy served with Chinese sweet sauce, chopped spring onions and cucumber slices.

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Duck is the latest obsession

Duck is not his first rodeo. Pham said he and his wife are foodies who've always been curious about delving into Vietnamese and other Asian culinary traditions. For Pham, that also means replicating some of these dishes at home, from scratch.

He'd gone on a tofu bender — making gallons of the stuff, as blocks, drinks and pudding — and also a bánh cuốn spree, or Vietnamese steamed rice rolls. He landed on duck as his latest subject only because he had wanted to make better heo quay, or Vietnamese roasted pork belly.

It's the oven

Pham and one of his special outdoor ovens he uses to roast duck.

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He researched how to get that extra crisp online and landed on an oven people in Asia use to make roast and Peking ducks.

"It was called the Apollo oven 'cause it looks like an Apollo space capsule," he said.

He bought one and then another. In between, he experimented cooking different meats with the new oven to get a feel before turning to the waterfowl.

He even got advice from Top Chef winner Mei Lin, whom he messaged cold: "She's like, 'Keep it simple. Keep it basic. Keep it traditional.'"

Three Pipa ducks inside the oven.

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Hundreds of ducks later, Pham said he still learns something new. That's one reason why his side hustle has stuck around.

"I didn't create like, you know, That Bánh Cuốn Man," he said. "Yeah, duck's gonna last."

Two Pipa ducks fresh out of the oven.

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Southern Californians who’ve long shopped at Daiso, Miniso, Uniqlo or 99 Ranch Market may not be surprised to see the Asian-rooted chains expand across the country.

But that growth is now showing up in the numbers.

The National Retail Federation’s Hot 25 Retailers list ranks retailers by U.S. sales growth from 2024 to 2025. Miniso tops the list, with sales up nearly 53%.

The Chinese chain of gift shops opened its first U.S. store in Pasadena’s Old Town more than nine years ago and is now aiming to grow its American footprint to nearly 500 stores this year.

“If you can make it in Southern California, that's great,” said David Marcotte, senior vice president of global retail and technology at Kantar and an author of the NRF list.

A 99 Ranch market opened in 2023 in Eastvale.

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Marcotte says succeeding in California’s highly competitive retail market can teach chains lessons that translate elsewhere.

“The stone-cold reason is quality. The second one is experience,” he said. “Those are the two things that when shoppers go into any retailer, they’re looking for.”

Daiso ranks third, with growth of nearly 26%, while another Japanese company, Fast Retailing — the parent company of Uniqlo — comes in sixth.

99 Ranch Market, an American supermarket chain founded in Orange County that specializes in Asian groceries, comes in 15th.

Marcotte says Southern California has been a logical landing spot for these companies because of its proximity to Asia. But Marcotte says it can also be an unforgiving place to launch because of the competition, and he often encourages the clients he advises to consider smaller markets.

“I said if you open in Southern California, open one store, get it right,” Marcotte said. “If you get it wrong, you're dead. You'll never recover. You'll have to leave the country and come back in.”

The supermarket industry is particularly tough to break into because customers here, he says, have plenty of alternatives if the quality, selection or experience falls short.

He also emphasizes a retailer in California focused on Asian goods will see more success serving Chinese, Filipino and other Asian customers rather than designing around a particular ethnic group.

“That type of diversity of Asian customers that you have to address in the same store is what really proves to be the difference for an Asian retailer in the California market,” Marcotte said.

That’s part of the business model for 99 Ranch, which was founded by a Taiwanese immigrant who opened the first location in Westminster's Little Saigon in 1984.

Scientists have now gotten closer to understanding how gene mutations may lead some people to develop profound autism.

The clues, they say, lie in the murky space between genes and disease — where key proteins come together and interact.

A team of researchers from UC San Francisco mapped more than a thousand interactions between many proteins that come from certain autism risk genes. This molecular atlas, published in the journal Science, could point researchers toward new and promising treatments.

"It's an unprecedented resource for the field," says Dr. Daniel Geschwind, a professor of human genetics, neurology, and psychiatry at UCLA who was not involved with the study. "A lot of people interested in understanding autism and drug development are going to be using this."

For families affected by profound autism, it offers hope for eventual drug therapies. "This is the kind of scientific advance we have been waiting for and praying for," says Alison Singer, president of the nonprofit Autism Science Foundation, who has a daughter with severe cognitive impairment. "There's still a lot of work ahead, [but] this paper makes the path from genetic discovery to treatment much clearer."

The work builds on progress made in recent years to identify single genes that harbor mutations found in a subset of individuals with profound autism.

Getting past the "wall"

People with profound autism often live with severe intellectual disability and require around-the-clock care. They're nonverbal or minimally verbal, and often have serious medical conditions like epilepsy.

