February 25, 2025 • 30 mins
Sea the Difference: Unlocking Seaweed's Potential for Beauty and Beyond with Matthew Perkins
Clean Beauty Series
Episode Description:
“Sometimes, it might feel like you're not making progress, but you might just be missing a critical piece of information. Don't give up unless you understand why you want to change direction before you do it.” —Matthew Perkins
Imagine a world where our beauty products come from the sea, not the land. Could kelp farming be the answer to reducing pressure on terrestrial agriculture while providing sustainable ingredients for our skincare? As we face growing environmental challenges, this innovative approach might just be the wave of the future we've been waiting for.
Matthew Perkins is the CEO and founder of Macro Oceans, a California-based startup transforming seaweed into low-carbon biomaterials. With a background in agriculture and a passion for sustainability, Matthew is pioneering the use of kelp in beauty products and beyond.
Tune in as Justine And Matthe talk about sustainable harvesting, clinical trials for kelp-derived ingredients, the challenges of green chemistry, expanding beyond skincare to packaging, and the future of bio-based materials in the beauty industry.
Meet Matthew:
Matthew Perkins is the CEO and founder of Macro Oceans, a California-based startup that's revolutionizing the beauty and materials industries through innovative use of kelp. With a background in agriculture and previous experience in the digital ag space, Matthew is leveraging his expertise to transform seaweed into sustainable, low-carbon biomaterials.
His vision extends beyond beauty products, aiming to build a kelp economy that replaces petrochemicals in everyday materials. Matthew's entrepreneurial journey is marked by persistence, a commitment to sustainability, and a drive to create high-performance, environmentally friendly alternatives to traditional products.
Connect with NextGen Purpose:
Episode Highlights:
02:17 Macro Oceans: Inspiration and Initial Challenges
10:23 Navigating Consumer Reception and Market Impact
18:02 Lessons Learned: Before Abandoning a Project
23:42 The Impact of Food-Based Ingredients on Beauty
27:00 The Way to Move Faster
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Justine Reichman (00:12):
Good morning, and welcome to Essential
Ingredients. This morning, Ihave with me Matthew Perkins. He
is the CEO and Founder of MacroOceans. And what we're going to
talk about is his business thatfeatures kelp as the integral
part of the products that he'screating for beauty and beyond.
Matthew, did I get it right?
Matthew Perkins (00:32):
Absolutely. You nailed it, Justine.
Justine Reichman (00:35):
So for those that are not familiar with Macro
Oceans, can you tell us a littlebit about what Macro Oceans is
before we go into the story ofwhat inspired you, and how you
built it?
Matthew Perkins (00:45):
So thanks so much for having me on the show
and giving me the opportunity totalk a little bit about one of
my passions in life, which isseaweed and the beauty space. So
Macro Oceans is a startupcompany. We're based in
California. Our mission reallyis to build a big kelp economy
from seaweed grown andcultivated here in the United
(01:07):
States, and turning it into allkinds of wonderful, low carbon
biomaterials. So we are atechnology company that works
with seaweed, and transforms itinto everyday materials that can
be used to replacepetrochemicals.
Justine Reichman (01:21):
That sounds like you're really on a mission
to change the world in a betterway, impacting things that
people use daily withingredients that are really
better for you than these otherproducts. So what inspired you
to do this?
Matthew Perkins (01:34):
I think if you step back and you think about
what is going to happen to theworld over the next, say 20, 30
years, if we're really seriousabout tackling climate change
and transitioning away fromfossil fuels, then the majority
of the world's petrochemicalsthat we rely on every day, so
think about the surfactant inyour soap, the lubricant in your
(01:55):
engine, and most famously, theplastic that your drink comes
in. All of those materials andchemicals are going to get
remade by some bio basedalternative because we have to
phase out fossil fuels, and sothat really leads us to really
requiring a lot more from theland. And as we all know, and as
(02:17):
many of your listeners willknow, the agricultural system is
already very intense and puts alot of pressure on the natural
world and the environment. Andso a few years back, I got
excited about the potential togrow seaweed in the ocean. And
the ocean is 70% of the world'ssurface as you know, and you can
grow seaweed without needing anyadditional fertilizers, no
(02:39):
synthetic pesticides or otherchemicals. It doesn't produce
fresh water. It doesn't competefor food crops because we still
have to feed 10 million peopleover the next 20, 30 years. And
I thought, wow, this is reallycool. There should be a lot more
seaweed in our lives and in theworld. And so that was really
the inspiration for MacroOceans. We transform it into
(03:01):
products that people want. Andby products, I mean ingredients,
materials, chemicals that bigbrands and other CPG customers
can use for consumers ineveryday life.
Justine Reichman (03:16):
What a transition for people like, what
a new way to look at things andthink about the products that
you're creating. I'm wonderinghow that was received initially
before people were talking aboutthis, and it's become a little
bit more familiar.
Matthew Perkins (03:32):
People always surprised. They sort of think,
how is this possible? And inprinciple, it always sounds like
a good idea. But you have toactually go through the hard
work of making sure that itactually does the things that
the customers want. So in ourcase, we launched in the beauty
space, and we are making abioactive ingredient for skin
(03:55):
and hair care applications. Itprovides hydration, but people
want to know that it's a realproduct, that it actually works
and does provide hydration whenyou say it does. So you got to
do the clinical trials, andyou've got to do the studies,
and you've got to formulate itin a way that makes it really
easy for brands to use. And sotoning an idea into reality is,
(04:15):
I always tell people is 9/10perspiration, 1/10 inspiration.
There's just a lot of hard workthat goes on behind the scenes
to make things ready for theconsumer.
Justine Reichman (04:26):
I can only imagine when you started to talk
about trials. Trials are a bigdeal, right? They're expensive
to do, they're time consuming,and not everybody does them
because of it's prohibitivelyexpensive and time consuming. So
why did you feel like it was soimportant that you did this?
(04:46):
That you made this paramount aspart of your development
process?
Matthew Perkins (04:50):
Well, I think unfortunately, there's a lot of
greenwashing in the space, andpeople making claims about their
product being better, and theirproduct being more sustainable.
And we took the view that weneeded to generate data so that
it was easy for people tobelieve. And these are third
party independent tests. Weobviously do a lot of our own
(05:11):
testing in house, but then wewant to have those tests and
claims verified by third partiesso that people know that it's
worth the money that we'reasking them to pay for it.
There's huge demand in thebeauty industry to move away
from the petrochemical soupthat's on the back of every
label. And I can hold up thisbottle of soap here, hand soap.
