Ep. 163 - No Palm, No Problem: Fermenting the Future of Fat
SHOW NOTES
Palm oil is everywhere—from food to cosmetics to biofuels—but its production is a leading cause of deforestation, habitat destruction, and greenhouse gas emissions. What if we could have all the benefits of palm oil without the downsides?
Enter NoPalm Ingredients, a Dutch biotech startup using fermentation to produce a sustainable alternative to palm oil—without the need for palm trees. Instead of chopping down rainforests, they’re upcycling agricultural waste, feeding it to their specialty yeast, and brewing a fat with the same characteristics as high-end palm oil in the process.
The company’s raised €6 million to date and has already done a trial run of its process in a massive 120,000-liter fermenter.
In this episode, I’m joined by NoPalm’s CEO, Lars Langhout, to talk about how microbial oils can disrupt a $60 billion industry, whether fermentation is the future of fats, and the challenges of scaling a sustainable solution.
Could NoPalm Ingredients make deforestation-free oils the new norm? If they have their way, perhaps so.
DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE
The fateful short 2020 article that inspired Lars to start NoPalm Ingredients.
Lars was also inspired by Bowery Farming CEO Irving Fain.
Lars recommends reading The Hard Thing about Hard Things and Radical Candor
Our past episodes with Lingrove (tree-free wood) and Abiom (wood-fed meat).
MORE ABOUT Lars Langhout
Lars Langhout is the co-founder and CEO of NoPalm Ingredients, a biotech pioneer company he established in 2021 alongside Prof. Dr. Jeroen Hugenholtz. Leveraging his background in strategy consulting and an MBA (CBS '16), Lars leads the team in developing sustainable, locally produced alternatives to palm oil. Under his leadership, NoPalm Ingredients has achieved significant milestones, including scaling their fermentation process from benchtop experiments to industrial-scale production of 120m3 within three years. This innovative approach transforms agri-food side streams into high-quality, food-grade palm-oil alternatives.
TRANSCRIPT
Welcome friend to episode 163 of the Business for Good Podcast. First Things first, we have a new and improved website for this show. Go check it out at business for good podcast.com where you will see not only a great new design, but you'll see all episodes. All guests listed, you can even search by topic.
Did you know, for example, that we've done four episodes on family planning? You can even search which episodes have been listener favorites. It is a big upgrade on the website, so go check it out. And of course, I'd love to hear from you. What do you think about the new site? What do you like about this show?
What do you dislike? What do you wish there were more or less of? Any topics you wanna hear explored in greater depth, please let me know on the website. Now, speaking of things that we need more of. Palm oil is in high demand. It's everywhere from food to cosmetics to biofuels, but its production is a leading cause of deforestation, habitat destruction, and greenhouse gas emissions.
But what if we could have all the benefits of palm oil without the downsides? Enter no palm ingredients. A [00:01:00] Dutch biotech startup using fermentation to produce a sustainable alternative to palm oil. Without the need for palm trees, instead of chopping down rainforests, these guys are upcycling agricultural waste, feeding it to their specialty yeast, and then brewing a fat with the same characteristics as high-end palm oil.
In the process, the company has raised 6 million euros to date and has already done a trial run of its process in a massive one. Hundred and 20,000 liter fermentor. In this episode, I'm joined by no Palm's, CEO. Lars Lang out to talk about how microbial oils can disrupt a $60 billion industry. Whether fermentation is the future of fat and the challenges of scaling the sustainable solution, could no palm ingredients make deforestation free oils the new norm if they have their way, perhaps.
So I'll let Lars tell you all about it.
Paul Shapiro: Lars, welcome to the Business for Good podcast.
Lars Langhout: Thanks, Paul. Thanks for having me.
Paul Shapiro: Hey, it's really great to be with you. Let me ask you, why are you doing this? What's the problem? What's the problem with me eating products that just have palm oil in them?
Lars Langhout: Well, the problem is that there's not enough palm oil.
Palm oil demand grows by 4% annually and RSPO, so certified sustainable palm oil. Only is about 20% of today's supply, and it has grown by just 1% every year in the past 20 years or so. So the problem is the demand is too big to have RSPO catch up, and that's where we come in.
