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

Maya Sapir-Mir: Hi, Paul. Thank you. It's happy to be here.

Paul Shapiro: Really great to be with you. I have to ask you straight off the bat, you know, you are a plant biologist. One of the times you look at these companies that are doing egg replacements, it's like people like Arturo Elizondo from,the every company who has, you know, life was really as an animal advocate prior to starting it.

Josh Tetrick, who is deeply motivated by animal welfare. What's your motivation? You know, you have a PhD in plant biology. I, I know that you know, a colleague of mine, Dr. Maran Farhi, is also a plant biologist who you worked with years ago, but what's your motivation? Why do you want to replace eggs? And why do you want to replace chickens with your, with your egg, with your egg proteins?

Maya Sapir-Mir: So, first. And, and always it's plants. Plants are such brilliant creature. I don't know how to say they are amazing. Since the day I started [00:01:00] working with plant, I was fascinating, but the opportunity and the benefits that we can get from plants without ruining our world. And this is the first.

Motivation. I can also say that my co founder, Dr. Aya Lieberman Aloni, she's also vegan, so the incentive to stop eating animals and stop using animals is also there. But plants, plants are Of such an amazing thing to work with

Paul Shapiro: very cool. Well, I love learning about plants. I've learned a lot about plants from your former colleague who I just referenced actually.

and I, as somebody who loves plants and I'm, I'm glad to know, you know, part of your motivation and your co founders is, is to protect the planet and animals. But, I just want to get to the controversial question right at the front that I always ask people who are plant biologists with there's no real dispute.

That animals feel pain. You know, if you cut an animal, you know, there is somebody home who feels pain, right? You can hear the animal screaming. do you [00:02:00] think that's true with plants? If you cut a branch off? So you have a plant behind you. If you cut a branch off of there, do you think there's any form of consciousness in the plant at all?

That would say, Hey, that hurts me. Is there a me who is there?

Maya Sapir-Mir: Wow, that's a huge question. I don't think so. I do think that they feel in the sense that if an animal touches the plant, it's, it does change something inside the plant, but it's just like a mechanism to,to deal with what you have outside of the plant plant can't move.

They need to do everything they do without moving. So the reactions. are there, but I think they're not as we see it in humans or in animals.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah, that would be my, that would be my thought also. But, you know, when I talk to people who know exponentially more about plants than I do, I always like to ask that to see what more informed minds think of of myself.

So we've gotten in your motivations. I've asked you this, unrelated or I guess [00:03:00] tangentially related question to your business, but let's talk about what you were doing prior. You know, you founded this company only two years ago. You've already raised a couple million dollars in pre seed money, but what were you doing prior to founding this company?

Maya Sapir-Mir: So first, as you mentioned, I have a PhD in plant sciences. and they did a, a, my PhD and a postdoc in Ani center in a great lab when I, where, where I fell in love in plants. And also met my, co-founder Ryan. I also, I'm also married. I have three kids, that I am raising. My oldest, she's 15 already, so Wow.

They're really grown up. and after I finished my postdoc, I, for me, I always knew that, I won't stay in the, in the academy. It's not for me to be a researcher, even though I really enjoyed the time in the academy. so the natural way outside of the [00:04:00] academy at the, way back when I finished my postdoc, it was to the cannabis industry.

And I found myself in a very small cannabis, industry company, that did the R and D. on the volatiles, in cannabis, not the cannabinoids. it, we had a great r and d, but, it's not, it wasn't the same for me as what I did in the, in the, in the academia mechanic center. And all the time I, I looked for something different and,I also know now that I am an entrepreneur by heart.

So, I think that it also was something that I, I felt that I need to do something with my knowledge, with my expertise, but in the sense of, of, from the business side, when I worked in the. Cannabis, a startup, the food tech in Israel just started. And I saw some, the first steps of, the big companies that we see today, like Aleph Farms and Remil, and it just [00:05:00] clicked me really fast for me and also with me and Raya and many, many conversation and brainstorming that we did, that the opportunity with plants is huge.

And back then we had cold plan that is doing collagen in tobacco, but, it was just molecular farming. Wasn't there yet. We didn't even call it molecular farming, but for us, it was so obvious that this is what. We need to do to grow proteins inside plan.

