Fermenting Methane into Meat! The String Bio Story

Paul Shapiro: [00:00:00] Welcome to The Business for Good Podcast, a show where we spotlight companies making money by making the world a better place. I'm your host, Paul Shapiro, and if you share a passion for using commerce to solve many of the world's most pressing problems, then this is the show for you.

Hello and welcome to the 105th episode of the Business for Good podcast. We're getting good feedback on the new homepage feature at Business for good podcast.com, showing what the most popular episodes of the show's history have been. For those of you who have found that to be useful, I'm glad to hear it.

But if you've not yet checked it out, you may be interested to see what people have been into for the first. Four seasons of this show. I hope you enjoyed the last episode with She Zong about how the death of her father led to the birth of her company, molten Materials, and I think you're going to like this one too.

I know I did. If you're into fermentation and animal free proteins, as much as I am. I think you are going to be impressed by [00:01:00] Dr. Aze Su and to see what she's up to running a company that few people, at least in my social circle have heard of, but it's certainly a company to watch in the animal free protein space.

Now, usually when you hear about meats connection to methane, you hear about all the methane that cows are emitting into the atmosphere, accelerating climate change. What if, however, You could capture methane before it goes into the atmosphere and feed it to microbes, which in turn convert it into protein packed ingredients to make alternative meat.

It sounds like magic, but indeed it is not magic. It is just science, and it's a science that Dr. Sabaan and her team at String Bio are advancing right now. The India based company in 2022 closed its 20 million series B round and is now scaling up to commercialize its microbial protein ingredients. In this interview, Dr.

Saba and I talk about how she started the company, why she moved it from Silicon Valley to Bangalore, India. Where they get the methane to feed their microbes and much more. It's a fun conversation with someone passionate about [00:02:00] fermentation and seeking to scale it in a part of the world where it is desperately needed, where meat demand is rising the fastest Asia.

So enjoy this conversation with a real pioneer in the microbial fermentation space as she tells you her story of going from biotech researcher to startup CEO Aul. So nice to be talking with you. Welcome to the Business for Good podcast. 

Ezhil Subbian: Thanks. Thanks Paul. Thanks for having us. Great to be on the forecast with 

Paul Shapiro: you.

It's really exciting to be talking with you because like you, I am concerned about fermentation and how we can use it and harness its power to create really cool foods that can hopefully reduce humanity's footprint on the planet. So I am excited to be chatting with you and I would love to just straight out the gate ask you, you're turning methane into food.

How do you do. 

Ezhil Subbian: Yes. So we are turning methane into food and by, exactly leveraging what you talked about, which is fermentation. So the core that we do is obviously fermentation [00:03:00] as an art, as a science has been around pretty much since man started enjoying food and wine. So we use basically that, and the key innovation that we do is fermentation typically use.

Liquid substrates, like sugars, like corn, other sources of carbon what we've done is enable fermentation to use caius substrate. And in that particularly methane, a very pot greenhouse gas ultimately because we want to enable sustainable sources of manufacturing food, right? And obviously leveraging a greenhouse gas like methane and converting that wire fermentation into protein.

Allows us to really enable carbon negative, carbon friendly solutions for food. So that's fundamentally how 

Paul Shapiro: we do it. Amazing. So you mentioned methane and for those who have confusion in places like Britain and India, they say methane, whereas in America they say methane. So that's why we have a, a difference in pronunciation there for those who aren't familiar, but [00:04:00] regardless of what you call it, let's just start out.

So we. Emitting way too much methane into the atmosphere. Is what you're doing using the atmospheric methane, are you actually removing methane from the atmosphere as a feedstock here for your fermentation? 

Ezhil Subbian: So what we do is rather than remove what we work with, is we work with partners who are potentially either emitting methane or burning.

So for example, so as you rightly pointed out methane is a methane or methane, a very potent greenhouse gas. And today, as a society, as a global population, we are emitting and burning very high levels of methane. . Now traditionally what's happened is if you look at methane, it's actually a very high energy carbon source, but we as mankind only know how to burn methane and leverage the heat generated from it, right?

