Paul Shapiro: [00:00:00] Bruce, welcome to the business for good podcast.

Bruce Friedrich: Oh, I'm very excited to be here. Thank you.

Paul Shapiro: It is a great pleasure to have you on. I have to ask you before we get started, you may remember that many years ago, I was concerned that the contents of your cranium were extremely valuable to the world, and yet they were not sufficiently protected when you were bicycling, hence a change.

org petition to get Bruce Friedrich to wear a bike helmet was created. And I know it worked for some time. But has that change stuck or have you gone back to helmetless riding?

Bruce Friedrich: Well after that I had two pretty serious bike accidents. well, I guess there's a you know one serious bike accident, shame on you a second serious bike accident shame on you But i'm sure i'm sure that change.

org petition had something to do with it But but the bike accidents also have me now. I'm always wearing a helmet. You'll be we'll be glad to know

Paul Shapiro: Great. You know, I got into bike accidents before I stopped biking and it really did lead me to stop. I was like, you know, [00:01:00] it's just like such an odd idea.

It's like an ape going like 25 or 30 miles an hour. Like what could go wrong with no protection? You know, it's not like you're in a car where you have at least some protection. and so that is really honestly what led me to stop biking was just fear of further injury as I got older and injuries seem to no longer heal, but they, you know, I felt like in my twenties, like the injuries like healed pretty quickly.

In my thirties, it took longer. And now I'm in my forties, like they don't ever go away. They just accumulate, you know, it's like a compilation of injuries. And so that's why I stopped, but I presume you still are biking regularly. Is that accurate?

Bruce Friedrich: Yeah, I used to, I mean, all through my, teens, twenties, and into my early thirties, I would bike, no matter what the weather was, and, I had a pretty serious, bike accident on ice, circa 2010, so since 2010, if it is snowing, or below zero, and I think there's a high likelihood of ice patches, I will avoid, that, but pretty much any other weather, yeah.

And I will be on my bike. I mean, for me, it's a joy thing. I know it's, I know there is some, I mean, I know there's a [00:02:00] significant degree of risk. I've had many accidents, and feel very lucky that none of them, ended up being permanently debilitating, but I just, I just thoroughly enjoy it.

Paul Shapiro: It's interesting that you mentioned below zero, I presume you meant Celsius.

So do you use the metric system normally, or is that the only case where you would use the metric system?

Bruce Friedrich: I mean, you know, I talk about 356 million metric tons of meat produced every single year, 210 million metric tons, and I do use the word metric. So people know that I'm talking in terms of metric tons, but,

Paul Shapiro: but you said if it's below zero without specifying, but presumably you were talking about the freezing point of water, which is zero C, but not zero F.

Bruce Friedrich: Yes. And, and I think because so much of our work is global, You know, especially a lot of documents from UNEP, FAO. so much of what we're doing is, is, is using the metric system. So a lot of, a lot of how we think about, our, mission and how to. Interesting. So there you go. I meant 32, Paul, I meant 32.

Paul Shapiro: Thank you. What a good American. [00:03:00] You know, I actually learned this recently. It's pretty amazing. But, you know, when we think of water freezing in Fahrenheit at 32 F, but that's only At like sea level, right? So if you go to Denver, water actually boils earlier. it's like, instead of 32, it's like 29 F I think.

And if you go to the top of Mount Everest, water actually boils at 154 F. And what that means, you can, that's like hot tea. You can drink that water. That's, it's like the upper limit of the water you're supposed to drink. So what that means is you can, if you go to the top of Everest, you could literally drink boiling water.

Isn't that interesting?

Bruce Friedrich: That is extremely interesting.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah, yeah. So we think it's like this universal law that water has a freezing point, but it's like only this little sliver of the conditions on earth is that actually the boiling part or freezing point of water. I'm

Bruce Friedrich: guessing the vast majority of people listening, learned this in 10th or 11th grade, and probably almost all of us, including me, forgot it, probably [00:04:00] before the final exam.

Paul Shapiro: Well, it's interesting that you should mention that, because I was actually talking with a friend of mine recently who, I, he's a lawyer, and he was talking about the boiling point of water, which in Fahrenheit is 212, and he knew that, and I told him I was surprised and impressed that he knew the boiling point of water in Fahrenheit, and he goes, oh, come on, anybody would know that, and I said, no, I don't, I don't think that's true.

And we had this debate about it, about what percentage of Americans would know the boiling point of water in Fahrenheit or Celsius. And so, at this time, my wife, Tony was at a summit and I asked her just to survey people and ask them what, you know, what, what they knew. And she asked 14 people. one of them knew the boiling point of water in Fahrenheit and three of them knew it in Celsius.

So this very non scientific survey suggests that maybe not a lot of people remember these things, from, from, I was going to say, I, Grade school, but it might even be high school. I don't remember, but either way, you know, boiling point of water Not a lot, not a lot of people know it, apparently.

Bruce Friedrich: I'm guessing everybody learns that in grade school would be my guess.

And, and probably people, people learn, you know, boiling [00:05:00] points are different based on temperature and freezing point, I mean, based on, based on. Right. But in high school would be but would be my I I I kind of wish that you had asked me what the boiling point of water was so we would Whether you planting it at 212 in my brain caused me to go.

Yeah, I knew that or if I would have actually gotten it right and then you could have You could have edited that section out if I got it wrong,

Paul Shapiro: you know It's so rare that I ask gotcha questions on this podcast, but that could have been it Do you know the boiling point of water in fahrenheit? okay, let's talk bruce not about boiling water But about an industry that seemed to be boiling hot a few years ago, cultivated meat, but has now seemed to simmer a little bit.

There still is activity. It's not lifeless. You got some companies that are still raising capital, still going out there doing their thing. but of course you have some journalists who are writing obituaries for this industry. Why do you think that is? let's get into whether it's true later, but why do you think it is that there seem to be A group of journalists who are repeatedly writing [00:06:00] the obituary for the cultivated meat industry.

