S5. E4: Ryan Bethencourt: This Is The Future Of Dog Food
“…when I say people had no idea, these were investors, right? These were people who thought they had a crystal ball on the future. And I was like, look, our world has to change for so many reasons. The fact that we're slaughtering animals and doing so in really horrific ways, that is not the future.
“And so, if that is not the future, what is? It's embracing biotech, it's embracing food science, it's embracing the things that will remove these animals and the environmental impact of this out of the system.”
- Ryan Bethencourt
30 percent of the meat consumed in the United States is eaten by our pets.
That is a staggering number. Ryan Bethencourt thought so too, which is why he is doing something about it.
Ryan is the founder and CEO of Wild Earth, a sustainable, meat-free alternative to dog food. It’s the Beyond Meat for dogs. You may have seen Ryan pitch it on Shark Tank – not only did the Sharks taste his dog treats, Mark Cuban invested.
Ryan is a scientist, entrepreneur, and biotech investor. He has led, built, and advised more than 80 companies, including Shiok Meats, Memphis Meats, Geltor, New Wave Foods, Clara Foods, and Finless Foods.
He co-founded IndieBio, the world's leading biotech accelerator and was head of Sciences for the XPRIZE Foundation. He's currently a partner at Babel Ventures, a consumer biotech fund.
Ryan believes that using biology as technology will solve some of the world's most intractable problems.
I hope that you are as astonished and excited by this conversation as I was. Ryan, and all that he is doing to change the world for the very better, seems to have that effect on people…
Follow Ryan Bethencourt on Twitter
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Learn More About Babel Ventures
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Transcript
Ryan: [00:00:00] And it's like I start to think about it, and I was like, is there like a post vegan world? Where it's like, people no longer identify– it’s just like, why would you eat a slaughtered animal right? That doesn't make any sense. And I was like, huh, it's probably a world where we have a bunch of breweries and different proteins come out of the brewery and people have different taste preferences and it's like we no longer have to say vegan or not vegan we just say well, you know, what's the cell line?
Elizabeth: [00:00:30] Hi I’m Elizabeth Novogratz. This is Species Unite. We have a favor to ask. If you like today's episode and you have a spare minute, could you please rate and review Species Unite on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts? It really helps people to find the show.
Elizabeth: [00:00:48] Today’s conversation is with Ryan Bethencourt. Ryan is the founder and CEO of Wild Earth Dog Food. He’s also one of the founders of the BioHacker Movement, a biotech entrepreneur, and a biotech investor. He has led, built, and advised more than 80 startups, including Memphis Meats, Clara Foods, and Geltor. He co-founded IndieBio, the world's leading biotech accelerator, and was Head of Sciences for the XPRIZE Foundation. He's currently a partner at Babel Ventures, a consumer biotech fund. He believes that using biology as technology will solve some of the world’s most intractable problems.
Elizabeth: [00:01:43] Hi Ryan. Thank you.
Ryan: [00:01:45] Thanks for having me on. I’m really excited.
Elizabeth: [00:01:47] Hey so before we get into everything that you do, and there's so many things, I wanna talk about pet food in the United States, especially, and the numbers. Will you talk about, first of all, how much meat our pets are eating?
Ryan: [00:02:01] Yeah, yeah happily. So, in the US alone, our pets account for between 25-30% of the meat we consume, right? That is, if the US’s dogs and cats were a nation they would be the 5th largest consumer of meat. So that would be a big chunk of the Amazon dedicated just for them. That’s a way of kind of visualizing it, which– to make kibble, right? To make kibble, which are little baked balls of protein, right? We don't need to do that, and so it's just like this is the shocking thing for me where it was like, you know, we often have this misconception that the meat we feed our pets is waste or byproducts somehow, and it's just not. It really is like we have become so efficient in modern factory farming, you know, and I know a lot of us don't like factory farming, including myself, that we can turn almost anything into a product. Like the off cuts become hamburgers and hot dogs, and stuff that’s even worse becomes ingredients that they put in like tires. If you eat organic, this is one of the hidden secrets of the organic farmers, they put blood and bone meal, literally crunched up bone, into their fertilizers. That’s how they actually make their fertilizers. And so, you know, it is used across the industry incredibly efficiently. And so there’s really no waste. And there’s no sort of true such thing as waste.
Elizabeth: [00:03:28] So there’s no by-product?
Ryan: [00:03:30] Yeah. The only place you could have it is if you had some kind of animal that had like a real bio-hazard risk, and it had to be contained, and it would have to be like destroyed in a fire because it had Anthrax, or something, you know, something really serious like that.
Elizabeth: [00:03:44] How many pets do we have in this country?
Ryan: [00:03:45] Yeah we have about somewhere between 180 million to 190 million dogs and cats.
Elizabeth: [00:03:51] What are they eating? What’s in the food? So if it's not by-product, what is it?
Ryan: [00:03:56] Factory farmed animals, so 80% of them are, you know, those animals that are treated the worst you can imagine. Those animals are going to our pets.
Elizabeth: [00:04:09] But it’s even worse too though, because a lot of the food they’re eating isn’t allowed for humans.
