B4G EP 152 Leveled

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

Owen Ensor: It's wonderful to be here. Thank you, Paul.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah, it's my pleasure. You've been in the news a lot lately, and so I'm excited to get to talk with you because there's so much, that we have to talk about. But before we talk about your endeavors in cultivated meat, I have to ask you, I, I noticed that prior to doing this, that you were working at a startup that was working to commercialize insects as a food source, and then you became a vegan.

And then you went into cultivated meat. So tell me what happened. Why were you working to commercialize insects? What happened that you then decided you didn't want to farm insects? What, what happened here?

Owen Ensor: It has been quite a journey. So I started off, my experience is all on the commercial side. I started off in management consulting, which was interesting, but I always wanted to do something more.

impactful, something that felt, yeah, having, it's just, providing a little more hope for the future than management consultancy might do. and I was [00:01:00] looking for opportunities, particularly in social enterprises in developing countries. And so I moved from the UK to Kenya. Spent two and a half years in Kenya working for a company called Sanergy, which is an incredible social enterprise, which on one hand is installing hygienic sanitation and informal sediments and then collecting that waste and transforming it into things they can sell, which include compost, biogas and, insect farming.

So using black soldier flies. And so it was part of this. Yeah, wonderful. And it is a wonderful zero waste system is East Africa's largest waste processing facility now. but as you say, it's the same time about a year into that experience. I and my partner became vegan. We watched cowspiracy. that was the tipping point.

And I started to question whether I should be breeding insects and selling them as chicken feed. And the more you start Googling, can insects feel pain, the more it is tried to be presented as a gray area, [00:02:00] but it seems pretty clear that they, so.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah. So let me ask you, Let me ask you, so I am one of these people who thinks that insects probably do have some experience of the world.

but my understanding of the black soldier fly is that it's the larva that they are selling, right? Now, of course, you have to have adult flies in order to produce larva, but I doubt that the larvae feel anything. Would you agree with that?

Owen Ensor: I think at every point we have continually underestimated Animals how intelligent they are how much they can feel what they can do and so I mean it is a gray area and still a huge fan of energy and their model but I decided for me and it also got to point we'd raised 15 million we're about to build this big industrial facility and they needed someone who had more of an engineering background and not a consulting background to lead that between the kind of.

Moral question mark, and just the technical abilities I decided to move on at that point and started focusing more and more on, yeah, [00:03:00] plant based, cultivated, fermented. Interesting.

Paul Shapiro: Well, I'll tell you an interesting story that is actually a perfect segue for us here. So, there is a brand called, Jiminy, I think is what it's called here in the U S where they sell dog food that is made from the larva of black soldier flies.

And I got a bag of it. for free for my dog, and I thought, well, I'll see if he likes it, right? Like he, he doesn't have the ick factor, and he's a pretty finicky guy. Like he, he really doesn't like most dog food, whether animal or plant based. And, you know, he actually ate it. I was pretty surprised that he did not, dispute.

Eating this and, I was pretty impressed by it. And I was wondering about this. Like, I presume it is better to feed him that than conventional meat based dog food. but anyway, I'm eager to one day feed him the meatly, cultivated meat dog food, which would be even better. So let's talk a little bit about that.

Like, you know, you. You had, as you said, you were a management consultant, you weren't an [00:04:00] engineer, you're not a scientist, and you decided that rather than trying to work to farm insects, you would try to do something else, but you don't have any scientific training. So how did you start a cultivated meat company?

Owen Ensor: That's a very good question. so I was approached by agronomics, which is one of the leading investors in the space, and they were very interested in doing cultivated meat for pet food startup and invited me to leave that. And I was at the point where I've been testing a lot of ideas and searching for a lot of ideas, and it takes a very broad very much.

Set of people instead of skills to lead a startup. And I think having the mix of my experiences, which is like hands on and very commercial and our chief science officer held her who has 30 years experience in self therapies and cultivated meat. And so we managed to combine those two to create meatly, which I started about three years ago.

How to join about two and a half years ago. And as you say, it's been a incredible ride since then. [00:05:00]

Paul Shapiro: All right. So, some listeners of this podcast will remember that we had Jim Mellon, who is the financier behind agronomics on this show, and we'll link to that episode in the show notes at business for good podcast.

com for anybody who wants to go check out that back episode and talk with the progenitor here of this, fund called agronomics, which is funding all types of interesting companies seeking to displace animals in the food supply chain. But that's interesting that you were recruited to start this company.

