Making Better Food from the Plant Up/Tony Martens - Alternative Meat, Texas, Superfoods ~ Spark of Ages Ep 23 - Spark of Ages

Episode Transcript
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Rajiv Parikh (00:05):
Hello and welcome to the Spark of Ages podcast.
In this episode, we'll beexploring Plantible, a San Diego
based food technology companywith our guest Tony Martins,
who co founded Plantible.
Plantible Foods is a B2B foodtechnology company, which is
in the process of developingthe most functional and
applicable plant protein in theworld, helping to transition

(00:27):
our world to a better place.
As usual, we'll discuss whatfascinates me most, and in
Plantible's case, it's theirtechnological innovations, their
vision of change to the world,and especially, I'm going to
be interested in their go tomarket strategy and how they
bring that dream to reality.
Tony is going to introduceus to Lemna, a leafy, green
aquatic plant which Plantibleuses to produce the nutrient

(00:48):
dense, complete program Rubisco,also known as Ruby Protein.
It requires 10 times lesswater than soybeans and 100
times less water than beef.
So Lemna is incrediblysustainable.
So this is going tobe my new chia seeds.
Like it's going tobe on everything.
You're going to have this.
You're going to mix thisin every one of your
drinks and it's not goingto affect the taste.

(01:08):
That's the partthat's interesting.
Important.
Some of the key takeaways youcan expect from this episode.
What's wrong with ourcurrent food systems?
The challenges of getting toscale in the food industry.
How Plantible is implementingtheir go to market strategy and
what can we learn from that?
And finally, we're going tolearn a lot about Tony and
what got him to start thiscompany in the first place.
As always, I'm your host,Rajiv Parikh, the CEO and

(01:30):
founder of Position Squared,an AI driven growth marketing
company based in Silicon Valley.
I'm fascinated by how big,world changing movements
go from the spark of anidea to an innovation
that reshapes our lives.
In every episode, we do a deepdive with our guests about what
led them to their own eurekamoments, and how they are going
about executing it, and perhapsmost importantly, how they

(01:52):
get other people to believein them so their idea can also
become a spark for the ages.
Welcome to Spark of Ages.
So, uh, Tony, you and Moritzvan de Ven came out to the U.

(02:14):
S.
from the Netherlands with theidea of starting this company.
What was the problem that youfelt that gave you that burning
need to leave that amazingcountry that you came from?
To come here.

Tony Martens (02:28):
Yeah, it's a good question.
I think, like, if you, you canbreak down the food industry
or the agricultural industriesproblems in 4 sections, right?
So I think the 1st 1 isobviously it's a large
contributor to globalgreenhouse gas emissions.
I think that's responsible fornearly 25 percent of global
greenhouse gas emissions.
Obviously.
Alongside with that, numberone consumer of fresh

(02:49):
water and number one factorimpacting biodiversity.
So there's a lot of, let's say,environmental and sustainability
issues with our food system.
At the same time, the majorityof our crops are all seeded
and harvested, uh, once ayear, uh, meaning that they're
also very much influenced byclimate change, uh, because
obviously you need to, you havea year to recuperate, right?

(03:11):
So in between you don't have anycrops or your, your crops might
have been of lower quality.
So I think that's a bigissue where you have this.
self fulfilling downward spiralwhere it's contributing to
climate change and then climatechange is contributing to, let's
say, or affecting the qualityand yield of underlying crops.
And to put things intoperspective, like 60 percent
of our global calorificintake is coming from four

(03:32):
crops, corn, soy, wheat, andrice, and they're all seeded
and harvested once a year.
So as you can imagine, It'salmost like having 60 percent
of your wealth investedin four stocks to generate
revenue one month out of theyear, if something goes wrong,

it's like Christmas time, but in a
very short Christmas timefor e commerce firms.
Yeah.
Why do you have to callit my portfolio like that?
That hurts.
Wait, don't you have justbasically NVIDIA and more NVIDIA

And then, you know, I think what's starting
to happen as well is thatbecause of the over indexing
on only a select set ofcrops are nutrient sources.
You're starting to see awidespread outbreak of diseases,
once again, affecting theyield and quality of these
crops and then getting backinto that negative loop of

(04:27):
having annual harvest cycles.
And then I think lastly,I think this is becoming a
more prevalent risk is thefact that you have these food
supply chains that are highlyconcentrated in a couple of
regions around the Where You'renow starting to see the impact
of geopolitical risk, right?
I think you've had this induring the Trump administration

(04:47):
where the United Statesprevented China from importing
soybeans, whereas Chinais the largest consumer
importer of soybeans.
And then suddenly you have togo to somewhere else, obviously
against elevated prices.
Or most recently with the warin Ukraine, the grain shed
of Northern Africa and SubSaharan Africa with, you know,
the war they're affectingthe supply and availability

(05:08):
of mainstream commoditiesfor people that are already
living difficult situation.
Like Sub Saharan

Africa, right.
It was totally affected becauseof the pandemic, uh, India.
Uh, India stopped, um,rice exports, right?
They said, nope, we'regoing to keep it here.
So, because we want to makesure we feed ourselves first.
So

yeah, huge issues.
And so I think like thoseissues then triggered like,
okay, how can you disruptthe agri food supply chain?
Right.
And I think what hasn'tgone well in the past when
people try to do this,because don't forget, I think
truly agriculture and foodproduction is probably one
of the last, if not the last.
That hasn't gone through afundamental disruption, right?

(05:48):
So yes, there'sbeen optimization.
Yes.
There's been mechanization, butthe crops that we grow and the
foods that we produce have beenthe same for hundreds of years.
Yeah, exactly.
And so I think truly, uh,so that's our philosophy.
And I think what hasn'tgone right in the past is
that people fall in lovewith the or novel organisms.
So plants or whatever they grow.

(06:10):
Instead of thinking about what'sthe product that I'm selling
and do people care about myproduct besides sustainability
or decentralized supply chains.
And I think what we try to dois find, let's say that common
ground where we create somethingthat people want to use and
then create the most sustainableand resilient supply chain.
You weren't

looking at, Oh, let's go find
a use for duckweed.

No,

right.
No.
You went in with a problem set.
Yeah.
Right.
You're, you were saying,Hey, how can I solve
this problem about, uh,protein in foods today?
Right?
Because as societiesget wealthier, they want
more and more protein.
Um, yeah.
I have this resource problem.
I have this, uh, climate issue.
I have wars.
How, how do I deal with thisissue of getting to protein?

(06:54):
And then you looked at what isgonna enable me to build the
kind of protein that can be.
Sustainable enabledat scale, et cetera.
And you probably saw thesubstitute substitute meat
market as our plant basedmeat market as a way to go.

Sandeep Parikh (07:07):
I think he just went to whole foods.
He moved to the U S hewent to whole foods.
One saw his grocery billand he's like, I'm going
to start a whole company.
So that it's cheaper,this is too expensive.
I can't, I can'traise a family like

this.
Yeah.
I did move to LA firstand then I went to, I went
to Erewhon and Lessons.
Whereas like, Jesus Christ.

Everyone (07:30):
You emptied out, you sold all that NVIDIA stock and
you were able to get a meal.
And he can't, and he did it

before NVIDIA was huge.
It was a

Everyone (07:37):
thing, exactly, exactly.

No.
So, so were you looking atthe solution and then you,
you came upon this notion ofcoming to duckweed and using
the notion of what is Plantible?
This is the question.
Yeah.
What is Plantible about?
How did you get, whatgot you to start?