Ryan: [00:04:14] Yeah, so it’s even worse because they are the final place where this meat goes. There’s all sorts of really shocking stuff, right, as a long-time animal lover, I’ve always grown up with pets and with animals. Even some animals that I would not recommend as pets. As a kid I grew up in Miami, and so we had a, I guess now I would call them, like, illegal, black-markets for pets, and so sometimes my dad, and my dad grew up on a farm in Cuba, so he was used to animals. He had all sorts of weird, wonderful animals. But we had like monitor lizards, iguanas, you know animals I would never get, these are wild animals, they should stay in the wild. But I love dogs, I love cats. When I started to look at what was happening with the recalls, I'm sure you've seen some of these recalls, occasionally something will come across your news feed where it's like, “Oh a million units of of dog food have been recalled for salmonella or have been recalled for euthanasia drugs, poison, in the meat that has killed a couple of dogs, and made a whole bunch of other dogs sick.” And then you know it just goes by on the news feed, like a recall, you know, one of these companies recalls, whether it’s tens of thousands of units or millions of units, we typically don't think much more about that, and the case of the contaminated meat that had euthanasia drugs, toxic drugs, that is actually used to kill animals, including ourselves, this is the same chemical given to, unfortunately, death row inmates as well, but it's given to euthanized dogs, cats, horses, and it's been found in our dog's foods and our cat's foods over the years. It's illegal. The FDA is aware of it, but there are very little controls on the pet food industry, and so that's one of the starting points to the problem. The FDA has found all sorts of other things when they've gone through inspections at these pet food rendering plants. They have found that a lot of people really haven't thought much about where does the meat go that goes bad in the grocery store, right, like those that are wrapped in plastic with styrofoam on the bottom, guess where that goes? That goes to the pet food rendering plants. Once it's no longer suitable for humans it goes there, and so a proportion of some of the meat goes over there. And the problem is the FDA has found that the people at the rendering plants, because it’s not safe to unwrap meat that’s gone off, they’re leaving it in the plastic and throwing it into the renderer with plastic on. And we know that melted plastic and styrofoam, if you eat it, it causes cancer. If you were to eat melted plastic, you are increasing your risk of what’s called carcinogen, of getting cancer. And so, you know, the FDA has found this, and cited rendering plants for pet food on this type of stuff. And then there’s just normal factory farmed animals that go into the pet food, which is the majority, the bulk of the animals.
Elizabeth: [00:06:58] I had a dog, this was like 12 years ago, and my dog was 9, and she got cancer. She had a hair cell trichoepithelioma, which was, it was like 97.9% fatal, and so I was like, I’m gonna save her. And so I started reading and looking at everything, but this was like 12 years ago. And it didn’t even occur to me like, oh, make her vegan, because every single thing that came back was it’s the food, it’s the food. You know, 50% of dogs who live to be 10 years old die of cancer. So, I was nuts. So then I started making her food, which I can’t believe I did, because chopping up all the meat as a vegan was kinda gross, but I made all of her food, and she lived 6 more years because she wasn’t eating all the poison. So, I would think I would be a little more informed since I went through that for 6 years, until I really learned about you, and what’s really happening. Before that, I had fed her the best of the best, or the most expensive, and it was still the food.
Ryan: [00:07:56] It shocked me right? It’s a moment where you realize, and by the way, I have fed all my dogs and all my cats the same thing too, and the further I started to read about the food I was like, how is this safe? How is this allowed? How has the FDA allowed this to happen? How is, you know, because, you know, we don't think too much about the food that we eat. We assume that, you know, if you buy something at the grocery store, that it’s safe. It is what it says on the label. It might be crap, it might be fast food, but it’s safe. It’s not things you don’t know. You know, you go somewhere to a fast food place, and you buy some french fries, but it's laced with toxic chemicals, you don't expect that, and that's what many dogs and cats are eating, and so it's like, how is this even allowed? And so that kind of started me on this journey of like, this is not right. I spent most of my life in clinical research, like therapeutic research for humans, and in future food work that I've done, helping, you know, a whole bunch of companies get off the ground in the future food space for humans, obviously sustainable, cruelty-free, animal-free products, but it was like someone has to do something about this, and I sat with it for like for a year. Someone, not me. Someone else.
Elizabeth: [00:09:09] Were you, like, suggesting it to people?
Ryan: [00:09:10] I was telling everyone. I was like, look, no one has made a Beyond Meat, a Possible Foods, a Memphis Meats, a pet food. You should go out and do it. Not me, I’m doing other things, you should go out and do it. And in the end, I guess I was the most passionate about it, and felt able to execute on it. I was like, look, if not me, who’s gonna do it? I’ve been trying to give this idea away for like a year. The people I approached and suggested to were just like no, no, no, we wanna do human food, or we wanna do cancer research, we want to do something else, so like okay, I guess this is the path. And I remember talking to investors, and they were like oh this doesn't matter, pets don't matter. And it's, of course, the investors that I talked to that said pets don’t matter, don't have a pet, right?
Elizabeth: [00:09:53] (chuckles) Right.
Ryan: [00:09:55] (chuckles) It’s this caring, living, loving being you have a deep connection with, I think, that teaches us a lot about life and existence itself.
