The importance of protein in our diets is hardly breaking news; demand for high-protein diets is increasing globally. When you combine the developing world’s desire to replace staple grains — that have dominated their diets for centuries — with increasing amounts of animal-based protein, with the over-consumption of meat and protein in the developed world, alongside a growing desire in multiple corners of the world to eat fewer animal-based products, there’s clear pressure on the globe’s protein supply. In this episode, I speak to Sara Eckhouse and Victor Friedberg from FoodShot Global, an investment platform focused on Moonshots for Food. Precision Protein is their new focus area. They always have a unique take on issues and their view on the protein debate is certainly refreshing and a break from the simplistic meat vs plants take that many have entered into in recent years. So I hope you enjoy!

Future Food

Digging into the future and sustainability of protein in our diets

How does an environmentalist become an aerial imagery data analytics and AI entrepreneur? Find out in this episode with Al Eisaian, a serial entrepreneur from the mobile apps and software space. Al's company IntelinAir uses images captured from airplanes to help farmers identify problem areas in their fields and make decisions that can reduce the burden of their activities on the environment, such as water usage, pesticide usage and so on. It can also importantly help increase the efficiency and therefore the bottom line of those farming businesses that typically operate on very tight margins. So I hope you enjoy this farmtech episode and thanks for listening!

How the digitalization of agriculture will increase food's sustainability

Covid-19 is the first big crisis for agrifood investing, an investment area that largely emerged in the wake of the global financial crisis. How will investors respond and what does it mean for the future of investment across the sector? This is part of a new series of webinars AgFunder is hosting to navigate the crisis. This first episode features Dave Friedberg, founder of The Climate Corporation, agtech's first unicorn which sold to Monsanto for $1bn, and Blake Stevens, principal at Alexandria Ventures, part of real estate investment juggernaut Alexandria Real Estate (NYSE: ARE) and lead on its agtech efforts. They were joined by myself and my colleague Rob Leclerc, founding partner at AgFunder, one of the most active investors in foodtech and agtech. These special hour-long sessions are longer than you're used to, but I hope you still find them interesting!

The future of agrifood investing in the wake of Covid-19

In this episode, I speak to Bjorn Oste, who cofounded Oatly, the dairy alternative company that recently saw its flagship oat milk product fly off the shelves during the first weeks of the Covid-19 pandemic due to its shelf-stable nature. Bjorn is such fun and candid and tells a great story of the founding of Oatly with his brother and the fantastic, ESG-oriented company it is today complete, with quirky and bold branding often seen adorned on the side of buses. We actually recorded this just as the pandemic was kicking off and before that oat milk rush, so you’ll hear limited conversations about that but what’s really cool is how he answers my typical question on how you view the future food system in 2050; a lot of what he says now feels extra relevant given the challenges Covid-19 has presented and ways in which the food system has had to adapt. We also talk about his new food ventures which includes a focus on combatting diabetes and how he transitioned from IT to food in the 1990s.  This is an extra special and slightly longer edition of Future Food but please hang in there as there are a lot of great insights! As always, thanks so much for listening.

Oatly co-founder on scaling alt milk and the need for local food production

Amanda Weeks is converting food waste into a natural house cleaner. With her startup Ambrosia, that recently re-branded from Industrial/Organic, Amanda has been recycling food waste for many years and after an initial focus on making fertilizer, almost accidentally came across the byproduct's cleaning properties. I catch up with Amanda nearly 5 years after we first met to find out more about the re-brand, the new product line Veles, and the challenges she's faced in building this business.

