Paul Shapiro: [00:00:00] Eric, welcome to the business for good podcast. Paul, always a pleasure. Thanks for having me. It is my pleasure to get to see you and I'm really happy that we're talking. You have a really interesting background. I got to say like a lot of the people who, come into this space, maybe they came from, you know, the animal welfare or the environmental movement.

You were an FDA regulator, you know, you're like a science guy who decided that you want to maybe not work in the federal government doing novel food regulations, but instead. Do this. So first, let me just ask you, how did you become an FDA regulator? Like, how's that a career path for somebody? Would you do that led you into that position?

Eric Schulze: I will tell you, I asked myself the same question all the time. How did I, how did I go work for big bureaucracy? I, I didn't know, like, honestly, I was recruited. so I was recruited to the U S government and specifically the U S food drug administration. And this was very early in the Obama administration.

First term, I was completing my PhD [00:01:00] out in Los Angeles, where I currently reside, at the university of Southern California. I was getting an interdisciplinary PhD. It was a brand new project they were trying out, which was trying to teach PhD students to think more in systems rather than reductive and work on cross cutting systems.

Initiatives and at that point, we were coming off of the bush era stem cell initiatives and all that stuff. And I was doing stem cell research and the government came knocking and they were like, Hey, do you want to put all this to good use for all these new technologies that are coming out that people are making drugs and food with?

and so I was like, yeah. No, my initial reaction was no, I was being recruited by companies. I knew that I didn't want to work in academia outright. but I, I, so I thought I would go to, to industry and the bottom line is the government was persistent and they were like, we're going to be a startup within the Obama administration.

We're going to work on new technologies. You're going to look ahead rather than looking back. And I can speak more to this later, but it was fascinating to work for the U. S. [00:02:00] government and getting an inside look at how businesses are run because of how transparent they have to be with the U. S.

government. So you really got an unvarnished look at business operations in sort of novel spaces. And it, a lot of ideas are percolating there.

Paul Shapiro: Were there cool things that you were evaluating that when you were there that, let's say maybe not relevant to the alternative meat or alternative protein world, but just cool things that you were evaluating?

Eric Schulze: Yeah, I was working, which is weird. I was working on both food and drug problems. Like that's very odd that you jump across that legal barrier between the two here in the United States. So I got to see and work on some very cool stuff, including lots of novel antiviral therapies that relied on genetically engineered viruses to combat viruses.

And then importantly, those drugs that were being developed were also. The same genetically engineered virus was, was being used to treat both like our pets and humans. Like it had dual use. And then in the afternoon, I'd go work on a [00:03:00] genetically engineered animal, like the aqua bounty aqua advantage salmon, which was the first genetically engineered food animal that, that made, got an approval here in the U S.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah, I remember, I remember that I didn't realize that you had worked on that. it, I was just last night, debating with a friend of mine, actually. So it's interesting. You're talking about stem cells and, And genetically engineered viruses and we're talking about the movie, did you see it? Of course.

Yeah, of course. Right? Obviously, it's such a good movie. If you've not seen it, highly recommend it. But the basic premise is, you know, that society becomes like a cast system based on genetics, right? That you have to have it. certain genetic traits to get certain jobs in societies. Like if you want to be an astronaut, you need to get your blood tested to make sure that and the way that people accomplish this is through essentially like in vitro fertilization where they're selecting for the best traits and the movie is presented as dystopian.

But I was thinking and I was arguing last night if you could do this. Wouldn't most parents pay to make their kids smarter? Like if [00:04:00] you could take a neonatal vitamin that made your kids IQ higher, probably most people would do it. And similarly, if you could pay to have some type of, you know, in vitro therapy that would make your kids smarter, you probably would do it, right?

I mean, does that seem, it doesn't seem that dystopian to me. Obviously it's, it's a shame because the rich will be able to afford to make their kids smarter, but still, I'm just saying people, anybody who could afford to do it, don't you think most people would do it?

Eric Schulze: Jumping right into the ethical quantities.

I love it, Paul. Well, yeah. So on one hand, you have Elysium. if you've seen that movie, yeah,

Paul Shapiro: more recent. Okay, good. I like that one too. Yeah,

Eric Schulze: which is sort of again, which you just said, like the rich sort of taking advantage and sort of hoarding all of that genetic material, like advantage,

Paul Shapiro: right?

Eric Schulze: As opposed

Paul Shapiro: to today where the rich don't have any advantages.

Eric Schulze: But I think in Elysium, what I thought was interesting is that basically because they had access to capital and these extra genetic enhancements or whatever, they got such a head start that they were the even if people [00:05:00] could afford them that were lower socioeconomic status, they could never sort of catch up with the rate.

It was exponential for the rich and linear for the poor.and and so even if that was equal equalized, I think it was interesting, you know, for like I think most people, you're right, would take a very simple solution if it were proven to be, like, relatively safe and reasonably affordable. but I think also, again, with genetically engineered animals, like, we've been able to do this for 50 years.

and we've been, our agricultural stocks, like the, the, the pigs and cows and chickens, like, their genes have been highly selected for, genetically, for certain traits. And again, We can debate whether that is a net positive or net negative for the planet and humanity and those animals themselves, butthe, the scientific fact is that we can do this already,

Paul Shapiro: right?