Elizabeth: [00:10:04] Yeah
Ryan: [00:10:05] It matters a lot. For people, it matters more than many of their family members, to be honest.
Elizabeth: [00:10:10] So when you said, okay I'm gonna to do it, I know you went on Shark Tank, and you won, and got a little bit made fun for this whole thing, like dogs in Birkenstocks, but you won. You still didn’t have a product at that point, right?
Ryan: [00:10:25] No.
Elizabeth: [00:10:26] How long was it, and what went into coming up with the product? Talk about what’s in the product.
Ryan: [00:10:30] So it turned out it’s a lot harder than we initially thought to make a product, because this really is a full and complete food. So Wild Earth, is a full and complete dog food, so a lot of people have a misconception that dogs are carnivores, and the misconception comes from somewhere, right, which is that they're from the order Carnivora, but so are pandas, and pandas eat bamboo. That's all they eat. They’re not out there in the wilds of the bamboo forest hunting animals down. They just eat bamboo, that's all they eat. Dogs, similar to us, are omnivores, and so it's really important for them to have a diet that has all these essential amino acids. They require 10 essential amino acids, and then they require vitamins and minerals, carbohydrates and fats. And so to complete food, this is very different to some of the new foods that we've seen, the Beyond Meats, the Impossible Foods, where it's a substitute for a burger. It’s one piece of your meal, not what you can survive and thrive off of for the rest of your life. And we had to do that for Wild Earth, so one of our deep insights was that we were looking for a high quality, high source of protein, and we looked to the third kingdom of life. So there's the first kingdom of life which is animals, then plants, and then fungi. And so you know many of us love mushrooms, I'm sure you do. I'm a huge fan of every type, all the flavors and the varieties, I love them in my stir-fries, and those things. But that is a different kingdom of life, and one of the interesting insights, is that the protein that we were able to get from fungi, so particularly yeast, many of us put nutritional yeast on our food, the insight really came from that. It’s like why don’t we add yeast, which actually, in its pure form, has about 40% protein versus about 30% protein in steak. So if you take the equivalent amount of yeast, and equivalent amount of steak, the yeast actually has more protein. It's kind of a surprising thing. And why don’t we use that as the primary protein source? The yeast itself. And then we’ll mix it with plant-based products to make a high-protein, clean, plant-based pet food. And that was really the start of the mission. Then we teamed up with veterinary nutritionists to make sure it had the right nutrients. And then we worked with Dr.Tiffany Ruiz, who is our chief veterinarian. He spent the last 20 years as a veterinarian, and also really fighting the pet obesity epidemic, which we unfortunately also have. So we have the human obesity epidemic, and we also have our poor pets that are eating the same as us.
Elizabeth: [00:12:53] Well because they’re eating the same thing.
Ryan: [00:12:56] Yeah, same thing. And Abril Estrada, my co-founder, she is a PhD scientist, she’s a chemist, and so she had a lot of experience with human food products, and so she and the entire team really led the product development. We spent a lot of time making sure that not only was it nutritionally complete, that’s the minimum, but then we basically said, well, you know, how do we bring 21st century science in and around nutrition, around our bodies. Many dog foods, really, their formulas haven’t changed for decades. But our understanding of nutrition has. And so they’re really outdated products.
Elizabeth: [00:13:30] And did you have dogs testing it?
Ryan: [00:13:32] We did. So this is another thing that no one talks about, which is that in the pet food industry, they actually still test new formulas, new dog food, on dogs in labs. Usually lab beagles, and that’s actually one of the reasons we actually took 2 former lab beagles onto Shark Tank. This was like a hidden message for the true believers, right, for the vegans. These were liberated, actually some founders were actually able to adopt these two lab beagles. I think they came from Spain. They’d spent their whole lives being tested on. They finally were able to live with a family, and have a great life afterwards. But we wanted to really show this message that a part of our ethos at Wild Earth was much more than just plant-based and healthy, but it was about making our product 100% cruelty-free. And that includes testing too. We don’t test on any animals unless they’re volunteer animals. Granted, these dogs were not able to volunteer, so their guardians did, but there were all sorts of young, old, different breeds of dogs that volunteered to test our dog food. And we think it made it a better dog food because this isn’t just a dog food that was developed just with beagles, which is what most of the big pet food companies do, this was a dog food developed with pitbulls, labradors, chihuahuas, like all of them tried our food, and we were able to get real-world feedback. Lots of different ages, lots of different pet parents, and so we found we had a 90%, 9-0, 90% of dogs would eat our dog food with no hesitation. And the other 10%, some were a little picky, a lot of people don’t know that also, and this is very interesting, some dogs have allergies. We find that a large number, 10-30% of dogs, will have some type of food allergy. We just noticed from our customers especially, and some of the customers don’t even know. They’re like, my dog is always scratching. I started feeding them Wild Earth, and they stopped.
Elizabeth: [00:15:34] What’s feedback been like?