Like Moritz, uh, so we've been friends
for 16 years, uh, althoughobviously the past six
years, it's been a little bitmore intense than friends.
Uh, but I

think, uh, yeah,

don't tell my wife, uh, my wife keeps
on telling me that she's mymistress and Plantibles, my
actual wife, but I think, uh,anyway, Moritz and I, we've
always been contemplatingstarting a company together,
right, like ranging from.
Anything you can imagine.
And then I think slowly, butsurely we started to gravitate
towards like, you know, howcan we develop a company that
actually puts the, leavesthe planet in a better place

(08:27):
than the way we found it.
Right.
And so how can we do somethingthat's more impactful
than creating another app?
No, no disrespect to apps.
And then we startedto think about like
renewable energy, right?
But renewable energy, I thinkthe value add besides cost
reduction, I think that is.
Not necessarily thatabundant anymore.
I think everything, theoutput is always the same.
So you're in this downwardspiral to create cheaper

(08:49):
and cheaper energy in amore efficient way where you
already have, let's say, 2or 3 sources, like sun, wind
and nuclear that are very,very efficient and affordable.
And that then, and I was workingin agricultural commodity
trading, so that really droveus towards the food system
as a whole, as a whole.
That's when you start to thinkabout like, okay, you know,

(09:09):
it is so resource intensive.
Why is it so resource intensive?
Why are we relying on animalproteins or why are we
relying on these handfulsof commodities, right?
So the majority of thecommodities that we grow
all end up as animal feed.
One way or another,

Everyone (09:24):
right?

And then these animals we use a, because
they provide a certainlevel of nutrition, but B,
because they also createtextures that we like to eat.
Right?
So if you think about food,you know, you have flavors and
then you have textures, right?
If you eat a chip potato chip,you want it to be crispy.
You don't, you would beunpleasantly surprised if you.
Think it's a chip, but then youbite it and it's tofu, right?

(09:46):
So soggy potato chips don't have

a great market.

Yeah, exactly.
So actually, and soanimal proteins, they
play like a critical role.
And the reason why is becausethey have certain functional
properties like foaming,emulsifying, gelation.
Um, and then we startedto think, okay, if that's
fundamentally the reasonwhy we're using, let's
say these animal proteinsin commercial scale food
production, Why don't we findsomething in nature that can

(10:11):
nutritionally and functionallycompete or even outperform
these animal proteins?
And then soon we landed on thisprotein known as Rubisco, or
as we prefer to call it, Ruby.
And Rubisco, funnily enough,is in every leafy green.
So it's one of the most abundantproteins, uh, on the planet
because it's the catalyst inthe photosynthesis process.

(10:31):
So it captures CO2 andthen converts it into sugar
so that plants can grow.
Um, and what makes Robiscoso special and why it's been
considered the holy grillof proteins for the past 60
to 70 years, is that it'sactually functionally and
nutritionally superior toany of the animal proteins
currently on the market.

Really?
Oh, why?
Well, in what way?

Yeah.
So if you think about it,so from a, uh, like your
body needs a certain amountof essential amino acids
on a daily basis, right?
And if you, if you think aboutjust food as efficiency, because
don't forget that human bodies.
aren't perfect.
And if you eat X amount ofprotein, depending on the
source, your body might onlytake up X percentage of the
protein that you're consumingand the rest that discards.

(11:15):
Uh, right.
And so if you can find moreefficient protein sources
that the body fully absorbsautomatically, the human
body needs to consume less.
Right.
And so what makesRobisco so unique.
Is that you need the leastamount of grams of protein
in order to provide youwith your recommended daily
intake of essential aminoacids, because it's so

(11:37):
digestible by the human body.
It's obviouslyalso allergen free.
So it's super cool where we didthis study with like a third
party laboratory to reallyassess, let's say the health
benefits and the digestibilityof Robisco compared to beef.
Chicken, eggs,dairy, and whatnot.
When you say

you came to Rubisco, are you, that's
like where you landed?
Is it like, like how, whenyou are a wedding tasting, uh,
for, for your, for your weddingand you're just like sampling
all these different potentialsuperfoods, like how did you
land upon this, you know,previously unused duck weed, uh,

to find this?
Like, it's like I told you thestory before, no, just kidding.
But I think, uh, the way, like,so my co founder Moritz is,
uh, Uncle is a professor atthe University of Wageningen,
which is an agriculturaluniversity in the Netherlands.
And so he went to hisuncle saying like, Hey,
okay, we have this idea.
You know, what do you think?

(12:28):
Where should westart this and that?
And then it's like, okay,well, you know, there has
been some precedent researchon rubisco from a health
benefit, as well as from atexturizing agent perspective.
That's when we started to look.
And if you look at all of theresearch paper and all the
research that has been done.
It all shows, uh,super promising and,
and, uh, and great.
Right.
And so me and my cofounder were just ignorant.

(12:49):
They were like, wow, if this isso great, why has nobody ever
commercialized this before?

Yeah.
My, my understanding from,from some of this is that
it's, it's inside the leafygreen or it's inside the plant.
And then once you expose it,it degrades really quickly.
Yeah.
Right.
And that's why a lot of otherfolks who have been trying
to do something similar,they're having to put in
all these masking agentsand they're going, they have
to, they have to processit in particular ways.

(13:17):
Whereas you folks havefound a way to extract
it from the source.
Is that?

Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's, it's, it's,you're getting there.
In the end, what it comesdown to, like to have high
quality Robisco, as you mean,where it's neutral flavor,
neutral in color, neutralin odor, as well as super
functional and nutritional.
There needs to be a veryshort window in which
you harvest the plant.
And then convert it into,let's say your final product
in your Robisco protein.
And so Lemna, because it'slike this continuous growing

(13:43):
plant that can harvest it, weharvest it every day of the
week, every moment in time,you can perfectly time it
with your downstream process,which then maximizes the
quality and maximizes theyield of your Robisco protein
on a fresh biomass basis.
And so that's how weconnected the dots.
That's amazing.
So then

you, you went, you went with this notion,
you thought that you cancreate this process that
would enable you to extract.
And then you came upon thenotion of duckweed and it was
that also part of this thing.
Well, here's the most efficientway of doing this and you can
do this in, in a, in a pond orlike when I see your videos,
I see this, this image of thisgreen item on a pond, right?

(14:24):
Is that how it sort of, you'relike, Hey, how could I be
super efficient with this?

We soon like realized that existing supply
chains or agricultural sidestreams just don't make
economic or food safe sense.
And so that really got us to.
Diving into the world ofnovel plants or hibiscus
containing organisms.
And then, you know, the thingthat popped up immediately

(14:48):
was algae, which has beenlike the poster child of the
food industry for the pastdecades, but never really
anything happened to the algae.
And, and, and the reasonwhy it didn't work in our
techno economic model.
Is that algae is like a threedimensional organism, right?
So it grows in the water.
And so what that means is thatif you want to harvest the algae

(15:10):
or move the algae, you need tomove a lot of water constantly,
which then really inflatesthe amount of energy that goes
into your production process.
Now here comes Lemna, which is atwo dimensional organism, right?
So it's a small leaf that floatson the surface of the water.
So you can leave the water inone place and just skim the
surface and harvest the Lemnathat way, instead of moving

(15:31):
a lot of water around, whichreally reduces the overall
energy balance and your uniteconomics when it comes to
cultivating these organisms.
And so then it'sreally rich in protein.
That's a very efficientand sustainable, uh,
growing organism.
And that's how we got started.
And then, you know, we gotin touch with this German
professor who was the appointedsuccessor of the Godfather of

(15:54):
Lemna, which was an Austrianprofessor named Andreas Landolt.
Uh, we got in touch with himto really learn more about
Lemna, what strains work,because it's a, it's as a,
as a plant consists of over athousand different strains, all
with different compositions,sizes, growth rates.
So, you know, once again, wholeblack box that we dove into.
And, um, that'show we got started.

