Paul Shapiro: [00:00:00] Welcome to the business for good podcast

Ofek Ron: how are you my man.

Paul Shapiro: It is so great to see you. Thanks so much for joining us. I'm excited to be talking with you. As you know, I've been following your story for some time. So I'm honored to finally get you onto the show.

Ofek Ron: So I have to tell you that I'm following you for longer and I was listening to the show from the first episodes and I never thought like I thought, but then, but it's like, it's Still something that I need to, you know, to, to wake up and, and, and be very you know feel privileged to be in this show now as, as someone that you're talking with, because I grew on the show.

So thank you, brother.

Paul Shapiro: Well, that's very kind of you. I'm glad the show has been useful for you. I'd love to hear more about that later, but first let me just ask about you. You and I have kind of similar backgrounds in that we were animal advocates turned entrepreneurs for animals, but what was [00:01:00] it for you that got you interested in animals in the first place?

Ofek Ron: Yeah. So it was a very simple. I saw Video by Gary Yourofsky,

Paul Shapiro: I feel like, like every, every Israeli animal advocate can like trace their origin to this video. It's really an incredible thing because the video to which you're referring wasn't even recorded in Israel, right? I think it was recorded in Georgia, the state of Georgia in the U.

S. And some Israelis translated it. In the hebrew and for some reason it took off it's unclear to me why that is you have any thoughts we'll include a link in the show notes at business for good podcast dot com to this particular talk but for some reason this went viral in israel and i to this day don't understand what it was about this particular video that made it so popular in israel

Ofek Ron: i believe we can do a full research on it but i have no idea why it became so popular particularly there Particularly in Israel, but I think that in Israel, there are a lot of things [00:02:00] that are enabling veganism to be more mainstream.

One of the, one of those things is kosher, because in Israel, you already know that you have rules in food. So people are connected to the fact that there is food they can eat and cannot eat as Jewish people. And so this is one. And second is a very ideology country. You know, you have always, like big passion for, for serving for the country and a big passion for for, you know, trying to make to make safe life.

for your families. So like, I think those two things, plus the fact that Israel is very viral, people know each other, people talking a lot with other people, very friendly country. It's helped things go very viral, very fast.

Paul Shapiro: It's funny because Israel to my knowledge, has the second highest rate of per capita vegetarianism after after india and israel also has some of the strongest animal protection laws in the world [00:03:00] including laws against fur and foie gras and so on and I've wondered like obviously all of that predates this video to which you're referring.

Is there You're essentially describing why israel might be Have some greater sympathy for vegetarianism because people are already accustomed to rules about eating But there's lots of diets with rules. Like why is it that israel has become so vegetarian friendly and so animal friendly Compared to other countries now look at I mean if you look at other countries in the region There are oftentimes, you know, barely any animal welfare laws at all Let alone the leading animal welfare laws in the world But even compared to other western democracies israel still has some of the strongest animal protection laws.

Like why is it? Do you think that Israel for, for a long time has been so animal friendly?

Ofek Ron: Kosher is different than diet, because if you don't eat specific food from diet, you don't eat it for yourself. But if you're not eating it because of kosher, you're not eating it because you believe it's not moral, morally [00:04:00] right.

Okay, like you cannot eat meat and milk together because there is a moral issue there. That, you know, because the mother's milk with the baby's milk. Like there is, there are rules in the Jewish you know, Torah that the, that says you cannot, not because it's not healthy, just because it's not fair.

So it's different than other diets still. There are other you know religions that also have restrictions of food, so it's still maybe not the only reason, but they think it's, it's a strong one and the, yeah, you know, it's, it's a big, it's a big question. I think it's a very big question, which I, which someone need to.

Me to explore All right. Well, yeah, we'll

Paul Shapiro: we'll get into that. Some other time maybe but what happened for you? So I interrupted you rudely as you were saying you saw this video So I presume after you saw the video you became a vegetarian or you became a vegan and then like what what happened in?

Your life that you thought [00:05:00] oh, this is going to change the trajectory of my life Not just what I personally eat, but what i'm going to develop my career to

Ofek Ron: so when I Discovered what's happening to animals in the, in the food industry. I decided to go vegan straight away and not only become vegan, but I was all also talking to everyone about.

