Every June, the Menus of Change Leadership Summit becomes a think tank, gathering the chefs, scientists, entrepreneurs, and policy makers who are actively reshaping how the world grows, cooks, and eats. Now in its fourteenth year, the summit has called the Culinary Institute of America’s Hudson Valley campus home for the past twelve. This year, I was in that room. What I heard was too important not to bring you into the conversation too.

With the plant-based food market expected to exceed $162 billion over the next 10 years, chef Rebecca Carucci, owner of Powered by Plants...