Is Your Cat Ready to Eat Cultivated Mouse Meat? Shannon Falconer and Because Animals Think So

Shannon Falconer: [00:00:00] The biggest motivation and the biggest source of inspiration has actually been animals and volunteering in so many different wealth shelters and rescue. And it's the animals themselves that have inspired me and kept me going in those very, very, very dark moments. As there are many in doing a startup, it's the animals themselves that have, have really kept me in line.

Paul Shapiro: Welcome to The Business for Good podcast to show where we spotlight companies making money by making the world a better. I'm your host, Paul Shapiro, and if you share a passion for using commerce to solve many of the world's most pressing problems, then this is the show for you. Greetings friends, and welcome to the 76 episode of The Business For Good Podcast.

Listeners really seem to like the last episode with Equips food CEO Alon Steinhardt. Presume we, since everybody really loves ice cream, if you didn't listen to episode 75 with the A one, go check it out. I think you'll really like it. But not everyone was so psyched. They don't yet have equips in [00:01:00] their favorite supermarket or maybe even in their city.

As exciting as Equips Foods is one listener writes, This is coming from Todd. You've got me all stoked to eat their ice cream, but I can't buy it yet. Well, Todd, I'm very sorry about that, but good things come to those who wait. And from what Aon says, Equips is indeed coming to your town soon. So remember, patience is a virtue even when dealing with ice cream.

Now, speaking of patients, I get asked all the time, especially by people who read my 2018 book, Clean Meat. When is meat grown from animal cells actually gonna be on the market? Well, friends, it turns out that 2021 was the first year that cultivated meat hit the market, the Singaporean market that is, there have been lots of small private tastings for journalists and investors and friends of the startups in this space.

But even as plant-based meat continues to race along in its quest to displace meat from slaughtered animals. Cultivated meat is still barely at the starting line. Now, the company featured in this episode because animals is trying to change that, but their goal is not to get you to enjoy their products.

Rather, they [00:02:00] want your cat to enjoy them, or really they wanna prevent all the fish and chickens and other animals. Your cat is currently eating to enjoy their product, which is called cultivated mouse meat. I. That's right. Cats have been eating mice for millennia, but just maybe they are about to start eating cultivated mice because animals debuted what they call their harmless hunt mouse meat cookies at a recent pet industry conference in the United States.

And in this episode, we hear all about those very special cookies. We'll hear about who the actual mice are from whom the stem cells came, and how they were biopsied, where they were biopsied, what their lives are like now, and how because animals intends to win regulatory approval for those cells. We'll also hear about what those cells are currently doing to help all of animal kind, and we discuss the first of a kind cat treats, what percentage mouse meat they are and how cats actually respond to them.

We'll also discuss the economics of growing mouse meat, the best names to call such meat, how many farm animals are needed for the pet food [00:03:00] industry and more, as you'll hear so far, because animals has raised six and a half million dollars in investor funding and will soon be going out for its series.

Shannon encourages interested investors to contact her atShannon@becauseanimals.com. Again, that's shannon@becauseanimals.com. So if you're as excited about because Animals as I am, I hope you'll send her a note. Now, with that, I'll let Shannon make the case. So whether you're enjoying Equipped Ice cream while listening to this episode, or if you're patiently waiting for Equips to come to a store near you.

I hope you enjoyed this conversation with because Animal CEO Shannon Falconer, as much as I. Shannon, welcome to the Business for Good Podcast.

Shannon Falconer: Thank you very much, Paul. I'm excited to be.

Paul Shapiro: It's great to be chatting. So you and I have a somewhat similar background in that we are both fanatic animal lovers who were devoting much of our life to trying to help animals in a more direct way, shall we say, of doing actual like animal advocacy work.

So tell me before we get into [00:04:00] your work as a microbiologist and an entrepreneur, like what got you hooked on animals in the first place?

Shannon Falconer: Well, I grew up with three dogs and three. They were pretty much my siblings and I, I developed a really close relationship with them at a young age, and I felt a connection with all animals.

And so for that reason, I stopped eating meat in my very early teens and started volunteering with animal shelters, my late teens. And then that continued throughout my adulthood in a pretty significant way, but it always focused on cat and dog rescue. And, but I, I, as you mentioned, I am a, a scientist by training, and so I would sort of by the, in the daytime, so would spend, you know, my time at the bench and then in the evenings doing things related to largely tnr, so trapped or released cat rescue.

And had many different foster dogs and cats coming through my door. But I didn't ever see this sort of opportunity for these two worlds, like my, my passion for animal animal welfare and my, my science merging. And then it wasn't until I was working as a postdoc at [00:05:00] Stanford and. You know, nine outta 10 people on Stanford campus have a startup.