So the RSPO, the the so-called sustainable palm oil, is that bs or is that really sustainable?
Like, you know, is this something that people should rely on? Is it better than conventional? Is it good? Like, what do you think about this certification? I. It's definitely better than the conventional palm oil. What, what's the [00:01:00] difference? Like what, what makes RSPO different from regular palm oil?
Well, RSPO palm oil is set to not involve clearance of rainforest.
There are all kinds of checks and balances in play to ensure that. The smallholder farmers and the larger corporations involved adhere to the rules of RSPO.
Paul Shapiro: And so when you say large, no. Clearance of rainforest, I presume that's no new clearance, right. 'cause it probably, it's grown on land that at least, you know, at some point a few decades ago was.
Queered. But so it's no new clearance of rainforest. Okay. And, and so you're saying that the no new clearance, palm oil is growing very slowly while demand for palm oil is growing at 400% more what the RSPO Palm Oil is. And so for people who look at this and they're not convinced that biotechnology is the way to do this, and we're gonna get into how you do what you're doing at, at no palm ingredients, what do they think is the answer?
Like if it's not what you are doing, what do they think is the [00:02:00] answer Switching to other tropical oils?
Lars Langhout: Well, some would say switch to other tropical oils, but I think they're not aware of the. Footprint of other tropical oils like, you know, coconut oil, soy oil, that use more acreage per you know ton of palm oil or ton of tropical oil equivalent.
So that's not really the answer. And frankly, if you ask anyone in the industry. To date, there has been no real answer. And that's where we come in. That's what No Palm brings, is a true answer to the lack of palm oil.
Paul Shapiro: Great. Well, I wanna get into that, but just to augment what you're saying here, I. You know right now there are many people out there who believe that they're doing something good by quote unquote boycotting palm oil, right?
Instead, if a company uses coconut oil in their product, they'll purchase it, but if it uses palm oil, they don't want to use it. And in those cases, what you're saying is it's actually more intensive on the land to [00:03:00] use coconut oil. And I looked this up before this interview. It turns out that coconut oil to produce the same amount of oil.
You would need 15 times more land of coconut oil than palm oil. In other words, if you switch from palm oil to coconut oil, you have to deforest 15 times, not 15% more. 15 times more land. Exactly. And I, I think that's pretty shocking because palm oil has this reputation is being very unsustainable. Yet, yet actually it's dramatically more efficient and more sustainable than coconut oil.
Lars Langhout: Yeah, it's, it's, it's the most efficient tropical oil out there.
Paul Shapiro: Yeah. Okay, so let's talk about what you're doing then, because basically you're recreating an oil that is not a pure mimicry of palm oil, right? You're not making in vitro palm oil, you're, but you're making something that is a saturated fat that you say can actually act like a palm oil.
Is that an accurate assessment of what you do?
Lars Langhout: Yeah, it's a, it's a true drop in replacement, so it has the tri [00:04:00] same triglycerides. So for the audience palm oil is made out of different triglyceride components C 16, C 18 and our product is exactly the same. And it's made with microbes, with yeast rather than with the palm fruit.
Paul Shapiro: And so let's talk about that. You're saying it's made from yeast. Now, I presume the yeast itself is not in this actual product, that you're using the yeast as a carrier to express some type of fat out of the yeast, and then you separate that fat from the yeast biomass and that fat is your product. Is that accurate?
Lars Langhout: Yeah. So what we do is we upcycle food industry waste streams, which can be anything from potato peels, rejected vegetables dairy waste streams whatsoever. And those contain sugars essentially. And our yeast love sugars. So what we basically do is we put waste streams in a big fermentor, which is like a stainless steel va similar to brewing beer.
And then we add the [00:05:00] yeast and the yeast start eating those sugar components in the waste streams and within their cell bodies. 'cause yeast are single cell organisms, they accumulate oil. And we create the environment for them through Thrive so that they multiply and accumulate as much oil as possible.
