What is the Future of Plant-Based Alternatives in a New Food Order?

[00:00:01] The fact is dairy farmers are struggling.

[00:00:05] The average dairy farmer has an income of $38,000 a year, 60% of that which comes from

[00:00:10] government subsidies.

[00:00:12] That wasn't the case 100 years ago but because of consolidation, farmers are beholden to,

[00:00:20] they're sort of like indentured servants, beholden to these large dairy consolidators.

[00:00:26] And so you are no longer an independent operator anymore because you're beholden to a larger

[00:00:32] consolidator in some way.

[00:00:34] So we have not, because of conglomerates, we have not increased diversity.

[00:00:39] We have shrunk diversity and we've taken power out of the hands of people that used to be

[00:00:44] able to just be in the so-called merchant class, have a little shop or a little farm,

[00:00:48] make a living, hang out with their kids in the evening.

[00:00:52] That doesn't happen anymore.

[00:00:53] You're either struggling or you make it.

[00:00:56] It's one or the other and we've created that divide between those who have and those who

[00:01:01] don't and that divide is becoming ever bigger.

[00:01:15] Welcome to New Food Order, our nuanced investigation into the business of tackling our climate

[00:01:19] and social crises through food and agriculture.

[00:01:22] I'm Louisa Burwood-Taylor, the head of Media & Research at AgFunder, one of the

[00:01:25] most active food tech and agtech VC investors and editor of our new site, AFN.

[00:01:31] And I'm Danielle Gould, founder of Food Tech Connect, the community for food innovation,

[00:01:36] best known for our weekly newsletter that tracks all the business tech and investment

[00:01:40] trends from farm to fork.

[00:01:43] And we're taking you with us on a learning and unlearning journey to unearth how we

[00:01:47] might redesign business and finance to have maximum positive impact for people and

[00:01:52] our planet.

[00:01:54] We are here at Expo West and I'm looking at Danielle in the eyes.

[00:01:58] It's amazing, we are live and I got to give Louisa the biggest hug and we got to meet

[00:02:04] so many of you and hear about your experience with the podcast and for this episode we did

[00:02:11] a live recording.

[00:02:12] Yes, we did it yesterday on the Friday morning of Expo West and it was amazing.

[00:02:18] We had such a good time and had some fantastic speakers.

[00:02:22] And if we would love to do more of these, so anyone who's doing conferences or wants

[00:02:28] to host a live recording, yes.

[00:02:30] Exactly.

[00:02:31] So this is our final episode of season one.

[00:02:35] It's been quite the journey and now we're starting to think about what another season

[00:02:40] could look like.

[00:02:41] So we are starting to look into different topics, do more episodes around business models,

[00:02:49] on bill, health and nutrition, biotech, indoor agriculture, fundraising.

[00:02:54] So if you are interested in any of those topics and bringing those to life, please do get

[00:02:58] in touch with us about sponsorship opportunities.

[00:03:01] Yes.

[00:03:03] And so we have a lively one for our last conversation.

[00:03:08] This week we are talking about the future of plant based and getting into the nuance

[00:03:13] of whether or not plant based really is better for people and our planet and how we might make

[00:03:19] it even more so.

[00:03:21] And so in this episode, we are speaking with Mioko Shiner who is the founder of Mioko's

[00:03:27] Creamery, Suzhala Bellagie, founder of Rainfed Foods and Olivia Sanchez who is the VP of

[00:03:36] Marketing for Plant Based Beverages at Denone North America which includes brands like

[00:03:42] Suck and So Delicious.

[00:03:44] Yeah, and so some of the topics we discuss include what has gone well and what can be improved

[00:03:49] in plant based companies and products, how plant based companies might design their business

[00:03:54] and supply webs to have a maximum positive impact on people on our planet and the challenges

[00:03:59] with doing that, insights into the future of plant based and whether analogs have a

[00:04:04] future or whether we need new formats, understanding the plant based consumer and ideas on

[00:04:10] how to grow the category, nutritional issues with today's plant based products and the

[00:04:15] influence of developed market plant based trends on the global south.

[00:04:20] So as always, if you enjoy this episode, we hope that you will share it with anyone

[00:04:26] who is interested in plant based foods.

[00:04:29] And please, please, please remember to subscribe and review us on Apple and Spotify to

[00:04:35] help ensure that more people find this podcast.

[00:04:40] And just a quick reminder, we did record this live so the audio might sound a little

[00:04:44] bit different to normal and we also had some audience questions which we hope you enjoy.

[00:04:49] Yes.

[00:04:50] All right, now on to the show.

[00:05:00] Early morning on the last day, we are so happy to have you all here for our first

[00:05:08] ever live recording of our podcast, New Food Order.

[00:05:13] And thank you so much to Expo West and New Hope for having us here.

[00:05:16] They've been great supporters of the podcast and are excited for today where we're

[00:05:21] going to do a deep dive into the future of plant based and what it looks like to

[00:05:28] design a plant based feature that's truly better for people on our planet.

[00:05:32] Yes, exactly.

[00:05:33] So to speak about this with us, we've got a great lineup for you and I'm

[00:05:37] going to kick it off with Miyoko who probably needs no introduction to many

[00:05:41] of you. Miyoko Shinra is the founder of Miyoko's Creamery.

[00:05:45] She's also an award winning chef author and founder of the Rancho

[00:05:50] Compassion, a farmed animal sanctuary.

[00:05:54] Then we also have Suzala Bellagie who is the founder of Rainfed Foods,

[00:05:58] a plant based milk company made from millet that has eight grams of protein

[00:06:02] and equal levels of calcium to that of regular cow's milk.

[00:06:05] And Olivia Sanchez who is the VP of marketing for plant based

[00:06:09] beverages at the known North America, including silk and so delicious

[00:06:13] brands. And she also recently led the amazing silk campaign that many of

[00:06:19] you may have seen for the silk milk moustache, which is very, very cool.

[00:06:24] So before we get into this, one thing to know about the podcast is that we

[00:06:29] really want to get into the nuanced debate discussion.

[00:06:32] And so this is not just a panel that we're doing here.

[00:06:35] We actually have these round table discussions where we encourage

[00:06:39] a healthy debate and discussion.

[00:06:42] And we're really excited at the end of this.

[00:06:45] We're going to, we have open mics.

[00:06:46] So you get to ask some hard questions also.

[00:06:49] And with that, we're going to jump in.

[00:06:52] There's been this explosion of plant based companies launching over the last

[00:06:57] couple of years and also established brands like the known that are

[00:07:02] investing more heavily in your portfolios.

[00:07:04] You walk the floor here at XBOX and I mean,

[00:07:08] there are so many companies.

[00:07:11] You know, a lot of companies have launched with they say to improve

[00:07:16] personal health and to help reverse or tackle our climate crisis.

[00:07:22] Are these companies really delivering on that promise and what's

[00:07:26] going right and what's going wrong in plant based?

[00:07:29] Maybe Miyako, if you could kick us off.

[00:07:32] Sure, I know that there's been a lot of discussion recently about is

[00:07:35] plant based plateauing.

[00:07:37] And I think that's a really important thing to think about rather than

[00:07:41] just pushing back and say, hey, you know, that's not true.

[00:07:44] Just a couple of companies performing poorly isn't indicative of that.

[00:07:49] But I do think we really have to think about where we are in human history

[00:07:53] and just to sort of set the stage.

[00:07:54] If you think about it, we are in an unprecedented time in human history

[00:07:58] for humans are intentionally and conscientiously thinking about

[00:08:03] what should our food system look like?

[00:08:05] What should we be eating?

[00:08:06] I mean, for most of human history, we just say whatever was around us,

[00:08:09] whether it was if you live near the coast, you ate fish,

[00:08:13] if you live in the mountains, you forged whatever.

[00:08:16] And we really didn't think much about it today.

[00:08:19] We're realizing that we're combating this climate crisis,

[00:08:23] a decimation of species, destruction of rainforests, etc.

[00:08:28] And we are at a point where we really do have to think about, OK,

[00:08:31] how do our food choices impact things?

[00:08:34] The concern that I have is we're not reaching as many people as we need to.

[00:08:38] And those are the questions that I hope that we're going to be talking about today

[00:08:41] is why are we not reaching the general population with this?

[00:08:45] And I have a lot of theories about it.

[00:08:46] What are we doing?

[00:08:47] Because I think I think as an industry, what we're thinking about is these

[00:08:53] products, if we just simply switch out the products,

[00:08:57] people are going to discover them and the world is going to go plant based.

[00:09:01] We're discovering that that is not working.

[00:09:03] So we have to ask why is that not working?

[00:09:06] Are these products simply like another category like coconut water?

[00:09:12] Or is this something completely different?

[00:09:14] And I don't want to talk too much, but I will add why I think it's different

[00:09:19] and what we need to do to reach a larger

[00:09:22] population in order for change to be made.

[00:09:24] But I would like to put the audience on the spot if that's OK.

[00:09:30] So I want to ask about plant based.

[00:09:31] How many of you are involved in the plant based space,

[00:09:34] either as founders or employees or as investors?

[00:09:37] Raise your hands.

[00:09:39] How many of you believe that plant based is a very, very strong solution

[00:09:45] to combat climate change?

[00:09:47] Raise your hands.

[00:09:48] OK, how many of you are plant based or vegan?

[00:09:53] OK, so I saw more hands involved.

[00:09:58] How many of you are involved in the sector are not plant based or vegan?

[00:10:01] Raise your hands.

[00:10:02] OK, why?

