July 8, 2021 • 33 mins
Reclaiming the food you threw away and up cycling it into nutrient-dense animal feed.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Citizen Chef is a production of I Heart Radio. My
wife likes to joke around that I have the soul
of a depression era housewife because I save everything and
work it into the following day's meal. So the other
night we made peas. Following day, what have all the
peas that are left over? They ended up in an
almward for breakfast the next day, I say it all,
Are you kidding me? Repurposing is great. Hey, I'm Tom
(00:27):
Clichio and you're listening to Citizen Chef. So, starting about
six seven years ago, the term food waste was something
that a lot of Americans started focusing on. There are
a lot of organizations pointing out the amount of food
that was wasted throughout the entire production system, which was
about all of the food produced in America. And again
(00:48):
there's food wasted on the farms. Of food is left
in the fields. When food gets into the processing plant,
if it's not the right size, if there's any blemishes
or bruises, it gets discarded and then wants it gets
into the supermarket. Plenty of food that is just not
perfect ends up getting thrown out as well. Anything past
their expiration day. Milt that it's perfectly fine, but it's
past the expiration day. But that's a whole other conversation
(01:11):
about how they actually come about and at home, a
consumer's waste between eight hundred dollars a year, which is
roughly of the annual food budget. So just picture walking
out of a grocery store with four bags and just
dropping one and continuing to walk. That's what we're doing.
And so there's a couple of companies that are doing
(01:35):
something about it. There's a beer company that uses wasted
bread to make beer. There's in France they actually made
it illegal and throw out food. A lot of food
gets donated to food banks and food pantries. But this
really just scratches the surface. That was until I met
Justin Camine and his family business called Do Good Foods.
They don't shy away from seeking big solutions to some
(01:56):
of Earth's largest problems, and Do Good Foods realize that
food is being on now and still has a tremendous
amount of nutrient value. So they've come up with a
way to take those nutrients uh and sustainably produce animal feed. Again,
this is nothing new when you think about it. For centuries,
farmers have been taking food that was left over and
(02:16):
been feeding it to their animals. In fact, I have
chickens at my house and I usually feed them scraps,
especially produce. I stay away from meat and obviously chicken,
but I feed them lots of leftover produce and scraps.
And they also spend a lot of time foraging for
insects and things like that. So if we could capture
those nutrients the very same day, are immediately after, and
(02:38):
turn it into a soil amendment or palletized animal feed
the very next day, we can create a healthier, more profitable,
and sustainable solution for our supermarkets and farmers and consumers.
I mean, also, we are reducing the amount of corn
and soy that we're feeding animals as well, and so
hopefully we can take some of that that farmland back
(02:59):
and turn it into farmland that produces food, not just
animal food. So this is the kind of problem solving
that gets me excited both as a chef and activist
and a consumer. So I'm excited to introduce to you
today Justin Kmine from Do Good Foods. Justin, welcome to
the Citizenship Podcast. So great, thank you for having me.
Full disclosure I'm an advisor to the company. There are
(03:21):
estimates that between thirty to forty percent of all food
that is produced UM in the country and worldwide is wasted.
And there is waste throughout the entire UH food production
system UH from the farmer straight through to the distributors
to supermarkets and of course the end user. Estimates are
(03:41):
between fifteen eighteen hundred dollars of food is thrown out
by the consumer every year. And I guess about seven
eight years ago, UM this started to become an issue
that you heard more and more about, and at first
it was quite shocking, and most people really didn't believe
the numbers and they thought it couldn't be true. In fact,
I ever remember I was at a dinner party I
(04:02):
mentioned this and someone got angry at me and said,
it's impossible, it couldn't possibly be true, But we know
it is. And so there's a lot of people that
are trying to focus on this issue UH anything from
making beer from from UH you know, bread that's thrown out.
Lots of organizations working on the issue, but I still
(04:22):
have not seen anyone that is actually tackling this issue
to the size and scale and scope that do good chicken. Yes.
So food waste became a kind of a major, kind
of key emphasis for myself and the family about five
or six years ago. UM, I think we started to
see a lot of those same stats that you had
rattled off that of all the food that gets grown
(04:45):
gets thrown away, and if food waste was a country,
would be the third largest greenhouse gas in matter. A
pretty crazy problem to really have, UM, and something that
I don't think that we fully understood and recognized, UM,
but where we approached it to your point about the
size and the scale. So our background on our family
(05:05):
is that, UM, we've built large scale infrastructure now for
about thirty years, about four billion dollars UM and energy
and then telecom and having the largest probably health telecom company,
and then my brother and I about ten twelve years
ago when we graduated college, we wanted to work with
our father and his team and use and focus that
(05:26):
infrastructure capabilities onto what we thought was some of the
world's biggest problems, recognizing that you can solve some of
these problems so long as you're doing so at a
size and the scale that can really move the needle
quickly and efficiently. UH. And so long as it's not
only economical but really with the environment in hand. Justin
(05:47):
what I want to hear, I want to get to
the back story. Um, why did you become aware of
the issue of food waste and when did you decide
to do something about it. Yeah, so, my brother and
I graduated college about ten or twelve years ago and
wanted to really fool just a family platform on the
sustainable solutions that could really transform the world and do
so at a at a size and the scale that
could really matter. Um. So that's when we first started
(06:09):
with solar, built about five hundred million dollars of solar
projects collectively together. And then about five years ago is
when we started to dedicate all of our time, energy,
and resources and our team of engineers and business development
onto how do we solve food waste and how do
we build an infrastructure platform that can actually scale nationwide
(06:33):
and really create the impact and the change that we
all know is necessary. What do you do with this?
So there's there's food waste. Are are food that is
going to be wasted? You actually get it before it's wasted,
and so what do you actually do with it? So,
so people have been feeding food to animals forever. Right
for century, we used to take our leftovers on our
farms and feed it to our chickens. Used do I
(06:54):
still do that? I have my chickens into that yard,
and I take my compost what's going to go in
the compost, But now I feed it to my chickens
before it actually gets to the compost. So this is
still happening. Um. But but I'm not doing it at
the scale you're doing it. This is still happening, and
God bless those that are still doing it. Unfortunately, a
majority of the population in the US do not live
(07:16):
on farms. Um. So, Hey, I think food waste is
tangible to us all because we're all used to throwing
it away or trying to repurpose it in some other way.
But where where we really centered on is exactly where
the FDA and the food hierarchy talks about where the
maximum usage food is be fed to humans. The next
masimi us to food is to be fed to animals.
(07:37):
So what do we do we work with these supermarkets. Um,
we actually provide them designated bins, one for the meat
and one for the produce. Um, and they called the aisles.
