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The below conversation is the transcript of the second episode of the podcast miniseries Green Queen in Conversation: Cultivated Meat Pioneers featuring Didier Toubia, founder and CEO of Aleph Farms, interviewed by show host Sonalie Figueiras. This conversation has been edited for clarity and length. 

In the second episode of Green Queen in Conversation – Cultivated Meat Pioneers, Sonalie Figueiras talks to Didier Toubia, co-founder and CEO of Aleph Farms, a cultivated meat company based in Israel. Didier cuts a unique figure in the space- the conversation was a real eye-opener about his background and how he started working with food and development agencies in Africa and how that informed his worldview about food systems, equity and food justice, and how in turn that led to starting a cultivated meat company specialised in beef steak, which he believes will help right the wrongs inherent in our food systems. 

He is so passionate about ensuring access to safe, traceable, and nutritious food for everyone, and not just for those of us in the wealthier countries. So, I think our conversation is quite different from the other interviews in this series. I found it really inspiring, particularly, as Didier has had many careers in his life, from food and development, to biotech, to deep tech. I’m sure you’ll find our chat fascinating too.

Listen to this episode on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Sonalie Figueiras: Hi Didier, it’s great to have you here. Welcome to the podcast.

Didier Toubia: Hey, Sonalie. Good to be with you. Thanks for having me.

Sonalie Figueiras: Yeah, I think you are a key part of the global cultivated meat story, and I want to explore the Aleph journey. So, my first question is: how did your cultivated meat experience begin? When did you first discover cultivated meat, and how did you end up with one of the first companies in the space?

Didier Toubia: I think the origins of my interest in cultivated meat goes back probably 25 years when I studied food engineering and biology in France at the time, and when I studied my major and full Master’s Degree in the south of France, getting deeper into food technologies for the developing world. I started my career in the Ivory Coast in Western Africa with the IFC, a branch of the World Bank. My goal was really to tackle the inherent issues of the food system, especially malnutrition, and food security issues, whilst studying in Africa, and I realized relatively quickly that those challenges can’t be addressed by targeted action, and totally systemic issues of hunger, allocation of resources, and issues associated with the distribution of resources – we can take care of and solve with more focused initiatives, rather than with (targeted) actions.

When I came back to France, 20-25 years later, my main motivation was to address those systemic issues with the food system, the roots of the reasons why we have those issues, both in terms of sustainability, food security, public health, not just in Africa, but on the global level. Actually, a lot of the issues I saw at the time, and the issues we see in Africa today, on the global level, are very much overlapping. So, it really kind of closed the loop for me and connected a lot of the dots with my early experience in the food system, but also with my overall 10 years of experience in the biomedical industry, following me going to Israel. Aleph Farms is at the crossroads between the biomedical world and the food system. 

Sonalie Figueiras: So, that’s interesting and different than a lot of the other founders in the space. So, not so much the climate connection: for you, it’s the food security and the nutrition piece of the puzzle, but at the same point in time, it’s interesting, because when people think of going to Africa and dealing with systemic issues around malnutrition, they wouldn’t immediately associate cultivated meat in bioreactors as a solution to the problems that African nations can face. How do you bridge the two there? I mean, cultivated meat is an expensive and deep technology that still requires decades of work before we can scale it to a mass level.

Didier Toubia: It’s through the long-term play. I would argue that the food system [as it works today] is not actually intended to feed the people. During the industrialization of our food system in the 50s and 60s, the focus has been on efficiencies and output, how to produce more food at a lower cost, and large industrial companies developing and making more profit. I think the fact that today, we’re throwing away close to 30% of our food, while close to 900 million people don’t have enough food is a testimonial that the current food system is not designed to bring the right amount of nutrition to the right people at the right time and in the right place. And I think cultivated meat can help decentralize food production.

One of the big issues with our food system today, beyond the focus on profit, is that it’s super concentrated. Historically, we used to rely on 6-7,000 different sources of food. Today, I believe that five different species and eight different crops make up over 70% of the food we consume globally, and the system is not just concentrated in a few species, it’s also concentrated in specific areas of the world. If we’re talking about beef, for instance, it’s primarily in North America, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, and a little bit in Europe, and a lot of countries are importing beef, for instance, in Israel (where Aleph was founded), we import 88% of all beef. It’s a shared challenge with all the countries in the Middle East, and we see the same pattern in many parts of Asia, including Singapore, where they import technically 100% of all beef, and cultivated meat can help decentralize the production of food because we can grow [meat from] cells.

I’ll explain in a little bit what we do, and how that fits into our vision – That we can grow cells in a closed system independently to the climate or the local availability of land and water, meaning that we can distribute the production of high-quality animal nutrition, both empowering local communities and diversifying the supply, and substituting for part of the inputs. However, it also involves making sure that we make the food system more resilient by diversifying the supply of animal protein and fats. We build circuit breakers and meat plants, and we make the system more resilient to shocks. So, we do see cellular agriculture as a cornerstone of a more secure and resilient food system, and regarding your comment about the cost of cultivated meat, it’s clear that it’s a long play, and I think that cultivated meat is probably similar to solar panels which were extremely expensive 20 years ago, and now, 20 years later, the production cost has come down as the economies of scale started to play, and production processes and product technologies have improved. 

We believe that for the next few years cultivated meat will be more confined in the developed world, but [we are] developing a long-term strategy for the Global South, and that’s one of the projects we’ve done with water recently in the US, for instance- I’m actually planning to travel to Ethiopia in the next couple of months to further explore the possibilities. We believe that in Africa where today there is strong pressure to intensify cattle farming (Africa is similar to India in that the sector mostly relies on smallholder farms) to make the system supposedly more resilient and more efficient.

We all know that industrial agriculture is not a good solution, we’re pushing back from intensive agriculture in the developed world to regenerative eggs and organic food. So, I think cultivating cells might be a way to skip this intermediate phase of animal farming industrialization, and to keep the smallholder farms as they are and supply them directly with the growing cells, a little bit like how some countries have skipped the phase of landline phones, for instance, and in some parts of India and China, bringing cells to the global South can help them move directly to cellular agriculture and skip this intermediate phase of intensive industrial animal farming, which is bad for everyone, same as how these countries and regions went directly to cellular phones and skipped the landline intermediate step.

Sonalie Figueiras: I love the vision. I do have to ask, why beef then? You know, why not chicken? Beef is currently one of the most, if not, the most expensive meat in the world. It has a status as something very elite and associated with wealth and higher status. Why start with steak, not even ground beef, the ultimate luxury food?

Didier Toubia: That’s an important question. Our product strategy with implementation at Aleph Farms is, on the one hand, high impact, and on the other, high-value products. I want to explain why beef fits into our roadmap.

First, we believe that the biggest contribution to cultivated meat will be where we have real challenges with animal protein and fat production. If we’re talking about the concentration of the food system, cattle farming is the most concentrated of all the animal production practices. Beyond that, it’s also the biggest impact on climate- livestock production is responsible for about 15% of global emissions, while the environmental impact of chicken is much lower. When we’re talking about the use of land and water, which are also critical parameters as we have been causing land diversion- in the last 50 years we lost 30% of all arable land since the Second World War, and 42% of the crops we harvest every year in the world are intended for animal feed, primarily cattle and cows, and the intensive monoculture of soya and maize is one of the primary drivers of deforestation and the loss of soil quality. The amount of water required to make one kilogram of beef varies between 1,500-10,000 litres, depending on the farming practices, and we might have 40% less freshwater in the next few decades. So, there are some real issues associated with beef production which we don’t see with the other animal meat species today.

Growing cells using renewable energies we’re able to reduce the environmental impact [of beef production] by 92%, in terms of the greenhouse gasses emitted. We can also reduce the amount of land by 95%, and the amount of water by 78%. When we’re talking about cultivated beef, I think it would be difficult to [have similar] benefits for cultivated chicken as long as [we are looking at] climate and environmental parameters. So, this is one.

Second, as we said before, cultivated needs will be relatively expensive. I talked about solar panels, but we can also talk about electric vehicles as an analogy. Innovation is expensive today, and I think there is an inherent conflict within the world of food tech. Tech is associated with innovation and is expensive, and food is a commodity. It should be at a low price, and not like biomedical products or high-margin products. So, we wanted to get into the market and drive initial acceptance to rely on products where we can bring value so that we can reach prosperity quicker, and build a sustainable business model over the long term.