[00:10:05] So it looks like there's a mixed bag in terms of whether or not we're

[00:10:11] those of us who are even in the space have bought into plant based.

[00:10:16] And if we haven't fully embraced that lifestyle,

[00:10:18] the question we have to ask is how are we going to expect consumers

[00:10:22] to adopt that lifestyle and be part of the solution?

[00:10:24] Because it doesn't matter how many products you put out there.

[00:10:26] If people aren't embracing them and adopting that lifestyle,

[00:10:30] we're not going to plant based will not save the world.

[00:10:34] So we have to figure out how we're going to reach those people.

[00:10:36] It's a great way of putting it.

[00:10:37] And just for people listening on the podcast,

[00:10:40] about half of the people that said they were involved in plant based

[00:10:43] or think it's a solution actually put their hand up as being vegan or vegetarian.

[00:10:47] But I'll put this question back to the panel.

[00:10:48] Do you think you need to be vegan or vegetarian to be working in the plant based space?

[00:10:53] I'll answer. I don't think so.

[00:10:55] I think we're here to offer more options and it's about incorporating more

[00:11:00] plant based options into your every day.

[00:11:03] That's plant based is becoming mainstream

[00:11:06] and for it to become mainstream, it can't be an war.

[00:11:09] It has to be an end and people have to be able to

[00:11:13] flex as the flexitarian word indicates into all of these choices.

[00:11:19] And our responsibility as plant based manufacturers, in my case,

[00:11:23] is to offer these options where there is no compromise.

[00:11:26] And I think for the longest time to come into the plant based space,

[00:11:30] there was a compromise on taste, on texture.

[00:11:33] We need to aspire to make it

[00:11:36] easy to come in and out and be able to really co-opt those milk moments

[00:11:41] that we all grew up loving as simple as milk and cookies or mac and cheese.

[00:11:46] Plant based needs to perform in these moments.

[00:11:49] And I think that as an industry, in some cases we've fallen short over the years.

[00:11:53] And now thankfully there's a lot of great options out there.

[00:11:57] But it wasn't where we were 10 years ago.

[00:12:00] You say we fall in short as far from an adoption standpoint?

[00:12:03] From a performance perspective.

[00:12:06] And Mioco, I hear your point about adoption, but I want to take us a step back.

[00:12:11] So when you look at the multifaceted ways are that the plant based companies

[00:12:16] are impacting our health, our communities, our planet.

[00:12:23] Our companies really delivering on that.

[00:12:25] You have a lot of companies that are using synthetic inputs.

[00:12:29] They're not organic ingredients.

[00:12:31] They potentially have extractive supply webs.

[00:12:35] So I'd be curious to Jala, as you as working on a new company in the face,

[00:12:40] working on a millet based product,

[00:12:44] even taking we're going to get to the consumer side of things.

[00:12:46] I think is incredibly important.

[00:12:48] But how are we actually designing these businesses to really, really,

[00:12:53] really tackle the tremendous social and environmental challenges that agriculture presents?

[00:12:59] And can I just add to that?

[00:13:00] As a startup company looking at some of the larger companies,

[00:13:04] what do you think they're doing well and what do you think needs to be improved?

[00:13:07] There is so many points that I want to touch on.

[00:13:10] Obviously, this is a very complex conversation.

[00:13:14] But just to step back a little bit, we started talking about whether this is

[00:13:21] the future or not to whether we need to be vegans or vegetarians to be working in the space.

[00:13:28] I think as a collective species as humans,

[00:13:33] I think we just need to put all our biases behind and work towards a better future.

[00:13:40] And what I've come to realize since started starting to work in the space is that

[00:13:45] dividing people in different categories, whether you're a carnivore or a vegan or

[00:13:51] vegetarian, it just creates more divide.

[00:13:53] So I think we need to evolve beyond that conversation and talk about how do we

[00:13:58] move forward and how can we continue to feed the growing population?

[00:14:03] In the last few decades, I don't know how many of you in the room are well

[00:14:08] aware of Green Revolution when the population

[00:14:13] doubled in the last few decades, there was an urgent need to address poverty.

[00:14:19] So we embraced some technologies that helped us improve yields.

[00:14:25] We started focusing on calorie dense crops, not nutrient dense crops.

[00:14:30] So the Green Revolution focused on a handful of crops and use use of

[00:14:39] some inputs, synthetic inputs like you mentioned, pesticides and fertilizers and

[00:14:43] hybrid seeds and all of that.

[00:14:45] It really helped in the short term.

[00:14:48] Yes, it helped Norman Borlaug's own words.

[00:14:53] Green Revolution is responsible for saving millions of people's lives.

[00:14:59] But at the same time, it is also responsible.

[00:15:02] It's not a short term answer.

[00:15:04] It's not a long term solution.

[00:15:06] It is also going to create devastating impacts if we do not course correct.

[00:15:12] But we have not course corrected.

[00:15:15] We're still relying on these handful of crops and they are making their way

[00:15:19] into seventy five percent of the food we eat today in one form or another.

[00:15:25] So the conversation is not just about plant based foods.

[00:15:28] It's food system as a whole.

[00:15:31] How do we reimagine the food system so it's healthier?

[00:15:35] It's it's nutritious, not just protein, but both micro and macro nutrients.

[00:15:42] And how do we also address the soil health while doing that?

[00:15:46] Because we have less than 60 harvest left.

[00:15:49] Climate change is not only impacting, you know, like it's very real.

[00:15:55] Like today, the crop yields have actually reduced.

[00:15:59] The percentage of protein in soy and

[00:16:01] feed is going down every single year over the last few years, which is driving

[00:16:07] the cost of those inputs as well as those crops as well.

[00:16:11] So a much larger conversation.

[00:16:15] I feel like I've kind of went off the track a little bit here.

[00:16:18] But where I am getting to is that at Rainford Foods were focused on

[00:16:24] some of the underexplored underutilized crops that are climate resilient,

[00:16:29] that are drug resistant, that can grow naturally, that are better at sequestering

[00:16:34] carbon and fixing nitrogen in the soil.

[00:16:37] And how can we leverage?

[00:16:39] There are thousands of these crops, but some of the more widely grown crops,

[00:16:45] how can we grow them and leverage them to feed the future is what we're

[00:16:49] focused on. I mean, I, I, Sujala is absolutely right in that

[00:16:54] we need more diversity.

[00:16:55] There's three primary crops, commodities that are grown, soy, corn and wheat.

[00:17:00] And the large percentage of does not go to feed humans.

[00:17:04] It actually goes to livestock feed.

[00:17:06] So simply eliminating animal agriculture or reducing it significantly would

[00:17:11] rewild a lot of the land, etc.

[00:17:13] But I'm not sure that we're here to talk about the sustainability component as

[00:17:17] much as how do we actually make these products more available?

[00:17:21] And I agree with you that, yes,

[00:17:25] products can't have compromise.

[00:17:26] But the question we have to ask is what does that actually mean?

[00:17:29] So let's talk about veggie burgers for a minute.

[00:17:32] Veggie burgers have been around for decades and I love veggie burgers.

[00:17:37] Just the old fashioned kind.

[00:17:39] I mean, I don't personally want to eat something that that bleeds.

[00:17:42] That's my personal taste.

[00:17:44] But I think the question is, how is this industry approaching

[00:17:49] the general public to increase adoption?

[00:17:53] And we talk about optimization.

[00:17:56] We talk about price point.

[00:17:57] We talk about price parity.

[00:17:59] We talk about products without compromise.

[00:18:02] But for some reason, it's still not really getting that household penetration

[00:18:06] that we're looking for.

[00:18:08] And so why?

[00:18:09] And I would have to say, I think it's because we're approaching it

[00:18:12] from the wrong perspective.

[00:18:14] We've come up with products that reach total addressable market,

[00:18:21] the largest total addressable market.

[00:18:23] So things like burgers, chicken nuggets,

[00:18:26] you know, whatever, like, but the question is, is that the right?

[00:18:30] Is that the right market?

[00:18:31] Is that the right audience?

[00:18:33] Are those the people, the people that you're looking for?

[00:18:36] Are the people that are open to plant

[00:18:39] base and changing the food system?

[00:18:41] Are they interested in eating vegan chicken nuggets or burgers or,

[00:18:46] I don't know, other sort of highly processed foods that we are producing?

[00:18:51] And I would say no.

[00:18:53] I think that's the wrong market.

[00:18:54] And I think this is one reason we're not

[00:18:57] successful in converting a larger number of people.

[00:19:01] And one example I always like to bring up is Tesla.

[00:19:04] If Tesla had come out with a when they first launched, if they come out

[00:19:08] with an electric version of the Hugo or the Toyota Corolla,

[00:19:12] they would never have gotten on the map.

[00:19:14] They would never have succeeded.

[00:19:16] But that's the approach this industry has taken is we're going to make

[00:19:19] the products that the most Americans consume.

[00:19:22] But those people aren't the ones that are the early adopters that are going

[00:19:26] to be making change.

[00:19:28] And so we have sort of a backwards approach that I believe is slowing down

[00:19:32] mass adoption and we need to take a different approach that targets

[00:19:38] a different segment of the population and do it in a way that works.

[00:19:43] I mean, just to borrow you just did that brilliant ad.

[00:19:47] You took a key from a keynote from the dairy industry.

[00:19:51] And we haven't done that.

[00:19:53] The dairy industry and the meat industry have

[00:19:55] done a really great job of romancing the general public because food is

[00:20:01] something that people buy from a place of passion, from a place of hunger,

[00:20:05] from a place of there's a feeling about the food choices.