(05:34):
And if you try to read off allof the things that are in there,
you need a PhD in chemistry. Andreally, the industry, like in
food, wants to clean the label.People want more natural
products, but people have becomeaccustomed to products that are
really effective. They reallywork, right? They provide the
nutrition or the health benefitswhen you eat it. And for the
(05:55):
beauty industry, it is the same.They want to make sure that
their skin feels better. If itsays anti-wrinkle, they want to
see those wrinkles go away. Andso you need to be able to prove
that your product is as good orbetter than the synthetics that
you're trying to replace. And soin order to convince customers
to swap out thesepetrochemicals, we went and
(06:15):
delivered some really impressivedata on hydration. For example,
we have an 80% improvement inimmediate hydration versus a
synthetic placebo. That's reallygreat because people know that
they can use this naturalseaweed product, and they can
get a really great result, thenit becomes a no brainer. Then
(06:36):
they love your sustainabilityand they want to swap, so that's
kind of why we went for theperformance data.
Justine Reichman (06:43):
What was the most surprising thing that you
learned from these clinicaltrials?
Matthew Perkins (06:48):
I learned that there's a lot of different ways
to do your studies, there's alot of subjective studies out
there, and not a lot of rigorousscience. I think it depends on
what you're trying to do.Obviously, if you're trying to
produce a really inexpensivebody wash, you're not going to
pay top dollar for a highperformance product. But in
(07:10):
other cases, even stuff which issold as expensive face creams
really doesn't have real sciencebehind it. And unfortunately,
that's kind of the industry. Sothere's a lot of myths out
there, as well as realperformance.
Justine Reichman (07:25):
Yeah. I can only imagine the things that are
in these things, and the thingsthat I see trying to decipher
and break them down to somethingthat I understand is really
challenging, and I do that bothwith my food and the products I
put on my face and body. I thinkit's encouraging to see somebody
like yourself taking aninitiative here to be able to
(07:46):
include something in a productthat we know what it is, we know
where it comes from, and we knowwhat it can do based on your
trials. So you mentioned thatone of your first entree into
this was in the beauty industry.Can you talk to me a little bit
about that, and tell me morespecifics?
Matthew Perkins (08:02):
Yeah, absolutely. So we started with a
species of brown seaweed calledSugar Kelp, which is native to
the Pacific Coast, so fromCalifornia, north to Alaska.
It's also found in the Northeastand in Northern Europe, and it's
what farmers were growing. Andwe thought it was a pretty,
beautiful and interesting story.We met farmers up in Alaska.
(08:24):
These are pristine places withabundant wildlife and nature,
and it's just a perfect,wonderful place to grow high
quality kelp. And we bought somekelp and we thought, let's see
what we can make out of it. Wereally spent a lot of time in
the lab developing our processbecause we wanted to do
something that was low energy.We wanted to do something that
was zero waste. And we wanted todo something that really was
(08:48):
using green chemistry as well,because there are a lot of harsh
chemicals and solvents you canuse to try and extract the bio
actives, or extract thedifferent compounds you're
looking for. But doing it in asustainable way is actually
quite complicated, so we spent abunch of time really trying to
understand what we could make.And one of the things we noticed
early on is that seaweed, whenit's in the wilderness, it has
(09:12):
really kind of three jobs to do.The first thing it's got to do
is not dry out because it's inthe water. And if it comes out
of the water, it dies. Second ofall, it's getting bashed around
as it moves on rocks, sea lifeand whatever else. So it's got
to kind of have these selfhealing properties, and then
it's getting hit by sunlight allthe time. And so it's got to
protect itself from UV light.And these same things that the
(09:37):
seaweed is really good at doingare actually the same benefits
that you can derive for theskin. And so in the literature,
we saw this correlation betweenthings like soothing of the skin
after UV exposure, antiinflammation. Really good if you
have been bruised or cut. Andthen obviously, hydration, which
is the primary thing we focusedon. Initially, it really just
(10:00):
got to lock that moisture in.And so all of these really cool
things the seaweed just doesnaturally, we were like, we can
bring this to the skin. Andthat's really our inspiration in
what we did. So it's a naturalproduct that really has
performance, and it's fullytraceable from the farm where we
grow it, all the way through ourprocess to the customer. And so
(10:22):
that level of traceability andsustainability is something that
is a core part of our ethic, aswell as the value proposition,
honestly, to the brands. Sowe're very excited about it. And
the impact and reception in themarket has been wonderful.
Justine Reichman (10:37):
I can only imagine. And as you're sitting
here talking about this, I'mwondering, I don't know if
you're able to share whichclients you work with, or who
your first client was. But forthem going from some of those
other ingredients to now this,to better understand what the
impact is that they're seeing,both for the planet as well as
for the individuals.
Matthew Perkins (10:55):
We've actually worked with two different
groups. I would sort twodifferent parts of the industry.
I should say, on the one hand,we've worked directly with
brands, and we've builtrelationships with companies
that are really seaweed forward,like Captain Blankenship, which
is a seaweed focused hair carebrand. Project Reef, which is a
(11:16):
wonderful brand that's kind ofcome out of the ocean. These
brands have been thinking aboutmarine ingredients and marine
stories. And obviously, there'sa natural fit for us. But we've
also really been making a lot ofinroads into bigger, clean
beauty companies as well, whichwe'll be talking about more of
them as they launch. And thenthe second group of people we've
(11:39):
actually found really warm andinteresting relationships with
that we formed over the last,say a year or so are the
contract manufacturers andpeople like KKT Innovations down
in Florida. They reallyunderstand how difficult it is
to deliver natural performance.They're really impressed by the
performance and the clinicalresults we've had, and how easy
(12:01):
it is to formulate with ourproduct. And also the
traceability, sustainabilitystory, people are kind of really
interested in that. And sopeople like KKT Innovations have
been really wonderful, both onthe formulation side and their
connections into contractmanufacturers too. So it's
really kind of broad basedinterest in innovation, which
(12:22):
has put us in the market, andgiven us good traction.
Justine Reichman (12:25):
I can see that. And so when you're talking
to these clients that you havethat are utilizing your product,
are they sharing with you whatthe experience of the customer
is? Any feedback?
Matthew Perkins (12:41):
That's one of the big things that we've heard
good results about.So one of thethings that happens, I don't
know if you're familiar with thethree moments of truth. I
believe it was developed byProcter and Gamble back in the
day. So they have this kind ofidea that a consumer likes to
buy or purchase something ifthey meet the three moments of
(13:01):
truth. And the first moment oftruth is when they walk into the
store and they have anexperience with your product.
They look at it, and does itlook appealing? The second
moment of truth is when they tryit. So in this case, putting it
on your skin, feeling what itlooks feels like. And the third
moment of truth is when they getit home and continue to use it.
