S6. E21: Shannon Falconer: Lab-Grown Mouse Cookies For Your Cat
“So, the irony is that meat that people are so obsessed about their cat needing… Yeah, in the wild cats needs meat because in the wild, that meat is a source of the nutrients that a cat needs. But on a commercial bag of pet food, those nutrients, those core key nutrients that the cat needs, they're not coming from the meat, they're coming from the pre-mix that is largely a synthetic mix of vitamins and minerals that have been lost from the meat.”
– Shannon Falconer
Shannon Falconer is the CEO and co-founder of Because, Animals, a pet food company that is making cultured meat for our cats and dogs. Their first cultured meat product, Harmless Hunt Mouse Cookies for Cats, will be on the market in 2022. They are made with real mouse meat that is grown in a lab. No mice are hurt in the process. In fact, the cells that were used to make these cookies and all mouse treats at Because, Animals going forward are the only cells that they will ever need. The original mice are happily living as pets with one of the Because, Animal’s scientists.
Cats and dogs eat more than 25 percent of the meat consumed in the US; which also means that pet food is responsible for more than a quarter of the environmental impact caused by animal agriculture.
There are plant-based pets foods but most American pets eat commercial dog and cat food, which often and mostly uses byproduct - meaning the parts of animals that people don’t want, the heads, the bones, the blood or they use the meat that can’t legally be sold for humanconsumption because the animal was dying or diseased.
Because, Animals is going to change all of that one product at a time. Their mouse cookies are just the beginning.
Nothing excites me more than cellular agriculture. It might take longer than most of us would like, but it’s happening… Eat Just’s chicken nuggets are being sold in Singapore and now, here comes the pet food. It’s the very beginning of a whole new food system, one that will eventually take down every last factory farm and slaughterhouse on Earth. Here we go…
Learn More About Because, Animals
Preorder Cultured Mouse Treats
Follow Because, Animals on Instagram
Transcript:
Shannon: [00:00:15] So the irony is, the meat that people are so obsessed about their cat needing, in the wild the cat needs meat because in the wild, that meat is a source of the nutrients that cat needs. But on a commercial bag of pet food, those nutrients, those core nutrients that the cat needs, they're not coming from the meat. They're coming from the prefecture. That is largely a synthetic mix of vitamins and minerals that have been lost from the meat.
Elizabeth: [00:00:50] Hi, I'm Elizabeth Novogratz, this is Species Unite. On October 1st, Species Unite is starting our 30 day vegan challenge. So, if you haven't signed up for it, sign up, go to our website Speciesunite.com and click the 30 day vegan challenge. It's really good. It's 30 days of recipes, tips and information on all things plant based. If you're already vegan, sign up anyway, because it's really good information. If you have no interest in ever being vegan, just do it for 10 days. See what it's like? Go to our website Species Unite Challenge. This conversation is with Shannon Falconer. Shannon is the CEO and co-founder of ‘Because Animals’, a pet food company that is making cultured meat for our cats and dogs. They're first cultured meat product will be on the market in 2022. Its mouse treats for cats. Yes. Treats made with real mouse meat. There are no mice hurt in the process.
Elizabeth: [00:02:19] Shannon, hi, thank you so much for being here and doing this today. It's really cool to have you on the show.
Shannon: [00:02:25] Oh, thank you very much Beth for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Elizabeth: [00:02:29] Before we start and get into ‘Because Animals’, will you just talk a little bit about how this becomes someone's life and career because you're kind of one of the only people on the planet doing what you're doing?