[00:20:09] You don't you don't say I'm going to buy this product because it's more sustainable

[00:20:12] or because it's a more diverse crop.

[00:20:14] You buy it because there's something about it that makes you feel a certain way.

[00:20:17] And we're not doing that.

[00:20:18] We're not romancing the consumer.

[00:20:20] We're not giving them that story that makes them feel like, oh, my God,

[00:20:24] I want to be part of this.

[00:20:25] I want to eat this.

[00:20:26] So we're not doing that and we're targeting the wrong people.

[00:20:30] So that's I think we we also I think there was this

[00:20:36] plant based has been around for a long time.

[00:20:38] Right? Like we were drinking soy milk and there were veggie burgers.

[00:20:40] So there was this period where we were at like plant based one point.

[00:20:45] Oh, and then we went to oh, we're going to make this better.

[00:20:48] So the one point was for like a very niche audience,

[00:20:52] like people that had allergies and people that are crazy vegans.

[00:20:57] Like.

[00:20:58] But.

[00:21:00] And then when the whole crisis has started to unfold, we went to 2.0.

[00:21:07] And then we thought, oh, people just want to eat better.

[00:21:10] They want to be more mindful.

[00:21:11] So we're going to give them some of these products that taste better because

[00:21:15] there is there was a period when plant based alternatives didn't taste good.

[00:21:20] So we kind of focused on taste.

[00:21:23] So we gave them a version 2.0.

[00:21:25] But now people are demanding it's almost like a 3.0 version.

[00:21:28] They just they just don't want something that tastes good or that is an alternative.

[00:21:33] But they also wanted to be healthier and have clean ingredients and have the same

[00:21:38] experience as they would get when eating the actual animal based products.

[00:21:44] So I think as people, we've also evolved like we're getting more and more needy

[00:21:49] in terms of what we expect.

[00:21:51] We also want desserts, but we want them to be healthy.

[00:21:53] We want to eat chocolate, but we want to be mindful.

[00:21:56] So I think as we get more and more sophisticated,

[00:22:00] the expectations that we place on our purchasing

[00:22:05] products that we purchase and what we expect from those products are also changing.

[00:22:09] So could we have predicted this like a few years ago?

[00:22:13] I don't know.

[00:22:14] But we're at this point where we now see what's happening.

[00:22:17] So we have to make these changes quickly.

[00:22:20] Let me jump in here from a couple of perspectives.

[00:22:22] One is the genesis of the next milk campaign was

[00:22:28] we see Gen Z and millennials defining themselves by their food choices.

[00:22:33] Eighty four percent of them say I'm defined by my food choices.

[00:22:37] It is part of my identity.

[00:22:39] Additionally, you have multicultural audiences that show that they over

[00:22:45] index in their plant based consumption and they want to be talked to as part

[00:22:49] of a population, not a specialty, not a niche.

[00:22:52] And it was really about this multi next generation of milk drinkers want the choices.

[00:23:00] And that's why I say it's an and a proposition and not an or on you must be

[00:23:05] only plant based, it's an and because they're coming in and out and they're trying things.

[00:23:11] You also have a multicultural audience which is over indexes in lactose

[00:23:15] intolerance and believe it or not, it is not intuitive to them that plant based

[00:23:21] products are lactose free.

[00:23:24] It is not.

[00:23:25] And so we in the industry take all of these things for granted like, oh,

[00:23:30] of course they know, but we need to spell these things out.

[00:23:33] So they're coming in for taste and texture.

[00:23:36] They're coming in for health.

[00:23:38] And then there is the third part which you were referring to,

[00:23:41] which is the plant.

[00:23:44] And I think that's where companies have a responsibility to source their ingredients

[00:23:50] in a responsible way, Dan known and then this part of the reason why I'm there

[00:23:54] and why I'm still there 12 years later, which is it's been embedded in their

[00:23:58] mission for 50 years of doing and that our responsibility doesn't stop at

[00:24:04] the bottom line. It is part of our sourcing.

[00:24:07] I had the opportunity before coming here to be at our central

[00:24:11] California at our almond orchards and we have an amazing relationship with our

[00:24:16] growers there and regenerative agriculture is central to their mission in our mission.

[00:24:22] And through our partnership, have been able to bring in more growers

[00:24:26] to make sure to your sojala to your point that we are actively taking care

[00:24:32] of soil health, pollinators and water usage.

[00:24:38] We in Danone don't do enough of a job to talk about the importance of this.

[00:24:42] And we are doing it behind the scenes, behind the curtain.

[00:24:47] So it's a big battle.

[00:24:50] How do you tackle all these three big themes at the same time?

[00:24:54] Taste and texture, health and planet and the newer generations definitely care

[00:25:00] about all three things and we as manufacturers, of course, choose where to start.

[00:25:04] Right. And so you choose where to start.

[00:25:06] You choose with taste and texture.

[00:25:08] You choose to talk to that next generation.

[00:25:11] And then if you want to learn more, you create other stuff in the social

[00:25:15] and your content strategy to be able to feed that.

[00:25:18] But the newer generation wants to know all of the things but they start.

[00:25:24] All consumers start.

[00:25:26] Does it taste good?

[00:25:28] I want to come back to what you're talking about,

[00:25:29] regenerative agriculture, but thinking about that taste and texture

[00:25:33] and those priorities for consumers.

[00:25:35] Should we be focusing on analogs?

[00:25:37] Should we be focusing on creating replicable products?

[00:25:40] Is that what consumers want?

[00:25:42] I mean, I know for me personally, I want to be a plant-based product

[00:25:45] because it tastes good and it's satisfying.

[00:25:47] I don't necessarily look for it to be like a meat product or a cheese product.

[00:25:51] So do you think maybe the focus has been misleading and has taken these

[00:25:55] companies down these paths of spending huge amounts of money and engineering

[00:25:58] so much to get that replication?

[00:26:02] I think there are definitely two segments

[00:26:05] that are currently to address for that question.

[00:26:10] One is the type of people who want all plant-based foods

[00:26:15] that don't necessarily want analogs, that just want products

[00:26:18] that are healthier for them, that are nutritious for them.

[00:26:21] And then there are people who want the analogs.

[00:26:25] But what I've been observing is that those people are actually,

[00:26:30] they try the analogs, but then they switch back,

[00:26:34] at least based on the existing alternatives that are out there,

[00:26:37] because they're realizing that the analogs are not

[00:26:42] as healthy as the actual products.

[00:26:45] So despite the nutrition claims, like if we cannot make the ingredients

[00:26:51] as clean as possible and create the analogs, taste the same way.

[00:26:57] And even then, I think it's going to be a test.

[00:27:00] We can sit here and take guesses, but we might be wrong.

[00:27:04] We might be right.

[00:27:05] We don't know.

[00:27:06] But based on the status quo at this point, the analogs that do exist,

[00:27:13] they were appealing for that early adopters.

[00:27:16] I think there is like a very small fraction that pursue them.

[00:27:20] They have their share and then they're now switching back.

[00:27:25] You're absolutely right.

[00:27:26] The people that are trying these plant-based products probably eat

[00:27:29] quinoa or they're eating Brussels sprouts, but they didn't 15 years ago

[00:27:34] or 20 years ago when nobody ate Brussels sprouts and now everybody does.

[00:27:39] And so I agree.

[00:27:41] Like I think we're so early on, we're still in the nasancy of this category.

[00:27:47] We really don't know what consumers were making a lot of assumptions based

[00:27:51] on very early consumer surveys and studies that may or may not be accurate.

[00:27:59] That may not even be, we don't even know if we're asking the right questions at this point.

[00:28:04] I think the Gen Zers, I think that's really interesting because we do have more

[00:28:09] information about them, but there's a whole other population

[00:28:13] that I don't think we fully understand because market research is always

[00:28:18] looking into the past and not towards the future.

[00:28:21] And just like with quinoa, no one knew if someone had said,

[00:28:26] would you eat an ancient grain, you know,

[00:28:28] in my ingrain or ingrain before they ever tried it?

[00:28:34] Probably most of the population would have said no.

[00:28:36] And so we don't know exactly what could be adopted.

[00:28:41] And it may not have to be an analog.

[00:28:43] It may be something completely exciting.

[00:28:45] It may also just be lifestyle training and education where we're showing people,

[00:28:51] this is how you cook at home with beans and legumes and other things because we

[00:28:57] do have this climate crisis and it's not just a matter of buying a product.

[00:29:00] I mean, the product itself may not be the solution, but it may be an entire

[00:29:05] education about lifestyle that can get people to make small changes in home

[00:29:10] that lead to that and maybe buying a product every now and then is part

[00:29:14] of that solution.

[00:29:15] But I don't think the product itself is the only solution.

[00:29:18] Like that's not going to change the world.

[00:29:20] We have to have education, activism, conversation to communicate.

[00:29:27] And I think that's not happening.

[00:29:29] And now it's not happening at all.

[00:29:30] Not happening at all because we're so focused on our industry and selling our products.

[00:29:37] Luisa at FoodTech Connect.

[00:29:39] We see a lot of entrepreneurs and innovators working to transform the food system.

[00:29:44] We see loads of AgFund2, but the thing is most of them struggling with the same

[00:29:48] problem, funding.

[00:29:50] Exactly.

[00:29:51] Thankfully, one of our very kind supporters has been able to help with that.

[00:29:55] FoodShot is an integrated capital

[00:29:57] platform that catalyzes innovation for a healthier, more sustainable and more

[00:30:02] equitable food system.

