00:00hi everyone welcome to the Asics insi
00:02podcast this year were continuing our
00:04annual Thanksgiving series with another
00:06podcast all about food only this time
00:09it's about meatless meats or rather
00:11clean meats joining the episode our uma
00:13valetti CEO of memphis meets david lee
00:16CEO of impossible foods and bruce
00:19friedrich executive director of a good
00:21food institute they are in conversation
00:24moderated by Kyle Russell hello everyone
00:26this is Kyle Russell I'm a member of the
00:28deal and research team here at
00:29Andreessen Horowitz and today we're
00:31talking about meatless meats looking
00:33forward and we're you're gonna have to
00:35feed 10 billion people globally over the
00:3721st century and that's going to involve
00:41not only scaling up existing production
00:43techniques to address that demand but
00:45also looking at new ways to handle the
00:48production distribution of food a major
00:50part of billions of people's daily diets
00:52consists of meat that's a big vector
00:54that we're gonna have to address so
00:56first I'm gonna go to a bruce friedrich
00:58from the good food institute or some of
01:00the reasons people are looking at this
01:01space is it efficiency is it what we
01:04hear from vegetarians and vegans not
01:05wanting to eat meat well we're coming at
01:08it from primarily the inefficiency of
01:12cycling crops through animals as well as
01:15the environmental global health and
01:17animal harm so if you were looking at a
01:20way to create food you really couldn't
01:23do much worse than growing crops to feed
01:27them to animals so that the animals
01:29convert them into meat we're looking to
01:31feed nine point seven billion people by
01:332050 we're not going to do that with
01:36animal agriculture the most efficient
01:38meat is chicken and according to the
01:40World Resources Institute it takes nine
01:43calories in the form of corn or wheat or
01:45alfalfa or whatever you're feeding the
01:47chickens it takes nine calories into a
01:49chicken to get one calorie back out so
01:52it's eight hundred percent waste got it
01:55additionally climate change and other
01:57environmental problems are addressed by
02:00shifting away from animal product
02:01consumption according to the United
02:04Nations about fourteen to fifteen
02:06percent of all climate change is
02:07attributable to the inefficiencies of
02:10raising animals for food the
02:12climate change inducing meat again it's
02:15chicken and yet on a per protein calorie
02:18basis chicken produces 40 times as much
02:21climate change as legumes like soy and
02:24peas which are two of the primary
02:27plant-based meat substitutes also
02:29literally tens of billions not millions
02:32tens of billions of animals were treated
02:34in ways that would want felony cruelty
02:37charges if these were dogs or cats or
02:39other protected animals and then there
02:41are a variety of global health issues
02:44that stem from the intensification of
02:47animal agriculture so for example in the
02:50United States that eighty percent of all
02:53antibiotics that are produced by
02:55pharmaceutical companies about 80% of
02:57them are fed to farm animals which means
02:59that these bacteria are learning how to
03:03get around the antibiotics and they may
03:06be ushering in an end to the era of
03:09antibiotics working in human medicine
03:11with catastrophic consequences so is it
03:15something we should do or is it
03:17something we really you know looking
03:18forward have to do absolutely we're
03:20gonna have to be doing this because that
03:21the climate change issue and because of
03:23the sustainability issue we just can't
03:26feed nine point seven billion people
03:27about 2050 with the inefficiencies of
03:29animal agriculture and we're not going
03:31to be able to meet our Paris agreement
03:33obligations according to Chatham House
03:35the formas think-tank in Europe it's a
03:37literal and scientific impossibility
03:39that we keep climate change under two
03:41degrees Celsius by 2050 unless meat
03:43consumption goes down and right now it's
03:45going up Eric Schmidt the CEO of
03:47alphabet just a couple of months ago is
03:49asked for six technological innovations
03:51that are going to transform life for
03:53Humanity in a positive way by a factor
03:56of at least 10 volt and the fairly near
03:58future he led with plant-based meat but
04:01that's not the only path going forward
04:03we're joined also by uma from Memphis
04:06meats who is taking another approach can
04:09tell me more about how you're going
04:10about addressing some of these problems
04:11sure Thank You Kyle delighted to be here
04:14my name is Uma valetti I'm the CEO on
04:16founder of Memphis meats our approach is
04:18basically guided by the principle that
04:20you know we're all very interested in
04:22living a safe and sustainable food
04:24system for future generations meat is
04:26being such an integral part of our