Shannon: [00:02:41] Yes, sure. For me, it started, I guess it started really, really young. Like, I grew up with three dogs and three cats, and I developed a really close relationship with animals at a young age. There was just, I guess, from early childhood, a bond, a connection with animals, non two legged animals that I don't feel quite as readily with humans, human animals that drove me to stop eating meat at an early age. My early teens and then I started volunteering at various shelters or rescue organizations in my late teens. And then that became a much bigger part of my life. I'm a scientist by training, I did my master's in biochemistry and my PhD in chemical biology. So, that's what I would do during the day. I love science, but definitely on my weekends and evenings and sort of spare time. I would volunteer for animal rescue. They were just sort of two separate parts of my life, and I knew that a career in the pharmaceutical industry, animals were involved and it was just that I decided that I was on the wrong side of the line in terms of what I believed in. I decided that I would work to dedicate my scientific training to taking animals out of the supply chain rather than helping to keep them in. And using research animals, I didn't see a way for me to apply that training so, easily or directly, but definitely with respect to food. There was a clearer path, and initially I thought, OK, yeah, for sure. Work on creating a food that would serve as an alternative for humans because of course, humans are the main consumers of animal based products. Then, as I started to think about it more and like, just reflect and OK, so I haven't eaten meat in decades, but I have lots of options. But when it comes to my pets, like there's virtually nothing and I am forced to support this industry that I otherwise would not, then as I started to dig into it more and understand. So 50 percent of an animal is consumed by humans. The rest of that 50 percent is not. It goes to something called a rendering facility, where all this meat is sort of blended together and that's largely applied to pet food. But in addition to that, there's a significant number of animals, sadly, that don't they don't ever make it to slaughter because they die before getting there, so they die during transit or dehydration or suffocation or disease. So they're referred collectively in the industry as fallen animals and these fallen animals, again, unless they're slaughtered expressly for consumption, they cannot be sold for the human food category. These carcasses are also sent to this rendering facility. So in the end, you have a massive amount of this flesh and carcasses and meat that is not usable as it's unsellable for human food. So the animal agriculture industry, though, rather than just disposing of it and they couldn't just dispose of it, they'd have to actually pay to have it disposed of as bio hazardous waste. There's so much of it, actually, that in terms of numbers, if that were the case within four years, all landfills in the U.S. would be full. So instead they sell it to pet food. Pet food is actually this phenomenal outlet that serves as a revenue generator, and it allows the animal agriculture industry to stay afloat in a way that it otherwise could not. Nonetheless, this is completely a white space when it comes to what we as humans think about. For us who think about upending the system, we never think about pet food, but really, it's sort of the silent partner that is so critical to the functioning of the system, and that's why we chose pet food.
Elizabeth: [00:06:33] So in four years, all the landfills would be full with what we feed our pets if we didn't use all the byproducts and the downed animals for pet food.
Shannon: [00:06:42] This comes straight from the horse's mouth, if you will. It's actually the National Renderers Association who provides these incredible statistics around numbers. Their argument is that this is actually a very environmental practice, right? Because if we couldn't make use of all of these animals for pet food, then it just would not be environmentally sustainable. They're right. It would not be environmentally sustainable, nor would it be profitable for the animal agriculture industry, and the whole industry would basically collapse from one side of the coin from another.
Elizabeth: [00:07:17] It's shocking. But it's not, I mean, animal agriculture. The whole system is so fragile. We just saw during COVID how easily the whole thing can collapse.
Shannon: [00:07:25] Right, exactly.
Elizabeth: [00:07:25] It's a disaster.
Shannon: [00:07:26] Yes.
Elizabeth: [00:07:28] So even though it's mostly byproduct, pet food still has the same environmental implications as the factory farm meat that humans eat. Dogs and cats eat a lot of meat. What is it like? Twenty five percent, actually.
Shannon: [00:07:41] Yeah, so closer to 30 percent. A study has shown that between 25 and 30 percent of the environmental effects of the animal agriculture industry in terms of deforestation, water and fossil fuel use is directly attributed to the foods that Americans feed their cats and dogs. So cats and dogs are smaller than humans, but if we think about in terms of their caloric intake, they consume for their body mass, they consume more animal derived ingredients than the average human does. For all intents and purposes, I mean, there's a very niche market with vegan or vegetarian dog food. If you think about the vast majority of all cats and dogs eating at every meal, a very, very concentrated diet. A diet that's concentrated in animal products versus humans, it's much less concentrated. Guess it depends on the human, but average.