Bruce Friedrich: Can I, can I ask you about the premise? there's one journalist who's writing the obituary, Joe Fassler. there's some others who are doing kind of deepish dives, into some of the Sort of companies in the space. but is there, have there been any, obituaries that I'm forgetting? other than the, Joe and the counter and Joe and the times.

Paul Shapiro: Maybe obituary is too, is too strong in some of the other cases. Obviously Joe Fassler's are obituaries. I mean, the New York times piece is called the revolution that died on its way to dinner, right? So it definitely seems to be an obituary, but just take Joe as an example. Then, I mean, the guy obviously has a big platform.

You know, he. Published his first piece in the counter just before the GFI conference, presumably intended to make an impact on that conference. His second piece that he did was also right before the latest GFI conference. And then the New York times piece, I don't think it was time for any particular GFI related thing [00:07:00] to my knowledge, but still that's like three pieces that I can think of that are good.

So you know, basically saying, you know, this was a fool's errand all along, and his argument is not that it's bad. There are other people who argue like the Rhonda sentences of the world that this is actually bad, and we can talk about that later, but his criticism is not that it's necessarily bad, but that it's impossible to commercially scale this industry.

So anyway, why do you think it is? I mean, we can talk about whether what he's writing is right, but why do you think it is? That you have this person who is repeatedly writing this obituary and, you know, obviously he's got an audience because people are following him.

Bruce Friedrich: Yeah, I mean, I don't know for sure. I think if you read the Times piece, my guess is that it's the recent success, of cultivated meat in terms of getting, attention at the highest levels, of science, academe, and government.

and he doesn't like it. I mean, you read the Times piece, and he denounces what he calls a deeply American fantasy, That we can buy our [00:08:00] way to a better world. he denounces the idea that making money and doing good can really be the same thing. And that's a quote from him. so, I mean, it feels sort of like a, an odd to me, at least, anti capitalist.

You know, screed, and I was disappointed. I knew he was going to do something, that was going to be challenging, but to write an obituary without talking to even one scientist who's working in the field, struck me as pretty remarkable. although I was glad that he showed his work. I mean, if you read the piece, there he is calling the idea.

that capitalism can do good in the world, a deeply American fantasy and denouncing the idea that you can make money and do good at the same time, you know, that would relegate electric vehicles, solar and wind power. every drug or vaccine that's ever been developed, you know, no more polio vaccine, that was not developed out of the goodness of [00:09:00] people's hearts and distributed for free.

so it's, it's a weird take, but it's even more odd to me that he would basically say, This is not scientifically possible, and not bother, to talk to one of the many, extraordinarily impressive scientists who disagree with him,

Paul Shapiro: right? So just, you know, I've never, I've never spoken with Joe Fassler.

I would certainly like to, maybe I'll reach out to him. I presume you have spoken with him. and no, you're, you're okay for,

Bruce Friedrich: no, I haven't. GFI, GFI scientists have spoke with him since, since the, you know, sort of theme of his piece. Theme of his discussion is that the science won't work. we, we suggested that he speak with people like, you know, David Chaplin, Kaplan, excuse me, chair of biomedical, sciences department at Tufts University, Mark Post, former tenured professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, been teaching physiology, And, tissue engineering for decades, at Maastricht University, and so many others.

And, you know, I don't know if you talked with them, but, literally not a single, scientist [00:10:00] working in the space, made it into his, you know, 4, 000 word obituary, which is pretty remarkable.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah. Okay. So, you know, neither one of us has spoken with Joe Fassler, the shame on us for, I mean, I've not reached out to him, but maybe I will, but it seemed to me like reading his, his body of work that he seems to have a skepticism of, just food technology in general, right?

Like he seems to have an opinion and I don't want to put words in his mouth. I feel bad, suggesting what I think his beliefs are without having spoken to him. But from what I can ascertain, he seems to have a skepticism of food technology in general. Like he thinks like either these foods are maybe unnatural or that people, you know, should just eat, you know, what he perceives as more natural foods.

And maybe that's part of his general critique of this, of this space. I'm not sure. Right. And I feel that way about certain other, journalists who have, taken swipes of this industry that they generally have a skepticism of the application of biotechnology to food. Like they would say, why not just eat a bean burrito?

Right. Like why not just eat lentil soup or hummus wraps or kale [00:11:00] salads? Right. Look, these are great foods. I like eating them myself. But what's your response to that? Like if, if people say, Hey, listen, you know, look at what's happening, let's say in New York city in the hospitals right now, where they're making default veg, the premise, right.

So that people get, you're not getting plant based meat. They're getting just, you know, bean soup and hummus wraps and so on. And, you know, most people are happy to get it. Why is that approach not better? than just trying to harness the powers of biotechnology to recreate the meat experience without food.

Like, why are they wrong in their skepticism?

Bruce Friedrich: Well, I do want to just go back to your premise for a second, Paul, because, I mean, I think you can read his counterpiece and you can read the New York Times piece, and it's not like he's, you know, hiding the ball. on why he's reading the pieces, he really does consider it to be, an American fantasy that capitalism can do good in the world.

I think certainly what you're describing is true of someone like Mark Bittman, and he says, that's how he's thinking, about the issues. So I think you can, learn a [00:12:00] lot. On the basis of what people actually say or write down, for GFI, I mean, I'd be happy to chat with Joe. But since what he was doing was a dive into, whether the technology can work, we figured it would make sense for him to, chat with our scientists who actually work, in this area.

And then we encouraged him to reach out to some of the many, incredibly established,scientists in tissue engineering and, biotechnology, et cetera, to chat with them as well. So, it doesn't seem to me entirely fair to read his, unfair to read his piece and say, you know, what he wrote down there is probably what he believes to be true.

I'm in favor of all of the above. honestly, I mean, what, what definitely appears to be true is that an awful lot of work has been done to try to convince people, to eat, you know, plants. Michael Pollan's line, eat real food, not too much, mostly plants, has been a battle cry of the sort of Alice Waters, [00:13:00] Mark Bittman, and so many others in, in sort of the food space for many decades.

