business for good podcast episode 56 - kristie middleton

From Nonprofit Activist to Entrepreneur for Animals: Kristie Middleton and Rebellyous Foods

Kristie Middleton: [00:00:00] We're working on developing new equipment that would address bottlenecks in how plant-based meat is manufactured. That would help us ensure low cost and high quality of meats, so we're building in scale and efficiency right into our production process. Welcome

Paul Shapiro: to the Business for Good. It's 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 friends, and welcome to episode 56 of the Business for Good Podcast. The subject of this episode is one that is near and dear to my heart, and by that I mean both the subject as in what we're talking about and the subject as in the person with whom we are talking.

As for the. It seems very evident that among the most important things that could happen for the world would be to reduce our reliance on animals for food. But meat demand just keeps rising. And one thing [00:01:00] keeping meat alternatives merely as alternatives, is that plant-based meat is still sold at multiples over the cost of animal-based meat.

So lowering the cost of animal product alternatives seems like a true moral imperative. As for the person, well, Christie Middleton has been both a friend and colleague of mine for decades. We worked side by side often, quite literally just feet away from each other for many years. I've always held her in very high regard and have been impressed by her work, both in the nonprofit world and now in the.

For-profit world as she helps build a startup business called rebellious foods, aimed at producing plant-based chicken that is already on the way toward competing on cost with commodity chicken. In this episode, we talk about Christie's transition away from the world of animal welfare charities to the work of building a company aimed at helping animals.

We also discuss what rebellious is doing with the 12 million it's raised from venture capitalists so far, and how the pandemic forced the company to pivot away from its food service business model and quickly introduce consumer packaged goods. Sales in grocery stores. In [00:02:00] addition to being an entrepreneur, Christie is also the author of a good book called Meatless Transformed the Way You Eat and Live One Meal at a Time.

That book came out in 2017 and it still has a five star rating on Amazon. Way to go. Christie. Speaking of ratings, if you enjoy this or any episode, consider Living Business for Good podcast, E five star rating on whatever platform you may enjoy your podcast, and of course, recommend the show to others interested in gaining some inspiration in their.

Two. So without any further away, I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Christie Middleton of Rebellious Foods as much as I did. Christie Middleton, welcome to The Business for Good podcast.

Kristie Middleton: Hey Paul, it's so great to be here.

Paul Shapiro: It is fun to have you on the show because a lot of the times the guests are people who, frankly, I don't know, but for full disclosure for our audience, you and I have been, uh, friends for uh, probably like two decades and, and we worked very closely together for how many years?

I feel like it was probably like seven years or so. Something like

Kristie Middleton: that. Yeah. We got started when we were like three years old.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm a [00:03:00] little bit older than that, but you were probably three at that time. Um, . Uh, but yes, so it's great to be on and, you know, your, and my paths and journeys have, uh, taken somewhat of a, a parallel, um, course in our lives from going from the nonprofit world, including authorship to then deciding to go into food technology to try to.

Interests of animals there. So let's just first talk a little bit about your background prior to you being with Rebellious and what got you interested in, uh, working in the animal welfare nonprofit space that ended up causing you to have a uh, my recollection is probably like a two decade career in that movement.

Kristie Middleton: Yeah, it was a long path getting here. Um, you know, I grew up in Virginia in a household where my father hunted and I ate the standard American diet. Um, in college I became vegetarian mostly because I just didn't want to eat animals. I always had a natural [00:04:00] affinity for them. I grew up with lots of animals in my household.

We had three dogs. I had. So many goldfish. I don't wanna recount how many of them died at my hands. , uh, birds, hamsters, you name it. So animals were always important to me, and I decided to become vegetarian in college when a marketing professor was describing euphemisms. And the one that she gave as an example was meat.

And she said that if we called it what it really. Which is the flesh of dead animals, probably far fewer of us would want to eat it. And every time I sat down to eat after that, that's what I thought about, that this was not a ham sandwich or a chicken nugget. This was the flesh of a dead animal. And so I became vegetarian and.

Shortly after that, I decided to start volunteering. I was volunteering at an animal shelter, but the Animal Protection Organization, PETA had just opened up a headquarters in the town where I grew up and was going to college, and [00:05:00] I decided to start volunteering there not really knowing. What I would do, but wanted to just get involved and I had no idea about factory farming at the time.

I just didn't wanna eat animals. And after starting to volunteer with Pita, I read every piece of literature. I could watched videos on VH s at the time. And that's when I learned about the myriad ways that animals suffer so that we can eat them, putting them in gestation crates and battery cages. And I decided to become vegan at that point and decided that that would be the path that I wanted to travel down for the rest of my life, working to protect animals.

And I've been doing it in some form ever.

Paul Shapiro: Well respect to you for that and also respect to you for using a myriad properly, which isn't surprising to me for somebody who has a master's degree in library sciences, but it's, it's always a pet peeve of mine. When somebody says myriad of, um, which just is, uh, not correct.