Pinning down the biology behind profound autism has always been a complicated endeavor — while both genes and environmental factors play a role, those factors can vary widely from person to person.

In the past decade or so, some genetics researchers have had remarkable success in identifying high-impact genetic differences in a subset of people with profound autism.

"They've discovered several hundred genes and corresponding mutations that are prevalent in [these] individuals," says Nevan Krogan, director of the Quantitative Biosciences Institute at UC San Francisco.

"But they kind of hit a wall," he added — because scientists haven't been able to turn those gene discoveries into many promising drugs and treatments.

"There was this huge missing piece," says Dr. Matthew State, a clinical psychiatrist and geneticist at UCSF: The genes serve as blueprints for making proteins that drive brain development, but researchers lacked visibility into how those proteins do the work.

State has been a pioneer in identifying high-risk genes, and the mutations in those genes, that are associated with profound autism. Krogan has been at the forefront of using new technology to look into protein interactions.

More than a decade ago, the two researchers were introduced by their mutual boss, the chancellor at UCSF, who encouraged them to collaborate. "[State] had the genes and the mutations. I had the technologies to look at the corresponding proteins," Krogan says.

They focused on filling a knowledge gap. "What we've been missing is the mechanistic understanding of how these mutations [on the genes] are seemingly resulting in autism," Krogan says. "In order to understand that, you need to go to the proteins."

Proteins are the complex molecules that come together to build the body, based on instructions encoded in the genes. "What makes an eye cell an eye cell, and a muscle a muscle, are the proteins and how they work together," State says. "They are the machinery of life."

In this case, the researchers wanted to find the molecular machinery of profound autism — to understand which proteins came from those high-risk autism genes, and how those proteins worked together.

The research was slow at first, but more recent advances in technology — including artificial intelligence — have sped things up.

To start, the researchers went on a "fishing expedition" for protein interactions. They chose 100 proteins from these high-risk autism genes, injected them into lab-grown cells, and then pulled them out, along with the additional proteins that attached to them.

Then, they used an AI system called AlphaFold, developed by Google DeepMind, to help determine which proteins in the clumps were directly touching. "Where AI is playing an important role is being predictive about who's talking to who," says Krogan. "Sometimes they take years to figure out. Now, we can get these insights in an hour." While imperfect, the system has worked well enough to save significant time and money, Krogan says.

Then, they wanted to see what happened to the proteins when the genes got tweaked. They introduced mutations that appear in patients with profound autism, and assessed what changed. "We broke the proteins in the way that they're broken in autism," says State. "That allows us ultimately to answer the question of, when they're going wrong in autism, how are they going wrong?"

They conducted this research in frogs and in organoids, which are lab-grown tissues that model the human brain. In one example, the mutations weakened the connection between two proteins related to which genes turn on and off in a cell. Then, one went rogue, turning on other genes that led to neurodevelopmental defects in organoids.

Molecular convergence

There are hundreds of rare, high-risk autism genes, acting in more than a thousand different ways.

But in mapping more than 1,800 protein interactions, the researchers found that many of them moved along shared biological pathways — particularly those related to early brain development, such as how synapses get constructed, and which neurons develop and when.

The convergence found in this study aligns with other recent publications, adding to an emerging understanding in the field, says Dr. Geschwind of UCLA.

"If we look at multiple mutations and they converge on the same process, that's strong evidence that you're dealing with the things that you want to treat," State says.

Identifying this more limited set of protein complexes that likely contribute to the development of profound autism could change the approach to treatments, says Singer with the Autism Science Foundation. "We've been working gene-by-gene to correct mutations," she says.

And if future drugs could target these shared protein pathways, she adds, "we may not need that separate therapeutic strategy for every autism gene."

Setting sights on new drug-development targets

It takes years to go from a biological discovery like this to an approved drug that treats humans. The findings would need to be translated into drug candidates, then tested for safety and effectiveness.

"It takes time and a lot of persistence and focus," State says. "This [paper] is unlikely to lead to therapies tomorrow — but it lays an important foundation for them."

Most human drugs are made to target proteins, Geschwind at UCLA says, so the newly published map of protein interactions offers an accessible entry point for pharmaceutical development.

And researchers hope to combine recent technological advances in ways that accelerate that progress even more. "When you put together the ability to borrow from successes in other fields [such as cancer treatments], and the development of AI, we're at an inflection point that will hopefully shorten the time cycle," State says.

Last week, Krogan's Quantitative Biosciences Institute received a $46 million grant from the Aligning Research to Impact Autism initiative, funded by philanthropist and Google co-founder Sergey Brin. The researchers are already working on next steps.

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