Business for Good Podcast

You've heard the old adage: Humans plan, and God laughs. That truism could nicely describe Irina Gerry's life, which has been pretty remarkable so far. She started out growing up in communist Russia, but with fate helping to defy odds, Irina ended up coming to the US and attending Harvard Business School. She eventually worked at one of the biggest symbols of capitalism on the planet: Procter & Gamble. But soon, Irina was in the dairy industry, working at milk product behemoth Danone, or sometimes known as Dannon in the United States, managing their plant-based brands Silk and So Delicious. After years of spending time advancing alt-dairy within the walls of one of the world's biggest dairy companies, fate struck again in Irina's life. Following a chance virtual meeting on Linkedin during the pandemic with the CEO of a brand new, pre-revenue, animal-free dairy start-up, Irina decided to leave the comfort and safety of a good job at a major company to try her hand at entrepreneurship. So she left Danone to become the Chief Marketing Officer of Change Foods, a company recently started by Australian plant-based entrepreneur David Bucca that's using microbes to brew real dairy proteins without the use of a single cow. So far they've raised nearly $1 million and are seeking an additional $5 million in 2021. Change Foods has already brought on other heavy hitters from major food brands, and their first product, they claim, will be cheese that melts and performs just like conventional cheese. In this episode we discuss Irina's journey from corporate Goliath to start-up David, just what makes Change Foods different from other precision fermentation start-ups, and what Irina thinks are examples of great—and not-so-great—marketing in the plant-based space. We also get into why plant-based milk has become so much more successful than plant-based meat, at least so far. And we discuss the vexing question: is real dairy brewed from microbes vegan or not? After all, it's real dairy protein, so if you're allergic to cow's milk, you'll be allergic to this. But no animals were used, so how should marketers describe this kind of food? So enjoy learning about the brave new world of sustainable protein and a remarkable life journey so far in this episode! Discussed in this interview: Our past episode featuring Perfect Day's co-founders. Forks Over Knives had a big impact on Irina. Irina recommends The Tipping Point by Malcomb Gladwell. Paul's article on how cheese consumption is increasing even while milk consumption is declining. The RethinkX Report on the future of animal agriculture. Irina praised companies like Impossible Foods, Beyond Meat, and Miyoko's. She also questioned Lightlife Foods for its ads attacking fellow plant-based companies.

If you're a regular listener of the show, you likely already know that reducing humanity's reliance on animals for food is one of the most pressing challenges the world faces at this moment. But meat demand just keeps rising and we're raising more animals for food today than ever before. One thing keeping meat alternatives merely as alternatives is that plant-based meat is still sold at multiples over the cost of animal-based meat. In other words, lowering the cost of meat alternatives seems like a true business and moral imperative. Kristie Middleton has spent her life trying to move our food industry away from animal usage and toward plant proteins. She knows as well as anyone just how critical price is when it comes to influencing institutional purchasing decisions. After spending two decades working for animal welfare charities, including authoring a book on meat reduction, she's now left the life of a nonprofit animal activist behind and embraced an executive role at an early-stage plant-based chicken startup called Rebellyous Foods. Their goal is very simple to understand but incredibly difficult to achieve: compete on cost with commodity chicken. In this episode we talk about Kristie's transition from the world of charities to the work of building a company aimed at helping animals. We also discuss how Rebellyous Foods intends to bend the cost curve of plant-based meat and what they're doing with the $12 million they've raised from venture capitalists so far. It's an inspirational tale for anyone interested in making the world a better place for all animals, human and nonhuman alike. Discussed in this episode Kristie's book MeatLess: Transform the Way You Eat and Live — One Meal at a Time Meatless Mondays in LA schools, which Kristie helped implement Great by Choice by Jim Collins Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki Christie Lagally, the founder and CEO of Rebellyous Food Our past episodes featuring Toni Okamoto and Colleen Patrick Goudreau. Food Biz Wiz podcast with Alli Ball Startup CPG More about Kristie Middleton Kristie Middleton is vice president of business development for Rebellyous Foods and the author of MeatLess: Transform the Way You Eat and Live—One Meal at a Time. Prior to joining Rebellyous, Kristie was Managing Director of Farm Animal Protection at the Humane Society of the United States, where she built and led a team of foodservice professionals working with foodservice management corporations and institutions across the U.S. to help them reduce meat purchases and incorporate more plant-based options into their menus. Kristie has partnered with the nation's biggest school districts including Los Angeles, Detroit, and Boston and some of the world's largest food companies to implement plant-based initiatives such as Meatless Monday.