When you’re talking about prosperity, it’s not an absolute value, it’s relative, it’s relative to the equivalent product produced with the conventional egg. When we’re talking about this tech price point, which is maybe 10 times higher than GM chicken, it’s easier to get to the same price point as our cost curve is driven down, than to get to the price point of GM chicken, which makes the whole business model more sustainable and enables us to drive more impact over time.

So, the focus on beef is driven by two decisions: One, to focus on new products where we can really bring benefits and document real environmental impact, and second, based on higher value and higher margins which can drive us to be sustainable as a company earlier. As we drive the cost down and progressively move toward the mainstream, we’ll probably make a cultivated chicken and a cultivated pork down the road. However, it will take a few years.

Sonalie Figueiras: So even though it might seem counterintuitive, it makes the most sense to attack the beef problem, because of its climate footprint, and it makes the most sense to go with steak because it allows for early adopters to get involved, and for you to become financially viable. This is very much the Tesla Model in many ways, right?

Didier Toubia: Yes, I think it’s been the whole idea with Tesla, that it has been able to drive this transition towards electric vehicles because they weren’t the first to make electric cars. In the 70s, there were early electric cars in the US, but they were the first to crack the code of the right product strategy. If we talk about Tesla, it’s not just starting high-end and then moving to the mass market that drives the cost down, which as we just discussed is what we’re doing, but it is also about differentiating the products versus internal combustion engine cars. We’re not trying to copy existing cuts of beef one-for-one. We’re not trying to be an exact duplication of tenderloin or ribeye, but rather developing our own set of attributes and our value proposition, and differentiate ourselves versus conventional meat, so that our products can be successful based on what they are, and not as a copy of anything, which is not a good marketing strategy.

Sonalie Figueiras: Okay. I want to get into your product strategy in a second, but since we’ve been talking about your vision and how you started, I want to ask you: You’ve been doing this for a few years now. Has the industry progressed enough, and do you timeline-wise feel you are where you want to be where you thought you were gonna be?

Didier Toubia: I’ll start with the second question. When we raised our A round in 2019, and we built a business plan back in 2018, so five years ago, we said that we would be in the market by the end of 2022. We’re currently on track for launching Q4 this year. So, we’re probably six to nine months late from our initial plan. I think for a certain type of innovative product, and given the delivery uncertainties we had at the time, we had to invent everything from scratch. I think that this six to nine-month delay within these five years is okay, not bad. So, in terms of timelines, we won’t be that far off and overall, you know, [we are] making good progress according to our plans.

Sonalie Figueiras: That’s pretty good, pretty much on track!

Didier Toubia: I think it is. I think we’re well on track. Plus or minus, you know, 20%, which is kind of the range of the order of magnitude of uncertainty, but overall, we’re on track. I think the industry as a whole has made a lot of progress. When we started, cultivated meat was completely theoretical. It sounded like science fiction. I think that four or five companies in this space, including Aleph Farms, have already developed scalable processes, have done a lot of work on cost reduction, and have already built facilities where they can make cultivated meet at the commercial level and comply with all the regulatory requirements. So, I think that when we’re looking five years back, we can appreciate the progress that has been made, which is phenomenal. I’m not saying that we have solved all the issues or that everything is perfect- there’s still work ahead of us to continue to scale up, meet consumer expectations and move toward the mainstream. However, I think on the technology side, the scientific side, in terms of process development, early industrialization and regulatory compliance, we have made a huge leapfrog, and I’m quite happy to see that. The industry is really on the verge of going to market and starting initial acceptance.

Sonalie Figueiras: That’s good to hear. I’m certainly very optimistic, but I want to ask some follow-up questions. One is about timeline constraints around regulatory approval. Currently, that’s only happened for Eat Just in Singapore for two of their chicken products [Editor’s Note: This interview was recorded before Eat Just and Upside Foods were granted US regulatory approval by the USDA in June 2023]. So, I want to understand, you say you plan to launch in Q4, is that going to be in Singapore? And how confident are you on the regulatory approval side? What about regulatory approval in your home country of Israel?

Didier Toubia: Yes, Aleph Farms decided to focus on the Middle East and Asia first. For the same reasons of food security I mentioned before, I think that there is more need for cultivated meats in those geographies, and that’s where you want to address real issues and have a real impact, so we filed regulatory applications in both Israel and Singapore last year. I can’t share the exact details of where we stand right now, but we believe that we have reasonable chances, and we can be cleared in one of those countries at least in the next few months, and launch after the summer.

We do believe that Asia will be an important market for us moving forward. When we’re looking at, let’s say 10 years ahead, most of the population of the world is based in Asia, and the increase and growth in meat consumption really relies on Asia, while the consumers are also very open to novel foods, and the public-private partnership we’re talking about is working very well. I think that there’s a lot of alignment between the different stakeholders in the animal protein and fat industry in many Asian regions, as well as in the Middle East, to push innovation and new production systems, which can help in getting more food sovereignty. In Europe and the US, I think that there is a strong political will to drive innovation.

In my view, we do see, especially in the last six to nine months, as cultivated meat is getting closer to the market, and more interest associated with the conventional agriculture lobbies, which are trying to delay the launch of cultivated meat, that the internal alignment between all the stakeholders in Europe and the US will take more time, just because traditionally, those geographies are very strong in commercial agriculture, and a lot of farmers don’t yet understand exactly what we do, and feel that cultivated meat could be a threat, which we don’t see in Asia, nor the Middle East of course, because cattle production is very limited.

Sonalie Figueiras: And they don’t have land or enough water…

Didier Toubia: Exactly, exactly. We overlook the importance of land on our planet.

Sonalie Figueiras: Absolutely. I mean, since you brought it up, this pushback that we’re seeing in Western markets, especially in North America and Europe, where there are strong beef farmer identities associated with national cultures- let’s dive into this narrative coming up in the media and across social media that cultivated meat is some kind of “franken-food”, that “it’s too tech”, and “it’s not real food.” For some people, there seems to be a bias against it. I want to ask you: What do you think about consumer perception, and what do you think the average person is getting wrong about the science of cultivated meat?

Didier Toubia: I think that’s a big question and I would like to give three answers. The first one is more related to conventional agriculture and why there is a misperception around cultivated meat, and maybe on the consumer side as well:

First, we do see cells and cellular agriculture as a third pillar of animal-based agriculture. Same as when we started eating meat thousands of years ago, and meat became widespread 600,000-700,000 years ago when we started cooking meat. And then, many years afterwards when we domesticated animals, we were able to milk cows, goats and sheep, and to drink milk and eat dairy products, which was a completely new source of animal-based products at the time- we were the only species drinking the milk of another species. So, drinking milk was very weird when we started, but today, it’s a normalised part of the food culture.

We do see a third source of animal-based products, which is cells. Same as milk, which was introduced to the diet a long time ago, 6,000 to 10,000 years ago, we’re witnessing today, a third source of food, which is, not exactly meat, it probably has more similarities with milk than with meat, and those cells have the benefit of providing an additional source and additional choice for animal-based products, which can relieve a little bit of the pressure on conventional agriculture for raising farming whole animals. We’ve technically passed the maximum scale, which makes sense in terms of farming whole animals because we have too many costs today [in animal agriculture], and the impact is huge.

Now, if we can introduce cells into the food system, which do not require the farming of whole animals, we can reduce the number of animals and better manage them in the framework of regenerative ag and sustainable farming practices and still complement them with an additional source of animal-based products to make sure that we have more choices, and ensure that we can still meet the increasing demand for animal proteins and fats? This is how we look at [the opportunity for] cells. We call it cellular agriculture because we believe that similarly to how meat has been incorporated into the agricultural ecosystem, the same can be done with cells. So, we do see cells as an opportunity for agriculture, as an additional revenue stream and an additional practice which can complement sustainably-produced meat and dairy.

Sonalie Figueiras: So you’re saying that eventually, you’re imagining a system where meat cattle farmers can make money by selling cells to cultivated meat companies?

Didier Toubia: Yes. They [the farmers] have to make money with the cells, of course. If we don’t find the right business model, it won’t work. Actually at Aleph Farms last year, we started a global research project with the Federation University in Australia to develop different business models for incorporating cells into common conventional farms in different parts of the world, because the business structure of farmers and their farming practices tends to vary a lot between different geographies, like in India, the US, Europe- they all work differently. We need to find a way to incorporate cells into agriculture, it will not work otherwise, that’s for sure.

