Turning the Tide for Tuna: Impact Food’s Kelly Pan

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

Kelly Pan: Thank you, Paul.

Paul Shapiro: It's really great to be talking with you. I got really excited because I saw that your new plant based tuna is in PokeWorks, which is the biggest poke chain in the USA. Now, just before people get too excited, you're not in every single one of them, but you are getting in there.

So I want to just tease this conversation by mentioning that, but we'll come to it and how that came to pass in a little bit. But I want to first ask you, Kelly. You're devoting your life to trying to prevent the need for us to take tuna out of the ocean and put them into PokeWorks by putting your own plant based tuna into PokeWorks instead.

So what was it that led to that? Like, what made you have this concern that you're like, Ah, I'm devoting my life to helping tuna fish.

Kelly Pan: Yeah, that's a great question. And my story actually starts back in 2020 in spring while I was a student at UC Berkeley. So at the time I was studying business and I had actually just started a D2C [00:01:00] skincare brand.

And before that I had worked on a couple other startups and ed tech and other sectors, but hadn't quite looked at anything in the food space. But I had always been a really big foodie. So when I saw that UC Berkeley was having a course called the UC Berkeley Alternative Meats Challenge Lab. I was really intrigued by just the idea of being able to go to class and try new foods.

So when I got there, I started to learn more about the industrial food production system and just realized that it was really devastating the way that we treat animals and also how unsustainable it is and harmful for our environment. So at that point, I started to transition to eating a more plant based diet and just realized that I was really missing a lot of the foods that I had learned to love over time, such as seafood and sushi.

And when I, whenever I go out to eat with my friends, there's always meat at the center of the plate. So I realized that I needed to do something [00:02:00] about that. And I was really fortunate that I was able to meet my co founders in that course as well. Initially just starting off as a class project where we were.

Three students from very different backgrounds. I was studying business. One of my co founders, Stephanie, she was finishing up a master's in computer science and electrical engineering. And then our third co founder, Adrian, he was finishing up a undergrad degree in biochemistry. And so together we combined our fields of expertise in order to work towards transforming the global food system together and realized that we could do that with food science.

Paul Shapiro: That's really cool, Kelly. That's really cool. I do want to ask because, you know, you're saying, well, I was an undergrad at UC Berkeley, and I had already started a skin care startup and other startups. Like, most people never start a company, let alone have they done multiple before they're even done with their undergrads.

So what was the social environment for you, Kelly? Like, when you were growing up, like, why were you thinking? I can start companies. You know, [00:03:00] most people would never have that thought, right? But you're an undergrad in college thinking I'm going to start my own company. So did you grow up around other entrepreneurs?

Are you listening to things about entrepreneurship? Like, why was it that you were thinking, oh yeah, of course I'm, I'm, you know, 20 years old or even a teenager and I'm going to start my own company.

Kelly Pan: Yeah, I think I was definitely always in an area of a lot of entrepreneurial influence. And I grew up in a family of entrepreneurs where my parents were both small business owners and my grandparents had also started businesses of their own.

So I've always just been really inspired by my family. And for the longest time I had seen how hard they worked and. At some point too, I had thought, I don't know if I ever want to do that. It just sounds like a lot of work and a lot of stress, but eventually it just came to the point that a lot of my family members, they do this because they're really passionate about something that they're working on.

And I guess that kind of came into my blood as well. And eventually I [00:04:00] had that entrepreneurial itch and wanted to start something. So that's how I started my first company, the skincare brand. But then I realized I had a bigger passion in food and decided to really embark on this completely new journey instead.

Paul Shapiro: What happened to the skincare brand? Did it cease to exist? Did you sell the company? Like what was the outcome for it?

Kelly Pan: Yeah. So at the time it was still pretty small. We were, it was pretty much just me doing it myself. I'm mom was helping a little bit as well, but because e commerce and skincare beauty is such an oversaturated space.