So all of the food that's just reached it sell
by date UM or the apples or whatever it has
fallen on the ground or two browns for consumers, they
of course donate as much as they possibly can in
(08:00):
because that's the best usage of food. But then we
actually go and pick up that food that's kept in
the cold change so this food is still fresh, it's
still cold, um, and we're picking up about two hundred
tons every single day. We have a designate logistics provider
to do so UM that that equates to about on
(08:20):
average every two or three days, about four d and
fifties supermarkets that we're picking up that food. Of course,
like I said, they we maximize human donations first and foremost,
and the next best usage of that food is to
come to our production facility where we take that meat
and those fruits and vegetables. We put it through a
(08:40):
conveyor system to pull out any kind of foreign material. Thankfully,
the supermarkets d package UM, so there's no plastics, there's
no nothing in that material already, but we pull out
whatever potentially had gotten put in there, and then we
do a very simple process um we grind up food. UM.
We passed her rised it at about a hundred and
(09:01):
sixty degrees for thirty minutes, we blend it like a
wine for nutrient consistency, and then we're actually able to
dry that product that same day into a usable form
for our animals the very next day, into a dried
animal feed that can go right back into the existing
female infrastructure the very next day. So what we're doing, Tom,
(09:26):
is exactly what you did with your leftovers and fed
it to your chickens out back out cycling all this
food two hundred tons every single day and to a
dried animal feed the very next day. Do you have
any idea what the two hundred tons represent in terms
of water? What what did it take to produce? There
was two hundred tons of food? You know, So because
(09:47):
it's not you know, we'll talk about food waste and
and solving issued food waste. Yeah, part of it is um,
the actual food that is getting thrown out and not used,
but there's also you know, water that goes into an
energy that goes into it um from literally the time
we pick up the food, saving that from typically going
(10:10):
to landfill, which a majority unfortunately of the food waste
that we have goes to, which of course is where
it creates methane gas, which is uh twenty plus times
more potent it than CEO two. But we have actually
tracked and quantified all of the carbon associated with the collection,
the production process that we have converting the food into
(10:32):
a dried animal feed and back in into the animal's diet.
And what's so exciting is that all of that, when
you look at the third party valve verification, actually creates
a carbon reduced chicken product. So you mentioned chicken. So
when when you first, um start looking at his technology,
(10:56):
obviously you knew based on on your your family's history
that you could scale this. Uh, you know, how how
long did it take to actually start from from when
you create the technology to get to the process where
you can actually start number one, producing the feed and
start to grow the chickens, Because it was it was
a lengthy process working with various chicken growers UM to
(11:17):
come up with the exact formulas that you need to
actually feed the chickens. There was a question to whether
that would work, whether or not the chickens would grow. Yeah. Well, hey,
it's taken us about five years and about twenty of
our own kind of capital to get to this position. Um,
so there's a lot of trial and error. There's a
lot of understanding as to from the supply chain, right,
(11:40):
how do you get a consistent large volume uh supply
Because to your point about feeding a chicken, the nutritionists
on the chicken growing side need to know that the
feed and greeting is coming to them every single day
with a guarantee nutrient analysis so that they can consistently
grow that that heard on a on a daily basis.
(12:02):
So coordinating both of those two kind of variables into
a consistency has been part of this kind of magic
that we've created, which is largely predicated on size and
scale and logistics. Uh So, over those kind of past
five years, there's a lot of learnings as to how
much bat composition um of course is an amazing component
(12:24):
of energy for these animals um, and and what is
the right inclusion ratios from that perspective, And then it
got down into the usable forum, how do you how
do you take food waste which we actually cause food
leftovers two tons of meats, groups and vegetables every single day,
and how do you get it to a dried form
(12:45):
that can go right back into the existing female infrastructure,
Just like your standard corn and soyd so. The whole
drying capacity of that was a unique developed development that
took a couple of years to figure out, how do
you dry this to a consistent form that then can
be just put into a mill, and and and and
eventually a pellet. Really the exciting part, for the first
(13:08):
time ever enabling consumers to be a part of the
climate change in the food waste solution, going buy a
piece of chicken, you know that every one pounds of
chicken equates to one and a half pounds of greenhouse
gases being saved and one and a half pounds of
food waste being up cycled, all at a price point
well below organic. We have now made climate change tangible
(13:31):
to consumers. Continue your status quo, buy a piece of
chicken and know that you're actually doing good and having
a net positive on the world, not a net negative.
And that's been the real unlock the logistics, the processing,
and then that unlock of the brands owning that story
onto the retail shelf and forever changing the animal agricultural industry.
(13:54):
That's been really the focus. We'll be back with more
Citizen Cheff. I'm Tom Clickio and you're listening to Citizen
Chef today, I'm talking to Justin k Mine of Do
(14:17):
Good Foods. His company is taking reclaim food and turning
it into nutrient dense animal feed. So right now there's
I called a plant and a half up and running
right now, Is that correct? Yep? One in North Dakota,
one in Pennsylvania. Um, and then we're gonna be building
about six more of these over the next eighteen months.
Right now. I I visited the plant in Pennsylvania, and
(14:40):
this is not what you'd expect. Um. You know, if
I were going into a plant that was processing food
and making it's kind of like a little brown sludge
and then against dried out, you'd expected to be you know,
it's manufacturing, but you'd expect, you know, a lot of
garbage ways to be around flies and stuff. This is
(15:00):
absolutely spotless, um. And what's really amazing is the truck
comes in, it unloads the bin and it's never touched
by human hands. It actually gets out this conveyor belt. Um.
It's like you built a better mousetrap. It's great. It
goes on this conveyor belt and um, it gets it
dumped on the conveyor belt. It goes into the order
(15:22):
and then the bin gets siloed off through uh what
called a bin wash. It's like a car wash, but
washes the bin, turns it upside down, and drives it
and sent it back out into into the world. Um.
And then the process starts. So let's go through the process.
What exactly happens when when the waste comes in that
goes on this conveyor belt. Yeah, so so absolutely so. Um.
(15:44):
Every animal needs a different dietary component. So we are
able to, based upon the source separation um of our bins,
one for the needs and one for the produce, we're
able to designate into our system the exact percentages that
are necessary. Um. So we'll take that blend um call
it typically about thirty five percent meats, sixty five percent
(16:07):
fruits and vegetables. That's what our standard kind of UH
diet is. We put it through a conveyor system where
metal detection happens. Um, and then we go through a
series of grinding steps. Obviously you're taking all this food
sally lastic material. You've got to really grind it down
to a a like you said, more of a sludge. Um.
(16:29):
It's like the teeth exactly exactly just like what you
and I do. Right, We're grinding up a bunch of
food in our mouth, UM, and then it goes into
a series of tanks where we are heating it up UM,
destroying any potential pathogens that are there. UM milk is
heated up at about hundred and sixty five degrees for
about fifteen seconds. We do that for about thirty minutes UM.