And this is probably, I mean, the only place in the world where anything and everything is possible. And it was at that point that I said, Yeah, I'm, I'm, I want to dedicate my, my life and my, my scientific training to taking animals outta the supply chain. And it was at that point that because animals was born,

Paul Shapiro: Wow.

So you know, there are some people who are animal lovers who go into science for the purpose of trying to help animals. You know, somebody like Marie Gibbons who was at Upside and now is at Vow Foods. Both of those are cultivated meat companies, but you just happen to. Be in the very training coincidentally, that could do more for animals than maybe anything else.

You know, do you ever think about just how far it is that is that you had already gone through all of this micro biological training and turns out that the thing that might do the most for good for animals is microbiology?

Shannon Falconer: You know, interestingly, it had never occurred to me. In fact, I, I really didn't see any way for my [00:06:00] scientific training to help animals.

Because unfortunately, if you are a biomedical scientist, that the odds are actually that the research that you do would be used on animals at some point. Even if you are not doing any tests or experiments on animals themselves, whatever your relation, your results, if they are translational, at some point they will be tested on animals.

And so I was deeply uncomfortable with this and I, I had always been deeply uncomfortable with it. And so if anything, I actually felt as though my training might be, you know, it was doing more harm than good. It was a great moment for me when I actually realized that I could apply it in a very positive way, but I, I definitely had to step right over that line and sort of cross into it into a different world, which is food making

Paul Shapiro: food.

So what was that like for you, Shannon? So you're sitting there at Stanford thinking, you know, should I continue, you know, doing this type of biomed work, which might ultimately even harm animals as you mentioned? Or you know, should I start a food company that could do [00:07:00] something with this training? Most of the people who have faced that choice have started human food companies, right?

They've started companies that will grow cultivated meat or some other type of animal free protein. For human beings to eat. But you thought, Actually I want to do something that will be feeding dogs and cats. Why? So initially

Shannon Falconer: I also thought that I would put my scientific knowledge to use in the human food sector because of course, humans are the main consumers of animal based products.

But then as I started to think about it more deeply and sort of consider, well, I myself, I mean, haven't eaten animals for decades now, and I have many, many options to feed myself. I, I'm not want. I definitely promote more options, but I'm doing just fine. But my challenge is feeding my fosters or, or my own pet, and I'm pretty much more or less forced to support an industry that I otherwise don't.

So that was sort of the first thinking around, okay, maybe pet food. But then of course I also thought the way most. [00:08:00] Other people think, ah, is pet food really gonna move the needle because it's only the so-called scraps of animal meat and byproducts that go into pet food? And is this gonna have any effect at all?

And this is the most sort of staggering piece I'd say. This was the, the moment when I, when I, my jaw sort of dropped her. It wasn't one moment, it was while I was continuing to do more research and I started to understand just how much the animal agriculture industry is propped up by being able to sell.

So 4D need or animals that are dead disease, dying or disabled, the industry doesn't like that term, so they don't use it. They refer to these animals as fallen animals, so largely animals that die during transit or due to suff or dehydration or a stick. And if an animal doesn't make it to slaughter, Then that animal basically is sheed into pet food.

So all of those animals, which is a huge percentage, I mean, relatively speaking, say up to 20% that may never make it to slaughter. Those animals [00:09:00] combined with the other 50% of an animal that humans don't want eat. All of that meat is then sent to something called a rendering facility. And because this is heavily diseased and infected, basically carcasses at this point and different cuts and, and parts of an animal.

So it's sent to this rendering facility where all of this tissue is subjected to really high heat and pressure to sterilize the. And at that point then all of that, that scoop is then used to make pet food. But what basically, when you think of how much meat, so 25 million tons, and this is just in the US and Canada alone, every year more than 25 million tons of animals is basically sent to these rendering facilit.

And to put it another way, just to give listeners a perspective as to what that means. If pet food, if these animals were not used for pet food, then not only would the animal agriculture industry not benefit from being able to [00:10:00] sell all of this otherwise unsellable meat, they would also have to pay to have it disposed of as biohazardous waste.

And within four years, all landfills in the United States would be. From these disposed animals. So it is a very, very, very significant part of animal agriculture. And before, because animals came along, there really was nobody looking at this. I mean, certainly there was some, there are some pioneers in the industry like feed dogs, and we can talk about this a little bit later.

But I mean, plant based is really niche when it comes to, to cat and dog food. So basically nobody was looking at this, and yet if we ever. To disrupt the animal agriculture industry, we've got to address pet food.