Ryan: [00:15:36] We had a theory, that if you’re feeding a high quality, healthy, plant-based product, that, without the bad stuff, even if all you do is remove all the bad stuff, that you’d see improvements, and honestly some of the good stuff, which is diet high in plant based foods, is highly anti-inflammatory as well. So you should hopefully see the systemic inflammation, which increases as we all get older, goes down. That’s one of the theories around why plant-based dieting might be healthy and beneficial for us. We asked 3,000 of our customers, we got a response from 425 of them, so it’s statistically significant, and we had all of these crazy stats, that was like anywhere between 50% reduction in itching and scratching, allergy symptoms, 30-40%, 50% saw improvements in symptoms around dogs having allergies. I suspect that’s because a lot of those dogs actually didn’t have allergies to their food. One thing that blew my mind is about 12-15% of our customers had previously been feeding raw meats to their dogs. These were the same pet parents who were looking for an answer, couldn’t find it, like you did, and they went for raw meat because at least they could see the meat in front of them and know that this was bought from a place that basically said that there are no contaminants in this meat. And so they were desperately trying to do what was best for their dog. It was just kind of mind-blowing to see this. One of the most surprising ones for me was we saw nearly 30% improvement on hip and joint mobility, which was not what I expected to see. Based on the feedback we got from our customers, because that’s really hard, right, it’s basically like, as you get older, senior dogs, they start to get arthritis, they find it harder to move, it kinda makes sense. So the working hypothesis we have is that we are reducing systemic inflammation with our cleaner, better product, and that that’s having all kinds of positive health benefits for the animal. That’s the hypothesis we have. We can’t prove that scientifically yet, but that’s work that we want to do because we really want to say hey this is the best product for your pet. The fact that it’s plant-based is secondary, the fact that it’s cruelty-free is secondary. We want the healthiest, best product for your animal to live as healthy and as long as possible.
Elizabeth: [00:17:43] Also what it’s doing for the environment. The thing I think that shocked me the most about learning all of this, was that nobody’s talking about it. That this should be a major conversation. Everywhere. Environmentally, the amount of factory-farmed animals that our animals are eating, it’s grotesque. It’s insane!
Ryan: [00:18:02] It’s huge. It’s huge. One of our investors actually asked around the emissions, and we’re looking at just in the US, about 10% of our emissions are pets. It’s a pretty significant number, and so it was just like if you care about the environment, but you’re still feeding your pet meat. There's a huge carbon footprint that is coming from our pets. But we can change that now. That’s why we built Wild Earth. That’s why the mission around this is, this is much more, I mean for me and our entire team, and many of our customers, this is not just a dog food, this is a statement. It’s a mission. So that’s something we want to continue to improve as well. Finding other ways around reducing the use of plastic. Unfortunately, we still have to use some plastic in our products. Thankfully, we’re actually now getting recycled plastic and some compostable stuff that we’re working on. But we’re making steps in that direction, so everything is less harm, less harm.
Elizabeth: [00:19:02] Vegans are always talking about what do you feed your dogs, and there’s a whole camp, a huge camp, of vegans who are very anti feeding their dog vegan because somehow they feel like that’s interfering. Do you get a lot of that?
Ryan: [00:19:14] We get a ton of that. Actually, some of our biggest critics are actually vegans.
Elizabeth: [00:19:17] Wow.
Ryan: [00:19:18] Which is really interesting. A lot of vegans are like, this is animal cruelty, you should be arrested, dogs are carnivores, they can’t survive that way. And it’s just like, do you know about Bramble? And then they’re like ohh, who’s Bramble? What’s Bramble? Bramble was a dog, she lived to 27 years of age, eating a vegan diet, a plant-based diet. She had lentils, rice, and yeast. So weirdly, yeast as well, right? And that was partially one of the inspirations around Wild Earth, Bramble’s yeast. And they’re like what are you talking about? That doesn’t make any sense. And it’s like, there’s so much internal resistance, and I think it’s because there’s a little bit of dissonance going on. In the same way that if you like wearing leather jackets and you’re vegan, there’s a bit of dissonance. And so you kinda have to work on yourself, you have to focus internally, and say what’s making me feel uncomfortable? And so in this case it’s that they feed their dogs meat. They themselves don’t eat meat, and there’s a very strong dissonance that makes them feel very uncomfortable, very angry, very upset, and it kinda comes outwards. And I just engage people when they get very angry, like no, dogs are omnivores, that’s well-documented. Yes, vets want you to feed meat-based products because vets, like our doctors, are very conservative. They don’t want us to do new things. If you go to a doctor and say hey, I’m vegan, 90% of doctors are gonna go oh that’s not good for you.
Elizabeth: [00:20:40] Yep. Yep. It’s true.
Ryan: [00:20:42] And so it’s like, wait what? (chuckles)
Elizabeth: [00:20:47] And it’s a huge amount of protein too, in Wild Earth.
Ryan: [00:20:50] Yeah. We did that on purpose, because as I’m sure you’ve experienced, whenever you tell someone you’re plant-based, or you’re vegan, that’s the first place they go: How do you get protein? And we wanted to make sure there was higher protein than most other dog foods, so it’s very clear where you get the protein.
Elizabeth: [00:21:04] And at one point I know you guys were gonna do cat food. Is that still on the books?