And if they have a greatexperience for all three touch
points, then they're likely tobe repeat customers. And for us,
(13:24):
the story is the thing that isreally appealing. They see it,
oh, wow. Seaweed, zero wastesource from Alaska. This is
incredible. And then they tryit, and this is where our
clinical results really standout because you get this
immediate improvement inhydration. It has this really
nice skin feel. When you put iton your skin, you're like, oh,
wow, this really works. And thenobviously when you get it home,
(13:45):
you have that same experience.And so that is really the reason
why I think people are soexcited because the product
works, and it has just awonderful story.
Justine Reichman (13:55):
I would agree. And I'm curious to know what
these products are potentiallyso I could go try them. Where do
we find that?
Matthew Perkins (14:03):
We're definitely gonna be putting more
of that online as it comes. Someof them are launched already.
Some of them are launching, andthey'll be in major specialty
retailers, big box retailers,some online stores as well.
Justine Reichman (14:16):
So can you share a couple of the ones that
have already launched?
Matthew Perkins (14:19):
Some that have already launched? One is Sea
Sud's skin, which is a smallindie brand. Captain
Blankenship, as I mentioned, arecoming soon. Project Rift for
coming soon. So there'll be somemore coming out, and we'll
definitely put them on oursocial media as they come.
Justine Reichman (14:36):
Great. Because as people listen to this,
they're going to be intrigued.And the next question from them
is, okay, so where do I buy it?That was my next question. How
do I buy it? I'm intrigued. Ilike hydrated skin. I like less
wrinkles. I like better for theplanet. All of it sounds good,
so I want to go back to thebeginning. When you started
this, are you a first timeentrepreneur? Or have you
(14:58):
founded other companies? Can youtell us a little bit about your
background and how you got tothis point?
Matthew Perkins (15:03):
So my background is actually in
agriculture. I spent a decadeworking on the seed side, so
looking at different products,different seed genetics, and how
they get in the market to growmore food, essentially, for
people. One of the miracles, Iguess, of the last 50 years is
just the amount of sheercalories we can grow in
(15:25):
commodity crops. And there's alot of downsides to that system
that we could talk about. Butessentially, it is pretty
amazing how much technology ison the field. And so that's kind
of where I've spent a good bulkof my time. And yeah, this is my
second company. The priorcompany was in the digital ag
space. I built a softwareservice for farmers, helping
(15:46):
them understand how differentseeds would perform. So if you
were a corn grower in Iowa andyou wanted to know what seed you
should buy, we had a really bigdatabase of independent trials.
Again, performance data, whichshowed people what works and
what doesn't based on where youare and what your practices
were. And yeah, farm is reallylike that. So we grew that
(16:08):
business and sold it to anothercompany. And so this is my
second startup.
Justine Reichman (16:13):
A little different. I might say you're a
serial entrepreneur.
Matthew Perkins (16:17):
I don't know if the serial bit comes in after
three or when it becomes serial.But yeah, this is my second
rodeo. I guess you could say.
Justine Reichman (16:26):
After doing this first startup to the second
one, what would you say some ofthe lessons that you learned
from the first one that youbrought to the second one?
Matthew Perkins (16:34):
One of the important things to remember is
that you have to hold on tosomething long enough to see if
it's going to work, but don'tstick with it too long. And it's
a little bit counterintuitivebecause I think, as an
entrepreneur, we're incrediblyimpatient, and so we want stuff
to happen. And sometimes, you'renot sure if is it actually
(16:56):
working, and I just need to giveit a bit more time, or should I
really pivoting and tryingsomething else. I'll just give
you an example from MacroOceans. When we first launched
this product, we were new to thebeauty industry. We didn't know
many people. We had somechallenges getting in front of
the actual decision makers ofpeople who develop products and
(17:17):
make decisions on R&D, and wewere getting some good feedback
from brand owners. So these arefounders who are also
formulators. Those people areeasy to get in front of. But as
you move to bigger brands, it'spretty hard to find the right
folks to get in front, and it'sall based on trusted networks.
And so we weren't sure, was theproduct what people wanted? Or
(17:38):
was it not? Because we felt itwas really good, and we had some
good data, and we had some goodfeedback, but we weren't really
sure. And and then when we gotconnected to our head of sales,
Allen, who's been in theindustry 15 plus years, who has
all those trusted relationships,that's when it really took off
because he could get us in frontof the right people. One of the
things to always remember isthat, sometimes, it might feel
(18:03):
like you're not making progress.But actually, you might just be
missing a critical piece ofinformation. And so don't
necessarily give up unless youunderstand why you want to
change direction before you doit.
Justine Reichman (18:16):
I think that's really keen advice. Because I
think so often, when I thinkabout it, we are in a rush. But
if you look back at companies,and we can just use Oatly as an
example, I had never heard ofthis company until all of a
sudden, it's in every coffeehouse being used by the barista.
And it seemed like it was anovernight success, but it took
them 8 years. I mean, it wasn'tan overnight. It did not happen
(18:40):
to get into equator and allthese coffee shops around the
corner. So if we can usesomething like that as a
barometer to know that, to us,many things seem like they
happen in a hot minute. Butreally, they take patience, and
they take follow through,experience and time. But like
you said, to manage that so youknow when to (inaudible) versus
(19:04):
sticking it around, there's afine line.
Matthew Perkins (19:07):
Yeah, and that's totally correct. And in
the case of ingredients, and inthe case of clean beauty, it's a
longer term, durable trend.Consumers want cleaner products.
They want products that work,those things are not changing
and so we were playing in thattheme. Sorry for the planes
flying over. We were playing inthat theme, and we knew that it
(19:31):
was demand so we needed to thendebug our product and figure out
what was wrong, specificallyabout what we were doing. And it
turned out that the product wasgreat. We actually just didn't
have the go-to marketconnections that we needed. And
so when we solved that problem,it really began to move. And I
think that's worth picking apartthe problem and trying to
(19:52):
understand, what are the thingsthat are blocking you from
having really good informationabout why to make a decision?
Justine Reichman (19:59):
One of the things you mentioned in regards
to this was the accessibility ofthe network, or not having
connections, or the rightrelationships in that network.
How did you battle that orovercome that, I should say.
Matthew Perkins (20:12):
I think that that was one of the things that
I brought from agriculture.Agriculture is an extremely
relationship driven business andindustry. So if you think about
a faux man, he lives in acertain geography, or she, and
they grow a crop. It's usually afamily business. And if you're
an apple grower in Washington,or a tomato grower in Central
(20:35):
Valley, you're going to beworking with people who are in
your area, right? So when someguy arrives from Silicon Valley
or whatever and says, hey, youshould try my new wonderful
robot. The farmer will look atthem and say, well, hold on a
minute. Have you ever tried thisthing? Does it work? How much is
it going to mess up myoperation? And you've probably
(20:56):
heard this story a dozen timesbefore. So in the beauty
industry, one of my earlyobservations was actually
beauty, at least on theingredient and the product
development side works fairlysimilarly to agriculture. These
are trusted, long termrelationships where people work
(21:16):
in communities that are wellestablished, and in defined
geographies. Once we realizedthat, then we work again to
solve that problem. And that'show we overcame that. Sometimes
people think that when you comefrom outside the industry, you
can change an industry's dynamicand structure. And very often,
that's not true. Everything canbe disrupted.