It's, it's, [00:06:00] it's, uh, it's almost as bad as when people use literally to mean and figuratively. Oh, I'll do that later. Okay, good. We'll make sure we're, we're a few minutes in, so you still have time to, uh, to get that one in there. Um, but so at, at that point, I mean, you were volunteering for, uh, for people for the ethical treatment of animals, but did you yet have that master's degree?

Were you, or like, at what point were you like, Hey, library science is what I want to do with my life?

Kristie Middleton: Good question. No, I, um, had just graduated or, or when I started volunteering at pta, I was still in school, um, getting my math, um, my bachelor's degree in mass communications, and I didn't really know what I wanted to do as I think most people.

Um, in college, you know, some, some people maybe are a little more goal oriented, but I just wanted to get my degree and kind of figure it out along the way. And at that point, um, that's when I really decided this is how I want to use my skills. Whether or not I can actually use what I learned in college.

I wanna. Go to work, helping animals. Um, at that time, [00:07:00] um, it didn't really matter what I did. I wanted to work in the mail room if I could go to work for animals in some way. And I worked in their print production department for a short time, and then I decided to start working in their campaigns department because I wanted, wanted to be more on the front lines.

I think that, um, of course every role in every organization is critical and helps lead people to the mission, but I really wanted to. Out there pushing, um, hard to know, make people aware of what happens in, um, on factory farms or animals who are used for entertainments and you know, all the other issues that animal advocates have to work on.

And so I started working in their campaigns department. Cool.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah. You know, I had a, a similar experience when I started volunteering for animal protection groups. I didn't care if I was the janitor. I didn't care if I was the receptionist. In fact, I was the receptionist, uh, at a organization called The Fund for Animals for a year back in the late nineties, and I loved it.

I, I thought it was great. I really felt like I was contributing and doing something important. [00:08:00] This is back in the day before there. You know, voicemail, this was people called the organization and got a real human being in that case, a teenager, me , who would, uh, transfer, uh, calls to various people. But I really thought I was doing something important for the world, uh, back then, and I, and I appreciated the opportunity to be able to do it.

Right. And,

Kristie Middleton: and you know, as a startup founder, those skills are coming in handy every day because we all have to do those, you know, all hands on deck kind of work sometimes from taking out the trash to answering the phone. So kinda circling back to the early

Paul Shapiro: days. Yeah. You know, it's true. And in fact, interestingly, um, at the Better Meet co we have a, uh, for nearly the entirety of the two and a half year history of the company, we have this policy where, Um, everybody would sign up for janitorial chores, uh, during the week, including myself.

So I would, you know, either clean the bathrooms or take out the trash or whatever. Uh, however, interestingly enough, uh, we ended up, uh, moving away from that when a, uh, program of our county in Yellow County enabled us to [00:09:00] be able to, um, Uh, bring on somebody with county funds who would, uh, fulfill those duties for us.

So we're, we're particularly grateful for that support from YOLO County. But still, uh, I still am down to do whatever, whatever. So yeah, I hear you. But at some point you stopped saying, I'm gonna work in the mail room, and you ended up going to work for, uh, many years at the Humane Society, uh, with me and other, uh, friends and colleagues of ours to.

Help institutions to start carrying more plant-based foods. So what led you to think maybe instead of trying to change people's hearts and minds about animals, you would just work with major food institutions to change what they were serving in the first place?

Kristie Middleton: Yeah. Well, you know, I think at the Humane Society, the work that we were doing and the work that's still being done there to help with getting large corporations to improve animal welfare and their supply chains is really critical.

But I also think that for most, Individuals, there's not a lot they can do aside [00:10:00] from with their dollars. And there seemed to be a point of, um, diminishing returns, which the companies that I w was working with or the types of institutions that I was working with in, um, you know, back in the day it was a lot of, um, universities and hospitals, their purchasing power wasn't as much as some of the other large companies that we saw would really be the game changer.

For example, when McDonald's announced that it would move away from using gestation creates in its supply chain, that is what really got the industry's attention. And so for the institutions and the types of organizations that I was working with, we. Really decided that it would make more sense to help them with adding more plant-based options to menus, because that was an area that, um, of course was gaining in popularity, but also where if an institution made these options more available, and by institution I mean schools, hospitals, colleges and universities, the military, corporate [00:11:00] cafeterias, or any large type of feeding operation, if those options were more widely available, And delicious than more people would be more likely to opt for them as well.

Those organizations have massive purchasing power in the United States. For example, there are 30 million meals served by school districts every single day. That is under normal en um environments or normal circumstances. Uh, COVID has certainly changed things a. But you know, imagine if those school districts, if every one of those school districts was offering a plant-based option, even just one day a week, that could really make a significant difference.