[00:30:03] Yes, FoodShot leverages resources from investors around the world to provide

[00:30:08] equity, non-dilutive funding and post investment capabilities to innovators.

[00:30:14] And they're currently looking for new entrepreneurs working to innovate soil,

[00:30:17] precision protein and bioactive foods.

[00:30:21] You can apply for equity funding via their website, foodshot.org.

[00:30:42] Luisa, we spend a lot of time together

[00:30:44] thinking and speaking about products that are both good for us and the planet.

[00:30:49] Yes, we do.

[00:30:50] Well, I want to tell you about one of the show's partners, New Hope Network,

[00:30:54] who helps support these kinds of products.

[00:30:56] Don't they run those big conferences like Natural Products Expo West and East?

[00:31:01] They do indeed.

[00:31:02] And as well as running events, New Hope is a media and business

[00:31:06] intelligence company that covers natural product trends, industry insights

[00:31:11] and marketplace data that help educate the industry about key issues,

[00:31:15] things like regenerative agriculture, sustainability, responsible sourcing

[00:31:20] and a whole lot more.

[00:31:21] And they're proud sponsors of New Food Order because they want to help

[00:31:24] support conversations that bring radical transparency to our food system,

[00:31:27] that advocate for using business as a force for good and that drive the changes

[00:31:32] we want to see in the world.

[00:31:33] New Hope is inviting us all to join the movement at its Natural Products Expo

[00:31:37] and on newhope.com.

[00:31:45] Electric vehicles, I think.

[00:31:52] And I'm someone I've done, worked with some of the biggest companies

[00:31:56] in the world, but known included on product development, innovation strategy,

[00:32:00] Mars, Vomels, Campbell's.

[00:32:03] And we started from a place of let's create a regenerative product.

[00:32:09] So you start from a place of source and individual ingredients

[00:32:14] and you quickly learn that to be truly regenerative,

[00:32:17] you have to rethink your whole model.

[00:32:19] The organizational structure, your relationship, your supply web,

[00:32:23] your manufacturing.

[00:32:26] And so going back to the example of electrical vehicles,

[00:32:29] there was this idea that we have to just scale them.

[00:32:33] Right? Like we've got to get them into the market.

[00:32:35] We've got to create a market for them.

[00:32:37] But look at the supply web around the ingredients.

[00:32:41] I mean, cobalt extremely.

[00:32:43] I mean, we are enslaving people.

[00:32:46] Right? And so something.

[00:32:48] And so I want to say that in the plant-based space,

[00:32:53] like, let's get into the hard cut because yes,

[00:32:56] we need to get people eating these foods for sure.

[00:32:59] But the foods that they're eating, are we designing companies right now?

[00:33:03] Do the financial structures, do the actual design of these products?

[00:33:07] Are the way that the companies are structured?

[00:33:10] Are they delivering on health and sustainability?

[00:33:15] And it's a question that I want to throw out for all of you.

[00:33:18] But based on as being a new company, a newer company,

[00:33:21] and a later stage start up and then an established company,

[00:33:23] what do you think?

[00:33:24] And what have we gotten wrong?

[00:33:27] And if you could start over right now, what would you do differently?

[00:33:31] So what got me on my entrepreneurial journey

[00:33:35] a few years ago was when the UN announced their sustainable development goals.

[00:33:41] And I used to work for a large dairy company at that time

[00:33:46] and maybe having a midlife crisis and made me my career path.

[00:33:52] And so what that sustainable development goals to me represented was

[00:33:58] taking into account everything that's happening in the world.

[00:34:02] The injustices, like start like goal number one, zero hunger.

[00:34:06] There is hundreds of millions of people dealing with hunger and poverty.

[00:34:11] So we're talking here about climate change and short sustainable sourcing.

[00:34:16] Those are just two other goals.

[00:34:18] And there is 15 other goals that kind of encompass the total

[00:34:22] system that we need to address as a whole.

[00:34:26] And food can actually play a really big impact in addressing a lot of the goals.

[00:34:33] Food is at the heart of solving for a lot of the goals.

[00:34:37] And,

[00:34:38] like I said, I was working for a large dairy company where

[00:34:42] supply chain was well established and

[00:34:46] the ingredients that we were sourcing from whether, you know,

[00:34:51] ingredients going into different dairy products or ingredients we were selling

[00:34:55] to other companies, there was just no conversation around sustainability

[00:35:00] or regeneration or any sort of impactful, purposeful terms.

[00:35:07] And then I was questioning some of the choices that I was making as a consumer.

[00:35:13] But we're still we're still not sure where our ingredients are coming from.

[00:35:19] Our kids don't necessarily see how things are being grown or where they're sourced.

[00:35:25] And there is a really big disconnect between sourcing and the product being on the table.

[00:35:33] But I don't know if that's actually creating this

[00:35:37] discrepancy, like making this gap wider and wider.

[00:35:41] But that lack of conversation is impacting as consumers how we how we demand

[00:35:49] justification of our food choices.

[00:35:53] So how many how many of us know where our ingredients are?

[00:36:00] How well our farmers are paid for the ingredients that we use in our products?

[00:36:05] Or the supply chain like logistics with code, especially in the last few years,

[00:36:12] we know that the prices increased.

[00:36:13] But were they rational where they like purely driven by demand or where they

[00:36:19] you know, where there are other factors?

[00:36:21] So ingredient sourcing, I think is like a huge, huge issue.

[00:36:27] How ethically do we source?

[00:36:30] How consciously do we source and how consciously do we use those ingredients

[00:36:37] considering into factors like food loss and food waste?

[00:36:42] And how are you thinking about that?

[00:36:44] So at Rainfed, for example, like I grew up in India in a very small farming

[00:36:50] town, my grandparents were farmers.

[00:36:52] So farming has always been close to my heart.

[00:36:54] So when I decided to pursue this journey,

[00:36:58] I wanted to make sure that farmers are paid fairly.

[00:37:03] So I've worked on building the supply chain for the last five years in making

[00:37:08] sure that we do we did our proper due diligence and visiting the farms and

[00:37:13] setting, having those conversations with farmers who are paid a fair wage

[00:37:20] and our fair market value actually more than the market value for the crops

[00:37:26] they grow, the millets they grow.

[00:37:28] And they work with a co-op type of model where

[00:37:32] they sell the grains to the company and then the company cleans and bags

[00:37:38] and processes the grains.

[00:37:39] So this is how we make sure like it.

[00:37:42] I mean, I said this in less than 15 seconds, but it took me five years

[00:37:46] to get that right and get the first shipment of millets over to Canada

[00:37:51] from India.

[00:37:52] So I guess as a startup, not everyone has the luxury of time and affordability.

[00:37:59] And I took my head, but I think we do have to start somewhere.

[00:38:05] And we're doing our best.

[00:38:07] Why did you choose millet?

[00:38:09] Why millet?

[00:38:10] Yeah.

[00:38:11] So good question.

[00:38:13] I grew up eating millets in India and

[00:38:17] my parents were both diabetic and millets are one of these amazing grains

[00:38:22] that is very low carb, diabetic friendly.

[00:38:25] And then India is also a largest producer of millet that can grow anywhere.

[00:38:30] It doesn't need any water.

[00:38:33] It's fed by rain, which is why our company is called Rainfed.

[00:38:37] And it's free of all allergens.

[00:38:39] It's naturally gluten free.

[00:38:43] It just grows anywhere.

[00:38:44] And it's grown in all parts of the world in the US and Canada.

[00:38:48] For example, we just feed it to the birds or the animals.

[00:38:51] We don't really use it as an edible crop.

[00:38:53] So I have a food science background and I've been working in the industry for a

[00:38:59] long time, so I asked myself, why can I not show the world the potential

[00:39:05] to innovate with millets and actually create value out of this less

[00:39:11] and just one quick more follow up.

[00:39:13] You know, people out there that are thinking about creating their own

[00:39:16] plant based product, what kind of advice could you give them on selecting

[00:39:20] that right primary ingredient or group of ingredients and creating that supply web?

[00:39:27] In terms of selecting the ingredients, I would say one, obviously, whether it

[00:39:32] can withstand the impact of climate on the soil and regenerative ag is a

[00:39:39] conversation that we cannot not factor in anymore.

[00:39:43] Does this crop support a sustainable agriculture?

[00:39:47] Can this crop sustain the needs of the growing population?

[00:39:52] So what's millets also, it's a shorter crop cycle.

[00:39:55] It can grow in like 45 to 60 days, unlike a few months.

[00:39:59] So it can be rotated.

[00:40:01] It doesn't need to be monocropped again.

[00:40:04] Monocropping is a huge contributor to the worsening soil health.

[00:40:12] So things like that needs to be taken into account when choosing those raw materials.

[00:40:18] I know peas are amazing.

[00:40:19] So it is actually good to accept that we're actually over

[00:40:24] overgrowing these crops and that's where even for millets, I don't want to

[00:40:30] say the world needs to survive only on millets.

[00:40:34] It doesn't work that way.

[00:40:35] We need diverse crops, we need diverse nutrients on our plates.

[00:40:40] So I think the report is called

[00:40:44] Top 25 Future of Food Crops was put out by Worldwide Fund for Nature or

[00:40:50] something along those lines.

[00:40:51] Ping me later, I will send you the report.

[00:40:53] There is they so they identified like 25 crops that are very under explored at

[00:40:59] the moment, but they're better for the planet to eat.

[00:41:02] So that's a great place to start if anyone wants to look into it.