Justine Reichman (21:40):
I think some of these things, the foundation
is so deep and that it takes areally long time to change that
narrative for people. It's notgoing to happen in a hot minute
as much as we'd like it to. Ittakes time, it takes trust.
Seeing it happen repeatedly sothat you get enough data, so
(22:00):
that you know that it works onall these different levels. And
US data has to establish trust.So as you're building this and
you're you kicked it off in thebeauty industry, what can we
hope to see from these productsas you expand to go beyond, as
you say, beauty?
Matthew Perkins (22:17):
Yeah. So beauty for us is the beachhead. We
think that there's greatopportunity to bring these
natural products to consumersthrough brands, and we're going
to continue to grow thatbusiness and come up with new
flavors of our product withbetter performance and specific
performance. So that's kind ofdefinitely on our roadmap. And
then beyond that, we're alsothinking about ways that we can
(22:41):
use kelp as a buyer material toreplace things that are in
everyday life. So one of theareas we've been looking is in
packaging, and there's a lot ofreally cool and interesting
applications that can be donethere. Now in those industries,
actually, the same lessonsapply. We've got to come with
performance. If we come withcrazy bad performance, no one's
(23:02):
going to buy our product. That'snumber one. Number two, we got
to make sure that thesustainability side lines up
with their expectations. Andnumber three, because these are
commodities, packaging is cheap.We need to be price competitive.
Those are all things that we'reworking on. But I think there's
a great opportunity to use thisreally sustainable resource to
actually move us away frompretty, dirty, and honestly just
(23:27):
damaging industries that arekind of the past, right? We're
trying to build the future here.That's very much our mission,
and we're going to keep chuggingthat away.
Justine Reichman (23:38):
As you're on that journey, and you're using
health as a better for youproduct to replace other other
ingredients, are there any otherfoods, if you will, that you see
being integral to the future ofbeauty? Clean beauty in
particular.
Matthew Perkins (23:56):
I've seen a lot of really cool new things
happening in beauty. One of thebig trends is up cycling. You'll
probably hear this word a littlebit more in beauty than you
might do in some otherindustries. Because in in food,
we're typically eating theprimary product. But in beauty,
we're actually quite interestedin waste streams from people in
other industries. So forexample, I came at a show the
(24:19):
other day and saw a hairbrushwhere the handle of the
hairbrush was made out of wheatstraw. And essentially, when
they're harvesting wheat, therest of us, you're all getting
the grains which is what theymake the flour, noodles, pasta,
bread and all that stuff with.But there's a whole bunch of
straw left over, whichtraditionally just gets left in
the field to decompose. Well,somebody thought, what if I
(24:40):
could take that, could grind itup and do a few clever things to
it and turn it into a materialto replace the plastic that goes
into hair brushes? And so that'sone tiny example. But there's
many people looking at bothingredients as well as materials
coming out of some of thesewaste streams from the food
industry, which I think issuper, super interesting. I
(25:01):
think our economy is going togenerally shift more towards
zero waste. Essentially as amanufacturer, all of these waste
streams are costing us moneybecause we have to pay to get
rid of them. So if you can turnthem into a product and sell it,
you're just improving yourbusiness. But in addition, it's
really just part of the storyhere about how we get away from
fossil derived materials andchemicals. And so I think you're
(25:25):
going to see more and more ofthese innovations coming,
especially in a place likeCalifornia which has a big food
purchase and industry, and a lotof smart people who want to try
and make the world moresustainable.
Justine Reichman (25:36):
As you look forward three to five years and
people start to innovate moreand lean on these products, the
food as a replacement for someof these less desirable
ingredients, what impact do youthink, a percentage, that you
will see change, both inpeople's health and wellness, as
(25:57):
well as in our culture, and inthe environment?
Matthew Perkins (26:00):
Well, in the seaweed space, for us, one ton
of seaweed grown is one ton ofCO2 removed from the ocean. So
that's a dry ton of seaweed.It's a ton of CO2 removed from
the ocean, which helps us withcombating ocean acidification
and these types of things. Nowthat impact is magnified when
you can link it to displacementof a petroleum based product.
(26:25):
One of the things which I thinkall of us need to do in order to
be not greenwashing is to dolife cycle analysis. Where we
look at all of our inputs, welook at our manufacturing
process, we look at what wedisplace, and we try to
calculate what truly is theimpact of each product. I think
that is going to become moremainstream. More and more
(26:45):
companies are doing this. Bigcompanies also have internal
targets around some of thesethings, and they have no real
idea or way of actually meetingthem. And so that's an
opportunity for a company likeours. And I think you're going
to see more and more people dothat. The reality is that we've
got to move quickly, and theonly way that we move quickly is
(27:05):
when our solutions areeconomical. And we've seen that
with the uptake of, for example,solar energy is now the cheapest
form of electricity out there,and that come through innovation
on the solar panels and theinstallation, andgetting them
hooked up to the grid and allthat stuff. And now people say,
(27:25):
well, if I got to put newcapacity and I'm just going to
go solar because it's thecheapest and the best for the
environment. And I think forevery category, that's going to
be the way it happens. Peopleare going to just start choosing
these products because they havegood performance, they are cost
competitive, and they're justbetter for the world. So if we
can do those three things, Ithink we're going to see a
pretty rapid shift away fromwhat is an old dirty industry.
Justine Reichman (27:47):
I think we're always going to have the old
dirty industry because peopleare familiar with it. Do you
think people are going to get onboard and really understand that
we need to create change? Andthe best way to create change is
to read the ingredients,understand the impact that
they're having, both on theirhealth, wellness and the
environment.
Matthew Perkins (28:06):
I think we need both. We're going to have the
folks who are the earlyadopters, who are reading the
labels, and who are trying todrive that change. Honestly, I'm
an outlier here. I do look at mylabel, I do care where it comes
from, but I'm pretty sure mostpeople are not spending the time
doing that. They don't have thetime or the interest, and that's
okay. We're helping to build themarket. And as we build the
(28:29):
market, more and moreopportunities become available.
As these products get better andbetter, and the prices come
down. We'll be able to displacethe other ones. And then before
long, people are not even goingto realize it that they're tide
detergent is actually bio based.That's it's been that way, and
it's just the same, and no oneever realized it. I think that's
(28:52):
kind of how this is going tohappen. And really, we just need
a lot more innovation on theperformance and the pricing side
to get us there.