(16:52):
So of course, but we're already taking us D a
certified food fit for human consumption, so we already have
a very very clean supply chain. UM. That product is
then blended, like I said, like a wine. So we
multiple batches coming together where we blend it and then
we're able to screen out some of the fats um
(17:13):
to to help meet various dietary needs of various animals.
And then those that product it simply goes onto a
large drawing system where we're able to dry it down
to a palleticizable form. So it's very simple. It's super complex.
There's a lot of I P behind what we do
(17:34):
and how we do it, Like I said, five years
of development. Uh, but at the at the high level,
it's a quite simple process that's actually been around for decades. Right,
So of the for every plant, let's just say the
existing Pennsylvania plant, how many chickens over the course of
the year, can you actually raise and produce from the
single plant? Yeah, so there there's enough feed for about
(17:57):
twenty million chickens um. But it sounds like a big number,
but it's not. That sounds like a lot. So here
I'll blow your mind and give you the big number.
So in the US alone, we slaughtered about eight billion
to eight to nine billion chickens last year alone, and
that's growing at about six percent year of a year.
(18:19):
So if you think about the solution that we have,
we can go off and build thirty of these production
facilities and solve food waste nationwide. And we are only
a small, small, small fraction of the overall chicken market
let alone. To your point, when we start putting this
speed into other animals, we are a small component. Yet
(18:41):
we have the most sustainably grown animal at the at
the price point that's affordable and accessible to all. That's
why this is so exciting. By linking this to the brand,
we can act age with consumers to help us solve
food waste over the next five years, not the next
twenty years. So I think by five years you'll you'll
solve at the supermore could waste. That's the goal. That's
(19:02):
the goal. Uh yeah, do you think you're taking a
step further and get to the processing plants, because I mean,
when when produce comes in from the field, Uh, if
it's you know, the tomatoes don't fit in a five
by six box or the zucchini are all perfectly straight
and six inches long, it gets thrown out there. Do
you see that we collected from the from the distributors
as well. Um, eventually those will be bolt on to
(19:24):
the platform. Um. We are after supermarkets first and foremost.
It's high value and high volume UM. And it's more
consistent um. But yes, then processing facilities will absolutely open
up and we'll be a part of it. We and
and we're doing this that try to better the world
and all of us so as quickly as we can
all help solve food waste. UM, the world's in a
(19:46):
better position. And that's also how we actually we provide
a lot of data back to the supermarkets for them
to buy better and waste less. We're not trying to
do all this create a solution for a problem. That
doesn't necessarily always have to be there, right and while
you're also create a good solution for them because typically
they have to pay dumping fees. But that's so that's
(20:06):
going to go right to the bottom line of these
sup markets, which is is a fine bit of business
for them. Um. And then obviously, um, the streams that
you're getting from the supermarkets, UM, I would imagine uh
to do good chicken will be on those shelves. Absolutely.
This is this is what's so exciting by this, which
is we're help We're helping the supermarket solve one of
(20:27):
their biggest pain points and one of their biggest complaints
by their customers of what are you doing with that food?
Of course, a tremendous amount of them have amazing giveback
programs to Feeding America, and we absolutely want to help
maximize that. That's the best usage. But then the next
best usage is not to go to landfill or composting
or anaerobic digestion. This food is still good and and
(20:51):
and and literally cold to human touch. We can cycle that.
That's what we're doing. We're up cycling this food into
an animal feed and creating this amazingly unique carbon reduced
story in an animal protein space that has never before
seen that type of sustainability story. And that's why then
the supermarkets want to tell this closed loop story to
(21:13):
the consumers because as you look at all of these
um reports coming out from companies like Chipotle and Sweet
Green and everyone wanting to drive towards carbon reduction or
carbon neutrality, the biggest pain point right now from a
greenhouse gases is their meat consumption. And so if we
can actually create a system that is a carbon neutral,
(21:36):
carbon reduced animal production system, we've changed the game forever
and we can really create the next kind of ecosystem
for the agricultural industry that we maximize the usage of
our resources and we hopefully reduce the destruction of the environment.
What have you received any pushback at offpenning industries? Um,
(21:58):
are the farmers are pro corn? So are they like
breathing down your neck saying like like you know you're
gonna you're gonna interrupt the amount of of CORTN and
soy that we could sell. I mean, when we build
thirty of these production facilities nationwide, we're only producing close
to a million tons of drive feed per year. The chicken,
the chicken industry alone consumes about forty five million tons
(22:21):
of drive feed per year. We're still a small, small,
small fraction in the all animal feed space, but yet
we have an amazingly unique sustainability stories. That is what
I think consumers are really gonna desire. We're actually nervous
that as we start to solve food waste so quickly,
the demand for our products are gonna be so high
(22:42):
that we're actually not gonna have enough waste anymore across
the country, which that would be a fantastic That's a
good that's a good problem I have. Yeah, it is
a good problem to have it. And there's still plenty
of of of time to scale this. UM, it's not where.
Uh how long does it take to put a processing
plant on on board? It takes us about fourteen months.
(23:05):
So we're gonna be identifying the next six cities that
we will go to. UM. We're making all these public
announcements very shortly, UH, announcements of do good Foods will
be on the retail shelf come this January. Uh. We're
very excited by all of that. And then we will
be building very quickly. UM. And to your point in
(23:27):
the beginning, it's what my family has done. We've built
four billion dollars of infrastructure across the country. Um, that's
what we know how to do, and we've brought on
a lot of agriculture experts UH to really then help
build what we think can be the next kind of
consumer product company that's actually a net positive for the world.
(23:48):
When I was coming up, in the restaurants I work,
we would actually look at the plates coming back because
we thought that if people didn't finish their food there
was something wrong with it. And often if we saw
a half eaten dish, we'd go to the table and
ask if everything was okay. And sometimes they would say, yeah,
I think it's great, we're just not hungry. Sometimes they
didn't like it, they just wouldn't say anything. In fact,
the restaurants that I worked in France, if anything came
(24:09):
back on the place, chef got really worried and concerned
because cultural is a different cultural, especially around food, especially
after going through the Second World War. I had a
friend of mine whose dad almost starved to death during
the war. Generations of people that are just you were
trained to really eat your food and finish your plate.
You got food on the plate, you ate it. I
think Americans we are really just a generation away from
(24:31):
our grandparents of two generations away from our grandparents who
lived through depression where everything was saved. And I watched
my grandfather fry bacon and then straighten out the grease
and saved the bacon fat. And that's what he used
to fry his food, and he wasn't going to throw
that out. And food was much more valuable back then,
and nothing was wasted. We moved so far away from
(24:54):
teaching whole economics that was home economics was about stretching
your dollars, especially around food, and we've moved so far
away from that, and everything has become disposable and you
want your food fast and it's not expensive to throw
it out, and yeah, well it's a few generations away
from really honoring that food. And when you think about
what we're throwing out, it's it's not just the food
(25:15):
stick around. With more from justin kmine of do good foods,
we're back. I know you've been quoted saying that it's
insane that of the food that we grow currently grow
United States has wasted and added that the United Nations
states that there's only about sixty years left of nutrients
in our soil to continue to grow crops. Eight percent
(25:36):
of global agriculture lands as being used for animal feed
or grazing, and ur oceans are being depleted from fish.