Elizabeth : [00:08:38] It also makes you think, what are they actually eating right? If it would be bio hazardous waste?
Shannon: [00:08:43] The reason it is considered bio hazardous waste is because they're not slaughtered, they're not actually processed at that moment, right? So when an animal dies, the immune system dies, too. So now all of those microbes that were living on the animal are able to take over. So basically, it starts to turn into sort of this rotting meat. So that's why it goes to the rendering facility because at a rendering facility, all of these various body parts. So blood, viscera, bones, various organs and then these other fallen animals are basically melted under high heat and pressure. The pathogens are killed because it's a very intense sterilization process. Interestingly, in the process of that intense sterilization, many of the nutrients that are naturally found in meat are also lost. And so that's why for cat and dog food, if any pet parent looks at their ingredient list, they'll see a really long list closer to the bottom or halfway through vitamins and minerals. So, all of these many of these essential nutrients have to be added back to the food because the meat that contained it in the first place loses it through the rendering process and then they have to be added back. So it's kind of bizarre.
Elizabeth: [00:10:03] It's more than bizarre. So you see this need for a solution and the pet food industry, and no one else is doing this.
Shannon: [00:10:09] No. So other folks are working on alternative protein for cats and dogs. But of course, cultured meat is not an alternative protein. It's meat. It's just produced in an alternative way. So, at the moment, because animals are still the only company making cultured meat for pet food.
Elizabeth : [00:10:27] That's so amazing. Your first products are about to come out?
Shannon: [00:10:29] The first cultured mouse product or the first cultured meat product. Yeah, we chose mouse cultured mouse for cats. The reason being that in the wild, cats eat mice, they eat small birds and insects. Most pet food includes chicken and beef and seafood. But as it turns out, those are also the main allergens for cats and dogs. They are only used as the main ingredients because, of course, they're left over from the human food supply chain. So in making cultured meat, yeah, we really saw this as an opportunity to use the protein source that is most evolutionarily appropriate for cats.
Elizabeth : [00:11:05] One thing it shows you is how conditioned we are as humans. When I first saw the cultured meat of mice, for cats, my first reaction was like, Oh, for a second, think. Then you're like, no wait cats eat mice. Yeah, but we're so conditioned. Oh, cats eat this right? Dogs wouldn't eat cows, you know?
Shannon: [00:11:27] No, no, they wouldn't. I mean, a lot of people would say, dogs, dogs would. But actually the tricky thing with dogs is that they've evolved or they've diverged from their ancestors much more than cats have. The domestic dog is actually a species. It doesn't really exist in the way it's been domesticated. Dogs are not wolves now. They have evolved. They have a very different genetic makeup, metabolic makeup. Their nutritional needs are quite different from that of wolves. Nonetheless, they look similar to wolves. I mean, a chihuahua doesn't look similar to a wolf, but people still believe that dogs are like wolves, and it's simply not the case. But for cats, it's a slightly different story. Cats definitely metabolically, they haven't evolved much. They still do need certain key nutrients in the. While they can only consume from another animal, the tricky thing, of course, though, is with pet food, as I mentioned with cat food because it goes to this rendering facility. So a lot of those core nutrients like taurine are lost. So this is why you always see on every cat food package, taurine has to be added back and that taurine doesn't come from an animal. It comes from like it's a synthetic source of taurine. So the irony is that that meat that people are so obsessed about their cat needing. Yeah, in the wild, the cat needs meat because in the wild, that meat is a source of the nutrients that that cat needs. But on a commercial bag of pet food, those nutrients, those core key nutrients that the cat needs, they're not coming from the meat. They're coming from the pre-mix. That is largely a synthetic mix of vitamins and minerals that have been lost from the meat.