I think there’s sometimes a misperception that cultivated beef is a threat to agriculture. We see it as a solution for an inclusive and just transition. You know, I grew up in France, and for instance, France has traditionally been the largest beef-focused country and exporter of beef in Europe. In the last few years, France became a net importer of beef, and on average, the number of [cow] heads is going down by 2.5% every year. 53% of farms are bankrupt and artificially maintained thanks to government subsidies. The average age of livestock farmers is close to 60 years old, and in less than 10 years, more than half of all these livestock farmers will have retired. So, the current system is not working as it is. So, if we can incorporate innovation and direct a part of the subsidies towards the training and investment in research and building capacities for other sources of animal-based food, we can drive an inclusive transition for the benefit of all the stakeholders. That’s a topic that lacks understanding of what cell agriculture is, which sometimes leads to some pushbacks, which is also driven by a lot of financial interests, and conventional agriculture players are benefiting from tens of billions of dollars of subsidies. So, a lot of financial interests in the current system are very strong lobbies, which are motivated by those financial interests and not by any motivation to make change, but that’s not how we can prepare for the future. So, that’s one thing.

Then, we’re talking about the consumers again, I think that if we are talking about cultivated meat, our first application of the cells is through foods like milk: we can do certain different products for milk. We can make cultivated meat from cells and a range of other products. At Aleph Farms, we publish some of the other products we make from the cells, like collagen, and we have a few other ones. So, we’re not a cultivated meat company, we’re a cellular ag company, and Aleph Cuts is only the first application of the cells.

When we’re talking about cells, there is a misperception that cells are processed food, which is not the case and I want to talk about that a little bit. What we do is instead of farming big animals like cows, we look at small animals (i.e. the cells). Cells are the building blocks of life and the building blocks of animals (i.e. the cows). We’re able to isolate the cells from a healthy animal, fully test them for safety, and nurture those cells to feed them in a controlled environment, the same as how animals are fed and nurtured in a corral or a meadow to make high-quality animal products. The cells that Aleph Farms uses are not immortalized, meaning we stick to the natural genetic material of the cells. We also follow the same processes and the same stations for cell proliferation and maturation, as in nature. So technically, we do what the animal domestication industry is doing: we replicate a natural process, and we control that environment to grant better access to high-quality nutrition with more predictability and more control. The cells are not ‘processed’. Further, we can turn the cells into a range of different products.

While I can’t say that cell-based products won’t be processed in the future, the source from which we’re using the cells by themselves is not processed. When we grow cells in the growth medium, which is the feedstock for the cells, we’re using an animal component-free growth medium, meaning we feed them without any animal input. The cells come from animals. If you think about how we make yogurt for instance, or fermented/cultured milk, we also grow cells in a medium. With yogurt, the cells are non-animal, they’re usually bacteria, whilst the growth medium is animal-based. In our case, it’s the opposite, meaning (what we do) when we cultivate ourselves, we do the same thing as when we make yoghurt, but the other way around. In our case, the growth medium is animal-free.

Sonalie Figueiras: That’s a very helpful analogy.

So technically, growing cells is a process no different than making yogurt, which is considered unprocessed food. These are some of the misperceptions that arise from many plant-based products out there, which are considered processed. So, it’s those kinds of analogies that people are making in their minds with cells and cultivated meat- they have preconceived ideas.

Sonalie Figueiras: People often confuse plant-based meat and cultivated meat, that’s true. Of course, that’s because all of these technologies are lumped under one umbrella. For most people, change is difficult and new technologies are complicated. However, the yogurt comparison is a very helpful analogy. Did you have a third part that you wanted to share?

Didier Toubia: Yes, I wanted to say that as we discussed before, we don’t think animal agriculture will disappear in 10 or 20 years. I know that a lot of vegan activists would like us to say that we’ll disrupt conventional agriculture, and a few plant-based companies make this type of claim, which I think is a mistake, because if we’re talking about regenerative ag, and as I’ve explained, we have a strong focus on climate and food security at Aleph Farms, we do need animals. However, we need far fewer animals, and we need to manage them better. Animals have a role in regenerating the soils and have a role in organic farming and are oftentimes associated in the countryside or in the Global South with social and economic value. As I’ve said when talking about Africa, we don’t want to replace smallholder farms, and the cows have a very important social and economic role there, especially for many, many families. We need to respect that. I think that cultivated meat as an application of sales should be complementary, and a driver for the transition to work less, cost less and be better managed. By the time we understand that, people will be looking at cultivated meat from completely different angles, not necessarily as a threat or not like those guys who are trying to replace the food, but as an additional choice for a meal, and this will open a lot of possibilities.

Sonalie Figueiras: Absolutely. Instead of an alternative, it’s an added option.

Didier Toubia: At Aleph Farms, we’re talking about complementary products, instead of alternative products. I think “alternative products” doesn’t mean anything.

Sonalie Figueiras: Yeah, I wrote a piece saying exactly that. I think we made a mistake with the name of the sector. I want to come back to what you just said about the vegan question, because as you might be aware, for some founders in this space, the vegan question is very much at the heart of what they are doing, and I see that for you, the ethical part about consuming animals is not at the heart of your mission here.

Didier Toubia: I want to expand here: I have a big issue with the industrialization of animal farming. When we grew up in France, 50 years ago, whenever people slaughtered a pig in the village, there was a ceremony. It was on the main square of the village circle, and when people went, there was a ceremony for the animal, and our relationship to the animal, and the value of the animal’s life. Honestly, I don’t have any inherent issue with eating animals, just as long as we realize that, you know, a cow has given its life to bring the steak on your plate. Today, I think there is a disconnection between meat and the life of the animal behind it. When we industrialize and individualize animal agriculture, putting animals into machines to make meat, or raise them, then slaughter them, it’s the same as when we would make cookies in the plant, meaning without any respect for the animal, that causes a lot of discomfort in me. So, regarding the point of slaughtering animals, I would say that I have an issue with the dehumanization, or let’s say ‘object possession?’ I don’t know if that’s the right term, but turning animals into objects?

Sonalie Figueiras: The exploitation of an animal.

Didier Toubia: It’s not giving respect to the animal and not valuing its life. I think it’s a big issue associated with industrialization. When you slaughter animals in a factory in a high-speed production chain, I think it’s a big issue. It’s a big ethical issue. That’s why we believe that if we can relieve the pressure on farming big animals by funding small animals like cells, we can revert and return to more extensive regenerative farming practices with higher animal welfare, and connect back to the animals as our “complementaries” [food sources] as well.

Sonalie Figueiras: It’s really interesting- you keep referring to regenerative agriculture and organic agriculture, and, you know, what we see in the media and the bigger mainstream conversation is that a lot of regenerative beef folks are very against cultivated meat. I think you’ve covered a lot of why that is, the entrenched lobby interests and the misunderstanding of the role of cellular agriculture in the industry. From where I’m sitting, reporting in this space, there does seem to be this kind of very big split between the regenerative people and then cultivated meat as a food technology, so I want to keep pushing on two things. One, I want to talk a little bit about the role of big food in your company because if we look at Aleph’s journey, you have managed to sign collaborative agreements and partnerships or retain as investors some really big names in the food industry such as BRF in Brazil, and Thai Union, and Mitsubishi. So, I want to ask you, are these partnerships that you are going out to look for? Or are these companies approaching you? How do you navigate through working with companies that are, you know, on some level upholding the status quo, which as you described yourself is problematic and not protected against the future?

Didier Toubia: Firstly, we’re only working with corporations that go through very thorough and strict due diligence by Aleph Farms on ESG parameters, and governmental, social and governance. So, we pick the corporations we work with very carefully based on the alignment of values and vision, that’s important to understand.

Secondly, we maintain our full independence. We don’t grant any rights on our IP, we don’t have any commitments to change anything, and we have no plans to accommodate any requirements from the company. None of those companies will have a seat on our board of directors, for instance. We’re working with those companies, but they don’t influence or impact the internal decision process. We remain fully independent.

Thirdly, the reason why we believe it’s important to have them involved. Just like how renewable energy today is driven primarily by the big energy companies that were traditionally oil-based. Eventually, they switched toward renewable energy and were instrumental in driving impact on the transition towards renewable energies- because, at the end of the day, they see themselves as energy companies. So, they want to develop the best solution to provide energy. I think a lot of those protein and fat companies see themselves as protein companies and are not necessarily committed to only producing meat harvested from slaughtered animals. They understand that we need to incorporate additional choices and new production systems for proteins. We want to drive real impact in the market [so] we need the big players to take hold, invest, and [help] scale these industries, same as what happened with renewable energy. 

Sonalie Figueiras: So, are these companies coming to you?