But you had no idea how to grow meat. Did you have any sense of how you would find your Harold? Right? Like, how did you find somebody who was going to say, okay, well, this guy, Owen has no experience in this, but I want to go hitch my wagon to his star and go be with him. So, you know, you've, you've obviously had some success here.

So let's just go back before the success. How'd you persuade anybody to join the company?

Owen Ensor: I was very, I was very confident. I think we benefited in a way of being what I describe as a wave to. And so, you know, you have the wave one companies that are well known upside [00:06:00] foods, good meat within the industry.

And I think they had to start a lot of stuff from scratch. And by the time we were starting three years ago, you had a lot of people who have been working in the industry for five years. And that's exactly kind of helders experience. So he's our chief science officer. PhD in biochemistry is 25 years experience running his own self therapy startups.

He then joined most of meet, was there for a number of years. He left before joining, Meatly. And so, you know, you, you, you. Had these people were deep experience in industry and we were able to leverage that. And so although I had no idea how to do it myself, I was confident, you know, the skills were out there and we could find someone who was passionate, engaged and able to deliver on that.

And the promise to held her was you can have complete scientific freedom and we're going as fast as we possibly can. And we're going as fast as we possibly can. I think that's very enticing for a lot of scientists, to be able to just really define what [00:07:00] they want and, and go after it. And, you know, I would take care of fundraising and the commercial side and you just need to make as much meat as possible as quickly and affordably as we can.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah. Right. So why, why pet food though? Like if you think about. This industry, right? It's having a very hard time to get down to any prices that are even close to animal based meat, right? I mean, even print based meat is not yet at price parity for the most part and yet cultivated meat is nowhere near price parity with animal based meat and pet food is often the cheapest meat there is.

So you're going for this lowest price. Meat, which is a very high hurdle to accomplish. So why start with that? Like, you know, you've got other companies that are trying to do frog raw or Kobe beef, or, you know, something really expensive fish like bluefin tuna. And you're saying, no, I want to go the opposite direction.

I want to go to literally the cheapest meat there is and try to compete with it. So why?

Owen Ensor: Yeah, I think there's a [00:08:00] lot of very attractive attributes in the pet food market. So first of all, we have a huge burning need. You have a lot of consumers that face what is known as the animal lover's paradox. So they love animals, they want to get a pet, and then they have to harm a lot of other animals to feed that pet.

And that, is quite a difficult paradox at the heart of the entire pet food industry. And you also have this trend of pet food is booming, a lot of meat production is not, and so it's becoming challenging for companies to secure enough meat to feed pets. But also, you're seeing a huge amount of innovation in pet food, probably more so than than in human food.

So as you were saying, you know, there's a lot of more insect brands being sold in pet food. You have new processing methods like freeze dried and cold pressed. And there's just people are more willing to experiment in pet food. And I also think we want it to be Highly ambitious, we want to show that there is mass market commercial viability and cultivated meat and we don't want this [00:09:00] market to flatline at 100 per kilogram or 100 per kilogram, right?

We have to get the price down. So let's just be as ambitious as possible. And I think we Pet food will be the first market for cultivated meat because the regulation is more straightforward, because people are more willing to experiment and continual surveys have shown people are more willing to feed their pets cultivated meat than eat it themselves.

So you have this very viable market and I think we have to get the price down one way or the other.

Paul Shapiro: So let's talk about the pet food market here, because there are some people who will say, oh, and you know, the meat that is fed to pets is just the scraps, right? That it's not like there are animals who are being raised solely to feed dogs and cats.

You and I know that's not true, that actually the demand for meat from pets is actually quite large and does take a lot of animals to satiate it. But tell me about that. Tell me, like, are there slaughterhouses that are just [00:10:00] slaughtering chickens for dogs and cats here?

Owen Ensor: So 20 percent of meat and fish globally is used in pet food.

So it's a very significant volume of meat produced that is being used in pet food. And. It used to be true that they were using byproducts. And then two things have happened. One is pet food has boomed. So the pet food market has doubled in the last 10 years. It's continued to grow very rapidly and our meat production in most countries has not.