We were also, as soon as we launched the brand, the pandemic happened. So at the time I had also been just running this class and I was also just really overwhelmed at school and trying to balance being a sophomore in college. So I realized that at the time I wanted to prioritize my studies and. Focus on that instead and because I hadn't invested too much resources into it.

It was a bit easier [00:05:00] to just step away from that and then start working on this class project that eventually I ended up devoting everything to and graduating early a semester early so that I could really focus on this full time.

Paul Shapiro: Very cool. Very cool. So this is so impact food then is your first venture back to business.

And so this is actually selling shares in the company. We'll get to that. I'm excited to talk about that. I will just make a quick note. So, my wife, Tony really never had like any like quote unquote skincare routine until very, very recently. And yeah, she's in her mid thirties and, some, Company just sent her some brand center, some stuff, and she started using it and she absolutely loves it.

And now she's like, totally obsessed every night. She's doing all this skin care stuff and I have never done it. And she's now encouraging me to do it. So it's a topic about which I know very little. So maybe some other time, not on the show. We can talk about that. But, I've, for better or worse done nothing in this realm myself, but my wife is very into it now.

So, so maybe if you get back into that field ever, you'll have a customer in [00:06:00] her. We'll see. but. Yeah. You then, all right, you're, you're, you abandon your skincare aspirations in order to shift to something that, as you just said, you thought had greater meaning in the world, which was essentially trying to solve this problem of, of how we provide protein, especially marine based protein to humanity.

So for those who aren't initiated Kelly, like first, what's the problem that you're trying to solve? Like you view this as something that is not just, you know, good for. yourself as an entrepreneur and hopefully you'll make money at, but you view it as something that is actually good for the world. So why?

Kelly Pan: Yeah, definitely. So for our oceans right now, they make up 70% of our planet and they're already really thick from climate change, but our industrial food production system is complete, continuing to deplete our oceans through commercial fishing by continuing the demand. It's. Always greater than the supply and many fish species such as tuna cannot be farmed So [00:07:00] once those supplies are gone, it really affects the entire health of the global ecosystem Not just in our oceans, but also with ripple effects onto the land as well.

So there's a lot of biodiversity loss in addition to the bycatch in our oceans And also just the destruction of many different ecosystems that affect both the marine life and, across our entire globe. So we realized that we really needed to do something about that in order to produce high quality seafood that can be consistently supplied and meet that global demand.

Paul Shapiro: Cool. So you said something that really caught my attention, which is that tuna can't be farmed, which is interesting because we do farm many species of fish. So, you know, we're farming all types of fish in these factory farms that we call aquaculture. Why can't tuna be farmed like that?

Kelly Pan: Yeah, so tuna is an apex predator, which means that it is at the top of the food supply chain.

And in that case, when the [00:08:00] tunas are taken out, it really affects the entire ecosystem. And that's why the species also can only be wild caught. And in that case, when tunas can only be wild caught, the supply in the ocean is only as much as is supplied. And That's why we are unable to farm a species like tuna and need to find more sustainable ways to produce this type of fish,

Paul Shapiro: right?

So tuna, you know, many people could think about fish as kind of like all the same, but really it's kind of like trying to farm tigers, right? Mm-hmm. Like you just really can't do it. 'cause these massive predators are just not going to take well to the overcrowded conditions that are needed in order to make aquaculture profitable.

Is that, is that your understanding?

Kelly Pan: Yeah. So that's a good analogy of comparing it to tigers. Like with this apex predator, they main, they help to maintain a lot of that balance in the [00:09:00] wild ecosystem. So we need to have them as part of the system, same way that we need to have sharks and other types of predators so that they can be able to maintain that balance across the entire food

Paul Shapiro: chain.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. It also, you know, it takes years for these animals to reach full size weight, right? So it's not like, you know, we, we've bred chickens to become slaughter weights in only a matter of weeks or pigs and only a matter of months. Like, you know, tuna don't reach like full grown size really until they're many years old.