And, you know, those animals, to be clear, are not being selected for, intelligence. They're being selected for, you know, high rates of egg production or fast growth rates and so on. and yeah, I mean, my, [00:06:00] my, my general view is that it, it probably is, you know, a benefit to. Humans and some to some extent at the great severe detriment to those animals who have all types of health and welfare problems as a result of it.

but it, you know, it does make food production more efficient for sure. absolutely. So there's a benefit to humans, although, let's talk about. Making food production even more efficient by removing those animals from the equation altogether, which is what you ultimately devoted yourself to after many years of being an FDA regulator.

You decided I'm going to leave the government and go directly into the industry. And you're one of the first employees at Memphis Meats, which is now upside foods, of course, and I remember it was this really big deal. And,of already brought you on, they're bringing on like somebody from the FDA early.

And this, I thought this was a really smart idea, but why'd you do it? Did they recruit you to, were you just the, the subject of constant recruitment efforts, whether to the government or to these tiny startups? What, what was the reason that you decided, Hey, I want to go try to make meat without animals.

Eric Schulze: the honest to God [00:07:00] answer is Reddit. I discovered. Then Memphis meets on Reddit. It had, they had just made the meatball.

Paul Shapiro: Ah, it was like the 16, 000 meatball or something like that. 18, 18. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, 18, which was still mystic.

Eric Schulze: and it made the front page of Reddit and is an ardent Redditor.

I saw it and I thought to myself, Oh, yeah, of course, like, scientifically, this makes a ton of sense. at the time I was running an organization in D. C. That sought to sort of community build around art and science and, I would, I would as the founder and creative director there, I would often have to do a monologue early on to sort of set the tone for one of the events.

And I needed material, so I decided to talk about then Memphis Meats and the concept of growing your meat, 3D printing and all that stuff. And then I forgot about it. Now, keep in mind also at the FDA at this point, we were coming to the tail end of the second Obama term. We had done a lot. I'd also been really frustrated, candidly.

Like, the government is [00:08:00] amazing, and I've always been really good about, like, the hard work they do, but also at the same time, like, progress is slow. compared to a startup, and I really wanted to go see what a startup would be like. I frankly went from one extreme to the other and the at the time Memphis Meats and Uma were sort of hiring people he knew from his community.

and I was, I think, the first person that was sort of really outside of this world of, of alternative protein that had a genuine interest. So the short, the other version of this or the second, the shortest, shorter answers, I really wanted to prevent the problems I was seeing at the government with companies coming in to see if I could affect change from the private sector side, and I had a couple of hypotheses in my head about how to it.

Run a business that would get through U. S. Government regulation and therefore get to marketing consumers much faster. That was my, my risk that I was taking in my head. So I bolted for the West Coast, having never really been to San Francisco. And I, [00:09:00] you know, left FDA on a Thursday and started at upside foods.

Then Memphis meets on a Monday.

Paul Shapiro: Wow. Amazing. Amazing. Well, it's interesting you say, you know, you wanted to try to accelerate the path to regulatory approval and commercialization for this industry. So let me just ask you the blunt question, because you know, here we are now eight years later and there is very little cultivated meat on the market.

There's essentially none in the U S and there's like single digit kilos in Singapore. And you know, you and I are both cheerleaders for this industry. so I'll tell you, I'll answer my own question after you answer yours. But if somebody told you in 2016, when you started at Memphis Meats that in 2024, there would be no cultivated meat on the market in the United States, would you have been surprised or would you have thought?

Yeah, that sounds about right.

Eric Schulze: Yeah, I would. I would say that sounds about right. the default Unfortunately, is very slow, paths to market. I, by the way, you can't see me, but air quoting very slow. What I [00:10:00] mean by that is people true. They underestimate the length and complications of the journey, like in the regulatory system in any country, and they over index on their ability to mature technology to market.

And I don't think either are necessarily like wrong positions to take. I think then, you know, Memphis meets an upside had it in. And now upside had and caught like a really for the forethought to do was to double down on regulation as a part of the design constraint process of the product. I really enjoyed that that regulation was a design constraint when designing a cultivated meat product, but now there's this larger issue that is both a combination of.

The company's responsibilities to, like, get to market and, like, what they're doing or not doing that are preventing them from doing that faster. And then, of course, on the U. S. government side or all these other countries as well, how fast they're moving and able to, like, move a [00:11:00] product through the regulatory paradigm.

And, I mean, you know this, too. You've dealt with FDA in your business as well. And it can be very frustrating without the right expertise. And even with the right expertise, it can be incredibly onerous.

Paul Shapiro: yeah, for sure. I, I, can resonate with what you're saying. Let me put it to you then in an augmented way, which is the following.