And so that trend means that our pets are competing with our own food chain. If you speak to a lot of pet food manufacturers, they say, you know, we don't know where we're going to get enough meat and we're having to Compete more and more with human food and on the flip side, you also have premium ization happening in pet food.

And so a lot of brands are advertising as human grade meat, right? But they're using this as a statement of quality to say we've taken this directly from the human food chain. [00:11:00] And so those two meet and you know, we are competing with pet food on our own food.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah, it's particularly sad in that the people who would buy those higher end pet foods with human grade meat are the people who love their animals the most, right?

So these are the people who are saying, you know, I love my dog so much that I want to buy them the best quality dog food. And that is the one that's actually doing more harm from an animal welfare perspective. It's quite sad.

Owen Ensor: Yeah, and that's, I think that just strikes at the heart of this animal lovers paradox, right?

And everyone wants to do the best for their pet, and that's the animal they see in their lives most often, and they're not able to comprehend, you know, all of the supply chain that sits behind that pet food and the harm that is being done, both, it's obviously in terms of sustainability and in terms of the other animals upbringing and lives, and even premium meat in pet food is probably very often.

The most, intensively farms, you know, in the most cruel lives that those animals are living.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah. Okay. Well, [00:12:00] that's a shame. okay. Tell me why the following is wrong. It's hard enough to get people to be comfortable eating cultivated meat. You indicated earlier that people are more likely to feed it to their pets than they are to eat it themselves.

If the first. Introduction to cultivate meat that people have is that it's dog food. Does that reduce the willingness later to consume it themselves? Or do you think that is not right?

Owen Ensor: I think that is not right. Obviously, I'm a huge passionate advocate of cultivated meat. I want this to be eaten as broadly and widely as as possible.

And I think Pets now are critical members of the family, right? They're not just pets. They are often on par or instead of babies. They are, you know, very beloved members of the family. And I think if you're willing to feed something to your pet, that is a very high bar. And I also just think the more we can familiarize people with cultivated meat [00:13:00] in whatever scenario, the better.

The better. And so once we get people buying this, understanding the benefits, using it in their home, feeding it to whatever creature that they love dearly, I think those are all great hurdles for us to overcome. And I think, you know, obviously it'll be very separately branded and communicated and it'll look very different when we're doing this with pet food and human food.

And I think you already see that with premium meat in pet food, you know, people do want something similar to it. That they're eating themselves,

Paul Shapiro: right? Yeah. I, I think that's true. And, you know, I'm, I'm one of those people who you just alluded to, who has a dog instead of a human child. And I also am one of those people who is a, in the paradox, you know, this dog who I love so much, this dog, his name is Eddie.

And while I 30 years, And, my wife is a vegan. She's a vegan cookbook author. Like it's very much a part of our lives. but this dog is just like, really has a strong [00:14:00] conviction against plant based food. He really hates it. Yeah. We have two cats

Owen Ensor: and they're obligate carnivores. So you have to feed them meat.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah, he's gone on hunger strike. I've tried to force him like he'll go for days without eating. It's really horrible. it's a real shame. So I would be like the lowest hanging fruit of a customer for you for sure if he liked it. But let me ask you, is there technologically a lower hurdle for you to do what you're doing?

Then somebody like you mentioned most CEO Mark post on the show before we're linked to that at the show. And it's for people who want to check out that episode. But Is there a lower hurdle for you technologically to make cultivated meat accessible for dog food, as opposed to doing what companies like most of meat are doing, which is trying to create the texture and really mimic the experience of meat consumption?

Owen Ensor: Yes, and this is one of the advantages of pet food and why I believe it will be one of the first markets, because Let's [00:15:00] just say pets have a less specific visual expectation of, of their meat and of what they're eating and so we don't need to go through these complex expensive processes that are known as differentiation and scaffolding which without getting too into the details are broadly acknowledged to be the most complex, expensive parts of cultivated meat.

And so we don't need to have a perfect steak appearance and mouthfeel and these kind of things because pets really care what it smells like, what it tastes like, and that it has all the nutrients they need. And those we can do without these very complex steps in the production process. So that makes it faster, easier, we need less capital, we need less time.

And, and that's part of the reason we've been able to proceed very quickly in the last two years we've been doing R and D. to the point where we have a product, we have regulatory approval, and we've started feeding it to animals already.

Paul Shapiro: Amazing. Amazing. I'm so envious. I wish that I could get my hands on some of [00:16:00] this to feed it to Eddie and tell you what happens.