We may hear a lot about solar power and renewable energy, but sadly, our civilization is still voraciously addicted to fossil fuels. Even in a technologically advanced country like America, nearly all — about 90 percent — of the energy we use still comes from non-renewable sources. This not only causes serious environmental damage to extract from the earth, but also is a leading cause of climate change that's driving countless species to extinction, including possibly own our species if we don't get our act together. The effort to collect energy from the sun's rays has come a long way, but it's still largely dependent on finding roofspace or large tracts of land to put unappealing blue-grey solar panels. But what if we could collect solar energy through crystal clear film that we could affix to virtually any surface, including the windows of skyscrapers? By making it possible to invisibly turn outdoor objects like windows into solar energy-collecting devices, we could transform the ways our cities and homes get their power. That's exactly what Ubiquitous Energy is seeking to do. The start-up has raised $30 million to commercialize technology that began in an MIT lab that uses invisible film placed on windows to harvest solar energy. And we've got their CEO, Susan Stone, on this episode to tell us all about it. It doesn't look like humanity's energy needs are going to subside any time soon. If anything, we're going to need more power, not less. And that's why innovations like Ubiquitous Energy's are so important: since they allow us to have our energy and eat it too, or maybe have our energy, and heat our homes, too. Discussed in this episode Our past episode on Ornilux bird-friendly glass Statistics about solar and other renewable energy in the U.S. Our recent episode with John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market Susan recommends Play Bigger by Al Ramadan Susan recommends a Fast Company story by Andrea Kayal about how to hire nice people More About Susan Stone Susan Stone is CEO at Ubiquitous Energy. She has been a longtime board member and investor in the company. Prior to joining Ubiquitous, she was the founder and CEO of Sierra Wasatch Capital, an early stage venture capital firm, and managed early stage investing for Riverhorse Investments, Inc. Susan has also worked at JPMorgan in New York and Houlihan Lokey in Los Angeles as an investment banker focused on mergers & acquisitions. Stone holds an MBA from Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business and a bachelor's degree from Yale University.

Most start-ups fail. Many that don't fail still don't have spectacular results. Chris Bryson, however, defied the odds by founding and running a company that was so successful Instacart acquired it for a reported $65 million. Rather than retiring to a tropical beach with regular daiquiri service, Chris charted a different course for his new life. Instead of leisurely enjoying the financial fruit of his labor, Chris has decided to use his wealth to invest in alternative protein start-ups seeking to displace animals in the food industry's supply chain. Convinced that the most good he can do in the world is help divorce meat production from animal farming, already he's seeded a number of plant-based and cultivated meat start-ups with cash to hopefully drive them to the same kind of success he had as a start-up founder. Additionally, Chris has also decided to try his hand at serial entrepreneurship and is starting his own alt-seafood venture himself, too. Will Chris be like Lebron and bring home another championship for a different team? Will he be like Jordan and move from being a player to a coach for his investees? How did becoming a multimillionaire change his life? Hear his inspirational tale in this podcast about Chris' wild ride to try to do good in the world. Discussed in this episode Unata, the company Chris founded and sold to Instacart Rebellyous Foods, Plantible Foods, Avant Meats, Cultured Decadence, four startups in which Chris has invested Paul's review of A Traitor to His Species, a biography of ASPCA founder Henry Bergh Chris says Ashlee Vance's biography of Elon Musk was inspirational to him. Christie Lagally's analysis showing that plant-based meat is still less than one percent of the total meat market. I am an Animal, HBO's documentary on PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk The Good Food Institute, a charity helping advance sustainable protein solutions More about Chris Bryson and Unata Chris Bryson served as the founder and CEO of Unata, an enterprise software provider (acquired by Instacart in 2018) that powers the eCommerce & digital experiences for major grocery chains. Recognized as the 52nd Fastest Growing North American Tech Company (PROFIT 500 2016), Canada's #2 best small business workplace (Great Place to Work 2017), and one of Canada's Top 20 Most Innovative Companies (CIX Awards 2016). He holds a bachelor's in commerce from Queen's University.