Didier Toubia: It really depends. Usually they do. Actually, yes, mostly they do.

Sonalie Figueiras: So, from your side, since you said there’s strict vetting, you are getting these bigger companies coming to you wanting to learn about what you’re doing, wanting to potentially work together, wanting to participate in this new solution? Is that fair to say?

Didier Toubia: Yes. Again, we check them very carefully before we start working with them. We want to make sure they are really serious about it. The thing is a lot of those companies do understand that, you know, they can’t continue with business as usual. So, they need to incorporate, and diversify the sources of protein they’re putting into the market.

Sonalie Figueiras: Absolutely. Let’s talk a little bit about your product launch: You recently announced cultivated petite steak, which as you said earlier, is your own format of a steak product. You’re not trying to imitate a conventional beef steak one-for-one. It’s a new label that you’re calling Aleph Cuts. You also just announced a major partnership with Chef Marcus Samuelsson, the very well-known and well-respected James Beard award-winning chef who really privileges work around diversity and takes a broader view of the food system than most. Is he part of your launch plans? I know he’s come in as an investor and an advisor, but can you talk more about how you’re working with him and about your new label?

Didier Toubia: Yeah, sure. So, the first round of products we’re launching under the Aleph Cuts brand is a series of thin-cut beef steaks, which rely on two or three cell towers from bovine origin going onto a plant-based scaffold matrix, meaning it’s a range of hybrid products – plant and animal cells. We’ve been working very hard for the last few years to make sure those products meet the requirements and the expectations of the consumers, accounting for the fact that food is not a functional product, especially meat, it’s a very emotional product, and food is an experience; especially when we talk about animal products, the emotional connection is very strong and working with chefs to develop the right taste, to give life to our products and to develop the right positioning, but also the right format to create this connection, is really important.

The reason why we selected Marcus Samuelsson-other than that he is a great guy- was because we wanted to work with a chef who could help drive initial acceptance of our products, help us with positioning it and developing the right key messages, developing the right culinary approaches, and promote our specific value proposition. So, we do see chefs as partners: we need to convey quality, but at the same time, make sure the product is not presented as a luxurious and inaccessible food. We’re very cautious not to work with a three-star Michelin chef who is disconnected from the ground. What we liked about Marcus Samuelsson is that a lot of his values are very much in line with ours in terms of care, inclusiveness, courage, and creativity. He’s very much in line with our brand [goals of] premium but accessible [food].

Sonalie Figueiras: Is he linked to your plans to visit Ethiopia? [Samuelsson is Ethiopian-born].

Didier Toubia: Yes. Again, I’m fascinated by Africa, and the thing is that, you know, New Zealand also has a lot of connections with Ethiopia and the Eastern region of Africa, which is very interesting in terms of its food scene, and its economic development as well. So, naturally, we see Ethiopia as an interesting angle for us in Africa- that’s why I’m planning to go there in the next couple of months.

Sonalie Figueiras: Do you have children?

Didier Toubia: I do.

Sonalie Figueiras: Do they know what you do? Do they understand about cultivated meat? How do they see what you do?

Didier Toubia: Of course, of course! They are quite involved in what I do, and I consult with them on many topics, and I get their input in a lot of the decision-making process.

Sonalie Figueiras: Some people say that there is a shift globally with this generation (the Gen Zs), and the Alphas coming behind them, in how they think about food, and animal agriculture, and how they are engaged with this idea that they’re living in a pretty serious climate crisis. Do you experience that? And do you think that that’s going to have an impact on our global food systems?

Didier Toubia: Yes, I do. I think that the younger generation is very knowledgeable about a lot of our global issues, and is very engaged [with them]. In my opinion, they will be the driving force behind the systemic changes we need to implement on the global level.

Sonalie Figueiras: As the founder of Aleph Farms, what does success look like to you? What do you see when you look ahead and you imagine success and your vision being realized?

Didier Toubia: I see a food system which is more diverse than today, with more choices, especially more diversity. Technically, today we have many choices, but with very little diversity. What I mean by that is that we have 100 different options of the same products, but we rely on and choose very few production processes, and the food is very concentrated. So, we have a lot of choices, but very little diversity. I would like to incorporate more diversity in the food system, especially with animal products, and to make sure that we can get back to our planetary boundaries while continuing to enjoy gratifying experiences with the food that we eat. I think it’s important because it’s not just a sustainability issue, it’s also a well-being issue. Food is part of what we are. Going back to high-quality foods, and putting the focus on emotions and experiences, is so important- [we need to get] away from ultra-processed and industrialized food products.

Sonalie Figueiras: What are the biggest challenges to get there? And what challenges are you facing at Aleph, specifically? Is it funding?

Didier Toubia: I think the biggest challenge is the amplitude of the food system. The food system is such a big industry and that is difficult to change. If we’re talking just about animal proteins, which is a subset of the food system, it’s a $1.8 trillion market, meaning that if you want to make a change in this market, it will cost you a lot of time, because of its amplitude. At Aleph Farms, we have a target for getting to $1 billion in revenues by 2030, as a way to have an impact, and typically $1 billion in revenues is exactly 0% market share of $1.8 trillion! So, if we want to have a real impact, we need to become very, very large-scale, and that requires a lot of time and a lot of collaboration with all of the stakeholders in the ecosystem. At the end of the day, to drive the change, we need all the players in the ecosystem to align their interests and work together to make the change. Of course, it will not be just one company, not even just four or five cultivated meat companies driving the change.

Sonalie Figueiras: One thing you haven’t mentioned though is government policy. How much of a role do you think that plays in this change?

Didier Toubia: I’ll go back to renewable energy, which I think is a good analogy for cellular agriculture, no different than any other technologies in the existing market that is intended to drive a systemic change in the way we manage the ecosystem. We’ve seen that for renewable energy to become mainstream took a lot of public-private partnerships and governmental support in investing and scaling up these technologies including loans and loan guarantees, tax breaks and tech agreements. Without governmental support, the renewable energy sector would never have been able to drive the cost down enough to become mainstream. It will be the same with cultivated meat. We need the support for the next 5-10 years until we can drive the costs down to become mainstream.

Sonalie Figueiras: Thanks so much, Didier. I appreciate you taking the time, and being so open and so elaborate with your answers. It’s been fascinating!

Didier Toubia: Thanks, Sonalie!

Listen to this episode on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Green Queen In Conversation is a podcast about the food and climate story hosted by Sonalie Figueiras, the founder and editor-in-chief of Green Queen Media. The show’s first season, Pioneers of Cultivated Meat, explores cultivated meat, a future food technology on a mission to produce animal protein sustainability. In each of the six episodes, Sonalie interviews the pioneers of the industry, asking the hard questions about one of the most exciting food + climate innovations of our time and sharing the personal story behind each founder’s journey. 

Green Queen In Conversation is a co-production from Green Queen Media and Cheeky Monkey Productions. This episode was produced by Joanna Bowers and hosted by Sonalie Figueiras.

The post Green Queen in Conversation: Cultivated Meat Pioneers – Didier Toubia of Aleph Farms appeared first on Green Queen.

This post was originally published on Green Queen.

34 Mins Read

The below conversation is the transcript of the first episode of the podcast miniseries Green Queen in Conversation: Cultivated Meat Pioneers featuring Josh Tetrick, founder and CEO of Eat Just and GOOD Meat, interviewed by show host Sonalie Figueiras. This conversation has been edited for clarity and length. 

In the first episode of the Green Queen in Conversation podcast miniseries, Cultivated Meat Pioneers, I talk to Josh Tetrick, founder and CEO of Eat Just and GOOD Meat. I don’t know if you can have a conversation about cultivated meat without talking to Josh. This is someone who set himself a goal to be the first cultivated meat company in the world to gain commercial approval and who achieved it in a very short amount of time. I think that really changed the narrative and changed the game for the entire industry; it really brought cultivated meat to mainstream attention. 

I’ve known Josh for a long time now. And he’s a force to be reckoned with, he’s extremely clear on his vision, and he’s unwavering in his execution. So, I’m really excited to share our conversation. We cover a lot of ground, including how it felt to make history, why he went for cultivated meat when he was already doing really well with plant-based eggs, and whether the industry has progressed enough. I’m sure you’re all going to love it. It’s hard not to be wowed by his dedication to the mission of creating a food system that is sustainable, nutritious, ethical, and slaughter-free.

Listen to this episode on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Sonalie Figueiras: Hey, Josh, how are you? Thanks for joining me today.

Josh Tetrick: Hey, good to be with you.