So, you know, upside got regulatory approval more than a year ago, same with a good meat or eat just. And so that's not the reason they're not selling in the U S now. What is like, what do you perceive is the reason they've had more than a year of approval behind them now? What is the reason why there is no cultivated meat for sale in your view?

Eric Schulze: Well, I can say now, you know, like I'm no longer, you know, a full time employee at upside foods and I work with a lot of cultivated meat players, both domestically and internationally. And of course, with the government, you know, helping as someone also who brought that product to market design the policy around it, it is largely in part [00:12:00] to two factors.

One companies made a lot of mistakes or have been making mistakes in how they approach bringing a product to market that. Really stretch like the ability for a regulator to say, well, if you do it a little differently, you can get to market. We can understand why you did it this way. They're, they're having to start over and redo significant portions of aspects of what they're doing.

And again, we can talk about why that may have happened or not. On the other hand, the U S government went through, especially at FDA, just went through a major restructuring of their authority and they have had to play And, whereas with what I worked on, The first products didn't make it out on, you know, for, for 15 years.

So I think, again, some of this comes down to both the government and the companies not knowing how to speak to each other efficiently or thinking that they are, but they aren't.but what I'm [00:13:00] hopeful for is that we'll see more approvals this year.

Paul Shapiro: Oh, yeah, for sure. I certainly hope that too. As you know, there are some people who love to drink the haterade and their argument is it's not that there's some problem with the government or the communication.

It's that it's just not technologically possible to do this in any type of an economical way. That's their argument. I'm not identifying with that, but that's their claim. But as somebody who is a great technical expert in this, Why do you think they're wrong? Like, I presumed you think that this can actually make it to market and economic, so, so why are, why are the haterade consumers wrong?

So

Eric Schulze: Paul, we're, we're in the trough of disillusionment. Which is, and I tell people completely normal for a brand new field. Also, it's less than a decade old since upside was founded. I don't think stepping back, the progress is incredible and deep tech, like biology. Is incredibly expensive and long lead.

The fact that we have [00:14:00] anything on market is frankly amazing. That said to the sort of technical questions, which by the way, is totally valid for constructive criticism and science is like the bedrock of what we do. So as much as I may disagree, I appreciate the criticism. I fundamentally disagree with a lot of the.

The critiques because they fundamentally omit innovation from their analyses, like the possibility of it improving. Now, I've heard very few people say this, but I will say, like, I have a David Deutchian approach to science, the Oxford or, you know, the UK, quantum physicist and philosopher, if you're familiar with them, Paul.

And

Paul Shapiro: we'll put a link to the show notes in this episode and so people can go read more about it.

Eric Schulze: David Deutsch, in, in many of his, his, his approach to modern science is that unless it's explicitly forbidden by the laws of physics, it is possible. It is a soluble problem. [00:15:00] Now it may be very expensive. It may be take a long time.

It is fundamentally a, a problem for knowledge generation and technological ability. And I think that cultivated meat. From my, the evidence I've seen continuously beats all, naysayers. Like even when Uma Valeti, who founded this industry formally in the commercial industry, people told him it was crazy for trying to start this.

And then, you know, within two and a half years, we had a product that was within reach of conventional meat products in terms of price that everyone said it was impossible. So, again, at the end of the day, I think that the. We haven't even let companies try to fail in the sense that no one has reached commercial scale yet.

I think that's the proof in the pudding, frankly. And then the second thing is, well, consumers buy it as what you know, which you are very familiar with is like, you have to build a product that people want and we just haven't hit that scale yet.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah, [00:16:00] so let me offer a response in reverse order. So on the idea of consumer acceptance, you know, there's so many different polls asking consumers whether they would eat cultivated meat or not.

And as you know, the way that you word the poll does have a big impact on how people respond. The polls go really anywhere from 20 percent acceptance to 80 percent acceptance. So let's just presume they're all wrong except for the worst, right? So it's only 20%. Could you imagine if cultivated meat led to a 20 percent reduction in the demand for animal meat?

I mean, it would, it would be, I mean, the biggest revolution in food history, maybe. So, you know, I just think like, even if you believe that only one fifth of people are going to be willing to eat it, that is going to have Absolutely revolutionary impact. Now, I actually think it's bigger than that. I mean, you look at the, you know, lots of polls, people say what they would or wouldn't need.

And I think that the better way to judge this is what actually happens in the market. Once this product is available rather than what people hypothetically say about this thing that [00:17:00] isn't even available for them to purchase. but I think this is like the least of the concern as to whether people will eat or not.

I truly believe it's not even in the top 10 things to be worried about with regard to cultivated meat. Now, with regard to this other point, I, I agree, I think, you know, clearly new inventions need to be made in order to make cultivated meat a viable product, but many inventions have been made. I mean, a few years ago, the big knock was that, you know, you, you still had to use fetal bovine serum and now most people aren't using it anymore, right?