Meat from a cow who's eaten an entirely grass-based diet is typically called "grass-fed meat." So when you're making plant-based meat with wood as your feedstock, is it called "wood-fed meat"? No matter what you call it, Arbiom has raised about $30 million to produce it. Arbiom CEO Marc Chevrel is taking wood and subjecting it to a yeast-based fermentation that allows him to, within just one week, produce a high-protein food which can be used both for human and animal purposes. Just think about how long it takes to raise an animal for food, yet Marc harvests his protein in just one week. Right now, billions of wild fish are killed and fed to farmed fish, farmed land animals like pigs, and to our pets in dog and cat food. What if Marc's yeast could replace the need for all those fish to be taken from the sea? Even more, he's turned his wood-fed yeast into plant-based meat which he asserts is quite tasty, and he says, very affordable. So, is wood-fed meat the future of sustainable protein? Marc Chevrel thinks so. Enjoy this episode and you the judge. Discussed in this episode Feedstuffs: "Arbiom achieves milestone in scale-up of 'wood-to-food' technology" The Spoon: "The Latest Ingredient For Alt-Protein? Wood." Food Ingredients: "Arbiom's alternative protein product has 'lowest impact on climate change'" More about Marc Chevrel of Arbiom: Marc Chevrel has been a manager in industrial fields for more than 20 years, with a varied experience in energy, chemistry, manufacturing, engineering and services. He was the head of the regional office for industrial environment in Northern France before working for the French Energy Regulatory Commission as head of the electricity markets. He then joined the nuclear engineering and manufacturing company Areva, where he held various management roles, including leader of industrial business units with a work force of several thousand people, and sales of about 1 billion dollars. Marc has a wealth of international experience and he has worked and lived in four countries (France, Germany, Japan and the USA). Marc is a graduate from both École Normale Supérieure and Mines ParisTech and holds master's degrees in mathematics and engineering.

This is of course a historic election for many reasons, one of them being that there's very high concern about how the votes will be counted. We're just days away from the final day to vote and we've got news stories about the Russians and Iranians gaining access to certain voter records in the US — it's crazy! One need look no further than 20 years ago when disputes over how to count the ballots in Florida led the US Supreme Court to step in and end the state's recount, handing, by a 5-4 ruling, George W. Bush the presidency over Al Gore. Well, the events of 2000 may seem tame compared to what could happen on election night 2020 and the following days. This time we have not only a pandemic gripping our nation, but a president who regularly rails against mail-in voting as allegedly fraudulent and who assuredly will claim that the election results are fake. Recall that even after his electoral college victory in 2016, president-elect Trump maintained, without providing any evidence, that his loss in the popular vote was only made possible by millions of so-called fraudulent votes. Turns out, however, that there's one thing everyone should be able to agree on: We need better technology to improve the security of our elections, from the news people are seeing during election season to the counting of the actual votes on election day and beyond. In this episode, we have one of the nation's foremost experts on cybersecurity, Dr. Aaron Brantly, the founder and director of the Tech4Humanity Lab at Virginia Tech. In addition to having worked at the U.S. Army Cyber Institute and at West Point, Aaron has written four books on cybersecurity and has traveled the world to promote democracy and protect elections abroad. Few people understand the cyber threats we face better than Aaron, and the opportunities for businesses to create technology that can help safeguard our electoral processes and therefore our democracy. As you'll hear, Aaron and I talk about everything from what threats he sees as the most serious, to why we don't yet have secure online voting, to how other countries handle their election security. And at the end of our conversation, Aaron gives his wish list of startups he hopes will be founded that could be both financially lucrative while also protecting the integrity of our voting systems. So if you care about protecting our democracy's electoral process and how digital innovation can help, this is the episode for you. Discussed in this episode: Aaron Brantly's personal site Aaron's four books on cybersecurity The Tech4Humanity Lab at Virginia Tech Aaron recommends both Reset: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society by Ron Deibert and Attack Surface by Cory Doctorow Two documentaries: The Social Dilemma and All-In: The Fight for Democracy More about Dr. Aaron Brantly Aaron Brantly, an assistant professor of political science at Virginia Tech, has worked on issues related to cybersecurity from multiple angles, including human rights and development, intelligence and national security, and military cybersecurity. His interests span the political science and computer science divide. He is currently working on a yearlong project on cyber deterrence funded by OSD Minerva R-Def. He also is the founder and director of the Tech4Humanity Lab at Virginia Tech. Aaron holds a PhD in political science from the University of Georgia, and his principal areas of research include cyber conflict and security, terrorism, intelligence, big data, and Internet governance.