(16:16):
We sourced a couple ofstrains, found a deserted
greenhouse in the Easternpart of the Netherlands
and, uh, quit our jobs.
And before we knew it, we foundourselves a knees deep in a, in
a pond in an Eastern Greenhouse.

Everyone (16:31):
Yeah.

Skimming leaves out of a

Everyone (16:34):
pond all of a sudden.
It's an absolutelyincredible journey.

So I'm going to share some numbers and
you can tell me about theindustry and, and, and correct
me if you, if you will.
So from what we're reading,according to spins and
the good food Institute.
So us sales of plant basedfoods or plant based protein
foods went from 4 billion or 3.
9 billion in 2017.

(16:58):
To 8.1 billion in 2023, but itdeclined a little bit from 2022,
but it's still projected to growto about $35 billion by 2030.
I think maybe my team cancorrect me on this, but it's
supposed to grow substantially.
Now, this is in a marketwhere the overall, uh,

(17:19):
retail sales of total meat,all types of distribution
systems is about $170 billion.
Right.
So it's small, but growing,it has a lot of attention.
And so when you're looking atthe overall problem set, right,
you have this notion of a fastrise for protein alternatives,

(17:39):
you have some, some bit of, Iguess, some stagnation right
now in the market, but overall,there's a projection of growth.
Is that, is that because do youfeel like things have slowed
down a bit because of, um,kind of going from the early
adopter to the, to the To theearly majority kind of thing,
or do you feel like it's a,some of the problems with it and
that you have to add a lot ofingredients, a lot of processing

(18:01):
to it, you know, like the beyondbeat beyond meat stock, right.
Was at one point like150 it's 6 today.
It's less than one times revenuein terms of its market cap.
It's just interesting discount.
Yeah.

Everyone (18:15):
Good question.
I think it's a, you want

No, no.
It's, it's good.

Everyone (18:20):
Not that you want, it's, it's, it's highly, it
has a lot of umami to it.
It's tough to digest.

Yeah.
It's almost like aplant-based burger.
A lot of ingredientsin, uh, yeah.
Ingredients.
No, I think, I mean likeon that point, right?
I think it's.
Like in the end, what happens?
Like if you, if you thinkabout meat production, right.
And whether you use plantsor whether you use an animal
as the catalyst, I mean, it'sa little bit of an unfair
comparison because like a cow,you can feed anything, right?

(18:46):
So you can, you can feeda cow, whatever you want
in the end on the label.
It just says cow, right?
But if you feed the sameingredients to a machine.
Suddenly you need to label allof the ingredients that you,
that you fed to the machine.
Right.
So like to give you like,like a, like an anecdote, it's
like, um, a couple of monthsago, you read like art, like
obviously avian flu is nowan annually recurring thing.

(19:07):
And there was a reason,there was a news article
about like, Hey, avian flunow also affecting cattle.
And I was like, okay,like, how is that possible?
Right.
I was, I was always underthe impression that it's
like a bird specific disease.
And then I learned thatin the meat industry, they
take like chicken litter.
You know, um, which is, let'ssay covering the floor and,
uh, chicken farms and thenthey feed that to cows, right?

Everyone (19:31):
But

yeah, basically spoon

Sandeep (19:32):
feeding them avian flu.
I'm like, you have some moreavian flu with your meal.

You don't go to the grocery store and pick
up, let's say a piece of steakand it says like fat chicken
litter or something like that.
You know?
So I think

that's like, they do have like
grass fed free range.
So I think we arepaying a little bit
more attention, right?
To some people are, Yeah.
Okay.
Maybe it's just my household.
It's just LA or something, butwe are paying attention to what
is beat, but yeah, no, to yourpoint, it's not the same thing,

right?
It's like the nice thingto say it's grass fat,
but then at least it'sprobably not only grass fat.
Some grass,

some grass, some grass, some grass, some
maybe a chicken lizzard.

Lobsters are, I think, um, Why
do I think there's some,some headwinds right now?
I think the biggest issue wouldyou've seen is that there was
like also in COVID when all oflike the beyond and impossible,
they all came to market, theyraised billions of dollars
and people were at home, therewas a lot of marketing push,
of course, uh, I think supplychains were under pressure.

(20:31):
Uh, and so people were moreexperimental trying to find
different ways and, and,uh, to, to feed themselves.
But then the repeatpurchases were never there.
Right.
So they tried it once, maybethey tried it twice and then
they were like, it's notthe way my, uh, you know,
black Angus burger tastesor something like that.
And so then people werelike, you know what?
Sustainability alone is, is nota key, key enough driver for

(20:55):
people to shift their dietarypatterns, which brings me to my
point, I think, for some reason,as an industry, people adopted
the word alternative, right?
And, um, you know, but if youthink about it, when Tesla.
Uh, launch deck roadster.
They didn't say, Hey, thisis an alternative car or
when they launched, let's saythe iPhone, they said like,

(21:16):
Hey, this is an alternativephone because alternative
automatically implies like,Hey, not plan a, but no,

you actually want the other thing, but
here's something else.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
It's the desirable

item, but no, I'm stuck.
Yeah, exactly.
And so, and, and,

and so I think if you think about it as
well, once again, from abigger perspective, right?
So when Tesla, and I had aconversation funnily enough
earlier today about somebody,like, if you look at Tesla
and Tesla's branding, nowheredo you see like leafs or
environmental expressions,you know, it's like green.
They don't have green as a colorin their, in their selection.
It looks great.

(21:53):
You know, exactly.
You're right.
It's like, it just looks cool.
It looks designer ish and mostimportantly, the cars look nice
and they're super fast, right?
So they provide some valueto the consumer that buys
the car and then, and,and, and has fun with it.
Whereas the NissanLeaf, you know, slightly
less, slightly less

Everyone (22:12):
popular car than the Tesla, right?
That sort of implies, it

like implies a sacrifice.
Yeah, you're makingfor the alternative as
opposed to, you're right.
Like, but at least, you know,pre Musk being Musk, uh, buying
the Tesla was like, it waslike all those cool things you
mentioned and on top of that.
And it's greener, like,like that was the sort of,
it was not, it was not the

primary decision driver.
Right.
Right.
So, you know, and I think it

was better than, you know,

It was like, that's

what I'm saying is like on top of the,
like I can go as fast as aPorsche and it's, it's, and
I'm saving money on gas andsaving the environment and

I can make a fart noise with my horn,

Everyone (22:54):
different, different, different, different
purchasing drivers, I guess.
You know what I mean?
Ideal customer profile.
Yeah,

Anyway, but I think, so if you think
about going back to liketwo things that I think were
the primary issue, therewas no direct value for the
consumer besides ethical orsustainability drivers, right?
Right.
It was just like, okay.
Uh, but then at the sametime, they had to compromise
on, on the final qualityor on the experience,

(23:28):
and I think the latter.
If you look at most successfulCPG companies, right.
They're primarily like salesand marketing organizations
that have found some kind offood scientists somewhere to
develop just a delicious productthat consumers want to consume
over and over and over again.
And they, and they grow up.
Testing that product at likefarmers markets, immediately

(23:49):
getting feedback from the localconsumers, um, and then refine
their product to make surethat it constantly follows.
Let's say the feedbackthat they're getting.
If you then go back to theplant based meat industry,
just as a bunch of scientistsgoing into the lab, raising
hundreds of millions ofdollars, not starting off and
probably they had some fancyconsumer panel feedback, but
consumer panels, you know,they don't go to the grocery

(24:10):
store and make the purchases.
Right.
They just eat somethingand then give you feedback.
Whereas at the farmersmarket, people actually
buy your product.
And swap money inexchange for your product.
And so they skipped that wholeearly stage consumer validation
and just immediately went tolarge scale expansion, which
comes with venture dollars.
And so I think the issue wasthat the quality just wasn't
there and then, you know,there wasn't any value beyond

(24:35):
being ethical or sustainable.
And it's a great answer.