Then after about 48 hours, we stop that process 'cause that's the most economical point in terms of where the growth is maximum. And after that's the, the, the rate of growth is decreasing. So we stop that process and then we extract the oils. And the oils that our yeast produce have the same fatty acid composition, as you'd call it, as palm oil, and we're able to do so by changing the fermentation conditions in the process.
So think about pH value, temperature, et cetera.
Paul Shapiro: I wanna ask you about the potato peels. That's a pretty remarkable claim, right? 'cause the potato [00:06:00] inside is a lot of simple sugars. But the potato peel is a lot tougher, right? Like there's a, the reason the potato evolved to have the peel is that it's, you know, potato is like a big ball of sugar.
It's underneath the ground where there are lots of different microbes that would love to eat sugar, but the peel prevents them from eating the sugar inside. So how have you managed to get. Microbes that can actually eat the peel. Do you have to hydro, is there like a hydrolysis of the peel in advance? Do you treat it in some way or is it just pure peels?
No, in the case
Lars Langhout: of potato pills, it's an enzymatic treatment. Ah, okay. Which, how we do it is something that we keep as a trade secret because it's pretty darn difficult to unlock those sugars. But that's exactly what we do. And basically with every new feed stock we look at how can we unlock those sugars?
'cause they're packaged differently, right? In the potato peels, they're packaged differently than, for example, in, in, in carrots or in any other,
Paul Shapiro: Feedstock. Does the type of potato [00:07:00] matter if like you're using potato peels from one strain of potato to another, is there a difference in the quality of the fermentation?
Lars Langhout: There is there always is. There's even a seasonal difference. So we need to factor that in. So what we basically do, we do analysis of the feedstock, how it comes in, and based on the that analysis and the composition, we know exactly what to do.
Paul Shapiro: Okay, cool. And so just to be clear, the fermentation that you're running is, you're not using any new carbon sources.
You're not using, you know, glucose. Like if you look at many other fermentation companies, they're basically buying glucose on the market and that's their sugar source. But you are running on essentially waste, right? Potato peels that might be removed, I guess, from french fries or tater tots or something else.
Is that accurate? That's accurate. Yeah.
Lars Langhout: Yeah. Cool. Yeah. And so the thing is what we, when we started this company about three years ago my co-founder, professor, Dr. Al, who is a professor in microbiology [00:08:00] and I set out to really replace or make a product that can, supplement palm oil. And in order to do that you need to do a few things.
So you need to, you know, be able to sell at the same price and be a drop in replacement. The thing is, if you buy glucose for this process 'cause you're only as cheap or expensive as your raw material input, you need to get to mathematically. Almost impossible or very difficult levels in order to compete on price.
Paul Shapiro: Right. So I, I, I did look up the price of wholesale palm oil, from what I could tell online, it looks like it was about like 50 cents per pound for wholesale palm oil. And I, I know you're in the Netherlands, so just imagine a little over a dollar per kilo. Is, is that accurate? Is that what you're trying to compete with?
Lars Langhout: So that's the, the, the basically the commodity of palm oil. What a lot of people don't know is [00:09:00] that, you know, palm is, palm oil is made from the palm fruit. So what they basically do, they crush the palm fruit. Then it's chemically treated to be RBD palm oil, which basically means it's tasteless, odorless, and colorless.
And then it's further fractionated into. Liquid OLS or solid steriles, or somewhat in between, semi-solid fats. And what we do is we replace those fractions. So we, at the moment, we can, but we are not targeting that market. We're targeting the specialty fats specifically the mid fraction fats and the STNs because they sell at a higher price.
So anywhere from. One Euro 50 or $1 50 per kilo to $5 per kilo.
Paul Shapiro: Okay. So more than what commodity palm oil is, what percentage of the palm oil market today is those types of more [00:10:00] specialty palm fats that you're seeking to replace at this time? Is it 1% of the market? 10%, 50%? Like how, how much of the market is being sold at an hour?
50 per kilo.
Lars Langhout: There are different sources that claim different numbers there. But you can expect anywhere between 20 and 40% what I've seen in the market.
Paul Shapiro: So if you all were to have wild success and you captured a hundred percent of the market, you know, you just placed a hundred percent of the market that you're going after, you would be at maybe a fifth of the entirety of the palm oil industry globally.