And it still gets. vast amounts of time and attention, as evidenced by what you just described. and I think that stuff is important and valuable, but I don't think it can be the only tool in our toolkit. You look at, you know, as I mentioned a few minutes ago, right now the world consumes about 356 million metric tons of land animal meat.

Another 210 million metric tons of sea animal meat. Both of those numbers are up more than 70 percent in the last 26 years. we've got 26 years to 2050. 100 percent of projections, literally every single one, about what's going to happen with land and sea animal meat through 2050, predicts a 50 percent rise, in meat consumption or more.

so, Just like if what we're talking about is energy consumption or transportation,[00:14:00] if we're talking about energy consumption, you know, literally 100 percent of people who study it, believe that the world will consume a lot more energy in 2050 than they're consuming now. We absolutely want more energy efficient everything from light bulbs to, you know, buildings to everything, but we also need renewable energy.

And with transportation, again, every projection is more personal vehicles, more miles driven through 2050. We absolutely want more walkable cities. We want great public transit. But we need EVs if we're going to do something about the emissions produced by gas powered vehicles. So the same thing is true here.

yeah, let's absolutely have, healthier school meals. Let's absolutely educate people, about the adverse impacts of, of meat consumption. But if you're looking for a solution that scales, making meat from plants, cultivating meat from cells, can slash the climate impact, slash the adverse global health impact.

Slash [00:15:00] the cruelty to animals, et cetera, without requiring diet change. and it is a new solution. Whereas the, the diet change and the other sort of convinced people to eat less meat, that's what we've been trying to do for more than 50 years. it has its place. It's great. but we really do need to give people something that they enjoy.

Okay,

Paul Shapiro: let's talk about those alternatives. You mentioned two of them making the meat experience from plants and growing animal cells. The former is, of course, on the market. there are many companies in that space that are on big box grocery store shelves. That are on fast food menus and so on animal cell cultured meat or cultivated meat or queen meat still has not really made any meaningful entrance into the market.

Although a few countries like Israel, Singapore and the United States have approved their sale, but they're not really on the market in any meaningful way yet. And so the argument Of the critics is that even if this were a good thing to do, there isn't a way to scale [00:16:00] this, right? There isn't a way to make it commercial valuable.

They're not saying it's scientifically impossible to grow animal cells. Obviously, companies are doing that, but they are saying that the idea that you're going to ever be able to make a dent in meat consumption, even to the point where cultivated meat would be comparable to plant based meat or it's selling, you know, let's say more than 1 billion a year.

Just still a rounding error in the total meat industry, but would be a massive, massive advancement if that were possible. So why are they wrong? Why, why are they wrong? These critics saying it can't scale. Like, what do you think is going to happen? Obviously you're convinced that it will scale or at least that it can scale.

And so why do you believe that? Whereas they believe the opposite.

Bruce Friedrich: I don't know that there are a lot of people. Who believe the opposite, who have dived in and really looked at the science. I will say when GFI was first, you know, when GFI, I was thinking about it and I was interviewing people, the original conception of GFI did not include, cultivated meat to any meaningful [00:17:00] degree.

it was Uma Valetti, and Ryan Bethencourt, who convinced me that cultivated meat, could be viable. So conversation with Ryan, and then really, it was deeper conversations with Uma about the science, who convinced me it could be real. I would say though, by the time we hired Liz Specht in June of 2016, we still very much, the jury was out for us on whether, this was ready for commercialization or not.

and When GFI started, we hired six people in June of 2016. Two of them were scientists. Christy Ligali was tasked with figuring out, you know, what is the technological readiness of plant based meat. Liz Specht was tasked with figuring out what is the technological readiness of cultivated meat.

and the idea was, should GFI be in the sort of pre commercial, Realm on this technology. Is this technology just impossible and we shouldn't work on it at all? or, does it seem, you know, plausible that in the relatively short term, there's a path to [00:18:00] market and commercialization. And the more Liz dived in, the more she came to agree with people like Mark Post and Amy Rowan and, so many other scientists, Shulamit Levenberg, Neda Levine, you know, all PhDs with.

relevant scientific backgrounds, that yes, there was a path to market for cultivated meat. I had a, I had a fireside chat with David Kaplan in January at Tufts annual Cell Ag, conference. And again, he's Publish more than a thousand, peer review articles. He's the chair of their biomedical engineering department.

if he did not believe that cultivated meat was going to be viable in the relatively short term, he would be doing something else. And he said, the last five years, he hasn't. He can't even get over, the amount of progress across literally all of the things that we need to make progress in. and he's absolutely sure, that this is going to happen.

and that's on video. You can put a link to it, in the show notes. and that is the view of, that's the view of, Liz Speck. That's the view of, [00:19:00] I think, everybody, who really dives in. The only scientists who are casting doubt on this. are not scientists who work in it. are not scientists who have ever worked in it.

Maybe that

Paul Shapiro: maybe they don't work in it because they don't view it as viable. Who knows? But I'll tell you, you're mentioning five years and, Jason Matheny, who is the founder of New Harvest and has been on this show before. We're linked to that episode in the, in the show notes of this episode of Business for Good podcast dot com.

But he has a joke. And I include this joke in the book clean meat and he's joked like this before also where he says You know cultivated meat Is always five years away and they may not be five consecutive years. And so, you know, you're talking about how David Kaplan has said the progress in the last five years is incredible.

Certainly seems so. But let me first ask you, Bruce, when the book queen meat came out, you know, you are playing a very major role in both the first 2018 edition and the new updated paperback queen meat paperback edition in 2024. When that book came out in 2018, if somebody said to you [00:20:00] six years from now in 2024, no one will be selling Queen meat on the market at all, would you be surprised by that?

Bruce Friedrich: I don't know whether I would have been surprised by that. I mean, I, I know that, what I said to Ezra Klein, for his 2021 meatless moonshot piece was that if we leave, plant based and cultivated meat, to the tender mercies of the market. And it's going to take a very long time, for us to get to success.

and we will have very few products. I did a 2019 TED talk in which I said, we're going to need Manhattan project level, support from governments. So it's been a pretty long time, or not a pretty long time, but you know, it's been a number of years at least, where I've been thinking the number one thing that needs to happen, is governance.