Sonalie Figueiras: It’s been a really long time since we first met. I was thinking about it, I think it’s at least five or six years now.

Josh Tetrick: We met before the world commercialized cultivated meat before cultivated meat was ever sold.

Sonalie Figueiras: Absolutely, we met back in Hong Kong, and we were really meeting about Eat Just and all your work and plant-based eggs. So, I wanted to dive in on that front. Why did you decide to go into cultivated meat when you had Eat Just already, and you already had great traction? It’s a great product, I have it in my freezer at all times, and it seems like a big enough problem to solve. Why go for the cultivated meat challenge?

Josh Tetrick: “Why eggs?” – that’s a big enough problem to solve – about 2 trillion eggs were laid last year, and most of them were laid in a way that is not very good for our health, nor for the planet’s health, nor for the bird who’s laying the eggs’ health; but we thought we could do something else too. So, we wanted to have a “what’s next” after the egg and decided that making real meat without slaughter was a good “what’s next”, and we’d learned a lot about how to think about commercializing a food technology product. We’ve learned a lot about how consumers think about eating these different approaches to making everyday foods, and we thought those lessons about scaling up and consumer insights could put us in a place where we could make cultivated meat happen.

Sonalie Figueiras: Sure. Now, I want to dig a little deeper – when was the first time you came across cultivated meat technology? When did that moment happen where you went, “I think we can pursue this?”

Josh Tetrick: Well, probably the first time I came across it was 20 years ago. I think I was reading a paper about how NASA was exploring the technology for long-term space travel, and it was about six years ago that we decided to pursue it as the next product in the company; but it really just came from this understanding that people seem to like meat, they liked the taste of it, they liked the texture of it, they liked the smell of it, they liked the feeling of it. Is there a way to make that [meat] the same texture, the same taste, the same composition, but in a way that’s a lot better? Then we spent about eight months to a year talking to folks around the world about whether the technology was viable, about what needed to be done if we decided to pursue it, and then we decided to go after it and make it the thing that we focus on.

Sonalie Figueiras: How different is it to scale a plant-based egg versus pioneering a piece of cultivated chicken meat?

Josh Tetrick: The things that are similar are that you need food scientists, food engineers, product developers, and regulatory professionals, and people who are really smart with consumer insights, branding, awareness, and communications. That’s similar. The idea of making it is completely different. With a plant-based egg, you’re starting with a mung bean, then you’re separating protein from the mung bean, and you’re making the egg. With this, you’re starting with a cell. You’re identifying feed for the cell, think amino acids, vitamins and minerals, and salts and sugars, and then you’re scaling it up in a stainless-steel vessel. So, the kinds of talent that you need are pretty similar, but the whole process of making it is pretty different.

Sonalie Figueiras: So, the way you’ve explained it right there sounds really intuitive and makes sense, but when you first approached your board of investors, did they get it? Were they like, “Okay, yes, you were doing plant-based eggs, and now you’re going to do cultivated chicken, and these are different ways to solve essentially, the same broken food system problems?”

Josh Tetrick: I think some people did, some people didn’t. I think you can look at one hand and say, “If you want to do chicken or beef, why not just do plant-based chicken or beef? Why do cultivated meat? Our response is that we’re not a plant-based company. We’re a company that’s attempting to develop technology to displace conventional animal agriculture, and if that means that we’re going to separate protein from a mung bean, we’ll do it. If that means we’re going to cultivate meat, we’ll do it. If that means we’re about precision fermentation, we’ll do it. So, we’re not locked on a specific technology path, we’re more so locked on a specific effective path, and sometimes, I think plant-based can be a better approach, and sometimes I think cultivating can be a better approach. So that’s what we tell people.

Sonalie Figueiras: So again, that makes total sense intuitively; but what about consumers? Marketing is usually about distilling one idea, one product, one concept. Do you feel like there’s confusion, and especially as you get up to the point where you may eventually have your chicken in a store, or in more countries? Is it confusing to a consumer?

Josh Tetrick: Well, today, we don’t need to worry about it, because we just sell our cultivated meat, under our brand GOOD Meat in Singapore in a single butcher shop today. So, the only people that are buying it are people who live in Singapore, who are going to Huber’s Butchery. We’re still the only company in the world that has ever received regulatory approval to actually go on and sell it. Now, when we expand much wider – let’s say when GOOD Meat is in 40,000 points of distribution, when it is in thousands of Walmarts, Whole Foods, Shoprites, Publix’s, and restaurants all across the country, then I think you have a higher probability of confusion, but that’s why we decided to develop the GOOD Meat brand, and not call it “Just Meat”. So, it’s called GOOD Meat – it’s about cultivating meat, just like Just Egg is specific to what we’re doing on the eggs side. So, that’s just one way of differentiating the plant-based side from the meat-based side. However, it’ll be a good bit of time, I mean, you’re talking years out, until we actually have the manufacturing be able to get it across that many points of distribution. So, we’ve got some time to sort out how people think about it and whether they’re confused or not.

Sonalie Figueiras: It sounds like you have given this a lot of thought when you’re describing all the points of distribution. Do you have specific goalposts that you want to hit?

Josh Tetrick: It starts with what we want in the long-term, and what we want in the long-term is for cultivated meat to be the majority of meat that is produced on the planet. That’s the long-term [plan], and that’s not going to happen in 10 years. That’s a much longer lifetime, potentially a project over many lifetimes. Closer in, we want to continue selling products in Singapore at Huber’s Butchery, and we want to expand to more restaurants. As the year continues, and we already received FDA approval in the US, now it’s about USDA approval. Once we get that we want to launch with Jose Andres at one of his restaurants in DC [Editor’s Note: this already happened in July 2023, a few weeks after this episode was recorded]. And then as we build more infrastructure, meaning larger and larger vessels before the end of the decade, we want to make tens of millions of pounds of cultivated me at a cost that’s below conventional meat.

Sonalie Figueiras: So, tell me, for people who are not in the food industry. What percentage is tens of millions of pounds of cultivated meat compared to how much chicken is being consumed in the United States, for example?

Josh Tetrick: Much, much less than 1%? I would look at the trajectory of cultivated meat as being somewhat similar to electric cars. So, you can look at electric car production today, and depending on how you look at it, you can draw different conclusions. So, on the one hand, only 1% of the cars on the street right now are electric. That’s it, only 1%. With all the funding around electric cars, all the consumers and all your friends who might be driving around, globally, today, only 1% are electric cars.

However, double-click on that, and then you say – well, what about in certain areas like Norway and Sweden? So, over 60% of the cars on the road over there are electric. Then what about new cars that are manufactured? I think that’s roughly about 20% of new cars that are manufactured electric. Then, you look at announcements of big companies like Ford, GM, etc., and they say they’re moving entirely away from conventional gasoline-produced cars by 2032-2035. So, the seeds of change are being planted, and I think you’ll see the same thing with cultivated meat. So, even though by the end of the decade, we’re talking tens of millions of pounds, and even though that is a lot less than 1%, that’s how stuff starts, right? That’s how you build a foundation to ultimately cultivated meat being the only kind of meat that’s produced.

Sonalie Figueiras: Does it ever feel too daunting? When you think in terms of multiple lifetimes, for example? Do you ever think it’s just so hard, and will we ever get there?

Josh Tetrick: Well, it is very daunting. It is very hard. It is very challenging. It is very uncertain, and it is very long-term. If you don’t accept those things, you should not be in the cultivated meat business, that is for sure. Those things are very true.

However, what I think is also true is that the alternative is less palatable: The alternative where meat production continues to grow, and more and more people are eating meat. Now, I’m plant-based myself, except for the fact that I eat cultivated meat (I had a piece of cultivated chicken this afternoon), but we live in a world where I think the majority of people are eating meat. As much as I wish that they would choose beans instead of meat, which is so much healthier, and I wish that everyone would right now, and we wouldn’t even be needed, that’s a hard world to imagine.

However, yes, this is a very long-term, very uncertain project. Sometimes, when folks are asking a hard question where they’re criticizing it, they might say this is very challenging, very long-term, and very uncertain. So, what do you say to them? I say, “That’s right, I agree,” and they say “Therefore, what? We and others shouldn’t do it?” Then our response is, “Let’s give it a try. Let’s see what we’ve got. Let’s see what we can do.”

Sonalie Figueiras: Absolutely! You’re human, and it just sometimes might feel like this is really hard, but it sounds like you accept it as a part of the rules of the game, which I think is probably the way to see it. 