And so that was the, the big thing was, Oh, this requires these farmer grade conditions. You have to use FBS and folks are finding ways to bring that down. And it reminds me. Of 10, 15 years ago, the obituaries that we saw for the electric vehicle industry routinely, you would see Obama being knocked for it.

You'd see Washington post columns talking about the stupidity of electric vehicles. And now In California, where you and I both live, EVs are going to be the only types of cars that are even allowed to be sold in [00:18:00] about a decade from now. Other states are doing this. General Motors said they're phasing out all internal combustion engines.

And now everybody knows the future of the vehicle industry is EVs. Internal combustion free, right? And so a decade ago is impossible. Now everybody says it's inevitable. Is that going to be the same here? I don't know. I don't know if that will happen because maybe the money will run out from investors or from other sources of funding.

But I do think that given enough time and funding that there is a pathway to continuing to innovate as you put it and create cheaper, better products. Do you think that's right?

Eric Schulze: I think this is just the, as you have so eloquently put it in the past, like this is just the next synthetic ice argument. It's the next margarine versus butter war.

it's this idea that you can't, you can't imagine a new product if without precedent. So I completely agree. And I will say, just to be fair, my science, my science side would say like the Volvo CEO just [00:19:00] came out and said that they're rolling back actually their commitment to EVs as aggressively. They were going to go a full fleet EV and they've rolled it back,without sort of specifying exactly why.

I thought that was really interesting that they have, they're the only company I've seen that's rolled back that EV mandate, for their fleet. Yeah.

Paul Shapiro: And who knows if that's anomalous or a blip or, you know, is it a, to use a, intended pun? Is it a speed bump or is it a roadblock? You know, like we don't know exactly exactly what that will be.

But

Eric Schulze: I think you're right. Like fundamentally, It is a matter of investor. And this is another thing that that has also has to change fundamentally for cultivated to get there because you bring up the most important 20 percent change in the meat supply, switching over to an alternative protein like cultivated meat would be the most fundamental shift in human diets in over a million years.

Paul Shapiro: Right. Yeah, that's so true. That's so true. so I'll tell you something interesting. and it's actually, I'm, I'm glad you brought up a [00:20:00] synthetic ice, which I, I do love to use that because it's such a good analogy for what is happening in meat right now. But for those not familiar first, you know, for thousands of years, the only way we had to get ice was out of nature.

Then all of a sudden we had it. Refrigeration, which allowed us to make ice, a human made ice. And there was a big campaign against what was called artificial ice or synthetic ice. There was a lobbying campaign against it. There was a natural ice association, that was formed in order to try to defend the, and protect the incumbent natural ice industry.

They claimed it was ungodly. It went against nature, like all these things that they want you just to eat, you know, so called natural ice. And of course, now you fast forward to today and we all have artificial ice makers in our homes. We call them freezers. We don't think there's anything. Unnatural about it at all.

but what's really interesting is that I'm actually reading a book right now. It's called frostbite, how refrigeration changed our food, our planet and ourselves by a woman named Nicola Twiley. And I got to endorse this book. It's really, really interesting. And I'm learning so much from it. I'll include a link to it in the show notes at business for good podcast.

com. But I'll tell you a fact that will blow your [00:21:00] mind. Eric, if you didn't already know it, I certainly didn't know it, which is that people were so afraid. Of refrigerated food, about 100, 110 years ago that it was widely believed that this was bad for you to think about it for all human history. You had to eat food that was either freshly slaughtered or harvested, right?

Otherwise, it would go bad. So most people would never eat meat that came from an animal. You know, who wasn't slaughtered more than a couple days ago, right? And with refrigeration, this changed everything and all of a sudden you could eat meat from an animal who was slaughtered a year ago and it would be fine for you to eat, but people thought this was so unnatural.

They were so afraid of it that a trade association for the refrigerated foods industry in 1920 put on a banquet as a publicity stunt in 1920 in Washington, D. C. To serve only food that had been previously refrigerated to prove that this food was safe to eat so for the first time in human history was a banquet where every single food consumed would have been previously refrigerated and the Journal of the American Medical Association [00:22:00] published an editorial condemning them.

Saying this did not prove anything. This is still unsafe. You could just see, like, I don't know, it was the next editorial saying, you know, you should, you know, you know, protect yourself by smoking some Marlboros. I don't know. Like it was like, you know, it was like so unbelievable that JAMA was against refrigerated food.

Whereas now we know that's like one of the greatest public health advancements in all of human history is refrigeration of food.

Eric Schulze: Yeah. They were like, Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey, stop eating that ice. As they pick a big draw on a marble red.

Paul Shapiro: Right, right. Exactly. And, you know, you could just see this playing out today.

A century later, you could just see this people saying, Hey, hey, this isn't natural. This isn't right to eat meat that wasn't produced from animal slaughter. So anyway, it's a pretty interesting book and I'll and there's so much more in this book. That's interesting. Also that I won't belabor in this particular conversation.