Paul Shapiro: Okay, so let's chat about molecular farming because a lot of people have heard of precision fermentation, which for the way person is basically a type of fermentation where you are bioengineering a microorganism to act as a factory to excrete a certain protein that you want.

So certain companies, let's say, like perfect day or the every company or gel tour. Okay, They essentially take microorganisms, bioengineer them to excrete the protein they want, whether it's a [00:06:00] dairy protein, an egg protein, a collagen protein, and so on. And so you can grow actual animal proteins, not things that are similar to or things that are akin to, but actual real animal proteins inside of microorganisms.

But in order to do that, you need bioreactors, these big stainless steel fermenters, where you have to pay a lot of capital expenditure in order to get. the proper environment to do that. And so it costs a lot of money, a lot of capital expenditure associated with doing that. You say that there is a better way by using plants as your factory rather than microorganisms.

So tell us about why you think that is better Maya and what you're doing about it.

Maya Sapir-Mir: First, you actually said it all molecular farming is just like precision fermentation in the sense of the protein that we are producing, but we're doing it in whole plant. For us in Palopo, we are doing it in potatoes, that only the, the tuber, the part that we eat will accumulate, the, the target protein.

[00:07:00] so in the sense of what we get, the product itself, it's the same as precision fermentation. But the advantage is that we are not using those big bioreactors, these big machines, those big factories. We just need a field. We are growing In common agriculture, the plants that we know, the plants that we eat, only we do it in order to get the target protein.

So in the sense, first, it's a lot more cost effective to grow potatoes. It's really, really cheap. And scale up is also really easy because you only need another field. You don't need to build those big factories.

Paul Shapiro: So you're essentially taking a potato plant, you're bioengineering it. So the potato plant is going to contain, in this case, egg proteins.

Now, those egg proteins, they're oval albumin, but there's lots of proteins in an egg, right? So why this one protein? Like, I mean, I imagine [00:08:00] this does not, Replace an entire egg. It replaces the albumin that gets used as an ingredient in certain foods like ice creams and other foods that albumin can go into.

So why this one protein as opposed to any other egg protein?

Maya Sapir-Mir: So, first, I'm For palao, egg protein, just the first protein, that we are going to produce, the, the technology around, palao is first and most, our, super AA platform. Potatoes doesn't contain a lot of proteins at the moment.

The regular potatoes in our potatoes, we're elevating the, the protein content inside the potatoes, so it's actually a platform to produce proteins.

Paul Shapiro: What does the super AA stand for? What's AA?

Maya Sapir-Mir: Amino acids. It's like,

Paul Shapiro: Oh, okay.

Maya Sapir-Mir: Super amino acids. And, And, Yeah.

Paul Shapiro: And while we're on this topic, what does polopo mean?

I tried to find this out online. It wasn't so obvious to me. [00:09:00] So I pretend the poe is for potato, but lopo was not clear to me. What's the low on the poe for?

Maya Sapir-Mir: So the poe is for here in Hebrew and lopo is like not here in Hebrew. So the protein is actually here, but it doesn't originate from here. Ah,

Paul Shapiro: so it was.

All right.

Maya Sapir-Mir: And now that you know that it's potatoes, it's also plenty.

Paul Shapiro: I'm so glad that I asked because I was trying to figure this out and I, I just, I didn't see anything in any articles. Okay. So here and not here and your super amino acid platform. Okay. Sorry for interrupting you Maya, but please go on.

So you're, you're, you're making a potato. That is the platform to grow proteins in this particular case, this particular egg protein. Why that egg protein? I know you're saying you can do lots of them, but why are you starting with albumin?

Maya Sapir-Mir: So we're, we're starting with, of albumin because it's a great protein, it has a, a great nutritious value and it's actually the main, the main protein inside the, inside eggs, inside the white, part of [00:10:00] the egg.

It can whip, it can glue, it has many, many functionalities. We believe that together, with the background of the potato proteins, we will have a superior product compared to other products that we see in the egg substitutes.