And so, um, that's where we decided to place my efforts. To help all of these different types of institutions with, uh, both educating them about the benefits of getting more plant-based options on their menus, whether it was for their guests health, whether it was to meet their sustainability goals [00:12:00] or whether it was to be more profitable, because we saw that this was an area that more individual consumers were interested in.

They wanted to have more plant-based. Um, but they didn't always have access to them at, you know, the places where they were dining. Um, so we would educate them on the benefits and the reasons to do so, and provide tools and resources. We started hiring people who had backgrounds in those types of, uh, food service environments, including.

Former directors of dining who had fed people for decades, who really understand the nuances of what it takes to feed hundreds of thousands or tens of thousands of guests, um, for each meal period, as well as dieticians who had worked in school districts to help us understand the U S D'S guidelines and to provide resources that would actually be of benefit to those types of institu.

And we offered hands [00:13:00] on culinary instruction to help with giving the people who are working in the kitchens every day, not just theoretical ideas, but actual experience in making those dishes.

Paul Shapiro: Right. And, and for folks who are wondering, what does the U S D A have to do with this? The U S D A administers the National School Lunch Program.

So they have, uh, all types of rules, uh, that oftentimes are quite byzantine to navigate if you want to get in there. But I think, you know, one of the things that is, uh, most compelling to me about the work that you were doing, uh, for so long, Christie, is that, you know, in the animal welfare or the environmental movements, oftentimes there's like this holy trinity of arguments that are.

As to why people should eat plant-based, right? You've got ethics, you've got environment, and you've got health. However, nearly no food decisions are being made based on ethics, environmental, or health. Nearly all of the food decisions that people across the world, including in America are making are based on taste.

Price and convenience, and you really were addressing the [00:14:00] convenience aspect, especially making it very convenient for people where they are already going to be offered plant-based meals. So one of those key hurdles you were overcoming and hopefully if, if all the food was the same price, it would also be the price.

Um, and, and hopefully the products were good enough that it was also the taste. So, um, it really is impressive to compete on. The factors that actually drive food purchasing decisions as opposed to the factors that maybe are the reason why you, for example, decided to go plant-based and there was no better example than this, than the first really, really major, uh, victory that you had with the LA Unified School District.

So can you just tell me, Christie, what happened in the LA Unified School District and what was the result?

Kristie Middleton: Yeah. At the time we started working on institutional meat reduction, there was a burgeoning campaign called Meatless Monday, which your listeners may be familiar with now. It was started by the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and an organization called The Monday [00:15:00] Campaigns aimed at getting individuals to.

Eat less meat essentially by going meat free at least one day a week. And it was gaining in popularity and felt like that could be a great option for the institutions that we were reaching out to. And in fact, there had been a handful of smaller school districts that had started doing meatless Monday.

And so I began a relationship with. The, um, Los Angeles Unified School District, which is the second largest school district in the nation. They had recently hired a new director of food services who was really trying to make changes and revolutionize the way that school food was, uh, being served and perceived there, and was game to trying, doing meatless Monday.

And so they switched their 700,000 lunches every Monday. To being plant-based, which really, uh, demonstrated that if a district that large could do it, then truly anyone could do it. And that really got the ball rolling and momentum building for, [00:16:00] um, hundreds of other school districts across the country to get on board with the campaign.

Paul Shapiro: Right, and so this was an example, not just of offering more plant-based foods and hoping that people would choose it rather than animal-based foods. This was a case where one out of the five days a week that they were serving, they simply only served plant-based. And so, you know, you're talking about, as you said, 700,000 meals.

Per week essentially, that were converted to plant-based. Just imagine how long it would take to persuade that many individuals to just change their own diets, uh, per se, on, on that type of a thing. And I think that's an example of the power of these institutional reforms as opposed to the individual changes that we can make in our lives, which of course are important is not to knock them, but it is to say.

This is just such an, an efficient way to actually achieve the animal welfare and the sustainability goals of, uh, of what you were trying to do. So that brings me then, Christie, to what you're doing now, because at some point you [00:17:00] decided that rather than working in the nonprofit space, trying to influence institutions, That you were going to weave and join this very nascent startup that Christie LA had founded.

She's another person in our social circle from the animal welfare community. And, uh, she's a a, she was a aerospace Boeing engineer and also at the Good Food Institute. And then she decided she was gonna leave that career to start her own company to make chicken nuggets out of plants. So what led you to think.

You know, I'd rather team up and, and with Christie Lago and start making plant-based chicken nuggets with my life.

Kristie Middleton: To be honest, it was a very difficult decision. However, it really was born of the work that I had been doing at the Humane Society, so I shared with you that we were helping institutions by giving them a hands-on culinary training and educating them about the benefits to their bottom line.

I would hear routinely that even though many institutions [00:18:00] truly cared, they wanted to have more plant-based options on their menus. They did not often have the staff, they didn't have the budget, and they didn't have the cooking equipment to do a lot of scratch cooking. And they needed really easy heat and serve solutions for their most popular menu items.