Is that becoming your market that you're going to
replace either the soy proteinor the, or the pea protein
in, in these burgers, or doyou see this a whole different
level of functional usage?
Like in one of yourarticles, it talks about.
How, uh, this could be areplacement for egg whites
in McDonald's hotcakes.

Yeah.

Right.
So is this part of addingmore protein in your diet
and scaling from there?
Or is it both?
You asked

me that question.
Oh, you asked me that questionearlier and I don't think
I answered it back then.
It's like, what kindof company are you?
Right.
And so I think, um, it's agreat question because I think
you're constantly transitioningas a, as a company, and maybe
initially when we started Plantto Boy, you're like, oh, we're
a plant-based protein company.
Right?
But now what we're seeingis like, okay, actually
what we're doing is.
We're developing a newagricultural manufacturing

(25:25):
platform that allows us tocreate next generation food
ingredients for food or feedand maybe for other industries
like cosmetics, right?
And I think

that's a whole thing that you
probably never thought of.
Yeah, no,

no, exactly.
And so I think like.
What's interesting about that.
So if you think like, are wecompeting with soy and pea?
No, because I don't think likesoy and pea are necessarily
bad for the environment.
What we want to do is weactually want to reduce
our reliance on animalbased ingredients, right?
Or synthetic ingredients thatare causing, let's say a lot
of health issues, uh, todayin the United States, um,
because they're used in ultraprocessed foods and whatnot.

(25:58):
And I think that'swhere we really want
to focus as Plantibles.
Like, Hey, You know, we'renot here to replace, you know,
plan based because, you know,that's not where the market is.
And I don't thinkthat's the problem that
we're trying to solve.
But the problem thatwe're trying to solve
is reduce the reliance.
On animals in our food system.
And I think so

new, new use cases as you're going
through, or this is partof an entire growth story.
Cause as we talked about,this is only what a couple
of percent of the market.
Today.
So there's a huge marketto grow into and enable.
Yeah.
So let's talkabout your scaling.
So you, you raised a, you raiseda series a, you went early
stage, you raised your series,a, uh, you Got some supplemental

(26:35):
funding along the way, becausepeople saw your progress.
And as you're scaling up,you need additional capital.
Now you're getting closeto a series B or maybe you
already have a series B.
Like talk about how you'veworked with scaling and the
challenges of scaling andbuilding a business like this.

Yeah, it's, it's super tough.
So it goes back to.
Like when we start like, Hey,we're obviously very lucky
because we found like thistwo acre R and D facility
in San Diego, uh, for free.
And so we already startedoff with like a little
bit of a headstart from a,from a skill perspective.
But I think, uh, then in2020, we raised our, our seed
round after developing a labbased process for two years

(27:12):
in a breaking bad trailer onour farm in San Diego, as,
um, we, uh, Just underwear

with plant based food

on Sundays, on Sundays.
That's how we started.
And, and then in 2020, weraised our, our, our seed round.
And this was with the idea tobuild a pilot plant, right.
Uh, by the pilotprocessing plant.
So we literally raised themoney two days before governor
Newsom announces lockdown.
Um, and so then, wow.

(27:44):
Then we're like, okay,happy this and that.
And then suddenlygo for a nuisance.
So it was okay.
Non essential businessesgot a close shop.
And so we're like, Oh shit,what are we going to do?
And, uh, we went thatsame night, we went
on the cracks list.
We found two RVs, 6, 000each could barely make it to
the farm, but we found them.

(28:04):
And, uh, we lived on ourfarm for like nine months to
build out our pilot plant.
Right.
We had some of our colleagueslive with us back then we
were a small team, six people.
So we were living with, uh, withthe four of us on our farm for
like six to nine months usingthe garden houses as a shower
and maybe too much information.
But, um, anyway, um, andso we built a pilot plan,

(28:26):
which then put us like,like, obviously that gave
us a huge headstart, right?
Because a lot of othercompanies, they were like,
okay, we need to do likedifferent schedules for people
coming into the office so thatwe've minimized contamination.
We just said, okay, we'rejust going to be one family.
We're living on thefarm and let's go.
You had your own pod.

Everyone (28:42):
We

had our own pod.
So like where we workedwas where we lived.
All right.
So I think, um, thatthen gave us a huge of

musk living in the factory room.
So, yeah,

I mean, I think that's getting

a low cost factory, right?
I mean, he got, yeah, hegot the former Numi factory
for nothing, essentially.
25,

000 that sounds pretty comfortable.
Right.
I mean, I'm quite sure they hadsome of these safety showers
in those factories, right?
So like, yeah.
I know, but I think it's our,our, our Google garage story.
Right.
So anyway, we were living,uh, we, so we were living
there and so that gave us ahuge headstart because we were
able to develop a pilot plant.
And candidly, when you builda pilot plant, everything

(29:24):
that you did on the bench.
Goes out of the windowif they really start from
scratch again, because there'sjust way many different
reactions that take place.
So anyway, but that putus on an accelerated
track for two things.
A, we were able to producelarger quantities of sample
material that can help ourcustomers accelerate their
evaluation and get to acommercial commitment faster.

(29:46):
But at the same time, it alsoreally allowed us to accelerate
the de risking of our coretechnology, which then, you
know, allowed us when we weregoing to, to the market raising
our series a to a show thatcommercial traction, but also
communicate to the technology,the risking and setting us up
for building out a commercialfacility, which is obviously
where I think we started todiverge maybe a little bit

(30:07):
from the rest of the market.
That was still, let'ssay more of R and D mode.
And we just took a very bolddecision with our series.
I raised it.
So like, Hey, you knowwhat, we're going to build a
commercial facility, which thenover the past year allowed us
to start to ship out commercialquantities to our early stage
customers and really generatesome revenue, but also set

(30:28):
us up for, let's say, Largerquantities of commercial
agreements and putting us nowon a trajectory to achieve
cashflow positivity, right?
So I think from a scalingperspective, we took quite
some risks and obviouslya lot of things also went
horribly wrong, but it's nowput us in this position where.
We're at a point in timewhere we can de risk, we can

(30:51):
claim that we've de riskedour technology and it's
more a matter of scaling outversus scaling up, which is
an exciting time to be in.

What's like one thing that went horribly wrong
that you had to figure out?

Tony Marten (31:02):
We're building out.
Greenhouses in the sizethat have, have never
been built ads like thisbefore, including like,

cause you're dealing with ponds, right?
Like this isn't yourtypical greenhouse.