Josh Tetrick: I wish you could build the infrastructure faster. I wish that instead of tens of millions of pounds before the end of the decade, it was billions of pounds before the end of the decade. I wish instead of costing billions to build the infrastructure, it was millions to build the infrastructure. I do wish all those things, but you know, that’s not the reality of it. So, we’ve got to deal with it and realize that just because something takes many decades, all those things have to start somewhere. And the sooner we get started, the sooner they’ll get done.

Sonalie Figueiras: What can make it go faster? Is it is it more money? Is it the government putting money behind this? If you had more billions, could you build the infrastructure faster?

Josh Tetrick: Yeah, a lot of things can make go faster. So, certainly, more capital invested in the industry, so if you had instead of hundreds of millions, you had hundreds of billions, you would go faster. You could build infrastructure faster, you could design and engineer the vessels. You could hire more people, you could accelerate research and development, for sure more capital would make it go faster, and that additional capital could come from private investors or certainly come from the government. So, I think governments getting behind it could also make it go faster: The US government, China, governments in the Middle East, those governments deciding that cultivated meat is more than just about mitigating climate change, it’s about food security, that could help it go faster. So yeah, certainly it doesn’t have to be, you know, many lifetimes.

Sonalie Figueiras: Okay, so more money and more attention and more governmental support would accelerate this, 100%.

Josh Tetrick: No question.

Sonalie Figueiras: This is not just a technology-specific problem to solve, it’s more of a resources problem as well.

Josh Tetrick: Yeah, I think the technology is here for simpler products. So, for our chicken that people eat at Huber’s Butchery: it’s good-tasting chicken, and people like it. Could it be better? Sure. Could it be on a bone? Sure. Could we have, you know, delicious Kobe steak instead of the chicken? Might that be better? Sure, but the chicken is good. So, we know how to manufacture meat and convert it into a finished product that people will like. So, for the simpler products, it’s here now, but for more complicated stuff – bluefin tuna, and more complicated textures, the technology is not here yet, but you know, roughly half the meat that is sold is simple stuff: ground beef, sausages, chicken nuggets, and chicken strips, you know, we can do all that now.

Sonalie Figueiras: You’ve mentioned Huber’s Butchery a few times and we’re talking about, you know, many lifetimes of progress to go, but you did do this one incredible thing: you made history in December 2020, just a couple of years after you announced that you were working on GOOD Meat, you got the world’s first cultivated meat regulatory approval! People in Singapore could go and buy chicken at that point, it was in restaurants, and even at hawker stalls. Now, it’s at the butchery. How did that happen? When did you decide that you were going to go for that, and did you consciously decide you wanted to be the first to get that regulatory approval and get that commercialization?

Josh Tetrick: Yeah, definitely, we definitely consciously wanted to be the first, and we thought about places that would be the most likely to approve it, and Singapore was at the top of the list, just knowing that Singapore is a very forward-thinking country who cares a lot about food security; they have an initiative called “30-by-30”, where they aim to get 30% of their food produced in the country by the end of the decade. So, knowing all these things, we felt that Singapore was a good first place to apply to. So, we applied sometime in 2018, and then we waited and answered questions from their regulatory body about, “where the cell came from?”; What do you feed the cell? How do you manufacture it? How do you ensure the safety? What is the microbiological profile? How is it different than conventional chicken? “How do you know it’s safe?”, and 90 other questions like that, and then we got the approval in November 2020. We went on to actually serve it at a restaurant in a restaurant called 1880, and that was the first time that cultivated meat had ever been sold in the world. We definitely wanted to be the first. We thought it would send out a message to the food industry, and to consumers around the world that this idea of making meat without slaughter is not science fiction, but it is on plates right now, even at that very small scale.

Sonalie Figueiras: So, you went in there, chose Singapore, and thought, that’s the country?

Josh Tetrick: We did. Yeah, we didn’t think the US was the place.

Sonalie Figueiras: Right, that was my follow-up. I mean, you’re American, you know, you’re from the US. So why not the US as the first country?

Josh Tetrick: It just didn’t seem like the USDA or the FDA at the time were really looking at this. In that way, it felt like Singapore was in a place where they were more than ready to address it. We ended up also applying to the FDA, but it just felt like Singapore was ahead of the curve, and we wanted to get to the market sooner.

Sonalie Figueiras: What do you think makes the difference between governments that are ahead of the curve, and others that are not so much? For example, seeing what’s going on in Italy where they’re thinking about passing a ban, or with the EU, where they are a little bit more conservative, even though the first cultivated meatball was actually created in the Netherlands, in Europe. How do you look at governments’ attitudes, and why are some governments just pro-cultivated meat and want to support the industry, and others are thinking of passing bans?

Josh Tetrick: Yeah. Well, I still think that we’re very, very early in the industry. So, it definitely is to be determined how a lot of these governments decide to look at it. I think that typically, when you have governments that are pro-innovative, and there’s a food security issue, they’re going to want to be the first to jump, and Singapore was the first to jump at this, right? They’re very pro-innovative, developing new technologies in the country, and they’ve got a food security issue. So, that’s the combination that’s going to get you cultivated meat regulated sooner.

The US has now been ahead of the curve on it too, the FDA has approved two companies, including ours, and the USDA is actively engaged in this [Editor’s Note: GOOD Meat received USDA regulatory approval a few weeks after this conversation took place]. So, I think sometimes people look at the US and think it’s behind the curve, but at least our experience with regulators, they’ve been ahead of the curve on this. I think it’s a mindset of people who are in government about how they think about innovation, how they think about tradition versus developing new things, and how open they are to new technologies.

Sometimes, you know, being conservative about new things is a good thing. There are a lot of food products that are not sold in Europe today that I think are rightfully not sold in Europe today, and that’s a good thing. However, I think you have to have a balance of really understanding when to lean into innovation and when to be a bit more cautious, but I think when we look at the regulatory landscape, even if we were approved by every country in the world today, we’re going to be producing exactly the same amount of cultivated meat this year. It’s not as if twenty more approvals mean millions of more pounds, we got approval in America, or at least the FDA and waiting on the USDA, and Singapore, and we have got our hands full with just those two markets, but I definitely want more countries to open up to it, and I think they will.

Sonalie Figueiras: What do you think people are getting wrong about the science of cultivated meat? Let’s talk about consumer perception because the media has been a little messy around this, and as you say, it’s human to question you and to be cautious. However, there’s also been, I would say, an unhealthy degree of misinformation to some extent. If you were talking to a sceptic, what are people getting wrong?

Josh Tetrick: Yeah, really good question. I think there are a number of things that people are getting wrong. So, in no particular order: Sometimes people think cultivated meat is plant-based meat, and I’m a big fan of plant-based meat, but cultivated meat is different from plant-based meat, and plant-based meat is different from conventional meat. Those are three different approaches to making to making meat. So, that’s one [thing people get wrong]. Sometimes I’ll do a whole presentation in front of a group of people, and they’ll ask what plants are we using to make this. So, it’s important to understand that cultivated meat is from a cell, not a bean. If you have a chicken allergy and you have our chicken at Huber’s, you’re going to have an allergic outbreak, it’s still real meat.

The second thing that people get wrong about it is that they’ll say it is this moniker of lab-grown. Now, when we make meat today, both in Singapore and when will produce it for the US market, we do lab research, but we don’t make our products in the lab. Just like Danone does research for yogurt in the lab, they don’t make yogurt in a lab. So, I think in the really early days of cultivated meat, and we’re still in the early days, this whole idea of, you know, taking it out of a petri dish and serving it on a plate was right. That’s not how it is today. Now, these manufacturing facilities I’m talking about are very small, but nonetheless, they are manufacturing facilities – the ones in the US that will be regulated by the USDA, those are not a lab, right? So, that’s the second thing I think people get wrong.

The third thing is, one might say it’s too hard to scale as well, and when I hear that criticism my answer is it’s really hard to scale it up, but “really hard” is different than “impossible” to scale up. So, it requires a ton of investment, time, energy and technical knowledge to scale it up, but it is still very much within the realm of what is possible to do, it is just a big technical and epic capital challenge. 

The fourth thing that people get wrong is they think fetal bovine serum or FBS is necessary to do it. It’s not. It was in the early days, and now we actually received approval in Singapore to commercialize our meat without it. We’ve removed it in our R&D facility over the last couple of years. It was a technical challenge, it’s not anymore. So, people should stop thinking that it’s this big barrier because it’s not.