And those tended to be things like chicken nuggets, chicken sandwiches, um, and of course, pizza. And so I would work with these institutions and pull them, or, you know, informally ask them if there was a plant-based option of some of their plant-based version, of some of their more popular menu items that had the same distribution channels that were, um, You know, just as cost effective, um, or of course even less expensive than what they were currently buying that were well perceived by their guests.

And you know, that included continuing their participation. And, um, that just happened to be plant-based. Would they serve [00:19:00] that instead and resoundingly the people who I spoke with, and that was at districts like Chicago public Schools, so some of the nation's largest school districts said they would absolutely choose that option because.

They were not proud of serving things like chicken nuggets that can be high in saturated fat, um, have cholesterol and may have antibiotics in them. And so the option really was that, um, or, or the goal really was to create these options that would make it easier for institutions to have more ready to heat and serve plant-based foods, and they're ready to heat and serve.

Aspect is really critical because I would go into school kitchens and sometimes there literally would not be a cutting board or a, a measuring cup. That's how limited some of these school's kitchens are. They can shake open or open a bag of nuggets and shake it out onto a baking sheet, and that's about all [00:20:00] some of them have access to.

And there are some great champions out there who are trying to change that, but that's really the current situ. And so after hearing that, I talked to a lot of perspective entrepreneurs, people who are really trying to find a space in, um, getting involved in creating a plant-based meat startup and.

Encourage them to think about starting this company or a company like, um, rebellious, where I'm currently employed. And it was something that I even thought about starting myself, but it was really difficult to find a way to make it profitable because chicken is cheap. That's another reason it's. That chicken nuggets are so popular on institutional menus.

And one of the people I talked with, um, myself and a former Humane Society colleague, Josh Balk, was Christie Laga. And at the time she was a Boeing engineer, a mechanical engineer who oversaw 30 engineers working on a Boeing, um, triple seven X-wing. [00:21:00] And she had. Great vision for what we could do to actually change plant-based meat manufacturing.

She took this macro level view and recognized that one of the biggest reasons that plant-based meat is so unaffordable and is so, um, I guess scantily produced compared to animal-based meat is because of the manufac. And so after getting funding and getting the, uh, company up and running, Christie invited me to join the team.

And as I said, it was a really difficult decision because I loved my team at the Humane Society. I had been working in nonprofits for two decades, but I really decided that this would be an area where I could truly make the biggest difference.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah, so I, I remember, um, when you told me that that's what you were doing, and I was extremely impressed.

I knew it must have been a very difficult decision. Uh, but let me ask you, Christie, like you mentioned, [00:22:00] chicken is really cheap. Uh, plant-based beef today is still generally. Sold at multiples over the cost of commodity beef. And commodity beef is sold at, uh, much more expensive prices than commodity chicken.

So if the plant-based beef makers, the ones who have even raised tons of money, like beyond and impossible still are nowhere near competing on costs with beef, how do you expect to compete? On cost with commodity chicken.

Kristie Middleton: Yeah, I mean, it's an excellent point or an excellent question. Um, and the answer is that we have to start somewhere.

And as you mentioned, um, impossible beyond, they have raised a lot of money where nowhere near that, um, the impossible burger costs $20 in 2017 when it hit the market. And that. Six years after the company was founded. And so we're, um, looking for a future in which we can be as cheap, if not cheaper than chicken.

Um, we're not quite there yet, but [00:23:00] what we're doing is we're not just waiting on scale and time to bring down cost in terms of scales so that our ingredient costs can be lowered. We're working on developing new equipment. That would address bottlenecks in how plant-based meat is manufactured. That would help us ensure low cost and high quality of meats.

So we're building in scale and efficiency right into our production process. I'm not an engineer. I am trying really hard to keep up with all of the engineering progress that we're making. But essentially, um, what Christie and our engineering team have done is they've looked at what are the bottlenecks in current plant-based meat manufacturing and why is it so expensive?

And some of the reasons, if you look at the typical cost for, um, soy, No soy based nuggets or plant-based nuggets versus chicken nuggets. Most of the cost actually comes from. Not [00:24:00] the meat or the ingredient cost as I think a lot of people would think, but more from the manufacturing cost. So we're really trying to develop novel manufacturing equipment that is just for plant-based meat and more specifically for plant-based chicken and, uh, breaded and battered plant-based chicken.

And we hope that that will enable us to actually drive down the cost and make it such that. Plant-based nuggets that are crispy on the outside, juicy on the inside, and delicious that they're available for everyone.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah, so speaking of being available for everybody, you know, you all had this strategy of essentially trying to go with all the relationships that you had formed from working with these food service institutions to getting the rebellious chicken nuggets into their schools and into their hospitals and, and other, uh, places of institutional food service.[00:25:00]

The pandemic hit and food service took a crash. So this obviously posed a, a, a serious threat. Like if you all were not a VC backed company, it would be a totally existential threat because any potential customers you had, essentially at that point were not serving, uh, any food, let alone your food. So being, uh, in the role that you are, uh, to actually conduct business development for rebellious foods and trying to effectuate sales, how did you.