Largely using it as a source of heat, as a transportation fuel [00:05:00] and so on. We do have some applications where methane gets converted into methanol or other value added products via chemical catalytic process. What we've been able to do is we have been able to leverage what is called a gas fermentation process.

And we built a platform, we call it the string integrated methane platform, but fundamentally, it is a collection of tools collection of engineering solutions, fermentation solutions, biological solutions, that allows us to now convert that methane into different value added products, including, . What this then allows us to do is if you have a player in the oil and gas space, they now have other solutions to convert their methane into rather than flaring or burning their methane.

Okay. And likewise, another very very viable and very exciting source of methane for us is actually biogas. And biogas. I don't mean we actually capture the gas emitted from [00:06:00] cows. Rather, what we do is we work with folks who are taking waste. Particularly sludge municipal solid waste or city waste and converting it wire and aerobic digestion into biogas.

It turns out biogas is almost 65, 70% methane, and today there are a lot of solutions available to further concentrate the methane available in biogas. Now that becomes a very credible source for us to work with. And again, there now for folks who are generating methane, we are then allow, we are then able to offer multiple solutions, right?

Based on the volume of gas they have. They con convert it into either protein for food, which is one of the big focus areas for us. Ultimately, if they have smaller source of methane, we can also convert it into crop inputs or other products that we have in our overall product portfolio. So to answer your question, Paul, so what we do is we don't really capture the methane once it's released.

Rather, we [00:07:00] work with partners upstream to provide solutions to them so that we can even avoid methane being released, right? So that. They have very viable, very economical, very scalable solutions for the methane that they are generating. 

Paul Shapiro: That's really interesting. So if oil and gas companies, let's say they're flaring their methane off, so it's basically a waste product for them, right?

So are they giving it to you for free or do you just pay a nominal amount for it, as a feed stock? Are you getting it at no cost or just at low cost? 

Ezhil Subbian: So at varies based on player to player. For us, when we say economical, we actually price the. Obviously and so that's the price or the nicotine is part of our economic equation.

So I would say it won't come at low cost, but probably at low cost compared to what is existing. But the key valuation the key value addition for us is instead of. Flaring or venting their methane when they use our sustainable manufacturing platform to convert that [00:08:00] methane into products as a clear carbon offset solution for them, right?

So that's a key value generation. . 

Paul Shapiro: So let's just talk about that since you mentioned what's currently being done, and you alluded ail to earlier to like corn and other carbon-based feed stocks. Just for background, for those who let's say aren't initiated into the world of fermentation, basically you're feeding microbes, right?

So instead of raising animals who you're feeding who then turn into protein, you're taking microscopic organisms and feeding them. And they turn, they, they create the food. And in most of the fermentations, let's say what corn, Q U O R N does is they take a microscopic organism and they feed it essentially sugar, and then it eats the sugar and it builds its biomass up.

And then that's what becomes like the corn alternative meat products. What you're talking about though is not using corn or some other carbon at all. , but rather just using the methane that you can capture, which is the waste product of other industries, and [00:09:00] use that as your feedstock. So you must have a very special kind of organism that instead of wanting sugar is happy to consume methane.

So how did you come across this? Like how did it come to be that you thought, hey, let's use microorganisms that produce protein that don't want to eat just dextrous or glucose, but rather they wanna eat methane? 

Ezhil Subbian: Yeah, no, that's a great question. I've been as part of my career, I've been in the fermentation industry for since about the early two thousands.

And if you remember, in the early two thousands, we started to look at scaling up biofuels as an alternative to gasoline. And at that point, initially, I guess the focus was on using sugar-based subst. And eventually they, they came, this whole debate was on food versus fuel, which is when we started to look at your second gen kind of substrates, which is your cellulosics, right?

And so having been in the industry and having worked with different kinds of carbon sources that can then be converted [00:10:00] by a fermentation what we then started looking at is gashes feed. Because as I said earlier, they are also actually a very high source of carbon, but today we don't really leverage them that well to make various kinds of products.