Governments are going to need to fund the science of alternative proteins. It can't be, 150, you know, different companies, [00:21:00] in their own little silos. I mean, another, another thing that Joe Fassler says in his pieces, you know, it's been seven years and three. Billion dollars. and where's the cultivated meat?

you know, 3 billion is less than the price of one EV battery factory. you know, it's probably, depends on which study you believe, but it's the lower numbers are it takes more than a billion dollars. To bring one drug to market, and that's if you've already got, you know, Merck or Moderna, your massive pharmaceutical company.

So, 150 companies have split 3 billion. That's just not, that is a vanishingly small amount of money. and things like, USDA funding, a consortium, based out of Tufts focused on cultivated meat, the National Science Foundation funding, a cultivated meat modeling consortium at UC Davis that's focused on, specifically the technological challenges and we're seeing funding in, I mean, every place that GFI operates.

So we operate in India. Israel, Brazil, [00:22:00] Singapore, that also covers Thailand, Europe, Germany at the EC level and the UK and the Netherlands, starting, this year in Japan and Korea, obviously the U S all of those governments have started to fund science, in plant based and cultivated meat. and all of that has happened just in the last three or four years.

Assuming that can continue, I think we can, we can, you know, we can have something like, there's something called Amara's Law, A M A R A, I might be pronouncing it wrong. and it's just the observation that, the predictions for scientific, breakthroughs to penetrate were always way too optimistic in the short term and way too pessimistic.

In the long term, so it basically just captures the S curve. so I don't know where I would have been on that precise question. I think we need to get to taste the same or better and cost the same or less. and then I think we can shoot up the S curve. And I think that until we get to taste the same or better.

And cost the same or less, the products will [00:23:00] stay pretty niche. but I do get more and more optimistic that we're going to get there. and more and more optimistic, that governments are going to recognize the importance of both plant based and cultivated meat, to climate mitigation, to Antibiotic resistance, you know, fighting that off to pandemic prevention, and other things.

Paul Shapiro: So, excuse me, if you are thinking about cost parity and taste parity, presumably, I believe that you don't think that is so for plant based meat yet, right? For the most part that you're, you don't, you, there are really no products that have achieved both taste and price parity. Is that, is that your view?

Bruce Friedrich: I mean, that, that is objectively true.

Paul Shapiro: Okay. Yeah.

Bruce Friedrich: Yeah.

Paul Shapiro: I listen, I, I agree with it. I just want to make sure I wasn't presuming. So what do you think it'll take? Is it government funding that it'll take to get the plant based meat companies there? Like even independent of cultivated meat, like cultivated meat is still, you know, pretty far off compared to plant based meat, which is already widely percolated throughout our society.

Again, fast food menus,[00:24:00] every Walmart as a country, you can get plant based meat pretty much in any grocery store now. but just the other night. in fact, less than a week ago, my wife and I were in Safeway, and they had two Beyond Burger patties. This is the new Beyond Burger, the one that they've switched from coconut oil to avocado oil.

And I wanted to try it. I wanted to see what the new Beyond Burger tasted like. And it was 8. 99 for two quarter pound patties. In other words, 18 per pound, which is, you know, probably about three to four hundred percent more than the cost of conventional slaughter based beef patties. And it was very sobering to me to see that type, you know, you know, if we're not talking about 30 or 40%, we're talking like three or 400 percent more.

And so it was very sobering to me. And I was wondering like, what's it going to take even for plant based meat to get to Price parity, even if you think the beyond burgers at taste parity, which I doubt is true. But even if you think that, and, and I liked the beyond burger, I, I bought it actually at that price.

I really was interested [00:25:00] in trying it. but you know, what's it going to take? Do you think the same is so here that we need government funding for plant based meat companies to, to do that type of research to get to taste parity or price parity?

Bruce Friedrich: Well, I mean, I think price parity is going to be a scale question.

So the other sort of complement to Amara's law is Wright's law. Wright's law has applied, has applied, has, it has been true of both, E. V. costs, EV battery costs, and also of solar, and many other technologies that for each doubling in capacity, the price falls by a certain set percentage, and remarkably on solar.

That's been true since solar, you know, since Bell Labs debuted solar in 1954. that's been true. From then to now, there's probably a rights law, percentage for plant based meat, and we could probably eventually, get to price parity even without government support, but it's worth remembering, I mean, you know, you look at Ethan [00:26:00] Brown and, and his goal has been to get to price parity and taste parity for one product, which I assume is, is going to be ground beef.

and cost so much less fish sticks cost so much less pork costs a little bit less. and then once you start getting into, you know, products that are not ground, the process of creating those products is going to cost more. so there is both, I mean, on cultivated meat, it already tastes the same because it's the same product just produced differently.

With plant based meat, vanishingly few of the products, taste anywhere near good enough. so the value proposition for a lot of them, is they want consumers to pay more for something that they like less. that is not a winning proposition. and yes, I think, for the same reason that government should be funding the science of cultivated meat, Government should be funding the science of plant based meat.

we don't want every, you know, we just don't want all of this to happen in silos. I mean, some of the people in the sort of, anti food tech camp, one of the things that they're [00:27:00] disconcerted by is the idea that agricultural consolidation would apply, in alternative proteins in the same way that it's applied in the broader food.

The antidote to that is open sourcing the science. So the way to do that would be to get all of the sort of bodies that fund agricultural research and global health research to be helping to solve these problems. Sort of for the entire industry, but if every single company needs to figure out how to get the off flavors out of peas and soy, if every single company needs to figure out if there's an alternative to coconut oil that behaves in the same way as animal fats, if every single company needs to solve every single problem, getting to taste parity is going to be very difficult.

And then price parity once you've got the product is probably a scale issue, but solar would be nowhere. EVs would be nowhere. If there were not, if there had not been government support for infrastructure and [00:28:00] manufacturing scale up, we're going to almost certainly Need that, or at the very least, if we don't have it, it will delay penetration, you know, by years, maybe decades, or maybe even just kill the whole project in the cradle.