Like, what did you do when this hit that changed the course of this company's favor? Yeah,

Kristie Middleton: that's exactly what happened, Paul. Um, we had a number of. Well known customers. We had sold to CenturyLink Stadium in Seattle. That's where the Seahawks play to Microsoft and other big tech companies where we, um, are headquartered to University of Washington.

So we had a steady stream of food service customers and that all came to a screeching halt [00:26:00] in March. And you know, the pandemic. , none of us, of course, know, knew, or know what was going to happen. Um, we, we thought we could hold our breath for a couple of weeks while things went into a temporary shutdown, and then it became pretty clear that this was not going anywhere.

And in order to stay afloat as a business, we would need to make some changes. And so we decided that we would try to go into retail and that was something that we thought we might do in three to five years because. We're really mission focused on trying to be a solution for food service. Um, so we quickly redesigned our nugget shape so that they were more consumer friendly.

We, uh, worked with the friends who designed beautiful packaging to help the products stand out on store shelves. And within two months we were in a couple of stores in the Seattle area. and today we're in over 20 stores in the Pacific Northwest. Um, that was just released as a limited time offering [00:27:00] because we wanted to use up existing ingredients while we were reformulating our product and rolling out a couple of new SKUs in the retail space.

Um, it's helpful to have a few SKUs so that you've got a larger place. On the freezer shelf, which is where our products can be found. And so in addition to the nuggets, we will be rolling out patties and tenders, um, to have a few slots on the freezer shelf. So we've been deep in reformulation and working with our graphic designers to come up with beautiful new packaging that will stand out on store shelves and our robust marketing plan to back.

Paul Shapiro: That's really cool and very impressive that you were able to make that pivot in, in such a short amount of time. Um, but you, you raised a, a point there, Christie, that I had never considered and still don't really comprehend. Why would the shape of the nuggets be any different, whether you were selling to food service, whether or, or going into grocery stores?

Kristie Middleton: The shape that we had developed before, and this is, you know, a startup that was working [00:28:00] in first, uh, founder's Home Kitchen, and then later in a commissary kitchen. We were just using, you know, the Offthe shelf equipment that we could come up with. And so we had these little medallion shaped nuggets that we were getting feedback.

Um, from some of the food service contacts. They liked them because that enabled them to know that those were the plant-based nuggets versus the animal-based nuggets. And um, some people said that they felt, felt like they could have higher participation if they looked exactly like a chicken nugget, you know, that most people think of eating.

And this is really interesting. Um, until. Got involved with this company. I didn't realize that McDonald's, uh, for example, has four distinct shapes of nuggets. And of course everyone knows that nuggets are not a natural food. But the feedback that we'd hear from folks is that they wanted it to look like a quote, natural nugget.

And so in order to make something that we felt like consumers would recognize as the nuggets that they're used to eating, we decided [00:29:00] that we needed to change the shape of the product that we were offer.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah, I remember being blown away when I learned this from you actually, that, uh, people want their nuggets not to be uniform, that they want them to actually look like there is some variation to make it appear as if they are somehow more natural and not just, you know, uh, coming out of like one stamp at a big factory.

Um, but, uh, but that's pretty cool. Um, I had the other day, um, the, uh, the new, um, Morningstar, uh, incognito, Mickey Mouse shaped nuggets. Have you seen those? I've

Kristie Middleton: seen the one store shelves. I've not tried them. What was your

Paul Shapiro: Um, well, I did enjoy them, but I, I just like the fact that they were in the shape of Mickey Mouse was appealing.

like, just psychologically, I was like, oh yeah, pretty cool. All right. And, and, and I certainly hear all the time people talking about the dinosaur shaped, uh, actual chicken nuggets that are in the market from companies like Purdue Farms and others that. Uh, that their kids love [00:30:00] them in, in those shapes of dinosaurs.

So, um, I don't know if you're gonna do a kid's version, but maybe you do it in, you know, the shape of, you know, actual chickens or something. I don't know. But it, it would be cute.

Kristie Middleton: Yeah, the psychology of this is really fascinating because one of the reasons that we decided to do tenders, and I should add that we will be working within institutional food service when those folks come back online, and some of them are currently interested in working with us.

Um, but the reason that we decided to do tenders was because we'd hear from our food service providers that worked in higher ed. Nuggets are kid food or they're perceived as kid food and tenders are perceived as adult foods. So even though they're very similar products, they're, you know, like a breaded, battered either plank of meat or chunk of meat or chunk of plant-based meat, um, that people think that nuggets are kid food.

So, um, yeah, very interesting.