Ryan: [00:21:08] That’s still in the plans, yeah. I mean with the cat food, we wanna be really careful because cats are actually obligate carnivores, so we need to make sure that certain nutrients are there. We don’t have to get those nutrients from meat, but we have to be even more careful to make sure, unlike dogs, dogs are omnivores, cats are obligate carnivores, they’re primarily missing the ability to synthesize taurine, and taurine, they actually get that from flesh. That’s why they’re obligate carnivores. We can easily put taurine into the food, we just want to make sure that the handful of adjustments that we make for the cats is really great and really healthy, and we will double, triple-check it before we do anything. Our aim is probably by end of 2021, to have a cat food. If we can do it, I’m hoping we can do it, I’d love to do cell-based cat food. That’s been a part of the delay, where I’m trying to figure out how to do it the right way, so they can still have meat, it’s just 100% slaughter-free.
Elizabeth: [00:22:05] So talk about that. Would that be something you could actually do in the next 2 years?
Ryan: [00:22:09] Yeah, I mean it’s something we can definitely do in the next 2 years. We actually have a partnership already signed. I can’t say with who, but with a clean meat company, for some of the cat products and testing development prototyping. We should have those early prototypes within the next few months.
Elizabeth: [00:22:24] That’s awesome. And is Wild Earth gonna expand outside the US?
Ryan: [00:22:28] Yeah! 2 weeks ago we launched in India.
Elizabeth: [00:22:30] Oh you did?
Ryan: [00:22:31] Yes! We’re now, at least for right now, the top-selling dog food on Heads Up for Tails, which is our partner, it’s like the Chewy.com of India. So we are the #1 best-seller, which is kind of amazing.
Elizabeth: [00:22:46] Congratulations! That’s incredible.
Ryan: [00:22:48] Thank you, thank you. I mean we’re really excited about the Indian market. We think that that market really gets it, and so, you know, 30% of the population is vegetarian. It is a massive market. It dwarfs the US, 1.4 billion people.
Elizabeth: [00:23:01] People are owning pets a lot more than they used to now, right?
Ryan: [00:23:04] A lot more than they used to. Yeah, when you talk to people who used to live in India 20 years ago, they say, oh no one used to really have pets. But if you talk to people who live in India today, they’ll talk about all their friends who own pets, who have pets. And so it’s just a cultural change that’s really happened. I mean, the pet population in India is growing 20% year on year. So, it’s super fascinating. And what’s even more interesting is in China, as well, it’s growing about 20% year on year, from a much larger base. So I think in the next year or two, China will have more pet dogs than the US.
Elizabeth: [00:22:35] You’re kidding.
Ryan: [00:23:36] Isn’t that crazy?
Elizabeth: [00:23:38] Let’s go back before all this, and how this even became your life, and where it all started.
Ryan: [00:23:44] I really became a vegan by accident. I was kind of almost vegetarian, I was a pescatarian. I was in LA, I had just moved to LA. I had previously lived in the UK. I’m from Miami originally. And I went to this mixer, and it was like vegan drinks, and I met a bunch of “crazy vegans.” I was like I’m pescatarian, I’m not a vegan. I’m not one of those crazy vegan people. But, you know, I go to one of these things, I’m new to town, I don’t really know anyone, and I met this great couple, and they were like oh you’re pescatarian. And they were very patient, very cool with me, they weren’t like oh you’re not vegan. They were like, have you seen this documentary called Earthlings? And I was like oh no never heard of it, you know. And they were like oh check it out. And so that night I went home and I watched Earthlings, and it was so shocking to me. The next day I became vegan.
Elizabeth: [00:24:30] Wow.
Ryan: [00:24:31] I literally was like, that’s it I need to walk away from all this. And so I was like hmm this is tricky, because I work in clinical research. Luckily I worked in human clinical research, because I didn’t like the idea of experimenting on animals, and then I had this opportunity, so I wanted to start a biotech accelerator, and I pitched to a whole bunch of people to start it. I actually started a little biotech incubator because I wanted to help scientists become entrepreneurs. I pitched to SOS Ventures, so Sean O’Sullivan Ventures, the guy himself, and some of the partners there, and they liked the idea of a biotech accelerator. And so we started what’s now called IndieBio, back then we didn’t have a name for it, and I had this vision of helping scientists become entrepreneurs. There’s a bunch of entrepreneurs out there who have no access to capital, not unlike myself at the time, who have tried and failed to raise money, and I think we can help them. Sean got it totally. He understood, and so we started IndieBio, we started to invest in small checks in these companies. At first it was 50k per company. The first company that came out of IndieBio, Clara Foods, we cut them a 50k check, that was it.
Elizabeth: [00:25:34] Wow. For people who don’t know, can you explain who they are?