So when you combine such carbon sources, With microbial catalyst, like you rightly pointed out, these are bacterial cells and bacterial cells and in general, they've had different kind of enzymes, which can then convert the carbon or oxidize the carbon very easily to other compounds, which can then get converted within the cell.

So then it really allows you to have a very efficient platform for conversion. In our case we started to look at a certain class of bacterial cells. These are called methanotroph, and they naturally occur and they are very good at consuming methane. In fact, what is very interesting about these organisms, Paul, is they only use [00:11:00] methane as a carbon.

Even though given your , even though they have pathways for utilizing other sugars, they actually only like to consume methane, right? And they are very widely present in nature. They're largely present in let's say rice fields in other areas where you generally would see high levels of methane.

So when we started to look at the possibility of using methane as a carbon source, we naturally zoned in on these osis of bacteria called methanes. And as a fermentation process, we realized that they have huge advantages because, one, they're very efficient at utilizing methane, but also the fact that.

They don't like to use other sugar substrates means that in terms of scaling up the process, you have a lot of advantages because, your chances of contamination is very low because you don't have anything else than methane in your reactors. So ultimately it caters itself for [00:12:00] efficient, very clean process.

Sorry, 

Paul Shapiro: go ahead. Interesting. So the only feedstock is methane. There's not any nitrogen source or any, you. Other ingredient in your feedstock is just pure methane. The 

Ezhil Subbian: only carbon source is methane, so there's really no other carbon source in the reactor. Got it. So the surface of any other bacterial contamination coming up is almost zero.

Paul Shapiro: Got it. Okay. And if you were to go to a fermentation facility that string bio is operating, would you see what you would see elsewhere? If you're talking about the traditional kind of fermentation to make these types of alternative proteins, you're talking about large stainless steel fermentors.

That are basically filled up with liquid and then put the nutrients, like that carbon in there, and then you inoculate it with your organism, and then eventually you harvest it. Is that the same thing except without the liquid? Is it the same type of equipment that you use to do a gaseous fermentation?

Ezhil Subbian: Yes. So it's pretty much like the favorite example I like to use is like micro visiting a micro brewery. So it's exactly like a micro brewery. You have [00:13:00] your stainless steel reactors and here the only difference is very close to the stainless steel reactors. We have either gas getting in from cylinders or from a gas pipeline, that we use as a substrate. But you're exactly right, that's, the setup is very similar. . 

Paul Shapiro: Got it. Okay. So really cool what you're doing. We've now described how it is different from the types of fermentations that you hear about, from companies like corn, or even frankly, the company that I run, the Better Meco.

But let's talk about what you're making. So you said you're using these bacteria that are uhropes, so they're, they, they're loving to consume methane here, but what do they make? Is it your. You eat the bacteria or the bacteria expressing something else that you're after, like what is it? That is the product that String Bio produces.

Ezhil Subbian: Yeah. So going back I one of the key reasons I got into this space is actually I believe that the chemistry that is enabled by biology is vast, right? When you use chemical catalysis, you're [00:14:00] restricted to a few types of molecules. Whereas the huge advantage of biological catalysis is that these cells are able to make a wide array of different products, different chemistries.

So ultimately what we did, Paul, is once we obviously the very first few years, a huge focus was on enabling the efficiencies for gas fermentation. Because methane violet's a very interesting molecule. It's not very soluble in liquid. had to really innovate on how to enhance the efficiencies of gas fermentation itself.

But once we did that, I strongly believe that the power of the platform it is in us being able to leverage this core cast ferment. To generate a wider array of molecules. So hence what we did was we focused on molecules that we can enable for different kinds of applications. One of the big focus areas for us is of course, food.

So converting methane into food. Here we've largely [00:15:00] looked at a high quality protein that can go in as a protein ingredient for making your animal free meat or protein ingredient that can go into other kinds of applications. So that's one of the big areas for focus. 