Justine Reichman (29:00):
This is all super exciting. If people want
to find out more about you andwhat products they can look for,
where would they go to find moreinformation?
Matthew Perkins (29:08):
You can come to our website, it's macro,
M-A-C-R-O, oceans with an s.com. or follow us on Instagram
or LinkedIn, and that's where wepost all the information. We'll
be promoting brands thatlaunched with us so stay tuned.
There's going to be a lot ofreally awesome kelp based beauty
products coming your way prettysoon.
Justine Reichman (29:28):
Awesome. Thank you so much, Matthew, for
joining us today and helping uskick off this series. or at
least not kick it off, but talkabout the impact of food on the
Matthew Perkins (29:38):
Thank you so much. I really appreciate the
future of beauty.
opportunity.
Justine Reichman (29:41):
For those that are tuning in today, don't
forget that we have a newepisode every Tuesday. If you
don't follow us, please do atessential.ingredients, and we
look forward to continuing theseconversations. See you later.
Good morning, and welcome to Essential
Ingredients. This morning, Ihave with me Matthew Perkins. He
is the CEO and Founder of MacroOceans. And what we're going to
talk about is his business thatfeatures kelp as the integral
part of the products that he'screating for beauty and beyond.
Matthew, did I get it right?
Matthew Perkins (00:32):
Absolutely. You nailed it, Justine.
Justine Reichman (00:35):
So for those that are not familiar with Macro
Oceans, can you tell us a littlebit about what Macro Oceans is
before we go into the story ofwhat inspired you, and how you
built it?
Matthew Perkins (00:45):
So thanks so much for having me on the show
and giving me the opportunity totalk a little bit about one of
my passions in life, which isseaweed and the beauty space. So
Macro Oceans is a startupcompany. We're based in
California. Our mission reallyis to build a big kelp economy
from seaweed grown andcultivated here in the United
(01:07):
States, and turning it into allkinds of wonderful, low carbon
biomaterials. So we are atechnology company that works
with seaweed, and transforms itinto everyday materials that can
be used to replacepetrochemicals.
Justine Reichman (01:21):
That sounds like you're really on a mission
to change the world in a betterway, impacting things that
people use daily withingredients that are really
better for you than these otherproducts. So what inspired you
to do this?
Matthew Perkins (01:34):
I think if you step back and you think about
what is going to happen to theworld over the next, say 20, 30
years, if we're really seriousabout tackling climate change
and transitioning away fromfossil fuels, then the majority
of the world's petrochemicalsthat we rely on every day, so
think about the surfactant inyour soap, the lubricant in your
(01:55):
engine, and most famously, theplastic that your drink comes
in. All of those materials andchemicals are going to get
remade by some bio basedalternative because we have to
phase out fossil fuels, and sothat really leads us to really
requiring a lot more from theland. And as we all know, and as
(02:17):
many of your listeners willknow, the agricultural system is
already very intense and puts alot of pressure on the natural
world and the environment. Andso a few years back, I got
excited about the potential togrow seaweed in the ocean. And
the ocean is 70% of the world'ssurface as you know, and you can
grow seaweed without needing anyadditional fertilizers, no
(02:39):
synthetic pesticides or otherchemicals. It doesn't produce
fresh water. It doesn't competefor food crops because we still
have to feed 10 million peopleover the next 20, 30 years. And
I thought, wow, this is reallycool. There should be a lot more
seaweed in our lives and in theworld. And so that was really
the inspiration for MacroOceans. We transform it into
(03:01):
products that people want. Andby products, I mean ingredients,
materials, chemicals that bigbrands and other CPG customers
can use for consumers ineveryday life.
Justine Reichman (03:16):
What a transition for people like, what
a new way to look at things andthink about the products that
you're creating. I'm wonderinghow that was received initially
before people were talking aboutthis, and it's become a little
bit more familiar.
Matthew Perkins (03:32):
People always surprised. They sort of think,
how is this possible? And inprinciple, it always sounds like
a good idea. But you have toactually go through the hard
work of making sure that itactually does the things that
the customers want. So in ourcase, we launched in the beauty
space, and we are making abioactive ingredient for skin
(03:55):
and hair care applications. Itprovides hydration, but people
want to know that it's a realproduct, that it actually works
and does provide hydration whenyou say it does. So you got to
do the clinical trials, andyou've got to do the studies,
and you've got to formulate itin a way that makes it really
easy for brands to use. And sotoning an idea into reality is,
(04:15):
I always tell people is 9/10perspiration, 1/10 inspiration.
There's just a lot of hard workthat goes on behind the scenes
to make things ready for theconsumer.
Justine Reichman (04:26):
I can only imagine when you started to talk
about trials. Trials are a bigdeal, right? They're expensive
to do, they're time consuming,and not everybody does them
because of it's prohibitivelyexpensive and time consuming. So
why did you feel like it was soimportant that you did this?
(04:46):
That you made this paramount aspart of your development
process?
Matthew Perkins (04:50):
Well, I think unfortunately, there's a lot of
greenwashing in the space, andpeople making claims about their
product being better, and theirproduct being more sustainable.
And we took the view that weneeded to generate data so that
it was easy for people tobelieve. And these are third
party independent tests. Weobviously do a lot of our own
(05:11):
testing in house, but then wewant to have those tests and
claims verified by third partiesso that people know that it's
worth the money that we'reasking them to pay for it.
There's huge demand in thebeauty industry to move away
from the petrochemical soupthat's on the back of every
label. And I can hold up thisbottle of soap here, hand soap.
(05:34):
And if you try to read off allof the things that are in there,
you need a PhD in chemistry. Andreally, the industry, like in
food, wants to clean the label.People want more natural
products, but people have becomeaccustomed to products that are
really effective. They reallywork, right? They provide the
nutrition or the health benefitswhen you eat it. And for the
(05:55):
beauty industry, it is the same.They want to make sure that
their skin feels better. If itsays anti-wrinkle, they want to
see those wrinkles go away. Andso you need to be able to prove
that your product is as good orbetter than the synthetics that
you're trying to replace. And soin order to convince customers
to swap out thesepetrochemicals, we went and
(06:15):
delivered some really impressivedata on hydration. For example,
we have an 80% improvement inimmediate hydration versus a
synthetic placebo. That's reallygreat because people know that
they can use this naturalseaweed product, and they can
get a really great result, thenit becomes a no brainer. Then
(06:36):
they love your sustainabilityand they want to swap, so that's
kind of why we went for theperformance data.
Justine Reichman (06:43):
What was the most surprising thing that you
learned from these clinicaltrials?