Why they should go vegan, why they should reduce meat consumption, et cetera, et cetera. And it's became a mission to me, but I never thought it will be my job. So I still had different ideas of what I'm going to do in my life. But I always thought that this is a very important thing to me. So I will be vegan myself, and I will always try to encourage people to reduce their animal-based products consumption.

And yeah, never thought it going to be something more than that. And then when I finish my military service, I I in Israel some of you may know we have to [00:06:00] do three years of service and then. Finish that. I found a non profit, which was which I was very aligned to the mission of trying in a very positive way to make people to reduce meat consumption.

The name was vegan friendly. Back then it was another name. But I met the founder and I asked him if I can join You know, help him start this non profit and I was doing it voluntarily. I was standing in the streets with him and, you know, trying to explain to people in the streets of Tel Aviv why they should go vegan.

And I did it once a week. Every Friday, I would go take a table, put a sign, talk with people why they should go vegan. And I did it for, for a couple of years. And during the time the nonprofit was developed and my day job was very different. I was doing event production and through the event production I was, I was also helping the nonprofit to [00:07:00] produce events for people to become vegan.

So we did protests. For for veganism. We did a lot of festivals and it became like something that was partially a work and, and mostly volunteering. And later I asked AMRI the founder to join the nonprofit. And I joined as a full-time employee after a few years. You know, being there as a board member and helping as a volunteer and, since I stepped into Vegan Friendly, I knew that's how I want to live my life. I want to live my life 100 percent committed to the cause that I'm that, that I believe in. Because, till then, I was working in the event production. Later, I was running a software business. And it's never felt like I'm living myself.

I was living a job and then after that I would go to Vegan Friendly and do some volunteering and, you know, have some hobbies. [00:08:00] And that's, you know, the, I think the usual life of the average person and the average person is fine with that. But, but I was never satisfied from that. I always wanted to contribute more.

I always wanted to be Feeling that I'm not working. And since I joined Vegan Friendly as an employee, which was I'm a vice president of of business development back then. So I felt that whatever I'm doing, I'm doing Ofec, I'm doing my, my characteristic, I'm doing what I believe. And I never felt like I'm working.

So it was like an addiction. I really enjoyed it. And in few years we built an international nonprofit together from a full person nonprofit to 60 worldwide with branches in other nations. And it was hilarious. And the reason I started the company is actually because I was just stuck in Israel because of Covid.

And I thought that I didn't know when [00:09:00] I would be able to travel again and to go and, and expand the nonprofit into more nations. And I thought that during that time, the best Israel can bring to the world is the science and the science in Israel was always very, very strong. And I saw that if I can put my hands on the top, brilliant scientists, maybe together with them, we can try to build something new that would have a massive impact, you know, looking at, yeah.

Paul Shapiro: Why you though? So you were, you essentially co founded vegan friendly and we'll include a link to their website so that folks can go check them out if they want. But you're growing this nonprofit organization. There's a lot of people who might think, well, you're growing the nonprofit from zero to 60 employees.

Why not just continue working there and have that be your living? Why did you think that you were the one who needed to go start a company instead of incentivizing scientists to start their own companies or join other companies? I mean, can you imagine? You already had a [00:10:00] relatively successful organization that you were helping to run.

So why leave to take the chance of starting a new company?

Ofek Ron: Because the the, the, the scale, so what I found out it's vegan friendly is that it doesn't matter how good you are. You cannot raise more donations. And exponentially like to grow exponentially. So if you, we brought a hundred U. S. dollars from a donor and we promised him we will do X, Y, Z.

And we did 2x, 2y, 2z, then we come to him the next year and we tell him, look, we can do a lot more than what we, than what we promised. So instead of giving us 100k, give us 1 million K, look what we'll be able to do. He's like, sorry guys, you're doing an amazing job. You get 100k again, and the next time we say 4x, 4y, [00:11:00] 4z, now just, just give us 200, we'll do a lot more.

Guys, you're doing an amazing, amazing job, and because of that, you'll get another 100k. And what I saw at the same time is companies like BEYOND and IMPOSSIBLE, that they're doing the same, they're Executing pretty well back then it was blowing up and they're getting billions of dollars and I say I want those billions of dollars because I believe with this amount of money we can do a lot more and that's the only reason like I thought.