Paul Shapiro: Nice. But why and how? How does it taste?

Ezhil Subbian: If you ask me, I think it tastes better than a regular chicken nugget . Oh, 

Paul Shapiro: okay. Does it have does it, do you have to flavor it like chicken or does it have a nat, is it a neutral flavor or does it have some flavor already in it? 

Ezhil Subbian: So what we've done is we've created about four to five different protein variants today that have that have varying levels of of varying varieties of sensory and flavor profiles.

So we have a protein that has a very neutral flavor. It's white, it's really just a protein. It doesn't really bring in any other flavor to the formula. , that's one end of the spectrum. And 

Paul Shapiro: what percentage and what percentage protein on a dry weight basis is that product? 

Ezhil Subbian: That product is about 80% protein on a dry [00:16:00] weight basis.

Paul Shapiro: Wow, that's extremely high. And it, that's not isolated or concentrated. That's just the natural whole biomass that's 80% protein by dry weight. 

Ezhil Subbian: It is, it's, it does have a few steps of concentration, but the big advantage Got it. With these oxx is the natural base level protein is about 72, 70 3%.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah. Interesting. So why con, why concentrate it? Why, is 73 not good enough? You want to go to 80? So 

Ezhil Subbian: largely because what I was saying is we wanted to create a few different variants. So one end of the spectrum, we made a protein that has a very neutral flavor. It's white, it doesn't really bring any other flavor profile, but the other end of the spectrum, we have protein that has a very high MAI flavor.

It has a more meaty flavor profile, right? And in between we've got varying levels and largely for us to be able to capture that flavor profile. We've also worked on various kinds of downstream processing that we do on the base protein that allows us to enable a few [00:17:00] different applications.

Wow. But also going back to your question, Paul, is like I said, I believe that once you've innovated of the core gas ferment, , the power of the biology is in being able to now convert.

Of molecules. So while we while we focused on food, we also convert methane into other peptides or other chemicals that can then allow us to set up applications for either the agriculture sector or the material sector and so on and so forth. . 

Paul Shapiro: Wow. Cool. You can use this for all different types of things, but I presume it's a powder, right?

It's not textured like meat. So if you want to take your 80% protein bacteria, you've got essentially to extrude it or in order to give it a meat like texture. Is that accurate or no? 

Ezhil Subbian: That is accurate. That's exactly what we, 

Paul Shapiro: yeah. [00:18:00] So it's basically like a, it's basically like a protein flour. 

Ezhil Subbian: Yes.

That's, it is a protein ingredient. So in terms of a business model, we are a B2B player, so we want to enable sustainable next generation ingredients that we can then provide to our partners and our partners focused on actual formulation and putting the, meat, like a protein rich products with the.

Paul Shapiro: Very cool. So let's chat about the history of the company then, because I know that it has existed for some time and I know that you started it. So when when did you have the idea to bring String Brio into existence? 

Ezhil Subbian: The, our journey started in 2013. . And so yeah, so we have been around for some time.

And so in 2013, like I said, the driver for us is I'd been in the industry. I really wanted to enable a gas ation platform using. More efficient biological engineering tools. So that's what started and the first few years of my existence [00:19:00] really wanted to dial in on enhancing the efficiency of the core gas limitation process.

And having spent time in the Valley before, I'd worked with three other kind of very early stage companies, startups one 

Paul Shapiro: of them. And, but and just for those who aren't initiated by that way, I presume you mean Silicon Valley? That is correct. That is correct. Got it. Okay.

Yeah. I just wanna make sure here so that we're on the same page. So you had spent some time working at other startups, sorry, sorry to interrupt. 

Ezhil Subbian: Yes. Worked at other startups. So when we started string, one of my first drivers was we wanted to really get the technology ready and get products within insight of the market.

As I mentioned, the first few years was largely focused on doing the high risk innovation in terms of gas fermentation. That's what we spend time on. And then around 2017 is when we went out to the market to raise our first round of outside funds. And and that was largely proteins for the animal nutrition sector.