I'll tell you, he will not eat beyond me. He won't eat to Fergie or Morningstar, but he will read impossible. He really likes impossible products. Not just the burger, but the nuggets too. So they're doing something really good. I don't know what they're doing, but whatever they're doing. It works, but for him, it's definitely the smell like he doesn't put it in his mouth and spit it out.

He, he smells it. And that is what determines whether he wants to eat it or not. And so while the texture may not have to be mandatory for him, and what you're saying, the smell definitely is like the. determining factor for him here. So I hope, I hope that you get the, the smell down here, Owen, because there would be a

Owen Ensor: top of the list.

Paul Shapiro: Okay. Good.

Owen Ensor: First us customer. great. Yeah. It's just,

Paul Shapiro: it's a, it's a high test, for sure, but I really hope that you do pass it. Okay. technologically without getting into too much detail here, you have some companies like Bond. which are basically using precision fermentation to get microbes to express chicken [00:17:00] proteins.

They're not doing animal cell culture. my understanding is that you're doing actual animal cell culture. so you're actually growing chicken proteins from chicken cells. You're not getting like yeast to produce chicken proteins like bond is, why would one do that versus the other? Like, why is one preferable to the other?

If, if you think there is a preference,

Owen Ensor: Yes, I think one of my main learnings having worked in alternative proteins for a long time and again, starting in plant based human food, looking at fermentation, having advised a lot of companies and tested a lot of startup ideas. One of my main learnings is that people want meat and people want to eat meat themselves and people want to feed meat to their pets.

And so being able to say that this is meat is a critical, I think, to the success of a product. And I think that's where, you know, we're, we're seeing some of the challenges in plant based and other products. And so that's why we're very focused on being able to, to create as chicken y a product as we [00:18:00] can, and to be able to call it chicken because it is from chicken cells.

And I think that is the big hurdle for a lot of fermentation products is how do you explain exactly what it is without causing the it factor, without causing these questions around nutrition. and, that being said, huge respect to what Bond are doing. And I think there's no one solution and actually we need a full suite of solutions.

And these are huge markets and there's not going to be one company in one specific solution and all work in different ways. And I think there's probably a future in which we have a plant based pet food with some of Bond's fermented product and some of our chicken in, and, you know, we use it all to create a more sustainable and kind food system.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah, and you could imagine also in addition to their chicken protein and then your chicken adding even plant based material to it, right? So you could have multiple kingdoms. it's kind of like energy, right? Like, you know, you might, your house might be getting a blend of wind, solar, geothermal, like, you know, you just want energy, right?

You're not sitting there worried about the [00:19:00] provenance of it for the most part. And I'm sure the same is so for a dog who's product.

Owen Ensor: And, and particularly in pet foods, because Most commercially available products at the moment are a mix of different ingredients. I mean, you get raw meat pet food, which is 100 percent meat, but most are 20 to 30 percent meat or potentially more, but then a mix of plant based ingredients and other types of foods.

And so, because you're aiming to create a complete. Food for that pet and that takes a lot of ingredients. And so that's another advantage we have in pet food. Yeah. Well, only one of the components in the final pet food.

Paul Shapiro: Right. Okay. in terms of the components, I want to make clear that I mentioned that you're growing actual chicken cells, but one of the media, none of the other components contain any animal products in them.

From my understanding. Is that right? You're not using fetal bovine serum. You're not using any animal ingredients. The chicken cell is the only animal [00:20:00] component that there is.

Owen Ensor: Correct. And we're using what are known as immortalized cells. So that means we never need to resample from the animal ever again.

So from a single sample, we can create an infinite amount of meat.

Paul Shapiro: Amazing. So do you know who this progenitor chicken is? Like the Adam or the Eve chicken from whom the cell was taken?

Owen Ensor: We don't know them specifically, but it was taken from an egg and not a chicken.kind of even better from an animal perspective, we like to describe it as the golden egg in the internally.

I guess it's wonderful to be able to, you know, that we're at this point technically where we don't need to use any animals in our production.

Paul Shapiro: Interesting. Great. Well, that will certainly put many animal lovers concerns to rest. I suspect you mentioned that you are the 1st to getting any regulatory approval for pet food anywhere, but it's particularly interesting.