Elizabeth : [00:13:09] Again, it's just so crazy how our food system is backwards, and none of it really makes sense, even our pet food system. So cats need taurine. So for the mice, first, you're starting with the mouse treats. Talk about how this whole process, because it's changed a little bit in the sense of how you actually get from mouse to treat. Well, you just kind of take us through the process?
Shannon: [00:13:35] Yeah, for sure. So basically, we are growing real mouse tissue. So what we did was we started with cells that did originally come from mice. So for us, we took some cells from mice. So there were actually three mice, and we took some cells from their ears. Those mice have now gone to live with one of our stem cell scientists and they're almost two now. So they're geriatric by most standards. But those cells, though they can be used as a starting point for growing all of the cells that we need moving forward. From those cells we isolate certain types of cells from the sort of matrix of different cells. Then from there we can actually start to grow out those cells and choose which cells we want to continue growing. Whether or not you're growing stem cells or you're growing muscle cells or you're growing fat cells, and we grow these cells now in a bioreactor, a bioreactor being actually a tool that is widely used in the food industry. A bioreactor is simply a vessel that allows for gas exchange and temperature control. It's where there are many probiotics. So in terms of foods that people eat right now, probiotics would be grown in a bioreactor. Yeast for beer grown in a bioreactor. So we're using the same thing. It's not actually this novel technology. The only real difference is that rather than growing these classical or traditional microbial cells in the bioreactor. We're now growing mammalian cells. Then once we input it with these cells, we feed them vitamins and minerals. The cells are consuming them and we're growing more and more biomass and more and more cells, then at the end, we collect those cells and then we blend them with, say, for example, to create our best treat. We blend those cells with other ingredients that are in most cat treats and bake it. It basically just serves like a cat treat, except that a normal cat treat that would have some meat in there, it would have some other ingredients in there. We're using cultured meat instead of animal raised meat.
Elizabeth : [00:15:48] What else is in the treat?
Shannon: [00:15:50] We've included pumpkin in there. We've used some other cultured ingredients, so miso is in there, some tempeh in there and nutritional yeast. These are all tasty things and healthy things.
Elizabeth : [00:16:02] So why start with a treat? Is it a scaling thing because it only requires so much?
Shannon: [00:16:07] Yeah, so Because Animals like every other company, scaling is a challenge. So certainly in order to get our product out, we will have to do so in sort of very, very smaller batches than we would like out the gate. So, yeah, treats allow us to do that. Of course, we will launch a nutritionally complete food as well, but once we have a food out, then that cultured meat needs to be at the front of the ingredient panel and needs to be the main ingredient with treats there in between and in between. Meal snack meat doesn't need to be the meat's main ingredient, so it's a little lower in the ingredient list.
Elizabeth : [00:16:45] So that'll kind of be the trajectory. Start with the treats, maybe do dog treats and then go into actual food?
Shannon: [00:16:53] That's right. So from the cat treats, the cultured mouse for cats, we will do our next species, which will be a rabbit cell line for dog food. So we're really focused on this sort of small native prey, then continue to scale, then we will eventually be able to gravitate towards a new complete food.
Elizabeth : [00:17:15] I can't imagine any consumers who wouldn't want this for their pets, like it's so much healthier, it's so much less cruel. It's like the perfect solution. I don't know what people are saying, but I would imagine, like I can't imagine who wouldn't want this for their pet. It just feels like the smartest solution out there.