Paul Shapiro: You mentioned solar Bruce, and I am a living beneficiary of the government incentives to put solar on your roof because the government incentives were pretty good. And I was also ideologically motivated to do it. And so, my wife, Tony, and I put solar panels on our roof. The solar panels, of course, were produced in China.

Nearly all the solar panels that Americans use are produced in Asia. And the same has been so with numerous other technologies, and you've mentioned this elsewhere as well, that if you're using semiconductors, which we use almost every point of the day, almost certainly they came from Taiwan. If we're using solar panels, wind turbines probably produced in Asia as well.

The U. S. is now spending billions of dollars to try to onshore these industries. Six billion dollars from the CHIPS Act just went to go produce one factory, or they haven't produced it yet, but [00:29:00] to one factory in Texas for semiconductors. The Inflation Reduction Act, they're spending billions to try to produce solar panels and wind turbines here as well.

Yet, when it comes to alternative proteins. The U. S. Appears to still be lagging behind. I notice you're wearing a G. F. I. A. Pack shirt right now. I have a G. F. I. T. shirt. I don't have the a pack shirt, but I wonder if it is. Do you think that the future of alternative proteins is Asia? They've led on so many other technologies and at a time in the United States when you have states like Florida and Alabama just in the last week or so banning the sale of cultivated meat where they've never even had a sale of cultivated meat in the States.

Mhm. But you see like certain states in the U S moving to criminalize these industries. Whereas we know that in China, they're doing the opposite. They're trying to accelerate these industries. So do you think that the future of alternative protein is in Asia? Is there going to be a time when the U S is trying to catch up like we are on semiconductors and solar panels now?[00:30:00]

Bruce Friedrich: Yeah, I mean, that's a, that's a fascinating question, Paul. And, and the answer to the question includes, a heavy dose of optimism. a big part of why. I think the government support for these technologies. it's been growing over the last few years. I think it's going to continue to grow. And this is just hugely bipartisan.

So just a little less than a year ago, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, widely considered to be one of the top think tanks in the world, widely considered to be the top national security think tank in the United States. They're director of food and water security. As well as their director of energy and climate, worked together on a report on alternative proteins.

And in addition to talking about the climate, biodiversity, global health benefits of alternative proteins, they also talked about the case for alternative proteins from an economic competitiveness standpoint. And their conclusion, is that the U. S. should prioritize its alternative proteins [00:31:00] industry, in the same way that it prioritizes not just the energy transition, although they do note that, but they also note biopharma and advanced chips for, artificial intelligence.

What you just mentioned, the Biden administration and a bipartisan Congress, voting to put 39 billion into advanced chips for artificial intelligence so that we can, onshore production and not rely almost completely on Taiwan. There's also just last week, as we're taping this, just on Monday, the World Bank released a report and the bulk of the report is on the import, basically agricultural climate mitigation interventions.

Alternative proteins comes in second at 6. 1. gigatons of mitigation potential. That's about four times the equivalent of turning every passenger vehicle, bus, and light truck on the planet electric. It's about six times simply eliminating the entire airline industry, just no more flying, times six.

[00:32:00] comes in second after reforestation and afforestation comes in, just ahead of stop deforestation, which of course, alternator proteins can be linked to both those things. but there's also sort of an offhand comment in, in that document, pointing out that China is way in the lead. On this. so it could be China.

although I will say, I mean, again, GFI, the area, our entire metric for where are you going to locate a GFI? And right now we have, I think about 225 full time staff. the plurality of our team members are scientists. the fundamental. Observation is we need to get to price and taste parody. our global battle cry.

The number one thing we're trying to do is convince governments to fund this science and to incentivize industry. and that's the entire metric of where we are. So the countries that we have selected to be in are the countries that fund a lot of science. and that fund science specifically, focus on solving these challenges.

So there's a lot of activity in India, in Israel, in Brazil, in Singapore, in Thailand, in [00:33:00] China, as you noted, across Europe, in the UK, in Switzerland, outside the European Union, at the EC level, the European Institute of, technology. They have a food division and GFI, leads the policy program, for this, you know, government body, the European Institute of Technology.

What they're doing on food, is led by, GFI scientists and GFI policy team members. In the UK, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Center, is funding in this area. so it could be China. I mean, China is why Solar is cheap. why China is why, EVs have been as successful as they've been.

And they could certainly lead on this as well. but there are going to be a lot of governments, you know, sort of vying to lead, which is one of the reasons I'm so, optimistic about our chances,

Paul Shapiro: our chances, meaning humanity's chances, right? You're speaking, okay. You're not speaking about as a U S chances, but let's just go back to the U S briefly, because obviously there is.

A real problem that's [00:34:00] happening, which is that alternative me to become part of the culture war. You saw this when Cracker Barrel added the impossible sausage to their menu and people went insane. They didn't take conventional sausage off the menu. They just added impossible sausage and people went insane saying, Oh, you're, you know, you're adding woke meat.

I'm never going to go back to Cracker Barrel again. The vote in Florida was entirely a partisan vote. All Republicans supported the ban on the sale of cultivated meat and all Democrats opposed it. You do have some Democrats who also seem to hate cultivated meat like John Fenderman, the Senator from Pennsylvania.

But overall, it does seem to be a kind of partisan issue right now, which is extremely catastrophic for this industry. Right. You don't want to be an industry that's associated with one party or the other. You want to have support in both parties, for obvious reasons, you know, sometimes one party's in charge, sometimes the other party's in charge.

You need to make sure that this is a nonpartisan issue, which of course it should be feeding the world without destroying the planet should be a nonpartisan issue. what do you think it'll take? to bring Republicans more [00:35:00] into the fold here. Obviously, not all Republicans are opposed to alternative proteins, but it does seem to fall largely along party lines on where this is going right now.

So right now, you know, you have these Republican led states banning cultivated meat like Alabama and Florida. There's no threat of democratic states doing the same. What will it take, do you think, to get Republicans more on board With the idea that maybe we should allow innovation, to play out and create new ways to recreate the meat experience without animals.