Paul Shapiro: You mentioned Vdo. Of course there's also Wild Earth. I don't know if they're founding predates because animals or not.

Actually, so what year was, because animals sounded 2016. Two 16. So does, So you predate them. Yeah. So you guys have been around for five [00:11:00] years now. Yeah. And you recently had this big announcement. And this announcement is essentially, you know, even though cultivated meat is not yet on the market for humans in the United States, it's only currently as, as of we we're recording this in October, 2021 in Singapore with Eat Jus Chicken there.

And apparently Qatar is going to approve the sale there at some point in the near future as well. But the US still hasn't approved the regulatory landscape for this. But you have created after five years of working feverishly to do so, the harmless hun cultured mouse cookies for cats. So first, you know, I want to hear all about these cookies, but then I wanna hear about the process for doing it and how you're going to actually sell it.

And is it elicit for use in animal food? So

Shannon Falconer: every country, of course, has its own regulatory process for both human food and for pet food. So although definitely our market is the US, [00:12:00] we absolutely are intending to sell our harm cultured cat cookies in the US at some point. We don't yet have the regulatory approval to sell cultured meat in the US and, and nor does anybody else.

So eventually we would, we would need to have that approval. And it is actually ASCO or the Center for Veterinary Medicine that falls under the umbrella of, Sorry, it's, Did I say asco? I said it is the fda, the Center of Veterinary Medicine falling under the umbrella of the FDA that would approve it. So

Paul Shapiro: eventually that, And sh Shannon and, and, sorry, sorry to interrupt you, but just for those who maybe aren't initiated, Afco is the Association of Animal of, excuse me, the association, the Association of American Feed Control Officials, which is essentially this voluntary non-governmental organization that does have a whole list of what's safe and what's not considered safe for animal food.

Right? Yes. Thank you for

Shannon Falconer: filling in that blank. Well, it took

Paul Shapiro: me a little while to fill it in, unfortunately. I guess I couldn't remember if it was American or animal, but either way, they're pretty strict. I [00:13:00] mean, I, I, I know that, you know, it's actually seemingly easier to use things for using ingredients for human consumption than it is for animal consumption because of how strict afco is on their, on their standards.

Shannon Falconer: It is, as you mentioned, it is a, a body of, it has no, I guess, regulatory power in the sense that it's, it doesn't have any legal, it, it can't enforce anything legally, but it is comprised of the number of stakeholders, the FDA being one of them and many other bodies, and being including meat organizations as well.

They are strict, but I wouldn't say they're unbiased is potentially one challenge, but the FDA also, so the other way to actually have a regulatory approval for pet. Other than going through an ACO petition would be from receiving FDA grass status. That's ultimately, that would be the, the path that, because animals would go down, but anyway,

Paul Shapiro: And grasp being an acronym for generally recognized as safe by the fda.

That's

Shannon Falconer: right. So, but in any case, yes, other countries have different [00:14:00] processes and so for us, when we launch our cultured, a very, very limited batch of our cultured Maed cat cookies. In the near future, it won't be in the us it will be in another jurisdiction where the regulatory framework is set up such that we are allowed to, we will be permitted to, to launch

Paul Shapiro: these cookies.

Ah, fascinating. So the US is losing out once again, US is horrible . I'm really sorry to hear that from a parochial point of view within the United States, but I am glad that you'll be releasing them. But you did serve them, at least for free in the US recently. Well,

Shannon Falconer: I mean, we launched cultured nice cat cookies at, at a large pet food expo, the largest in the world.

And a number of humans did eat them. I don't think there were, there were not any , there were not any cats there that sampled them, but certainly our own cats within the company. And friends, those cats did eat the cookies. Yes. And that's sort of, that's also, you know, we ask them, Okay, if we, if we make the base of the cultured me with this particular ingredient or this particular [00:15:00] ingredient, what do you prefer?

So cats let us know what their, what their taste preferences

Paul Shapiro: were. Got it. So you've conducted extraordinarily cruel and inhumane animal experiments by subjecting urine personal cats to these cookies to see how they like it. They were,

Shannon Falconer: They're, yes. They were. Cats within they were family cats within

Paul Shapiro: So yes. Mm-hmm. at the, at the better Miko. We've done actually a number of canine tests with our MyUM, where we've fed my dog, Eddie and other office dogs who quote unquote work at the Better Miko, various types of MyUM to see what they liked. And it's pretty popular with them. So I, I'm, I hope that you have the same success rate with your cultured mouse cookies here that you're feeding to your own cats here.