How to clean your house with food waste

You’re forgiven if you missed Earth Day last week. I’m sure sustainability and climate change are far from many people’s minds right now as you grapple with a new normal that might involve sick loved ones, loss of a job, or serious challenges in your day-to-day life.  Of course, our planet continues to face the same environmental challenges it did before the pandemic. Danone, the French multinational yogurt and dairy products company, certainly agrees; the company, a classified B-Corp, is a frontrunner in the food industry for tackling sustainability issues — recently recognized for its work reducing deforestation — and last year launched a coalition to look into the widespread adoption of regenerative agriculture practices in the dairy sector.  Working with Danone in that coalition is Connecterra, a Dutch AI startup using data and analytics to help dairy farmers become more efficient. Connecterra is charged with measuring the impact of different farming practices as the coalition looks to create a set of guidelines for farmers at the end of the initiative in two years’ time. (Full disclosure: Connecterra is an AgFunder portfolio company.) So I sat down today — virtually of course — with Cees Jan Hollander, global director of farm relations at Danone and Yasir Khokhar, CEO of Connecterra, to find out how the coalition “Farming for Generations” is going and check in how Covid-19 is impacting their businesses. If you’re reading this, you’re no doubt aware of the devastating impact Covid-19 is having on the dairy industry after food service demand dried up and you’ve no doubt seen the upsetting videos of large amounts of milk being dumped in the countryside. Hollander and Khokhar offer some fascinating insights there — hint: consumer demand for milk products has increased dramatically; as Khokhar referenced “breakfast is having a come back with everyone being at home.” We also discuss how the pandemic is accelerating other trends such as a move towards more localized production, which happens to fit neatly into Danone’s existing local production strategy.

Digging into dairy sustainability with Danone & Connecterra

Climate scientist, inventor and founder of two sustainable businesses, Adam Lowry is currently CEO of Ripple Foods, a dairy-free milk products company. His first company was Method, the sustainable cleaning products brand that's now a household name. We talk about the contrast between launching a cleaning products business and a food business, why food was the next step for him, the key mistakes and lessons learned from Method, how he and his colleagues chose the pea as the key ingredient for their products and his moonshot hope for the food system. Adam is set to speak in-person at the Future Food-Tech Summit next month in San Francisco - don't miss it! Find out more: https://futurefoodtechsf.com/

Milk from peas? Method co-founder Adam Lowry on making protein and learning from mistakes

 In a world of African Swine Fever, increasing scrutiny of the meat industry and consumer demand for transparency, the pork industry needs to modernize. But according to Chris Bomgaars, founder of EveryPig, a software platform for pork producers to track pig health, moving away from the pen + paper records that still dominate, many in the industry are reticent to do so. Find out why -- and what they think of the growing number of meat alternatives on the market -- in this episode.

Pork Tech, ASF, Transparency: how are your sausages grown?

Why work in the foodtech and agtech investment space? Which category of this emerging venture capital industry are most exciting? These are some of the questions I asked two of my teammates Yanniv and Quinten who joined AgFunder in 2019. Also find out who their favorite team member is - hint - it's me!

Why foodtech and agtech VC? I ask AgFunder's investment team

This episode is perhaps a tad awkward as I interview my boss Rob Leclerc, founding partner of AgFunder, but Rob was as insightful as ever, sharing his thoughts on working in and around the agriculture sector for the past decade. Rob first started working with our other founding partner Michael Dean when they set up an agriculture business in West Africa at the start of the decade before founding AgFunder in 2013. We talk about agtech acquisitions, food trends, the impending shift to look at food as medicine, lessons he's learned since starting to invest and who is favorite team member is - hint, it's me!

2020 Special: AgFunder's Rob Leclerc on the last decade in ag and foodtech

In this episode, I speak to Bruce Friedrich, the executive director and co-founder of the Good Food Institute (GFI), a nonprofit that promotes plant-based alternatives to meat, dairy, and eggs, as well as those using cellular agriculture to produce replicas of these animal-based products at the cellular level, without any animal involvement. GFI engages scientists, policymakers, and entrepreneurs to advance the creation and adoption of these food products by producing research and a range of resources to help innovators and the industry at large come to grips with this emerging food sector. The organization has achieved a lot in its short life as it was only founded in 2016. I've known Bruce since the start, and this conversation is us touching base to talk about GFI's epic growth and that of the alt protein sector generally. And it's also me picking up on a few things I asked him back in a 2016 interview. Bruce is an awesome interviewee, especially as I did jump this podcast on him when he answered the phone; we were just scheduled for a catch-up call but I thought I'd grab the opportunity, so he very graciously allowed me to record our conversation, and this is it. Thanks Bruce! We cover the entrance of the large food companies into the plant-based space, the role GFI took in getting government funding and policy advances for the sector, how alt protein companies are communicating about their use of genetic technology, costs of cultivated meat, white spaces of innovation for entrepreneurs, how to separate the winners from the losers, and of course, what Bruce had for breakfast. Key quote: "Our goal is not to change anybody's metrics for food choices; our goal is to change the foods so that the plant-based and the cultivated alternatives have significantly lower external costs, no need for antibiotics, and a fraction of the climate impact so that consumers choose them because they are the most delicious and most affordable alternative." Enjoy!