Maybe I want to go to the, to the tech industry. Maybe I want to find my way, how I can execute well, get rewarded on it in terms of being able to scale the company faster, and then I can do massive impact faster, that's why I went from the nonprofits to the business.

Paul Shapiro: You know, it's so funny you say that because as somebody who spent the vast majority of my career in the non profit world, who now for the last six and a half years has been running a for profit company, I have been [00:12:00] struck by how different it is, which is, you know, in the non profit world, people are donating.

Money with no expectation of any return. Maybe they'll get a tax write off, but that's it, right? They are giving money in the return. They want is not financial. They want to return, which is social change for animals in our particular case, right? They give you money so you can turn their money into the type of social reforms that they are seeking in the case of companies, though, in these startups, right?

Nobody's just giving you money. For the most part, they're investing money that they expect to get a return on at a later date. And they own part of your company. You know, the donor might have some influence on what an organization does, but they can't force them to do anything. Whereas with investors, they actually own part of your company and they can, in some cases, control what the company does or does not do.

It's a very different world. And I think that's illustrative of why it is important. There's so many more dollars going into the for profits than in the non profits because there's just a lot more people who are willing to give you money if they think they might get a return on it, rather than giving money where [00:13:00] they expect to part with it and never see anything again.

Ofek Ron: Yeah, you're right.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah. So, all right, let me get in effect to your decision then to actually start the company. What were the logistics like for you? You had some entrepreneurial experience prior to doing OSHI or where the time was plant ish. What was it that that helped to prepare you for this? Like you thought, okay, I'm going to start a company.

What was the first thing that you had to do to raise money, to find scientists that you would then go raise money to fund their work? Like, what was step one for you in this process?

Ofek Ron: Step one was building a team. I did not came with an idea from one university. I did not came with any idea. I didn't have an idea.

I just had a desire. Okay? I saw Impossible and Beyond doing great with meat, and I say, I want to do great with fish. Why? As an activist, I know that fish is an area that I'm [00:14:00] very passionate about because there is a lot of fish. Wrong things going on in that industry. And I think it's not the best podcast to go into that, but I know I want to do something in the seafood space.

And there is no, not enough products in this category and not one product that has been tremendously successful. And because of that, I thought that this is a place that I want to give, give it a try and I looked, which one, which product is the most popular in fish. It was salmon. And I say, we should do salmon filet.

That's the most popular way of consuming the most popular consumed fish. And that's, that's

Paul Shapiro: pretty

Ofek Ron: good

Paul Shapiro: with it. It's a pretty high fruit to grab off of the branches. And it, like, if you think about what beyond and impossible we're doing, they're not. For the most part, at least at first, we're not trying to mimic whole muscle meats, right?

They were trying to [00:15:00] do something that could be ground like a meatball or a burger. And so rather than doing that, which is much easier to replicate, it's still hard, but much easier to replicate than a whole muscle product. You didn't think I want to do fish sticks, which are also a ground product.

Product you thought I want to do something that is very difficult, which is a salmon filet, which has, you know, the, the fat layers and the muscle layers that are in there. It's like both visually and texturally very difficult to do. So why pursue that? As opposed to something that might be a lower hanging fruit, like a fish stick.

Ofek Ron: It's a great question. I thought to myself that if Fish Fingers would be a great idea, Nestle and other big companies that are already doing plant based stuff, We'll go and do it. They have the technology to create fish fingers. They have the technology today to create great burgers I want to do something which is first more [00:16:00] Exciting because most of the people are not eating fish sticks or fish burger.

Maybe 1 percent of the fish consumed as a burger Above 70 percent consumed in the natural form. Okay. Which is the fillet. So I wanted to do something that first of all, it will be more exciting. And second, it's something that food companies cannot do. Otherwise, why do it as a startup go, you know, offer it to a company and the company will do it.

I will just convince Nestle to do fish fingers and it will be more successful than me, Mr. Trying to do fish fingers, being an activist and not a food scientist. So I really wanted to try to make something that no one else has achieved of doing and something that will be looking very challenging. So other companies will not take the risk.

And I know that if we will not take the risk. We will not have today fish fillets from plants.