Paul Shapiro: That is funny. That's like, uh, I, I saw like pens for women the [00:31:00] other day, and I was wondering what is the difference between pens for men and pens for women? They're the same color, but I don't, I don't know. And that sounds kind of similar to me, that having a little bit longer and thinner, uh, shaped, tender as opposed to a nugget.

It means it's, it's lis for adults to eat it than for kids . Um, but I, I'm pretty happy. Nuggets. I don't feel like a, I don't feel like a kid, but I wouldn't mind feeling like a kid anyway, so, uh, that's cool. So how are your sales now? I mean, I, I know that you'll probably say they're very good, but I mean, compared to what you were expecting to be doing in the food service realm, um, you're now in a couple dozen stores in the Pacific Northwest selling, like, are they selling well, do you know how they're doing versus the competition?

Yeah, I mean, we,

Kristie Middleton: we are in. Unique position right now because we obviously wanna sell as much as we can, but we only had a limited amount of product to be able to sell. And I'm pleased to say that the nuggets are performing well, but not too well that we're gonna run out before new products are available.

And that's where we've been kind of holding [00:32:00] our breath. Um, but the feedback that we've gotten from our retail partners has been fantastic, and everyone who we're currently working with, who we've sent new products, our, our samples of the new product to. Um, they're excited to bring in the new products when those are available.

Um, in terms of how they're stacking up to the competition, um, we've heard that they are selling two to one compared to Morningstar Nugget, for example, and some of the local stores where we're selling. And, um, we have a value pack that's currently available, um, that we feel is helping with driving trial.

And of course, it's important to help with building that name and brand recognition. Um, so to date it's been going really well that. Relatively small scale since we only had a limited amount of product to be selling. Um, come January we will be selling tens of thousands of pounds of nuggets. At least that's the hope.

And so, um, the, you know, the jury's out to see how much we'll be able to sell. Hey Paul, can you hear my cat in the background? And if so, [00:33:00]

Paul Shapiro: Yeah, it, it, it adds some nice ambiance to the podcast. So I, I doubt that I'm gonna edit that out. Um, so, um, well, that's cool. So, I mean, if the pandemic hadn't hit, would you have been capable of supplying those food service, those food service institutions then?

With tens of thousands of pounds of product.

Kristie Middleton: We were in the process of scaling. So one of the other things that the pandemic has really enabled us to do is focus on our manufacturing technology. And so, um, we're still currently using off the shelf equipment. And when I say that, what I mean is equipment that was not meant for plant-based meat production, but.

Animal based meat production. So using the standard types of equipment that's available, if you just order it, you know, either online from a manufacturer or, um, locally through a food, um, you know, restaurant supply company. Um, so we've been building out a production line that is coming online right now.

Our engineering team has been commissioning, [00:34:00] um, those lines. And in December is when we'll really be able to mass produce product. Um, the, you know, the pandemic really enable. To speed up and intensify our efforts on that. So I guess in some ways it's been a good thing. And actually at the very start of the pandemic, we had just closed a series, a fundraising round that um, gave us, you know, the funds that we needed to be able to execute all of this.

So the timing for that was fortuitous. Um, given, you know that, of course the market is very uncertain, but we had been working for months behind the scenes to try to close out that fundraising. ,

Paul Shapiro: how much was the round and how much was the company raised in total?

Kristie Middleton: Um, the round was around 8 million and um, I believe we've raised about 12 at this point.

But I mean, we've had other, um, bridge rounds that have come in, so. .

Paul Shapiro: Okay. Well speaking of money, I just wanna go back cuz it's obviously an impressive claim to say that you're, uh, outselling the leading, uh, plant-based nugget two to one in these stores. So why do you think that is? Are [00:35:00] you sell, are you undercutting them on cost?

Like are you already cheaper than the conventional plant-based chicken nuggets that are out there?

Kristie Middleton: You know, those are good questions. Um, I think for some of the stores that we're in, they've done a really phenomenal job with product placements. So these are all fun things that I've learned in moving into retail and trying to get those products at eye level where they're the first things at the consumer sees when they.

Open up the freezer case. They've also given us, um, great promotional opportunities like putting a freezer clinging or window cling on the outside of the freezer case. Um, and then the, the packs of nuggets that we're selling right now in the stores are one pound value pack. So they are about as much as the typical, um, eight to 10 ounce packs that are in the stores.

So they are a very good value. Um,

Paul Shapiro: and I, what's that cost for a. At retail. Suggested

Kristie Middleton: retail price is 5 99, and we've seen some stores [00:36:00] actually hit that. Others are marking up a little bit more, I guess, to increase their margins, and we've seen it go as high as 7 99, but compared to what we're seeing other products being offered at, which can be anywhere from 3 99 to 6 99, it is a great

Paul Shapiro: value.