This happened in the UK because Europe in general has not. Been that friendly to biotechnology, especially when it comes [00:21:00] to food, right? And so you have this very illogical ban, essentially, on the use of bioengineered crops in Europe and just in general, it's much harder to get novel ingredients, approved for, for use in the food system in Europe than it is elsewhere.

There's not just a scientific process. There's also a political process that you have to go through to get that done. and so many people in the biotech field have just viewed Europe as. Generally more hostile, I would say yet. You actually not only got the first regulatory approval for cultivated meat anywhere in Europe, but interestingly enough for pets.

So let me just ask you, like, I don't think you've raised that much money, right? You've raised a few million euros, right? So you shared this graphic on LinkedIn that I will, include on the show notes for this episode of business for good podcast. com, but I know you know what graphic I'm talking about.

So why don't you just describe what the graphic is and what point you're trying to make here.

Owen Ensor: It is a graphic that shows how long it has taken. So there's [00:22:00] four companies so far who have got regulatory approval, and it shows how long it took those companies to get approval, how much money they had raised before, and It's it's an incredible trend that shows, you know, the first companies to get approval took eight or nine years.

They typically raise hundreds of millions earlier this year. great company valve foods got approval. I think they've raised 30 to 40 million. and then we got approval within a year. Two years and we've raised about three and a half million pounds and so it shows that we're rapidly bringing down the cost of of getting regulatory approval essentially and i do think we benefited from those companies that came before people like upside and good me kind of laid down the path and that is definitely more expensive and lengthy process and we were able to kind of benefit from that but we.

Just continually want to show and prove that there is a low cost fast way to commercialize cultivated.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah, so it's very impressive. So I mean, you could say, hey, wow, look how much more [00:23:00] efficient, neatly is, or you could look at it the way that you more diplomatically just put it, which is that they paved the way.

And now the time is shorter for everybody, right? So it could be that who knows. We'll see what happens with other companies as they hopefully continue to get more regulatory approvals for their products. Yeah. But you mentioned just a moment ago, Oh, and that, you know, the cost of getting to market is, is lower, the time is getting lower.

So you claim that you intend to start selling this year in 2024. Is that still accurate?

Owen Ensor: We might stray into early 2020. It's going to be imminent. We're currently in discussion about launching a product in January. So we're selling B2B. So we sell two, we sell chicken to manufacturers.

Paul Shapiro: Okay.

Owen Ensor: It will be very soon.

Okay.

Paul Shapiro: If you've only raised a few million pounds, how can you possibly produce enough that you could sell to somebody right? Like, where is this being grown? You clearly don't have commercial size bioreactors in order to do this. So how could you get to a point where you could [00:24:00] sell commercial quantities?

Owen Ensor: We do it on our own production facility. Everything has been done in house so far. So all of our media, yeah, development and preparation is, is done in house. all of our production is done in house. It will be small volumes, we should say. So this is more of a, you know, limited edition, have a taste of the future.

Okay. And our focus is. Bringing the cost down and then we'll start scaling up.

Paul Shapiro: Right. What's small volume like single digit kilos, hundreds of kilos, thousands of kilos. What, what is small volume to you?

Owen Ensor: Single digit kilograms.

Paul Shapiro: Okay.

Owen Ensor: So that's then obviously, you know, other ingredients added to that into the final.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah. So presumably you're going to be providing animal cells to somebody who's going to include it at a low inclusion rate. It'll be on sale. At hundreds of stores, the thousands of stores, one store or what is the plan?

Owen Ensor: We're still developing the specific plan. We might do it online. but also one of our [00:25:00] investors is pets at home.

It's similar to pet smart in the U. S. So they're the UK's largest pet retailer. They've 550 stores made about 1. 5 billion last year. so they are the kind of UK pet food market and they're hugely enthusiastic about what we're doing. Nice. Very keen to distribute and sell product with us. So, it may be in pets at home, stay posted for more.

Paul Shapiro: Okay. that's exciting. I would be overjoyed to see that happening if it were in the equivalent of Pet Smart. It would certainly be a very big deal. So you've said, Owen, that. The product tastes better than plant based meat. Do you know that because you've fed it to dogs who prefer it or because you personally have also eaten it and prefer it to plant based meat?