Paul Shapiro: We're going [00:17:00] to get into your fish fillets, which are truly phenomenal. They, they taste fantastic and I'm so glad they're entering the U S I know you're in more than a dozen U S restaurants now, and hopefully more soon, but let's get into the technology that you actually developed because most of the time when folks are making plant based meat, they're not trying to To get to that whole muscle texture, right?

They're doing these ground products, but you had to invent new technology to create this whole muscle filet. So what is the technology? What is the moat that she actually developed?

Ofek Ron: Great. So first of all, which is the more important part, I did not know which technology we will have when we started the company, all we knew is that all I knew is that I have three very smart PhDs.

Okay, Ariel, Ron, and Hila, and they will figure out a way.

Paul Shapiro: How did you get them? Like you mentioned that you didn't have any money first. So how did you get these PhDs to join a company that had no money and that you had no idea of what you were going to do? [00:18:00]

Ofek Ron: Yeah, so GFI has connected me to Ron and Ariel, a PhD professor from the Hebrew University has connected me to Hila, and Through those connections, I met them and you know what?

It was March 8th, 2021. I gave him contracts. I told them from April 1st, you'll be employed in Israel. You have to pay for April nine days after the following month. So I knew that till my ninth I should have, I should pay them. It was March eight, nine and I had two months, two months and one day to get some what money to pay them.

So I just, you know, put a deck with those three legends in the deck. And after a month we got, we got some money from from angels and I was able to pay.

Paul Shapiro: That's great. How much was that first angel round that you did?

Ofek Ron: So it [00:19:00] was a safe of about 300 K us dollars.

Paul Shapiro: Okay. And for those not familiar, a safe is an acronym for a simple agreement for future equity, which is basically a way that you can take money without actually giving shares and they'll get the shares later on when you, when you run an official round.

So how much has the company raised since that 300, 000 in the beginning?

Ofek Ron: So since that we have raised officially announced that we have raised 14. 5 million dollars, and hopefully soon we can announce some more

Paul Shapiro: wonderful. Well, that's exciting. Okay, great. All right. So you raise a few 100, 000. You're able to pay these three legendary scientists.

What's the next thing you think? Okay, there's a lot of different technologies that maybe we could pursue to create this. How are you going to pick which one to do?

Ofek Ron: Great. So first of all, we closed the 2 million round after this safe agreement. And with that money, we built a lab and we started to, to try lots of things.

And to tell you that [00:20:00] I did the trials, I didn't, I was just, Sitting there looking at this smart people doing magic. And just after a couple of months, we really understood what we're trying to do and how we're going to make the fish and it's changed again after a year. So in the first year we were creating something which is not relevant to what we're doing today.

We almost. Push the button on creating a huge machine costs a lot of money. And one day before pushing the button, we realized that it might not be as scalable as we want. And we, you know, erased everything completely and started from scratch. But basically what, what we discovered is that the way to build fish is doing it layer by layer.

So not trying to create. Everything at once, but to look at the fish like you're building a [00:21:00] Lego, okay? Because in the end, what you have in the fish is flakes. The flakes are layers which have a very special shape. Some of them are curved like an S or U or W. And all those flakes are sitting one on top of the other.

And in the end, you get something incredible, which is the fish fillet. So what we try to do is to create a machine that the input of the machine would be the flakes, and the output of the machine will be the fish fillet. So basically, what we build is it's called modular layering technology. But basically, it's imagine someone building a Lego.

That's the machine. It's a Lego builder. We create flakes and we put the flakes into the machine and they build, and the machine builds it to be a fish filet, like a child building a Lego of a salmon.

Paul Shapiro: And so this is essentially 3d printing. Is that accurate or no?

Ofek Ron: So it's not 3d [00:22:00] printing it's the mother technology of 3d printing called additive manufacturing which is also the mother technology of modular layering but it's not 3d printing we started the company thinking we're gonna be a 3d printing company.

And after a year or so, we did a pivot and understood that instead of creating the fish voxel by voxel, created layer by layer.

Paul Shapiro: So would you say that Oshi is a food science company? Is a machine making company? Is this, are you like a machinery company? Like what, what is the nature of your invention?

Ofek Ron: So we are a food company.