So the plant is the plant? When does it go online?
The first plant It will start to go online in September.
In September, got it? And so September you start producing
food and then another four or five months, five months
before you see the first chicken in the in the market. Yeah.
(25:59):
So so we're gonna have to bet up over a
bit of the reserve as we just kind of start
the commission and grow and develop the facility, um or
turn on the facility, and then um, the chickens take
their kind of gross cycle. Um, they're kind of fifty
days to then get to the retail shelf. Right. Yeah.
For for anybody out there that's thinking like it's just
a different kind of chicken, No, it's exactly the same chicken. Um.
(26:22):
They taste exactly uh if I mean it depending on
who cooked it. I mean I did have a sample
early on and they tasted great. Um. And you were
you were working in some of these early trials, you
were working with the so the well known chicken growers
that are out there without naming names. Uh, you can
figure that out. And and and it's actually their natural
diet there omnivores, this whole vegetarian fed chicken. They're just
(26:47):
it's just the marketing terminology to claim because it's still
corn and soy and corn and soy is not the
chickens natural diet. No, it's not. You know, the the
chickens actually like a dinosaur. It's actually that the modern
chicken that we have now comes from the jungle cock,
which is a bird from Asia. Um. And you know,
(27:07):
I watched my chickens and they are most of what
they do, they scratch around and eat bugs. Um. Even
though I feed them during the course of the day,
they sit around and they scratch the surface sea them.
They actually scratch and dig and they eat bugs all
day long. So they're eating meat. They are, they are omnivorous. Um.
And uh, I mean that is their natural diet. You're
(27:28):
absolutely correct. And um. You know when you some of
the the um smaller chicken producers like I have a
producer here in Browder's Birds, and they use the salatin
method of growing chickens, so they're not actually in in
houses where they're just getting fed. They're out on the pasture.
(27:48):
And what they do is they depends that the chickens
are in are moved every day, so they have fresh fielded,
pick picked through and eat bugs. So again that is
their natural diet. And when they do have that, that
omnivores diet, that chickens actually taste better, um, because they're
eating you know, a more natural diet, so exactly, and
and that and that's the whole focus here right It's
(28:10):
to create a more natural solution, to create a closed
loop system, a waste free system, and to also enable
us to feed all of the world right in an affordable,
accessible way that we're not having to preach to everyone,
Oh they gotta go plant based, so they gotta do this. Yes,
all of that is absolutely key and critical. But the
(28:31):
size and the scale of what the current animal agriculture
industry is right now, and the size and the scale
of what the food waste problem is right now, we
can do a huge benefit to society over the next
five or seven years. That absolutely has to happen. Meanwhile,
a bunch of other solutions are coming to fruition and
we're all supportive of that, but feeding the world and
(28:55):
providing enough animal protein which is going to be here.
It's not gonna go away anytimes. It's just like oil
and gas. We would all love it too, but it's
not going to And we need to have a more
sustainable solution for the present day industry. People that want
to just buy a carbon reduced or carbon neutral chicken
(29:16):
um as well to be a part of that solution. Uh.
And to to the point in the beginning, we can
create and use this process to feed a majority of
our animals. And yes, we can tailor the protein of
veg and all of this type of stuff to meet
the dietary needs or restrictions of various animals. But that
(29:37):
closed loop system has been that's the way nature intended
to operate. It's just us as humans that disrupted that
whole thing. Now we need to get back to that
prior time and make it now a modern solution with
the right technology that adheres to the right government regulations
and practices, and adheres to being able to work with
(29:59):
some of the biggest companies in the world to drive
them to where they they are more sustainable in a
real table way that engages with consumers at the retail shelf.
All right, so you're disrupting the disruption exactly once you
contend at a time time exactly. We hired an amazing woman,
(30:23):
uh from Nestley UM and then we hired some former
Tyson executives and uh some others to really come on
and how do we build the brand of the future? UM.
And that means across everything from retail to food service
to restaurants. UM. I mean, as mentioned in the past,
(30:44):
there's a lot of restaurants that are now trying to
implement carbon labeling. UM. Bolo came out with can there
burrito change the world? And what ingredients go into your
burrito and affect the carbon calculation of that burrito? UM.
Panera has a climate cool focus as to their carbon labeling. UM.
(31:07):
And more and more retailers are really trying to talk
the talk and walk the walk as to creating a
more sustainable solution. They all know that this has to happen. UM.
So I see this brand not only across retail and
food service, but very much like Beyond an Impossible did
(31:27):
where they're engaging at the at the restaurant level, where
if you can walk into your favorite Chicken Sandwich company
and go in and say, hey, do you want a
chicken sandwich for five dollars or do you want a
carbon reduced do good chicken sandwich for five dollars. I
better bet that a majority of people are the gonna
sit there and say I could help save the world
(31:48):
by just eating this chicken sandwich. That's a cool aspect
where they can really feel that they're doing good. Yeah,
this is This has been a fascinating ride. I mean
I could see I've had a view into what was
going on over the last five years, and it's really
been fascinating, really fascinating to watch, um all the steps
along the way when things started looking like, wow, maybe
(32:09):
this can't work. How um you and your your your dad,
your brother just really pulled together and just kept focusing
and kept focusing and kept pushing it and pushing it.
And uh um, I for one can't wait to see
that that first chicken on the shelf. It's gonna be
really exciting. I'm all in, I'm all, thank you, thank you.
(32:30):
Can this technology? Is it better for the planet? Obviously, yes,
it is, because you're reclaiming food that would end up
in a landfill that would create methane plus. Again, if
you can put a dent in the amount of it
will be a small dent. But the dent in the
amount of corn and soy that's produced your thinking about
all the petrochemicals that you're saving, and and so you're
hopefully reducing your footprint there as well. What's great about
(32:53):
it is the USDA allowed us to use the word
carbon neutral. Taking reclaimed food there's no carbon footprint at all,
and creating this chicken. Thanks again to Justin Kmine and
do Good Foods for their exemplary take on solving huge
issues that so both the food supply chain and the environment.
(33:15):
And thanks to a Place the Table, Thank you for listening.
Citizen Chef is executive produced by Christopher Hasciotis and produced
by Gabby Collins and researched by Lillian Holman. Citizen Chef
is a production of high Heart Radio. For more podcasts
like this, visit the i Heart Radio app. Apple podcasts
are anywhere you get your favorite shows.