Then maybe, finally, skeptics would say, well, consumers don’t want it. Unfortunately, the only consumer real-life consumer examples we have are in Singapore. I wish we had more, but that’s all we’ve got, and what we have found in Singapore is people say they would eat this instead of regular meat: When they buy it, they consume it, and they hang out with their friends as they’re eating it. They say, “You know what, I would choose this instead.”

So, those are some basic criticisms and how we would address them. Some of the things about cultivating meat, to an everyday person, would sound kind of strange. I think it’s not. We shouldn’t expect that someone hears about the process of making cultivated meat and immediately say, “Oh, that sounds amazing! I want to eat that!”

It’s not every day that you can make meat from a cell instead of slaughtering a live animal. So, I think you also have to be a bit patient with people and know that this is a brand-new thing, and you’ve got to explain it. You’ve got to be really open about it, and not everyone is going to like it right away because not everyone likes anything right away, but you’ve still got to go after it.

Sonalie Figueiras: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it’s so interesting, because you did launch in Singapore, and the early data shows that Asian consumers tend to be more open to cultivated meat. There was also this really interesting study that was done in Singapore earlier this year about how people who have higher well-being tend to be more open to consuming cultivated meats. Do you think about why there seems to be a bigger openness in Asia? Or do you just think we don’t have enough information yet to really understand?

Josh Tetrick: I think we probably don’t have enough information yet. I’ve become really skeptical of data that’s not real-world consumers eating something because you can ask questions in a lot of different ways to try to get at things. Generally, I feel like you’re going to get a much better sense of how a consumer thinks about it when it’s widely available, when they’ve eaten it and when they have really experienced it. That’s why the data from consumers in Singapore who have actually bought GOOD Meat and eaten it is our most valuable data. I trust that data more than I trust, you know, surveying a million people, whether it’s good for us or bad for us, doesn’t matter, I just trust it more, because it is more like a direct experience. However, I think generally the younger you are, the more open you are to it. I think the more educated you are, the more open you are to it. I think the more urban you are, the more open you are to it. I think those things are correlated with an openness to it.

I used to be frustrated because I would have liked everyone to want it, you know, now, but again, no product is like that. No product that’s launched, do you suddenly have everyone on the planet wanting it. You always have to build from a base. You know, Coca-Cola was launched in Atlanta at these high-end social clubs and farms, right? 

Sonalie Figueiras: Given everything that we’re talking about how consumers are thinking about it, and, you know, human psychology and consumer behavior, how should the industry be thinking about consumer perception, and is the industry doing enough? I struggle with this because as you’ve said many times, it’s super early, there’s only one country, one company (yours) who’s even making cultivated meat that anyone can taste. Should there be work being done now to open people’s minds, or is it too early? How do you think about that? How do you think the industry at large should be thinking about that?

Josh Tetrick: I struggle with that a little bit. I think I lean towards yes. I just think you have to do it in a way that you don’t delude yourself, because just asking thousands of people to fill out a survey without food in front of them can be a recipe for deluding yourself about, you know: “Here’s a description of what cultivated meat is, and here’s how it smells, and here’s that. So, do you like it? So, it is hard, but I think some data is probably better than not having any.

There are lots of important questions that are asked like – what don’t you like about it? We ask that question a lot, and often what we hear is: “Well, what I don’t like about it is I don’t understand it. What I don’t understand is, what do you mean you make meat from a cell? What do you mean you feed the cell? What the hell is a bioreactor? What does that look like? What’s in the bioreactor? What do you mean you harvest the meat? All these terms, I deal with every day, right, but to an everyday person, they’ve never even thought about that before.

So, I think asking people what it is about it that gives them a concern, what gives them the pause, what do they think it should be called. I think there’s been a lot of valuable work that’s been done in this area, and what we and others have found is that using the word “cell”, using words like “cell-based”, or “cell-cultured”, or certainly “lab-grown”, is not effective with consumers. Using words like “cultivating meat”, or “cultured” is typically number two and ends up being a lot better, and I think that’s valuable data, and we use “cultivated” in Singapore very much because of that data.

I think all this data is also really important, because governments look at it, and investors look at it. When a government is deciding whether they should fund this, they’re going to be looking at some data. So, I think having that data out there, again, even if it’s incomplete, even if it’s imperfect, I still think it’s important, but when the product actually gets out there in the real world, to many more people, that’ll be the most important kind of data.

Sonalie Figueiras: What about marketing? Should you be doing marketing campaigns? Should the industry get together and do a massive campaign about cultivated meat, and you know, what it means and what it is? 

Josh Tetrick: I don’t think so yet. I mean, we do marketing in Singapore. So, we do marketing around our Huber’s launch, we do marketing whether it’s bringing influencers around, billboards, and other all sorts of different activations we do, and we’ll do marketing when we launched in the US with Chef Jose Andres. We’ll make a big deal out of it, we’ll have lots of media attention, maybe a billboard or two around it.

I don’t think we need a national kind of marketing campaign quite yet. I think most consumers will look at that, and be like, “It’s just too early.” Now, maybe in three, six, or nine months, once it’s in the market in the US more people are talking about it, then maybe. Maybe, but honestly, I don’t have that good a feel on how early it should start. I think the part of me that thinks it should start earlier is you don’t want opinions to get sort of solidified in people’s heads, and that can happen, you know.

Sonalie Figueiras: That’s my concern as a journalist, and seeing what’s going on in the media and the headlines, I’m wondering: “Should we be covering this narrative, or having a narrative of our own”? But again, as you say, food is real, food is tangible. So, I hear you on that, and I think you’re right.

Josh Tetrick: Yeah, it’s a hard one. I think there’s a case to be made for both because opinions can get calcified, but on the other hand, if I saw a cultivated meat commercial and I was sitting in my home I would think: “This is not even going to be available to me for another two years, like what are we talking about?

Sonalie Figueiras: But I mean, to some extent, it would be interesting to see how early there were EV (electric vehicle) commercials.

Josh Tetrick: True.

Sonalie Figueiras: Although, while I appreciate the EV parallel, food is not cars, unfortunately.  There is a difference for people. I hear you on the marketing, but there does seem to be this kind of politicization of food choices that is becoming more pervasive, especially in the US, and it’s spilling over to Europe, and food really is this kind of identity topic for people, you know, it’s your grandmother’s baked cake, or it’s your mom’s lasagna. How do we navigate that, because “new” always seems to be on the other side of the fence when it comes to the ultimate food, that is, you know, pure, and from the land, natural, and home-grown?

Josh Tetrick: Yeah, that’s a hard one, you’re right. Food is different than a car. Food is much more about identity, and stories that we have about ourselves and where we’re from.

One of my food stories is about how my mom used to make me chicken wings when I got off the bus in middle school, and even though I know the horrible conditions of animals, viscerally I understand it, but when I think about the chicken wings, I think about how it’s a feel-good experience, because my mom was caring for me as I got off the bus, right? That’s, I guess, bizarre in a way, because I know what’s behind it, but on the other hand, I can’t take my mom and her love from me in that moment out of my story. So, the identity piece is a really significant one, and I think the ways that you can deal with it are trying to figure out how to serve and talk about cultivated meat in a way that speaks to identity.

One example of how we did that in Singapore is we launched this local hawker stall with a street vendor named Mr. Loo, and Mr. Loo has been making chicken curry rice for 60 years. Mr. Loo is not high-end, he’s an everyday person, but he makes super tasty food, and we wanted to launch with Mr. Loo, because we wanted to make a point about cultivated meat and the identity around it, that it could work with tradition. It could work with something that your father and his father had, and I think looking for opportunities to tap into the tradition piece plus forward-thinking cuisine, like what we are doing with Chef Jose Andres when we launch with him is important. I think about putting it in all sorts of more traditional dishes and having people and influencers representing that side of it, that is going to be important. 

Another way you can get politicians behind this is to build stuff in their district. Biotech is a really good example of this. So, biotech is booming in North Carolina. North Carolina is…

Sonalie Figueiras: It’s a triangle.

Josh Tetrick: Exactly! As a Southern state, mostly Republican citizens, mostly Republican senators, and congressmen and congresswomen, but man, they are so into biotech, and it’s not about left or right, it’s about biotechnology creating jobs for the state of North Carolina. So, I think if you can show that this is creating real jobs, and it’s having a real meaningful impact to the economy, I think that’s a way to mitigate some of the sharper edges around about making it political. However, you’re not going to stop someone like Marjorie Taylor Greene, from getting involved. She’s gonna do her thing.

Sonalie Figueiras: “She’s gonna do her thing.” [laughter].