Owen Ensor: both. So, our whole team has tasted it. It tastes, I wish I'd done videos of people's reaction because it was so chickeny. I have fed it to the two fussiest cats that I know, Lama and Zanzi, my own cats, who, it sounds like I'm biased, but they genuinely really love the product. and we've just completed [00:26:00] feeding trials on dogs, which, we're waiting for the final results, but the initial impression is that they prefer it to plant based.

Paul Shapiro: What is the inclusion rate for these trials that you're doing? Like the dogs who are eating it are eating presumably not 100 percent chicken cells. No,

Owen Ensor: that was around 5 percent inclusion. And we mainly just wanted to check there was no adverse effects that we weren't expecting or, you know, unintended consequences, which there's definitely not, which is wonderful news.

And then great testing palatability of different regions.

Paul Shapiro: Encouraging, encouraging. Okay. And so you're, I presume you would argue 5 percent inclusion is high, is high enough to make a difference, right? That if they can tell the difference between five and 1%, let's say.

Owen Ensor: Yeah. And you see this in pet food currently where, you know, they're including starting ingredients, even at low volumes to add certain nutrition or add palatability or function.

And so there is, is precedent for that.

Paul Shapiro: Okay, cool. Well, let's talk about cost, Owen. I read [00:27:00] that you all say you're at one euro per liter. Is that right? That's cost you one euro per liter for your media?

Owen Ensor: that was right. We are continually bringing that down. So we're now one pound per liter. And then we should emphasize that's obviously

Paul Shapiro: one

Owen Ensor: pound, the nutrients and not the, kilograms of final product.

And so that, that's right.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah,

Owen Ensor: for

Paul Shapiro: sure. So I did the math and sorry for mixing up pounds and euros. I continually, I continue. Yeah, I know. But I continually forget that Britain is on the pound. Obviously stupid me, but, I was doing the math. So let's just say, I don't know what size your bioreactor is, but if you have a thousand liter reactor, you could therefore, If you're getting, I read in the news that you can get up to 15 grams per liter, and if that is accurate, so 1000 liter reactor will get you 15 kilograms of product, which would then obviously, if it's if you were still at 1000 pounds per [00:28:00] liter, so it'd be basically 1000 pounds for 15 grams.

Kilograms, which when you convert that to dollars per pound, it's it's about 33 dollars per US dollar. Excuse me. It's a 33 US dollars per pound of products, not including your energy and your labor costs. So, I don't know, maybe, you know, take it at, let's just say 40 dollars per pound. Let's just say so if that if those numbers are right, and please correct me if my math is wrong.

You know, it's still substantially more, maybe 10 times the cost of commodity meat, but it's getting there, right? It's not like the 1800 people, 1800 meatball or the 300, 000 burger and so on. but the question is, what would you sell it for? Like, are you intending to sell profitably at first? Would you sell at a loss first?

Like, if these numbers are correct, that it's, you know, let's say 40 a pound to make, then what do you sell it for?

Owen Ensor: Those numbers sound sound broadly correct. And I think those are the key metrics, right? Is your media cost, your yield, and that's my kind of process efficiency and the capital that you're [00:29:00] expanding.

we will, we will have a gross profit. So, you know, we have customers who are willing to pay significant amounts to test this, to do product development and start selling initial products. but that obviously won't cover all of the overheads, all of the energy, everything else that's in the mix. And so Our strategy is to bring the cost down as low scale as possible and then start scaling up.

And so our aim is to be a single digit pounds per kilogram, in the next six to nine months. And then we'll start scaling up, for the media.

Paul Shapiro: How can you do that? Like what, what's the pathway? So if you're getting 15 grams per liter now, and you want to get down to single digit.pounds per kilo. It seems like you need to get a much better, a much better conversion there, right?

You need to get much higher than 15 grams per liter. Is that is that the path? Just get a better tighter

Owen Ensor: [00:30:00] both. So bring the media cost down further, right? And we can go down far below 1 and increase the yield. And that is the key metric in cultivated meat in our eyes. It's just those two equations. And that's how you end up with it.

Half a million pounds for a burger or five five dollars for a kilogram. It's those two metrics that are critical. And then we also need to tackle the capital issue where a lot of the equipment is. Far too expensive to be making a food product. And so, you know, those are the three things that we're tackling.

We have clear strategies to do those. We're making phenomenal progress on all three. And so we're only ever more confident, more ambitious, and more excited about the costs that we're hitting. Great.

