Business for Good Podcast

If you've been listening to the show for some time, you know that replacing animals in the food system is a topic very close to my heart. While the meat and egg industries in the grand picture have still been largely unaffected by plant-based competitors, that's not the case in the milk industry, where the explosion of plant-based milks has very tangibly cut into demand for cow's milk. Gone are the days when almond milk and soy milk were for vegans—now they're for everyone. But just a few years ago, a new entrant into the plant-based milk world emerged. In 2015 oat milk was far less than 1 percent of the plant-based milk world. In fact, people hearing the term "oat milk" were probably more likely to think they'd heard people talking about "goat milk." Not anymore. Thanks largely to one company, Oatly, oat milk is now the belle of the alt-milk ball. After three decades of toiling away far out of mainstream consciousness, Oatly has boomed, leading to its mega-successful 2021 IPO.

I try to read any new book that comes out on the topic, and that includes Richard Munson's new book Tech to Table: 25 Innovators Reminaging Food. I really enjoyed reading this book by someone who's far more well-known for his deep-dive biographies of visionaries like Nikola Tesla and Jacque Cousteau, but now has written a new book featuring dozens of entrepreneurs seeking to create a more sustainable food system. And they're doing this not by returning to 19th century agriculture, but by embracing 21st century food and agriculture technology. In this interview we discuss everything from how new tech can displace old jobs, why some environmentalists don't seem that down with new tech that could benefit the environment, and what the future of food and ag may bring. It's a wide-ranging conversation about a book with a wide-range of topics and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

For those of you who've been enjoying Business for Good for some time, today's guest may sound familiar. That's because Kim Le is not only our guest on Episode 85, but she was also our guest on our 49th episode back in 2020. If you've not heard it, I do recommend you go back and check it out, which will be helpful in seeing just how much has changed for this young startup which was cofounded by undergrads and has raised $20 million so far. As you'll hear in this episode, Prime Roots is undergoing quite a transformation as it settles into its new 20,000 square foot production facility in Berkeley. I was fortunate enough to visit the Prime Roots HQ, which is where we taped this episode in person, right after I'd enjoyed their new products, which were truly phenomenal.

One of the most common questions I get from listeners is: how can I invest in companies you feature on the show? Well, most of them are startups backed by VC dollars, and that means the average retail investor isn't typically going to be able to invest in these early stage private companies. But what if there were a way to invest money in an index fund that only included companies actively working to replace the exploitation of animals in our economy? It turns out that there is now such a fund, and it was co-founded by Elysabeth Alfano. Perhaps most well-known as the host of Plant-Based Business Hour, Elysabeth has now started the VegTech™ Plant-based Innovation & Climate ETF, which is traded on The New York Stock Exchange as EATV. Think of it like the S&P 500, but instead more like the Plant-Based 40. That's because this Exchange-Traded Fund is a collection of 40 publicly-traded companies up and down the animal-free supply chain. This isn't companies that simply don't use animals, but rather companies actively involved in actually replacing animal use. That includes well-known players like Beyond Meat and Oatly, but also the ingredients companies that supply them and more. The basic bet is that over time, the inefficiency of animal use will drag down the companies that are dependent on it, while animal-free companies will thrive.

Humanity's relentless demand for seafood is emptying the oceans with little end in sight. Does the path to freeing fish from us run through fungi fermentation? That's exactly what Anne Palermo is betting. As you'll hear in this interview, Anne is a former asset manager at Morgan Stanley who decided mid-career that she wanted to start her own chocolate company. After growing her first startup to millions in revenue, this mom of three got hooked on the need for animal-free protein and pivoted to start a new company focused on saving the oceans. Anne began growing mycelium—the root-like structure of fungi—on wet cardboard in her kitchen and to her pleasant surprise, she found that she could tune the mycelium into various kinds of whole muscle seafood mimicry. Soon, Aqua Cultured Foods was born. Fast forward to today, just one year later, and Anne has raised millions of dollars, hired staff, filed provisional patent applications, partnered with a major food company, and more. Anne's vision involves turning the tide on the war that humanity is waging on oceanic animals while still allowing seafood lovers to enjoy their favorite foods, but just made via fermentation rather than fishing.