Paul Shapiro: Interesting. So you are, so you could not use your albumen to make us a omelet or a scrambled egg.

You could use it as an ingredient in an ice cream or a baked good or other things that use albumen as a functional ingredient. Is that right?

Maya Sapir-Mir: Sure. This is also the scope of the company. We're a B2B ingredient company. Our product is a, a functional protein powder and that goes Into specific, food applications,in the food industry, not at the moment for, for,house use as an omen

Paul Shapiro: and [00:11:00] how much more expensive is albumin on the market than eggs.

So presumably albumin as an ingredient as an isolated ingredient costs a lot more than an egg does. Right. So, like, what's the target price to compete on cost? With albumin from actual chicken eggs.

Maya Sapir-Mir: So if I'm not mistaken, the price albumin changes because the price of eggs always going up, but,the last time we checked, the price of albumin is around 25 per kilo, 30 per kilo, something like that from eggs.

Of course.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah. And what, and how close can you get to that? Like, are you going to be starting at a multiple over that? Are you starting at close to price parity to what is the P how good is the potato at making albumin compared to the chicken?

Maya Sapir-Mir: So of course we will have time until we will get to the scale that will match the price of eggs of albumin from eggs.

But this is the [00:12:00] target we're looking off on, a lot lower prices than we are seeing precision fermentation today. When producing,proteins. Even from the start in all our models because potatoes are such a resilient crop that has a lot huge yield per dunam, per land, then we see that it could be cost effective Pretty fast.

Paul Shapiro: Interesting. And so how much protein is in one potato here? So I know you're saying proteins typically don't have much protein, but the polo po potato has how much?

Maya Sapir-Mir: So, I can't say specifically how much we got to because it's still, you know, still confidential, but I can tell you that,we got to a better stage that we, then we thought that we'll be in a year from starting.

It's always a comparison to the regular potatoes and we have,more than [00:13:00] 50%. Elevated in this compared to to wild type when growing. So it's pretty amazing what what our team achieved in such a fast in such a short time.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah. So do you think there's a market for the actual potato? Not just as an isolated albumin that you could sell B to B but for an actual high protein potato.

Do you think there's enough is 50 percent protein 50 percent increase in protein enough that you could market the actual potatoes as like a higher protein potato?

Maya Sapir-Mir: So first I'm sure there's a market for that, potato. if you will look on the potato proteins, they are also compared to other plants, they have a great nutritious value and they have a great functionality.

and they also are tasteless. compared to if we're looking on on soy for, for example, so it's a great protein as it is as for eating the potato itself, protein chips, I, [00:14:00] I believe it's amazing. And if we're talking about feeding the growing population, those are the directions that we need to go to, but our potatoes are GMO, fully GMO.

And at the moment, the regulation is more,tied on this,issue. So we are, we're still concentrating on extracting the protein and sell it as a non GMO product.

Paul Shapiro: Got it. So the potatoes themselves may be a hot potato, regulatorily speaking, you would say. But just to be clear for people who may not comprehend the difference that you were just making, the potato itself Is bioengineered the protein when extracted from the potato is not bioengineered by at least U.

S. standards. You can sell that protein without the surrounding potato as a non GMO product. Is that true in Europe? Also, if the protein itself is non GMO, but it came from a GMO plant, does that count as non GMO in Europe?

Maya Sapir-Mir: [00:15:00] So in Europe, it's more, it's more strict and I think that as, and, and this issue is also for precision fermentation and all the molecular farming companies, it's not just for molecular farming and only for polopo, it's, it's for all extracted protein from, from a different, also from microorganisms.

In Europe, I think it's still a novel food first, because we're talking on a new food. So it's different,regulatory process. And at the moment we are, we're concentrating on the U S market, because it's more open to, grow GMO, to use GMO. And of course, to sell those products that are.

Extracted without the DNA inside them, and then they're considered a non GMO when the river,

Paul Shapiro: right? so other companies in the space like perfect day and every have essentially filed grass notices or generally recognized as safe notices with the U. S. Food and drug administration claiming that these are biosimilars, [00:16:00] right?

That this is identical to the proteins that they are growing and in their case, egg or dairy proteins. Have you filed with FDA or do you intend to file a biosimilar grass notice also? No.