Ryan: [00:25:37] Yeah. Clara Foods, they brew egg whites. So they brew bio-identicals, or nature-identicals. So you no longer have chickens make egg whites, and a whole bunch of other proteins that come out of chickens. And so back then it was just an idea, and everyone thought it was absolutely insane. They’ve since been very successful. I mean, they’ve raised, I can’t remember the amount of money, 40-50 million dollars or something like that, some really large number. And then that worked, right? So I was like, wait a minute, I can combine my interest in science with creating a factory-farm, animal-agriculture free world. And still, 70% of the other companies we’re backing were cancer therapeutics, gene therapy companies, biomaterial companies, but 30% were now what we call “future foods.” So plant-based companies, recombinant companies, and then cell-based companies. At the time we didn’t have that thesis, I was just like anything that you can do to replace animals, I’m listening. And so people started to come out of the woodwork. And next batch we invested in a company called Geltor, I’m sure you’re probably familiar with.
Elizabeth: [00:24:42] I am, but tell everyone.
Ryan: [00:26:44] Geltor grew collagen and gelatin, animal free. They actually grew it in bacteria. Bacteria make lots and lots of this protein, and it’s 100% animal free. It’s a very similar process to how we make insulin now without animals, brewing it. And then we backed Memphis Meats, which I’m sure you’re familiar with. We were the first investor to help them build their company, Memphis Meats, which makes lab grown, slaughter-free meat. Again, every time we backed one of these companies, everyone was like this is insane, this is science-fiction, it’ll never work. And then of course, I ate a Mastodon gummy. So it had Mastodon collagen, they brewed it. Mastodon is an extinct species, kind of like an elephant, but our ancestors hunted them to extinction. And Geltor made this collagen, right, and these bacteria, and I ate the gummy, and it actually tasted really good. So I’m kind of wondering now why our ancestors ate them all. I think I know. They’re really tasty.
Elizabeth: [00:27:45] Right.
Ryan: [00:27:47] It just gives you an idea of like what you can do with science. Like actually remove the animals from the products that people want. And no one wants to kill animals, they just want something that’s tasty. They want something that they can eat. So we backed Memphis Meats as well, and they made the first lab-grown meatball. And then we back New Wave Foods, which makes plant-based shrimp, and then Finless Foods, which makes lab-grown tuna. So it was becoming a theme, right? People are finding me, they were hearing about me, and they were like, hey, I know this guy who gives money to these crazy ideas, invests money into these crazy ideas, with this team, you know. And they knew I was vegan, and I was doing this with a specific purpose, but I understood science, and how we can apply it to really change the fundamental core of animal agriculture. And then another company, which I’m very proud of and really excited about, which is the Not Company. So Not Co. is the leading plant-based food company in Latin America. [It’s in] Chile, Argentina, and Brazil, and now actually launching in the US. And they’ve raised over 100 million dollars.
Elizabeth: [00:28:49] How do you spell it?
Ryan: [00:28:51] The Not Company. So N-O-T.
Elizabeth: [00:28:53] Oh awesome.
Ryan: [00:28:54] They make Not Mayo, they make Not Milk, they make Not Ice Cream… (chuckles)
Elizabeth: [00:28:59] (chuckles) That is awesome.
Ryan: [00:29:00] They’ve taken Latin America by storm. And I literally Tweeted at the founder before he launched his products,in Santiago, he was in Santiago, Chile, and I used to go down to Latin America and spend some time down there, and I was like look this is a global movement. This is on the cusp. And at the time ,people were like this is just a US and Europe thing. This is not a global thing. I was like, people have no idea what they’re talking about. I’m certain this is a global thing. And when I say people had no idea, these were investors. These were people who thought they had a crystal ball in the future, and I was like look, our world has to change. For so many reasons. The fact that we’re slaughtering animals, and doing it in really horrific ways, that is not the future. And so, if that is not the future, what is? It’s embracing biotech. It’s embracing food science. It’s embracing things that will remove these animals, and the environmental impact of this out of control system. Then after that, after leaving IndieBio, I of course started Wild Earth. And then people were like oh, well, what you did through IndieBio was just what you did through IndieBio, and I was like hmm let’s see. So then I started to cut little checks, right? And so I started to cut these little checks, I was the first investor in Shiok Meats, which makes cell-based shrimp in Singapore. They’re actually the first Singaporean cell-based meat company. And cut a check for Ego Foods, which makes plant-based eggs in India. VeggieVictory, Nigeria’s first plant-based meat company, which is very exciting. And most recently, Mzansi Meat, which is Africa’s first cell-based meat. So this is a global thing, right. One of the most interesting conversations I had was with Hakeem, the founder of Veggie Victory, so that’s the first Nigerian plant-based meat company. He told me, because I was trying to understand the Nigerian market, I was like, so there’s 200 million people in Nigeria today, over the next 20-30 years there’s gonna be 400 million people. Just in Nigeria alone. So this is a vast market. It will exceed the size of the US market. At some point it’s gonna be larger than the US. And so he and I were talking, and I was like how do people even eat meat in Nigeria? He was like, in chunks. It took me a while, and I was like chunks? What about hamburgers and hotdogs? And he was like no we don’t really eat that stuff, we eat chunks, like meat chunks. And he was like, we mostly don’t eat a lot of it. It’s for flavoring, you have a little bit of protein in your dinner. It’s more focused on protein. So in emerging economies, protein is still expensive. Meat is not something that people eat a lot of. It’s actually seen as a rich thing. The richer you get, the more meat you typically eat in these developing countries. And so, you know, I think for us, if we want to make a meaningful strategy, where the future or humanity is going, the US and Europe are not the future of humanity. The future of humanity is Asia, and Africa, and maybe a little bit Latin America. We have to start engaging in these emerging markets, and supporting these founders, these people trying to make the change now before we get to the point where they’re eating as much meat per person as we are today.