Matthew Perkins (06:48):
I learned that there's a lot of different ways
to do your studies, there's alot of subjective studies out
there, and not a lot of rigorousscience. I think it depends on
what you're trying to do.Obviously, if you're trying to
produce a really inexpensivebody wash, you're not going to
pay top dollar for a highperformance product. But in
(07:10):
other cases, even stuff which issold as expensive face creams
really doesn't have real sciencebehind it. And unfortunately,
that's kind of the industry. Sothere's a lot of myths out
there, as well as realperformance.
Justine Reichman (07:25):
Yeah. I can only imagine the things that are
in these things, and the thingsthat I see trying to decipher
and break them down to somethingthat I understand is really
challenging, and I do that bothwith my food and the products I
put on my face and body. I thinkit's encouraging to see somebody
like yourself taking aninitiative here to be able to
(07:46):
include something in a productthat we know what it is, we know
where it comes from, and we knowwhat it can do based on your
trials. So you mentioned thatone of your first entree into
this was in the beauty industry.Can you talk to me a little bit
about that, and tell me morespecifics?
Matthew Perkins (08:02):
Yeah, absolutely. So we started with a
species of brown seaweed calledSugar Kelp, which is native to
the Pacific Coast, so fromCalifornia, north to Alaska.
It's also found in the Northeastand in Northern Europe, and it's
what farmers were growing. Andwe thought it was a pretty,
beautiful and interesting story.We met farmers up in Alaska.
(08:24):
These are pristine places withabundant wildlife and nature,
and it's just a perfect,wonderful place to grow high
quality kelp. And we bought somekelp and we thought, let's see
what we can make out of it. Wereally spent a lot of time in
the lab developing our processbecause we wanted to do
something that was low energy.We wanted to do something that
was zero waste. And we wanted todo something that really was
(08:48):
using green chemistry as well,because there are a lot of harsh
chemicals and solvents you canuse to try and extract the bio
actives, or extract thedifferent compounds you're
looking for. But doing it in asustainable way is actually
quite complicated, so we spent abunch of time really trying to
understand what we could make.And one of the things we noticed
early on is that seaweed, whenit's in the wilderness, it has
(09:12):
really kind of three jobs to do.The first thing it's got to do
is not dry out because it's inthe water. And if it comes out
of the water, it dies. Second ofall, it's getting bashed around
as it moves on rocks, sea lifeand whatever else. So it's got
to kind of have these selfhealing properties, and then
it's getting hit by sunlight allthe time. And so it's got to
protect itself from UV light.And these same things that the
(09:37):
seaweed is really good at doingare actually the same benefits
that you can derive for theskin. And so in the literature,
we saw this correlation betweenthings like soothing of the skin
after UV exposure, antiinflammation. Really good if you
have been bruised or cut. Andthen obviously, hydration, which
is the primary thing we focusedon. Initially, it really just
(10:00):
got to lock that moisture in.And so all of these really cool
things the seaweed just doesnaturally, we were like, we can
bring this to the skin. Andthat's really our inspiration in
what we did. So it's a naturalproduct that really has
performance, and it's fullytraceable from the farm where we
grow it, all the way through ourprocess to the customer. And so
(10:22):
that level of traceability andsustainability is something that
is a core part of our ethic, aswell as the value proposition,
honestly, to the brands. Sowe're very excited about it. And
the impact and reception in themarket has been wonderful.
Justine Reichman (10:37):
I can only imagine. And as you're sitting
here talking about this, I'mwondering, I don't know if
you're able to share whichclients you work with, or who
your first client was. But forthem going from some of those
other ingredients to now this,to better understand what the
impact is that they're seeing,both for the planet as well as
for the individuals.
Matthew Perkins (10:55):
We've actually worked with two different
groups. I would sort twodifferent parts of the industry.
I should say, on the one hand,we've worked directly with
brands, and we've builtrelationships with companies
that are really seaweed forward,like Captain Blankenship, which
is a seaweed focused hair carebrand. Project Reef, which is a
(11:16):
wonderful brand that's kind ofcome out of the ocean. These
brands have been thinking aboutmarine ingredients and marine
stories. And obviously, there'sa natural fit for us. But we've
also really been making a lot ofinroads into bigger, clean
beauty companies as well, whichwe'll be talking about more of
them as they launch. And thenthe second group of people we've
(11:39):
actually found really warm andinteresting relationships with
that we formed over the last,say a year or so are the
contract manufacturers andpeople like KKT Innovations down
in Florida. They reallyunderstand how difficult it is
to deliver natural performance.They're really impressed by the
performance and the clinicalresults we've had, and how easy
(12:01):
it is to formulate with ourproduct. And also the
traceability, sustainabilitystory, people are kind of really
interested in that. And sopeople like KKT Innovations have
been really wonderful, both onthe formulation side and their
connections into contractmanufacturers too. So it's
really kind of broad basedinterest in innovation, which
(12:22):
has put us in the market, andgiven us good traction.
Justine Reichman (12:25):
I can see that. And so when you're talking
to these clients that you havethat are utilizing your product,
are they sharing with you whatthe experience of the customer
is? Any feedback?
Matthew Perkins (12:41):
That's one of the big things that we've heard
good results about.So one of thethings that happens, I don't
know if you're familiar with thethree moments of truth. I
believe it was developed byProcter and Gamble back in the
day. So they have this kind ofidea that a consumer likes to
buy or purchase something ifthey meet the three moments of
(13:01):
truth. And the first moment oftruth is when they walk into the
store and they have anexperience with your product.
They look at it, and does itlook appealing? The second
moment of truth is when they tryit. So in this case, putting it
on your skin, feeling what itlooks feels like. And the third
moment of truth is when they getit home and continue to use it.
And if they have a greatexperience for all three touch
points, then they're likely tobe repeat customers. And for us,
(13:24):
the story is the thing that isreally appealing. They see it,
oh, wow. Seaweed, zero wastesource from Alaska. This is
incredible. And then they tryit, and this is where our
clinical results really standout because you get this
immediate improvement inhydration. It has this really
nice skin feel. When you put iton your skin, you're like, oh,
wow, this really works. And thenobviously when you get it home,
(13:45):
you have that same experience.And so that is really the reason
why I think people are soexcited because the product
works, and it has just awonderful story.
Justine Reichman (13:55):
I would agree. And I'm curious to know what
these products are potentiallyso I could go try them. Where do
we find that?
Matthew Perkins (14:03):
We're definitely gonna be putting more
of that online as it comes. Someof them are launched already.
Some of them are launching, andthey'll be in major specialty
retailers, big box retailers,some online stores as well.
Justine Reichman (14:16):
So can you share a couple of the ones that
have already launched?
Matthew Perkins (14:19):
Some that have already launched? One is Sea
Sud's skin, which is a smallindie brand. Captain
Blankenship, as I mentioned, arecoming soon. Project Rift for
coming soon. So there'll be somemore coming out, and we'll
definitely put them on oursocial media as they come.