This is a special episode, because the guest holds many interesting titles for our purposes: Toni Okamoto is the founder of Plant Based on a Budget, a successful author, the creator and former co-host of this podcast, and...she happens also to be my wife. And Toni has a new book coming out! This is her third cookbook, entitled The Friendly Vegan Cookbook, which is coauthored with Toni's business partner and friend Michelle Cehn. Now, before you think this is just some act of nepotism to promote my wife's new book (which is certainly worth promoting, nepotism or not!), as you'll soon hear, Toni has a fascinating tale to tell about her success as an entrepreneur. In this episode we chat about what led her to leave the comfortable life of a paycheck and benefits to take a bet on starting her own company based on her passion: helping people save money by eating plant-based. With no outside investment and just by bootstrapping with revenue she's brought in, Toni has built her company into a powerhouse, providing jobs for six people (plus herself) and reaching vast numbers of people with a potent message about how to live more sustainably each day. It's normally taboo to talk about how much money someone makes, but Toni gets into the specific numbers here to offer details about her business' various revenue streams. So if you've ever wondered how social media influencers actually make a living and what their lives are like, including the barrage of both encouragement and criticism they receive online daily, this episode will answer that plus a whole lot more. Discussed in this episode Toni's three books Plant-Based on a Budget's meal plans Smart Passive Income Podcast and the Startup Podcast Alfonso Revilla Photography Reynaldo's Soy Chorizo Eddie the Pittie on Instagram About Toni Okamoto Toni Okamoto is the founder of Plant-Based on a Budget, the popular website and meal plan that shows you how to save dough by eating veggies. She's also the author of the Plant-Based on a Budget cookbook, The Super Easy Vegan Slow Cooker Cookbook, and the Friendly Vegan Cookbook. She's also the co-host of The Plant-Powered People Podcast. Okamoto's work has been profiled by NBC News, Parade Magazine, and she's a regular presence on local and national morning shows across the country, where she teaches viewers how to break their meat habit without breaking their budget. She was also featured in the popular documentary What the Health. When she's not cooking up a plant-based storm, she's spending time with her husband Paul Shapiro and dog Eddie in Sacramento, Calif.

When this podcast was first launched in 2018, the very first guest was Whole Foods Market CEO and co-founder John Mackey. In that episode, we talked about his book Conscious Capitalism. Well, John has a new book out now, Conscious Leadership, and to commemorate our 50th episode, he rejoins the podcast for a second conversation and rest assured, John does not disappoint. In this episode we cover a wide range of topics: What did John learn from an attempted (unsuccessful) coup at Whole Foods to oust him from the CEO position? In which cultivated meat company did both Whole Foods Market and John personally take an investment position? What does he think future generations will think about our treatment of animals? Why does plant-based cheese sell better when it's not located in the dairy section? Will there be a post-Whole Foods chapter in John's life? Enjoy the full episode, and all of these questions (plus more!) will be answered. Discussed in this episode Several books by John Mackey John's 2018 interview Business for Good Seth Goldman's 2018 interview on Business for Good Paul's book Clean Meat Paul's definitely-not-repulsive immune-boosting covid concoction World Wildlife Fund's report showing humans that have decimated nearly 70% of wild animals in half a century. John's book recommendations: Shoe Dog by Phil Knight, Essential Spirituality by Roger Walsh, and Path with Heart by Jack Kornfield Whole Foods Market History Whole Foods Market was founded in Austin, Texas, when four local businesspeople decided the natural foods industry was ready for a supermarket format. Co-founders included John Mackey and Renee Lawson Hardy, owners of Safer Way Natural Foods, and Craig Weller and Mark Skiles, owners of Clarksville Natural Grocery. The original Whole Foods Market opened in 1980 with a staff of only 19 people. It was an immediate success. At the time, there were less than half a dozen natural food supermarkets in the United States. In 2017, Amazon purchased Whole Foods Market for nearly $14 billion. As of 2020, the company operates more than 500 store locations.