Yeah. Wow. Okay. Now, what's really important is that a lot of people. Are interested in these types of uses of biotechnology to improve the sustainability of certain products. And they get something to work in the lab and then they have a difficult time scaling it. You, on the other hand, have now run a 120,000 liter fermentation with your product, which is very abnormal, [00:11:00] right.
For a small startup to be doing. You did it via contract manufacturer. Tell us how did. That go. Did you run it on side streams? Was it on glucose? Like how did you actually do this? 120,000 liter. And did it perform above your expectations? Did, were there problems? Were there hiccups? What happened?
Lars Langhout: Well, there are always hiccups in these processes, but so what we set out to do I think that journey started.
In May last year where we started collaborating with two partners in order to do this both from a CMO side and from a yeah. Supplier side.
Paul Shapiro: Sure. And for those, for those not initiated, A CMO is a contract manufacturing organization.
Lars Langhout: Yeah. And so we partnered up with the supplier of these waste streams.
So we didn't use glucose. This is based on waste streams. And we developed a protocol first at Benchtop Skill in our office. In in, and then we brought it to our 400 liter pipeline. And what we basically [00:12:00] do is ensure that we, the protocol that we've developed, see how it runs at the 400 liter, then we optimized it, and then by the end of summer we were ready to scale.
So first you then do a tech transfer with this CMO company. This is a company based in, in Germany. Our team went there, ensured that they follow exactly the instructions that we've given them, the exact protocol or recipe, if you will step by step on a minute.
Paul Shapiro: And, and what was this with potato peels or some other sidestream?
This was with another sidestream. And are, are you purposefully not disclosing what the side stream is? I couldn't tell if that was, I'm not
Lars Langhout: allowed to disclose. Oh, okay. Okay,
Paul Shapiro: okay, got it. I imagine a 120,000 liters total of potato peels, that is a lot of potato peels.
Lars Langhout: Yeah. I mean the, the, the volumes that we're talking about are staggering in field, like if you think from a consumer perspective, but if you see these factories from the inside.
To [00:13:00] them, you know, those vol volumes mean nothing. And you'd be surprised and almost yeah, I was daunted when I, when I learned the volumes of waste streams produced on each of these feedstocks globally. Mm-hmm.
Paul Shapiro: Okay. Yeah. Very helpful. Very helpful. So how did it go? You had 120,000 leaders was it also a 48 hour fermentation?
And how did the side streams go?
Lars Langhout: Yeah, so basically the, it's 120 cubic meter fermentation vessel that you fill. Obviously you don't fill it to the top 'cause their aeration is imp is, is important for the yeast to thrive. So you fill it about up to 80 to 90% of that, that volume. And then we fermented it for a little over 48 hours.
We end, we experienced some hiccups some foaming issues throughput that didn't go as fast as we wanted to at least for the first runs that we did. And then we basically [00:14:00] harvest as we call it. So then you have your fermentation broth, and then we have a few. Basically downstream processing step.
So you have things like a centrifuge, basically. Essentially drying steps and then extraction steps.
Paul Shapiro: And were, were these all pieces of downstream equipment that the contract manufacturer already had, or did you have to provide some of it?
Lars Langhout: No, unfortunately there's no company, no CMO that has all of that.
Equipment. So we actually worked with three CMOs on this. So we have to ship it from one location after the first drying step to the second location where we did wow, the second drying step, and then to the third location where we did the extraction.
Paul Shapiro: And so is this frozen shipment, chilled shipment? Like how do you actually do the shipping?
Lars Langhout: And now we did frozen shipment to ensure that there's no issues contaminations whatsoever taking place ultimately. Our next step as a company is also to set up a first of its kind demo factory, where you do everything in one continuous production run. [00:15:00] But simply that's not possible with CMOs and we don't have.
The funding to already buy that equipment, we needed to prove that this actually works at scale, at productivity in order to get to the next funding stage.
Paul Shapiro: Yeah. Very cool. So the final produce of that, I know it's 120,000 liters, and you say it's like 90%, so let's just say it's a hundred thousand liters of fermentation, and then you go through these drying and extraction steps.