04:27culture for thousands of years it's the
04:30center of the plate for any gathering
04:32that happens around food in any culture
04:34you think of 90% of the world's
04:35population eats meat so thinking that
04:37the world could become vegetarian or
04:39vegan in the near future we believe that
04:41it's very unlikely our innovation is
04:44growing meat just to point out it's not
04:46meatless meats a number of people are
04:49calling us clean meat they're growing
04:51meat directly from animal cells we take
04:53high-quality animals like cows or pigs
04:56that are converted into beef or pork we
04:58take cells from these animals and we
05:00grow them in in a very clean and
05:02nutrient-rich environment so that these
05:04cells become meat and we harvest the
05:07meat whether it's early in the process
05:08or late depending on how tender we want
05:10the meat to be and produce products that
05:12Americans love to eat like hotdogs
05:14burgers meatball sausages in terms of
05:17practical challenges we get meat from
05:19animals that were alive and walking
05:21around on a pasture and therefore the
05:24meat becomes firm because they were
05:25getting exercise and the muscles were
05:26stimulated that's one of the things I've
05:28seen in the past when looking at this
05:30kind of approach is the medians have
05:32coming out mushy because it wasn't from
05:33a living animal how do you get around
05:35those kinds of challenges how do you
05:36actually get that meaty material to be
05:39something that's recognizable a really
05:40good question and it's something that we
05:42are continuously looking at and our
05:43scientific team and our scallop team is
05:45working on producing meats of different
05:48types of textures so you know if you
05:51want me that is really soft and tender
05:53or not very texturized then there's a
05:56particular cultivation process we have
05:57that will let the cells grow and become
05:59muscle bundles and fibers and we harvest
06:03them at a stage where for example the
06:04meat from veal it's a small calf 12 to
06:0724 months when a cattle is slaughtered
06:09the meat in there is really tender and
06:11soft if you want to have meat that has
06:13properties like you talked about which
06:15is really exercise there is ways of
06:17exercising this meat that we're growing
06:18on our cultivation platform so as we
06:22start doing more and more on the
06:23scale-up side I think we'll know more
06:24but I can only talk about what you've
06:27seen so far and from the the meat that
06:29we've harvested so far we've made things
06:31like meatballs and fajitas and it's
06:33virtually indistinguishable from whether
06:36it comes from a grocery store or
06:39from a conventional meat market so I
06:40can't say we've solved all the problems
06:42but we see a very clear roadmap that is
06:44realistic to think about solving these
06:46issues David at impossible foods you're
06:49taking another tact you're taking plant
06:51products and turning into something that
06:53would be familiar to someone who's
06:55eating a burger made from it
06:56there have been veggie based patties
06:58that people could buy in the market for
06:59quite a while now how is that different
07:02from what you were doing I think the
07:03biggest difference aside from the fact
07:06that the product that really does cook
07:08smell tastes like a burger from a cow is
07:12that our approach as a company is not to
07:14appeal actually to the vegetarian or
07:17those who are conscious of the
07:18environmental impact of me our product
07:20is made for the love of me I'm a
07:22meat-eater my job is to appeal to people
07:25like me if they begin to just substitute
07:27one burger from a cow for a delicious
07:30and possible burger you'll save 95% of
07:33the land that's consumed to make a
07:34burger from a cow a quarter of the water
07:37in eighth of the greenhouse gases so our
07:39approach is a market-based approach give
07:41consumers a delicious option and let
07:44them want to have a burger that makes
07:46them feel like they're making a
07:47difference so people aren't necessarily
07:49entirely rational in their
07:51decision-making when it comes to food a
07:53lot of recipes where this has been in
07:54the family for decades people have a
07:56very strong emotional attachment to food
07:57looking at GMO specifically for instance
08:00that people get legislation passed a
08:01label products that are GMO because
08:03they're afraid of the new when you look
08:06at how that's happened over the last
08:07decade how are you thinking about
08:10angling the company to make people feel
08:13confident in their purchases it's a
08:14great question listen food is unique
08:16it's fundamentally an emotional
08:19you cannot brow be rationally any
08:21consumer to do quote-unquote the the
08:23rational or correct thing you got to
08:25make people crave your product that's a
08:27threshold issue and you know when you
08:29pick an iconic form of a product like