So it's pretty hard to, it's pretty hard to farm them. And even if you did, you'd have to be capturing them. Lots and lots of fish from the ocean to feed them because these are carnivorous fish. so it would really be obviating the whole purpose of trying to, take pressure off of the oceans by not farming them.

So you mentioned Kelly that in 2021, you decided, you know, you wanted to start this company. You want to try to do something with impact foods. There are other companies that are doing plant based [00:10:00] seafood, as you know. So why did you think that you had something different to offer? Like, what was it that you wanted to bring to the table?

That was somehow. different or better than the current plant based seafood options on the market right now.

Kelly Pan: Yeah. At the time, we were pretty inspired by a lot of the terrestrial meat products like chicken and beef and pork, but seafood was still very much a white space at the time. Another thing that people don't realize is that with seafood, there's so many different species in the ocean and so many opportunities.

That still aren't tapped into. So we, for one saw a really interesting opportunity to explore these really difficult, complex creatures. And for us, we saw that a lot of products out in the market at the time, many were marinated whole vegetables, such as marinated tomatoes or carrots. And then we saw some other products that were breaded or fried like fish sticks and fish burgers.

And there wasn't really quite anything in the whole cut space yet. So that was an area [00:11:00] that we really wanted to explore. And also for me, selfishly, when I was thinking about what type of alternative protein to work on, I was thinking about what is something that I just can't live without. And for me, that answer was sushi.

So I realized that one, I wanted to develop something that could replicate the experience of sushi that I loved so much, and also something that could truly be sustainable and realistic to those conventional animal counterparts. So that's why we decided to focus on creating whole muscle structured.

Paul Shapiro: Fish. So what'd you do? Like you're, you decided for all the reasons you just noted, you wanted to do something like a whole cut tuna, but you were, you know, obviously you didn't have access to labs or any, you know, extensive amount of capital to hire, you know, lots of people or have expensive biotech.

So. What did you do to actually create a whole muscle tuna alternative with the limited resources that you had?

Kelly Pan: Yeah, [00:12:00] so because of our limited resources, we've always had to be very creative and scrappy in our approach to problem solving. So the three of us initially, we both relied on the resources that we learned in the class.

So while we were in the alternative meat lab, With that was taught by Dr Ricardo San Martin. He was also really great resource in terms of connecting us to industry professionals and learn reading a lot of papers and talking to academia. So initially, it was just a lot of learning and experimenting and a lot of trial and error to even figure out.

What type of seafood prototype are we creating? And actually, initially, the first prototypes that we created were meant to be an imitation crab product. So we first started with that. And then at some point, the product started looking more like tuna and we realized sustainability wise, there was a much more compelling story for tuna as well.

But beyond that, there is just a lot [00:13:00] of that trial and error and turning our Individual homes at some point after the class into our own d i y labs was how we were doing our experimentation for a while.

Paul Shapiro: So you're DIYing it at basically like in your own private residences, but then eventually you guys decide that you're going to move over to Kitchen Town in San Mateo, which is, do you wanna describe what KitchenTown is?

It's a really great resource for early stage startups.

Kelly Pan: Yeah, kitchen count have been really great for us and that they provided us with a lab space as well as commercial kitchen space. So when we're ready to start production, we can also use that facility as well. So at that point, we also started our company in the midst of the pandemic.

So that was another reason why we were kind of split in different locations like Adrian and Stephanie being in the Bay Area. Turning their homes into DIY labs and then my home in Southern California [00:14:00] being our sensory lab and we would ship products back and forth. So Kitchen Town was a really great solution for us to all actually come together in one space and started forming a more lab that could be outside of our own bedroom so that our houses don't need to be smelling like fish every day.

But yeah, that had been really helpful. They also had a cafe space that we could do sensory panels in and start getting feedback and also some culinary experts there as well. So that was really helpful for us as a resource.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah. I love kitchen town. I, it's been very useful in my life and I know for many other folks, it's a really great way to be able to have access to lots of food production equipment without having to purchase it yourself.