How many pounds or kilos of palm oil does that make?
Lars Langhout: So fermentation that size produces a few thousand liters of oil,
Paul Shapiro: a few thousand liters. And did you sell it? Did. Where is that, where are those few thousand liters of your of your palm oil?
Lars Langhout: So you were breaking up a bit, Paul, but I think where, where it went.
Paul Shapiro: Yeah. What, yeah, what happened to the 3000 leaders? Where are they now?
Lars Langhout: Yeah, so we we're working also with corporate partners collaborations on the commercial sites. Working with them to provide them with larger batches of like, say [00:16:00] 50 to 200 kilograms of oil. Because what we've learned is they've tested our smaller batches, like from, ranging from like a hundred milliliters up to a few kilos, 10 to 20 kilos.
They do their tests on, does it actually work at lab skill, pilot skill, but for any company to. Really sign a commercial offtake agreement, basically. Essentially saying, we're gonna buy this volume for this price by then, et cetera. They want to test it in their production lines at large scale to really see if it works in their production line, because this is different from just switching from one palm oil supplier to another.
This is a novel technology that nobody's performed before. So they want to have additional assurances. And now we've, distributed those those samples they have, some of them already have, others are in the process of testing it, and we're now working with those that have tested and validated it to, to work [00:17:00] towards a commercial offtake agreement.
Paul Shapiro: When you say, Lars, that it's a novel fat, right? Like, so you're saying it's a drop in that they're not gonna need to do anything special, but that it's, it's also novel. Do you have regulatory approval to sell this or is that something you're gonna have to apply for if you haven't already?
Lars Langhout: Yeah, so it's not a novel fat, it's a novel technology that's, that's that we're using.
The fat in itself is, is a true drop in replacement that we've even had customers saying it's actually boring to replace because they didn't have to do any reformulation, which is like the biggest compliment that you could get. But yeah, we're based in eu so we do have to follow a few regulatory steps.
The case in the case where you're producing a product that's essentially the same as that's already being consumed by 1997, then you don't have to go through a novel foods approval, FSA approval as you, as there is in in Europe in an Netherland. You then have to go through CBG which stands for the Institute for [00:18:00] assessing Medicine and.
The likes of the typical products. And we felt a doche, which basically shows that it has the same triglyceride composition, it's safe to consume. We've done all kinds of tests. We've in that way we've demonstrated it, and that's now up for review and we expect to get word back from them by May or June.
So that's much faster than if you would have to file for Novel Foods approval in Europe.
Paul Shapiro: Nice. And are, do you intend to file for a grass notice or a generally recognized as safe notice in the United States as well?
Lars Langhout: Well, it depends. With all the things ongoing. JFKR JR just said they wanna eliminate the self grass loophole as it they, they tend to call, right?
Yeah. So we're resources. Spend too much time on something that might shut the door
Paul Shapiro: anyways. Presumably your dossier that you have filed in Europe though could be largely [00:19:00] reproduced for the US FDAI mean, it's exactly, it's the same. It's the same data.
Lars Langhout: Yeah. Yeah. And we could use that and if, essentially our vision is that if it's approved in Europe.
Then approval elsewhere becomes much easier. That's how this industry also works. If you have regulatory approval in Europe, then it's easier to get it in other geographies.
Paul Shapiro: Are there any advantages, Lars, to the oil that you're making? You're saying it's a drop in, you're saying it's boring, they don't have to do anything.
So the way you make it sound is that it's a biosimilar, or even if not a bioidentical, but is there any advantage or is it just the same?
Lars Langhout: Currently it's just the same 'cause that's what our customers really want. And as a scale up, we need to demonstrate our credibility, our platform, our fermentation platform, however, has the ability to make you know, fatty acid compositions that do not exist today.
But that's where we're now getting with some of our commercial partners. They are the maturity and they know we're now [00:20:00] credible. They, we know, they know we can deliver. And now we're also talking about like, can you, they ask this question, can you also do this? Can you also make the that triglyceride composition?