Interestingly post that we've [00:20:00] been, enabling a wider array of products built on the core fermentation platform. 

Paul Shapiro: Very cool. So I know that you have since gone on to raise a 20 million round, but how much was that first round that you did back in 20 

Ezhil Subbian: The first round that we did was a 2.5 million round.

It was a a raise for us. And obviously one other thing is we actually started, string was started in the Bay Area but very early on 2014, we moved operations to Bangalore, India. . And in the last eight years has been, the operations have been largely based out of Bangalore.

The driver was this, the kind of solutions that we were developing, right Paul? This is to enable sustainable manufacturing, really bring NextGen products to market. And given the population profile globally we wanted to develop solutions close to where close to markets where the solutions were both.

right By 2030, I think almost 65% of the global middle class will be based outta Asia. [00:21:00] And having, as I mentioned, having worked in startups in the Bay Area strongly felt that it was time for innovation to be perhaps built out of Bangalore that can then be taken outta the rest of the world.

So that was also the driver, the early part of the journey for 

Paul Shapiro: us. , did you find that being in India offered you any advantages or disadvantages from a fundraising perspective? Obviously, the VCs in Silicon Valley aren't gonna be able to easily come and visit your factory but Dowers go a lot further in India.

So was it an advantage or a disadvantage to really build the company in India as opposed to California? 

Ezhil Subbian: I would say a bit of both. In terms of fundraising, it was a huge disadvantage because prior to string my entire working career and my, co-founders was largely based out of the us.

So in terms of a fallback network that we could reach out to it was zero. So you start over from scratch and you build your networks again. Like you rightly pointed out a Silicon Valley VC was not comfortable not being able to meet the founder [00:22:00] or, get to see the team on a regular basis.

Given that, given the fact that, they had a lot of interesting deals, a pipeline of deals in the US ecosystem, and for them to look at a deal coming out of India, they'd have to do a different kind of, We were at a huge disadvantage, right? And at that point 2014 or 2017, when we went out the VC funding ecosystem for these kind of ventures in India was at a very basic range.

VCs out of India were very risk averse. They didn't wanna look to look at startups like us. . So it was a bit of a definitely a huge disadvantage for us. However in hindsight what I would say Paul is driving the innovation out of India has its advantage because, one, the innovation dollar went a lot lo lot farther for us, and second inherently had a huge advantage in terms of manufacturing.

So once we wanted to take the fermentation past to 50 liter [00:23:00] scale, being able to scale up that manufacturing very, a lot more easily in India was a big advantage. so it was a, it is, it was a, it's been a very interesting journey that way. . Cause you're building your own path right.

At each step. So yeah, there are, there were definite advantages from an innovation and ecosystem perspective, but a huge disadvantage in terms of from a fundraise standpoint. 

Paul Shapiro: Congratulations on still making it work. So how much has the company raised to date? 

Ezhil Subbian: So we just recently closed a series B raise. This was August of this year, a 20 billion raise, which will support our commercialization activities. Very exciting. Great. Congratulations. Thank you. Very exciting. Cause this will support you know the journey, right?

You go through the core technology development and then we've been very excited because for a couple of our sectors, we've had very good product market fit. And now the 20 billion will allow us to scale up and build a couple of commercial scale plants. So what I am most [00:24:00] excited about is one of these facilities will be using biogas as a source of methane.

And this will really allow us to have a complete circle economy solution for the market as well for the food market. So being able to really, start from idea on paper and take the technology through to a commercial scale. Very exciting and really looking forward to what we can do with the 20 million.

Paul Shapiro: That's really exciting. Congratulations. So how many folks work at String Bio now? 

Ezhil Subbian: So we are roughly about a 70 pepper deep today, Paul. You 

Paul Shapiro: said 70, 70, 70 0. That's correct. Yeah. When you started the company were you envisioning yourself being the captain of a 70 person boat or was that too far off for you to imagine at all?