So, if you are thinking about starting a food company and you're, you're looking. For some cool space where you can do experimentation, check out kitchen town and cemetery, and we'll include a link to them in the show notes of this episode at business for good podcast. com. So I want to [00:15:00] ask you, Kelly, you describe impact food as a food technology company.

And I'm wondering what is the technology? Right. So, you know, obviously you're not doing a deep biotech. You're not using bioreactors, it's, you know, et cetera, but you are using technology. So what is the tech that you're doing and what are the ingredients? Like, what is this tuna made of that you're selling and what's the tech that you're using to create this whole muscle feel?

Kelly Pan: Yeah, for sure. So for us, when we first started out, we wanted to really understand what makes up seafood composition. So we studied the biochemical composition and realized that the unique texture development of many species of fish is really determined by the quality of their muscle fibers, which can be affected by their species, their age, the seasonality and freshness.

And at Impact Food, what we did is develop a novel biochemical approach where we can match those properties of [00:16:00] seafood by texturizing a unique blend of plant ingredients. So, for example, for tuna, our first product, our main ingredients are pea protein, algae, and vegetable juice. And from there, we're essentially transforming our seafood base of these plant ingredients into a tasty and nutritious meal.

Whole cut of seafood.

Paul Shapiro: Cool. So if you're taking pea protein, algae, and vegetable juice, and you're turning it into something like, what is that process? You put it into something that creates something that looks different from the original components, right? So like what, you know, don't give away any proprietary secrets here, obviously.

But what, what is it as an extrusion process? Is it some other type of texturization process? Like obviously pea protein doesn't naturally have a whole tuna cut feel. So what is the technology that you're utilizing?

Kelly Pan: Yeah, so our core technology is primarily rooted in a gel protein matrix, so it's similar to hydrogel technology that's [00:17:00] used for wound dressings and some other biotech solutions, and essentially what it's doing is cross linking bio derived polymers, so for example, taking a solid, like a p protein, and then combining it with a liquid, like water, to form this hydrogel Structure that allows it to have that similar mouthfeel and bite of conventional seafood.

Paul Shapiro: Nice. Well, I can't wait to try it. I know that you're in several restaurants right now in California. Are you outside of California yet or no?

Kelly Pan: Right now we are just in California, but we were recently at fancy food shows and starting to explore outside of California and then also hopefully internationally soon as well.

Paul Shapiro: Great. So are you producing this product at? At Kitchentown right now, or are you producing it at a co manufacturer

Kelly Pan: right now? We are producing it out of our shared commercial kitchen space out of San Francisco [00:18:00] Kitchentown pilot facility. Okay.

Paul Shapiro: So I know you're in poke works Which again is the largest poke chain in the country, but you're in is it one location in Irvine?

Am I right about that?

Kelly Pan: Yes, we're currently at one location

Paul Shapiro: in Irvine Okay, cool. So let's just say that the Irvine test that they are doing goes really well. And they call you up and they say, Kelly, we love the impact tuna. It's fantastic. We want to put it in every book. It works. How soon would you be able to supply them?

Kelly Pan: Yeah, so right now we've been working on the supply chain, and the most difficult part of this process actually is more on the distribution side because we're producing this in the Bay Area, so trying to set up distribution so that we can get the product down to Southern California, which we're also having in the works right now, and PokeWorks has been really supportive on that end as well.

So we can get the product to them pretty quickly. And we've actually been taking steps to do that because the first [00:19:00] half of the test had actually gone pretty well. We sold out in a little over a week. So right now we're sending them new product that they're receiving next week. And then we'll be continuing

Paul Shapiro: from there.

Nice. It would also be interesting. I presume you don't have access to this inside data, but I know that PokeWorks does have a tofu option. So they have like actual fish. They have tofu. And now at that at that location in Irvine, they have impact tuna. It would be interesting to know, is this cutting into the fish?

Demand from there, or is it cutting into the tofu demand? Right? Like if somebody who would have ordered tofu going to buy impact tuna, or as somebody who would have bought actual tuna buying impact tuna, I don't know if you would know that information or not.