Paul Shapiro: So my presumption is if you've raised a few million pounds so far, you needed to go out. You're going to put this in the market.

You're going to presume we got a lot of good publicity from this. You're going to show that you can make it that people will buy it. People are excited about it. Then you're going to go out and raise money to [00:31:00] scale up. How much do you need? Like we've talked with other people, like the companies you mentioned, we've had Uma Valeti, Mark Post, Josh Tetrick on, and you know, they'll say it's basically hundreds of millions of dollars to build a full scale commercial manufacturing facility.

What do you think Meatly needs in order to get to a place where you can actually start making a dent and make a business that's, you know, making tens of millions of pounds in revenue annually?

Owen Ensor: Our strategy Is to bring those costs down as much as possible to bring the capital down as much as possible and then scale up and we aim to do that kind of have a first pilot facility on tens of millions of pounds not hundreds of billions and I think we have to continually find the solutions and again we have it a bit easier we don't have to do this complex differentiation and scaffolding steps that I mentioned earlier.

but we need to keep our processes simple, efficient and really maximize those and then. The important point for us is to hit commercially viable [00:32:00] metrics at the largest scale possible because then you can start debt financing facilities and that is a huge game changer because it's a lot more available and you can scale much faster and so we want to.

Prove that there is commercial viability in cultivated meat, mass market prices with tens of millions of equity financing, and then switch to debt financing.

Paul Shapiro: So, so you'll raise around that's tens of millions in equity, prove that you can do this and generate revenue, generate profit, and then start using equivalent financing, debt, and so on.

And so you might only do one more equity round ever.

Owen Ensor: So we're doing a, we're doing a small equity round at the moment. So hopefully closing that in the next. As everyone knows, markets are hard, so we'll see how that lands. And then, yeah, next year we'll aim to do one, which is, I mean, we'll see exactly where, but in the tens, hopefully low tens, and then, yeah, we'd look to use alternative financing methods because

Paul Shapiro: corn.

Owen Ensor: Easier to scale with. [00:33:00]

Paul Shapiro: Great. Yeah. And we didn't even mention grants, which also could be a helpful thing. I noticed that there are several companies in the fermentation space now that are getting government grants. So that could be quite useful. I want to ask you, Owen, a broader question, not necessarily about meatly, but about cultivated meat in general.

We talked about plant based meat earlier. Plant based meat has been on the market for decades. Yeah. And the latest generation of it, let's just say, has been on the market for a generously speaking a decade, right? With beyond meat and impossible foods. It's a little bit less than a decade since they really took off.

But let's just say it's about a decade. Still, they're not at price parity. Most people don't think that their products are at taste parity, and they are not yet even 1 percent of the volume of the animal meat market. Like it's a rounding error in the total meat market right now. And that's, you know, even with them being in every big box grocery store, you know, [00:34:00] Costco, Walmart, etc.

There are many fast food restaurants. You know, every Burger King in America has the impossible whopper. And still, even despite being in every Walmart and every Burger King. Plant based meat is still a rounding error in the total meat industry. How long do you think it'll take before cultivated meat even reaches the point of plant based meat?

Not to where it's going to be 10 or 20 percent of the meat market, but even just to get to around 1 percent where plant based meat is barely at right now. Do you think we're talking about something that will happen in the 2020s, the 2030s, the 2040s? Like what, what do you think if you were projecting now, of course, You know, people's predictions inherently may be wrong since none of us know what's going to happen.

But if you could pick a decade time frame, a decade in which you think cultivated meat will hit 1 percent of the total meat market, what decade do you think that happens in?

Owen Ensor: I would have to say 2030s. I think obviously there's still work for us to do to bring this cost down to start scaling up. I don't think anyone [00:35:00] has really cracked that.

Yet, I hope we can crack that in the next few years, which brings us to the late twenties. And then, you know, the dream of cultivated meat. And the hope is that if you present someone with a product, which is meat, which has the same taste, the same nutrition is far more sustainable. We don't need to raise and killing animals.

We're not using antibiotics or steroids or hormones. You have to believe and you have to hope that if we present that to the market, people would buy it if the pricing is Correct. And so I think, you know, once we get the equation correct, and once we find a way of doing that, I hope that adoption would be very fast after.