Justine Reichman (14:36):
Great. Because as people listen to this,
they're going to be intrigued.And the next question from them
is, okay, so where do I buy it?That was my next question. How
do I buy it? I'm intrigued. Ilike hydrated skin. I like less
wrinkles. I like better for theplanet. All of it sounds good,
so I want to go back to thebeginning. When you started
this, are you a first timeentrepreneur? Or have you
(14:58):
founded other companies? Can youtell us a little bit about your
background and how you got tothis point?
Matthew Perkins (15:03):
So my background is actually in
agriculture. I spent a decadeworking on the seed side, so
looking at different products,different seed genetics, and how
they get in the market to growmore food, essentially, for
people. One of the miracles, Iguess, of the last 50 years is
just the amount of sheercalories we can grow in
(15:25):
commodity crops. And there's alot of downsides to that system
that we could talk about. Butessentially, it is pretty
amazing how much technology ison the field. And so that's kind
of where I've spent a good bulkof my time. And yeah, this is my
second company. The priorcompany was in the digital ag
space. I built a softwareservice for farmers, helping
(15:46):
them understand how differentseeds would perform. So if you
were a corn grower in Iowa andyou wanted to know what seed you
should buy, we had a really bigdatabase of independent trials.
Again, performance data, whichshowed people what works and
what doesn't based on where youare and what your practices
were. And yeah, farm is reallylike that. So we grew that
(16:08):
business and sold it to anothercompany. And so this is my
second startup.
Justine Reichman (16:13):
A little different. I might say you're a
serial entrepreneur.
Matthew Perkins (16:17):
I don't know if the serial bit comes in after
three or when it becomes serial.But yeah, this is my second
rodeo. I guess you could say.
Justine Reichman (16:26):
After doing this first startup to the second
one, what would you say some ofthe lessons that you learned
from the first one that youbrought to the second one?
Matthew Perkins (16:34):
One of the important things to remember is
that you have to hold on tosomething long enough to see if
it's going to work, but don'tstick with it too long. And it's
a little bit counterintuitivebecause I think, as an
entrepreneur, we're incrediblyimpatient, and so we want stuff
to happen. And sometimes, you'renot sure if is it actually
(16:56):
working, and I just need to giveit a bit more time, or should I
really pivoting and tryingsomething else. I'll just give
you an example from MacroOceans. When we first launched
this product, we were new to thebeauty industry. We didn't know
many people. We had somechallenges getting in front of
the actual decision makers ofpeople who develop products and
(17:17):
make decisions on R&D, and wewere getting some good feedback
from brand owners. So these arefounders who are also
formulators. Those people areeasy to get in front of. But as
you move to bigger brands, it'spretty hard to find the right
folks to get in front, and it'sall based on trusted networks.
And so we weren't sure, was theproduct what people wanted? Or
(17:38):
was it not? Because we felt itwas really good, and we had some
good data, and we had some goodfeedback, but we weren't really
sure. And and then when we gotconnected to our head of sales,
Allen, who's been in theindustry 15 plus years, who has
all those trusted relationships,that's when it really took off
because he could get us in frontof the right people. One of the
things to always remember isthat, sometimes, it might feel
(18:03):
like you're not making progress.But actually, you might just be
missing a critical piece ofinformation. And so don't
necessarily give up unless youunderstand why you want to
change direction before you doit.
Justine Reichman (18:16):
I think that's really keen advice. Because I
think so often, when I thinkabout it, we are in a rush. But
if you look back at companies,and we can just use Oatly as an
example, I had never heard ofthis company until all of a
sudden, it's in every coffeehouse being used by the barista.
And it seemed like it was anovernight success, but it took
them 8 years. I mean, it wasn'tan overnight. It did not happen
(18:40):
to get into equator and allthese coffee shops around the
corner. So if we can usesomething like that as a
barometer to know that, to us,many things seem like they
happen in a hot minute. Butreally, they take patience, and
they take follow through,experience and time. But like
you said, to manage that so youknow when to (inaudible) versus
(19:04):
sticking it around, there's afine line.
Matthew Perkins (19:07):
Yeah, and that's totally correct. And in
the case of ingredients, and inthe case of clean beauty, it's a
longer term, durable trend.Consumers want cleaner products.
They want products that work,those things are not changing
and so we were playing in thattheme. Sorry for the planes
flying over. We were playing inthat theme, and we knew that it
(19:31):
was demand so we needed to thendebug our product and figure out
what was wrong, specificallyabout what we were doing. And it
turned out that the product wasgreat. We actually just didn't
have the go-to marketconnections that we needed. And
so when we solved that problem,it really began to move. And I
think that's worth picking apartthe problem and trying to
(19:52):
understand, what are the thingsthat are blocking you from
having really good informationabout why to make a decision?
Justine Reichman (19:59):
One of the things you mentioned in regards
to this was the accessibility ofthe network, or not having
connections, or the rightrelationships in that network.
How did you battle that orovercome that, I should say.
Matthew Perkins (20:12):
I think that that was one of the things that
I brought from agriculture.Agriculture is an extremely
relationship driven business andindustry. So if you think about
a faux man, he lives in acertain geography, or she, and
they grow a crop. It's usually afamily business. And if you're
an apple grower in Washington,or a tomato grower in Central
(20:35):
Valley, you're going to beworking with people who are in
your area, right? So when someguy arrives from Silicon Valley
or whatever and says, hey, youshould try my new wonderful
robot. The farmer will look atthem and say, well, hold on a
minute. Have you ever tried thisthing? Does it work? How much is
it going to mess up myoperation? And you've probably
(20:56):
heard this story a dozen timesbefore. So in the beauty
industry, one of my earlyobservations was actually
beauty, at least on theingredient and the product
development side works fairlysimilarly to agriculture. These
are trusted, long termrelationships where people work
(21:16):
in communities that are wellestablished, and in defined
geographies. Once we realizedthat, then we work again to
solve that problem. And that'show we overcame that. Sometimes
people think that when you comefrom outside the industry, you
can change an industry's dynamicand structure. And very often,
that's not true. Everything canbe disrupted.
Justine Reichman (21:40):
I think some of these things, the foundation
is so deep and that it takes areally long time to change that
narrative for people. It's notgoing to happen in a hot minute
as much as we'd like it to. Ittakes time, it takes trust.
Seeing it happen repeatedly sothat you get enough data, so
(22:00):
that you know that it works onall these different levels. And
US data has to establish trust.So as you're building this and
you're you kicked it off in thebeauty industry, what can we
hope to see from these productsas you expand to go beyond, as
you say, beauty?