Kelly Pan: Yeah, they've actually been really supportive and helpful in providing us with some of that data.

And we actually do know that within the first week, our product had sold about the same quantity as their tofu typically does. And that's also not yet being on any of their third party delivering platforms or on any of the main menus. So, [00:20:00] this product had so far already been doing well just from sampling and just being in their display case.

And what we realized through is just that more consumer education would allow the product to have more of that exposure. And many of the consumers that were trying the product as well would order one of one scoop of the plant based option and then one scoop of the real tuna option. So they wouldn't necessarily be consumers that are completely vegan or vegetarian, but just choosing.

Have to be a more sustainable or healthy option,

Paul Shapiro: right? So you at least have some evidence based on the last thing that you just said that, you know, it's not as if, people who would have ordered tofu or just ordering this instead, like you actually are cutting into the tuna demand there. If people were bidding one scoop of tuna and one scoop of this, just very impressive.

So is it more expensive than the tuna? Like it was poke works pay impact more for its impact tuna than it pays to the tuna providers for the actual tuna.

Kelly Pan: We actually have still been doing [00:21:00] some price testing as we scale our production, but as of right now, they've been selling their plant based tuna option as the same price as their conventional tuna option.

Paul Shapiro: Nice. That's really impressive. I'm thrilled to hear that. What an experiment to see, like, if people had the option where there is price parity there. actually happens. and that leads me then to ask why pea protein, Kelly, because pea protein is obviously a lot more expensive than soy protein, which is very commonly used in everything from Impossible Foods to Morningstar and Guardian and so many other plant based brands.

So, because soy protein is so much cheaper than pea protein, And because Japanese cuisine already relies a lot on soy from obviously tofu and edamame, but soy sauce and miso and natto and so many other soy products, like obviously there's not a concern in Japanese cuisine about eating soy. Why not reduce your own cost of goods by switching to soy protein rather than pea protein?

Kelly Pan: So with our formulation, we [00:22:00] can actually use any protein source and we just happened with our supply chain and suppliers to find a very clean pea protein that worked well in our formula matrix. So we have actually experimented with soy and previously the concerns were more around Gluten in the U. S.

But as you mentioned, Japanese cuisine will usually put the product in a soy sauce anyways, so it negates that concern. But as of right now, the pea protein works well in our product, but we haven't been completely opposed to swapping it out for another protein source in a future product iteration.

Paul Shapiro: Cool.

Well, let's talk about future product iterations because, you know, I've, I've read Kelly that you are interested, not just in tuna, but that you're also still exploring the crustacean market. crustaceans are generally a lot more expensive than at least skipjack tuna. So skipjack are these smaller tuna fish, not like these big bluefin tuna who are much more expensive, but you know, skipjack tuna can be as low as [00:23:00] a few dollars a pound wholesale.

whereas, crabs wholesale are much more than that. Right now, so you could have a much easier time undercutting the incumbent on cost. If you were focused on crab, it's also a really major animal welfare problem for crabs. Like, you know, all these animals are literally boiled alive. It's pretty barbaric.

so is there going to be an impact crab in addition to the impact tuna? and then I want to come back to the soy question after, but speaking of product iterations, since you mentioned that, will there soon be another SKU for impact aside from the tuna that would be focused on crustaceans?

Kelly Pan: As of right now, we're more focused on leveraging our seafood technology platform for producing more whole cuts of raw fish.

So right now I'm more looking at Different parts of the tuna. So potentially a fattier version like the total or later on looking at adding in more striations or a complex texture to form a salmon product. So right now we're a bit more focused on producing the whole cut [00:24:00] versions of raw seafood that can be used to produce a whole impact sashimi platter.

It's more of the vision that we're focused on currently.

Paul Shapiro: Okay, cool. Well, I, I can't wait to try the product. I, I have like a, a personal affinity for soy because I think it is so unfairly maligned and it's such a great food, but in my own experience, pea protein tends to be about at least twice the cost of soy protein.