Maya Sapir-Mir: So we will definitely file a grass, for grass notice. We are just as they are, as the every year are also,also producing egg proteins.

We, our proteins are identical to the source. And of course, potatoes are grass because we eat them already, but we are starting with the USDA. We're still need to, we have also the USDA for growing our potatoes. So it's. We have a few steps before we will start with the FDA, but definitely during this year, we will start looking into it.

Paul Shapiro: Got it. I know that Mulek, just got a USDA approval for their molecularly farmed pig protein. So they're growing pig proteins inside of soybeans. Now, soy is one of the cheapest things to grow. One of [00:17:00] the cheapest forms of protein on the planet. Why not use soybeans? you know, other companies like Mulek, they're using soybeans.

There's another Israeli company using lettuce to grow dairy proteins. I, I believe that, there are other companies using soy as well. So why potatoes over any other crop?

Maya Sapir-Mir: So, Each company has its vision and, it's,goals to, to achieve. We thought that potatoes, we didn't want to grow,our proteins inside the grains like soy.

We believe that the most. A expensive part is to separate the protein from a protein where when we are talking on the downstream process A potato doesn't have a lot of protein in it And we believe that in this sense it will make our extraction even cheaper when compared also a yield per land, I think that potato beats soy Okay something like a, I think [00:18:00] I don't want to be, I won't say because I don't want to make a mistake, but, I think it's more than two times a yield per, per land.

It's a huge, huge organ to accumulate protein in it.

Paul Shapiro: Got it. Yield, you mean by grams of product or calories produced? Obviously not by grams of protein, but by yield. Are you referring to the, the volume of the product or just the calories?

Maya Sapir-Mir: The No, no, the, the volume of the, of the grains or the potatoes itself, when you're talking about percentage, it, it's from something that is really big in really,

Paul Shapiro: yeah,

Maya Sapir-Mir: it was, and the, the weight.

So it's still comparable.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah, my colleague who I referenced earlier, Moran has told me he's regularly referred to potatoes as basically balls of sugar covered in a skin. And you know, that's a, maybe not, not a lot of room for protein in there until now. so that's exciting now in other types of molecular farming, sometimes they're growing the proteins in the weaves of the plant.

In your case, you're growing it in the actual potato. Is that just because [00:19:00] there's so much room inside the potato that you don't feel the need to grow it in the weaves?

Maya Sapir-Mir: It's also because of,the room that we have in a potato, but also because leaves need to do photosynthesis. We want our potatoes to grow regularly.

We don't want to, affect any of the growth, any of the, photosynthesis,mechanism of the plant. It was important to us that we will be able to work with the growers that already grow potatoes to also work with the production lines that already extract starch, for example, so the whole, the whole line of production already exists.

So this is why we also didn't go to work on leaves and

Paul Shapiro: also because of the

Maya Sapir-Mir: production line, but also because of photosynthesis. Let them grow as we know.

Paul Shapiro: Let them grow as they know. Okay, good slogan. very good. So how, so how far along are you, Maya? I know you've raised a couple million U. S. dollars. you're [00:20:00] obviously growing potatoes, but if a company reached out, if somebody listening to this says, hey, I want to try a sample of your product, are you able to send samples out to food companies to try?

Maya Sapir-Mir: So soon we'll able to send, some samples. Of course, we are not going to just send them. We are aiming to work together with the ingredient companies or the food manufacturers to do the applications together. We believe that,we need also, to learn together the, functionality and the possibilities with our product.

We already have a few achievements. you probably read about our super AA platform that, we got the, the first stages of it. We also,have some more, achievements that, we are going to announce soon

Paul Shapiro: for, for those who haven't read about your super amino acid program. What, what are the achievements that you've had with it?

Maya Sapir-Mir: So the, As I said, the first stage is to elevate the [00:21:00] protein content inside the potato. it's not easy. It takes a lot of time. From the moment we start with the engineering the plant, we see the results six months later. It's a really, really long tail of R and D. But we saw, we see the first results.