08:31the burger it's a high standard it's
08:33something that people taste and either
08:36they say it tastes like a burger or not
08:37so first the product has to be able to
08:40deliver on taste it's that simple if you
08:44are not making a decision based on going
08:45to the experimental restaurant trying it
08:47out but walking down the aisles of a
08:49grocery store is that enough to shift
08:50people towards you versus the patties
08:52vying for the last decade your question
08:54is how do you get people to try
08:55something new so a few things one is you
08:58have to leverage the credibility of
08:59particularly who the millennial trusts
09:01he used to be in food you came up with
09:03new product and you pushed it in the
09:05grocery aisle and he did a tremendous
09:06amount of advertising and you push your
09:09marketing through we believe that the
09:11millennial who is determining food
09:13trends who use the social media who by
09:16the way is the largest consumer of
09:17burgers in the US they are they are
09:20actually very interested in being pulled
09:23to a product because they see a
09:24celebrity chef they trust a highest
09:27arbiter of taste like chef David Chang
09:28at Momofuku or Tracey de Chardin
09:31actually wants to serve it and they're
09:33excited to experience it in a restaurant
09:34nail this credibility issue on taste and
09:38then all of the rational benefits we
09:40find follow so I think everyone is
09:43pretty familiar with our ability to grow
09:46entire living beings we've cloned
09:49animals we also are now exploring things
09:52like cloning different organs it's kind
09:54of in the popular consciousness that
09:56this is a capability that we have but in
09:58terms of making something that's edible
09:59and specifically ate something that's as
10:01appealing is what you get from the
10:02animal that came off the farm is there a
10:05breakthrough that occurred in the last
10:06five or ten years that actually made
10:08this possible why are we seeing this
10:09surgence of companies in the space I
10:12think the answer is a mix of many other
10:15things you've just stated the long-term
10:17trends have already have always been
10:19there for the last two decades the
10:21environmental disaster bit the intense
10:23animal agriculture risks to massive
10:26human health disasters and also the
10:28incredible economic inefficiency of
10:29current meat production despite the
10:31amount of subsidies that are ongoing
10:33with the projected increase in
10:35population and the demand these are
10:36long-term trends that have been well
10:39over the last couple of decades my
10:40background is I'm a cardiologist I was
10:42injecting stem cells with the patient's
10:44hearts to regrow heart muscle and being
10:46very interested in food security and a
10:47sustainable food system I just ask the
10:50question can we grow food directly from
10:52cells and that's kind of where the
10:54investigation started a group of experts
10:57that have been pursuing research on
10:59skeletal muscle biology food science
11:02biomaterials and tissue engineering
11:04started realizing that
11:06of what we really need to grow food
11:08directly from cells in a very safe way
11:10are already there but some of the
11:12scientific breakthroughs really started
11:14happening in the last decade which is
11:15how do we start growing them in
11:18conditions that let the cells become the
11:21muscle that we really enjoy in meat
11:23we've had some breakthroughs last year
11:25in terms of converting it into meat that
11:28tastes identical to what is grown and in
11:30an animal if you really dissect this out
11:32when you eat a piece of steak that is a
11:34few billion cells sitting on your plate
11:37in order to grow those few billion cells
11:39you are to go on an animal that has like
11:4030 trillion cells you throw it through
11:42trillions two trillion of those cells
11:44skin bones hair or other tissue and you
11:47just take the choice cuts we ask the
11:49question what if you can just grow the
11:51types of food that people really enjoy
11:53eating like a top sirloin or a lamb chop
11:56and reproduce only that portion of it
11:58we're only growing a portion of an
11:59animal it's really expensive to produce
12:01it but if you compare this with
12:04technological breakthroughs with
12:05sequencing the first human genome
12:07sequencing took about three billion
12:08dollars now it's done for three thousand
12:10dollars all in the span of what 15 years
12:12that's a million fold reduction in costs
12:14and our goal is it's very realistic we
12:17have products from mark in the next five
12:19years doing it in efficient ways to
12:21lower cost is where our entire focus is
12:23right now something I'm curious about
12:24given the fact that certain meats that
12:26people like to eat came from certain
12:28parts of the body are you getting the
12:29cells from those particular parts or is
12:31a generic muscle tissue and then based
12:33on the circumstances in which you grow