[00:41:07] I agree that supply chain is extremely, extremely important and diverse supply

[00:41:13] chain and knowing who your farmers are, all of that's really important.

[00:41:17] But I would also say that I think we're really just too market based

[00:41:21] solution focused, we're just too focused on the products themselves.

[00:41:25] And we're not thinking about how do we create diversity of products?

[00:41:29] Before I started Mioco's, I wrote a book called Artisan Vegan Cheese and I

[00:41:33] open source fermentation of plant milks so that I can say that I visited vegan

[00:41:40] cheese shops all over the world in Italy and Hungary and places in the United States

[00:41:47] that got their start from my cookbook.

[00:41:51] And then eventually I was convinced that

[00:41:53] the way to have the biggest impact was to scale as fast as I could and therefore

[00:42:00] start a company, which is what I did.

[00:42:02] So I started Mioco's in 2014 because I believe that market based solutions,

[00:42:09] that was the way to get that deepest impact.

[00:42:13] But what I'm seeing is in some ways

[00:42:17] we're creating the same problems that we had before.

[00:42:22] And that's what we have to look out for.

[00:42:25] We are at that unprecedented time where we have to think about how do we create

[00:42:29] a future food system that is not just sustainable and resilient, but equitable

[00:42:35] for everybody, for the farmers, for all the stakeholders, the consumers,

[00:42:39] the workers, as well as people, entrepreneurs, people that just want

[00:42:44] to get into business, like how do we create something that allows for

[00:42:47] diversity of crops, diversity of options, diversity of businesses.

[00:42:53] And what I'm seeing with these so-called

[00:42:55] market based solutions is all of us are trying to be ethical in many ways

[00:42:59] and making sure that supply chain is good and all of that stuff.

[00:43:03] But then we try to grow as fast as we can

[00:43:05] so that we can have an exit and sell to a large conglomerate.

[00:43:08] And then we have less diversity on shelf.

[00:43:11] I mean, you can go into whole foods now in different places around the country

[00:43:15] and you're going to see the same products.

[00:43:17] Whereas in the old days, you would go to whole foods in DC and they'd have

[00:43:21] a different array of products as in California, etc.

[00:43:24] And we're losing that regional diversity.

[00:43:27] We're losing opportunities for people that are smaller producers

[00:43:32] because the name of the game is scale as fast as you can and then you exit.

[00:43:37] And then power is consolidated into the hands of a few rather than

[00:43:43] having a more grassroots food system.

[00:43:46] And so I guess that's my question is as we reinvent the food system,

[00:43:52] is this the right way to do it?

[00:43:53] How do we create local and regional economies that are strong and resilient

[00:43:58] that allow more and more people to participate, especially women and people of color?

[00:44:04] And I don't think we're thinking about that because each and every single one

[00:44:07] of us in this room is thinking about how do I how do I ensure the success

[00:44:11] of my product?

[00:44:13] I'm going to throw your question right back at you.

[00:44:15] What do you think? How might we do that?

[00:44:17] Yeah, did you have did you have ideas and plans around them?

[00:44:19] I know there are accusations that I am trying to start a competitive company,

[00:44:25] but I'm not. I mean, right now I've evolved to a point where I feel like

[00:44:28] I don't want to start another CPG company.

[00:44:30] I want to start a lifestyle company that is all about education, activation,

[00:44:38] more of an activist platform to teach people how to open source technology

[00:44:46] and teach people how to take power back into their own kitchens.

[00:44:50] And so that each and every single person is responsible and powerful

[00:44:55] for shaping the future of food.

[00:44:57] And we can't just rely on companies.

[00:44:59] We have to each and every single one of us take responsibility.

[00:45:03] And I would like to aid in that in the next chapter of my life.

[00:45:12] If I can intervene just for one second,

[00:45:14] I think what Mioko said you're absolutely right.

[00:45:16] It is companies and people.

[00:45:18] That's how we're going to change the world.

[00:45:20] It's not going to be because every time a consumer buys something,

[00:45:24] they are voting for the world they want to live in.

[00:45:27] And therefore all of us big or small need to put purpose and performance

[00:45:34] and need to be coexist in that world together.

[00:45:37] Because if we don't, we will just be scaling to sell and so that's performance.

[00:45:43] Or we will just be purpose driven and maybe not grab the scale to actually make a difference.

[00:45:48] And I think that's where it needs to be a triple win is what I would say for consumers,

[00:45:55] for the company and for our growers at our land.

[00:45:58] It all needs to be coexist together with the same goals.

[00:46:02] And I think that's the difference that big conglomerates can make and small.

[00:46:06] If you think about 40, 50, 100 years ago before the rise of conglomerates,

[00:46:12] there was more diversity and now we have less diversity.

[00:46:16] So is it possible for conglomerates to exist and encourage

[00:46:24] more and more smaller enterprises?

[00:46:26] I mean, I'm really curious about that.

[00:46:27] It's not even possible.

[00:46:28] I do because I'm not so.

[00:46:30] Because I don't think conglomerates can grow a segment like plant based

[00:46:34] or plant based cheese or whatever mini segment we want to create alone.

[00:46:38] We need competition.

[00:46:40] Competition is good.

[00:46:41] We need all of us to be able to offer and grow and educate and and create new

[00:46:48] solutions so we're always competing for that consumer palette.

[00:46:52] I do think so.

[00:46:55] Is it a bad competition now?

[00:46:57] I mean, one of the big questions that we I mean, our podcast is called New Food

[00:47:02] Order. We don't even know if we need a new food order.

[00:47:04] Right? We need one.

[00:47:07] So what might that look like?

[00:47:08] And does competition is that the central role of it?

[00:47:13] And do we even do we need large conglomerates?

[00:47:16] Right. Have we gotten into this model where it's about growth and profit?

[00:47:21] Right. And that's what's driving.

[00:47:22] And you have a lot of companies right now.

[00:47:25] You're either going to your brain venture back to funding.

[00:47:29] So you have to grow very quickly at all costs to either go public.

[00:47:34] So right now, that's not very attractive to a lot of investors that I'm talking to.

[00:47:39] So as to your point, Nio, you're looking for a sale to a conglomerate where

[00:47:44] there's a lot more consolidation.

[00:47:47] Yeah. What might it look like in this world that you're you're outlining?

[00:47:52] How do we get there?

[00:47:53] You know, if you were to start me again today, how would you structure it?

[00:47:57] I haven't quite figured that out yet.

[00:47:59] But it has I mean, I'm just going to talk a little bit about the dairy

[00:48:02] industry and the fact is dairy farmers are are struggling.

[00:48:07] The average dairy farmer has an income of $38,000 a year, 60% of that,

[00:48:11] which comes from government subsidies.

[00:48:14] That wasn't the case 100 years ago.

[00:48:16] But because of consolidation, you know, farmers are beholden to

[00:48:22] they're sort of like indentured servants beholden to these large dairy

[00:48:25] consolidators.

[00:48:27] And so you are no longer an independent operator anymore because you're beholden

[00:48:33] to a larger consolidator in some way.

[00:48:36] So we have not because of conglomerates, we have not increased diversity.

[00:48:40] We have shrunk diversity and we've taken power out of the hands of people

[00:48:44] that used to be able to just be in the so-called merchant class, have a little

[00:48:48] shop or a little farm, make a living, you know, hang out with their kids in

[00:48:52] the evening.

[00:48:53] That doesn't happen anymore.

[00:48:55] You're either struggling or you make it.

[00:48:57] It's one of the other and we've created that divide between those who have

[00:49:01] and those who don't and that divide is becoming ever bigger.

[00:49:06] And I don't know if that's the future food system that we want.

[00:49:09] So how do we create that?

[00:49:11] I don't know. I mean, I would prefer open sourcing.

[00:49:14] I you know, there's an influencer named Sam Bedley.

[00:49:16] I follow on Instagram.

[00:49:18] He's he only talks about happy technologies.

[00:49:21] He's great. But anyway, he talked about this new open technology for turning

[00:49:26] plastic bottles into filaments and it's open technology.

[00:49:29] Anybody can use it in turn, make all these different devices out of it.

[00:49:33] And probably I would be my next chapter, hopefully will be to do something

[00:49:38] that will allow more people to start their own businesses in different areas

[00:49:43] rather than Miocos Creamery or another dairy company becoming have only

[00:49:49] having a handful of large plant dairy companies.

[00:49:52] What if there were a plant milk cheese company, a vegan cheese company

[00:49:58] in every single municipality?

[00:50:00] What if there were thousands of little vegan cheese companies everywhere

[00:50:04] rather than just a handful that you only got through, you know,

[00:50:08] you bought through supermarkets?

[00:50:09] Like how can we create an economy like that?

[00:50:12] And I feel like that's what we have to start thinking about rather than,

[00:50:15] you know, how do I win?

[00:50:16] If I win, but you lose, then we all lose.

[00:50:24] You know, a lot of people here, they want their products to be as big as possible,

[00:50:29] not necessarily for bad reasons or evil reasons.

[00:50:32] They want to have scale, they want to have meaningful impact.

[00:50:34] And there's also, of course, is going to be economies of scale that come into that.

[00:50:37] Can can lots of local small brands, can that have a meaningful border impact?

[00:50:43] I certainly hope so.

[00:50:45] I mean, and they used to, I mean, you know,

[00:50:49] if you go to places like Italy where there are very, very strong regional markets,

[00:50:53] you know, you find a little, little tiny lentil in the in the region of Umbria

[00:50:58] that you can't buy anywhere else, for example.