But yeah, well,

Eric Schulze: you know, unfortunately as a biologist like cancer is natural doesn't mean it's good. so not everything that's quote unquote natural and the naturalistic fallacies invoked all the time and cultivated meat and alternative proteins. Right. I, I, I just take a very simple, simple approach [00:23:00] to this, like assuming it's safe, let's assume, assume we can agree to that.

just let a consumer decide. Like, let's just let consumers decide, and if they don't like it, they'll vote with their pocketbooks.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah, so let me ask you about that. As you know, there are states like Florida and Alabama that don't want to let consumers decide that have banned this product now from sale, even though it's never been sold there.

They're essentially, you know, killing this baby in the cradle or maybe in the womb, even since it hasn't even been born. What do you think about this? I mean, obviously I know that you oppose these bands, but how big of a problem do you view this? Do you think, well, there's, there's so little on the market now, we still have 48 other States that we can play in, or do you view this as a really serious threat that needs to be, paid attention to right now?

Eric Schulze: I think it's serious in the sense that like we have to stand up to it. Like you can't, you have a voice in the conversation and someone who ran policy, for, for upside for many years, the most important thing to realize is that whether you like politics where you like lobbying or not. You have to play the game because [00:24:00] you have a voice, and if you say nothing, someone will speak for you, and it may not be what you like.

And so this is what I tell young scientists when they're getting into this, that like, understanding policy is just as important as understanding the science of what you do. But to your question about the, the bans, I think that I'm less concerned for a meat and poultry company, a cultivated company. than I am for a cultivated seafood company, and without going into a lot of detail about the law, the short answer is that USDA in general in court cases has the ability to sort of the superior courts have argued for years that basically because of the way the law is structured, USDA has ultimate authority over what gets done or not done.

In terms of meat poultry, but with FDA states can make that decision a little bit more leniently. They don't always agree with FDA on food food decisions. So since seafood is regulated by FDA by a large part in USDA regulates meat poultry, these bands are gonna be overturned by what's called federal [00:25:00] preemption protections and they're being challenged.

I think that way as well. What do I think about these bands have been very upfront about this? I think it is rank. Mhm. Protectionism, and I'm very, very rarely this blunt about it, but it's such nakedly protectionist policies that you can't even I can't even come up with a even convincing moderate reason as to why they would approach it this way in terms of so it is a play at, you know, rules for me, but or, you know, rules for thee, but none for me.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah, yeah. So, you know, we were talking about this at a conference recently, and, you know, there's a similar case that went to the Supreme Court recently regarding California's restrictions on what pork and eggs can be sold in the state in California implemented, what's called proposition 12, which says that you can't sell eggs or pork in the state if they came from animals who were confined to the point of immobilization.

Essentially, the Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 that it wasn't federally preempted. Now. [00:26:00] The point that you were making, which I think is a good one, because I hadn't thought about this, is that that's talking about on farm treatment of animals where there is no USDA rules. There's not a single rule at the federal level at all USDA or otherwise that relates to the on farm treatment of animals, but you make a different argument that this isn't really about on farm treatment.

So what's your argument legally speaking as to why you think this will be preempted federally? Okay.

Eric Schulze: Great question.

Paul Shapiro: I'm not a lawyer,

Eric Schulze: so just very important. you bring up a good point,

Paul Shapiro: but I've used chat GBT to look at this. So I figured that must be an expert who hasn't,

Eric Schulze: that's right. The, okay. So for the listeners, just important to know in the U S.

FDA regulates and they have the authority to basically regulate as Paul was correctly noting, like on animals on the hoof animals before we intend to slaughter them for food, their health is regulated by FDA.USDA regulates everything about an animal once you intend to slaughter them. So from slaughter through processing, labeling all that stuff, that's how [00:27:00] the law splits.

That's so, so Paul is saying basically, which is correct that when it comes to the treatment of animals, that's FDA land. And then again, federal preemption is a little different. because again, and I, without going into legal arguments there for the USDA side and cultivated meat, these are processing arguments.

Like we, we don't have an animal. We, we don't have, you know, we have tissue that we're processing into and sells into, into food products. These are This is like manipulating ground beef, which clearly is a USDA regulated activity. So the case is that one, I mean, frankly, as, as I've, I've talked with other lawyers, this is believed completely unconstitutional, in a, in a gross overreach, of, of legal authority to just preemptively ban a product in the absence.

In fact, in contradiction to federal safety data that says these products are safe. And they're truthfully labeled, but I think it just comes down to very simply you have a meat product like ground beef or chicken thighs or something like that, [00:28:00] and somebody is coming in and saying you can't sell these, even though every everybody has said they're safe, you can access them.

They have the price, right? Whatever. we just don't like them. We don't like that. They're called this or that they exist. And that's just not a good reason to you. Legally to say, you can't, you can't have best food that's up to a consumer to decide.

Paul Shapiro: Right? And if you look at the legislative history of these bills, especially in florida, the proponents are extremely clear as to why they are doing it, which is not to protect consumers from confusion, but rather to protect cattlemen from competition, right?

Like, this is not A matter of, any type of consumer protection. It's solely about incumbent industry protection, essentially.