Citizen Chef is a production of I Heart Radio. My
wife likes to joke around that I have the soul
of a depression era housewife because I save everything and
work it into the following day's meal. So the other
night we made peas. Following day, what have all the
peas that are left over? They ended up in an
almward for breakfast the next day, I say it all,
Are you kidding me? Repurposing is great. Hey, I'm Tom
(00:27):
Clichio and you're listening to Citizen Chef. So, starting about
six seven years ago, the term food waste was something
that a lot of Americans started focusing on. There are
a lot of organizations pointing out the amount of food
that was wasted throughout the entire production system, which was
about all of the food produced in America. And again
(00:48):
there's food wasted on the farms. Of food is left
in the fields. When food gets into the processing plant,
if it's not the right size, if there's any blemishes
or bruises, it gets discarded and then wants it gets
into the supermarket. Plenty of food that is just not
perfect ends up getting thrown out as well. Anything past
their expiration day. Milt that it's perfectly fine, but it's
past the expiration day. But that's a whole other conversation
(01:11):
about how they actually come about and at home, a
consumer's waste between eight hundred dollars a year, which is
roughly of the annual food budget. So just picture walking
out of a grocery store with four bags and just
dropping one and continuing to walk. That's what we're doing.
And so there's a couple of companies that are doing
(01:35):
something about it. There's a beer company that uses wasted
bread to make beer. There's in France they actually made
it illegal and throw out food. A lot of food
gets donated to food banks and food pantries. But this
really just scratches the surface. That was until I met
Justin Camine and his family business called Do Good Foods.
They don't shy away from seeking big solutions to some
(01:56):
of Earth's largest problems, and Do Good Foods realize that
food is being on now and still has a tremendous
amount of nutrient value. So they've come up with a
way to take those nutrients uh and sustainably produce animal feed. Again,
this is nothing new when you think about it. For centuries,
farmers have been taking food that was left over and
(02:16):
been feeding it to their animals. In fact, I have
chickens at my house and I usually feed them scraps,
especially produce. I stay away from meat and obviously chicken,
but I feed them lots of leftover produce and scraps.
And they also spend a lot of time foraging for
insects and things like that. So if we could capture
those nutrients the very same day, are immediately after, and
(02:38):
turn it into a soil amendment or palletized animal feed
the very next day, we can create a healthier, more profitable,
and sustainable solution for our supermarkets and farmers and consumers.
I mean, also, we are reducing the amount of corn
and soy that we're feeding animals as well, and so
hopefully we can take some of that that farmland back
(02:59):
and turn it into farmland that produces food, not just
animal food. So this is the kind of problem solving
that gets me excited both as a chef and activist
and a consumer. So I'm excited to introduce to you
today Justin Kmine from Do Good Foods. Justin, welcome to
the Citizenship Podcast. So great, thank you for having me.
Full disclosure I'm an advisor to the company. There are
(03:21):
estimates that between thirty to forty percent of all food
that is produced UM in the country and worldwide is wasted.
And there is waste throughout the entire UH food production
system UH from the farmer straight through to the distributors
to supermarkets and of course the end user. Estimates are
(03:41):
between fifteen eighteen hundred dollars of food is thrown out
by the consumer every year. And I guess about seven
eight years ago, UM this started to become an issue
that you heard more and more about, and at first
it was quite shocking, and most people really didn't believe
the numbers and they thought it couldn't be true. In fact,
I ever remember I was at a dinner party I
(04:02):
mentioned this and someone got angry at me and said,
it's impossible, it couldn't possibly be true, But we know
it is. And so there's a lot of people that
are trying to focus on this issue UH anything from
making beer from from UH you know, bread that's thrown out.
Lots of organizations working on the issue, but I still
(04:22):
have not seen anyone that is actually tackling this issue
to the size and scale and scope that do good chicken. Yes.
So food waste became a kind of a major, kind
of key emphasis for myself and the family about five
or six years ago. UM, I think we started to
see a lot of those same stats that you had
rattled off that of all the food that gets grown
(04:45):
gets thrown away, and if food waste was a country,
would be the third largest greenhouse gas in matter. A
pretty crazy problem to really have, UM, and something that
I don't think that we fully understood and recognized, UM,
but where we approached it to your point about the
size and the scale. So our background on our family
(05:05):
is that, UM, we've built large scale infrastructure now for
about thirty years, about four billion dollars UM and energy
and then telecom and having the largest probably health telecom company,
and then my brother and I about ten twelve years
ago when we graduated college, we wanted to work with
our father and his team and use and focus that
(05:26):
infrastructure capabilities onto what we thought was some of the
world's biggest problems, recognizing that you can solve some of
these problems so long as you're doing so at a
size and the scale that can really move the needle
quickly and efficiently. UH. And so long as it's not
only economical but really with the environment in hand. Justin
(05:47):
what I want to hear, I want to get to
the back story. Um, why did you become aware of
the issue of food waste and when did you decide
to do something about it. Yeah, so, my brother and
I graduated college about ten or twelve years ago and
wanted to really fool just a family platform on the
sustainable solutions that could really transform the world and do
so at a at a size and the scale that
could really matter. Um. So that's when we first started
(06:09):
with solar, built about five hundred million dollars of solar
projects collectively together. And then about five years ago is
when we started to dedicate all of our time, energy,
and resources and our team of engineers and business development
onto how do we solve food waste and how do
we build an infrastructure platform that can actually scale nationwide
(06:33):
and really create the impact and the change that we
all know is necessary. What do you do with this?
So there's there's food waste. Are are food that is
going to be wasted? You actually get it before it's wasted,
and so what do you actually do with it? So,
so people have been feeding food to animals forever. Right
for century, we used to take our leftovers on our
farms and feed it to our chickens. Used do I
(06:54):
still do that? I have my chickens into that yard,
and I take my compost what's going to go in
the compost, But now I feed it to my chickens
before it actually gets to the compost. So this is
still happening. Um. But but I'm not doing it at
the scale you're doing it. This is still happening, and
God bless those that are still doing it. Unfortunately, a
majority of the population in the US do not live
(07:16):
on farms. Um. So, Hey, I think food waste is
tangible to us all because we're all used to throwing
it away or trying to repurpose it in some other way.
But where where we really centered on is exactly where
the FDA and the food hierarchy talks about where the
maximum usage food is be fed to humans. The next
masimi us to food is to be fed to animals.
(07:37):
So what do we do we work with these supermarkets. Um,
we actually provide them designated bins, one for the meat
and one for the produce. Um, and they called the aisles.