Tell me, so before we get to what's in these cookies, which I, I definitely want to talk about, what about the process of getting these cells like, so this is not a pro a product of. Fermentation where like what perfect day is doing, where there's no cow involved, there is a progenitor mouse who is associated with these.

So tell me [00:16:00] about the mouse or mice from whom these cells came and how that all happened, what your involvement in the procurement of the cells was and what happened to the mice? So the

Shannon Falconer: mice are still living. The, the mice that we initially took some cells from, actually two years later, they are still living with one of our tissue culture scientists in a or stem scientist rather, in a, in a plush mouse house in her home.

And at the two year mark, they're, they're considered geriatric for mice. So they are living the high life, that's for sure. So these mice we adopted from a, well, it was a research institute. These animals would've been used for research purposes otherwise, but we did take. We took a small sample of tissue from their ears and then after that they went to their, their forever home.

But we did take some tissue from their ears. And then from that point, basically we were able to derive the cells that we needed. And from there on perform it will be, our meat will be made of cells that ultimately came from Yeah, sort of mother cells from those [00:17:00] mice. And those cells will service in perpetuity.

So we will never have to go back to the.

Paul Shapiro: So why the ear, I presume you're not using actual ear meat here, that you're using like some ear biopsy to receive get stem cells or something. Is that right? Yes, that's right.

Shannon Falconer: I mean the ear, because it's the, it's the least. Invasive part, it's the easiest place to take some tissue and to not actually, it basically, it's the least

Paul Shapiro: invasive.

Got it. And what's the quantity of tissue here? Is this like a biopsy that you can see with your naked eye or is it like a scraping or what? No, you

Shannon Falconer: can see it, it would be the equivalent of something like an ear piercing for a human. So the mice, they were a, the size, they didn't feel it and they, they received pain medication afterwards.

So as far as we know, I mean, It was not perfect. I mean, we didn't want to actually have to take any cells from the mice. We didn't want them to have to be subjected to having sort of this, this ear piercing, if you will. But in any case, for we made the decision that in order to actually, these mice were not gonna be sacrificed, and in [00:18:00] order for us to actually create the product that we need, that will ultimately save lives on the order of hundreds of millions, fingers crossed, then this was something that we, we decided we would move forward.

Paul Shapiro: Right, For sure. I, I think any reasonable person looking at this would say, Look, these mice. In an animal experimentation lab where they would've been killed and the trade off was that they'll have a tiny ear piercing in exchange for not only getting to live another couple years, and as you say, the plush mouse house, but also the ability to actually do a lot of good for potentially millions of animals.

So let's talk then about the process. Once you have those cells. And you now have a chance to feed them. There's been a lot of discussion about what to feed cells, not only from the ethical perspective of, you know, some of the ingredients have in for animal cell culture, media have involved other animal ingredients, but also just for the price of bringing these, the cost of these types of products down.

So without giving away any of the, the great trade secrets have, because animals, what is [00:19:00] it that you feed those cells to get them to turn into the mass meat that goes into your harmless hunt Cookies.

Shannon Falconer: So we, in the, one of the first things that we did was we eliminated FBS or fetal bine serum, which I think is the animal ingredients that you're referring to from our media.

So FBS or fetal bine serum is, it's actually, it is considered one single ingredient, but it's made of lots of different nutrients. Or it contains many different nutrients as well as growth factors. So this has been, historically, this has been a challenge for researchers to remove from the media just because it is so incredibly rep nutritionally speaking.

So, This was one of the first things that we Absolutely, Yeah. Doubled down on because you can't make an animal free product using an animal based ingredient. So we, at this point, we do not use any, any animal ingredients whatsoever, and we were able to drop our costs going from the Fs, media based media to our animal free media by an order of magnitude.

So that's, [00:20:00] So at this point, what we feed ourselves is basically, or feed our, we're feeding the cells as they're growing inside the SP reactor, we're feeding them a combination of vitamins, mineral. Nutrients in general, that these cells need to grow and survive. So, and of course we're doing this in an environment that's warm, which would be inside of an animal, would be similar to a womb.

We do this in a bi reactor. It allows for the appropriate amount of gas exchange. And so the cells actually, they grow in a way that would be very similar to the way they would grow inside of the animal. But we're just growing them outside of the animal and we're, we're sort of re recapitulating that environment for.

Paul Shapiro: That's very cool. So from the time that you begin your process in your cultivator, how long is it before you have mouse meat that you're actually harvesting? It's about

Shannon Falconer: two weeks from start

Paul Shapiro: to finish, obviously. I don't know what the gestation time of a mouse is, but I, I presume it's somewhere in that range.

Is that right? You

Shannon Falconer: know what to be, to be totally honest, I'm not even, I, I'm not sure. I don't know much about about, I've never [00:21:00] worked on mice myself, so I don't know .

Paul Shapiro: Well, good news, Shannon. We do have Google in front of us , and it looks like, it looks like, so different mouse species have different gestation periods, but they all seem to be around 20 days or so, so like three weeks.

So you're, you're shaving off a week, a, a week in the womb there. So you have this mouse meat that after a couple weeks you're harvesting from your cultivator. It comes out, you know, I presume it's not structured like an actual mouse muscle, but it might be more like a, a slurry of like mouse protein here.

So what's the next step? Like how does this become a harmless hunt cookie?

Shannon Falconer: It exactly. It is not structured. We do just harvest that biomass that is pretty goofy. And then we blend it with other ingredients to put into this cookie. So at that point, it really is as sort of simple as, or similar to creating just any other cat cookie, which would be, take some, you know, you take your ingredients and here's one component of those ingredients.

You blend them together in the kitchen and put [00:22:00] them on a cookie tray and

Paul Shapiro: bake. Very cool. That, that's really cool. So with the eat just nuggets in Singapore, the company has been public about the fact that it is a hybridized product, right? So it is a majority chicken cells, but it, it also has other plant proteins that are in there as well.

So you're already, you saying, you know, these cookies are not entirely comprised of mouse cells. Of course you're blending it with other ingredients for a variety of reason. About how much of this is like a piece of mouse meat? Like is it a majority of the cookie or, or approximately What type of percentage are we talking here contains the cultivated meat

Shannon Falconer: For these cookies, it's 10%.

And this is one of the reasons why we did start with cookies is because we're intentionally, we're not creating a nutritionally complete food. We don't have to, This is an in between meal snack. And most treats or cookies on the market for cats and dogs are not nutritionally complete. So we did not need to focus on a very, this doesn't need to be the first ingredient.

For example, the cultured most meat. So [00:23:00] 10% certainly as we get better at scaling and bringing our costs down. Then we will. And as we move towards creating our nutritionally complete food, then that will become the major ingredient in the food. But nonetheless, we will always likely produce a product that is a hybrid product as you, as you say.

Because if you think about pet food right now, you are feeding, even if, even for people who are feeding their dogs or cats or raw diet, they're still blending that with other things. And so, The meat itself is not, There are many of the key nutrients in that meat that cats or dogs need, but it, it's not to say that other nutrients that may not necessarily be essential, but are definitely very, very beneficial for health.

They should be in there too, for the best diet

Paul Shapiro: possible. Got it. So when do you anticipate having an actually like complete cat food that you can put on the market?

Shannon Falconer: Well, I mean, I would, I would love to say next year, but I mean, in reality it will be, that [00:24:00] will be a few years out. So, yeah, in reality.

Paul Shapiro: So what do you recommend, I don't have cats myself, but I'm sure many people listening to this podcast do.

What do you recommend they feed them? So,

Shannon Falconer: the challenge with cats is that, so cats, of course, they are obligate carnivores, but what that means is that in the wild, their only source of complete nutrition is. Consuming another animal and, and we didn't talk about this previously, but I'll just say this is why we focused on mouse versus, for example, chicken or seafood or beef, which are the common ingredients in cat food today.

Those are also the main allergens for our cats and dogs. They're only used in pet food, of course, because they're left over from the human food supply chain. So we chose mouse because it is more evolutionarily appropriate for cats, hence doubling down on that small crate diet. But, So that's in the wild.

In the wild. Cats are obligated carnivores. When we think about cats that are domesticated, they're living in somebody's home and they're being fed a commercial diet, then things look a little bit different because [00:25:00] in reality, all animals, cats included, need specific nutrients rather than ingredients in order to survive and thrive.

And actually, remember we talked about this rendering process and about how harsh it. This high heat and high pressure that results in the loss of many key nutrients that are found in meat. And it's, it's for that reason. If, if someone were to pick up a bag of cat food, for instance, and let's talk abouting, because most people think about toing when they think about cats and not being able to go on a vegan diet.

Toing, which is a, a beta amino acid, which is essential for cats and in the wild can only be found in another. In pet food, you'll see toing explicitly listed on a label, and that's because toing is a very water soluble molecule and it is largely lost in that rendering process. So virtually all commercial cat food has toing added back to it, and that toing isn't coming from an animal.

It is a synthetic source. The pet food actually [00:26:00] is the largest purchaser of synthetic to in the world, and so many, most of those essential nutrients that would otherwise come from meat in the wild, they are synthetically produced and added to back to pet food. So for this reason, it is possible for cats to eat an animal free diet, commercial diet.