Can you have less saturated fatty acid and still have the same functionality? And the answer is. Mostly yes. Some, sometimes it may, might make some time and we need to do some development work on that. But that's exactly what we can do with our technology because we can, with the same yeast and the same process, we can make a.
Solid fats and liquid oils, which have totally different fatty acid compositions. So we've already demonstrated that we can work in that bandwidth. And that is super exciting for those companies. But now the product that we're scaling. Is really a biosimilar or bioidentical if you'll,
Paul Shapiro: mm-hmm.
Okay, cool. So if you are, if you've succeeded, succeeded at 120,000 leaders, I, I think correct me if I'm wrong, you, you guys have raised 6 million euros to date [00:21:00] in, in financing. I presume in order to scale up to do, as you're saying, you're in need a lot more than that. Is that accurate? Yeah, that's, that's completely
Lars Langhout: accurate.
In order to do the next step, so our next step would be to set up a first of its kind demo factory, which would produce about 1.2 kiloton of oil on an annual basis. Where we would demonstrate it process from A to Z and further optimize. What's the
Paul Shapiro: price, what's the price tag for that demonstration scale facility, and how many liters of fermentation does it have?
Lars Langhout: Yeah. So the, the price tag of doing that and having some runway also to execute and, and, and hire the team to do so. That run is a price tag of about 20 to 25 million euros. Mm-hmm. Same in, in terms of dollars at the moment. Mm-hmm.
Paul Shapiro: Okay. And, and how many leaders, like you're gonna have a fermentor of what size there?
That would be two fermenters of 90 cubic meters. Okay. And for those uninitiated, 90 cubic meters is just another way of saying 90,000 liters. So in, [00:22:00] in, in the fermentation industry, the cool people say either cubic meters or if they are really cool, they say cubes. You know, they'll say it's nine 90 cubes.
But anyway, yes, for those who are not coolic, myself, I say 90,000 liters. So two 90,000 liter fermentors. Okay. And you need, you know, 20, 25 million euros in order. To make that happen. That's cool. So are you fundraising now or are you going to be fundraising? Like how are you gonna actually get this demo scale plant online?
Lars Langhout: No, we're starting fundraising in a few months. Before we do that, we want to have secured those off-take agreements to really prove the commercial traction and validation the same time. Our business model, and we haven't touched upon that is one of decentralization we want to co-locate with these waste stream suppliers.
Actually helping them with one of their biggest issues. 'cause if they can't get rid of their side streams, their factory shut down some within 48 hours, some even faster, some in a few days. But there they see an opportunity to also, to lower their carbon footprint [00:23:00] as a factory unit. And we're also working with a few companies to sign basically commercial agreements for our first, second, and third.
Co-located factory. Once we've done the demo, then we also need to think ahead, what's the next step after that.
Paul Shapiro: And just to be clear, you use the term co-located factory. I presume what you're saying is after the demo plant, you wanna build a full scale plant that's adjacent to the source of your feedstock of whether it's a potato factory or whatever it is.
That's what you're looking to do?
Lars Langhout: Yes, exactly. Exactly. So co-located and then about 10 times to 15 times the size of the demo factory.
Paul Shapiro: Yeah. And what do you envision that supplier as being an investor also in your technology? So let's say you're with a pat, let's say you're using potato peels, you're gonna co-locate next to a big potato factory.
Is that potato factory a potential investor or do you see them merely as a feedstock supplier?
Lars Langhout: No, we see it more as a joint venture [00:24:00] partner. So investor would imply that they would invest in the holding company. But this is more of a joint venture setup where you partner up and finance the specific factory with that partner and then finance the next joint venture factory with another partner.
Paul Shapiro: Nice. Okay. Very cool. Well, that, that's very exciting. I certainly hope that you all raise the capital. I hope that I get to consume your product sometime. It sounds pretty awesome. Why do you do this? Like, why are you doing this, Lars? What, what happened in your life where you thought, oh, I wanna be able to produce palm oil inside of a bioreactor?
Like what, what was the actual catalyst for you to think that you're the guy to do this?