Think about how many plants there are: hundreds of thousands of different species. Yet when you look at plant-based meats, nearly all are made of one or more of just three of those plant species: soy, wheat, and pea. And there's good reason for it: those plants are relatively cheap and plentiful, they taste good, and they function quite well as alt-meats under certain conditions that have been studied at length. But what if it were possible to make meat alternatives with a different species than one of those three? In fact, a species so different it's not even a plant at all. That's exactly what Kimberlie Le of Prime Roots is doing. Instead of seeking to build a supply chain for a new kind of plant protein, Kim is creating her own supply chain for making animal-free protein, brewing a fungus called Aspergillus oryzae into whole food meat alternatives. For those of you not familiar, fungi are not plants nor are they animals: they're an entirely different kingdom of organisms. We typically associate fungi with mushrooms, but mushrooms are just the fruiting body of a fungus, kind of like an apple on a tree. And in fact, most fungal species don't even produce mushrooms anyway. But back to aspergillus: It's also known as koji, and humans have been enjoying this particular fungus for centuries in the form of soy sauce, miso, sake, and more. But rather than using it as a processing aid, Kim's start-up Prime Roots is simply using fermentation to collect the biomass of the fungus itself and turning it into animal-free meat. As you'll hear, the idea for the company came to Kim while in a college course. Three years later, she's now raised millions of dollars, is operating a 12,000 square foot production facility, and has already released a flagship product, bacon made from koji. So enjoy this wide-ranging conversation with an entrepreneur who's betting that the next big thing in plant-based meat isn't going to be plants at all. If Kim has her way, just maybe the next big trend among advocates for local, artisanal protein won't be farm to table, but rather will be fermenter to table, with Prime Roots brewing the way forward. Discussed in this episode: Prime Roots job openings Rebellyous Foods CEO Christie Lagally's thoughts on plant-based meat industry Paul's thoughts on just how much alt-meat is out there. My Food Job Rocks podcast interview with Hodo Foods CEO Minh Tsai Past Business for Good episode with Perfect Day's co-founders Quorn mycoprotein products The Choice by Edith Eger Pathfinder family planning efforts

Think about how much metal you use in your life. Your phone. Your canned drinks. Your car. Well, for every ounce of metal in our lives, there are several ounces of often-toxic sludge left behind from the extraction process at the mine. In other words, in a car there might be a ton of aluminum, and to get that aluminum for that one car, there's enough red mud--the industry term for the waste product of mining--to fill a swimming pool. In fact, our metal mining produces such huge volumes of these so-called tailings ponds at mining sites that there's enough of it to cover all of California in a foot-deep pool of sludge. Sure, plastic straws may get the attention, producing tens of thousands of tons of waste per year. But the mining industry produces tens of billions of tons of hazardous waste each year. Now, these days if you follow the sustainable food world you hear a lot about upcycling in the food industry. We've even featured companies on this podcast using agricultural byproducts to make new and valuable goods. So, two young students thought, why not do the same with tailings ponds at mining sites? After all, there's still a lot of titanium, aluminum, iron, silica, and more importantly, rare earth metals, left behind in these ponds simply because they're difficult to extract. But difficulty hasn't stopped Nick Myers and Thomas Villalon from experimenting and finding a way to extract value from these ponds of mining waste. After successfully experimenting for months in their backyard with materials given to them by a refinery, Nick and Thomas went on to found their start-up, got accepted to the prestigious Techstars accelerator, won a quarter-million dollar grant from the National Science Foundation, have filed for provisional patents on their process, and have now raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from investors. In short, they're ready to get to work. It's an inspiring tale showing how some innovative folks who see solutions where others see problems can really make a positive difference in the world. I think you'll be as impressed by Nick and Thomas as I am, so sit back and enjoy hearing the story of Phoenix Tailings as told by its cofounders. Discussed in this episode: Past Business for Good episodes with Outlander Materials and Deep Isolation Regrained nutrition bars using beer brewery waste The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi