Paul Shapiro: [00:00:00] Chef Chew, welcome to the business for good podcast.

GW Chew: Hey man, it's I'm happy to be here, Paul, man. It's been a long time coming, man. And so just thanks for inviting me. Yes, sir.

Paul Shapiro: I'm excited. You know, the first time that we met, I'm sure that, you'll remember cause you were pitching at the food funded conference and it's like, I think it was 2018 in San Francisco.

And I, was watching you pitch and there are all these entrepreneurs who are up there talking about their products and many of them are getting these like dry, boring things are talking about like total addressable market and the gross margins are going to get. And you got up there, you lit the whole crowd on fire and you won first prize.

You, you won the whole thing. it was amazing. So

GW Chew: what happened? Yeah, man. So that was actually, believe it or not, I had just moved. Actually, I didn't just move. I actually, just got really involved in the startup world. I was actually a, been a chef, restaurateur. We talk about that some more, but at that point I got excited about getting into plant based food manufacturing.

I went through my first accelerator. [00:01:00] And I learned about that pitch competition, man. And, what was the accelerator that you were in? ICA fun, good jobs. It was a local program in Oakland, California. that's pretty much, had a eight week accelerator. I can't remember the name of what the exact modules was.

It was eight weeks. I remember I had did it. you know, got kind of introduced to a lot of startup concepts, but then I'm a bunch of restaurants prior to that, but this was kind of more into the startup, kind of, you know, building a company, you know, opposed to, again, my background being restaurant tour, brick and mortar kind of locations.

so that was kind of, man, my beginning, but they had, they had, somebody had told me about food funded. I had came 2017. And I said, in 2018, I'm going to pitch and, and that was a monumental experience, man. That was kind of my very beginning of, I found my first investors. A good friend that we both have.

Nate saw Peter was, was there. I met him at that event and, some other individuals, man. So it was, it was the beginning of my fundraising journey. I got the, you know, first place in that. I got to expo at the pitches expo East, you know, and different things as a result of that. So it was a really monumental experience, man, at that food funded [00:02:00] experience.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah, that's cool. And, and yeah, so Nate saw Peter, a wonderful guy. you know, he, he's, a really wonderful guy. He's the, he and his wife, Anna sweet run the sweet farm for people who are interested in animal welfare. They have a farm animal sanctuary. It used to be in California. Now it's in upstate New York.

We'll link to sweet farm in the show notes of this episode of business for good podcast. com. But you talked about the beginning. So let's talk about that because. Okay. , you know, people know you as Chef Chew, right? Yeah. So your, your actual name is GW Chew. And I was, I, I was impressed to learn that your name is gw.

It isn't, it's just two letters, man. It's, it's not, it's not short for anything. It's just gw. That's cool. Yeah. So you and I are both from Maryland. oh, wow, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. I don't think we, I, I, I, I grew up in Montgomery County. I don't know. Okay.

GW Chew: I grew up in Calver County, man, so, yeah, not too far, but an hour, hour or so from you, man.

It's cool. Very

Paul Shapiro: cool. Very cool. So. What happened when you were a kid? Because I know that you didn't grow up as a vegetarian. There's something that happened to you as an adult, [00:03:00] but you were always interested in food. So what was it that led you on this

GW Chew: culinary path? Yeah, interesting story, man. Thanks for asking that, man.

So I actually, I was adopted at birth, which is always talk about that story. and it was a family that had the last name chew. That's always the funny part, right? It's like my last name actually being C. H. E. W. it's like.

Paul Shapiro: This is my

GW Chew: actual last name, man. And it's interesting because the black family is, you know, most people think it's an Asian last name, but a black family, I grew up again.

And, you know, we both grew up in Maryland, but I grew up in Southern Maryland, which was a rural part of Maryland, Calvert County. my, my father actually grew up as a sharecropper. and so, you know, very country family. my, you know, my father's family was very, this ate off the land, meat and potato family, you know, they were farmers.

I'm a father shot squirrels in the window. He was like that type of country guy, man. Like he was a super country. you know, but you know, my best memories always talk about my memories as a child, man, holidays, Christmas, Thanksgiving, you know, [00:04:00] it's, you know, you got the fried chicken, you know, the ribs, the, the, the ham and the bacon and the Mac and cheese.

And, you know, a lot of soul, soulful, soulful type recipes. A lot of heavy meat eating, in my family, and a lot of the, sadly, a lot of disease. so as a child, I saw, you know, again, flavorful, good food, but again, many of the foods that we grew up eating, you know, was pretty much underlying the, you know, the cause of disease in a lot of people that I love.

And in an early age, I saw many of my family members. Early forties, late forties, early fifties begin to have lethal diseases. And many of them begin to literally, I mean, die, man. And it was devastating, you know, losing aunts and uncles, way too young, due to cancers and different things, heart disease.

ironically, my mother's side of the family was actually seven Adventist. and many of them were actually vegetarians. and so, you know, it's a new documentary on Netflix called about the blue zones and it's a place called Loma Linda, California is a very big Adventist, seven [00:05:00] Adventist population.

but, you know, my faith perspective that I grew up around was, you know, a lot of them were vegetarians. And so as a child, I would go to my uncle's and my aunt's house on my mother's side of the family, and many of them were eating vegetarian foods like, and this is in the eighties and the nineties. You know, a lot of that was like canned vegetarian foods, old school, like.

You know,

Paul Shapiro: I ate those Worthington hot dogs, you

GW Chew: know, exactly what I'm talking about exactly. Yeah.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah. Because, you know, I became vegan in 1993. And so, you know, there wasn't, you know, you know what I'm talking about? It wasn't out there. This thing that we, that we have now, but the Adventists were the big purveyors.

There were like two things where it was like Tofutti, which is primarily for kosher Jews. So they would put out cream cheese, things like that. and, and, the Adventists had the Worthington brand, which I don't know if it even exists anymore, but.

GW Chew: It does. It still does, man. It

Paul Shapiro: still does. Yeah. That's awesome.

Yeah. There, there were some other brands. I mean, there was like, you know, Boca was around back then. Yeah. Boca

GW Chew: [00:06:00] Burger, the Morningstar. Exactly.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah. Yeah. So, and it wasn't like, you know, like it, the world, you know, wasn't even in color yet, and we were walking both ways. Yeah. Not pale, you know, like it wasn't, it wasn't terrible, but the options were not what they were today.

But, no, I remember the, the Adventist stuff. But you, I mean, you didn't become an Adventist though until you were an adult, isn't

GW Chew: that right? Nah, so, so what happened was, you know, my mother, you know, she wasn't attending the church, but she, you know, she grew up in the church and she sent me to church with my uncle and my, my uncle, my aunt.

And so at a very young age, I started attending the Seventh day Adventist church. And so on weekends, I would actually eat vegetarian food, you know, and so every Saturday, you know, went to church on Saturdays and we ate vegetarian food every Saturday, you know, pretty much from 3rd or 4th grade all the way through high school.

and so you can imagine again during the week, you know, we're eating, you know, meat and everything else you could think of. But on every Saturday I would go to my uncle's and aunt's house and they would have actually very good, not vegan, but very good vegetarian food. it tasted very well. And so I got exposed to vegetarianism as a kid, [00:07:00] and started making changes, you know, around 12 years old.

I stopped eating pork and things like that. and then when I was 17, 18 years old, I actually became vegetarian and 18 became a total vegan. and that kind of became my journey. And again, it was inspired by my faith perspective again, being seven to Venice, but this scene. You know, people in my, my special, my, specifically my father's side of the family, seeing so much disease, this, the, the dietary set challenges that we're in, especially in minority communities, it really inspired me to want to, and, you know, pretty much, you know, become a plant, become plant based at that time, total vegetarian.

And we didn't really say vegetarian back vegan back then. Right. It was like total vegetarian. And for me, it was a lot of, yeah, man. And, it was curiosity, I think. So when I became a vegetarian, total vegetarian, again, that's vegan is old school word for when I became a vegan though, that was, you know, again, I grew up eating all this flavorful, soulful, you know, recipes.

A lot of the vegetarian food. I mean, at that point, Paul, you know, it wasn't any vegan cheeses out there. It wasn't [00:08:00] no vegan butters out there. We was making everything literally from scratch. I mean, cashew cheese and. You know, I mean, everything was like scratch made and it's like these old school recipes, man, oat burgers and things like that, man.

And

Paul Shapiro: I remember, do you remember the sunshine burgers? I've

GW Chew: heard this, I don't remember exactly, but I remember seeing the

Paul Shapiro: name. Yeah, I still see them every once in a while. So, so the brand is still in existence, but they're really good. Now, obviously they don't look or taste like meat, but they are a patty and they're kind of green, but you know, I love, you know, I still love them.

I don't, I don't buy them really. Cause I don't see them, but I still love them. But I remember, reading like about, cause there's no, you know, there's no internet back then. And I remember reading. about what I saw the word vegan and I thought it was vegan and I was like, Oh, yeah, I think one of these vegans, like that is really weird.

And I thought, you know, I was already a vegetarian, but I thought, you know, this vegan thing must be like holding your breath. Like, you know, you can hold your breath for a certain amount of time, but if you do it too long, you'll die, right? [00:09:00] And I thought, well, maybe you can not eat any animal products for a week or two or a month, but eventually you're just going to die.

And, it wasn't until I read an interview with Carl Lewis, who talked about being vegan or what I thought was big. And, and he talked about how that was helpful for him. And I, I worship this guy, like his poster on my wall where I lived with my parents at the time and. and to see that, like, you know, the best athlete in the world now, for those of you who are too young to know who Carl Lewis is, you know, he was like the Usain Bolt or the Michael Phelps of that era, like the best Olympian, right?

The most decorated Olympian and to see that this guy was the, like, you know, now a poster child for veganism. I was like, Oh, my God, I couldn't believe it. So that kind of gave me the shove, like I knew I thought it was probably the right thing to do, but then seeing that like this top athlete could do it helped push me over.

And then I met people who I learned actually were not vegans, but vegans. And many of them have been doing it for a while. And, 30 years later, I'm still doing it. So, you know, it's, it's, yeah, I haven't

GW Chew: died yet. I love it, man. I love it. And like you said, man, I mean, it's, [00:10:00] you know, you see athletes and that was, like I said, old school, that's like, he was one of the first, you know, just to kind of trailblazer athlete to do it, man.

but you know, for me, like I said, man, it was just. I wanted to, you know, not really from a standpoint of like, I didn't really go into a career at it, but it was more or less, you know, I'm a college student, you know, just having to feed myself vegan. And, you know, when you first start out as, you know, it's a lot of pastas and spaghettis and, you know, ramen bowls and, you know, this, you know, all that type of stuff, man.

But eventually, you know, I started really getting excited about, Replicating the things that I grew up eating, you know, so wanted to create a vegan mac and cheese, you know, wanted to replicate a vegan chicken, you know, and, and so I really honestly started going through cookbooks. It was an old school cookbook called Country Life.

It was this old, I'm talking about like a 1970s cookbook,

Paul Shapiro: man. Oh, man. Did, did you ever go to the country life chain of restaurants

GW Chew: that they had? I did go to the country Life changer, you know, so you know about that. Man, that's funny.

Paul Shapiro: Oh, oh, about it. I loved it. I would, every time, every time I went to Boston, I, Boston New New York.[00:11:00]

I set out like an entire, like afternoon just to go to country.

GW Chew: Yeah.

Paul Shapiro: For those who aren't familiar, it was, it was a, I don't think it's around anymore, but it's an Adventist end chain of vegan restaurants and it was all you can eat. Oh, you can eat. And so I think about like, you know, for a vegan to go to an all you can eat buffet, you know, it's like, you've gone to heaven because most of the time you're going to a restaurant.

And you're looking for one thing on the menu. Now you go here and it's an entire restaurant and no matter how much food you take, it's the same price and you just can't believe it. So, yeah, I would like fantasize about country. That's what I, you know, I didn't know they had a cookbook. That's

GW Chew: really interesting.

Yeah. So that's why, man, that's where I began, man. That was like my foundation, like all these amazing recipes and it got me honestly, kind of, you know, and even my manufacturing principles that, you know, self produced manufacturing now. You know, I learned the ratios. I started studying this, the combinations of, you know, X amount of this X amount of that, you know, whether it's being a simple stuff, like being the water ratios, you know, this, and it was kind of like, I [00:12:00] started looking at recipes, not like each individual ingredient, like one tablespoon of garlic powder, one teaspoon of salt or whatever.

I started seeing the ratios of food and X amount of cashews X amount of this. And, you know, I started really looking at the principles and that cookbook, man, crazy enough, I went through like every recipe in that cookbook. And it became like my, like my culinary hub because, you know, at that point it really wasn't vegan culinary schools that was kind of popularized.

it was just me taking old school cookbooks, man, and just going through recipes. And I wasn't afraid to kind of just step outside of the recipe. And, and so that began my personal journey of creating food. It started with granola. That was my first product, man. Crunchy, bunchy granola. You know, I says, we don't box.

We'll have a granola that will knock you out. And, yeah, started making granola, man. And, you know, that was, I was about 20 and, I was working with a team of young men and, we had a little granola business, man, making granola and, and bread. We made a vegan bread, raisin swirl bread, oatmeal, oat, oat, oat, I think oat and honey.

these different, different breads that we made back then, man, and we made granola. We would sell them like [00:13:00] door to door. started working in small little commercial kitchens and stuff like that. But that was my first product. And, you know, like I said, I had these little, I started creating names, you know, pleasing, pleasing pineapple, peachy peach, you know, the blueberry blast, you know, it was kind of like, this is natural, like not really trying to make a company out of it, but this really just having fun and it's the creative side.

Paul Shapiro: You know, you were marketing even, even back then, it kind of reminds me, I was, I was looking today, you know, that brand, bitchin

GW Chew: sauce. Yeah, I mean, I love, I love bitchin sauce, man. It's

Paul Shapiro: really good, but you know, it's just an almond dip, right? Like imagine if they, imagine if they called it almond dip.

Like their, their sales would probably be a 10th of what they are, but because it's called bitchin sauce, you think, Oh man, this sauce must be bitchin And it is bitchin It's a great sauce. I really like it. It's a great sauce, exactly. But anyway, so yeah, you're, you're, they're, they're taking principles out of the Chef Chew playbook here for the, the pleasurable

GW Chew: pineapple or whatever.

Nothing like a name, man. And, but nah, man, it was more of, like I said, a per, [00:14:00] started out as a personal journey, a hobby. a passion wanting to replicate foods that I grew up eating, you know, so having to do a mac and cheese and, you know, and eventually I got really excited about plant based proteins.

nothing of the details where we are today in the industry, but at that point I was taking like oats and tatoes and tofu and I was just doing concoctions, man, messing with, you know, gluten and kind of creating like these crazy concoctions and I was just putting ingredients. I didn't even care. I was like, let's see what happens.

And, I started my first, first little chicken wing that I created. It was like, I love the KFC Kentucky fried chicken, honey barbecue chicken wings, and so that was like my first knockoff, like, how can I create the 20 piece honey barbecue chicken wing? Just like KFC did it. And, so that was like my first, you know, so I had this little cool, I took an oat burger the first time, man, I still remember this to this day, took an oat burger and rather than forming into an oat patty, I turned it into like a chicken leg and man, when I looked at it, it was just like.

It was just, I just died laughing, man. Cause I didn't, I, you know, I had eaten chicken for like [00:15:00] maybe two or three years at that point. And I remember when I made that little chicken leg, it was like, Oh wow. This is, it was just, this didn't never think of turning an oat patty to a chicken leg. You know, it was like, you just make oat burgers.

And, and that became the very beginning where my mind started saying, you know, let's make protein. And, that was the beginning, man. And it's just became a this honestly, a 20 year journey, even to the day, you know, just still replicating and trying to create plant plant based products and plant based proteins.

When it started, I was about my early 20s, kind of replicating plant based meats. and it led not into manufacturing at the time, but more into the restaurant space. And, you know, that was my very beginning, you know, and it kind of grew into more of the science and the development of the proteins where we are today.

But my foundation man was really a passion, to replicate foods that I grew up eating, in a healthier version and with the mission that, you know, how can I create foods that I love taste delicious and healthy. With the goal of man is helping my family eat better. You know, that was really just the basic passion behind what I was doing, man.

[00:16:00] So,

Paul Shapiro: yeah. Let me ask you about that, because, you know, people have different reasons. You know, some people are highly motivated by wanting to do something good for the planet. Other people wanna do something good for their, their family's health. Other people are highly motivated by animal welfare. I presume there's some combination of all these for you, including religious reasons as an Adventist.

Yeah. But is, is health the primary motivating factor for you? Is that what gets you out of bed every day?

GW Chew: I think that's one of the definitely, I would say health is definitely a driving force. I mean, I always say, man, you know, save life. you know, one of my, my most personal losses was my pops. My dad, man, rest in peace.

you know, my, my name actually comes from him, believe it or not. His name was Granwell Wayman shoe. That was his name. And I have his name, his initials is my real name. Crazy enough. you know, but he died way too young, man, 62 years old. And, you know, I'm 40, 41 and this to kind of think, man, he died at 62.

I have friends that are 62. And it was just such a young age man to pass and, you know, it was lifestyle disease, you know, just the things that, you know, habits of life and, and it's, you know, catches up with this man. And [00:17:00] so, you know, for me, man, when I think about food and the food is really medicine, you know, food heals and when done properly and when done well, plants are powerful.

And, you know, I think for me, man, health is really the biggest catalyst, of why I do what I do. you know, it drives me. Yeah,

Paul Shapiro: so we talked about the origins. Let's get to where you are now, because it looks like you have six different skews of the better to product. And it's I know you're in. Not all whole foods, but you're in some whole foods and, what are these products like, you know, you talked about how you're taking oats and potatoes.

It's obviously not what you're doing today. So what are in these products and what's the innovation that you have brought? Like, there's a lot of different brands of plant based meat out there. Most of them combine, you know, soy and wheat or P or some combination of those three. And what's different, like what makes the better chew product different than the rest?

GW Chew: Yeah, man, I mean, our industry, most plant based proteins obviously based on extrusion, high temperature, wet extrusion processes, which create more of a vertical kind of, kind of stringier type of product that's then [00:18:00] utilized to create, you know, burgers and patties and crumbles and, you know, sausages and things of that nature.

our product is actually made from the whole soybean. we actually have a process that goes from the soybean to a milk. and we create more of a horizontal kind of kind of structure. to the protein. So we kind of create this horizontal structure that kind of has layers. so we kind of create this kind of layer.

I kind of call it a layerization almost that we kind of do with the horizontal structure. So what happens is rather than it being a vertical string year, kind of like extruded process, we're creating like layers of protein, which we then after we have the raw protein, we can cut into, you know, into any kind of shape.

So whether it's a tender, whether it's a nugget, we can shred it, so it kind of really has more of a shredded steak or shredded chicken kind of experience. whereas a lot of products might have more of a crumble, you know, and it's kind of more, you know, it's not really a shredded steak, a carne asada to get on a real piece of beef.

And so we can kind of create that real striated kind of experience, you know, that you get with a muscle, meat muscle.

Paul Shapiro: So is the chef [00:19:00] chew layerization process cheaper than extrusion then I presume? Absolutely. Because extrusion, you know, you know, extrusion is a fancy way of saying lots of heat and lots of pressure, lots of pressure.

Exactly. You got to use, you know, it's not only a lot of capital expenditure, right? Cause you got to get the extruder, which is very expensive, but the operating expenditures are also very high to run extrusion processes where it sounds like you're doing something very different. And obviously, I'm not going to ask about what exactly the layerization process entails, but do you have any patent protection on this?

Like, is this a trade secret? Like, how are

GW Chew: you protecting? Yeah, trade secret, man. It's something I've developed over the years. you know, there's definitely a lot of a level of steps that we've kind of, you know, that kind of, it's not an easy process to replicate. and so, you know, we've been doing it for years, man.

And, that's just kind of our bread and butter. We got this again, the striation process that. Yep. You know that we're doing and our goal right now is to scale it, you know, we were still doing again a smaller scale, but I go right now and it's really to we've pretty much taken the last 5 years to really understand the [00:20:00] manufacturing processes.

it's very efficient, very not super expensive to, you know, to pretty much, you know, get the equipment to manufacture at scale. So that's kind of our next step is ready to commercialize the process. but now, man, that's, that's been been my journey, man. It's been a lot of years of this layers on layers on layers on layers of the process and this tweaking and tweaking and tweaking.

You know, every, you know, every single step, you know, it's, it's, this is much of a science as it is an art. you know, and it's kind of understand at first, when I first started creating the product. It was kind of more out of accident. A lot of great products are created from accidents. You know, you didn't realize and then you kind of like backtrack what happened.

and then you started, then I started understanding the science that was kind of happening, you know, behind it. And, you know, but you know, you can have a great product, but how to commercialize it into manufacturing production. that's really the part where we had to really take our time. and that's where we are today is really at a place of, you know, how do we scale this At large quantities.

I mean, I know what you're doing. I mean, you had to, you know, you innovated methods. That's not, you know, not been in production and [00:21:00] having to scale that up into large, you know, production. And so that's we're kind of at that at that stage now of ready to go to that next level to really scale up. you know, manufacturing.

So, right. Yeah,

Paul Shapiro: what we're doing at the better Miko is very different. You know, first, we're a B to B ingredients provider, right? Like, we're not a CPG brand, but You know, we're, we're avoiding extrusion also, right? Like, so we're getting the texture through fermentation rather than through extrusion, which is a different ball game altogether.

But, you know, you talk about a lot of the times about like democratizing plant based meat, which I presume means making it cheaper, right? Is that correct? By democratizing it. So how much cheaper I realized probably until you're at scale, that's not going to be possible, but. If you look at plant based meat today, you know, it's always not always, it's nearly always sold at much higher prices than conventional animal based meat.

So do you think that you'll be able to compete with

GW Chew: animal meat? A hundred percent, a hundred percent. Believe it. I think definitely in beef, that's something that we can definitely compete. And we actually compete actually currently in beef. [00:22:00] with our, we sell to school districts, for example, and we can actually, you know, not, not the cheaper beef, but some of the, some of the school districts do get, you know, more premium styles of beef and per pound, we're beating them almost literally per serving.

I think we're like, almost 40 cents cheaper, per serving.

Paul Shapiro: What is that? Like, what is the beef then? Then what is, you know, what is the beef wholesale costs that they'll be paying? And

GW Chew: then, yeah, so there's serving calls. I don't, I can't remember exactly the actual price, but it's serving calls. One of our school dishes is like 140.

per serving, we're at about a dollar, per serving.

Paul Shapiro: right. And so the serving is what, six or eight ounces or something?

GW Chew: No, not that much. it's about four ounces for school. This is about three ounces for school district. So it's about three ounces, one 40 on their serving size. And we're almost about a dollar, man.

it's pretty, pretty amazing. so beef is something that we can compete on. It's hard to compete against chicken, you know, because it's just companies that's doing that such as such. I mean, everything is done at scale in the media, in the meat world, but. Beef is just a harder, it's a more expensive protein.

chicken is this, you know, subsidize so much and it's just really [00:23:00] difficult, but we actually have a chicken patty, that we're actually about 2 cents cheaper and with the school dishes right now, so,

Paul Shapiro: you know, if it's a, you know, if it's a 3 ounce serving and it's about 1 per 3 ounces, that's going to be roughly a little bit more than 5 per pound, right?

and so, you know, that's pretty good. I mean, I, I was looking in Safeway the other day at the Beyond Burgers. Admittedly, this is retail, not wholesale, so it's going to be different, but still. It was 5. 99 for two patties, and these are quarter pound patties. That means that, you know, that's 12 a pound for, for beyond burgers at Safeway.

And, you know, I mean, that's, that's not like 20 or 30 percent more expensive than conventional hamburgers. It's like two or 300

GW Chew: percent more expensive. It's, it's, it's definitely. Yeah. It's not, man. It's not easy, man. I always say, I mean, I don't, as long as meat is subsidized, you know, it's just a very difficult thing for companies to, you know, to really compete against certain products.

you know, it's just not easy.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah, we don't [00:24:00] have any choices though, you know, like for us, like for those of us who are trying to replicate animal meat without animals. Like, you know, we like to talk about the crop insurance programs and all that, and I agree, like, I don't like that either, but, you know, we got to play the cards as they're dealt, you know, you know, you know, being nice to say, well, we should be competing on fair grounds, but yeah, just accept reality and no, you're not going to be able to.

yeah. So when do you think that you can get there? Like, you know, what barriers? I mean, you know, to you being, you're, you're talking about commercializing, obviously you're in school districts, you're in some whole foods, like you have commercialized, but you're also I made a

GW Chew: de Yeah, I made a deliberate decision, man.

I didn't actually go into a process. I didn't go the venture capital route, which nothing against venture capital. I just, I just did, I wanted a more long-term play for our company, which made it slower to capitalize. you know, and so we went more, you know, very social impact investors, you know, patient capital.

and just as a result of that, you know, we just had to grow a lot slower. I think it's to our protection. I do think there's [00:25:00] two aspects, you know, those that did VC properly are still alive and a lot of them didn't survive it, you know, and so is, you know, I think there's a, there's a, there's a fundamental reality around, you know, sometimes the burn, this can be so much, especially in our industry, if you're not careful.

you know, but I took a slower approach on fundraising, which obviously commercializing something that's going to take more time. and so, you know, that's been one of our, I think our biggest, I won't call it biggest challenges, but this is one of the decisions that I made. You know, early on that we took, you know, capital.

That was, you know, where we could, you know, kind of just grow a company long term and patiently. you know, and that was a deliberate move. so it is just created a more slower path to commercialization to large scale commercialization. So, you know, we're at a stage now that we're ready to go to that level.

But go ahead. I know you had another question that you're ready to ask on that.

Paul Shapiro: Let me ask you, like, so, you know, you're, you're producing at a small scale now, as you mentioned, do you, is your supply greater than your demand? Like, are you able if you've got more, if more school districts came and said, Hey, chef, should we want to buy from you?

Would you be able to [00:26:00] satiate their demand to a

GW Chew: degree to a degree that, I mean, we're in the process of opening a building, a new plant as we speak. And so in the next 6 to 8 months, you know, we're going to be at a really good place to really kind of scale, you know, but right now our current current manufacturing.

You know, we can't, I mean, I had an opportunity, we had an opportunity to go into Costco one point and it was just, it was just, we just, they was like, how many stores can you do? I was like, not too many. And I mean, their value was just insane, man. I mean, so we couldn't go into any, any like super large opportunities.

I would say probably another two years from now, we already be at that place. it probably takes another eight to 12 months to really get our factory up and running. And so, but, you know, then it takes another time to, you know, to get that all set up properly. But

Paul Shapiro: yeah. How are you, how are you financing this?

Like, are you doing it through free cashflow? Are you taking on debt? Are you taking on new venture investors? Man, we

GW Chew: integrated capital, man. That's kind of been our model from the beginning. So we do have a number of equity investors, that is invested in, you know, since you started, you know, very social impact.

Investors that understand the long game that we're [00:27:00] playing. there's a, there is a part of our business model of ownership. there's not a lot of minority companies in the food industry, that actually, you know, own processes and own production and own, you know, own their, their business. And so we really wanted to build something that, you know, was owned by, you know, a person of color and that can actually create.

You know, jobs in their community, and it wasn't just simply built on the model of, you know, we're not opposed to an exit, but not this built on the model of simply to scale it up, scale it, whatever calls and this, you know, whatever it takes, how much money you got to raise. And that's just the foundation of how we, how we grow.

so we built with that fundamental value in place. So it was equity investors that understood that and believed in that alignment, debt investors, you know, you know, we had a lot of CDF eyes, which is definitely amazing for smaller. You know, outfits, community development, finance institutions. You know, these are banks that are nonprofits.

they can do larger investments. you know, it's not like they're just giving you 100, 000, but these are these banks can give up to 5 or 10 million, depending on the banks. and so we've been able to [00:28:00] partner with some of these banks to get our equipment, mostly equipment, you know, for the most part.

Paul Shapiro: These are, these are loans that you're getting from community development, financial

GW Chew: institutions. These are, these are loans that, you know, that's pretty much helped to finance, you know, a lot of our equipment that we've been able to get. when we first started, man, it was this bootstrap, man. I mean, we got leases, you know, equipment leases and this, you know, this stuff that has had to be done as a basic small producer manufacturer.

you know, and then, so, you know, all of that, and I also did some revenue type concepts as well, revenue equity type concepts, you know, that we've been able to do. So it's kind of been a mixture of that. equity and then, you know, alternative, alternative equity strategies that we've been able to do. that's kind of worked in our favor.

So our investment model allows us to buy back our investors, buy back the shares from our investors. And so it's really a cool model. we give them a certain, you know, multiple on their investment. We're buying back the shares, you know, as we kind of, as we kind of do that over the years. And

Paul Shapiro: so they're, so presumably you can't buy them back at any price.

You have to guarantee some type of

GW Chew: multiple price. It's a guarantee price that we've already [00:29:00] agreed to. and so they get a multiple, you know, that, that they were looking for as far as a, you know, return if we got milestones and, you know, so it's, you know, we've been able to create some models like that.

That's been an alignment, you know, but again, you know, raising 20 million on that model is not that easy. You know, I wish it was, but it's not. And so, you know, that's been the challenge, you know, I would say is that with the vision and the model that we have, it's just a slower growth pattern. And at first, you know, it was kind of frustrating to a degree, you know, like, man, everybody else is raising X and it's like.

But I come to appreciate the smaller, you know, the slower, the slower process, and I think it's allowed us to learn some things and master some things early on, over a longer. I always look at the story of the Wright brothers, you know, as they kind of built the, you know, the, you know, the, that was the wing war.

I forgot the exact term that they use, but you know, they mastered, you know, keeping standing in the air for X amount of time and they took time. They didn't rush the process. And that was kind of, they kind of, you know, talk about that story when you read this story. But that's kind of been our vision, man.

It's just really, it's okay to, It doesn't have [00:30:00] to happen tomorrow. You know, I've been a big vegan for 20 years and I think it's, you know, we're going to be doing this for the next, hopefully for the next 20, hopefully get some answers and really scale this thing up, but I've been, I've been, at first it was, again, it's a little frustrating the time now I've come to appreciate this, the journey and embrace it.

And now we had a great stepping stone and it's a good foundation that we've created as a company. So. Yeah.

Paul Shapiro: That's great. You alluded earlier to saying, you know, some of the VC backed companies that haven't made it, obviously, you know, it's well known that there's a, a, a particularly difficult time in the alternative meat sphere

GW Chew: right now.

It's tough, man. Absolutely.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah. So, you know, a lot of companies have gone out of business, a lot of companies have had to do layoffs. You've seen, you know, beyond meat and Oatly, which are the two big publicly traded companies in the space have had massive reductions in their stock price. What do you attribute this to?

Why do you think it is, it's not just the VC backed companies, it's the publicly traded companies, it's the startups. I mean, there, there does seem to be like [00:31:00] something like that is a dark cloud over the alternative meat space right now. Like, what do you hypothesize

GW Chew: is the reason? I mean, that's a very, very tough question, man.

And it's something I think keeps us all up at night. I think one of the challenges I've seen in our industry, even when you read some of the public companies, you know, a lot of them just simply don't have the margins. I mean, the food industry is brutal. I mean, the more you dig into it, I mean, you do B2B, but CPG, I mean, this.

You know, direct to, you know, grocery, selling the grocery stores, et cetera, man. It's just the cost of this stuff is just so insane. I remember in beyonds, you know, and my, my CFO, he had read a, they're good, their public offering statement. And one of the things that they mentioned is that they didn't know how they were going to become profitable.

and that was in their public offering. And I think that was something that most plant based companies, I mean, you, there was excitement of the growth. But you fundamentally have to figure out how to make money in making it. And I think, I think the reality is, you know, there was a lot of excitement, 2020, 2019, [00:32:00] 2020, you know, and excitement, it was super sexy, but most companies, I think we were, you know, it was just challenging on how do you actually make money in producing this?

you have the old school companies like, you know, the morning stars have been doing this, you know, they, they came from Worthington, but they, you know, it's been around almost 87, 80 years.

Paul Shapiro: Oh, yeah, you know, it's like, you know, you have these legacy companies, not, not just Morningstar, but light life field roast.

Yes. and yeah, you know, I was looking at some of the public statements. I mean, Turkey had been losing a lot of money in the last few years from what I could see in there publicly. They'll be, they got acquired by a, a big deal.

GW Chew: It was a tofu company or.

Paul Shapiro: So it's a tofu company that's owned by a dairy.

So both. So it's a huge, it's like a big Asian dairy company that also owns a tofu subsidiary. Gotcha. Gotcha. But either way. Yeah. And Guardian is profitable, you know, like they, they, they were, you know, they've been around for a while. Obviously, you know, they've been around for a while and they've been acquired and then reacquired,first from pinnacle foods and now owned by [00:33:00] ConAgra.

but yeah, it does seem like there's a real struggle here. You know, these companies that are,mostly just losing money. And I joke because, you know, my wife, Tony, she has a somewhat similar background to you in that, you know, she saw her. Family dying of diseases prematurely. And so she wanted to do something to help them.

And so she started this blog called plant based on a budget, how to eat healthy and, you know, one thing led to another, she never put any of her own money and she never took any outside investment just through revenue generation or a woman plant based on a budget. You know, she's got six people working for her now.

I love it. And so, you know, you look at that, it's like a successful business. That is very odd model, which is that. They make more than they spend, like this model where they actually make something called profit. I don't know if they teach about this in business school anymore, but it's like, you know, it's like this amazing model where they actually have fewer expenditures than they do revenue.

and so like, what do I take for the rest of us to get there? And, you know, I think it's. It's really hard to see. I mean, even some of the ingredients [00:34:00] suppliers like merit functional foods, which is big pea protein supplier to the alternative meat space went, went under completely. so, you know, there's just a, there's a very dark cloud right now.

And, you know, I think that part of it has to do with having an inflationary environment where people have less money to spend on food, you know, because alternative meats today are sold at much more expensive prices than conventional animal based meats. When you have more money in your pocket, you might be willing to spend more for things that you perceive as healthier, but when there's a big inflate, a lot of inflation and you think that you're tighter on cash and you're spending less, you want to, you know, spend less on food, maybe this is one of those items that's perceived as a, as a nice to have, but not as a must

GW Chew: have.

Man, I 100 percent agree, man. I think definitely the inflationary environment has definitely played a, played a big, played a big piece. and I, you know, just speaking to a lot of the grocery stores, I mean, sales have been down, you know, I think also the educational side of things. I mean, there was a lot of hype at one point.

You know, you had different documentaries that was coming out and, you know, that [00:35:00] excitement kind of, it drove the space, you know, there was so many news articles kind of coming to me beyond and impossible. I mean, did a phenomenal job. I mean, it's in the marketing and it was just that war between those two in a good way, that brought a lot of awareness to the space, you know, but, you know, like I said, things have definitely died down.

you know, but it's the need is still here. I think, you know, what you write about and just the need of from the environmental standpoint, I mean, that the need is, yeah. The need is here, man. And, you know, if I'm somehow we, we, we gotta keep fighting and, you know, hopefully the prices of production can go down over time, if you can figure these aspects out, I don't have it all figured out.

you know, but I do know that, you know, it's, it's just something that, you know, I always say if the motivation, you know, is there, the right motivation is there, you know, people will, people are resilient. We're going to figure out the answers on how to make this thing work. you know, so yeah. Right.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah, it seems like it's definitely will be born out of necessity because, you know, you already see governments around the world starting to fund clean energy in a way that they haven't in the past because they see the, the [00:36:00] environmental urgency of doing so. And I think it'd be very hard to ignore the elephant or really the cow in the room here.

And so. My hope is that we'll see, you know, an industry that has really taken off with venture backing start taking off with more public support like dollar support. So that in the same way that. you know, countries in Asia have been publicly funding their clean energy sectors. You know, this is why all the solar panels and wind turbines that we use in America were probably actually produced in Asia.

you know, we don't want the same thing to happen and help all our food be produced elsewhere also. So hopefully we can get more going in that. So, fingers crossed that that's what occurs sooner rather than later, because there's a lot of companies, including yours and mine that could probably benefit from that type of support.

Absolutely.

GW Chew: Yeah, no

Paul Shapiro: doubt. So let me ask you like you have obviously been influenced by a lot of different factors, whether it's Seventh Day Adventists or the country life cookbook and so on. But, you know, it's probably people who are listening like, man, I really admire what Chef Chew has achieved and. [00:37:00] Has done so far the things that you would recommend for them that you would say, Oh, you know, check this out.

Like, I really liked this book or some other resources been useful that you would recommend for somebody who wants to make a

GW Chew: difference. Yeah, man, you know, one of the things that I really one of my favorite books, that I read, years ago was start with why Simon Sinek. and there's a popular book, you know, it's famous Ted talk that he did.

you know, but that for me, man, I think, you know, you know, been able to win a few pitch competitions, do a lot of storytelling, my why I think is, you know, what's kept me going in the, in the worst of days, you know, cause I mean, if you're in business long enough, you're going to have some good days, bad days.

I mean, it's going to be the days you just, you're like, man, I am going to not do this no more. But when you have a why that's this bigger than life, bigger than this world is really going to save help save the world as you kind of mentioned. I was wondering, you know, just on the thoughts you kind of shared, you know, that's, that's really important, man.

And, not really, you know, I always say, I mean, I always say it looks like chicken tastes like chicken, but it ain't chicken, you know, and that's a powerful, you know, funny statement, you know, people [00:38:00] laugh and, you know, it's like, you know, well, it's not chicken, you know, but I'm just talking about what it is, you know, but it's not really the motivation of why I'm doing what I do.

you know, and I think when we kind of drive from a place of why. it really, really gets us up in those most difficult times. It helps the consumer, to really understand that it's more than just a product. and I think that's something I'm even going back to. I'm even challenging my own self, you know, as it kind of got to a place where, you know, I got a better texture, you know, and this and that thing, you know, you just, you're just competing on what it is or the benefits of the product, but really what really makes your company special, what really gets you up in the morning, I think, and really bringing that message to the, to our customers.

I think it's really that the thing that really gets them to really just get super excited about what we do. and so that's something that I would definitely say, man, this, the old school Simon Sinek, man, this, start with why, man, and I think that was one of my favorite, favorite books. I always recommend, man.

Paul Shapiro: Very cool. We'll link to that in the show notes of this episode at business for good podcast dot com. And I totally agree with you. I mean, people sometimes have. [00:39:00] A romanticized vision of what it's like to found a company and they look at only the success stories, right? And they're thinking, oh, look at this.

These, these people overcame adversity and they succeeded. And most companies fail, right? Like 90 percent startups fail. And, there's a quote that I love from, Ben Horowitz, the co founder of Andreessen Horowitz, the venture capital fund, but he wrote in his book that. when you found your own company, you will sleep like a baby because you're going to wake up every two hours and cry.

And you know, I think about it, but I think about it as like, you know, basically you're beating your head against the wall over and over and over again, and some people will say, well, I'm going to stop because I don't want to break my head and other people will say, I'm gonna keep going because I think the wall is going to break first.

And that's what I view running a company. I was like, like eventually, you know, you got to have the belief. That that wall will break and I would not be doing what I'm doing. It's way too difficult and, and, and time and resource consumptive to do if I didn't have that North star [00:40:00] of my, my main motivating, you know, I do care about public health, obviously, but for me, like animal welfareism is very driving force for me.

And it just wouldn't be worth it to me. Like if I was just selling widgets, like honestly, it would just like the, the, the idea of trying to get, you know, wealth would, would not be appealing to me to do what I'm doing. So, I hear you on that for sure. so let me ask you, like, we're talking about starting companies and how hard it is and you're gonna beat your head against the wall.

You wake up every 2 hours and cry. So if somebody does want to start a company in the worst of times to do it, like, right now, what would you have to suggest? What type of companies do you wish existed that don't exist? Or maybe we need more of that type of company in the

GW Chew: world right now. You know, man, I'm always a big firm believer.

I mean, you know, you have the major massive, you know, tech food and massive, you know, but you know, I always like to say the artisan food is this. Something special about that, man. It's, it's, you know, it's not as sexy. It may not be as profitable or not necessarily profitable. It could be actually it is [00:41:00] profitable.

A lot of the artists and businesses are profitable, but I think there's these, you know, as it was like a resurgence of, you know, kind of farms and, you know, you know, local produce and, you know, the farmers markets and stuff like that. I think there needs to be a resurgence back of this, I Simple foods, you know, artisan makers, just doing great, delicious ethnic foods that this tastes amazing.

Plant based obviously is my, you know, what I recommend. you know, but I, I think there's a resurgence. I think there needs to be a resurgence of that, man. There's some simple, you know, not the, the grandiose, I think, I think I always say, man, if you start small, build your customer, you know, the big things will come, you know, it's, it's a scripture I always go to is in the book of Job and the Bible, it says, though, that beginning was small.

Yet in that latter end, thou shall greatly increase. And, I just a firm believer of finding, you know, especially in food, artisan foods that connects with our cultures, our communities, you know, it's always something there that's just never been done before. It's always that cultural food that can be veganized or made plant based that this [00:42:00] resonates.

And those are the beginnings of a lot of times of the most, the best innovation, you know, that's not done in a, in a, you know, necessarily in a lab as people kind of say these days, but that's, you know, it's food, it's just, it's community, it's culture and it's, I just feel like it's always someone that has something cooking, you know, that if you can commercialize it, start small, but then commercialize it and grow, those become iconic companies, you know, that we all love.

And so that's, yeah. That's something that I always say, man, to start with that, you never go wrong.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah, I think about that a lot. you know, there's so much money, literally billions of dollars being put into biotech to try to get these, like, new, foods that can do really awesome things, like bleed like a burger or whatever the case may be, right?

And I believe in that. I really think people, I really think people want the meat experience. So we got to try to replicate that meat experience for them. But I have wondered, you know, like, if the goal is to get people to be eating fewer animals and more plants. Are there other ways in addition to [00:43:00] replicating the meat experience that we could be going, like, you know, could, you know, somebody put a lot of money into marketing tofu or beans even.

Yeah. and, you know, are you familiar with, the Butler Soy, Carls, you know that product? Oh, that's,

GW Chew: yeah, man, that's, that's the Seven Adventists. I mean, they've been, oh, they're Adventist. I didn't know that, that seven Advent. Absolutely, man, Mr. Butler, man, he's been around forever, man. Absolutely. Okay.

Yeah,

Paul Shapiro: man. All right. Well, I don't know what, what old Butler is doing there, but I love that product. I buy it all the time. I eat their product. Come on, man. And maybe it's similar to yours. I don't know. It's a whole soybean product, so I don't know what they're doing. But the point is, you know, I think about that.

Like how much like how far can you get with those type of products, which are much simpler to produce than so much of what is happening right now? it's not a substitute for what's happening, but you know, it does seem like maybe there should be more people who are doing something like that. Yeah, man, you know, the biotechnology attracted the venture capital dollars for a while.

So it's understandable why people want to go that direction. but if you just want to build a business that has, you know, low OPEX needs and might be able to [00:44:00] actually generate real profitable revenue, that's the way to go. Yeah, man. So I'll include a link to Butler's in there. So yeah, man, I ordered them on Amazon.

I got six bags at a time for those who aren't familiar. It's a decades old brand where it's dry shelf stable strips and you hydrate that and you know, it's chewy. I want to say nobody's going to think it's meat, but it's chewy. It's chewy like me, but nobody's going to say, oh, I can't tell the difference between this and meat.

But it's good. It's good. It's a whole food. It's not a, you know, it's not a fractionate or an isolate or an extruded. It's a whole food and it's a single ingredient. It's just the whole soybeans that have been extruded. Yeah. Is it extruded? Is it an extruded

GW Chew: product? I believe it is. I think he actually, I think he actually created a machine.

I don't know exact technology, but I think he actually created a machine that creates these, these soy curls. And so it was, he was an engineer, I think, and he created this whole process. And so, yeah. All right. Yep. Wow.

Paul Shapiro: All right. He's like the carver of soy instead [00:45:00] of instead of peanuts. okay. Well, chef chew is great to talk with you.

Speaking of GWs, you know, george russian carver, by the way, that's

GW Chew: my, that's my hero, man. Is he really? Okay. Oh, yeah, absolutely, man. That's my hero. Nice.

Paul Shapiro: I'm glad I invoked him. That's nice. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, tell, tell Butler. I, I, I really appreciate his service to my life. I love it, man. but I'll be rooting for you and I hope to see the better chew products on more grocery store shelves and in more school districts and hopefully even in Costco in the coming years, because we need to democratize plant based meat and make it much cheaper so that more people will be interested.

So I'm grateful for all you're doing, man. And I'm rooting for your success. I've been rooting for you since I saw you at that pitch at 2018 food funded. Thank you, man. And I hope we cross paths again

GW Chew: soon. Appreciate it. Thank you so much, Paul. Thank you for your work as well.