“As early as I can remember, I cared about animals. I had dogs at home, and I loved them very much, but I still had a feeling that animals outside my circle mattered. My dad and I often went fishing, but once I got the fish, I felt bad about the whole thing. To this day, I have nightmares about my fishing past.”
A deep feeling of compassion towards the hidden suffering of animals led Josh Balk to dedicate his life to serving them. Soon after college, at the age of 25, he took up a job at Animal Outlook (formerly Compassion Over Killing), as an undercover investigator in slaughterhouses and factory farms. “In my work, I was being exposed to it all. The more I knew, the more it became clear that the animals needed us to be as strategic as possible during our finite time on earth if we really wanted to help them.”
Subsequently, at a time when there was no legal protection for 9 billion animals raised for food in US, as Vice-President of Humane Society of United States (HSUS), Josh successfully helped lead efforts to obtain passage of a dozen state laws banning cages for egg-laying hens, mother pigs, and/or veal calves. This included the historic California Prop 12, the strongest legal protection in the world for farm animals. As a direct impact of that measure, each year an estimated 1 million pigs will not be confined into such small metal enclosures that they can’t turn around virtually their entire lives; and 40 million egg-laying hens won’t be crammed into battery cages that restrict them from even fully opening their wings for 18 months.
At HSUS, Josh also led successful negotiations with the largest food companies (like Walmart, General Mills, McDonald's, Kroger, and Perdue) to improve animal welfare in their supply chains. Owing to their decades-long efforts, McDonald’s agreed to switch 100% of the eggs it purchases to only cage-free eggs in U.S. locations, an undertaking it recently completed. As a result, nearly 2 billion eggs a year are now being sourced from hens that are bred cage-free.
While working with HSUS, in 2011, Josh co-founded Eat Just, a company that develops and markets plant-based alternatives to conventionally produced egg products. Within four years of its founding, the company reached a valuation of over a billion dollars. It’s best known for its plant-based JUST Egg that is made from mung beans, available at 48,000+ retail points across North America. In 2018, it also became the first company to sell cultivated meat in the world – i.e. meat that has never existed in animal form and is grown from a small cell sample.
In 2022, Josh co-founded The Accountability Board that utilizes shareholder engagement to to broaden the social and environmental issues that are addressed by the world's largest corporations, like McDonald’s, Kroger, Walmart, Burger King and more than a hundred more. While it’s still early days, TAB has already been making a big impact in the animal welfare space. For example, owing to its contributions, the year 2024 saw a record number (more than double from last year) of shareholder resolutions in the US to address animal safety at companies.
Inc. magazine named Josh as one of the "35 Under 35" in 2014, and at the 2015 Animal Rights National Conference, Josh was elected by fellow presenters to the Animal Rights Hall of Fame. Josh’s work has been covered by the USA Today, Associated Press, Fortune, CNN, Christian Science Monitor, The New Food Economy, Time Magazine, The Young Turks, The National Review, and dozens of other outlets.
Josh has been a guest and commentator on podcasts and news programs, and he has been featured in books such as Kathy Freston's New York Times best-selling book, Veganist; Melanie Joy's Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows (also see her Awakin Call); Chase Purdy's Billion Dollar Burger; and Jennifer Skiff's Rescuing Ladybugs. His work with corporations was featured in Nicholas Kristoff's New York Times column titled, "Can We See Our Hypocrisy to Animals?" printed on July 28, 2013. Balk was also a co-executive producer for the well-known 2018 documentary Game Changers.
Join us in conversation with this lover and tireless advocate of animals.
The conversation will be moderated by Birju Pandya and Rev. Bonnie Rose. Birju is Chief Mindfulness Officer/Managing Director at Mobius.life, an integrated capital family office focusing in part on animal welfare/meat reduction. Bonnie is a minister with Ventura's Center for Spiritual Living and has recently authored a book titled Dances with Dogs.