And as I told you before, we see the elevation in the, in the protein content, which means that, we also, that, that Technological,technological, way that that we chose is it was correct to elevate the metabolism inside the plant. Now we have so many other manipulations that we can do, in order to make it, even, accumulate, a lot higher,

Paul Shapiro: Exciting.

So, you know, companies like some of the ones that we mentioned earlier who are using precision fermentation. It has taken them many, many years and hundreds of millions of dollars of investment, and they're still using it. But the exception of perfect day, they're still largely pre revenue. And maybe [00:22:00] there's some modest revenue, but really not much.

How quickly do you think that you will be able to scale up your super AA process to have commercial fields of potatoes growing and actually start making a dent in the albumin market, which is a huge market, globally speaking, it's 5 billion annually of albumin is sold. So how quickly do you think that you can get to a point where you would actually not just be sending samples.

But selling pallets of your albumin protein.

Maya Sapir-Mir: So for Polopo and also for every molecular farming company, it will also take time. The R& D stage is, as I said, it takes six months to start their first plant. You need to do many manipulations. You need to build a very complex line of production. But once we will have this plant and once we will have this line of production, scale up, it is just so fast and easy.

We are [00:23:00] aiming to start working in the U. S. by 2026. I guess it will be only pilots and Probably not fully commercial, but we're aiming to start in the U. S. by 2026.

Paul Shapiro: As you know, there are certain potato companies like McCain Foods and Lamb Westin that have been active in making investments in the alternative protein space.

Are you intending to work with them so they can, you know, have their growers growing this? Or are you going to go directly to the growers yourself and not work with the big potato companies?

Maya Sapir-Mir: We're still open to every possibility and every opportunity that we will have in this field. Of course, both ways are, will be brilliant for Poloko.

Paul Shapiro: Okay. so with that said, you've raised this money. You're now advancing your technology. [00:24:00] You're saying that you want to start pilots in the U S in the next one and a half years or so, which will be in 2026. So presumably it's going to be many years before you are producing commercially. What do you hope to achieve in your research between now and then, you know, so if you're not going to have meaningful revenue for a few years, then what do you hope to achieve?

How will you optimize this process that you'll be able to go to investors and say, here's what we're using your money for today?

Maya Sapir-Mir: So first, of course, to build the technology itself to bring a potato with high amounts of protein. It's, it's a huge, I think, as, as we talked to even about protein chips, I think it's, it's huge for, for, many different markets.

We're aiming now to start with ovalbumin, but we are also looking on the potato proteins. They're also interested, interesting in, in, to extract them. This, line of production to build or to work with the CMO in the US or to build our line of production in, , start,[00:25:00] companies is also very important.

Paul Shapiro: So Maya, in your past couple of years of being a CEO for the company, presumably you have learned a lot and you have relied on many resources that have been helpful for you. So if there's somebody who's looking at you and says, wow, I really admire what Maya is doing.

I'd like to be more like her, or I'd like to do something that's also going to do some good in the world. Are there any resources that you would recommend? For others that they could check out, whether books, speeches, anything else that were helpful for you and your journey.

Maya Sapir-Mir: So the main thing that helped me during the journey is people.

Mentors, advisors, friends, family, colleagues, the food tech ecosystem here in Israel is very close and we are good friends, even if we are competitors in different, in different, fields, but, we're very helpful, I have a very good, people that are helping me. I'm using a mentor that I used, in, that I met in, an accelerator that I'm still talking [00:26:00] to.

So, this is. The people side, but when we're talking about, you know, resources that we read newsletters, I read a lot of, current affairs about the economics, about the finance, but finance, and actually a really small thing of advice, Google alerts, when something is really interesting and is important to me, put it in Google alerts.

I get. Everything about it and you learn a lot from this tool. I think it's simple and brilliant.

Paul Shapiro: Okay, cool. That's a good advice. You mentioned how tight knit the Israeli ecosystem is. We're recording this in May of 2024 when of course Israel was at war right now. So how has this impacted you and Polopo?

I know, you know, we've interviewed other Israeli companies like, at Allah farms where they said 15 percent of their workforce was deployed. Has the October 7th massacre and the war that has ensued affected Palopo in any way?

