Doug opens up in our conversation about how he handled his rapid ascent into fame as a successful entrepreneur, and how he handled his rapid descent when the company endured bad coverage and eventual ruin. Doug also offers his thoughts on what he wishes he’d done differently, as well as some unconventional thoughts, including why he thinks startups shouldn’t issue press releases about their fundraising success.

In this interview, Rob makes his case for more technological innovation in food, not less, including finding ways to reduce the number of animals humanity is raising for food. I found his book eye-opening and hope you’ll enjoy hearing his perspective on food sustainability in this new interview.

Jessica Schwabach is the CEO of Sundial Foods. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California, Berkeley. She combines her love of scientific exploration and her desire to help food systems sustainably meet protein demands to create healthy, innovative meat alternatives.

This is a story of two people who despite not having experience in the cultivated meat space felt so strongly about building a community around it that they started their own podcast, called Cultured Meat and Future Foods, their own conference, the Cultured Meat Symposium, and are now working on a children’s book about cultivated meat together as well.

There’s already plant-based pet food, but what about growing actual animal meat for all of our carnivorous best friends? The company featured in this episode, Because Animals, is trying to do just that. And they’re starting with cultivated mouse meat for your cat.

Aylon is an expert in the alternative protein industry and has spoken regularly on food innovation at conferences and schools such as Harvard, MIT, Yale, Berkeley, and Stanford. In his work at the Good Food Institute, Aylon incubated dozens of startups and advised investors and strategic partners on the protein alternative space.

For the past 2+ years, I’ve often said that I may be the face of our company, but Doni is the backbone, serving as our Executive Vice President and overseeing all of our operations and logistics. She’s truly integral to the enterprise, and in this episode, Doni shares her secrets about what she’s looking for in job applicants, what the transition from nonprofit exec to scrappy startup has been like, how she thinks about compensation packages in Startupland, and more.

Mitchell Scott is the CEO of The Very Good Food Co., the world’s second plant-based meat IPO. The company has seen substantial success since its flotation in the Canadian stock market in 2021. The Very Good Food Co. designs, develops, produces, distributes, and sells a variety of plant-based meat and other food alternatives.

Meet Deborah Torres, founder and CEO of Atlas Monroe, a start-up making plant-based fried chicken. As you’ll hear, a chance encounter with a stranger in a supermarket led Deborah to become vegan, which ultimately transitioned her whole family into a plant-based lifestyle.

Monica was born into the seafood industry, and for years has been running her family business, Van Cleve’s Seafood, from the Eastern Shore of Virginia. But as you’ll hear in this conversation, a series of events led her to start experimenting with plant-based seafood recipes. And while it’s no longer major news for conventional meat companies to develop plant-based lines since so many are admirably already now doing that, Monica announces in this episode something far more inspirational.

Brian Spears is the founder and CEO of New Age Meats, making meat from animal cells instead of animal slaughter. Previously, he spent eight years as co-founder of Sixclear, creating software and products to automate the research labs and production environments of customers such as NASA, Cisco Systems, Sandia National Labs, and GE Healthcare.

In this episode, we talk with Adam Grogan, an executive at Maple Leaf’s plant protein division Greenleaf Foods. We’re also joined by the company’s Chief of R&D, Jitendra Sagili, a meat industry veteran who’s in charge of a team of 90 food scientists, many of whom are working to innovate the best new alt-proteins for the meat-eating consumer.

In this episode we discuss Irina’s journey from corporate Goliath to start-up David, just what makes Change Foods different from other precision fermentation start-ups, and what Irina thinks are examples of great—and not-so-great—marketing in the plant-based space.

In this episode we talk about Kristie’s transition from the world of charities to the work of building a company aimed at helping animals. We also discuss how Rebellyous Foods intends to bend the cost curve of plant-based meat and what they’re doing with the $12 million they’ve raised from venture capitalists so far.

Chris Bryson served as the founder and CEO of Unata, an enterprise software provider (acquired by Instacart in 2018) that powers the eCommerce & digital experiences for major grocery chains. Recognized as the 52nd Fastest Growing North American Tech Company (PROFIT 500 2016), Canada's #2 best small business workplace (Great Place to Work 2017), and one of Canada's Top 20 Most Innovative Companies (CIX Awards 2016).

Meat from a cow who’s eaten an entirely grass-based diet is typically called “grass-fed meat.” So when you’re making plant-based meat with wood as your feedstock, is it called “wood-fed meat”? No matter what you call it, Arbiom has raised about $30 million to produce it.

This is a special episode, because the guest holds many interesting titles for our purposes: Toni Okamoto is the founder of Plant Based on a Budget, a successful author, the creator and former co-host of this podcast, and...she happens also to be my wife. And Toni has a new book coming out! This is her third cookbook, entitled The Friendly Vegan Cookbook, which is coauthored with Toni's business partner and friend Michelle Cehn.

When this podcast was first launched in 2018, the very first guest was Whole Foods Market CEO and co-founder John Mackey. In that episode, we talked about his book Conscious Capitalism. Well, John has a new book out now, Conscious Leadership, and to commemorate our 50th episode, he rejoins the podcast for a second conversation and rest assured, John does not disappoint.

But what if it were possible to make meat alternatives with a different species than one of those three? In fact, a species so different it’s not even a plant at all. That’s exactly what Kimberlie Le of Prime Roots is doing.

In this interview, we hear from Good Dot CEO Abhishek Sinha, a man who by his own description was an animal-loving government bureaucrat who decided he wanted to do more for animals with his career. And as a result, he claims he’s happier and more fulfilled today than he’s ever been before. You already know there’s a plant-based meat revolution happening in the US, Europe, and China. Now get ready to hear about how it’s unfolding on the Asian subcontinent too.