And so I think the real question is, when can we get the cost down fast enough? and that is the question that everyone is asking and everyone is driving. And I think it neatly we've shown that we're able to bring, you know, the media cost down rapidly, a very clear strategy to doing that. [00:36:00] Obviously it is for pet food, but I think will be a key part of that journey and it will take numerous companies for sure to, to do that.

and so I go 2030s with the hesitation of worrying about listening back to this in five years time.

Paul Shapiro: Yes. Oh, in five years, we'll still be in the 2020s. So, we will see. See how maybe in 10 years from now, how that's looking. But yeah, I mean, you know, so many projections about cultivated meat have turned out to be too optimistic, including I would say my own.

And, so I share your point of view. If I were asked the question that I just posed to you, I would have answered it the same 2030s. I do it kind of like fusion nuclear, like, you know, that fusion nuclear is going to be really big once it starts feeding into the grid. But I doubt that fusion nuclear is going to feed into the grid in the 2020s.

So it would be very surprised. I hope it happens. Obviously, I hope it happens. I, I would love to be proven too cautious here. but I presume that fusion nuclear and cultivated meat are both going to see their, their uptake. And [00:37:00] implementation really more in the twenty thirties, but we'll say, we'll say, I

Owen Ensor: think that both solutions that we need, right?

And we, I think everyone wants us to be more sustainable to be able to live in a far kinder way. And I think both cultivated me and yeah, nuclear fusion are key. Parts of that, and that we need to have these solutions as part of the equations, key parts of our, our life.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah, and if nuclear fusion did take off, it would also reduce your costs for energy needs, since it would be pretty inexpensive energy, presumably.

Okay, let us chat about other ideas. So, you know, you were a management consultant, you worked with a lot of different companies, you've been involved in more than one startup now. So I presume that even though you are committed to Meatly, and you're going to be there for many years to come, because now you've got to work until the 2030s.

huge revenue. So are there any other ideas, Owen, that you hope somebody else will do? You don't have the time to do, but you think are really good ideas that somebody should start a company for. [00:38:00]

Owen Ensor: I mean, I love taking on scientific challenges. I don't know anything about, so I would, I think the world of algaes is very intriguing.

and I would love to see something in that, but I think if I was to stay in around, I do know, I think obviously in alternative proteins, What we're really talking about is. behavior change and about trying to get people to try new things to purchase new products. And I think the easiest way of doing that is to target points where people are already trying different things.

And so I'd love to see products or meal kits or solutions specifically targeted towards new students, for example, when they've just left home or, people who just started their first job and are looking for kind of what do I cook? What do I eat? Why do I eat it? or, you know, empty nesters, people. these kids have just left home and they're going from cooking for a family of five to one or two people.

How, what products did they purchase and finding those points where people are. Open to new ideas who are looking for solutions, and I think [00:39:00] there's a lot of fantastic and interesting businesses, in that area.

Paul Shapiro: Cool. All right. Well, that's a lot of food to chew on. So hopefully somebody will start one of those businesses and they will cite you as their inspiration for doing it here.

Finally, I presume that as somebody who, you know, this isn't your first entrepreneurial rodeo have benefited from a number of resources. Thank you. And so are there anything either essays or books or speeches or anything else that you have consumed that were useful for you that you would recommend for others in their own journey?

Owen Ensor: I do my my favorite book is a older book But a complete classic in my eyes, which is from good to great by jim collins Which I would just strongly recommend that everyone read. I think the advice in there is is phenomenal It's also just has summaries after each chapter. It's very You Easy to consume.

It's very clear. It has some great stories. And there's a lot that I think about from that book and still carry with me. And actually doing this makes me think I should reread it because, [00:40:00] it's, yeah, it's a real gem of a book. and I'd strongly recommend that people read it.

Paul Shapiro: Okay, great. Well, we're linked to good to great in the show notes for this episode at business for good dot com But excuse me business for good podcast.

com. But owen in the meantime, congratulations on all of your success. It is truly inspirational I'm rooting hard for your continued success I'm, very serious that I want you to pass the eddie test And so i'm going to be waiting for you to smuggle some of your product into the u. s clandestinely and we can Give it to him and, and see what happens.

I'll videotape it and let you know. So when that day comes, it'll be a happy day for me. I can assure you. But in the meantime, congratulations again, and good luck with your rollout.

Owen Ensor: Thank you very much. It's been a great to speak and I look forward to getting Eddie some, some dinner very soon.

Paul Shapiro: Very good.