So all of the food that's just reached it sell
by date UM or the apples or whatever it has
fallen on the ground or two browns for consumers, they
of course donate as much as they possibly can in
(08:00):
because that's the best usage of food. But then we
actually go and pick up that food that's kept in
the cold change so this food is still fresh, it's
still cold, um, and we're picking up about two hundred
tons every single day. We have a designate logistics provider
to do so UM that that equates to about on
(08:20):
average every two or three days, about four d and
fifties supermarkets that we're picking up that food. Of course,
like I said, they we maximize human donations first and foremost,
and the next best usage of that food is to
come to our production facility where we take that meat
and those fruits and vegetables. We put it through a
(08:40):
conveyor system to pull out any kind of foreign material. Thankfully,
the supermarkets d package UM, so there's no plastics, there's
no nothing in that material already, but we pull out
whatever potentially had gotten put in there, and then we
do a very simple process um we grind up food. UM.
We passed her rised it at about a hundred and
(09:01):
sixty degrees for thirty minutes, we blend it like a
wine for nutrient consistency, and then we're actually able to
dry that product that same day into a usable form
for our animals the very next day, into a dried
animal feed that can go right back into the existing
female infrastructure the very next day. So what we're doing, Tom,
(09:26):
is exactly what you did with your leftovers and fed
it to your chickens out back out cycling all this
food two hundred tons every single day and to a
dried animal feed the very next day. Do you have
any idea what the two hundred tons represent in terms
of water? What what did it take to produce? There
was two hundred tons of food? You know, So because
(09:47):
it's not you know, we'll talk about food waste and
and solving issued food waste. Yeah, part of it is um,
the actual food that is getting thrown out and not used,
but there's also you know, water that goes into an
energy that goes into it um from literally the time
we pick up the food, saving that from typically going
(10:10):
to landfill, which a majority unfortunately of the food waste
that we have goes to, which of course is where
it creates methane gas, which is uh twenty plus times
more potent it than CEO two. But we have actually
tracked and quantified all of the carbon associated with the collection,
the production process that we have converting the food into
(10:32):
a dried animal feed and back in into the animal's diet.
And what's so exciting is that all of that, when
you look at the third party valve verification, actually creates
a carbon reduced chicken product. So you mentioned chicken. So
when when you first, um start looking at his technology,
(10:56):
obviously you knew based on on your your family's history
that you could scale this. Uh, you know, how how
long did it take to actually start from from when
you create the technology to get to the process where
you can actually start number one, producing the feed and
start to grow the chickens, Because it was it was
a lengthy process working with various chicken growers UM to
(11:17):
come up with the exact formulas that you need to
actually feed the chickens. There was a question to whether
that would work, whether or not the chickens would grow. Yeah. Well, hey,
it's taken us about five years and about twenty of
our own kind of capital to get to this position. Um,
so there's a lot of trial and error. There's a
lot of understanding as to from the supply chain, right,
(11:40):
how do you get a consistent large volume uh supply
Because to your point about feeding a chicken, the nutritionists
on the chicken growing side need to know that the
feed and greeting is coming to them every single day
with a guarantee nutrient analysis so that they can consistently
grow that that heard on a on a daily basis.
(12:02):
So coordinating both of those two kind of variables into
a consistency has been part of this kind of magic
that we've created, which is largely predicated on size and
scale and logistics. Uh So, over those kind of past
five years, there's a lot of learnings as to how
much bat composition um of course is an amazing component
(12:24):
of energy for these animals um, and and what is
the right inclusion ratios from that perspective, And then it
got down into the usable forum, how do you how
do you take food waste which we actually cause food
leftovers two tons of meats, groups and vegetables every single day,
and how do you get it to a dried form
(12:45):
that can go right back into the existing female infrastructure,
Just like your standard corn and soyd so. The whole
drying capacity of that was a unique developed development that
took a couple of years to figure out, how do
you dry this to a consistent form that then can
be just put into a mill, and and and and
eventually a pellet. Really the exciting part, for the first
(13:08):
time ever enabling consumers to be a part of the
climate change in the food waste solution, going buy a
piece of chicken, you know that every one pounds of
chicken equates to one and a half pounds of greenhouse
gases being saved and one and a half pounds of
food waste being up cycled, all at a price point
well below organic. We have now made climate change tangible
(13:31):
to consumers. Continue your status quo, buy a piece of
chicken and know that you're actually doing good and having
a net positive on the world, not a net negative.
And that's been the real unlock the logistics, the processing,
and then that unlock of the brands owning that story
onto the retail shelf and forever changing the animal agricultural industry.
(13:54):
That's been really the focus. We'll be back with more
Citizen Cheff. I'm Tom Clickio and you're listening to Citizen
Chef today, I'm talking to Justin k Mine of Do
(14:17):
Good Foods. His company is taking reclaim food and turning
it into nutrient dense animal feed. So right now there's
I called a plant and a half up and running
right now, Is that correct? Yep? One in North Dakota,
one in Pennsylvania. Um, and then we're gonna be building
about six more of these over the next eighteen months.
Right now. I I visited the plant in Pennsylvania, and
(14:40):
this is not what you'd expect. Um. You know, if
I were going into a plant that was processing food
and making it's kind of like a little brown sludge
and then against dried out, you'd expected to be you know,
it's manufacturing, but you'd expect, you know, a lot of
garbage ways to be around flies and stuff. This is
(15:00):
absolutely spotless, um. And what's really amazing is the truck
comes in, it unloads the bin and it's never touched
by human hands. It actually gets out this conveyor belt. Um.
It's like you built a better mousetrap. It's great. It
goes on this conveyor belt and um, it gets it
dumped on the conveyor belt. It goes into the order
(15:22):
and then the bin gets siloed off through uh what
called a bin wash. It's like a car wash, but
washes the bin, turns it upside down, and drives it
and sent it back out into into the world. Um.
And then the process starts. So let's go through the process.
What exactly happens when when the waste comes in that
goes on this conveyor belt. Yeah, so so absolutely so. Um.
(15:44):
Every animal needs a different dietary component. So we are
able to, based upon the source separation um of our bins,
one for the needs and one for the produce, we're
able to designate into our system the exact percentages that
are necessary. Um. So we'll take that blend um call
it typically about thirty five percent meats, sixty five percent
(16:07):
fruits and vegetables. That's what our standard kind of UH
diet is. We put it through a conveyor system where
metal detection happens. Um, and then we go through a
series of grinding steps. Obviously you're taking all this food
sally lastic material. You've got to really grind it down
to a a like you said, more of a sludge. Um.
(16:29):
It's like the teeth exactly exactly just like what you
and I do. Right, We're grinding up a bunch of
food in our mouth, UM, and then it goes into
a series of tanks where we are heating it up UM,
destroying any potential pathogens that are there. UM milk is
heated up at about hundred and sixty five degrees for
about fifteen seconds. We do that for about thirty minutes UM.