Alt proteins: Catching up with GFI's Bruce Friedrich

In this episode I speak to Jack Bobo, founder of Futurity, a consultancy firm for startups and established food brands to consider the future of food and what it means to them.  "I'm very optimistic and excited about what the world will look like in 2050 but I think it is helpful though to think about where we've come from in order to think about where we're going." Tune in to hear why Jack think CBD is not hot and the problem with fad diets and why the sugar tax on sodas - fizzy drinks to my British pals - doesn't make sense. Don't miss the end when we talk about how the livestock industry could come to terms or even benefit from the wave of plant-based and cultivated meat alternatives coming down the pipe. Enjoy!

Who's responsible for obesity? And why Futurist Jack Bobo is pro-traditions

In this episode of Future Food, I speak to Klaus Kunz, head of Sustainability and Business Stewardship at German agro-pharma giant Bayer on the sidelines of the Seed & Chips Innovation Summit in Milan. We talk on many topics including smallholder farmers, concerning data regarding biodiversity but one can’t get through a conversation with Bayer without addressing its pesticides. The company has come under serious fire for its glyphosate-based weedkiller Roundup, which is made by its now-subsidiary Monsanto. Environmental organizations have also been lobbying for it to be banned, as some researchers have linked its use to bee deaths. Klaus calls it a “very emotional topic” to him, having led the company’s task force in addressing the ugly issue, for three years. “[There are] very heated debates in the public on the safety of [neonicotinoids] to bees. And it's absolutely true if you apply this class of chemistry in the wrong way, it's toxic to bees. So it is a matter of massive stewardship, positioning of these insecticides in the right place, in the spring cycle, and not in the wrong place,” says Klaus. “For example, spraying into flowering of bee attractive crops is a no-go with this class. What I realized is that at one point of time it was very difficult to have a fact-based conversation. It became very emotional.” This episode, though heavy, is full of important insights from Klaus, who addresses pertinent issues in the bigger agriculture picture. Don’t miss it!

Klaus Kunz tells us how Bayer is cleaning up its act

Sofia Elizondo started her career as a management consultant in New York and after attending Stanford business school, discovered the world of food tech. She cofounded Brightseed in Silicon Valley to unlock the potential for plants to positively impact our health. In this episode, we discuss the vast untapped potential of the natural world for our nutrition; just 15 of the 50,000 edible plants on the earth provide 90% of our calories! So Sofia founded Brightseed to unearth the bioactive compounds in plants that have positive impacts on our bodies using artificial intelligence and computational biology. "Thirty years from now I think for sure we will know much more about the impact that food has on us. More or less, the level of science today is vegetables are good so have more of that, but I think in 30 years time, from the moment we are born, we're going to know exactly what foods we should eat, and for what purpose, and we are going to be able to source them, and enjoy their benefits." Sofia also provides great tips for other female founders. Enjoy! (Disclosure, Brightseed is an AgFunder portfolio company and I work for AgFunder.)

From the moment we're born, we're going to know exactly what foods we should eat, for what purpose

In this episode of Future Food, I speak to Jennifer Betka, the chief marketing officer of Indigo Agriculture, the Boston-based agtech startup that's one of the highest valued in the industry today. Jennifer is an expert marketer with a career spanning many different industries outside of agriculture, most recently at StubHub the event ticketing business, so it's really interesting to hear about her transition into this industry. Jennifer does a great job explaining the work of Indigo that has transformed from a seed technology to a full service for farmers and a supplier of sustainable ingredients for food companies. And she talks about her marketing strategy. "When I look at our brand, I think it's a really curious brand that's asking really important questions," she said giving an example of research she's doing into consumer signals. "If growers can be incentivized to put carbon back into the soil, do consumers care?" I absolutely loved this conversation with Jennifer and please hang in there for some excellent insights around the 25 minute mark and onwards. Enjoy!

Consumer Signals Influence the Biggest Agtech Startup: Indigo Ag

What will you be eating in 2050? How will it get to your table? How we grow, purchase, and eat our food is changing. New technologies and food products are playing a key role in shaping that change. In this podcast, we speak to the people driving that future, from entrepreneurs and venture capital investors, to farmers and food businesses. Welcome to Future Food!

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Future Food

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