12:35it in how's that work we do take cells
12:38that already are in areas that people
12:40enjoy eating but we also have other
12:42cells which can reproduce and self-renew
12:45themselves and become very high-quality
12:46muscle tissue we're still learning which
12:49which of these cells from the highest
12:51quality meat from a nutrient perspective
12:53and from an efficiency of growth
12:55perspective something that we talk about
12:57is the importance of the microbiome as
12:59you're going this meat how important is
13:01managing those conditions to growing
13:04something that feels like the real deal
13:05is that something you have to maintain
13:07or are you more so going Frehley a
13:09control nothing else is in there but the
13:12cells were going environment to answer
13:14that you had to think about what is in
13:15the meat now right if you take of an
13:17animal let's walk in on a firm
13:19and you just slaughtered and you take
13:21the meat out the meat should not have
13:23any bacteria in there the recent
13:25bacteria gets in there is because you're
13:27in the process of slaughter there's
13:29fecal contamination or when you have an
13:31animal not fully wash before slaughter
13:33that's how a coli or Salmonella get in
13:35there and then they multiply because
13:37meat is food and they multiply into
13:38millions and billions of bacteria in
13:40there the entire meat production
13:41processing system is set up so that you
13:43lower those counts of bacteria by
13:45various curing or processing our types
13:47of sterilization that they go through so
13:50I don't know if there's a lot of benefit
13:52to having all of those in there added
13:54after the animal is slaughtered
13:55producing meat detaches them from fecal
13:57contamination from slaughter or from
13:59getting contaminated during the
14:00processing growing it in a sterile
14:02environment offers benefits that the
14:04current meat just cannot so David are
14:06you kind of okay with just sourcing
14:08plants from the kinds of farms in other
14:10places they come from today how do you
14:13think about moving up the stack in terms
14:15of the plants that go into the
14:16production of that meat do you think
14:18well now we're actually going to do
14:19indoor vertical farming for those
14:21specific ingredients and we'll optimize
14:23production of those as well let me give
14:25an example potato has a protein that's
14:27thrown away today and the processing of
14:29starch well we found that that
14:30particular protein is really great at
14:33creating that bind in that
14:34caramelization on a burger when you put
14:36it on a flat top grill or this protein
14:39that we source from wheats because it
14:41was plentiful and there's a global
14:42market for it we also want a product
14:44that through its supply chain would not
14:47require reinvention Pat brown our
14:49founder says we won't be successful
14:50unless their impact can be seen from
14:52space well we're gonna have that impact
14:55of scale we have to have a product
14:56that's cheap available but how do we
14:59leverage the existing infrastructure
15:01it took us approximately five years of
15:03very carefully evaluating our science
15:06platform before we made several
15:08discoveries but biggest one is this
15:10thing called heme heme is the exact same
15:12molecule in our product that makes a
15:15burger from a cow red and more than the
15:17color it is when you cook red meat from
15:20a cow it's the flavor catalyst we just
15:22happen to be able to do it sourced from
15:24a plant and made at scale in a way where
15:27you know we use a fraction of the
15:28resources and as a result we'll be
15:30really efficient in producing the
15:32product got it just the same
15:33that many Belgian beers are made just
15:36the same way that many cheeses are made
15:38I think that people eat meat despite how
15:41its produced nobody is choosing to eat
15:43meat because of the environmental harm
15:46or the unsustainability or the harm to
15:48animals pretty much everybody makes
15:51their food choices on the basis of price
15:53taste and convenience if you go to a
15:57restaurant or you go to a grocery store
15:58and you ask people why did you buy that
16:00everybody's gonna talk about the price
16:02everybody's going to talk about the
16:04convenience is critical I think as the
16:06price comes down and as these products
16:08expand and become more convenient they
16:11are going to compete for market share
16:13with animal-based meat for a guard list
16:15of whether people understand that
16:17they're also making the world a better
16:20by buying these products instead of
16:22conventional animal products plant-based
16:24milk right now is about 9% of the milk
16:27market in the United States plant-based
16:29milk didn't say look at how badly dairy
16:31cows are treated or look at how
16:33unsustainable dairy production is they
16:36competed with point with animal-based
16:38milk on the basis of the factors that