No, it's not like a fancy greenhouse.
Right.
It's a, it's like a combinationbetween, uh, let's say very
cheap and somewhat reasonablyaffordable, you know?
So I think, um, And you canimagine, so we, like what
happened in the beginning isshe would maybe attach, let's
say some of the poly to createan insulated greenhouse system.
And, you know, one wind gustswould come by and it would just

(31:40):
tear off everything, everythingthat was on the greenhouse and
you could start from scratchagain, you know what I mean?
So these things, uh, thesethings happen, uh, and
you learn the hard way.
Uh, but I think, this

Everyone (31:51):
was already in Texas.
This was already in Texas.
Oh, you had alreadymoved to Texas.
Yeah.
Okay.
So this is elder.

Sandeep Parik (31:58):
This is Eldorado.

Yeah.
Eldorado.

What is it about Eldorado that drew you there?

What drew us to Eldorado?
So I think overall you think,um, you know, there are certain
areas that have the rightclimate factors to grow plants.
Right.
And so there is a certain,Uh, relationship between
hours of sunlight,temperature, uh, et cetera.
Uh, you need to have, uh,land can be arable, non

(32:23):
arable and doesn't matter.
And you need to have someaccess to fresh water.
And, uh, so we startedto look, um, Arizona,
New Mexico, California.
I was immediatelyscrapped off the list
because it's California.
So everything's expensive and ittakes a very long period of time
to get any form of approval.
And so.
Louisiana, whatnot.
And then we landed on the, wefound this plot of land here

(32:45):
in, uh, in, in West Texasthat is on top of an aquifer.
So giving us direct access tofresh water, it's part of a
20, 000 acre black Angus ranch.
So the story there is thatyou're slowly converting this
black Angus ranch into a.
Uh, it's super flat.
You have an airport 40 minutesdrive from here and you have,

(33:07):
let's say the two 77 interstatethat is makes it very easy to
provide, uh, or get equipment toand from the facility, uh, and.
And then lastly,it's Texas, right?
So you build first and youask later, so, uh, you can
just, uh, start from scratch.
And that's what drewus to this place.
So from an environmentaland, and a building or

(33:27):
construction perspective,it made a lot of sense.
Yeah.
Now we've been in thiscommunity for the past
two, two and a half years.
Um, and, uh, are theproud sponsors of the
local high school footballteam, the Eldorado Eagles.
They have finished, uh,they finished last in
the past two seasons.
So we need to have some,uh, hard conversations
with the management.
Now, why don't you change

them to the, to the Eldorado
Lemnos or like, yeah,

I like this.
I like this.
I think this isthe longterm plan.
We can't go in with brute force.
Uh, that's right.
That's right.
You got to get them to

want to change.
Yeah.
They have to talk about howthey're going to eliminate.
The competition.
There you go.

Everyone (34:05):
Wow.
Wow.
Wow.
This is okay.
This is good.
This is good.
Lemonade.
I like it.
To put

things into perspective.
So when I just moved there,so, or when we just relocated
here, we went to the localcafeteria, which is like a,
you know, like a small trailerwith the kitchen inside of it.
And there was a person sittingthere with a t shirt, don't
California, my Texas, andhe was wearing a revolver
on the outside of his pants.
And here I waswalking in like this.
Tall six foot eight Dutch guywith a hat wearing plentiful.

(34:35):
And he's like, Oh, are you with

Everyone (34:37):
plentiful?
I was like, Oh, I was like,Oh, maybe it depends on

who's

asking.
Depends on where yourhand is over that.

And then he's like, thank you so much
for coming to west Texas.
You know, we're so great.
We're so glad to have you here.
And like, I must say, you know,We had to pull some additional
power cable, which was going tocost quite a lot of money, which
we hadn't really budgeted for.
And the local power companyassumed all of the costs.
So the amount of supportthat we've been getting from
the local community has beenreally, really, uh, phenomenal.

(35:08):
And I can tell you fromthe six years in San Diego,
we've never received anyof that type of support.
That's

Everyone (35:15):
amazing.

Yeah.
I love that you guys were,it seemed like you made a
conscious decision to be apart of the ecosystem that you
were setting up shop in, right?
Like, and thenultimately that meant.
Interfacing with the people,the community, figuring
out what their needs are.
How do we fit into this?
How do we make sure this is acoexisting situation, right?
Yeah, it makes it beneficial.
So not just, it's not justabout like plant based food, but

it's also

about like,

you know, supporting, supporting someone
that's come to your communityto offer jobs and offer,
uh, you know, innovationand if, You know, as they
succeed, they all succeed withthem and they feel part of

it.
I think like, you know, likethe, like, obviously this, this
is like one of these towns.
So you probably have plenty ofthem in the United States where
they used to generate a lot ofincome because of oil and gas,
but as those wells and frackingstarting to dry up, you know,
the relative amount of income isstarting to decline or decrease.
The amount of economicopportunities are
also decreasing.

And they're looking for diversity
in their economies.
So, okay.
So let's switch to like, youhave this, I'm sure these
food companies are not justsitting there saying, Hey,
what's the next cool protein.
You had to find some initialbuyers and you had to go
talk to people and say,yeah, I'm a startup and I'm
sure they're used to workingwith bigger companies.

(36:31):
So how did you find your firstfew, who are your buyers today?
Um, maybe you want to talkabout how you found some of
those buyers and where doyou, how do you see your go
to market scaling as you go?

Uh, great question.
So I think the majorityof the customers that
we're working with todayall came in as inbound.
I think realistically, ifI look about Plantible,
we've never really had toworry about market demand.
We've always had to worryabout, can we create enough
product to meet, let'ssay, the customer's demand.
And, um, I thinkthat's been great.
What we did differently,Compared to many, some of the

(37:03):
other companies in the industry.
And this was one of the bestpieces of advice we got was
when we had our first boardmeeting ever, uh, after our
seed round and like, youknow, it goes, you raise a
seed round for some reason,people find it interesting.
So you post how much moneyyou raised and Decker
runs, write an article.
And then suddenly you getpeople reaching out to
you like, Hey, can I geta sample of this and that?

(37:24):
And the best piece of advicethat we got was during
the first board meeting.
It was not from Manan, by theway, just to clarify that.
But, um, I think, uh,Manan's been great.
He's become mypersonal therapist.
By the way, those, those guys

are amazing.
They will do anythingthey can to support you.

They are the best.
They're like my favoriteinvestor on the cafe
table, for sure.
Um, uh, but I think like now,so this was somebody else.
Um, and, uh, she said, Oh yeah.
Instead of like focusingon like these smaller.
Companies, right?
So you saw a lot of, let's saythese, uh, plan based companies
going with, let's say foodservice restaurants and whatnot,

(38:03):
uh, to just focus on the largestcompanies you have in your, uh,
in your funnel at the moment,because they're slow, but
you're also very slow, right?
And whether you can sell to arestaurant or a small bakery
or whatever, nobody reallycares about it because it's
not really meaningful revenue.
If you want to justify thatyou need to build out a
large commercial facility.
You need to work withthese large multinational

(38:24):
food companies in orderto get their approval.
And so, so we did.
So if you think about our goto market, it was a little
bit counterintuitive wherewe didn't really focused on
the fast and early adopters.
We actually focused on workingwith, let's say these large
multinational behemoths.
That are super slow, but soare we, because we had to go
from lab to pilot and thenfrom pilot to commercial.