Bruce Friedrich: Well, I mean, I'll start by saying I think the worst thing we could do, is what a fair number of people are doing, which is blowing it up, you know, basically, blowing it up and, you know, attacking DeSantis and attacking Alabama's governor. I think, I mean, I think what people, who want to be culture warriors from the right or the left, what they want, is that their propagation, results in pushback.

so I think that literally the worst thing we could do. is to start, pushing [00:36:00] back, aggressively. I think this could absolutely just be a blip. you know, DeSantis didn't sign at the moment it got to his desk. He didn't hold a press conference. He didn't blow it into something, massive. there've been some really good.

op eds and sort of standard bearers, of conservative principles. The dispatch had a really good one. reason had a really good one. National review had a really good one. I think letting the people who speak for conservative principles. be the ones to point out that this is anti consumer, it's nanny state, you're, you know, basically playing into that.

I think pushing back and deriding people, on Twitter, or LinkedIn or Instagram or whatever, is exactly the reaction that they want to get. I think a lot of people on the, sort of, on the Democratic side, even center, you know, Left, let alone progressive. a lot of those folks are culture warriors too.

And what they want to do is, you know, own the ours. they want to be right more than they want to be effective. so I would just, you know, Paul, nobody [00:37:00] knows better than you. that, Sonny Perdue, Donald Trump's secretary of agriculture. and Scott Gottlieb, Donald Trump's FDA commissioner.

They're the ones. Who did all of the legwork that led to Cultivated Meat's approval, and I think maybe my favorite scene in the Meet the Future film, is when you're asking them, hey, what do you think about this? And they're both like super enthusiastic, So this is, I think, still bipartisan, I think there have been a couple of blips, and I think if, if we blow it up into something, it might become a culture war issue, but I don't think that's foregone, I don't think we're there now, and if I think we, I think we just need to continue to lean into, this is about consumer choice, this is about innovation and ingenuity.

Right now, the U. S. is leading on the plant based meat side and the cultivated meat side. that was true once upon a time on both EVs, solar and wind as well. It no longer is.[00:38:00] the, you know, U. K. Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, released a report commissioned by McKinsey. They said this could be a 1.

1 trillion industry by 2050. This is opportunities for farmers. This is jobs in middle America. This is national security, food security, water security. But the point at which we start, you know, mocking or attacking, the governor of Alabama, and, and Ron DeSantis, I think is the point at which we, significantly increase the likelihood, a, that it becomes cultural war issue, and b, that we lose.

Paul Shapiro: There is some irony in that the primary antagonists of cultivated meat are folks who apparently are very opposed to capitalism, like the Joe Faszos of the world, and then people Like the republican governors of alabama and florida who are certainly very pro capitalism

Bruce Friedrich: But their hearts aren't in it, right?

I mean, it's interesting because when people, you know, people will often say gosh, I can't believe that industry is getting [00:39:00] Alternative proteins, you know this bad press etc. and industry isn't you know, jbs is the largest meat company in the world They're also certainly right at the tippy top of biggest investors in cultivated meat.

Paul Shapiro: And the North American Meat Institute specifically lobbied against the Florida ban. Interestingly enough, like I think it's less about industry and more about these politicians who want to try to appeal to their base with what they perceive as a popular culture war issue, right? They're going to try to take your meat away, so to speak.

but yes, I mean, I, it, the irony is not lost on me that the biggest antagonists of cultivated meat are ideologically extremely, opposed to one another.

Bruce Friedrich: okay. I just want, I just want to say again, I don't think there's meaningful, you know, knock on wood, but I don't, I don't feel like there's currently meaningful pushback from the right, to.

Didn't make this into a big issue. The governor of Alabama didn't make it into a big issue. you know,

Paul Shapiro: did you see Rhonda Santus's fact sheet on this?

Bruce Friedrich: Yeah, but you know, my hunch is his comms team just turns everything he does into a fact sheet. [00:40:00] He could have leaned in and didn't, and I think the more we, you know, I think the more, folks mock attack, et cetera, the more likely it is it becomes an issue, for anybody in that position, and they end up saying, oh, this is how I get my, you know, name into the news.

The people who, care about what I care about, are going to find it great that I'm picking this fight, et cetera. it just, I don't think there's, I don't think there's anything to be gained. It just, you know, Newton's whatever law, equal and opposite reaction kicks in. And, you know, it really is rising to the bait in my opinion.

Paul Shapiro: There are a lot of laws that you've mentioned. You've mentioned Amor's law, Wright's law, Newton's law. There's a lot of laws here with you, maybe not surprising for somebody who went to Georgetown Law School. but, I'm going to link to all of these different laws in the show notes for this episode so that people are familiar with these laws.

So you wish you were referring that they'll know, what they are. But so basically what I hear you saying, Bruce, is the best way to respond to, These, proposed policy bands on cultivated meat is to have, the messengers essentially be from within the tent, right? To have the national reviews and others who are going to be in [00:41:00] conservative leaning media be the ones pushing back rather than taking the bait, so to speak and making it clear that they're the ones pushing back.

This isn't actually owning the webs as would be desired. Yeah, I see you nodding your head in this.

Bruce Friedrich: Yeah, I mean, I think the more we're attacking people on Twitter, or mocking people on Twitter, the more we are the ones who are blowing it up and turning it into a culture war issue. And it's not that it shouldn't be that, it really is about options for farmers.

It really is about jobs in middle America. It really is about choices for consumers. and, I just don't, I don't think there's any, I don't think there's any benefit, to us leaning in, in this way. I often think about, there's a, there's a West Wing episode where they, the, the campaign, manager is talking about, do you want the policy or do you want the issue?

the policy is something that, you know, rallies your base. I'm sorry, the issue is something that rallies your base. The policy is you actually get what you want done, done. here I want the policy, not the issue. And I think there is, there can be, mixed motivations for some people. Yeah.

Paul Shapiro: Fair enough.