And so some companies have attempted to do this. Interestingly, the challenge though, really is not in actually formulating a food that is nutritionally complete for cats. The challenge is in cats wanting to eat it, it just tends not to taste very good. So this is, and of course, and the other, the other piece is just the marketing.

The marketing side is almost impossible cuz people are so hung up on this catheter obligate carnivores business, which is true again, only in the wild. Anyway, so for people who have cats right now, I would say there are definitely, there are vegan options available. Not very many, but they do exist. But if you [00:27:00] order this food and your cat doesn't want to eat it, cats are quite, they are very unique, unique beings and cats cause they don't like something they would actually, And like dogs are humans who would eventually eat something that they don't like.

Cats would just assume star themselves. So if your cat doesn't wanna eat it, You have to feed your cat something that they're going to enjoy, and that's probably gonna be

Paul Shapiro: meat. I used to have cats many years ago, and I did try some of the plant-based cat foods. And as you predict, as you, you know, suggested they just wouldn't need it.

I mean, it was just really bad. And so I tried like blending it, you know, not, not in a blender, but like mixing it with other foods and sometimes they would eat some of it that way. So at least I was like using less animal products. But I, I do think it's helpful to remember not all meat is equal either.

What I did was, you know, if you can, you know, let's say like a bison based food, while, you know, it's, it's a shame for the bison, obviously, but there's such huge animals that takes a very long time to be responsible for the death of one. And they're not [00:28:00] factory farmed either. So the suffering per animal and the number of animals, you know, there's hundreds and hundreds of cat quote unquote servings in a bison.

It seemed preferable to me. It seemed less objectionable than just buying like regular cat food made from, you know, sardines or, or chicken or something like that. But I would much rather have had harmless hunt cat food out there available for them for sure. And I wonder like, will that be the case that you're, you know, having that mouse component in there will address the palatability issues?

So if you can already synthetically make a plant-based cat food that's nutritionally complete, but the issue is palatability, is it the case? Mouse cells are gonna be, what adds that palatability? What do you think?

Shannon Falconer: Yeah, I think absolutely. And, and then the other, the other advantages that the me cells, in addition to adding the palatability, they will also contribute the, the nutrients to.

Because even though synthetic nutrients, so touring from an animal versus touring, that's synthetically made, I mean they are identical. I think, you know, as well [00:29:00] as I do that consumers tend to, they don't necessarily see it this way, and so if they see or hear of something being synthetic, they're immediately put off.

And so in the case of our cultured mouse, the cat would be receiving naturally sourced or, or the ne nutrients would be natural versus synthetic. And the cool thing is that that's actually different from, you know, that will be, that's unique, right? Because in commercial cat food today, they're probably buying a, a general standard commercial pet food.

And those nutrients are synthetically, those are synthetic forms to

Paul Shapiro: nutrients for sure. I mean, there, there's a queer public perception you know, unfounded, but still there that, you know, something that comes from nature is necessarily going to be better. This something that's human. It's not the case, but it is a, a perception that it has to be dealt with.

I just wanna go back real quick to the grass FDA issue that you're referring to, Shannon, and ask you about that because I don't know what it's like to get generally recognized as [00:30:00] safe status for pet food. But in human food, you know, you basically have two pathways. You can either say, Hey, this food has been consumed since prior to 1958, which is when this process began.

Or you can do safety studies to show that it is actually safe. So companies like Perfect Day, which are making way protein that is identical to a cows WHE protein don't have to do new safety tests. They just have to show that it's the same exact food just produced in a different way. And so they succeeded in getting their grass acceptance from fda.

Not by, you know, doing a battery of new safety studies, but just instead showing that this is the same exact food that people have been needing for a long time. Whereas a company like Impossible Foods making their heme has to say, you know, this hasn't, this isn't identical. It hasn't been consumed prior to 1958.

And so they actually did tests, a battery of tests to prove the safety of their new heme that is in their burgers. And FDA eventually concluded that. This is safe. We don't have any [00:31:00] questions about this. So which route would you take? Would you go to the Perfect day route and say, Hey, you know, mice have been, have been eaten by cats for Len.

Or some type of safety testing that you would do to show this is safe for cats? Yeah, no, great question.

Shannon Falconer: We will also pursue the the former path, which is similar to, to Perfect day and exactly making the argument just as you, as you state, I mean, cats evolved eating mice. There should be for us to then say, you know, we have to prove the safety seems a little bit ridiculous given that this is actually their ancestral native diet.