Shannon: [00:17:34] Well, I think so. I would agree with you. But of course, we do get feedback from people saying that this isn't something that they would want to participate in. Or feed their pets. By and large, based on the comments that we get. My strong feeling is that this is just based on people really not knowing what it is. That's totally cool, because why would they know this product doesn't exist? So it's based on a lot of misinformation for people who somehow think it's they refer to it as synthetic meat or fake meat. It's without actually thinking or understanding that actually these are animal cells. The cells are grown without having the entire animal intact. The other thing that people tend not to think about, too, is they'll sort of say, Oh yeah, the animal is the natural way. There are a lot of things around animal husbandry and I mean, what is natural to begin with anyway? But when an animal is slaughtered, it's a very unclean process, right? So this is why there are recalls of meat. Actually I think there's been third party testing of meat not just in pet food, just meat in general, confirming that 100 percent of meat when allowed to just sit at 37 degrees, there are fecal contaminating bacteria on that meat. Why wouldn't they be right? So you think about these animals, these farmed animals, they are raised in, like it's a quagmire of shit, frankly. Then they're slaughtered. I mean, it's impossible to extricate the animal from this microbial contamination. However, when we grow these cells in a bioreactor, there is no immune system from the animal. So if there is any contamination of microbial contamination, we see it immediately like it jumps right out at us. Then we would kill the culture, that's it, we would say that culture is done and we start again. So it's a very, very clean and controlled process. We know all of the inputs. And when I say inputs, we don't use any antibiotics when we grow our meat or growth promoting steroids. These are very, very, very typically used in animal husbandry, especially antibiotics. In fact, 80 percent of the antibiotics manufactured in the U.S. are sold to animal agriculture. So animal agriculture is a major threat to public health. Every pandemic that we've seen in history has come from, It's a virus that has come from an animal. So typically viruses do not cross species barriers. But when they do, they are very, very virulent, very, very pathogenic and animal agriculture In small spaces animals can find stressful conditions where greater situations of stress. There's more excrement, there's more shedding of virus and bacteria. These are areas that are rife with contamination. So, they pose, as you know, a human public health threat. And then of course, you have the environmental consequences of and the humane aspect of animal agriculture. There is no good reason to actually not completely embrace cultured meat, especially for pets. When we think about humans, OK, humans are omnivores. We don't actually need meat, especially for pets. Cultured meat is really the ideal option.
Elizabeth : [00:21:04] Yeah, absolutely. And it's coming. That's the best part.
Shannon: [00:21:06] Yeah.
Elizabeth : [00:21:07] What about regulations? Is it different? I mean, I would imagine the human regulations are a lot harder to go through than the pet food industry. But how does that work? Are you allowed if you had it right now? Could you sell it now or do you have to wait on regulations?
Shannon: [00:21:23] So we cannot sell it in the US? So every place in the world is different in terms of how human food or pet food is regulated. The differences between those two regulatory paths are also different, depending on the region. So actually, in the U.S, surprisingly, maybe for some, it's not actually easier to to approve a pet food product, a new pet food ingredient than it is necessarily for a human food ingredient in the U.S. Which is surprising, when we understand where most meat for pet food comes from. It's a very, very bizarre sort of setup or industry that sort of regulates pet food in the U.S. and ultimately, the FDA regulates pet food, but they rely heavily on this organization called AFCO or Association of American Feed Control Officials. Which is sort of this conglomerate of different stakeholders, the FDA being one of them. But it's also frankly lobbying organizations and heavy in the meat industry, and so it's difficult to see them as a totally neutral third party.
Elizabeth : [00:22:24] Do they make getting regulations hard on purpose? Like for something that you're doing? Do you know when you'll be in the clear and you can sell here in the U.S.? Or do you still have a lot of hurdles to go through?
Shannon: [00:22:38] Yeah, I don't know when we'll be able to. I will say thus far any communication that I have had with the FDA, it's all been very positive. I haven't felt as though there have been unnecessary barriers or something like that. Definitely. It's been heartwarming to experience that. The folks that I've communicated with have been very interested and eager and keen to communicate. So that's good. Yeah, so that's great. But different regions, different places in the world have different paths. So when we first launch, it won't be in the U.S. because we won't have had the regulatory approval to sell there yet. But different parts of the world are different and so we will. Our first launch will be in another country, which we'll announce in December when we launch. But the plan absolutely is to sell in the U.S. eventually.
Elizabeth : [00:23:28] Awesome. The whole world needs it, but we really need it.