Well, speaking of choices, there are a lot of people who listen to this [00:42:00] show, who may be thinking about starting a company themselves, or maybe they're thinking about funding new companies that don't yet exist. GFI has a white space document about, things that you hope somebody will create where there may be a white space in the alternative protein world.

there's nobody who knows better than you. What. is needed out there in the world. So you mentioned there's hundreds of companies doing cultivated meat, even more than that on the plant based meat. And there's a lot doing fermentation derived proteins as well. But what do you hope exists that doesn't yet exist?

Or what do you hope somebody will do that others aren't yet doing enough? Is there something that you think would really make a big difference, to advance the goal of reducing the number of animals who are used for food?

Bruce Friedrich: Yeah. I mean, one of the things that I think has been the sort of most exciting thing on the cultivated meat side it's how many business to business companies there are.

if every company has to solve media and cell line development and scaffolding and bioreactors, it's going to be very slow. even, you know, even beyond the fact that you don't want every company having to solve every [00:43:00] issue, in, in individually as a company in a silo. so some of the companies that have come along and they're designing media, or they're designing cell lines, or they're designing bioreactors, or they're designing scaffolding, is very exciting.

I would encourage people to look at some of the GFI resources. So, for example, if you read our techno economic analysis, or you watch the, presentation from Elliot Swartz in March, where he walked through what are the cost drivers across the entire production chain of cultivated meat. Thank you. A variety of things will stand out.

one of them is the cost of albumin. I could imagine a synthetic albumin or some sort of albumin replacement. That might also be a really interesting thing for artificial intelligence. You know, artificial intelligence is being used for biomedical applications. It's being used for drug development.

It's being used for, you know, better beer. AI could be used to figure out a synthetic albumin. or some of the growth factors that are just astronomically expensive. It's It's what does it look like to replace those? and being a little, you know, a B2B company that figures those things out.

Paul Shapiro: Interestingly [00:44:00] enough, after this cultivated meat series is done on the podcast, the, one of the first episodes we're going to be doing is actually on alternative albumin. So, there's a company in Israel called Palopo. which is growing albumin inside of potatoes, doing molecular farming. And so rather than getting microorganisms to express albumin, they're getting potatoes to produce albumin and it's pretty cool.

it's a pretty cool technology. Palopo in Hebrew means here and not here. And so it's basically, you know, it's like the protein is here, but not really here. So anyway,it's interesting. You mentioned albumin because if folks are interested in albumin, stay tuned to a subsequent episode of this podcast.

And Bruce, we'll link to all of those resources that you mentioned from GFI on this episode's show, show notes as well, so that people can easily access them for sure at business for good podcast. com. Let me just ask you finally, can I

Bruce Friedrich: test out a couple of additional company ideas? I only got one.

Paul Shapiro: Oh, I'm so sorry.

I did not know that. Okay. I'm ready b2b. Okay, that's good. I'm ready

Bruce Friedrich: albumin and gross growth factors are a couple ideas But if you watch elliot's [00:45:00] presentation and he's going to update that update that annually, you'll get a lot more ideas on the plant based side we're about to be releasing or maybe not about but we're in the process and we'll soon release the techno economic analysis as well as a life cycle analysis of plant based meat and we already have something that models what it would look like to get to six percent You plant based meat in 2030.

and there are some pretty obvious places there, where alternatives could be, extraordinarily valuable. two of them that I will mention, one is what would it look like to get the off flavors out of soy and pea protein. so that could be a pretty fascinating genetic editing. Genetic editing company, and I think you would end up supplying kind of the entire plant based meat industry if you solve that problem.

One of the really big cost drivers for plant based meat right now is the flavors that have to be added to offset. The off flavors of the base product. another one is, at least right now, coconut oil, is the [00:46:00] fat that mimics animal fat, in most of the plant based meat companies, maybe all of the plant based meat companies that are doing the best job, of mimicking animal meat.

it uses relatively a lot of land. and it's a relatively expensive, plant based meat is still, you know, requires significantly less land than, you know, chicken, beef, pork, farmed fish. but one of the brave big land drivers as much as the base ingredient, the soy or the pea, is the coconut oil.

and there's literally not enough coconut oil in the world, to get to like 25%. Plant based meat. So a synthetic alternative to that. and so many more examples. If you just read the production volume modeling report, we also have at G. F. I. dot org slash A. S. A. P. which is advancing solutions and alternative proteins, roughly a gazillion additional ideas.

So so many companies that could be formed that are not just focused on let's get products to market, but let's actually win on mission. and, the last one I'll say that that's super fascinating to me, is using [00:47:00] mycoproteins. So biomass fermentation, as a global hunger intervention, there's some pretty fascinating stuff that myco technology is doing, In India and Oman, obviously Oman is not, I don't think they have almost any hunger, but the technology really is focused on, sort of a food security application that I think would work globally, and then another very, exciting company called Essential, and they are looking, at using mycoprotein, in Kenya and some other African countries.

as a direct hunger and malnutrition intervention. so those are a couple of ideas. But if you're, if you're staying, abreast, of the ecosystem, via GFIs, various newsletters, et cetera, we have monthly business of Alt Protein and monthly, science of Alt Protein webinars and lots and lots of other opportunities to plug in and get involved.

Paul Shapiro: Cool. Yeah, I'll make two quick comments. The first on mycoprotein, which I, of course, I'm a huge fan of, needless to say, because that's what I devote my life to in my career through the Better Meat Co. But really interestingly, when I was in [00:48:00] the UK last year, I went to KFC to look at the menu because I knew that corn, Q U O R N, was on there.

And really impressively, Corn was not only on the KFC menu, but it was pretty much at price parity. It was like not exact, but it was for all intents and purposes, it was at price parity. And this was pretty astounding to me that corn is at such a scale now, admittedly, they've been around for decades, but that they've gone to such a scale that they not only are on fast food menus.

But at nearly price parity today, not in the future, but actually today, and it was to me, it was very affirming and inspirational that you can essentially grow food and bioreactors that can have the price come way down. Because a lot of people are saying, look, you just can't do this through this type of fermentation technology in any way that's ever going to be cost competitive with commodity meat.