(38:47):
And I think to re really focusedon that scaling up and the
technological uh, development,we de prioritize those, those
maybe sexier customers, uh,from a small scale perspective
and really prioritize them.
Like the largest foodcompanies in the world.
And that then,

they're going to give you all the requirements
that you need to reallygrow and scale with them.
The smaller ones, like yousay, this is a, this is a
thing I went through in my owncompany's evolution, right?
You go to a lot of startupsand they will criticize you,
but a lot of the criticismsis really a reflection of
themselves as opposed to whatit takes to make the market.

(39:23):
Sometimes people are like,they're overconfident about what
they can achieve and when youdon't achieve what they expect.
Because they'reunrealistic, they then
reflect upon you, right?
Whereas if you go to some ofthe bigger ones are more likely
to use your product at scale,they're going to tell you what
here's really what it reallytakes, especially if they, if
they buy into your solution.

Yeah.
Well, like, I mean, don'tforget also, but a lot
of, let's say these, thesesmaller food companies, right.
The, the, the, the one whocreated the first product is
still running the company.
And so for you then to comein and say like, Hey, listen,
product has some flaws, butwe can help you to like, wait,
what are you talking about?
It's like a personal front.
It's personal.

(40:05):
Yeah.
It's personal.
So.
So, so what we did there,it's just like really focused,
like I said, on these largefood companies and, you know,
that eventually paid off intolong term, uh, a multi million
dollar, uh, commercial offday agreements that we're
now starting to fulfillfrom our facility in Texas.

I'm sure the barrier to entry to
them was higher, right?
Like you had a biggerhurdle start out with, so
how do you like swallowthe pill there to do that?

You know, Yeah.
It's a good question, right?
Or maybe,

maybe your investors, uh, helped you get
introductions to them too.
I mean, that can happen.
Yeah.

It just depends.
I mean, like, like in thebeginning we had a lot of
just natural organic inbound,which probably came along with
some of the PR that comes, uh,with, with you fundraising and
whatnot, or maybe participatingin a certain accelerator
or something like that.
Yeah.
So sparking

conversation about you is really
what drew curiosity forthese folks to, to Yeah,

for sure.
Like, especially like theselarger food companies,
they have whole researchdivisions that also need
to have something to do.
Right.
And so they're just scouting,looking for new ingredients
and like, okay, can wedo something with that?
And, um, yeah, that then.
You know, to your point, theyhave very strict standards.
So, you know, youdo it in the lab.
They're like, okay, cool.
Show me that you cando it at pilot scale.

(41:21):
Then you're like super proud.
Hey, look, I madethis at pilot scale.
And they're like,okay, great for you.
Good for you.
But now do it atcommercial scale, right?
So you have to jump throughall of these hoops in a
relative, uh, short timeframe.
But.
You know, to your point, likeall of the certifications,
uh, that come along with beingable to sell to a large food

(41:41):
company, you're preemptingthat by closely working with
them and not shying awayfrom those conversations.

That's amazing.
Great.
This is so muchfun to learn about.
So.
Sunday, I think you want tomove us to Yeah, speaking of

shying away from things, let's
test your mettle right now.
You're, we're about to haveyou enter the Spark Tank.
Okay, this is, uh, the, uh,show game that I produced.
Stakes are incredibly high.
So, welcome, Tony.
And welcome back to ourlisteners, our fellow
entrepreneurs and digitalhustlers to the spark tank
where two founders enterand one realizes that their

(42:17):
revenue reports are so foolishthat they should be compost.
Um, today we are puttingyour knowledge of super foods
and nutrition to the test.
All right, so in one cornerwe've got Tony Martin, the
co founder of Plantible, thatis creating a plant based
protein that's going to makePopeye ditch his spinach.
And then we've got my brotherRajiv, who thinks Spirulina
is the latest Disney princess.

(42:37):
It's not?
Yeah, it turns out it's not.
So what we're doing forthis game, we're going
to be serving up threestatements about superfoods.
Two of them are true.
One is a fabrication.
That's spicier than that onesurprise shishito pepper.
Uh, so let's see who canseparate the wheatgrass
from the chaff.
Uh, all right, so we'regonna do three rounds here.
Two truths and a lie, allabout superfoods, Tony.

(42:59):
And, uh, frankly,I'm rooting for you.
Okay, you ready?
Any questions?

All good, let's go.

Number one, this is all about
unlikely superfoods, okay?
Aloe vera.
Did you guys know that Cleopatraherself used aloe vera as
part of her beauty routine?
It's been said thatshe even bathed in it.
It's not just for sunburns.
Aloe vera is packed withvitamins and minerals
that promote healthyskin and digestion.
So number one is Cleopatra usedaloe vera in her beauty routine.

(43:25):
Number two, during therenaissance, radishes
were believed to contain arare mineral that enhanced
cognitive function and memory.
And scholars and artistswould often consume large
quantities of radishes inhopes of unlocking their
full intellectual potential.
Wait, radish?
You're just saying that's,oh, as a superfood.
Yeah, these are just likehistorical superfoods.

(43:46):
Number three is the beetroot.
This vibrant root isn'tjust for borscht, people.
In ancient Rome, beetroot wasconsidered an aphrodisiac.
And even today, it's known toboost blood flow and stamina
to all over the body, tocertain parts of the body.
Plus, it contains nitratesthat may help improve
athletic performance.
Alright, so, whichof these is the lie?

(44:09):
Is it the aloe vera plantall over Cleopatra, the
radish, or the beetroot?
Here we go, on thecount of three.
One, two, three,hold your fingers.
Okay, Rajiv went with aloe vera,and then Tony went with radish.
Tony, you are correct.
That's right.
There was no radishes in therenaissance helping them,
you know, helping the scribesscribble Yes, so well done.

(44:32):
You're out to a great startYeah, you're leaving my brother
in the dirt so to speak.
Here we go round number two.
All right chia seeds These tinypowerhouses were staple foods
for ancient Aztecs and Mayanswho believed they provided
superhuman energy and enduranceSo their warriors could run
for days Kombucha this fizzyfermented drink isn't just a

(44:54):
hipster trend It's been aroundfor centuries with origins
tracing back to ancient Chinaor was prized for its health
benefits and called the quoteImmortal health elixir or number
three during the Black Plaguecinnamon was believed to be a
potent cure for the disease.
People would wear cinnamonfilled pouches around their
necks or burn cinnamon incensein their homes to ward off

(45:14):
the plague's deadly effects.
Which of these isfull of fertilizer?
Chia seeds, kombucha,or cinnamon?
On the count of three.
One, two, three.
All right.
Rajiv said kombucha.
Tony is saying cinnamon,Tony is two for two and has

(45:36):
pulled way out ahead here.
Now I can't win.
It's over dying onthe vine, buddy.
You're dying on the vine.
I'll try to make good on one of

these.

Yeah.
I mean, well, luckily this lastround is double the points.
Yeah.

Everyone (45:51):
I just decided to make it like double jeopardy.
Yeah.
All right, here we

go.
You ready?

Everyone (45:58):
Yes.
Okay.

I mean, and by the way, have you like
researched all these things?
Like, do you, do youactually know this stuff?
Cause you, you're very confidentin your answering so far.