Matthew Perkins (22:17):
Yeah. So beauty for us is the beachhead. We
think that there's greatopportunity to bring these
natural products to consumersthrough brands, and we're going
to continue to grow thatbusiness and come up with new
flavors of our product withbetter performance and specific
performance. So that's kind ofdefinitely on our roadmap. And
then beyond that, we're alsothinking about ways that we can
(22:41):
use kelp as a buyer material toreplace things that are in
everyday life. So one of theareas we've been looking is in
packaging, and there's a lot ofreally cool and interesting
applications that can be donethere. Now in those industries,
actually, the same lessonsapply. We've got to come with
performance. If we come withcrazy bad performance, no one's
(23:02):
going to buy our product. That'snumber one. Number two, we got
to make sure that thesustainability side lines up
with their expectations. Andnumber three, because these are
commodities, packaging is cheap.We need to be price competitive.
Those are all things that we'reworking on. But I think there's
a great opportunity to use thisreally sustainable resource to
actually move us away frompretty, dirty, and honestly just
(23:27):
damaging industries that arekind of the past, right? We're
trying to build the future here.That's very much our mission,
and we're going to keep chuggingthat away.
Justine Reichman (23:38):
As you're on that journey, and you're using
health as a better for youproduct to replace other other
ingredients, are there any otherfoods, if you will, that you see
being integral to the future ofbeauty? Clean beauty in
particular.
Matthew Perkins (23:56):
I've seen a lot of really cool new things
happening in beauty. One of thebig trends is up cycling. You'll
probably hear this word a littlebit more in beauty than you
might do in some otherindustries. Because in in food,
we're typically eating theprimary product. But in beauty,
we're actually quite interestedin waste streams from people in
other industries. So forexample, I came at a show the
(24:19):
other day and saw a hairbrushwhere the handle of the
hairbrush was made out of wheatstraw. And essentially, when
they're harvesting wheat, therest of us, you're all getting
the grains which is what theymake the flour, noodles, pasta,
bread and all that stuff with.But there's a whole bunch of
straw left over, whichtraditionally just gets left in
the field to decompose. Well,somebody thought, what if I
(24:40):
could take that, could grind itup and do a few clever things to
it and turn it into a materialto replace the plastic that goes
into hair brushes? And so that'sone tiny example. But there's
many people looking at bothingredients as well as materials
coming out of some of thesewaste streams from the food
industry, which I think issuper, super interesting. I
(25:01):
think our economy is going togenerally shift more towards
zero waste. Essentially as amanufacturer, all of these waste
streams are costing us moneybecause we have to pay to get
rid of them. So if you can turnthem into a product and sell it,
you're just improving yourbusiness. But in addition, it's
really just part of the storyhere about how we get away from
fossil derived materials andchemicals. And so I think you're
(25:25):
going to see more and more ofthese innovations coming,
especially in a place likeCalifornia which has a big food
purchase and industry, and a lotof smart people who want to try
and make the world moresustainable.
Justine Reichman (25:36):
As you look forward three to five years and
people start to innovate moreand lean on these products, the
food as a replacement for someof these less desirable
ingredients, what impact do youthink, a percentage, that you
will see change, both inpeople's health and wellness, as
(25:57):
well as in our culture, and inthe environment?
Matthew Perkins (26:00):
Well, in the seaweed space, for us, one ton
of seaweed grown is one ton ofCO2 removed from the ocean. So
that's a dry ton of seaweed.It's a ton of CO2 removed from
the ocean, which helps us withcombating ocean acidification
and these types of things. Nowthat impact is magnified when
you can link it to displacementof a petroleum based product.
(26:25):
One of the things which I thinkall of us need to do in order to
be not greenwashing is to dolife cycle analysis. Where we
look at all of our inputs, welook at our manufacturing
process, we look at what wedisplace, and we try to
calculate what truly is theimpact of each product. I think
that is going to become moremainstream. More and more
(26:45):
companies are doing this. Bigcompanies also have internal
targets around some of thesethings, and they have no real
idea or way of actually meetingthem. And so that's an
opportunity for a company likeours. And I think you're going
to see more and more people dothat. The reality is that we've
got to move quickly, and theonly way that we move quickly is
(27:05):
when our solutions areeconomical. And we've seen that
with the uptake of, for example,solar energy is now the cheapest
form of electricity out there,and that come through innovation
on the solar panels and theinstallation, andgetting them
hooked up to the grid and allthat stuff. And now people say,
(27:25):
well, if I got to put newcapacity and I'm just going to
go solar because it's thecheapest and the best for the
environment. And I think forevery category, that's going to
be the way it happens. Peopleare going to just start choosing
these products because they havegood performance, they are cost
competitive, and they're justbetter for the world. So if we
can do those three things, Ithink we're going to see a
pretty rapid shift away fromwhat is an old dirty industry.
Justine Reichman (27:47):
I think we're always going to have the old
dirty industry because peopleare familiar with it. Do you
think people are going to get onboard and really understand that
we need to create change? Andthe best way to create change is
to read the ingredients,understand the impact that
they're having, both on theirhealth, wellness and the
environment.
Matthew Perkins (28:06):
I think we need both. We're going to have the
folks who are the earlyadopters, who are reading the
labels, and who are trying todrive that change. Honestly, I'm
an outlier here. I do look at mylabel, I do care where it comes
from, but I'm pretty sure mostpeople are not spending the time
doing that. They don't have thetime or the interest, and that's
okay. We're helping to build themarket. And as we build the
(28:29):
market, more and moreopportunities become available.
As these products get better andbetter, and the prices come
down. We'll be able to displacethe other ones. And then before
long, people are not even goingto realize it that they're tide
detergent is actually bio based.That's it's been that way, and
it's just the same, and no oneever realized it. I think that's
(28:52):
kind of how this is going tohappen. And really, we just need
a lot more innovation on theperformance and the pricing side
to get us there.
Justine Reichman (29:00):
This is all super exciting. If people want
to find out more about you andwhat products they can look for,
where would they go to find moreinformation?
Matthew Perkins (29:08):
You can come to our website, it's macro,
M-A-C-R-O, oceans with an s.com. or follow us on Instagram
or LinkedIn, and that's where wepost all the information. We'll
be promoting brands thatlaunched with us so stay tuned.
There's going to be a lot ofreally awesome kelp based beauty
products coming your way prettysoon.
Justine Reichman (29:28):
Awesome. Thank you so much, Matthew, for
joining us today and helping uskick off this series. or at
least not kick it off, but talkabout the impact of food on the
Matthew Perkins (29:38):
Thank you so much. I really appreciate the
future of beauty.
opportunity.
Justine Reichman (29:41):
For those that are tuning in today, don't
forget that we have a newepisode every Tuesday. If you
don't follow us, please do atessential.ingredients, and we
look forward to continuing theseconversations. See you later.
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