We create some of the companies that are creating the food, their food. Most of the companies are only creating the food and they use. Some existing machines to create the food and we unfortunately did not have the machines to create fish fillets. So we needed to invent it. But [00:23:00] in the end, we're selling food and that's it.

Paul Shapiro: Great. So, okay, you're a food company. You're also inventing machines to make this food and you're now selling it. In at least a dozen restaurants in the United States. And what is the cost competitive nature here? So I was actually looking at salmon prices in advance of our conversation here. And I saw King salmon is very costly.

It's like more than 25 a pound. Atlantic salmon is basically 10 to 15 a pound. Sockeye salmon, 9 or a pound and wild caught salmon is even costly, or maybe like 300 percent more than these prices. So I presume you're able to compete on cost with some of these types of salmon, but maybe not. Not always that accurate, or is that inaccurate?

Ofek Ron: Yeah. So today we're we're selling at a bit above 20 a pound. And we are competitive to the fancy salmons and less competitive for, you know, the cheapest salmons. [00:24:00] But it doesn't really matter what, what, what we are today. What's matter is that what we're building, and it's a brand new technology that we believe that we can bring down the prices, not in 10 years, but in two years to the level that we can be very competitive to any kind of someone.

And I think that's what's exciting because someone is more expensive than most of the alternative myths we have today. You know, if you're, you're looking for a chicken alternatives, they're, they're competing a very cheap products, which is chicken and even a burger is quite cheap, but the salmon is a lot more premium and that's what give us the advantage of creating something which will be indulgent that we can invest the best of ingredients in it.

Do you know, make, make sure it's the best quality and still have some margins in the future to compete with the salmon, which is only [00:25:00] becoming more and more expensive because. And you have less, less fish available each year in the salmon industry.

Paul Shapiro: Right. Certainly the number of salmon is not appearing to increase for sure.

And so presumably those prices will continue to go up in the future. Hopefully yours will go down. Is that the only reason? That is holding you back. So let's say you could produce an unlimited number of your salmon fillets. Is cost the only thing? Is there a taste difference? Like it looks from photos, it really looks like regular salmon to me at least.

But have you done focus groups where people were trying blind back to back actual salmon versus your salmon and tell, can they tell the difference?

Ofek Ron: Yeah. So they can tell they think it's a kind of another fish. So it's very close to someone, but it's not one to one. It's not that people are thinking they're eating salmon.

They, they're thinking they're eating, they're eating another fish, which is salmon ish, some think [00:26:00] it's fish, but it's not, it's not one to one. And I have to tell you that. Probably it will never be one to one.

Paul Shapiro: So it's interesting you bring that up and you say Salmon ish, especially because your first name for the company is plant ish.

So this leads to the question that I've been wondering a lot lately, which is, does the product have to be a mimicry in order to succeed? And let me preface this question or your answer by stating the following. If you think about every single time. That animals have been displaced in our economy by some new technology.

It is never by mimicry, right? The quill pen was not replaced because somebody invented a fake quill, right? A metal fountain pen is not a fake quill. It's something better than a quill. Henry Ford did not invent a mechanical horse that just ran faster than a horse. He invented something that was so superior.

People just left horses. By the wayside. Similarly, you know, electricity is not necessary and kerosene oil was not a perfect mimicry for whale oil. It was just better than oil and safer and cheaper and cleaner [00:27:00] and so on. And so these are just three of many examples. But I can't think of a single time when something has been a mimicry.

That it succeeded in displacing it. Usually there is just something better that is different and comes along and people switch to it. And so the question is, you know, we in the alternative meat industry and alternative protein industry in general have often thought we need to perfectly mimic meat. And that's what companies like impossible or trying to do.

But is that the case? Are is humanity willing to switch to other foods if they are beneficial on some other criterion, whether it's cost, you know taste, health, something else that makes people want to buy it, even if they can tell the difference. What do you think?

Ofek Ron: Okay. So that's a big, big and important point.

And if we should summarize this podcast, let's just put those few minutes for people to hear. When I started the company, I will tell you, yes, if you bring someone, something that looks just like meat, taste, just like meat, same [00:28:00] price as meat. One is. Real meat. The other one is pea, fungi, and olive oil.