Like what I'm doing is I'm just going,
let's say you go to like ajuice bar, like, and you get a
juice what's in those juices.
Right.
And like cinnamon, It'snot radishes for sure,
but it is beetroot.
It is beetroot.
And cinnamon, even thoughit has a pleasant, you
would think if cinnamonwould be a superfood, right?
They would like make everythingcinnamon, but because it's

(46:29):
not an unpleasant flavor.
Uh, but, uh, yeah, but they

don't do it.
Wow.
Okay.
So revealing the secretsto you, Reggie, we'll
see if you can come back.
I think be tough to applyit to this third round, to
be honest, because this isabout the strange, but true.
Number one is about Kasu Marzu.
The Sardinian cheese,infamous for containing
live insect larva.
The larva's digestive processesbreaks down the cheese, giving
it a soft, creamy textureand a unique, pungent flavor.

(46:55):
It's considered a delicacy bysome, and it's also illegal to
sell commercially due to healthconcerns, even though they
claim it is packed with protein.

Everyone (47:02):
What is this

called?
Kasu Marzu?
Kasu Marzu.
Yeah, no looking itup on your, on chat.
I see what you're doing.
Okay, number two.
In traditional Koreanmedicine, Regurgitated, this
is a bird, swift lipped food.
Okay, regurgitated swift lipped,so literally mama bird food.
It possesses potentrejuvenating properties that
are dissolved in a specialelixir, which is consumed to

(47:25):
improve skin elasticity andslow down the aging process.
Or number three, kopiluwak coffee, okay?
I'm just reminding youthat two of these are true.
Uh, kopi luwak coffee.
The Indonesian coffee isrenowned for being the most
expensive in the world, and itsunique flavor comes from coffee
beans, and I'm not kidding,that have been eaten and

(47:45):
excreted by civet cats, and thensifted through and harvested.
Apparently the digestiveprocess is said to alter
the beans, creating asmoother, less bitter coffee.
So, which of these is the lie?
Is it the larvae processedkasu marzu cheese, the Korean
medicine regurgitated fromswiflet birds, or the kopi

(48:08):
luwak coffee, which is literallypooped out by civic cats and
consumed by people that havea lot of money, that want
to drink coffee, the mostexpensive lattes in the world.
One, two, or three.
Here we go.
Three, two, one.
Let me see it.
Well, Rajiv said it's the larva.
That's, that's BS.
Tony said it's the swiftlet.
Regurgitated mababirding aging remedy.

(48:31):
And Tony, you arethree for three.
You did it.
You are clearly inthe right field.
Uh, I'm investing in Plantibleas soon as it goes public.
I mean, I'm stayingin well done.
Yeah.

Don't don't eat a meal with Reggie.
I'm just going to keep eating.

Everyone (48:49):
Did

you know those?
How, how come you wereso confident about
the, uh, the last one.

I mean, like, I thought like the Korean
one, if it would be true, Imust have heard of it, right?
Cause like, we have like aKorean investor and I kept it
on, I went out for dinner andI, they would have told me
like, Oh, we have this specialtyin Korea, you don't want to
believe what it is, right?
Not that I've ever heardof this larva cheese, but I

will say this.
You can do a little research,Tony, because there is in fact
that they do use Swiftlet.
Nests which are which arehardened built by hardened
saliva and that is used incertain korean medicines Uh,
I just changed it a little bitto be about the mama birding
thing because I thought that wasfunny And what was more of a lie
so there is an actual elementof truth I figured the mama

bird.
I figured the mama birdfeeds the her babies Yeah.
So people would belike, Oh yeah, exactly.
There must be somehealth benefit to this.
Whereas I knew number threewas definitely a choice.
So you guys knew about that?
I did not.
Yeah.
It was a 50 50.
So congratulations, Tony.

(49:58):
That was awesome.
Well done.
Well done.
Well done.
We do have a coupleof questions.
A couple of quickquestions for you.
So did you know, you said youdid some agriculture, you used
some commodity trading before.
Did you like growing up alwaysknow you wanted to start
a company or a technologycompany and how did you
discover that passion?
Was it someone in your life?

Um, well, like both my parents.
So I'm more or less grewup in like my grandfather
was an entrepreneur.
So I'm more or less grew up inlike an entrepreneurial family.
So I think from thebeginning, I always aspired
to start my own company.
Right.
Did I know whereI wanted to do it?
And not really.
So after I graduatedbusiness school, I didn't
really know what to do.

(50:38):
Um, so I joined like aboutique consultancy firm.
And, uh, I started to doprojects in, in the food and
ag space, uh, which then,you know, we developed like
a, at one point in the 2020strategy, uh, for a Southern
German commodity company.
And then, uh, they hired meto, to execute, uh, or help
execute this 2020 strategy,um, which then really gave me.

(51:01):
Hands on experience in,in, in, in the field of
agricultural commodities.
Yeah.
So, and then I, you know, Iwas doing that, did that for
three years, grew the companyfrom one to 7 billion, uh,
which was an exciting time,but then afterwards it really
started to consolidate andbecome just a large, large
multinational company withnothing wrong with that.
But

yeah, so, and

I think.
You know, as you realize theimportance of commodities
in day to day life, I mean,it's quite cool if you can
really innovate and buildsomething that can, can, can
make a long lasting impact.
Right.
And I think what's funny isthat the journey is in the
beginning, you're excitedabout the impact you can make
by creating a new ingredient.

(51:43):
And then you walk thegrocery aisle and you
see your ingredientand all kinds of stuff.
But I think now, After buildingthe Ranchito, it's much more
about enabling rural communitiesto go through, let's say
a, or be part of the greengreen transition as well.
Right.
That it's much more about beingable to give these people.
New opportunities in life andmake them part of the transition

(52:04):
instead of having to fearabout the transition itself.
And I think that's becomemuch more of a greater
cost, uh, for me, at leastpersonally, is there a

family member that said to you something
that helped spark you ordrive you as their motto?

To start a company

to, to, to just inspired you,

uh, you know?
Yeah.
Like, I find that really hardto say, I think like, you
know, if I go back long enough,I remember being like early
teenage years and I wouldalways read a lot of books.
And I, for some reason Ibought like this autobiography
of Jim Rogers, um, itwas like this old school.
trader and forex and thenalso commodities later on.

(52:46):
And he was talking in his bookabout, let's say, agriculture
and land ownership and howit's going to become such
an important asset classbecause of, you know, the
urbanization sort of movefrom people going from rural
farmland to cities, who isgoing to go left produce food.
And so I think maybe that alwaysstuck in the back of my mind.
I was like, okay, this couldbe like a very impactful.

(53:07):
Industry considering all of thethreats and, but also positive
opportunities that are there.
Like if I look back at mytime, maybe that's what got
me eventually into this space.
Uh, uh, and then, yeah,from like, to give you an
idea, like my mom, she hadher own advertising agency.
Then she sold that and thenshe decided to own up, open
up her own fresh pasta storechain in the Netherlands.

(53:29):
And then she was like,okay, I'm done with this.
Now I want to become ayoga teacher in Spain.
And so then she became ayoga teacher in Spain and
then she's like, okay, now Iwant to become, let's say an
interior designer in Portugal.
So then she went to Portugal andthen now she, now she's decided
she wants to become a chef.
So anyway, so that's moreof like the entrepreneurial
journey that I grew up within my household, just food

and health and stuff like that was, you
know, big in her life and sortof made its way down to you.