Okay, cool. So, I mean, I, I know that you said that you are not yet at the price of conventional chicken nuggets, but what would a pound of frozen chicken nuggets like from a Tyson or a go for? Oh

Kristie Middleton: gosh. It could be anywhere from 2 99 to 5 99, depending on where you're looking. But it's gonna be pretty difficult to, to meet that at, um, at any point in the near

Paul Shapiro: future.

But yeah, if you're, if you are two x the cost of those, that's still, you know, not that far off. I mean, look at beyond, I mean, right. I mean, um, my wife Tony and I purchased beyond the other day, uh, from Safeway, and it was, uh, 6 99 for two quarter pound patties. So, you know, you're talking about $14 a pound, [00:37:00] which is far more than two x the cost of conventional commodity.

Hamburger patties. Um, and you know, they have a goal they say of by the year 2025, getting down to cost parody with commodity beef. But if you are already at only two x, uh, what the, uh, retail cost of commodity chicken nuggets is, you know, for a very young startup that's, uh, that seems pretty promising.

Kristie Middleton: Yeah. I mean, we, we certainly hope that we can be there before other companies can, and I have a lot of hope with the manufacturing technology that we are currently building out that we'll be able to get. .

Paul Shapiro: Okay, cool. Well, good for you. That's great. So Christie, if you could go back in your career and look at the trajectory that you've taken two decades in the nonprofit world and now a couple years in the startup food technology space, do you think you would've done anything differently or do you think you would've done everything the same way that you have done it in your.

Kristie Middleton: Yeah, I think it's really hard to say , what we could have done, what, you [00:38:00] know, might have happened. But I feel like the path that I was on got me to exactly where I need to be. Um, certainly working at the Humane Society and working with those institutional partners is what let this, uh, um, lit up the idea for this.

And, and I, you know, believe Christie had the vision as well, and also the abilities and the skills to execute, but really having the relationships that I. . It's what enabled me to better understand the. Problems or the obstacles that food service providers faced and how we could truly be a solution. And I think in the NGO world, there tends to be an us versus them type of sentiment.

And um, having worked with the corporate food service, or I'm sorry, the corporations on improving animal welfare and getting to know folks as individuals rather than as people who. Um, just part of, you know, a cog in a [00:39:00] machine that may have been vilified. I saw that people really do care and want to make a difference, and I saw that every single day with the food service providers who I was working with, where they wanted to serve kids healthy, nutritious meals that they were proud of, but that they had a lot of limitations and being able to get to know them as people and learn about how.

Partner together to address the concerns that they were feeling every single day. Really enabled me to, um, I think have a, a special window on how, as somebody who cared about animals in the world could truly make a difference.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm with you on that. I have long decried the idea that the world is black and white and that it's us versus them, and that we are good and they are bad, and, and we need to conquer them instead.

You know, we're all just people who are trying to do [00:40:00] the best that we can as we muddle through our brief existence on the planet, and many of the people who work in the food industry. Really, like you said, Christie do want to make a positive difference and really want to make a more humane and more sustainable food system, and why not help them?

Why not, uh, help them advance those goals that they already have that we obviously share as well. And I can,

Kristie Middleton: I mean, a, a very specific example. Um, and you may recall this as well. One of the executives, um, who works for a food service company had attended, uh, one of the round table meetings that we would put together where we were hosting executives from, um, a variety of food.

Companies, whether they were manufacturers, to food service providers, um, shared that in, in, in tears, shared that he was very proud of the work that he had been doing with us at the Humane Society and that it was one thing that his daughter was actually interested in, that she was never really interested in his work.

[00:41:00] But when she learned that he had been working to improve animal welfare in the supply chain at the company he was working. That she was excited for him, proud of him, and of course, that made him feel really special and, and that, you know, something that he was able to look back at his career and feel really good about.

Yeah,

Paul Shapiro: I, I do remember that. It's certainly an inspirational story, seeing him tear up talking about how he couldn't believe he had done something that made his daughter proud. That's really, really nice. Well, uh, I certainly am, uh, Great pride in having worked with you and, and seeing so much of the good that you've done in the world.

Christie, I know you are an avid reader in that you are always, uh, making book recommendations, uh, and that you have read a lot of books about startups and about business in general. So if there are people who are listening who. Would like to, uh, do something similar to what you're doing and try to make a difference in the world through business.

Are there any particular resources, whether they be books or otherwise, that you think, [00:42:00] uh, would be a good place to start that journey? Uh,

Kristie Middleton: of course there's the book, clean Meat, um, , which I, I, I truly do enjoy or did enjoy in in highly recommend. Um, in addition, I really

Paul Shapiro: verve very essential, integral reading.

If you haven't, if you haven't read it, what an IG ignor.

Kristie Middleton: Of course, um, uh, great by Choice, A book by Jim Collins. I found really interesting when I first got involved at Rebellious, if you aren't familiar with it, um, Jim Collins used a lot of data to dig into why some businesses succeed and why others fail, and, um, looked at.