People will take the pea, fungi, and olive oil kind of meat if it tastes the same, same price, same nutrition even. Today, I would tell you, no, people would take meat. Even if they have all the benefits on the other side, they would take meat. And you know why? Because that's what they want. They want it. They want to eat meat.

They will eat meat. For them, They don't understand what they're eating when they're eating pea and fungi and olive oil. Okay, and I'm not talking about meat eaters, not about the flexitarians, vegetarians, vegans, the 15 percent of the citizens of America that are putting meat alternatives in their home once a week or a month.

Okay, I'm not talking about them. 15 percent will be interested in, in, in what I just said. And, and, and those are the ones that are buying today Oshi [00:29:00] Salmon. And they're super happy with Oshi Salmon. And I believe that Oshi Salmon could be as great. In numbers as impossible foods beyond meat and other great players, I believe we can be that big, but if you want to go to the hundred percent of the meat consumption eaters of the meat eaters, we cannot just try to mimic and look at tofu.

Tofu is going up every year. More and more people, more and more people are eating tofu, oat milk. Every year, more and more people are drinking oat milk. And you know why? Because it's simple. You eat tofu, you know what it's made of. You know that the flavor that you feel in your mouth coming from soy, and you're expecting this flavor, this texture, and you're happy.

Same with oat milk. You are coming to alt milk knowing that you will feel and, and, and, and have the taste of an oat. When you drink it, you're happy [00:30:00] because it's not about clean label. It's not about healthy, it's about expectations. You're expecting the flavor of oat, you're explain. You're expecting the flavor of tofu slash soy.

You're getting this when you're eating meat. Even if you're expecting it to be in the taste of meat and the taste is actual, actual like meat, when you look at the, you know, at the package and you see soy or pea, you say, what the hell, what's going on here, what am I eating, how this taste of meat comes to my, to my, to my tongue, what happened here, the expectation is Is not meeting what you're looking for.

Okay. If I would say it's a mushroom burger and it will taste like a mushroom, that will be good expectation. But we're saying just like meat, just like fish. And I'm telling you that we're stuck in this 15%. We're not getting higher on that. [00:31:00] And I think that the next product that we and others should bring to the table are not mimicking a specie.

I'm not going to do after that you know, the, the plant based tuna. No, we're going to make something like the blue. Algae fish. So you will have the algae flavor. You have the blue color and you'll you'll understand that you're eating algae. And that's the flavor you will be expecting. And that's what you'll be getting.

And it will be a nutritious and cheap. And I think that will be a winner for the mass population until we'll be eating algae. Yeah, sorry.

Paul Shapiro: I certainly hope you're right. And I have thought about this a lot because I tofu is growing in sales compared to plant based meat, which at least in the United States is contracting in sales right now.

But it doesn't change the fact that tofu has been on the market for decades in the US and plant based meat, of course, has been on the market for decades, but it was only [00:32:00] around less than a decade ago that beyond an impossible really took off and very rapidly, those companies built a a market that was billions, right?

Whereas tofu was still hundreds of millions. Despite that. Now, of course, these companies had. Dramatically larger investments than any tofu company ever did. So maybe if somebody had pumped hundreds of millions of dollars of money into a tofu startup, maybe they too would be expanding, but I've wondered about this, are people happy to eat tofu?

And I've actually thought about the following thought experiment. So tofu, which is cheaper than meat today. If it were even cheaper, let's say that it were, you know 25 cents per pound, right? So by far the cheapest protein source on the planet, how much would that depress meat consumption? And I don't know the answer to it but I, I fear that it's not as much as we would hope.

I, I have a feeling like if, for example, even if you took, let's say, lentils, right? And let's just say you made lentils free. But not even 25, let's say lentils were literally free to the individual consumer, not [00:33:00] to food manufacturers, but to consumers would would meet demand go down at all if lentils were absolutely free at the supermarket.

And I wonder, like, would it go down 1 percent 5 percent I don't know, but I have a feeling that what you said earlier, which is that people really want meat is a sad, true fact of human nature. And I'm concerned that if we don't. Get close to that experience that we may not branch out into the mainstream like you're aspiring to here.

What would you say to that devil's advocate argument?