Yeah, I think so, but like more like, like more
just like, if you just go doyour own thing and, and, and,
and, and, and create, createyour own degrees of freedom.
I think that's probably whatthen triggered me doing, you
know, something entrepreneurial.
I like, no, but it waslike, led me to building
a Lemna farm in Texas.
I don't know, but itdefinitely inspired me.

(54:20):
That's an amazing army

Everyone (54:23):
and it

keeps going.
So, you know, a lot ofentrepreneurs, they have
a certain thought inmind as to where they
want to take the company.
What do you see this as?

Yeah, good question.
Um, you know, I think if Ilook at Plantible, I think
our vision from the beginningwas to create like a new
form of agriculture, right?
So we're doing two things.
On the one hand, we'recreating, let's say a way
of cultivating novel aquaticplants that goes beyond,
let's say the, the amount ofplants we're growing today.
Uh, I think we're growing.
You know, around 128 plantsout of a 30, 30, 000 edible

(55:01):
plants in the planet.
So as you can see, there'slike a huge white space
to tap into novel, novelplants or specifically
in the aquatic space.
Uh, so we're tryingto unlock that.
And then at the same time, we'retrying to develop processes that
allow us to, uh, unlock thesevaluable components that can
be found in these novel plants.
Um, and so if I thinkabout Plantible, um, our
first focus is obviouslyon creating a product that.

(55:24):
Food companies or consumerswant to eat or consume or use.
And then the second step isactually becoming more of that
manufacturing platform developerthat then allows us to create.
Let's say almost like thisblueprint, or let's say Ikea
building package of building thecultivation systems, building
the processing systems, andthen copy and paste that all

(55:46):
over the world, really allowingregions across the world
to develop their own supplychains and thereby unlock
access to macro micronutrients,uh, regionally, instead of
being prone to climate, uh,prone or, uh, geopolitically
centralized food systems.
And finally, if you want to give

If you were to give your, some advice to the
next budding entrepreneur,yeah, the next Tony, other
than being born to two amazingentrepreneurial parents,
what would you give them?

You know, I think like one of the, the,
the, one of the quotes thatI really liked that I heard
a couple of years ago, likefortune favors the bold, right.
I think like when we, uh,When we started with this
idea in the Netherlands, youknow, in the Netherlands,
we have a saying act normaland you act crazy enough.
So when we went out withour pitch, everybody's like,
yeah, what's going, what'sgoing on in your mind and,
uh, what's wrong with you.

(56:38):
And especially with the aspectof moving to the United States,
leaving friends and familybehind, you know, but I think
if you truly want to accomplishsomething, I think just go at
it and give it everything you'vegot and, and don't look back.
Right.
Uh, don't doubt yourself becausein the end, you know, I think,
um, If I look at where we aretoday, I don't think, you know,
it would have been possibleif we gave in to all kinds of

(57:01):
distractions or doubt or fears.
It's just, you know, we jumpedon a plane, started reaching
out to random people onLinkedIn, telling them that
we were growing duckweed at adesolated farm in San Diego.
And yeah, and now here weare, you know, so I think
my, my feedback is that.
As a human being, there'salways a lot of doubts.
There's a lot of,always a lot of anxiety.
Am I the right person?

(57:23):
Can I do this?
Yeah.
I think I'm not a scientistand here I'm running
a scientific company.
You know what I mean?
And so, yeah.
Going through every stage.
How do you

say that?
How do you say that in Dutch?
The phrase?
Do

maar normaal, dan doe je al gek genoeg.
Yeah.
So now you.
Yeah.

Okay.
Ready?
Uh, yeah.

Everyone (57:48):
Yeah.
Perfect.
Yeah, not that I love that.
How

about

Everyone (57:54):
that?
Yeah.

I love our turn that on.
So Tony, thank youfor joining us today.
I thought it was fantastic.
You're really illuminatingsuper fun to learn about the
innovation you're creating withPlantible and just learning
about who you are as a person.
Uh, I will not hold itagainst you that you
beat me roundly today.
Uh, I will still have abeer with you at any time.
So when you're in theBay Area, please, please
come up and say hello.

Awesome.
Likewise, if youguys are in Eldorado,
Texas, uh, let me know.

All right.
I'll be in Austin, Austin

Everyone (58:25):
in

October.
So

Everyone (58:26):
I'll see you there.
I'll bring my own revolver.
This is lovely.
Thanks, Tony.
Thanks, guys.
so much.
All right.
Cool conversation with

Tony.
I am now hungry.
I'm hungry, too.
So I need to eat some

food.
But what are you,what are you feeling?
What's

Sandeep Pari (58:54):
your takeaway from

it?
Well, I'm going to go getmyself a bag of rubisco and
mix it in with my edamamecrunchies and enjoy myself.
No, but I, I really learned alot from Tony and what he's up
to and how he went about it.
Thank you.
Building his business.
And he had prior experience.
He had this incredibleentrepreneurial set of

(59:19):
influences on his life.
And he turned all that into,into this great company.
And I think his advice, youknow, the, the Sun Tzu thing
about burn all your bridgesor burn all your boats and go
for it and don't look back.
Don't regret,don't second guess.
I think it's just fantastic.
That's fantastic advicefor anyone and for
myself especially.

(59:39):
So I appreciate thethinking behind it and
how he's transforming,really transforming a field
where there's a lot ofcompetition and a lot of Maybe
information that isn't clear.

So, yeah.
And I love that you like,I mean, you obviously had
experience in this field,but you don't have to like
necessarily be the scientificexpert to want to just
dive in and end up leadinga company that, like you
said, it's a very, you know,scientifically based company.
I think that's really cool.
I feel like there's alsothis element of, um, making
use of, of like being anopportunist, making use of

(01:00:11):
the, like when you talked abouthaving free access to this.
You know, spot down in SanDiego and just kind of like
figuring out ways to make useof, uh, of what sort of the,
the rivers bring into you toget a little jumpstart for,
for whatever your mission is.
Tony Robbins, one of hisquotes is like, you know,
you don't lack resources.
You lack resourcefulness.
That's finding opportune ways.
And I think that was, yeah, I

Rajiv Parikh (01:00:31):
mean, that was a great.
Story about the pandemicwhere they use that as an
advantage for them to getahead of their competitors
where others had to goslower, they could move faster
because they created a pod.
So a lot of rich.
Interesting responses.
And, and, uh, thisis another immigrant.
It's another great immigrantentrepreneur story.
And I love hearing aboutit and learning about it.

(01:00:53):
And I hope it gets into manyof our foods, many of the time.
And from what he was tellingus, we're not even going
to know it half the time.
We're just going to knowthat our food is better
and really exciting.
So thanks for listening.
If you enjoyed the podtoday, please take a moment
to rate it and comment.
You can find us on Apple,Spotify, and everywhere
podcasts can be found.
This show is

Sandeep Parikh (01:01:11):
produced by Sundeep Parikh and Anand
Shah, production assistantsby Taryn Talley and edited by
Sean Maher and Aiden McGarvey.
I'm your host, Rajiv

Rajiv Parikh (01:01:18):
Parikh from Position Squared.
We're a leading AI centricgrowth marketing company
based in Silicon Valley.
Come visit us at position2.
com.
And this has been aneffing funny production.
We'll catch you next time.
And remember folks,be ever curious.

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Making Better Food from the Plant Up/Tony Martens - Alternative Meat, Texas, Superfoods ~ Spark of Ages Ep 23

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Making Better Food from the Plant Up/Tony Martens - Alternative Meat, Texas, Superfoods ~ Spark of Ages Ep 23