Eric Schulze: And I'll say this too, like as someone who's worked under this big tent, you know, built this big tent of like a wide stakeholder set, like I've worked with the cattlemen for years.

both it's, you know, at federal level, at state level, and I've worked with every major barnyard organization, you know, the pork and chicken and beef and blah, and like, by and large, most people support the [00:29:00] existence of these products. And they just say, like, listen, I may not like them, but again, they deserve to compete on market and who am I to say consumers may or may not want it.

I think the urge for this comes from the, you know, smaller cattle ranchers and livestock producers who see this as a threat to their livelihood and don't realize that the spool up to scale up and having even a 20 percent market disruption, it only takes the delta of the growth. Like it wouldn't even impact their own operations, most likely for the next 20 to 30 years, it, it would, they would still be able to sell their product and frankly, they should have to compete in my opinion.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah. So, you know, and to be fair, the North American meat institute has opposed these bands. Like, it's not as if the meat industry or the incumbent monolith again, in favor of these, in fact, quite the opposite. Oh, And

Eric Schulze: you bring up a good point about the North American Meat Institute, their, their opposition to it is not only just because they think it, you know, it's, it's a silly and [00:30:00] stupid ban, it also.

Sets a precedent that says the cultivated alternative industries could bring arguments forth that say, we don't like this meat product. It should never exist, and they don't want that starting to happen. So I don't think people realize the double edged sword that this would create legally and guarantee you somebody is going to bring suit and say, we don't want these these conventional meat products on market.

We just don't like them.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, that's an interesting idea. I wonder, I wonder when that'll be. So you mentioned the Delta of the growth, right? So, you know, the meat industry is projected to continue growing. Meat demand is projected to continue increasing, not only in the U S but around the world, not just because of increased human population.

That's one reason, but also because people are getting wealthier. So they're going to eat more meat. So let me ask you this. Plant based meat has now been on the market for decades. And if you want to be fair, you'd say, Hey, the latest generation of plant based meat, like the beyonds and the impossibles that are more, let's say, realistic mimicries of animal meat.

I've been on the market for, you know, let's say eight or [00:31:00] so years right now, but there's still not 1 percent of the volume of animal meat. There's still less than 1 percent of the total volume of animal meat in America, and even less so around the world. How long do you think it'll take? for cultivated meat to reach the place where plant based is meat is today, meaning some type of a meaningful fraction of 1 percent of the income that meat industry.

Eric Schulze: I think that, well, one, I think we're right now, and we talked about this earlier, we're limited by The volume that's available, like the advantage that plant based products and mycelium based products have is that they can be on market more or less like now.

Paul Shapiro: right. Yeah. I mean, corn Q U O R N has been growing mycelium and bioreactors for decades and makes hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue a year from it.

And as in thousands of supermarkets, in fact, I went to London at, and was in the KFC there and they had corn patties literally on price. Parity. With the chicken patties, it was really incredible to see food grown inside of bioreactors competing on [00:32:00] cost in a fast food setting with the lowest cost meat chicken.

So, but even then, it still is a very insignificant portion of the total volume of meat. It's a rounding error in the total meat industry. So if you were to think, hey, when is cultivated meat going to get to that point where it's. Not at 0. 0%, but let's say, you know, close to 1%. Do you think it's in the 2030s, the 2040s?

Like, what do you realistically think might happen?

Eric Schulze: Yeah, I mean, you know, scientists are terrible at prognostication. So take this with a grain of salt. But like, again, I think it's another decade or sooner. It really comes down to you. Who can produce at scale? I mean, you know, this is someone who's running a business like the only thing that matters is scale.

Like you can produce prototypes. You can come up with ideas of the cows come home, but it's the I mean, the make or break is can you get to scale to commercial or industrial scale?

Paul Shapiro: And what is scale to you? Like right now, the largest bioreactor from mammalian cell culture on the planet is 20, 000 [00:33:00] liters.

Is that scale? Or, you know, some companies have talked about 200, 000 liter reactors in the future. Like what is scale to you?

Eric Schulze: Yeah. Yeah, it can be different forms, but you're right. Like, so like a 50 liter 20 K or 50 K reactor in run in parallel with a bunch of other 20 or 50 Ks. You need to be in the equivalent of half a million liter.

Directors like in pharma. and, and I think,the arc biosciences ceos, you know, he's brought up several times. I think very, and it's, I think this is a fair criticism. There's just not enough reactor space available for cultivated to make that impact right now. That said, that's not because we We can't make that reactor space just doesn't yet exist.

and also precludes high efficiency, products that don't necessarily need as much reactor space. So I think one we're missing contract manufacturer organizations that can we can lease out to to [00:34:00] cultivated producers. I think that's the biggest thing. Instead of making every producer build their own plant, having like a cargill or a Tyson, these large meat manufacturers.