[00:51:00] Now, or you find truffles in various regions and you find these passionate

[00:51:05] purveyors of these products, these passionate creators, and they have small,

[00:51:11] local thriving economies.

[00:51:15] I don't know if we can recreate that in the United States,

[00:51:17] but it's no longer interesting to travel across the United States because you see

[00:51:21] the same big brands everywhere.

[00:51:23] There's there's no difference whether, yeah, you're in California or North

[00:51:28] Carolina, it's all the same.

[00:51:29] And is that what we want for the future?

[00:51:32] I 100 percent agree, although I don't know how we're going to do that

[00:51:36] because everything's built for scale.

[00:51:40] I know we're talking about, you know, when we talk about companies,

[00:51:43] like we're talking a lot about products, products, products,

[00:51:46] but the whole infrastructure around sourcing and manufacturing are two giant

[00:51:54] blocks that are like what boxes?

[00:51:57] Like you need to have access at scale to have meaningful impact.

[00:52:06] How can we democratize that?

[00:52:09] And how can we split those into smaller blocks so we can thrive as an economy?

[00:52:17] Is a multi-tillion dollar question, but do we need it?

[00:52:21] Absolutely. How do we do it?

[00:52:23] There are some really interesting models out there that people are starting to

[00:52:27] explore. So if anyone's been here and you've heard from the Almond Project,

[00:52:31] which is a collaboration between Simple Mills, Capellos,

[00:52:36] Bailey Harvest and a couple of other organizations where they're coming in

[00:52:40] and that's seen collaboratively with these farmers, transition to regenerative,

[00:52:45] do some processing.

[00:52:46] There's Fiber Shed, which is a phenomenal organization that is working

[00:52:51] in the fiber space and they develop these pre-competitive relationships

[00:52:56] amongst a number of different fashion brands where they will

[00:53:01] to do regenerative cotton and then they get that scale so they can do

[00:53:05] long-term commitments with the farmers and they get the scale that they need

[00:53:09] so they can work with an existing milling infrastructure because that

[00:53:13] infrastructure piece for this is really challenging because of all the consolidation.

[00:53:18] We don't have processing infrastructure.

[00:53:20] It's not in order to support all these things.

[00:53:23] So I'm totally there with you and I'm really glad where this conversation is going.

[00:53:27] This is where I spend so much my time.

[00:53:31] And I would say for anyone who's listening,

[00:53:33] if anyone is in the audience, it's these are really big questions and we need to

[00:53:38] start having these discussions.

[00:53:40] That's the beginning of change.

[00:53:42] Exactly. To imagine like when we confine ourselves to the existing system,

[00:53:48] then we only output what's in the existing system.

[00:53:51] And I just have to say, I'm sitting next to you and we have Tina Owens

[00:53:56] in the front. We spent like nine months exploring this question of what

[00:54:00] might a conglomerate look like that actually supported regional,

[00:54:04] biodiverse ingredients and not even foods and communities and not even their own.

[00:54:10] Like how might a conglomerate be a distribution network,

[00:54:14] a financing network, a food safety system?

[00:54:17] Right. And so just imagining what's possible instead of trying to shoehorn

[00:54:23] for the sake of the scale.

[00:54:25] You know, I think that there's often this urgency in this space.

[00:54:28] Like we have to solve these problems now yesterday.

[00:54:32] And when you have that, it's the same thing that happened.

[00:54:35] That same argument, the reason why we started this podcast is because you're

[00:54:38] seeing this urgency right now and so the solutions are getting,

[00:54:42] you know, the same urgency as we have to feed the world and look at where

[00:54:45] that got us in the current systems that we have.

[00:54:48] Right. And so how do we take a step back and work with urgency,

[00:54:51] but purposely and saying, how do we learn from those mistakes that we need?

[00:54:56] That's right.

[00:54:56] How do we design this in a way?

[00:54:58] We need as many.

[00:55:00] We need to explore as many options as possible and that there is no one right way to do it.

[00:55:07] Danone in 1972 declared this double mission.

[00:55:11] It was before sustainability was a word.

[00:55:14] And we have grown through the years,

[00:55:17] through this mission of partnering from growers to our.

[00:55:24] We depend on agriculture and farmers and we partner with them

[00:55:28] throughout the chain to be able to incentivize this kind of thinking.

[00:55:33] And that's why I was so impressed again with my Almond trip because these growers

[00:55:39] and you have the opportunity to drive scale.

[00:55:41] And that's how you change the world because it's embedded into your purpose.

[00:55:45] It's embedded into performance and not saying it's perfect.

[00:55:49] If you're continuing to evolve these systems to make sure that you're offering

[00:55:55] all of these things in all of your systems, we have a partnership with How Good,

[00:55:59] which also you're able to measure where your ingredients are coming from.

[00:56:03] Yeah.

[00:56:04] And it gives you a score and it tells you all of the things, child labor,

[00:56:09] all of the things that you're able to input other competitive products to be

[00:56:13] able to know. And I think that's the responsibility we have.

[00:56:16] And it's smaller or big.

[00:56:18] Olivia, I might put you on the spot for a second.

[00:56:21] Sure. That's OK.

[00:56:23] Yeah.

[00:56:23] There is a general consensus around

[00:56:26] corporates and how corporates work with growers in how they source.

[00:56:34] There is

[00:56:35] an issuer on trust. Trust.

[00:56:39] Trust.

[00:56:40] It feels like I'm not saying that one does that, but generally speaking,

[00:56:45] large conglomerates seem to be there is a lot of greenwashing.

[00:56:49] There is a lot of initiatives that kind of get shoved around the corporate

[00:56:54] social responsibility umbrella.

[00:56:56] Like how can we trust initiatives coming from corporates like that?

[00:57:02] And I think you yourself said it, that we don't talk about it that well.

[00:57:05] Like so consumers don't trust large corporates that still exist.

[00:57:11] But I as a consumer too, when I look at large brands,

[00:57:14] I don't know like that's how what would you as a consumer?

[00:57:18] Like what would you say to me?

[00:57:20] I want to just add that to consumers and farmers.

[00:57:24] I will say with our again, just spent the three days with our almond growers.

[00:57:29] It was an incredible experience.

[00:57:30] And it's

[00:57:32] it's about making sure that we have the proper reporting in place.

[00:57:37] Is that the thing right?

[00:57:39] You need to be able to have the proper measurement,

[00:57:41] the proper reporting in place to be sure that you're able to build that trust

[00:57:45] and have facts to talk about your story.

[00:57:48] And I can tell you, we're just talking to these these almond growers this week is

[00:57:55] what they've been able to accomplish in a year and a half of us really being

[00:58:01] incentivizing these regenerative agriculture practices has changed their

[00:58:05] business and they continue to bring in more growers into our system

[00:58:12] because they see the benefits.

[00:58:13] They're seeing their benefits from how they're paid.

[00:58:17] They're seeing their benefits for their land.

[00:58:19] And it is our responsibility as brands and as conglomerates to be able to tell

[00:58:25] that story.

[00:58:27] It is part of our just general narrative.

[00:58:31] And I think it's so hard because consumers

[00:58:33] understand a very surface they have a surface level

[00:58:36] understanding of what's in a back culture.

[00:58:38] We just did a study of what do you understand?

[00:58:41] Absolutely nothing.

[00:58:43] And so our job is to be able to tell them here's what we frame up as three pillars

[00:58:50] around water, soil health and pollinators.

[00:58:53] And this is how it contributes to a positive system.

[00:58:57] But I think when we're in the industry,

[00:59:01] we tend to use a lot of big words, a lot of big percentages and consumers

[00:59:08] aren't just able to process all that, especially in the world that we live

[00:59:12] in that is so fast paced.

[00:59:13] So we need to be able to tell those stories in a more involved fashion

[00:59:18] and then give all the literature, all of the things in the background to be

[00:59:22] able to support it.

[00:59:23] But it is a journey.

[00:59:26] You have to put in the systems.

[00:59:28] You have to measure the systems.

[00:59:29] You have to have impact

[00:59:32] to be able to tell that story.

[00:59:34] So it is I understand the lack of trust because it's hard to tell that story.

[00:59:39] It is really hard.

[00:59:41] So we'd love to come to some questions from the audience before we do that.

[00:59:44] Can you each summarize in about a minute?

[00:59:48] What do you think a new food order for plant based foods should look like?

[00:59:54] OK, I think the future of food should take into account all stakeholders.

[00:59:59] People, planet and animals.

[01:00:03] We should look at it from an ethical perspective as well, not just a

[01:00:07] sustainably perspective where it's anthropocentric or humans are at the center.

[01:00:11] We should also consider the rights of individual other species,

[01:00:17] as well as everyone who comes in contact with food and how they are protected

[01:00:22] in an economic fashion.

[01:00:24] So we have to consider all of these facets, not just human health.

[01:00:29] I have a pin.

[01:00:31] I don't know how many of you can see this.

[01:00:33] It says smart food.

[01:00:34] So I'm going to put a little plug in and say a new food order should be smart.

[01:00:39] There is an initiative called Smart Food, which is essentially creating foods

[01:00:45] that are better for people, better for farmers and better for the planet.

[01:00:48] That's what smart food encompasses.

[01:00:50] So I think that's what a new food order should encompass.

[01:00:55] The new food order should be about putting performance and purpose

[01:00:59] at the center. Those two things need to go together

[01:01:03] and work your complete supply chain from farm

[01:01:07] to the doors of your factory and to the doors of your consumers

[01:01:13] to be sure that all stakeholders, much like Miyoka, are taking into account.