Paul Shapiro: Well, that will be really fascinating. I, I cannot wait to read your grass notice when you submit it to fda. If you don't mind, please make sure you flag me when you submit it so that I, I can read it because I will be, that, that will be the most riveting weekend reading that, that I'll have, so I can't wait to see that.

That's great. Shannon, you probably saw an article that was widely disseminated throughout the EEN community recently by a publication I had not heard of prior, called the Counter. And in [00:32:00] that article basically the author relies on a techno economic analysis that was admittedly funded by various meat industry interests, but still came to the conclusion that cultivating animal cells to make meat products will just never be economically viable.

I presume that you disagree, which is why you're pursuing this path, but did you see the story? And if so, what do you think of it and why do you think that you're going to prove them wrong?

Shannon Falconer: I saw the story, I saw the headline, and I'll be honest with you, I just didn't bother reading it.

Paul Shapiro: It was very long.

I wondered how many people who were posting it to say, Aha on social media, Like people who hate the cultivated media industry. You know, they were posting it to, you know, basically affirm their position. And I wondered how many of them actually read this, like a multi-thousand word article. But anyway, sorry to interrupt you, but anyway, so you've seen the article, Shannon, why are you gonna prove them wrong?

Shannon Falconer: Basically for the cultured meat industry or cultivated meat industry is, is quite new. I mean, for all I intents and purposes, nobody's really focused on this, been doing this for, It's only been within the last 10 years and [00:33:00] really only within the last couple of years that enough companies with, with some money have actually been trying to bring the cost down.

So, and the scale up. So if, if we think about anything in science, it takes a while in order for us to actually make significant strides to get to a price point that would or could be economically viable. We see it in other industries, and so for us to say right now, ah, cultivate meat, it's never gonna make it because it's never gonna be economically viable.

Let's look at where we are today. It's incredibly shortsighted. We may have to. Wait another, say, 10 years in order for us to actually be price competitive with very, very cheap meat today. But I would say in the last several years, the industry has already made significant strides. Granted, these were, you know, when you start with something very, very expensive, it doesn't take a lot to actually move the needle.

And so as we get closer, it [00:34:00] will be harder and harder. There have been very few scientists and there's been very little money that's been funneled into this space working on solving this problem up until now. And even now, I mean, relative to, for example, the, the pharma industry. I mean, it's very few brains, very little money.

But as we grow both in terms of brains and dollars, we will, of course, we will be able to see, I'd say quite staggering reductions in terms of.

Paul Shapiro: Well, from your lips to the heavens, Shannon. I, I certainly hope that happens. So speaking of money, just outta curiosity, how much in the five years since you were founded has, Because animals raised so far from investors, we've

Shannon Falconer: raised a total of 6.7 million to date.

So not very much. When we, when I think about, or compare it to other cult cultivated meat c. We have received some nice non-dilutive funding. We have a, a lab in Canada right now, so we've received some non-dilutive funding from the Canadian government, which is [00:35:00] terrific, but we are about to go out for our series A fund fundraise in early 2022.

I anticipate, yeah, that that's coming up

Paul Shapiro: fast. That's fantastic. So let me ask you, you have used Shannon, the term cultured meat and cultivated meat interchangeably in this, as many people do, of course. Do you have a preference? I know this is always this perennial in tropic of interest to people in the space.

Do you have a preference between those two or any thoughts in particular about any of the more commonly used terms in the industry?

Shannon Falconer: Well, I prefer cultured to cultivate it. That said, I know GFI recently sent out a survey to all CEOs in the cultured slash cultivated meat company industry. And consensus was the preferences cultivated.

So I'm slowly trying to switch my nomenclature over to cultivated in order to, Yeah, I mean, I think uniformity is definitely important. But I do prefer

Paul Shapiro: cultured. Maybe as a scientist and a microbiologist, you do prefer cultured, since that's a, a term that's more commonly used in, in that field. So I don't [00:36:00] know.

I don't have a big preference between those two. I think I have a feeling that cell based is definitely like a suboptimal name. Not only because all meat, not cuz all meat is cell based, so it doesn't really differentiate. But it's just very sciencey. You know, not many people wake up thinking, Hmm, can't wait to eat some sales this morning.

I do think cultured and cultivated both seem pretty reasonable to me, but if the growing consensus is cultivated, I'm very happy to use it as well. I guess I'd probably prefer cultivated over cultured, but either way, you know, they're kind of like six and half dozen to me. So Shannon, I wanna first ask you before we get into these final couple questions, you say you're going into an A round.

If people are particularly enthusiastic about wanting to learn more and explore the investment opportunities and because animals, how can they get in touch with you?

Shannon Falconer: They can email you directly atShannon@becauseanimals.com, that's probably the best way.