Ezhil Subbian: Not at all. Not at all. So it's been, yeah. Like I say, how, like how biology evolves. I think founders also need to evolve, right? So at each phase it's been a very fun, exciting learning journey. Obviously with a [00:25:00] lot of downs, but the few ups really make it worthwhile. But for us, from day one, it's been about redefining manufacturing, really bringing sustainable products to market with very clear carbon offset benefits.

So I think that's been the driver through and through. , 

Paul Shapiro: You are you were not a business person prior, right? So you have a PhD or a scientist. How's it been for you to go from being scientist and somebody who maybe, I don't wanna be presumptuous, but maybe is more comfortable being a researcher to being the executive of a team, a chief executive of the team with 70 people reporting.

Ezhil Subbian: That's a tough question. Fortunately, I have a co-founder who actually brings very deep expertise on the operation side, on the strategy side, under the management side, so been able to rely a lot on that. And as we started to grow, we've also had a couple of other folks join us who on the business development side which, really balances the [00:26:00] research technology innovation side that I bring to the table.

So that's really helped a lot. I think one of the big advantages for us also is while I come from the biotech background, right? And I've been in the biotech industry. My co-founder came from actually the high tech IT sector. So he actually used to head jupa networks and was building, networking.

Networking modules for Juniper. So it was a very interesting combination because Paul, you are in the industry. A lot of biological processes take time, right? Whereas on the IT side, you are usually releasing new versions perhaps every six months. So it was a very interesting way for me to learn how to look at biology and biological development fermentation development.

From a very new set of eyes, a new pair of filters for you to look at.

I believe that's also been one of our core trends to have that very interdisciplinary focus on how to build new normal solutions and bring them to market [00:27:00] in not just not just bringing the value additional of biology, but also ensuring that the economical value addition for the customer and the benefit for the customer has been a very key part of how the solutions have been defined from.

And I believe that largely has been the case because of the very interdisciplinary team that that's been working on these ideas from day one.

Paul Shapiro: That's great. It's quite a journey that you have been on since 2013 to the present. So you've been on this 10 year journey to build this company. Raised over 20 million now overseeing a team of 70 and preparing to commercialize, which I'm sure is really exciting after a decade to start angry to commercialize your proteins that are created through this really amazing innovation.

So congratulations on all of that. I'm sure it has not been, Do, have there been any resources for you, AZE, that you might recommend that were useful for you on this 10 year journey that you've been on? 

Ezhil Subbian: Oh, interesting. When you put [00:28:00] it that way, 10 seems like a really long time, but I feel like it went by in a blink.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah. I, trust me I know how it goes. But yeah. So you blinked, but during the blink, anything that was useful? ? 

Ezhil Subbian: So I, I am an avid reader. I really, I like to read on multiple, various areas because I always, I'm a strong believer that, you know, you. There's a lot of lateral thinking that can come into what you are building that can really add significant value.

What's been helpful is so obviously I listen, I read a b array of books. Some of the books that come up is meditations, my markers or releases, right? I think the stoics actually have a lot to add. Your everyday life really enjoy reading the book and going back to it. Another book that I go back to every now and then is good To Great by Jim Collins, another fantastic book.

Closer to the biological sciences. I've really enjoyed the book gene by Sadar Bok. I think it's a very good quick snapshot of a very deep snapshot of how the biotech industry has [00:29:00] evolved, right? Starting from the very first solutions out of Genetech to where it is today. So again, a very interesting summary of the area itself.

So those would be the key ones that come to my mind, Paul. 

Paul Shapiro: very nice. You weren't the first person who has recommended Gene. It's a popular thing that people seem to like. And I sadly, I haven't read it despite it being recommended to me numerous times. I have read Meditations by Marcus Aureus and I especially liked a particular line where he is basically saying, really you shouldn't complain because either there's nothing you can do.

Or there's, which in which case you just accept it or there is something you can do about it and complaining isn't gonna be the answer. And so I often think about that when I am , when I feel like I have something to complain about. But I'll include in the show notes at Business for good podcast.com, that particular quote, when I.