[01:01:18] Great. So if anyone has any questions about two microphones here,

[01:01:21] I think we have our first question.

[01:01:23] My name is Monica Chen.

[01:01:24] I'm with Factory Farming Awareness Coalition and I was hearing a lot about education

[01:01:29] and somebody who also connects with many entrepreneurs working on market based

[01:01:33] solutions, I feel like when we talk about education, we're talking about the

[01:01:37] packaging or the website or telling Dan and story.

[01:01:41] So I'm wondering if you all can comment on what does education,

[01:01:44] what is the role of educators?

[01:01:46] What are we actually trying to do in education when it comes to people

[01:01:50] who are working in food?

[01:01:53] Let me ask a clarifying question.

[01:01:54] Are education for people working in food or for our consumers?

[01:01:58] Well, what is your role, right?

[01:02:00] Each for those of you who are selling products,

[01:02:02] what does in going into this new food order, Miyoko in particular,

[01:02:06] what are you really seeing the role of education?

[01:02:09] What does that mean beyond we are making our packages

[01:02:12] and we're stating a simple fact about our supply chain?

[01:02:15] I'm not selling products anymore.

[01:02:17] So

[01:02:19] but I think education really has to be an open conversation with the consumer

[01:02:24] about how they can make changes in their own lives and empowering each

[01:02:29] consumer to understand that they actually have control of their kitchen.

[01:02:34] Really teaching them how to cook, how to think about food

[01:02:38] and letting them know that they are not just a victim, a casualty

[01:02:43] of whatever is happening in the world with climate change.

[01:02:48] But they actually can take personal responsibility,

[01:02:51] not just personal responsibility, but they actually have power to impact change.

[01:02:55] And so it's through the kind of work that factory

[01:02:59] farm awareness coalition is doing.

[01:03:01] It's through all the great movies that are out there.

[01:03:03] It's through cookbooks.

[01:03:05] It's through conversations like this.

[01:03:08] It is just making the conversation broader and touching

[01:03:13] and really speaking to each consumer.

[01:03:15] For me, that's what it's about.

[01:03:17] And so we can't just be by my product.

[01:03:20] I don't think that's going to work.

[01:03:21] I agree with that.

[01:03:22] I think it's content in general.

[01:03:25] We need to leverage that.

[01:03:26] We need to leverage publishers, help them do the talking for us

[01:03:31] because of the lack of trust and brands.

[01:03:33] We need partners like your podcast to be able to really tell that story

[01:03:39] and educate consumers and they have the power every time they purchase

[01:03:43] something, they are voting.

[01:03:44] I also personally think we should start educating kids better

[01:03:47] from a very early age about food and nutrition.

[01:03:50] That's where habits are formed.

[01:03:52] That's where it begins.

[01:03:55] Hi, it's Hans from the NANJIMO project.

[01:03:57] There's been a lot of technologists coming into the plant-based space.

[01:04:02] So I have a question for all of you.

[01:04:04] Is there a place for genetically engineered precision fermented

[01:04:08] ingredients in responsibly sourced natural plant-based foods?

[01:04:13] So I heard precision fermentation.

[01:04:15] So I think a few technologies, genetic engineering, precision fermentation

[01:04:19] technologies is what you're referring to.

[01:04:21] Is that correct?

[01:04:21] They're one and the same.

[01:04:22] Precision fermentation is genetically engineered microbial sourcing.

[01:04:27] Yes. So using precision fermentation, we can produce quite a few ingredients.

[01:04:32] It's nascent technology that's up and coming.

[01:04:35] I think there are a few companies here on the floor that have some of those

[01:04:40] products that efficacy is currently being tested.

[01:04:43] Some of those ingredients have been FDA approved.

[01:04:47] They could create products that are in parallel to some of the alternatives

[01:04:53] to dairy and meat, so if they can help us feed the future in a more responsible way,

[01:05:00] why not?

[01:05:02] Well, that's one way of looking at it.

[01:05:04] The way I would say it is it takes massive amounts of money to build bio

[01:05:08] reactors.

[01:05:09] And so going down this path to me is another way to destroy diversity and consolidate

[01:05:17] power, much as it has been in the hands of a few that raise the millions or

[01:05:23] billions of dollars.

[01:05:25] It also doesn't change perception of human beings towards animals as not being

[01:05:30] commodities or food.

[01:05:31] And ultimately I am an ethical vegan.

[01:05:35] And my goal is to create a truly compassionate world where we as humans do

[01:05:40] not look at animals as food.

[01:05:43] I worry about precision fermentation cell based in the future.

[01:05:48] For example, if at some point we choose that path because it's economically more

[01:05:52] viable, but then something flips where we learn, let's say for example,

[01:05:56] a chicken used to take something like a year and a half to grow before it

[01:06:01] was big enough to sell.

[01:06:01] And now you can grow a broiler in 45 days and there's new technologies to grow.

[01:06:06] Chickens even faster.

[01:06:07] If we get to a point where we find that we can actually grow animals faster

[01:06:12] or make milk faster, then we might just say, well, you know, we don't need

[01:06:17] precision fermentation anymore.

[01:06:18] We're just going to go back to animal ag because it's more efficient

[01:06:21] because we haven't ultimately changed the human being.

[01:06:24] And I believe we have to change the human being.

[01:06:26] It's our consciousness that has to evolve.

[01:06:29] We have to.

[01:06:30] There's a human evolution that has to take place where we become truly

[01:06:33] human beings.

[01:06:35] And otherwise, I think we're forever doomed and tied to an economic model

[01:06:40] that designs what we eat.

[01:06:44] That was fantastic.

[01:06:46] I'm Joanie.

[01:06:47] I'm the founder of Sacktivist Foods.

[01:06:48] And one of the things that I've been chronically up against as a founder

[01:06:52] who works in this new food order is how do we articulate the shift

[01:06:56] in the value system that needs to be reflected from soil to plate

[01:07:01] and involves many strategic partners, brands and consumers alike

[01:07:05] to shift our focus to being more centered around humanity and ecology?

[01:07:10] How do we articulate that shift that will then drive the new system

[01:07:15] towards a better model?

[01:07:16] Just I had a conversation with a so-called regenerative investor

[01:07:20] yesterday, and he was very critical of the fact that I invest time

[01:07:25] into fostering partnerships with farmers at the seed level.

[01:07:29] And he couldn't believe that a brand would waste time doing such an endeavor.

[01:07:34] I felt like that was a major miss and a major axiology problem,

[01:07:38] where he truly underestimated the value of partnership and humanity

[01:07:43] in our food system.

[01:07:44] So how do you think we can communicate that story to a broader audience?

[01:07:48] Thank you.

[01:07:50] I'm really surprised that an investor would say that to you

[01:07:54] because farming and agriculture is at the heart of our business.

[01:07:57] And without them, we won't be able to put things out there.

[01:08:03] And so I think it has to do with the education component that Sujala was

[01:08:07] talking about, the lack of understanding of how products come to be.

[01:08:13] So for you, for us, for all of us, it's about

[01:08:18] educating the consumer on how dependent we are from our farmers,

[01:08:23] from the people, from the hands and from the land that gives us our ingredients.

[01:08:28] And we need to keep telling those stories.

[01:08:33] I am not surprised.

[01:08:35] Hi, Joni. You should look up Joni's work.

[01:08:38] She's doing some incredible work in this space, snackless foods.

[01:08:44] I hear Joni's point because I very much resonate with her experience.

[01:08:50] I've raised a very small amount of money and I've spoken to hundreds of investors

[01:08:55] and no one except one person has so far asked me,

[01:09:00] how well are you paying your farmers or where are you?

[01:09:04] So how are you sourcing whether you're ethically sourcing your ingredients?

[01:09:08] That was never part of the conversation.

[01:09:12] How is that going to change in a world where we are living in a capitalistic world,

[01:09:19] whether we admit or not, systems are built around

[01:09:25] this model that we're in.

[01:09:27] So how do we craft our messaging to provoke a change in humanity?

[01:09:33] We have to start small as startups.

[01:09:36] I think we could do that, but it needs to happen much faster and at a much longer

[01:09:44] conversation.

[01:09:45] This is the reason why on the podcast we've really explored what are new

[01:09:49] financial models, how are we going to rethink finance.

[01:09:52] And so I encourage everyone to go and check out those episodes and we're going

[01:09:57] to be doing a lot more to get a conversation going around among investors.

[01:10:02] We have time for one more question.

[01:10:06] I'm going to say a couple of things and then try and bring it to a question.

[01:10:09] But I'm South African and when I think about sustainability,

[01:10:16] I think it really needs to be such a sort of classical thing to say that you have

[01:10:21] to think about the whole world.

[01:10:22] There are literally billions of people coming into the middle class in the

[01:10:27] global South and they're aspiring to have these American lives,

[01:10:33] which really includes a lot of meat and a lot of dairy.

[01:10:37] And there's a very difficult question in my mind in

[01:10:42] how do you transition those food systems in a way that's culturally and socially

[01:10:47] respectable, showing respect for those cultures.

[01:10:51] But at the same time, we just can't have that number of people living American lives.

[01:10:58] So it's great to see you on the panel and you bring the Indian perspective.

[01:11:05] Am I asking the wrong question?

[01:11:07] Is this just kind of focused on America or is there a place for this type of

[01:11:11] thinking and is there work being done to consider how we can start that work now?