(16:52):
So of course, but we're already taking us D a
certified food fit for human consumption, so we already have
a very very clean supply chain. UM. That product is
then blended, like I said, like a wine. So we
multiple batches coming together where we blend it and then
we're able to screen out some of the fats um
(17:13):
to to help meet various dietary needs of various animals.
And then those that product it simply goes onto a
large drawing system where we're able to dry it down
to a palleticizable form. So it's very simple. It's super complex.
There's a lot of I P behind what we do
(17:34):
and how we do it, Like I said, five years
of development. Uh, but at the at the high level,
it's a quite simple process that's actually been around for decades. Right,
So of the for every plant, let's just say the
existing Pennsylvania plant, how many chickens over the course of
the year, can you actually raise and produce from the
single plant? Yeah, so there there's enough feed for about
(17:57):
twenty million chickens um. But it sounds like a big number,
but it's not. That sounds like a lot. So here
I'll blow your mind and give you the big number.
So in the US alone, we slaughtered about eight billion
to eight to nine billion chickens last year alone, and
that's growing at about six percent year of a year.
(18:19):
So if you think about the solution that we have,
we can go off and build thirty of these production
facilities and solve food waste nationwide. And we are only
a small, small, small fraction of the overall chicken market
let alone. To your point, when we start putting this
speed into other animals, we are a small component. Yet
(18:41):
we have the most sustainably grown animal at the at
the price point that's affordable and accessible to all. That's
why this is so exciting. By linking this to the brand,
we can act age with consumers to help us solve
food waste over the next five years, not the next
twenty years. So I think by five years you'll you'll
solve at the supermore could waste. That's the goal. That's
(19:02):
the goal. Uh yeah, do you think you're taking a
step further and get to the processing plants, because I mean,
when when produce comes in from the field, Uh, if
it's you know, the tomatoes don't fit in a five
by six box or the zucchini are all perfectly straight
and six inches long, it gets thrown out there. Do
you see that we collected from the from the distributors
as well. Um, eventually those will be bolt on to
(19:24):
the platform. Um. We are after supermarkets first and foremost.
It's high value and high volume UM. And it's more
consistent um. But yes, then processing facilities will absolutely open
up and we'll be a part of it. We and
and we're doing this that try to better the world
and all of us so as quickly as we can
all help solve food waste. UM, the world's in a
(19:46):
better position. And that's also how we actually we provide
a lot of data back to the supermarkets for them
to buy better and waste less. We're not trying to
do all this create a solution for a problem. That
doesn't necessarily always have to be there, right and while
you're also create a good solution for them because typically
they have to pay dumping fees. But that's so that's
(20:06):
going to go right to the bottom line of these
sup markets, which is is a fine bit of business
for them. Um. And then obviously, um, the streams that
you're getting from the supermarkets, UM, I would imagine uh
to do good chicken will be on those shelves. Absolutely.
This is this is what's so exciting by this, which
is we're help We're helping the supermarket solve one of
(20:27):
their biggest pain points and one of their biggest complaints
by their customers of what are you doing with that food?
Of course, a tremendous amount of them have amazing giveback
programs to Feeding America, and we absolutely want to help
maximize that. That's the best usage. But then the next
best usage is not to go to landfill or composting
or anaerobic digestion. This food is still good and and
(20:51):
and and literally cold to human touch. We can cycle that.
That's what we're doing. We're up cycling this food into
an animal feed and creating this amazingly unique carbon reduced
story in an animal protein space that has never before
seen that type of sustainability story. And that's why then
the supermarkets want to tell this closed loop story to
(21:13):
the consumers because as you look at all of these
um reports coming out from companies like Chipotle and Sweet
Green and everyone wanting to drive towards carbon reduction or
carbon neutrality, the biggest pain point right now from a
greenhouse gases is their meat consumption. And so if we
can actually create a system that is a carbon neutral,
(21:36):
carbon reduced animal production system, we've changed the game forever
and we can really create the next kind of ecosystem
for the agricultural industry that we maximize the usage of
our resources and we hopefully reduce the destruction of the environment.
What have you received any pushback at offpenning industries? Um,
(21:58):
are the farmers are pro corn? So are they like
breathing down your neck saying like like you know you're
gonna you're gonna interrupt the amount of of CORTN and
soy that we could sell. I mean, when we build
thirty of these production facilities nationwide, we're only producing close
to a million tons of drive feed per year. The chicken,
the chicken industry alone consumes about forty five million tons
(22:21):
of drive feed per year. We're still a small, small,
small fraction in the all animal feed space, but yet
we have an amazingly unique sustainability stories. That is what
I think consumers are really gonna desire. We're actually nervous
that as we start to solve food waste so quickly,
the demand for our products are gonna be so high
(22:42):
that we're actually not gonna have enough waste anymore across
the country, which that would be a fantastic That's a
good that's a good problem I have. Yeah, it is
a good problem to have it. And there's still plenty
of of of time to scale this. UM, it's not where.
Uh how long does it take to put a processing
plant on on board? It takes us about fourteen months.
(23:05):
So we're gonna be identifying the next six cities that
we will go to. UM. We're making all these public
announcements very shortly, UH, announcements of do good Foods will
be on the retail shelf come this January. Uh. We're
very excited by all of that. And then we will
be building very quickly. UM. And to your point in
(23:27):
the beginning, it's what my family has done. We've built
four billion dollars of infrastructure across the country. Um, that's
what we know how to do, and we've brought on
a lot of agriculture experts UH to really then help
build what we think can be the next kind of
consumer product company that's actually a net positive for the world.
(23:48):
When I was coming up, in the restaurants I work,
we would actually look at the plates coming back because
we thought that if people didn't finish their food there
was something wrong with it. And often if we saw
a half eaten dish, we'd go to the table and
ask if everything was okay. And sometimes they would say, yeah,
I think it's great, we're just not hungry. Sometimes they
didn't like it, they just wouldn't say anything. In fact,
the restaurants that I worked in France, if anything came
(24:09):
back on the place, chef got really worried and concerned
because cultural is a different cultural, especially around food, especially
after going through the Second World War. I had a
friend of mine whose dad almost starved to death during
the war. Generations of people that are just you were
trained to really eat your food and finish your plate.
You got food on the plate, you ate it. I
think Americans we are really just a generation away from
(24:31):
our grandparents of two generations away from our grandparents who
lived through depression where everything was saved. And I watched
my grandfather fry bacon and then straighten out the grease
and saved the bacon fat. And that's what he used
to fry his food, and he wasn't going to throw
that out. And food was much more valuable back then,
and nothing was wasted. We moved so far away from
(24:54):
teaching whole economics that was home economics was about stretching
your dollars, especially around food, and we've moved so far
away from that, and everything has become disposable and you
want your food fast and it's not expensive to throw
it out, and yeah, well it's a few generations away
from really honoring that food. And when you think about
what we're throwing out, it's it's not just the food
(25:15):
stick around. With more from justin kmine of do good foods,
we're back. I know you've been quoted saying that it's
insane that of the food that we grow currently grow
United States has wasted and added that the United Nations
states that there's only about sixty years left of nutrients
in our soil to continue to grow crops. Eight percent
(25:36):
of global agriculture lands as being used for animal feed
or grazing, and ur oceans are being depleted from fish.