Ofek Ron: Great. So what I'm trying to say is that tofu is not an exciting food. Still, people are buying it. Why? Because the expectation is met. You're not dying for tofu, okay? In the end, tofu, it's a lot in how you cook the tofu. It's not a food that, as is, you take out of the fridge and you eat it like it's a cake.

Maybe in Japan, not in, not in America. Okay? And in the end, it's fine. Okay. It's not something super exciting, but it's growing because it's meeting the expectation. [00:34:00] Okay. I don't think we should say, okay, we have tofu. Let's just do promotions for tofu and we're winning. No, we have to create novel food. We have to create things which are a lot more exciting, which are giving the experience as you're eating meat, not in terms of That it has to be similar to meat, but it has to be exciting as meat in a different way, not in the same way, in a different way.

Okay. So I see some companies going that way. Okay. You have in Israel, a company called Kinoko, and they have something that looks like tempeh, very, very tasty, a lot more tasty than tempeh. I don't like tempeh. And you know. And it's healthy. It's cheap. It works. Okay. You have now a company called Vau.

They're doing cultured meat of quail Who knows what's the flavor of quail, but you know, if it's tasty and delicious as meat, but it's different than meat and I'm convinced that I'm going to eat something which is [00:35:00] exciting as meat, but it should be, it should be in a different flavor because it's not the meat I'm used to eat and the expectation will be you know, I will meet the expectation.

Great, and that can be greater than tofu. Right. Well,

Paul Shapiro: here is my proposal for making tofu more popular. Right now, tofu is often perceived as a female food. I think obviously that's unjustified. I think many men, including myself, love eating tofu. Tofu is a very good food. But for whatever reason, there are many men who have concerns about tofu.

So I have thought, why doesn't somebody create a company? That is a branded, exciting flavored tofu that is called Profu.

Ofek Ron: And the, the brand,

Paul Shapiro: the, the, the brand is Profu. So this is, you know, not your girlfriend's tofu, right? This is tofu for men. And the marketing has gotta be, you know, like wrestlers and fighters who are like smashing [00:36:00] carton after carton of this tofu.

And maybe they even have non soy ones. You know, there, there's an unjustified fear about soy. And so now.

Ofek Ron: It's for so many young entrepreneurs that asked me, what should I do? I just told them, invent the new tofu. To be looking even like tofu, just make some, which will be very simple, very, very easy to understand based on an ingredient people know.

And you know, it can work, it can work more delicious.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah. Have you seen the new fava bean tofu? It is by big mountain foods in Canada, but it's sort of throughout the United States. And it's a soy,

Ofek Ron: it's a soy. We have an Israel chickpea tofu, which is not bad.

Paul Shapiro: Oh, interesting. Okay. Well, I've been really enjoying the fava bean tofu.

Amazingly, it has a even better nutritional profile in tofu and tofu's nutritional profile is excellent, but it's even better. It's lower fat, lower calorie and higher protein. And so, you know, it's like, [00:37:00] it's really mind blowing nutritionally, how good it is, and I've been eating it multiple times a week and I'm like evangelizing it.

So I'm going to put a link in the show notes for people who want to get the big mountain foods, fava bean tofu in there. But so I have now given OFAC my suggestion for a company that I hope somebody will start, which is BroFu. I hope somebody starts BroFu. But what about you? You said that you've been shouting this from the rooftop for years.

You started. She presumably you're gonna be on this journey for quite some time, right? You're saying that you have even more capital that you haven't announced yet that is coming in. So that's fantastic. Congratulations. You're already in a dozen restaurants. Presumably you're gonna be going into even more as time moves on.

So you're gonna be occupied. But what do you hope that somebody listening might start on his or her own? Mhm.

Ofek Ron: So first of all is just what you said, the new tofu, okay, it's not some, it's something that I really, I really think is necessarily necessary to, for people to, to do things which are more exciting than [00:38:00] tofu.

And second is something which I found also important, which when you try new It takes you some time to find them, to get them into your lab and to make the experiments. So let's say I'm now wanting to, to try to develop a new food. So you know, you try to call a few companies to ask them, Hey, can you give me an ingredient?

I'm looking for a potato protein. So you Google potato protein, you find a few companies, you, you're contacting them through the contact us page. After a week, someone is getting back to you if you're lucky. And then after a few days, they're emailing, they're mailing you some proteins and after a few weeks you get it.