Get on board and which they, you know, are and produce cultivated meat products with the infrastructure. They have I think is one And then of course you got to build a product that tastes good I think the adoption of a cultivated product will taste will be potentially much faster than plant based Not because plant based is inherently worse, but because cultivated Can more easily I think slot into a meat eaters diet and I'm a meat eater And I have, I've incorporated plant based products into my diet much more reasonably or much more since, since working in this industry, but I still eat meat.

And I still want me. So if I had a cultivated option that was cheaper or the same price and just more ethically sound or climate sound, I, I would pick it up in its heartbeat.

Paul Shapiro: yeah, you know, I, I've been a vegan for over 30 years, but I still like the taste of meat, [00:35:00] which is why I eat plant based meat, right?

Like, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's a perfect mimicry of animal based meat. But it does a sufficient job for me. I don't think it does a sufficient job for most meat eaters, though, especially on price, but even on texture on taste. It's advanced a lot. And on texture, I think, especially impossible foods has done like a really good job of this.

But by and large, plant based meat today still leaves many meat consumers wanting, especially when it comes to price and also texture. And the question is, you know, will Further advancement in plant based meat and further innovation in the mycelium world render cultivated meat obsolete I don't know but I sure think it's worth betting on it, right?

It's kind of like what a great

Eric Schulze: competition to be in a market competition That's another thing needs to happen Paul is having more market competition in the alternative protein space that isn't just plant versus mycelium or plant versus plant not even plant versus cultivated, which I don't think cultivated really sees themselves as a plant based competitor.

But, there [00:36:00] needs to be lots of competition within the alternative space that I don't think is there. And like, I know that's really important also for some of your viewers, too, is just like this idea of like, where can I put my brain power, which we can talk about? Yeah, where should

Paul Shapiro: they put it if you want, you know, you're no longer working at upside.

So if you had to. Advise listeners on where they should put their brainpower. What do you see is missing right now from the alternative protein space that you would like to see somebody start two

Eric Schulze: things, two areas, and I will freely give away my ideas because I think they're important. Somebody just needs to do them.

One, we need more support ecosystem or B2B like people need to be creating. B to B's in the alternative protein space, especially cultivated, B to C's are very hard to do, and we need more infrastructure in this space. So one, creating things that support cultivated, like making cell lines, making scaffolds, making micro carriers, improving cell culture media, building bioreactors, like the things that make cultivated happen instead of [00:37:00] a company like upside, which had to build everything because it didn't exist.

We should be having off the shelf solutions. So that build verse by equation becomes a lot more easy to resolve. That's one. And I would work specifically in solving for standardized, modular parts to the cultivated space. So high performance cell lines in each species, high performance scaffolds and micro carriers and really efficient cell culture media.

And then post processing into the food product. That's where I would put my energy. That's one thing. The other thing, which I have less ideas for and I'd love to hear your take, Paul, is creating competition directly with cultivated. That is not a cultivated product and not because I don't believe in cultivated.

I'm a big believer in it. I want to see more. What's the alternative to cultivated products and, and not just a plant based product or mycelium, like what is the other, the next thing after this that would help push and create [00:38:00] new innovations within cultivated and force them to have a market to compete with it.

I don't know the answer to that one.

Paul Shapiro: I certainly don't know the answer, but, being,being that I like to make most of my decisions based on pure speculation rather than on evidence, I will, as a good

Eric Schulze: human should.

Paul Shapiro: Yes, right. Exactly. I just want to, I want to align myself with my species here.

I wonder, like, I'm such a big believer in microbial farming, right? Like, as somebody who's a big believer in mycelium, which is essentially microscopic fungi. I see the power that it has over plants and animals, right? And so the question is, you know, not just can we make alternative meat from microscopic fungi, but Can we do other types of microbial farming that might create cheaper and more efficient feedstocks for cultivated meat as an example, rather than plant based feedstocks or animal based feedstocks to microbial feedstocks, right?

So that's one idea, but I would love to hear from somebody more informed than I am on this as to why there that [00:39:00] is either one already happening or to plan to be happening. I don't know. But, email us at business for good podcast. com is, our email address is on there. So email, if you want to, let me know and I'll, I'll on the next episode indicate whether this has been the case or not.

I do want to ask you, Eric, so you're talking about ideas you hope other people will do. But tell us just briefly, what are you doing right? You're no longer at upside. You're now consulting. You're helping other companies. So you're not putting your brain power toward B2B, cultivated meat solutions.

You're putting brain power toward something else. What is it?

Eric Schulze: Well, as you said, yes, I left upside over a year ago and launched my own agency called good humans. Um,as a reminder to sort of like why I'm doing this. And, I do. I help. It has a couple of practices practice areas. One, of course, is helping cultivated companies sort of get to market.

and I do that through a variety of mechanisms because I was an executive upside. So I serve. It's sort of fractional C suite positions, depending on the company. Sometimes it's chief technical, [00:40:00] or chief regulatory or senior advisor to CEO. What have you sometimes even just sort of shadow CEO. But like, That's one area.