Lars Langhout: It's not really like one moment in my life that I set out to do this. So there, there are a few moments I can recall. So I, I did my MBA at Columbia Business School and I met Irving Fain who set up Bowery Farming.
And to me he was so inspiring to both, you know, come up with a commercial and ideological [00:25:00] challenge. And to me, working in consulting back then, I thought, well, this is something perfect that I could do with my skillset, something similar. So that's where basically the seed was planted of doing something like this.
And when Covid happened, I suddenly found myself at home. Rather than flying all across Europe for projects. And then I thought by myself, Hey, this is the time to do something different. This is a pivotal time where I can really make a change. And really, I was, I. Fed up not having the real impact that I wanted to have.
And then I ran into this article from the University of Bing where this, this naughty professor made mais with microbial oils, as we called it back then. And I was so inspired by that story that everything clicked, that I realized being, I was sitting at home and I thought, well. This is where I wanna spend my time and money [00:26:00] at and, and devote my, at least the better part of my career on to make this work.
'cause ultimately then I can say to my kids that I've left the world in a bit of a better place than I've found it
Paul Shapiro: in. Isn't that amazing how sometimes a singular event, like in your case, reading this article about what somebody was doing in Vagan and has a dramatically. Unexpected impact on your life.
Like there's so many times where like, trajectories in my life were altered by something that just seems random. And I wonder if, you know, whoever wrote that article knows the impact that that article had. Like, have you reached out to the author who wrote these story and say, Hey, you changed my life?
Lars Langhout: No, I haven't
Paul Shapiro: actually.
Lars Langhout: It's actually quite fun to do. I I have it framed at home because for me, a pretty big part in my life.
Paul Shapiro: That, that, that question, the journalist who wrote that article would never imagined that their article would be framed on somebody's wall. Never in a [00:27:00] million years. I, I think you should. We will, we will link to this article in the show notes for this episode at Business for good podcast.com.
So more people can lay their eyes on this historic article, but I would encourage you to contact the journalist and tell him or her what an impact they had. So yeah, that, that's cool. And, and I certainly have done that with at times where something I read. Really dramatically changed my life as well, even though the person probably had no intent of changing anybody's life by doing it.
In fact, maybe the person didn't even wanna write the article. Who knows? But that's cool. Alright, so we'll link to that article, but let me ask you, Lars, were there other resources that were helpful for you whether you were, you know, when you were at Columbia or anywhere else in your life that have been useful in the years now that you've been running this startup that you would encourage others to check out?
Lars Langhout: Yeah, definitely. I think the book that left the most profound impact on me is the, the hard thing about hard things from Ben Horowitz touches upon so many experience I'm having to go [00:28:00] through. And I can recommend any. To, to read that book and imprint it in, in, in memory. 'cause you can use it almost on a daily basis.
Paul Shapiro: Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I too have read the book and recommended it and there's a, a wonderful famous line in there that I absolutely love when he says that. When you start your own company, you will sleep like a baby because you're gonna wake up every two hours and cry. And I thought, you know, that is a very good line.
I, I like his line a lot on that and I've used it, attributing it to him many times. So it's a great book. The Hard Thing About Hard Things, which we'll also link to in the show notes for this episode at Business for Good dot, or excuse me, business for good podcast.com. Okay. Were there other resources or is that the sole one that you're gonna throw out?
Lars. Yeah, it's
Lars Langhout: hard to say, like sometimes you've been using stuff for such a long time that you don't even know where you got that intel from. But what one thing I. One other book that I really like is A Radical Candor from Kim Scott. [00:29:00] 'cause managing a team is something completely different in a consulting environment versus a startup environment, and I really learned that applying radical candor really helps.
Is, is is crucial to your team development if you can. If you are not willing to tell people the truth, if they're not performing then you're providing them a disservice yourself, a disservice, the company a disservice, and everybody else around them as well. I'm not sure if you've read it, but that's essentially the, the, the theme there is that as long as you're respectful.
Honest and very transparent and very clear, then you're gonna thrive in a business.
Paul Shapiro: Good advice for a business. Would you recommend it for a relationship as well?