Shannon: [00:23:32] Yeah, which is why, of course, which is why we are focused on the U.S. So frankly, we're a company that's dedicated. Our mission is to take animals out of the supply chain. So looking at the greatest defender is just in terms of not only the amount of meat consumed, but also the treatment of animals just seen in large commercial scale animal agriculture. I mean, some of the worst offenders are in the U.S., China. I mean, these are at the top.
Elizabeth : [00:24:02] It's brutal. What about costs will look, will this cost a lot more than, say, regular cat treats or cat food?
Shannon: [00:24:09] It will cost us more in terms of our margins, certainly to produce it than it will for another company. But the cost to the consumer won't be much more or any more. So for us, absolutely. In order to take animals out of the supply chain, that means we need to be price competitive with other products. So definitely we will be priced accordingly at the outset, which is the way our current products are priced. So we are priced in the Premium Ultra Premium category, but that's also the only actively growing segment of pet food. So the sort of economical or low or budget priced pet food. There are fewer and fewer people buying those products. So generally speaking, a lot of people really want to do well with their pets. So they want to be purchasing foods that are more nutritious or they come from animals that have been treated humanely or whatever. So the price point is higher and folks are willing to pay for that.
Elizabeth : [00:25:10] I know it's astronomically expensive to do what you're doing right now in terms of just the amount of research, the fact that it's never been done.The amount of research, the amount of it's never been done. less expensive to produce.
Shannon: [00:25:26] Yes, definitely. I think you mean less expensive than like traditional meat, you mean?
Elizabeth : [00:25:34] Yeah.
Shannon: [00:25:35] Yeah. So I mean, that's sort of the beauty of science and continuing to sort of iterate and we will continue to work on bringing down the cost. When you think about animal agriculture, I mean, really, the amount of where we're dealing with the amount of land that has to be cleared to not only raise all of the animals, but also to grow the grain to then feed the animals. The amount of water that needs to be used to actually grow the crops to then feed the animals. There's a certain point where it doesn't become any cheaper at all. It cannot become any cheaper to produce animal meat and animal meat is also very heavily subsidized by the government. So when you look at the price that you're paying and the grocery store for meat, that is not how much it costs to produce that cut of meat from an animal. The great thing about what we're doing with cultured meat is that we do have this. We just started. I mean, as an industry, we've just started. And so yeah, we have a long ways to go, but there is a long way to go in terms of there's a lot of potential in terms of what we can achieve
Elizabeth : [00:26:40] Right now and it's going to get better every year. So, we're not that far away.
Shannon: [00:26:45] No, no. Let's be optimistic.
Elizabeth : [00:26:49] How do people get your treats?
Shannon: [00:26:52] The easiest place to buy our products is from our website Because animals.com and even their people can sign up for our pre-order list. We are taking pre-orders for our cultured mouse treats as well so people can pre-order from our website too, but they can also just purchase directly our supplement and our treats. They are also available on Amazon and Chewy.
Elizabeth : [00:27:14] It's awesome. I'm pre-ordering. I don't even have a cat, but I'm going to order it and give it away.
Shannon: [00:27:18] Great, okay, awesome.
Elizabeth : [00:27:20] Shannon, thank you so much. I'm so excited about this, and I'm so glad that you guys are in the world, seriously, and doing this because we need it.
Shannon: [00:27:29] Thanks so much, Beth.
Elizabeth: [00:27:39] To learn more about Shannon, to learn about ‘Because Animals’ and to pre-order Harmless Hunt mouse treats for cats. Go to our website SpeciesUnite.com. We will have links to everything we are on Facebook and Instagram, @SpeciesUnite. If you have a spare minute and could do us a favor, please subscribe, rate, review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. It really helps people find the show. If you'd like to support the podcast, we would greatly appreciate it. Become a member of Species Unite. Go to our website and click Become a member. I'd like to thank everyone at Species Unite, including Gary Knudsen, Natalie Martin, Caitlin Pearce, Amy Jones, Paul Healey, Santina Polky and Anna Connor, who wrote and performed today's music. Thank you for listening. Have a wonderful day!
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