Elizabeth: [00:31:52] I spoke with Jamie Arbib last week about Rethink Eggs, and you know it’s so exciting. They’re basically like talking about what the world is gonna look like in the early 2030s, and that this is the future, which is really soon. It’s not way, way, decades down the road.
Ryan: [00:32:09] No.
Elizabeth: [00:32:10] This is happening now. But do you find that there's a small community that also sees this as the future, and there’s this big world around you that’s like not looking whatsoever?
Ryan: [00:32:20] You know, the resistance to change is fascinating. So I have talked to the CEOs and executive management teams of all these big companies, right? You name the large meat companies, large dairy companies, I’ve had discussions with them where it’s like look, with you know, back then, a couple of years ago, it’s like tens of millions of dollars will change the industry, you could be one the leaders. And they were like no, we’re gonna invest 400 million dollars in a dairy cheese factory. 400 million, right? And I’m like, for 400 million, you could literally probably buy up all the companies in this space. In plant-based cheese, right? And just dominate the sector. They’re like no, no that’s not what we do. We've been around for decades, nothing’s gonna change. I kept thinking, I’m a fan of technology as well, and so I’m a big fan of innovator’s dilemma, like how companies get disrupted, and how you see technological disruption happen often. Large companies like Kodak go extinct because they just can’t change. It’s not in their DNA. Kodak was meant to make cameras that took actual, physical pictures, and that was their business model. And they didn’t change it. And in fact, they invented the digital camera. Here’s the irony of the whole thing. They invented it! It’s just the executives at the time could not see. The scientists who invented it showed the senior management a digital camera, and they were like no one's ever gonna want that. Who’s gonna want that? They made the wrong call because they were viewing the future from that perspective that day, whereas they weren’t viewing the future from a decade from now, or two decades from now. And so they were not positioned, when change hit them, and it hit them so hard, it extincted the entire company. And that’s really what is predicted, right?
Elizabeth: [00:33:55] Yeah
Ryan: [00:33:56] Like if you look at it, they’re right. They were proven right. When the report came out, very soon afterwards, America’s largest dairy went bankrupt.
Elizabeth: [00:34:06] Yeah. And that’s just gonna happen over and over again.
Ryan: [00:34:09] It’s going to accelerate. And I actually think that COVID may have accelerated that trend.
Elizabeth: [00:34:14] And has COVID accelerated this whole plant-based and cell-based meat spaces?
Ryan: [00:34:20] I think it has. People have started to realize, like hey, I don’t wanna get sick eating food. I don’t wanna get sick because someone else is making my food, and I get sick. And so, you know, there are plenty of heated arguments that have happened. And I’ve been involved in them. I try not to get too heated, because I just, I’m like, I see the future that I believe will be created, so I’m not gonna argue with people unnecessarily. It’s like, it’s not a good use of mental bandwidth, but if people are not watching the potential pandemics that are coming out of, particularly chicken farms, and factory farms, literally every month, they’re not paying attention. H1N1 is still very real. It’s way more deadly than COVID, you know.
Elizabeth: [00:34:59] We just had an outbreak in the South, not that long ago, of avian flu. Like it happens all the time right?
Ryan: [00:35:05] I actually just relocated myself to Research Triangle Parks. So our company has two hubs: we have a hub in Research Triangle Park and a hub in Berkeley. And so, we wanna be a little more representative of the entire US. And so it’s really interesting to see the differences, and it’s nation-wide for us. The change that’s happening is nation-wide. Here in Raleigh, Duram, like, we’re seeing the same change that we see in New York and and in San Francisco and in Los Angeles in terms of, like, culturally people are starting to get it. Slowly, but surely, people are starting to get it that animal ag is not a good thing.
Elizabeth: [00:35:37] Globally, too.
Ryan: [00:35:38] Yeah.
Elizabeth: [00:35:39] So you really think by 2030, we’re gonna have shifted into cell-based?
Ryan: [00:35:45] I think it’s inevitable. I even had a conversation with one of the larger cattle-holders in Brazil. He thinks about things in a very different way. Obviously, very wealthy man in Brazil. And he was like, jokingly he made this comment, like you think I should sell all my cattle and my ranches? And I was like, yeah, I do think. If you don’t wanna lose a bunch of money, go ahead. And it was talking to him in his language, right? Like he wasn’t turned by the animals. That was not what motivates him, or the environment, but he liked making money, and so I hit him exactly in what he cares about, which is like, he can go and waste his money, and destroy his personal fortune, or he can start investing in the future, rather than the past. And so, since then, in the last couple of years, he’s been heavily investing in future food companies, which is very interesting.
Elizabeth: [00:36:38] That is awesome. Do you think cell-based will be able to be scaled by then?