And so, you know, if your main ingredient is your protein base, you can literally have the cost by, by moving to soy. So, I, I'm sure you will do what is best for your product. but as somebody who I know wants to make a difference. Which means having to undercut on price as well. for what it's worth.

I am a, I'm an advocate for companies using soy because I think that's a really great ingredient and it's so inexpensive too. Now, speaking of money, I do want to ask you, Kelly. So I know that you raised half a million dollars, right? Am I correct in that? It was like last year, I think.

Kelly Pan: As of now, we've raised a little under a million, so we've raised a bit more since then.

Paul Shapiro: Cool. Okay. So you've raised a little under a million [00:25:00] dollars, which of course for a Norway State startup is a very healthy amount. Is there going to come a time when you're going to go down the route that some of these other food tech startups have been going where you're going to be raising tens of millions of dollars?

Is that what you're seeking? Or do you see a pathway to profitability and eventually exit without having to take such massive investments of

Kelly Pan: capital? We do see a path to profitability for our process as of right now. Our company has been able to run pretty lean and we pride ourselves on being pretty scrappy and creative in our approach to solving a lot of business problems and challenges.

And for us, that's really what has allowed us to get so far, getting to commercialization and scaling our product with. Pretty limited resources on the capital front. So from there, we actually, even right now, our cogs are relatively low compared to most alternative protein companies. And with that competitive advantage, [00:26:00] we're really able to get to mass market scale.

And do it pretty cost effectively and eventually have the path to profitability be much sooner than having to raise tens of millions of dollars. But right now we are in the process of raising a seed round, but it's not in the tens of millions of dollars.

Paul Shapiro: Okay. well, I, I very much look forward to seeing a press release about the closure of your seed round and, and hopefully it'll provide you with enough runway to get what you need to get done, actually done.

So I'm really excited, Kelly. I can't wait to try the products myself. I, you know, I was never, I've been vegan for more than, or for about 30 years now. It was in 1993 that I decided to make that choice. And so. I'm not the best judge of whether something tastes like tuna or not, but I can judge as to whether I like the product or not.

So I can't wait to try it. so next time I'm in the Bay area, I'll, I'll go try some impact tuna. Let me ask you, obviously you are a serial entrepreneur [00:27:00] now, even in your early twenties. And so you probably have thought about other company ideas that. You would like to see people start, you're going to be focused on impact for some time, especially if you close the seed round and you raise some, let's say seven figures of capital, it probably means you're going to be doing impact for some time.

So are there other companies that you wish somebody else would start that you've thought about that could do some good in the world that you want to give them an idea? So they're thinking, geez, I really like this Kelly person. She's very inspirational. I wonder what I could do to have her type of success.

So what would you recommend to somebody who's thinking that Kelly?

Kelly Pan: I've always had a lot of different ideas that there's so many different things that can still have creative solutions to, and I think one of them is related to the current food waste problems. There's whether it's related to packaging or potentially upcycling products and using byproducts for new means, even right now, like when I was a student at.

UC Berkeley, there was always the goal of being [00:28:00] waste free by 2020 or by whichever date. And even right now, just taking away some of the trash cans doesn't necessarily remove that food waste. So I think there needs to be better ways of mitigating these issues and being able to find ways to solve food waste or might not be a.

Specific magic solution, but there's some ways that we can reduce our impact on that and be more sustainable as a whole, whether it's being a more circular economy or just having ways that we can. I'm not do as much harm on the environment. And I think another thing that I had been thinking about was related to distribution.

As I mentioned previously, that's another big challenge that food companies me, especially when navigating. An industry that is still so traditional. So when we look at food service, there's so many different food service [00:29:00] management centers or distributors, and there's so many different things to navigate that if there is a way to connect all of that, or.

Just to make it easier to, get through that process, that would definitely be something that's

Paul Shapiro: really helpful. Cool. So those are two good ideas. I appreciate you throwing them out, you know, on the food waste thing. I was actually just researching. I just wrote a blog about this that, so, you know, one thing that people know who are initiated in the food space, there's always a statistic.