Companies like Southwest to determine how they have just innovative, why they're so much different than other airlines and, um, how they have been so successful. So I feel like that was, um, a really helpful book for me getting started out in the business world. Um, in addition to that, um, podcast. Said, [00:43:00] I enjoy, um, especially getting involved in consumer packaged goods, which is a brand new world to me, is the Food Biz Whiz Podcast by Alison Ball.

Allie, um, does a, a course called Retail Ready that I also took at the beginning of the pandemic to learn more about, uh, C P G. Um, so I highly recommend that course for any, um, fledgling entrepreneur

Paul Shapiro: and for folks who may be more familiar with your social world than with the food world. C p G in this case does not mean Colleen Patrick, who was a past guest on the show.

It means consumer packaged goods. Yeah.

Kristie Middleton: So, um, for, for that purpose, um, food Biz Whiz, which is a great podcast from Ali Ball, she was a former buyer for a local distributor. So she really comes at things from a buyer perspective and helps entrepreneurs better understand how they can, um, better sell their products to wholesale accounts like grocery chains.

Um, as well, there's a group called Startup, C P G. So for any. [00:44:00] Fledgling entrepreneurs who are trying to get involved in consumer packaged goods, I highly recommend joining that group, which hosts regular social events on Zoom, where they have speakers, and then, um, have, uh, rooms where you can go and meet other entrepreneurs or other people working in the industry.

And they also have a ton of resources, including a podcast, and I've found that to be very.

Paul Shapiro: Very cool. And one book that I will recommend because you recommended it to me and I found it so useful was, uh, guy Kawasaki's book, the Art of the Start, and I think he has the Art of the Start 2.0 now, which is an updated version of it.

And, uh, you recommended that to me and I, I read it, uh, at the beginning of my own entrepreneurial journey and found it quite useful too.

Kristie Middleton: Good. Glad you found it useful and I'm remiss in not recommending that one. I definitely, uh, felt that that was super helpful and give me a window into the world of working with a.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Uh, awesome. So finally, Christie, you know, you have thought a lot about what companies you'd like to see in the world. I remember when we were [00:45:00] working together for years in the nonprofit space that you were regularly talking with and encouraging other people to start companies, whether on, uh, chicken replacement or egg replacement, et cetera.

So I, I know that you are committed right now to the, uh, plant-based chicken nugget world, but are there other companies. Think, uh, somebody listening would be wise to start that could also do some real good in the world as well.

Kristie Middleton: Yeah, I have quite a wishlist and I have to say, I listened to the podcast episode that you did with Tony, um, your wife and the author of Plant-based on a Budget and many other books, and I heard her, uh, request for an affordable plant-based nugget, so I can let her know we're, we're working on it and we're trying.

Paul Shapiro: I will tell, I'll tell her.

Kristie Middleton: Okay. Um, in addition to that, you know, something that I've been hearing requests. For, from some of our retail and food service partners is an unbred chicken, um, filet or little pieces, things like that that they could use [00:46:00] in a stir fry or other dish. It's something that is, um, Maybe on the horizon for us in a while, but we're really focused on the breaded, battered, ready to heat and serve type product.

And I believe that with chicken being the meat that is most consumed, that if somebody could come up with a very um, you know, fibrous. And realistic un breaded chicken product, that that could serve the market very well, both in retail and food service. Um, and then selfishly from the perspective of somebody who's working to get products out into the marketplace, um, an alternative distribution model could be really helpful because the old guard could make it very challenging for young companies to get distribu.

And so it'd be interesting to see if anybody has ideas for how to, um, enhance distribution for young companies.

Paul Shapiro: Fascinating. What a great idea. I'm, I'm really glad that you brought that up and, and hopes that somebody will, um, will take you [00:47:00] up on that offer and maybe we'll do an episode with that person when, uh, she or he creates that company and they're the biggest distributor for rebellious at that time.

So that'll be fun. Um, but Christie, it's a real pleasure to talk with you. It's an honor to have been your friend for so many decades, and I, I really. Just so impressed by everything that you've accomplished in the various chapters of your life, including at rebellious now. And a as you know, I'm rooting hard for your success and we'll continue to follow your path and, uh, I can assure you that when the rebellious nuggets leave the Pacific Northwest and come to Sacramento, that you will be outselling.

Uh, the, uh, all of the other brands combined because Tony and I will just queer out the stores, and that's all we're gonna eat for, for many weeks at a

Kristie Middleton: time. I can't wait to see all the photos on your Instagram of you enjoying our nuggets. ,

Paul Shapiro: and Eddie, you'll Yeah. Say more like Eddie's Instagram. He's a, he's a far more prolific user than I am

Uh, but Great. All right. Well, it's great to talk with you, [00:48:00] Christie. Congratulations again on all of your, And your innovation, and I look forward to talking with you soon. Thanks, Paul. It's been a lot of fun. 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.