[01:11:15] Because if you start, if you try and address that in 10 years from now,

[01:11:19] when these technologies are ready, it's going to be very difficult to change

[01:11:23] those systems.

[01:11:24] I mean, that's one of the problems of consolidation and conglomerate.

[01:11:29] I remember being in Vietnam where we, well, when I was with me,

[01:11:33] I was we sourced our caches and I remember seeing this giant Nestle

[01:11:38] billboard pushing dairy on the Vietnamese and it's a population that never consumed

[01:11:44] dairy, but this big conglomerate goes in and all of a sudden they're

[01:11:48] convincing the Vietnamese they needed dairy.

[01:11:53] I grew up in Japan.

[01:11:54] I didn't consume any dairy.

[01:11:55] We don't have a history of that, but everyone drinks dairy now.

[01:12:00] It's part of the food system now in Japan.

[01:12:02] And so this wouldn't have happened if we had

[01:12:05] promoted, we continue to promote regional foods.

[01:12:08] And that's why I think we have to go back there.

[01:12:10] We have to discover what are the indigenous foods?

[01:12:14] What did the indigenous food system look like or the native food system,

[01:12:18] the regional foods?

[01:12:19] And we have to start celebrating that.

[01:12:21] We need more diversification.

[01:12:24] We need conglomerates to actually maybe do that.

[01:12:28] Like instead of pushing their one very Western product,

[01:12:34] maybe their new role can be to go into cultures,

[01:12:37] discover what they were already making and build up those businesses regionally.

[01:12:43] So we have diversity everywhere.

[01:12:45] Maybe that's a new role.

[01:12:47] Economic model that could help everybody, including the conglomerates,

[01:12:50] but shoving our system down the throats of other populations.

[01:12:55] You know, I heard some guy in the cell base

[01:12:57] space saying, yeah, we're going to go into Africa and we're going to build

[01:13:00] bio reactors so they can have meat.

[01:13:04] Well, why are we doing that?

[01:13:06] And we're basically

[01:13:09] going down the same path we always have just with a different product and

[01:13:13] greenwashing it because it's plant based or cell based.

[01:13:20] My question is sorry.

[01:13:22] There was talk about whether or not to we need new food order or whether or

[01:13:27] not we don't, Nioco, this is just a question for you.

[01:13:31] You said that diversity is very important.

[01:13:34] It's what we need.

[01:13:35] It tends to contradict order.

[01:13:38] I was wondering which one is more important to you.

[01:13:41] How does it contradict order?

[01:13:43] That seems like a very long conversation.

[01:13:45] I mean, diversity itself could be one form of order.

[01:13:49] Well, if we want an order, we just have Kroger make vegan products and then

[01:13:53] we would solve climate change.

[01:13:56] But I'm sorry.

[01:13:57] We would have Kroger just like big companies

[01:14:00] make products, but that we have these scale production.

[01:14:04] They wouldn't necessarily combat climate change.

[01:14:07] I mean, if we actually went back to regional economies and stopped trying to scale,

[01:14:13] we'd solve a lot of distribution issues

[01:14:16] and we would have thriving local economies and predominantly most of them were

[01:14:23] plant based or vegan humans have mostly consumed plants.

[01:14:28] It's only in the last few decades that we've had this uptake in animal based

[01:14:34] foods and what we're trying to do is base the future of food on the last few decades.

[01:14:38] We're not looking at humankind and what we've been eating historically over

[01:14:42] the last several hundred, several thousand years.

[01:14:45] We're walking around saying, well,

[01:14:48] this is how the entire world is eaten the last forever.

[01:14:52] And it's actually just the western states over the last few decades.

[01:14:56] And we're trying to push that diet on everybody else.

[01:14:59] We're about to end, but I want to go back to that last question and give you the

[01:15:03] opportunity to respond. Thank you.

[01:15:05] Thanks for asking that question.

[01:15:07] Honestly, that question really worries me because

[01:15:11] I moved to Canada in 2005 and then I went back 10 years later and I was shot.

[01:15:20] I've tried McDonald's once and that was in like a big city.

[01:15:24] I grew up in a small town and there was a Mary Browns.

[01:15:28] Those were the only two fast food chains that I remember existing.

[01:15:32] And then I went back and I saw that people were ordering from Domino's Pizza.

[01:15:39] There was Subway, there was KFC like everywhere in every metropolitan city or

[01:15:45] like not even metropolitan city, like a city of a big size.

[01:15:50] I was completely shocked.

[01:15:53] So whether we want it or not, I feel like it's kind of being forced upon

[01:16:01] in countries like India, these fast food chains are there.

[01:16:08] So it's not just as as companies that are responsible for like whether

[01:16:14] you know, we want to create products for that economy or not.

[01:16:17] It's also like a lot to do with people's

[01:16:21] behaviors and what they are inclined to like the American dream.

[01:16:25] Like, unfortunately, it doesn't end with the American dream.

[01:16:29] It's also the American foods, whether it's

[01:16:33] unfortunately the bad part of the American food that's influencing everywhere.

[01:16:38] And I mean, this is not just India.

[01:16:41] I was in Milan two weeks ago and literally the first thing we see when

[01:16:45] we get out of the train station was KFC.

[01:16:47] I'm trying to desperately grab a cup of coffee like KFC is literally in your face.

[01:16:54] So as we build this new food system, yes, we absolutely need to think

[01:16:59] that regional foods exist, diversity of the foods we grow and we eat exists

[01:17:05] in every part of the world.

[01:17:06] But what's happening with these large corporations that have these

[01:17:11] establishments or the companies that want to create products at scale somewhere else

[01:17:16] and ship it to those countries?

[01:17:18] How do we stop that?

[01:17:20] I don't know.

[01:17:21] But unfortunately, we're seeing that play out in a really bad way already.

[01:17:27] There is increasing obesity, increasing diabetes, increasing malnutrition.

[01:17:32] I mean, we're all enamored with success and that's the problem.

[01:17:36] You know, we think the better you get, the more successful you are.

[01:17:39] It's like, oh my God.

[01:17:40] But success is not equate human health, happiness, planetary health, animal

[01:17:48] welfare, it just doesn't.

[01:17:50] And so we have to just do away with this idea that economic growth is

[01:17:58] what we should be pursuing because that is destroying the world.

[01:18:03] The American dream is destructive.

[01:18:06] When we talk about educating consumers here and talk about the work that you're

[01:18:10] doing around that, that needs to be taken to developing nations so they can get

[01:18:15] ahead of that potentially so that they're not the caretaker.

[01:18:18] People don't actually want to buy it, for example.

[01:18:21] And we really need to end now because Olivia's got to move on.

[01:18:25] Thank you all so much for joining us.

[01:18:26] It's been really great.

[01:18:28] And thank you very much for listening to the podcast if you do.

[01:18:31] And thank you so much to our amazing guests.

[01:18:41] So that was so fun, Danielle.

[01:18:43] It was so fun and definitely a lot of spice from the OCO.

[01:18:50] Yeah, exactly.

[01:18:51] Just what we wanted and just thought it was great.

[01:18:54] There were certain points of the conversation where you and I just didn't even say anything

[01:18:58] because the speakers themselves are picking up on each other's comments

[01:19:01] and asking each other questions.

[01:19:03] Yeah, it's definitely a very hot topic.

[01:19:06] And I'm sure it's going to be one that we dig into even further

[01:19:10] in season two.

[01:19:12] As always, if you're a new listener, we like to share an activity each week

[01:19:17] to help you continue to take what you've

[01:19:21] heard in the episode and think about it throughout the course of the week.

[01:19:27] So, Louisa, what do we want to share with people this week?

[01:19:30] Well, I think what would be great is to hear how you are all thinking about

[01:19:35] plant-based products.

[01:19:36] Do you eat them? Have you tried them?

[01:19:38] Let us know what you want to see in the plant-based space.

[01:19:43] But also, let us know what you want us to cover in season two.

[01:19:47] As always, we love your feedback.

[01:19:49] We've had so many great people telling us what they think good or bad

[01:19:53] throughout the season and we valued all of it.

[01:19:55] So, yes, help us to design what season two looks like.

[01:19:59] Yes.

[01:20:00] And the best way to do that is by sharing the episode on your social channels

[01:20:05] and tagging us, AgFundr and Futech Connect, so we can engage in the conversation with you.

[01:20:12] And we just want to say from the bottom of our heart,

[01:20:15] we may do a little mini episode just to share some of our learning from the season.

[01:20:21] But from the bottom of our heart,

[01:20:23] we just are so grateful to all of you for being on this journey with us,

[01:20:28] for your feedback, for sharing, for listening, for really

[01:20:32] taking these diverse viewpoints to heart.

[01:20:36] Yeah, it's been really amazing.

[01:20:38] Thank you all so much and we will see you soon.

[01:20:43] It's quite funny.

[01:20:44] Doing it in person?

[01:20:46] Yeah.

[01:20:47] Welcome to New Food Order.

[01:20:52] OK, I'm going to go.

[01:20:54] OK.

[01:20:56] Welcome to New Food Order.

[01:20:58] OK, I'm going to start recording.

[01:21:09] New Food Order is sponsored by Food Shock Global and New Hope Network

[01:21:13] and was brought to you by AgFundr and Food and Tech Connect.

[01:21:17] This episode was produced by Cam Gray and Anna Dorff Evans,

[01:21:20] and the project manager was Patrick Carter.

[01:21:24] Original theme music is by Rodrigo Barbera and art is by Lola Ningen.

[01:21:29] Thank you for listening.

[01:21:31] See you next time.