Whereas obviously that is not true given what I saw and I'll include in this episode page on the website, a link to the menu because I took a photo of the menu. It's really [00:49:00] cool to see, but I'll include that. So you can see that the second is on coconut oil, and I just want to make the point that. You know, people like coconut oil in this industry because it's saturated fat, which is the way you know what's in beef, right?

So you want something to have the same mouthfeel you with the same kind of fat. As you point out, though, there's not enough coconuts on the planet to do this. However, while I hope there is some synthetic alternative that gets developed, I will note that, palm oil has been vilified and it is a major deforester.

Not as much as beef, obviously, but palm oil has been vilified and okay. Look at that. Bruce is holding up, Hannah Richie's book, which was also mentioned by our last guest, Patricia Bubner from, excuse me, from, or Billy on bio, but You know, palm oil is way, way, way more efficient at land use than coconut oil.

And this was brought up also by a previous guest of ours who wrote the book resetting the table or a professor rich, Robert Paul Berg. And, you know, to get the same amount of [00:50:00] fat out of a coconut tree compared to a palm tree takes 20 times more land. 20 times more land. And so people think that they're doing something good by switching from palm oil to coconut oil, or by maybe avoiding palm oil containing products and eating coconut oil products.

But in reality, it's far, far more land intensive to use coconut oil than palm oil. Now, these companies don't want to use palm oil because it's been vilified so much, but this is an example in my view of something where the PR has, you know, of course, of course, like I'm not saying the palm oil industry is great for the planet, but compared to coconut oil, it's a lot more efficient.

It's a lot more efficient.

Bruce Friedrich: It's a lot more efficient, but I think, I mean, I think Hannah's point in the book is that, yes, palm oil is contributing to deforestation. and you should not buy palm oil that contributes to deforestation. but you should do what Dr. Bronner's does, which is source your palm oil without deforestation.

It's not inherent. In palm oil that they need to deforest for it. So, palm oil is leading to a lot more deforestation than coconut oil [00:51:00] But you know further to your point sustainably produced palm oil is going to be less land intensive than sustainably produced coconut oil. It's a little bit like, it was interesting.

I've been reading about cobalt production and just the sort of slave labor in the congo and just incredible, horrible, conditions for Congolese, miners of cobalt for, EV batteries. And, and I was thinking, you know, gosh, this is horrible. We should boycott that. and then, I read Amnesty International's page on it, and they were saying, no, people are, you know, mining like this because it's, you know, better than dying.

The solution is not. Boycott cobalt, the solution is ensure that the cobalt, is produced humanely, that there's a living wage, et cetera. I think the same thing is true of palm oil. You need to, you know, follow the, the lead of, of the sort of good certifiers. the folks like Dr. Bronner's who are producing palm oil, in a way that doesn't lead to deforestation rather than just.

You know, boycott the product for [00:52:00] the sake of boycotting the product,

Paul Shapiro: right? And there is an argument to be made that also cobalt and other minerals for EV batteries are actually pretty abundant on the seabed floor. And so it might be less damaging to the environment than to scrape them off of the seabed floor than it is to actually mine on terrestrial land.

And it's not suggesting that it's, an environmentally, Non taxing way, but it might be better than what is currently done in places like the Congo. And so, I listened to something recently about this. That was basically making the argument that this is the least bad option to get cobalt and other things that are that you don't have to dig into the seabed floor.

It's literally sitting on top of it. I don't know. Much about the topic, but it is something I was listening to recently.

Bruce Friedrich: Hannah Richie also. I mean, so we'll just keep plugging her book, but it's, not the end of the world. and she also dives into the minerals mining question. I don't remember her talking about the, seabed cobalt mining.

but the basic thesis is that, yes, you have [00:53:00] to mine some minerals. Once you have mined the minerals, they're already, you know, they're in the cars, they're in the, wind turbines, they're in the, solar panels, et cetera. you can recycle them, whereas if you're mining, you know, oil or you're mining coal, you mine it, you use it, you have to mine more, et cetera.

So in addition to the fact that it's a fraction, of the extraction, the extraction, you know, happens once while you're building the industry and then it doesn't have to have to happen again to the same degree. Thank you.

Paul Shapiro: Maybe that'll be their, their slogan. The frack, what you said, a fraction of the extraction.

Very good. Yeah. Very good. Very good. okay, Bruce, you, you've mentioned a lot of resources, but if there's somebody who is listening to this and they really want to make a difference, they want to either start their own company, join a company, invest in a company, anything that's going to advance the alternative protein space, what resources would you recommend for them?

Anything they should check out that you think might be helpful in their journey.

Bruce Friedrich: I mean, I think a phenomenal place to start is going to be gfi. org slash newsletters. we do have monthly business of all protein webinars, monthly science of alternative proteins [00:54:00] webinars. we have more than 50 soon to be more than 70 chapters on university campuses around the world.

we've got kind of a steady stream of journal articles and reports and we do, webinars on most of them. so, a lot of ways for people to get. Involved. and I think if you're, you know, if you're following that for a little while, you will almost certainly find ways to plug in. I will also note GFI is a non profit organization.

we operate, six GFIs around the world. I don't think folks could do much better philanthropically than GFI. We're one of charity navigators, top four charities for climate impact. we're one of giving Greens top, I think, six,charities for climate impact, top charity from animal charity evaluators, they've all evaluated, our leadership, our impact, our OKR system, and, so would be super grateful for anybody who has room in their philanthropic portfolio, to consider us.

Paul Shapiro: All right. Very good. Well spoken like the true founder of your own organization to plug your organization's, donation capacity to intake. But, I'm grateful for the [00:55:00] work that GFI does. I'm grateful for the work that you Bruce both do at GFI and have done for the past several decades to try to make the world a better place.

There's very few people who walk that walk more than you, who I personally know. So I'm grateful to you for it. I'll be rooting for your and GFI's continued success, and I just implore you keep wearing your bike helmet.

Bruce Friedrich: Right, right back at you on everything but the bike element, Paul. Thanks so much.