Paul Shapiro: Okay, well, we'll include that in the show notes and we'll see how many people want to take you up on that.

So I do wanna ask you though, before we [00:37:00] adjourn here, Shannon, there are all types of companies that you could have started, right? You decided to get into this field because you wanted to help animals. You wanted to create something that would enable people to have the animals who we love without having to harm so many animals in the process of keeping them alive.

So what else might you have done? Like if you were somebody, let's say, who was in college or any, at any point in their career, who was thinking about starting a company to help animals? What would you advise that they consider doing? You obviously chose this path of pet food, but is there something else that you wish somebody else would get started doing?

I have

Shannon Falconer: to say that although there's been some, there has been progress and there's been some really great attempts. I would say at this moment there is yet, I've yet to taste a really, really good vegan cheese. So if somebody could crack that nut that would be fantastic.

Paul Shapiro: And it may indeed be literally a nut that they are cracking since a lot of these cheeses are made from nuts.

But all right, so you want more plant-based cheese companies in the world. So we'll see it. It doesn't seem to be an area that is lacking with investor [00:38:00] interest right now and with startups. So that would be what perhaps even

Shannon Falconer: I mean, it may be that a perfect day or perfect day is way en casing or another company that's making something similar.

Maybe that would be the better protein service as opposed to, to. Plant based, I'm not sure, but just in terms of teeth.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah. Yeah. Very good point. In fact, perfect day just announced. So of course they've only had ice cream on the market, but they did just announce working with a company called Modern Kitchen.

They are releasing a, I think it's a spreadable cheese, and you can go pre-order it now on their website. Which I can assure you I have already done to get to be a first taster to see, see how that is. So we'll see. But it was pretty amazing that just this week that we're recording, they announced another $350 million fundraising round, which is truly, truly astounding.

And for those who wanna hear their story, you can go back and will share it in the show notes. The founders of Perfect. Or not only a chapter in my book, Clean Meet, but they're also a podcast episode here, one of our back episodes. So I'll link to that in case you wanna go back and and listen to that. [00:39:00] So finally, Shannon, let me just ask you, you've been at the entrepreneurial game now for half a decade.

I presume there are lots of resources that have been helpful for you. If somebody is looking at you and they're thinking, ah, I really love what she's doing. That's really cool. I wonder how can I be more like her? Are there any resources that you would recommend, whether they be books or anything else that were helpful for you in your own journey that you would recommend to other people?

Shannon Falconer: I think certainly there have been people and, and books and there have been inspirational moments, and I've received a ton of help along the way, and you've been a fantastic supporter as well. But I'd say for me personally, the biggest motivation and the biggest. Source of inspiration has actually been animals and volunteering in so many different wealth shelters and rescues.

And it's the animals themselves that have inspired me and kept me going in those very, very, very dark moments. As there are many in doing a startup, it's the animals themselves that have, have really kept me in line. [00:40:00] So they tend to be what I come back.

Paul Shapiro: Well, I certainly have a lot of allegiance to them. I wouldn't mind if on my tombstone though, honestly I don't really even want a tombstone anyway.

But if the thing that I was remembered for was being a species trader, it would not bother me in one shape when one iotta. Yeah, I have a lot of allegiance to them. I was actually joking to my wife recently. So our dog, Eddie, who we originally fostered and then decided just to keep him, but we were fostering a couple dogs at that time and we ended up adopting the other one out to this other family.

But we kept him, and we've had him now for nearly two years. I just think about like if you looked at a pie chart, Of the sources of happiness in my own life and my own welfare enhancement, he would be such a huge portion of that pie chart. It would be like truly astounding. And so no matter how tough things get in my life, having him around definitely is like an antidote to those tough times.

So I, I hear you loud and queer on that, and I empathize with your feelings as. Very dramatically there. So Shannon, let [00:41:00] me say thank you for all that you're doing and all that you're trying to do to help give animals a better shake in this world than what they're currently getting. And I will be rooting for your A round to be a big success, and I hope to become a customer of yours.

I will. I already am a customer of yours for some of your earlier, non cultivated products, but when I can get my hands on some harmless hunt products, I can assure you, while I have no. I would be buying them for myself just to be able to say that I had because animals cultivated me. So I can't wait to do

Shannon Falconer: that.

Excellent. Well, thank you very much, Paula. Thank you for having me on your show. I really appreciate it.

Paul Shapiro: Thanks for listening. We hope you found use in this episode. If so, don't keep it to yourself. Please leave us a five star rating on iTunes or wherever you get your podcast. And as always, we hope you will be in the business of doing good.