Great post, George. I enjoyed reading it and the accompanying Medium post. Your knowledge and passion are really exciting!
I’ve noticed that while many another areas of EA have embraced a hits based approach to accomplishing goals, farmed animal welfare seems more conservative. We may be overly focused on the trinity of welfare, moral suasion and plant-based/cultivated meats, and not willing enough to take risks. I suspect your proposal is a high-risk, medium-reward project, but as you point out, even a medium-reward intervention for farmed animals could result in some incredible numbers of animals saved. It seems obvious to me that this is a worthy area to explore, even if there are risks of failure.
You seem to be focusing on whether or not current omnivores would try these tofus and therefore replace a current meat-inclusive meal with tofu. Have you considered that by increasing the variety, availability and tastiness of tofus, you could be extending the amount of time a current vegetarian/vegan remains committed? I think that as a movement we tend to focus on new converts, and neglect maintaining those who currently avoid animal products, especially in light of evidence that many vegetarian/vegans eventually revert to eating meat. I suspect that people who already eat tofu would be the initial base for the new-to-the-West tofus.
Awesome! The 80,000 Hours podcasts on animal welfare were very important for my understanding of this issue, so I think this is an exciting addition to the movement. I can’t wait to listen soon!