16:40actually govern consumer choice so along
16:44that line given the number of people who
16:47it's not just is this convenient readily
16:50available for me but I'm making
16:51purchasing decisions for my weekly diet
16:54based on can I fit into my budget
16:57how do meatless or you know cellularly
17:00grown meats comparing price today given
17:03the advantage that you know the
17:05traditional approach has with scale what
17:07does the path to scale look like we have
17:09to be cheaper at scale than the
17:12alternative or at least at the same cost
17:14at scale we don't have to make any more
17:16leaps in technology to get there
17:18the bottom line is we use 95 percent
17:20less land and a quarter of the water we
17:21fundamentally use less resources to make
17:23it I think that's true of all of the
17:26plant-based meat companies and it's
17:27certainly going to be true of the clean
17:29meat companies as well these products
17:31require exponentially fewer resources
17:34and they require significantly fewer
17:38stages of production so once they're at
17:40scale they will be cheaper I guess part
17:43of what I was also curious about
17:46is where does production end up going do
17:48you stick with the centralized
17:50production approach that we see from
17:52traditional media industry or because
17:54you're taking these different plants and
17:56putting them together in art way like
17:57could you do maybe more decentralized
17:59approach manufacture a little bit closer
18:01to the final destination
18:03scaling demand is a very big part of the
18:06equation as well right so if there isn't
18:08a worldwide increase step up in the
18:10demand for products that taste great
18:12then no matter how you increase your
18:14supply chain or manufacturing for a
18:15print is moot we have no ideological
18:18need to own all of the supply chain
18:20vertically and all the capex the reason
18:23why we love using fermentation aside
18:25from the fact that it's being used
18:26already for food it's it's an industrial
18:27global scale capability and there are
18:30plenty of other folks in the world who
18:33operate fermenters for example that we
18:35can leverage we see the technology
18:37scaling up in a way that does not
18:39require any downstream innovation
18:41because the whole distribution change
18:43for existing meat exists already so what
18:46we have to do is to supply all the
18:47people that are processing and
18:50distributing meat into various products
18:51the current process requires you to
18:53raise animals in multiple stages of
18:55their life from their earlier stage to a
18:56calf stage to a feed stage to a
19:00polishing stage and then processing and
19:01you had to track them all to a
19:03slaughterhouse and then plug them back
19:04to a distribution location but we see
19:07manufacturing to be done where
19:09distribution also starts so it cuts out
19:11a lot of environmental impact that we
19:13have with current meat production and it
19:15also cuts out on a lot of cost what do
19:17you think the angle of attack is for
19:19getting people to you know get exposed
19:20to clean me and feel like they can trust
19:23it wrap their heads around what it is
19:24how do you get that across to people one
19:28of the fundamental things that people
19:30have to really embrace this concept is
19:33to really taste it the second thing is
19:35how often can you have people tour a
19:38place that is making their meat like
19:40Bruce said earlier people are eating
19:42meat now despite how it's made because
19:44they're able to close their eyes and and
19:46and dissociate themselves from the
19:48process of how meat gets to the table
19:50right now animal agriculture is
19:53literally passing state laws to make it
19:55illegal to find out what happens on some
19:58of these factory farms and what happens
20:00in these slaughterhouses so if you ask
20:03people would you eat chicken from
20:06chickens who grew seven times as quickly
20:08as they would naturally which is how
20:10chicken production happens now
20:11everybody's going to say no but they
20:14don't know because the process is so
20:16thoroughly obfuscated if a middle school
20:19kid or a college kid or one of us walks
20:21through and says hey I see your clean
20:24meat production facility I'm seeing the
20:26ingredients going in there I'm seeing
20:27the meat growing and being harvested off
20:29and all of that is done in glass walls
20:31that completely changes it because
20:33there's a radical transparency one of
20:35the really great things about both the
20:37plant-based meat production and clean
20:39meat production is that the process is
20:42completely transparent and it basically
20:44looks like a brewery fermenters our bio
20:47reactors you're basically talking about
20:49replacing what farms and the
20:51slaughterhouses look like now with
20:54essentially your friendly neighborhood
20:56meet brewery sure but how do you
20:59actually expose people to that I feel