Maya Sapir-Mir: October 7th [00:27:00] affected all of us. But luckily for Palopo, we are, we were a very small team back then.

So no one was recruited and we weren't affected directly. Of course we feel it here. but for ppo, because of the stage that we are, we're still continuing in the work and, and didn't affect directly from the situation. but, you know, we wish that the work will over and everything will be better.

It's a new, new time for us, to, to deal with. It's, very hard for all of us there in Israel.

Paul Shapiro: No doubt and our thoughts go out to you. Jonathan Berger, who runs the kitchen told us on this podcast that one of the effects that the October 7th massacre has had on the entire Israeli ecosystem has been a major reduction in investors flying to Israel.

Obviously, it's much harder to get into Israel now than it was prior to October 7th, [00:28:00] and he said that there were, far fewer investors coming to Israel to meet with startups. Have you found that to be a problem in your fundraising efforts?

Maya Sapir-Mir: Definitely to meet face to face. It's, it's, a lot, it's, it's more effective than, than to meet on zoom.

and, and, you know, to see this ecosystem, here in Israel, it's a lot different than to hear about it from the outside, so definitely it's. Affected the, fundraising and again, we were lucky enough to closed our a precede round at the end of 2022. So we got into October 7th with enough runway. So, at the moment we are okay.

But yes, we feel that we feel,from, from colleagues of us that are struggling with great. Amazing technology. that they, they can't, they, they weren't succeeding in fundraising. It's [00:29:00] really hard.

Paul Shapiro: Indeed. you know, the fundraising environment in general is very bad for startups, for startups right now, especially an alternative protein.

But I would imagine being an Israeli startup would be a unique challenge based on what we're saying here. So hopefully there are prospective investors for you who are at least listening to this episode and maybe there'll be. Getting in touch with you, Maya. on that note, let me ask you if there are any companies that you wish existed that don't exist yet.

Obviously you started this company because you wanted to tackle the problem of, egg proteins and the unsustainable and inhumane ways in which eggs are produced today, but are there other companies that, or technologies that you wish existed and you hope somebody listening will pursue?

Maya Sapir-Mir: So maybe not a specific technology, but, as I said, we're a GMO company.

huge believe in GMO. I believe that there won't be any food security without GMO. I say it out and loud. And I think that those directions first from the regulation, but also from, from startups, I think that we need to think more [00:30:00] of a regenerative, regenerative agriculture, that will be more effective.

With GMO without GMO that won't ruin our land that we will be able to use less land and in a more efficient way. Those are the things that I am thinking about how to feed, really feed the population, not just the rich people to eat more fruit and vegetables. Those are the things that, that I'm connected to.

Paul Shapiro: All right. So a very staunchly pro bioengineering point of view coming here. So I'll mention that on a past episode, we had, professor Robert Paulberg, who wrote the really insightful book. It's called resetting the table straight. Talk about the food that we grow and eat. And professor Paulberg makes a really excellent, in my view, very persuasive case, not only in favor of bioengineering, but a whole variety of other food technologies that are going to be essential.

To being able to feed the planet without [00:31:00] destroying the planet, you're making the case that, you know, we want to be able to not just feed the rich, but also the poor, his point is that if you want to prevent deforesting the rest of the planet, that we have to use more agricultural technology, not less.

And, I'll link to that in the show notes of this episode of business for good podcast. com, but it's a very interesting book that I recommend called resetting the table, which I think my, you might not be persuaded of anything since you are already a believer that he will be preaching to. but you may appreciate those.

arguments that he's making in the book. So on that note, let me say thank you for all that you're doing. I certainly am rooting hard for your success, Maya, and that of your colleagues at Palopo. I hope very much that I get to try a product with your albumin in it sometime soon. That would be a lot of fun.

So let me know when we can make that happen. Maybe when FoodTech IL happens, if it happens, this upcoming fall, maybe we'll get some samples there.

Maya Sapir-Mir: We wish, we really hope to see everyone in Israel really soon. And thank you for the talk. We will definitely let you know when we have the first samples.

Well, [00:32:00] so much for this talk.

Paul Shapiro: Very good, Maya. Thank you.