Ryan: [00:36:42] Yeah yeah. I mean I think we’re gonna see it in steps, right? So, cell-based meat, at first, we’re gonna see it in higher-end applications. It’s a technology, so I think what’s really different is, you know, rarely in the past have we thought about food as a technology. It’s also kind of not an appetizing way to think about food because no one wants to think about food as a technology. But food is a technology. And so what’s going to happen over time is that we will get better and better at producing lower-cost food products and lower cost food proteins. I don’t think that any one category of protein is gonna dominate. Like I don’t think plant-based is gonna be more dominant than animal or cell-based proteins. I think we’re still gonna see a mix of different proteins the same way we see that, you know, some people love eating soy, some people only eat pea protein.
Elizabeth: [00:37:28] Yeah
Ryan: [00:37:30] And we’re gonna see that variety, but food is technology, so it will continue to improve, and the price will continue to drop down the price pyramid, as we skip. I’m certain of that. You know, whether it takes 5 years, or 10 years. I mean within 20 years, without a doubt. Within 10 years, pretty certain. Within 5 years, we’re gonna see high-end applications. I’m certain of that. Like where on the price point? I don’t know. That’s where my crystal ball doesn’t go. I try not to predict prices because I think that’s a hard thing to predict, but the first commercial applications of cell-based meat I’m certain are gonna happen by 2022, so within 2 years.
Elizabeth: [00:38:05] That’s insane. And have you tried anything else, aside from the gummy?
Ryan: [00:38:09] I have. The last time I ate cell based meat–
Elizabeth: [00:38:12] (chuckles) You say that with such a big smile.
Ryan: [00:38:14] I do because it’s a philosophical question because when I was last in Singapore I had Shiok Meat’s shrimp soup. It tasted like shrimp. I mean it was such a weird feeling because I hadn’t had shrimp in so long. But it was like, I remembered what shrimp tastes like. I actually like the taste of shrimp, I just had forgotten it. And I had a little shrimp meat bun as well, which was very tasty. And I was reflecting on it, and I was like, what does a vegan that eats slaughter-free meat, what is that?
Elizabeth: [00:38:44] What is it? (chuckles) It needs a name.
Ryan: [00:38:48] Right. Like when you stop slaughtering an animal, but you eat protein that is derived from animal cells, what is that?
Elizabeth: [00:38:54] You’re more than a vegan.
Ryan: [00:38:57] Yeah. I don’t know. So I started to think about it, and I was like, is there like a post-vegan world? Where it's like, people no longer identify– it’s just like, why would you eat a slaughtered animal, right, like that doesn't make any sense? And I was like, huh, it's probably a world where we have a bunch of breweries and different proteins come out of the brewery and people have different taste preferences and it's like we no longer have to say vegan or not vegan, we just say well, you know, what's the cell line? Or, like, what is that?
Elizabeth: [00:39:24] Right.
Ryan: [00:39:25] What’s pork? I mean you see a pig walking along, it’s that pork, who’s in a sanctuary, who’s totally fine.
Elizabeth: [00:39:30] What an incredible world it’s going to be. And it’s so crazy that it’s gonna happen so quickly. And you are one of the reasons it’s gonna happen so quickly. Ryan, thank you for this. I’m so excited about pretty much everything you said.
Ryan: [00:39:44] Slowly but surely we’ll get there, right?
Elizabeth: [00:39:45] Yes.
Ryan: [00:39:46] Like it takes work from everyone, including all the great work you’re doing to like publicize and tell the stories of the people who are trying to make a positive change. Like that is so incredibly important. Because it brings more people.
Elizabeth: [00:39:56] Yeah.
Ryan [00:39:57] It brings more people in here to make an impact and to make a change. It also, I think, it shows people that, you know, I’ve had a conversation or two where people are like oh, I get so frustrated, like I don’t see how I can create change, and it’s like you can. You literally can create change. It’s like everyone can play a really important part in this entire ecosystem and transform it.
Elizabeth: [00:40:17] Well you can create change three meals a day and two for your dog, right? (chuckles) So there you go.
Ryan: [00:40:22] Every single day, exactly. Five meals every single day where you have an opportunity for change.
Elizabeth: [00:40:27] Which is incredible.
Ryan: [00:40:28] Positive change.
Elizabeth: [00:40:29] That’s awesome.
Ryan: [00:40:29] Yeah.
Elizabeth: [00:40:30] Thank you.
Ryan: [00:40:31] Thank you Beth.
Elizabeth: [00:40:41] To learn more about Ryan, to learn where to get Wild Earth for your dog, go to our website, speciesunite.com. We’ll have links there to everything. And while you’re there, sign up for the Species Unite 30 Day Vegan Challenge. You can sign up anytime. We are on Facebook and Instagram, @speciesunite. If you have a spare minute, and could do us a favor, please rate and review Species Unite on Apple Podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you’d like to support the podcast, we’d greatly appreciate it. We’re on Patreon. It’s patreon.com/speciesunite. I would like to thank everyone at Species Unite, including Gary Knudson, Caitlin Pierce, Amy Jones, Paul Healey, Santina Polky, Gabriela Cibulska, and Anna Caulner, who wrote and performed today’s music. Thanks for listening, and have a wonderful day!