21:01like that does not information that most
21:03people are actively seeking out in their
21:04day how do you get that exposure you
21:06know who's seeking it out we found is is
21:09the Millennial I know everyone uses this
21:10term but what's really interesting about
21:13all of us who are trying to transform
21:14food is the technology on how you go to
21:17market how how you inform how you
21:19provide transparency is as interesting
21:21as the product itself so the Millennial
21:24more than any other demographic really
21:26wants to be able to experience and know
21:29about the origin of food also happens to
21:31be the largest consumer of for example
21:33ground beef so not only are they setting
21:36trends are they using social media are
21:38they looking for origins of their food
21:40they're also just a very large part of
21:42the market the other point to make is
21:44you the goal today is very different for
21:48marketing food than it was even five
21:50years ago the goal today is is not to
21:53tell your story as it once was
21:54the goal today is to get others to tell
21:57your story on social media and create
21:59pull I give you an example in January we
22:03we had someone just captured like 45
22:05seconds worth of it and posted this
22:07video and it just went viral it's people
22:09talking about the product that's what's
22:10creating a poll if at all there is any
22:13how fast can we get this to market it's
22:16not how can we convince people to eat it
22:18the fact that clean meat is going to
22:20come to market will accentuate for
22:22people the differences between clean
22:24meat production and conventional meat
22:27reproduction once clean meat is produced
22:29then people will have choices and that
22:31will I think raise the issue right the
22:34existence of the alternatives makes you
22:36consider the original default well said
22:38yeah so something that we look for in
22:41emerging areas something that gets us
22:43really excited is Moore's Law like
22:45curves you know a doubling of the number
22:47of transistors and chips a significant
22:50drop in the cost of you know decoding a
22:52genome is there a curve like that that's
22:55gonna fundamentally impact what food
22:57looks like five ten years out yeah I
23:00think that in five ten years you're
23:03gonna find a radical transparency on the
23:05origin of food the impact it has beyond
23:08the person who consumes it but on the
23:10environment and as well you know what it
23:13means what statement food brands mean to
23:15the consumer beyond the nutritional
23:16value technology will allow us not just
23:18to make great tasting you know burgers
23:20from plants or clean meat but it will
23:23also give us a chance to let everyone
23:24know instantaneously where the food
23:27comes from what they're actually eating
23:29what its health benefits will be and
23:31what statement it can make on who they
23:34are that's been very opaque in the past
23:36I think I think it's gonna be radically
23:38transparent in the future one of the
23:40things I've been most excited about is
23:41looking at the way that the plant-based
23:43meat companies and the clean meat
23:45companies are all working together
23:46because they recognize that right now
23:49they are creating a market sector and a
23:53rising tide lifts all boats they see
23:55themselves as competing with the
23:58conventional meat industry as we start
24:01thinking about 10 years or 20 years out
24:04I think it's going to be unimaginable
24:06that we were okay with enslaving
24:09billions of animals and doing food
24:11production despite the harm it was
24:13causing to the human health environment
24:16or our economic and efficiencies just to
24:19draw an analogy to what's happening in
24:22front of us the transition from cars
24:24that we drive to driverless cars people
24:27you could cut down the accidents or
24:30people dying by thousands or tens of
24:33thousands every year it's very similar
24:35but the scale is going to be what if you
24:37could save millions of human lives and
24:40billions of animal lives just by
24:42slightly shifting how we're going to
24:45look at food think about the things that
24:47are coming in terms of longevity people
24:49are living longer and longer every year
24:53or every decade despite not having any
24:56innovation in food at all that's been an
24:58area that's been virtually untouched now
25:00think about what if you start innovating
25:02food to make it safer make it healthier
25:04and also a lot more personalized that's
25:07a big leap in longevity I think we'll
25:09see a lot of companies coming in that
25:11area the future is just starting for our
25:13industry I want to thank you all for
25:15your effort towards letting me have a
25:17burger barbecue going forward without
25:19that tinge of guilt with each bite
25:21thanks for joining for the podcast thank
25:23you very much thank you thank you
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