So the plant is the plant? When does it go online?
The first plant It will start to go online in September.
In September, got it? And so September you start producing
food and then another four or five months, five months
before you see the first chicken in the in the market. Yeah.
(25:59):
So so we're gonna have to bet up over a
bit of the reserve as we just kind of start
the commission and grow and develop the facility, um or
turn on the facility, and then um, the chickens take
their kind of gross cycle. Um, they're kind of fifty
days to then get to the retail shelf. Right. Yeah.
For for anybody out there that's thinking like it's just
a different kind of chicken, No, it's exactly the same chicken. Um.
(26:22):
They taste exactly uh if I mean it depending on
who cooked it. I mean I did have a sample
early on and they tasted great. Um. And you were
you were working in some of these early trials, you
were working with the so the well known chicken growers
that are out there without naming names. Uh, you can
figure that out. And and and it's actually their natural
diet there omnivores, this whole vegetarian fed chicken. They're just
(26:47):
it's just the marketing terminology to claim because it's still
corn and soy and corn and soy is not the
chickens natural diet. No, it's not. You know, the the
chickens actually like a dinosaur. It's actually that the modern
chicken that we have now comes from the jungle cock,
which is a bird from Asia. Um. And you know,
(27:07):
I watched my chickens and they are most of what
they do, they scratch around and eat bugs. Um. Even
though I feed them during the course of the day,
they sit around and they scratch the surface sea them.
They actually scratch and dig and they eat bugs all
day long. So they're eating meat. They are, they are omnivorous. Um.
And uh, I mean that is their natural diet. You're
(27:28):
absolutely correct. And um. You know when you some of
the the um smaller chicken producers like I have a
producer here in Browder's Birds, and they use the salatin
method of growing chickens, so they're not actually in in
houses where they're just getting fed. They're out on the pasture.
(27:48):
And what they do is they depends that the chickens
are in are moved every day, so they have fresh fielded,
pick picked through and eat bugs. So again that is
their natural diet. And when they do have that, that
omnivores diet, that chickens actually taste better, um, because they're
eating you know, a more natural diet, so exactly, and
and that and that's the whole focus here right It's
(28:10):
to create a more natural solution, to create a closed
loop system, a waste free system, and to also enable
us to feed all of the world right in an affordable,
accessible way that we're not having to preach to everyone,
Oh they gotta go plant based, so they gotta do this. Yes,
all of that is absolutely key and critical. But the
(28:31):
size and the scale of what the current animal agriculture
industry is right now, and the size and the scale
of what the food waste problem is right now, we
can do a huge benefit to society over the next
five or seven years. That absolutely has to happen. Meanwhile,
a bunch of other solutions are coming to fruition and
we're all supportive of that, but feeding the world and
(28:55):
providing enough animal protein which is going to be here.
It's not gonna go away anytimes. It's just like oil
and gas. We would all love it too, but it's
not going to And we need to have a more
sustainable solution for the present day industry. People that want
to just buy a carbon reduced or carbon neutral chicken
(29:16):
um as well to be a part of that solution. Uh.
And to to the point in the beginning, we can
create and use this process to feed a majority of
our animals. And yes, we can tailor the protein of
veg and all of this type of stuff to meet
the dietary needs or restrictions of various animals. But that
(29:37):
closed loop system has been that's the way nature intended
to operate. It's just us as humans that disrupted that
whole thing. Now we need to get back to that
prior time and make it now a modern solution with
the right technology that adheres to the right government regulations
and practices, and adheres to being able to work with
(29:59):
some of the biggest companies in the world to drive
them to where they they are more sustainable in a
real table way that engages with consumers at the retail shelf.
All right, so you're disrupting the disruption exactly once you
contend at a time time exactly. We hired an amazing woman,
(30:23):
uh from Nestley UM and then we hired some former
Tyson executives and uh some others to really come on
and how do we build the brand of the future? UM.
And that means across everything from retail to food service
to restaurants. UM. I mean, as mentioned in the past,
(30:44):
there's a lot of restaurants that are now trying to
implement carbon labeling. UM. Bolo came out with can there
burrito change the world? And what ingredients go into your
burrito and affect the carbon calculation of that burrito? UM.
Panera has a climate cool focus as to their carbon labeling. UM.
(31:07):
And more and more retailers are really trying to talk
the talk and walk the walk as to creating a
more sustainable solution. They all know that this has to happen. UM.
So I see this brand not only across retail and
food service, but very much like Beyond an Impossible did
(31:27):
where they're engaging at the at the restaurant level, where
if you can walk into your favorite Chicken Sandwich company
and go in and say, hey, do you want a
chicken sandwich for five dollars or do you want a
carbon reduced do good chicken sandwich for five dollars. I
better bet that a majority of people are the gonna
sit there and say I could help save the world
(31:48):
by just eating this chicken sandwich. That's a cool aspect
where they can really feel that they're doing good. Yeah,
this is This has been a fascinating ride. I mean
I could see I've had a view into what was
going on over the last five years, and it's really
been fascinating, really fascinating to watch, um all the steps
along the way when things started looking like, wow, maybe
(32:09):
this can't work. How um you and your your your dad,
your brother just really pulled together and just kept focusing
and kept focusing and kept pushing it and pushing it.
And uh um, I for one can't wait to see
that that first chicken on the shelf. It's gonna be
really exciting. I'm all in, I'm all, thank you, thank you.
(32:30):
Can this technology? Is it better for the planet? Obviously, yes,
it is, because you're reclaiming food that would end up
in a landfill that would create methane plus. Again, if
you can put a dent in the amount of it
will be a small dent. But the dent in the
amount of corn and soy that's produced your thinking about
all the petrochemicals that you're saving, and and so you're
hopefully reducing your footprint there as well. What's great about
(32:53):
it is the USDA allowed us to use the word
carbon neutral. Taking reclaimed food there's no carbon footprint at all,
and creating this chicken. Thanks again to Justin Kmine and
do Good Foods for their exemplary take on solving huge
issues that so both the food supply chain and the environment.
(33:15):
And thanks to a Place the Table, Thank you for listening.
Citizen Chef is executive produced by Christopher Hasciotis and produced
by Gabby Collins and researched by Lillian Holman. Citizen Chef
is a production of high Heart Radio. For more podcasts
like this, visit the i Heart Radio app. Apple podcasts
are anywhere you get your favorite shows.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com