Well, 40% of food is just wasted, right? And that is, you know, just horrible. I'm talking about in the United States. That is, and it's obviously horrible. yet about 25% of meat is wasted. And you think about that 25% of meat means over 2 billion animals. So that means that there's. Literally billions of animals who are raised on factory farms and undergo the treatment and slaughter plants simply to be thrown into landfills.

It's not like they're going into pet food. They're like, literally going into [00:30:00] landfills. And so this is really, you know, 1 of the, most sobering statistics that I have heard in a long time. And, it's hard to know, you know, what the best solution for this is. I, I wish we could feed all of that meat.

To in, in, into pet food, actually, since a huge number of animals are raised and slaughtered for pet food as well. but I'll include a link to that blog at the show notes on business for good podcast. com. If folks want to look more into that issue and maybe they'll be inspired Kelly, and there'll be a future guest on this show who will come and say that because of something that you said during this episode, they started their own company.

So we'll see, finally. That would be great. Finally, Kelly, let me ask you, obviously you, as you noted, you have been in an entrepreneurial family. You've been an entrepreneurial social environment. you took this class at UC Berkeley, which has a big focus on entrepreneurial space in the, in the alternative protein sector.

So. Are there resources that you would recommend things that have been helpful for you along this journey that you've been on that you would [00:31:00] recommend to listeners if they want to learn some of what you've learned as well.

Kelly Pan: The most helpful resources for myself and my entrepreneurial journey has primarily been the network that I've been able to.

build and also the community of food entrepreneurs. When I was first starting out and just trying to figure out how do I even start a food business, I actually just cold emailed a lot of the info at whichever company and you'd be surprised how many of those entrepreneurs responded because their journeys have been, like maybe just a year ahead of where we currently are.

And so those entrepreneurs have been really great in helping us get to where we are now. And even at the Alternative Meat Lab at UC Berkeley, the other founders like Jessica at Sundial Foods and Kim at Prime Roots and the Black Sheep Foods team, there's so many of these people that have gone through similar paths that have been [00:32:00] really helpful in providing resources and even just advice on how they scaled their products and how they went through fundraising.

That have been that networking community that has supported our journey. And there was also a book that I recently read and have constantly referred back to called delivering happiness by Tony. She of Zappos, that's really about following your passions and really enjoying the process because that's something that's really resonated along our.

Business journey and that it's really important to pursue meaningful work and always come back to our why why are we doing this when things get tough and that's really what allows us to continue working on this journey and realizing that the hard moments will pass through. And as long as we're enjoying the process and having fun, that's what really matters.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah, you know, I haven't read Tony's book when there were many obituaries written about [00:33:00] him when he sadly passed away and I intended to read that book, his,the delivering happiness and, you saying this Kelly will probably catalyze me to finally go read it now. So we'll include link to that book as well as the show notes for this episode at business for good podcast dot com and I really appreciate.

What you're doing, Kelly, I really admire what you're doing to try to save our friends in the ocean and they need it. plant based meat right now as a whole is still about 1% of the total volume of the meat industry. And it's way smaller. And plant based seafood plant based seafood is not even 1%. It's much, much less when you look at the total volume of seafood consumed in the United States to the amount of it.

That is plant based. So the world needs what you're doing, Kelly, and I'll be rooting for your success and hoping to see impact on. Every poke menu across the country. Same. So thanks so much.

Kelly Pan: Thank you. I'm really excited for you to finally try our product as well. And thank you so much for [00:34:00] having me on your podcast.

I actually listen to this pretty regularly, so it's really surreal and exciting to finally be on it.

Paul Shapiro: I'm honored to be talking with you, Kelly. I look forward to having you on as a repeat guest. You mentioned Kim from prime roots. She's been on more than once as well. So, maybe you, when you get into thousands of locations and people can more easily access impact tuna, we'll bring you back on and I can't wait to talk about the success that you're having then,

Kelly Pan: thank you so much.