You know when you get a food product like those Beyond Meat sausages and see that instead of plastic, it's in one of those biodegradable trays or bowls? Have you ever wondered how they do that? I mean, that bowl needs to repel oil and water from its surface without getting soggy, but still be actually biodegradable. Seems impossible. Well, it turns out that this feat isn't only a great technological innovation that helps replace plastics; it's also a great business, as Troy Swope has proven. Founded in 2014, Troy's company Footprint grew from humble roots to now having 4,000 employees, $50 million in annual revenue, and production facilities around the world. With all this success, the company is seeking to go public later in 2022, reportedly with a valuation of $1.6 billion. It's quite a story, and one that proves that some of humanity's most pressing problems, like plastic pollution, are also some of our best business opportunities.

This is a story about how one man entered startup life, rose to great prominence, got battered in the press and endured a very public downfall, and then got back up again and kept pushing his life's mission to improve public health forward.

When it comes to food, we often hear that switching to organic, local, non-GMO production methods are what's best for the planet. But, what if the preponderance of scientific evidence doesn't support such claims, and that actually both the planet and public health are better off with the synthetic fertilizer banned by organic standards; that buying local may not be better for the planet; and that it's perfectly safe to eat genetically modified plants? This is indeed what the science shows, says author and Harvard professor Rob Paarlberg in his new book, Resetting the Table: Straight Talk about the Food We Grow and Eat. Paarlberg doesn't claim that so-called industrial agriculture is good for the planet, but he does argue that such 21st century food production methods are far preferable for the planet than if we were to try to return to the more extensive, pastoral systems of humanity's past.

For real: What were you doing during your sophomore year of college? Probably not what Jessica Schwabach was doing, which was starting her own plant-based meat company. Two years later, Jessica has gone through two prestigious accelerator programs, created products that have been sold in dozens of stores, and just raised a $4 million seed round, including investment from food giant Nestle. Just what is this new founder CEO doing that has so many people so interested? Well, she and her team at Sundial Foods have created some alt-chicken wings, with skin and all, that are apparently knocking people's socks off.

A year and a half ago, a guy few people had ever heard of came on to this show's 44th episode to talk both about the business of police reform as well as his new book advocating plant-based eating. A former police officer, at the time of our interview he was the Borough President of Brooklyn and certainly had nearly no national profile. I mentioned in the episode that he was reportedly considering a run for New York City's mayor's office and that some people were even considering him a frontrunner. Well, those pundits turned out to be right, as Eric Adams eventually announced his mayoral candidacy, dispatched his Democratic rivals in the primary, including far better known candidates like Andrew Yang, and then overwhelmingly beat his Republican opponent on Election Day. Now, Adams is about to be inaugurated as the first vegan mayor of America's largest city, and his plant-based diet isn't incidental to his platform. He has big food policy plans, some of which he foreshadows in this interview, which we're re-releasing here as Episode 78 now that Eric is virtually a household name due to his successful mayoral bid. In this interview, Adams talks about how his experience of being beaten by the police while in custody as a black teenager led to him become a police officer himself for two decades, and then ultimately to a life in politics. After serving in the police force, Adams was elected as a state senator in New York where he championed police reforms, including opposition to the then-stop-and-frisk policy, he served two terms as the chief executive of New York City's most populous borough, Brooklyn, and of course is now set to become mayor, with many pundits calling him the future of the Democratic party and even a potential future presidential contender. In addition to discussing technologies from the private sector he believes could be helpful in preventing lethal use of force by police, we also discuss how Adams' adoption of a plant-based diet reversed his diabetes, gave him back his health, and what he thinks private businesses can do to advance public health. And yes, he talks about what he thinks government should be doing to promote better health outcomes through diet, so maybe this interview will serve as a nice foreshadowing of things to come as Adams prepares to take the reins of power in the Big Apple. Who knows, maybe they'll be eating more apples!