The other is launching companies. And I actually did launch a B to B company in the space called an extra bio with Taron Wolf. and, out of, you know, the growth of big idea ventures. And that is doing scaffolds for for cultivated meat products and novel attachment factors. And so this enabling technology and then the other aspect, which is looking forward and going like we're talking about.

How do I create teams, and or fund get companies funded for what could be, you know, thought of as competition? What's the next end of iteration of this space in the food space? Like this can't be the pinnacle of innovation. I don't mean that negatively. I think that's incredible. Like cultivated set a very high bar.

What's next? And can I help create it? Because I think we are not done helping [00:41:00] animals, and we are definitely not done helping the planet, and there are way too many smart people out there that can figure this out better than I probably could.

Paul Shapiro: Okay, well, I wish you the best with good humans. So for people who want to try to do what you just said and use their cranial capacity to try to figure out this vexing problem of how we're going to feed humanity without destroying the planet and tormenting billions of animals in the process.

Were the resources that you would recommend. Things that you have benefited from that. Maybe they should check out that will help them in their own journey.

Eric Schulze: Yeah, I think the number one thing that's helped me over everything and also kudos to you too, Paul, because you've also used this to is you're increasing your ability to tell scientific stories, science communication.

We might call it probably the most important thing. That I learned outside of just like, you know, being emotionally intelligent, but I'd recommend if you're willing to sort of look into something more like almost like a very late textbook.a great book called the science of science. It's [00:42:00] recently come out on.

I'm gonna butcher the author's last name. He's a an incredible professor. Albert Laszlo Barbasi is the author, and he compiles the most recent work Around what it takes to actually be an effective scientist and today and I think there's very actionable principles in there around how to actually improve your chances of making a big dent and one of them that you and I have both done too, which is like taking big risks like big scary risks professionallyI think that's probably the number one thing.

and then my second recommendation that's always helped me is reading contemporary fiction You And contemporary science fiction and even historical like I didn't even get into science fiction until my thirties. and I just I just, it helps unlock a mind creatively. so if you're looking to get started, there's a million ways, but, just because I'm reading it currently, the name of the wind by Patrick Rothfuss, [00:43:00] is it just a fantastic fantasy sci fi novel to start with?

but there are, of course, the name of the wind, that's what you said. That's right. And of course, if you, if you want even a little bit more hard sci fi, the three body problem, which is also the, you know, such an incredible series to get into as well.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah, I really love three body problem. I only read the first book, but I absolutely loved it.

And then I watched the Netflix series after that, and it was good too. I liked it. I liked the book better, but I did like the series too and enjoyed it. But yeah, it was really good. And I am a avid reader of fiction. So I am a big, and especially sci fi. So I appreciate your commentary here because I know there's a lot of people who I'm friends with who are very smart who think it's a waste of their time to read fiction.

And I vociferously disagree. And I don't know if I'm just trying to rationalize it because I personally enjoy it, but I think it actually is useful.

Eric Schulze: I will tell you as a scientist who went to a liberal arts undergrad, [00:44:00] I, the most important lesson I still remember to this day, is, and so I studied both biology and English literature.

The thing that has more of a bearing on my day to day life as an executive and scientist is first off my English literature aspect and training, but my I had a professor who told me if you want to know where the world is, what the world will look like in 20 years, read contemporary fiction, and that has never proven to be wrong to me.

So I just think that keeping up and reading things about today and people tend to have subtle cues to like where society is going in the future. And I just think there's so much to mine in fiction to keep you away. The most boring people I know only talk about their profession. So I think the most interesting people are the most curious and therefore are interested if they're scientists, they're interested in the in the magical world of the imagination, a.

k. a. fiction.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah, cool. Well, I'll give you one recommendation. First and foremost, I wouldn't necessarily say it's sci fi. It's more like [00:45:00] dystopian futuristic fiction, but it's called tender is the flesh. It's a really good book. By I can't remember if the author is, if she's Chilean or Argentinian, I can't remember which, but anyway, she won a ton of awards for it.

It's a really great look and it is relevant to the topics that we've been discussing today. And I also went on a, like, I got really obsessed with like 19th century animal protection fiction, like black beauty and other books in that vein that had really,Really amazing effects on actual society, like all these books, these fiction books that had really major impacts on society, like black beauty.

And I, I will include a link to some of the ones that I read in case you're interested in going back and reading some of those really cool. Yeah.

Eric Schulze: And because we, before I want to recommend one other, since it's my contemporary fiction outside of sci fi is the maniac, by Benjamin, Labatute, as well.

also a sort of stylized. biography of arguably the smartest person has ever lived on this planet, Von Neumann, okay, the [00:46:00] mania.

Paul Shapiro: It's it. Yeah. All right. It's I, I can't imagine that anybody would ever write a biography of me, but if they did, that might be the title. So there would be some competition, Listen, Eric, it's great to be talking with you.

I really admire the trajectory that your career has taken. I wish you the best with good humans. And thanks so much for giving us your thoughts on where the cultivated meat industry is, where it's going and what needs to be done to get there. So good luck with everything. And we'll talk with you soon.

Thank you.