Lars Langhout: Ooh. I've applied some of the concepts directly. Are, are you married? Are
Paul Shapiro: you married? Yeah, I'm married. Yeah. [00:30:00] And, and it did not end your marriage?
No. No. Okay. All right. Well, that's good. That's good. That's a good, there you go. Very good. Okay. Radical candor in both business and in your personal life too. I'll, I'll talk to my wife about this. We'll see what she says about this one. So I looked up the article and I, I don't know how to pronounce the gentleman's name or I don't even know if it's a gentleman, but it's J-E-R-O-E-N.
Uls Jeal. I'm sure that's not how it's pronounced in Dutch, but that's the author. And so is, is that a male name or a female name?
Lars Langhout: Well, that, that's a male name. That, that, that's also my that, that's, that's my, actually my co-founder. But he oh, that's not the article. But that's not the person who, who wrote. Okay.
Paul Shapiro: Okay. There. All right. Got it. There is a 2020 article about making mayonnaise with microorganisms for that from from that. Okay. Got it. All right, well I'll make sure I get the right one in the show notes. So I'll stop looking for that right now. But that's good. I'm so glad that you corrected me on that 'cause I would've gotten it wrong for sure.
And, and please apologize to your co-founder for my complete ignorance about how to pronounce his name. He's used [00:31:00] to it. Yeah. Yeah. I, I would imagine that's okay. I, I recently was in Latin America where somebody prone referred to me as pa instead of Paul. And I can assure you it does not bother me in any way.
It's like, hi. It's hard for me to care less, actually. I'm pa now. That's fine. Finally, Lars are there companies that you wish that somebody else would do? You know, you're spending your time trying to recreate palm oil without palm trees without. Having tropical deforestation, but surely given somebody who's doing what you're doing, if you're reading these books about startups, like the hard thing about hard things, you probably thought about what other companies somebody else could do.
So what do you think is missing out there? What do you wish somebody else would do? Somebody listening who's like, oh, I really admire what Lars is up to. I'd like to do something that would also weave the world in better shape for my kids. What should they do?
Lars Langhout: I think there, there are many variants of like, palm oil without palm trees. And I'm gonna cheat a little bit on this 'cause I, I know somebody's working on this already. And he's in a pre-seed stage, but it's basically making wood without cutting down [00:32:00] trees.
Paul Shapiro: Oh, cool.
Lars Langhout: It's, and it's called a company called New Dawn Bio with Clement. And what they're doing is doing is fascinating.
They can basically grow wood in the shape of the application that's gonna be used for. And do doing it in a similar way that we do, but then more with the precision fermentation cultivation setup. And I think that's, that's fascinating. And that's the beauty of the, the, it's a bycatch of what I'm doing, so I'm suddenly submerged in this ecosystem of brilliant people.
And I'm not technical from background. I, I have a business degree and I meet all kinds of people who. Figured out a way, something very technical that I do not understand. So I get to ask all kinds of curious questions. Yeah. And I'm fascinated by what people are working on globally to
Paul Shapiro: make the world a better place.
That's great. Well, in my experience, the best thing that A CEO can do is to hire people [00:33:00] who are a lot smarter than him or her. And bring in a great team of people and let them do what they need to do to make the science work. So congratulations to you on appearing to have accomplished at Lars. And I'll tell you, we had a, I dunno if you've heard of Lynn Grove, but it's a cool company we've had on the show before.
They're doing a, basically a wood from, it's not through fermentation, but it's a wood. Replacement company. That's pretty awesome. And we also had, interestingly I don't know if you've ever heard of RBM, but they're a French company using wood as a substrate for their fermentation to produce proteins.
So it's a, a pretty pretty riveting. I. Things. So they're allegedly using waste from the wood pulp industry to to do that. So anyway those are two cool ideas. We'll link to those past episodes in the show notes for this episode. But for right now, ORs, I wanna say thanks so much for all you're doing.
It's very exciting, the idea that we could be using waste from the potato or other agricultural industries to displace palm oil and hopefully give some land back to wildlife that we've taken from them. So [00:34:00] I'm grateful to you for all you're doing, and I'll be rooting for your success. Thank you, Paul.