But imagine if you just have a website, okay, like an Airbnb of proteins for trials, and you can see everything available in the world. And in one click, you can pay each one of [00:39:00] those companies to be sending you those proteins just right away. And why it's good for them as well, because they don't want to do all those emails.

And they usually don't get money for the samples. They just you know, charge you the flight. So instead of being just charged on the flight, I would pay a lot to get the proteins tomorrow and not wait now a few weeks. So if someone will be able to solve how to get trials faster from new companies that we don't know yet, but they can get on this platform and we can rank them and get like to know new companies that have new great flavors, protein sources, fats.

Having everything in one platform. I think that would be a great great company. It's software it's every food company needs it, and it can save a lot of time and accelerate food development, especially in alternative protein space.

Paul Shapiro: Very cool. All [00:40:00] right. Well, that's a really interesting idea. I've never conceived of or heard anybody mentioned.

So I'm grateful to you effect for mentioning that. I hope somebody will create that Airbnb for alternative proteins. The, the gauntlet has been thrown down by effect here. So if you start that company, let us know. And you'll, you'll get your first order from Oshie coming up very soon. Finally effect.

I want to ask you, you've obviously been on quite a journey. With Oshie and with your other entrepreneurial endeavors, both in the for profit and non profit worlds, has there been anything for you that was useful that you would share with others, whether books or anything else that you have found actually helpful for you and that you would encourage others to consume as well?

Ofek Ron: First of all, I have to say that before I started Oshie, I thought that it's going to be just fun. I thought it's just fun. Roller coaster ups and downs, but they've been through roller [00:41:00] coasters in the past. I started a few businesses and a nonprofit was a founding member. So I thought, okay, they said it and I already did like a few things and I always just had fun.

No. Okay. No, it's fun sometimes and it's. The opposite of fun for, you know, long times and you have to know that what you're getting into, because in the end, if you don't have the mission very strong, you'll give up because for you cannot, you can be not sleeping for weeks in in in some you know, periods in your company from being worried and stressed out.

Because of lots of things going on in your company and yeah, and I, and I just thought that if I would know it, I would come more prepared. I would not be in expectation that every day is like, you know, going to play basketball or tennis, [00:42:00] which I'm going to play after this podcast. No, and I just want to tell people that if you go for it, go for it.

with the knowledge that it's going to be with a lot of suffering, but also, you'll feel you're bringing yourself to, you know, to the I would say it in English. You're bringing the most out of you. Okay. You're, you're living your life in a way.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah. Reminds me of in in Ben Horowitz, his book is from Andreessen Horowitz, the venture capital fund.

And in his book, the hard thing about hard things, he talks about the fact that when you start your own company, you will sleep like a baby because you will wake up every two hours and cry. And as somebody who has a baby yourself, I know that you are, who has had a baby. And as a young child, I know that you're familiar with that, and that's certainly been my experience of running my own company at the BetterMeetCo for the last six and a half years, which has been sure.

There are many moments [00:43:00] that are quite extraordinary, but the average moments are quite suboptimal and that I really feel like being a founder is comparable to just beating your head against a wall over and over again. While having the conviction that the wall will break before your head does and if I could just count the number of Disappointments that there have been compared to the number of high points you know it's not they're not comparable numbers, unfortunately but if it works What a great service for the world that you have, you will have committed hopefully it'll be financially beneficial for you and your employees and your investors.

But I know that people like you and certainly myself as well are motivated by how much suffering we can reduce in the world. And that's what keeps me going in this to think that. There is a a large universe of suffering that hopefully some of which we can ameliorate through the work that we're doing at our respective companies.

And I'm grateful to you [00:44:00] for everything that you and your colleagues at Oshi are doing, and I'm rooting for you all to turn the tides, pun intended, on the devastation that we're wreaking in the oceans. And I will very much hope to see the Oshi salmon proliferate throughout restaurants in the United States and abroad.

Ofek Ron: Amen

Paul Shapiro: and i will now say good luck in this tennis match i hope it's i hope it's a grand slam for you and we'll look forward to talking with you later thanks so much effect

Ofek Ron: thank you so much for the for the talk