Josh Tetrick: No matter what, but she’s got to deal with it.

Sonalie Figueiras: Yeah, but I like that. I like the idea of looking for ways to communicate the traditional identity with the new technology. So, when you did that in Singapore, with the hawker and Mr. Loo, was it overwhelmingly positive? Did your thesis work, in the sense that people feel like, “Oh yeah, this is the kind of the food I love, you know, chicken satays, and it’s just made in a different way. It’s better for the planet and for our health!”

Josh Tetrick: Yeah, it did. I mean, the most important person was Mr. Loo. The guy has been running it for 50-60 years, and he felt that way. He went from resisting it, right, this is a new, weird thing made in a stainless-steel vessel to, “Wait, this works really well in my chicken curry rice dish, this sounds good,” and we’re not better than Mr. Loo, right? We work with what he’s doing, and this is not about making food that is too high-end for Mr. Loo, right? It has to work in that context. It has to work on a grill in a backyard in Birmingham, Alabama before a football game. I think the more that we and other companies can make it work there, the more we will win.

Sonalie Figueiras: That must have felt good, right, when he came around and liked it? I mean, being an entrepreneur is hard. Over the years with the GOOD Meat journey, specifically, what have been some of the days or moments that just felt like a really big win and felt really incredible?

Josh Tetrick: Well, definitely the day we got regulatory approval…that was November 2020.

Sonalie Figueiras: Where were you? What were you doing? Tell me the story.

Josh Tetrick: Yeah. I was in Boulder, Colorado, and I was actually laying on the floor, because I thought we were going to get it that night, and I was just waiting for a phone call from a person named “Kat” on the regulatory team. Then she gave me a call, I woke up, and that was incredible. When we actually launched in late 2020, on December 24^th, we put it on the plate, and people ate it, and I saw a receipt. I really wanted to see the receipt, you know, when someone puts their credit card down, you’ve got a receipt, that’s not a sample anymore, that is a sale, and that was what I wanted. So, that was a really big moment. Then probably more recently, when we got FDA approval, that was pretty significant. That’s just about a month and a half ago. 

Sonalie Figueiras: Yeah, that was really recent. That’s just now!

Josh Tetrick: Yeah, yeah, and I think the next one will be when we actually launch in the US, with Chef Jose Andres, you know, he’s such a leader in the world of food.

Sonalie Figueiras: Let’s talk more about that. I mean, he’s a food saint. How do you know him, and how did that happen?

Josh Tetrick: I’ve met him through the years at different conferences and things, and when we knew that at some point, we were going to launch in the US, I reached out to him and just began talking to him about what it would look like for him to be the person that we launched with. He’s always open. 

Sonalie Figueiras: Was he initially skeptical? What was his take on cultivated meat, given he represents this idea of home-grown, artisanal, organic food?

Josh Tetrick: He wanted to know more about it. So, he wanted me to walk through the process with him. He wanted to know what it means to go from a cell to chicken. He wanted to know about what a bioreactor is. He wanted to talk to a research and development team. So, he didn’t say yes right away, he wanted to learn more. Right away, he wanted to know what the skeptics were saying, right? How are people criticizing it, and what do I agree with in terms of people criticizing it? So, we went through all that with him, and he made the decision that we needed to figure out a different approach to making meat for billions of people. That doesn’t mean, now I’m sharing his point of view, that someone who’s making some high-end lamb in Patagonia is now suddenly displaced. However, as we’re thinking about a growing population, and how the heck you feed so many people, given that we don’t have a bigger planet, I think he realizes that you need a different approach, and he thinks that this is a part of it.

Sonalie Figueiras: That’s awesome. He’s pretty special. I’d feel really awesome about that. He’s definitely someone I think that can really get consumers in. He’s just someone who really understands food and food culture, but he also is someone who has a really big social role with regard to food inequality, food access, and the quality of food that different types of people eat based on their socio-economic background.

I want to dig a little deeper on this because I know that in quite a few of your interviews, you’ve spoken about this idea that capitalism can create positive social change. The world feels very unequal in many ways, particularly with food access, in that there is less hunger, and there is better nutrition across the board, but there’s also rising inequality, and it does feel like there is a sort of elite population around the world that is getting access to better and better food, while mass available food becomes worse and worse, in terms of health and the way it’s produced with industrial agriculture.

Do you still think that capitalism is ultimately the force for good? Where do you see this, given where we are today? Also, in terms of cultivated meat, this idea that for some people, there’s a worry that cultivated meat is just going to slot into this kind of elite food structure and be something for the elites, because of its costs and barriers to entry?

Josh Tetrick: Yeah, well, I don’t think capitalism is in itself a force for good. I think capitalism is a system that can be a force for horrible things, and a force for really good things, depending on what the intent behind the company, the product, and the service is. Factory farming is capitalism. And plant-based milk is capitalism. Coal-fired power plants are capitalism, and the farmers’ market is capitalism. It’s a system to make a good or a service, and it just depends on what the intention is.

I don’t think it’s the only way to make stuff happen. I think you can do it through nonprofits and do it through the government, and I think in probably most cases it is the most effective, but again, sometimes that effect is a negative one. The most effective way to do something, I do often think, is through capitalism.

I think if someone is motivated to make cultivated meat, and they want to make as much as they can, at the lowest cost they can, so, as many people can buy it, and they can make as much money as they can. I would say, it sounds good because ultimately, you’re going to have a big impact on this planet; I’m gonna be a supporter of yours.

I think cultivated meat, just like electric cars to an extent, will be for people who have a lot of money and who are highly educated initially, there’s just no getting around it because that’s often the deal with any product. That was the deal with cereal. That was the deal with Coca-Cola. That was the deal with computers. That was the deal with the iPhone. That was the deal with the cell phone, right? It often is that initially, but can it cross that bridge from: “Alright, it’s this elite thing and a social club”, to something that’s available to the everyday person in Morgantown, West Virginia, and Birmingham, Alabama, where I was raised, and that will be determined by our company’s ability to actually make a lot at a low cost. If we’re able to do it, it will be out there, but if we’re not able to do it, then, you know, we’ll have fallen short.

Sonalie Figueiras: You sure have tried.

Josh Tetrick: Yeah.

Sonalie Figueiras: Well, on the back of that, then what keeps you up at night? For work, I mean.

Josh Tetrick: You know, it’s just more like mundane things. Like, you know, it could be like a particular technical challenge that we’re having. It could be a hire that we’re trying to make. Or, a restructure of a team

Sonalie Figueiras: So tactical stuff?

Josh Tetrick: Yeah, tactical stuff. I mean, I don’t stay up at night thinking about the lifetime project of cultivated meat, I sort of accept that it is what it is. It’s more of the tactical stuff and the chores that keep me up.

Sonalie Figueiras: What does success look like to you? Do you see yourself being the CEO of Eat Just and GOOD Meat for a good long while? Other than what you want for the industry, which is like, “In a few lifetimes, the majority of meat is made using cellular agriculture.” However, for you personally, what is success? What are you aiming for?

Josh Tetrick: It’s to do everything I can, through the people that we hire, technology that I’m pushing, capital that I’m raising, interviews that I’m giving, to increase the probability that cultivated meat as the main source of meat in the food industry happens sooner. Professionally, using my life in that way gives me a lot of fulfillment. Even though it is really hard, even when there’s only trying, even though it can be really frustrating, even though it can make you nauseous sometimes, I feel that to be useful, to feel like you’re doing everything you can to try and increase the likelihood of something so good happening- that’s what I want, and I hope to be doing this leading the company for a long time. This is where I think I could be the most effective, but yes, I feel like every day, I’m being useful in that way. Just from a professional sense, that is success to me.

Sonalie Figueiras: I love it. I agree. Thank you so much, Josh for an incredible conversation. I really appreciate it. Thank you.

Josh Tetrick: You bet. Thank you too.

Listen to this episode on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. 

Green Queen In Conversation is a podcast about the food and climate story hosted by Sonalie Figueiras, the founder and editor-in-chief of Green Queen Media. The show’s first season, Pioneers of Cultivated Meat, explores cultivated meat, a future food technology on a mission to produce animal protein sustainability. In each of the six episodes, Sonalie interviews the pioneers of the industry, asking the hard questions about one of the most exciting food + climate innovations of our time and sharing the personal story behind each founder’s journey. 

Green Queen In Conversation is a co-production from Green Queen Media and Cheeky Monkey Productions. This episode was produced by Joanna Bowers and hosted by Sonalie Figueiras.

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