Good. Look it up so I can not just paraphrase them but we'll include links to all of these resources that you are referencing here, a Zillow so that people can enjoy them at business For good [00:30:00] podcast.com. And before I let you go, I, I do wanna ask you, you have worked at a number of startups, you've gotten your PhD, you're a bio technologist, you're the C of this company.

I'm sure you have your hands. But are there any other ideas that you have that you hope somebody else will start while you are commercializing these really delicious proteins that can help reduce our reliance on animals for food? What are some other ideas that maybe you think somebody else ought to pursue?

Who's listening to you right now?

Ezhil Subbian: Oh. . I would say that two key ideas that come to mind actually that I would love to do, if I had just a little bit of time on the side, I would love to do that. One is actually, Paul is very closely related to what we are already doing, which is ation based solutions for having fats in the.

Oh, cool. Cause I believe that outside of, once we solve or develop solutions for protein, then expecting [00:31:00] will be fats. That's one. A second area and something that again, I would look at very closely is and there are already startups in this space. It's something that I knew only know only on the periphery.

I'm sure there's a lot deeper work going on there. If I were to do something else, I would actually really look at the whole area of anti. Because as we've started to look very closely at proteins, at nourishment, at at the impact of these proteins on your various metabolic pathways I believe that one of the key areas related to, food that we are working on is actually the multiple sources of food driven inflammation that can happen in your body.

And that the effect of those inflammations on the overall aging itself. So something that I've been very interested in that can be an offshoot of the area of work is to con, to go back and look at your anti-aging aspects, but anti-aging through food itself. . 

Paul Shapiro: So how [00:32:00] interesting. 

Ezhil Subbian: Yeah. So now that we vary off work perhaps for the next maybe 10 years down the road, something to 

Paul Shapiro: look at.

Very cool. Yeah, I, so first there are some pretty interesting fermentation based fat companies. So we had one of them on the show that we had the c e o of zero acre Farms, which is basically using fermentation to create. Fats so that you don't have to grow, canola or soybeans in order to get plant oils.

Then you have other companies like Mission Barnes, which are using like animal cell culture to create actual bioidentical animal fats and and create them so that you can use them as ingredients to, let's say, put an animal free fat that acts like an animal fat into a plant-based product, so you get the better mouth fuel.

That's a little bit more convincing than, let's say, using. A plant oil as an example. But the more the merrier. So those are two very good ideas on both fats and anti-aging. I can assure you every time I look at myself in the mirror I do contemplate my age. I sometimes can't believe can't [00:33:00] believe how fast things have gone.

But I really appreciate. What you're doing, azil, and I want to say congratulations to you on having accomplished all that you have. And I can't wait to be able to try a product that has your ingredients in it. So with your 20 million that's burning a hole in your pocket, I hope you build a very big fermentation plant that sends some ingredients over my way.

Ezhil Subbian: Definitely. And thanks Paul. Really wanted to thank you for taking the time. I know the work that you're doing at better Meet itself is quite incredible to take time outside of that to actually talk to. Where is entrepreneurs in this space or founders in this space and highlighting some of the other work that is going on that's quite incredible and being able to do that on the site.

Kudos to you and thanks so much for having us on the show. I'm sure we'll run into each other at one of the events soon. So looking forward to seeing you in person soon. . 

Paul Shapiro: I certainly hope so, and I appreciate your kind words. It's a hobby for me that I like to do cuz I think it does some good in the world and I get to meet really cool people.

And a as my wife has told me, of all the hobbies you could have, this is actually [00:34:00] not that bad of one. So I appreciate it and I'll be rooting for your success. 

Ezhil Subbian: Thank you. Thanks so much and good luck to you and the team at Better Beat as well. 

Paul Shapiro: Thanks for listening. We hope you found use in this episode.

If so, don't keep it to yourself. Please leave us a five star rating on iTunes or wherever you get your podcast. And as always, we hope you will be in the business of doing good.