Business for Good Podcast Paul Shapiro

In 2021, a lengthy analysis was published by a now-defunct online news outlet concluding that cultivating animal cells at commercial meat industry scale was simply a pipedream. Josh March didn’t really disagree. But he thought if you could bioengineer the animal cells to get more comfortable at production scale, and add those finished cells into otherwise plant-based meats, you could both commercialize meat cultivation and make animal-free burgers taste even better.
Not only did March persuade himself of it, but he persuaded investors, too. In 2022—a very difficult time for startups to raise VC cash—March’s startup, SciFi Foods, raised $22 million to bioengineer better animal-free beef.
Of course, many in the cultivated meat world shy away from talking about or practicing bioengineering for fear that it will turn consumers off. But not March. He’s betting big that technologies like bioengineering and CRISPR are actually the only path to success in this field, so he’s going all in. 
In this interview, we talk all about Josh’s story, including two previous startup acquisitions, his motivations for doing this work, and what he sees as the future of meat.
Discussed in this episode
Josh became interested in cultivated meat after reading The Singularity is Near and Player of Games
We discuss the 2021 Counter story on cultivated meat’s prospects
Josh recommends reading How to Get Rich
Paul recommends reading Tender is the Flesh
Josh is currently reading Mythos
Paul references Circe as a female-centered retelling of Greek mythology
BTW, Josh is the author of Message Me: The Future of Customer Service in the Era of Social Messaging and Artificial Intelligence
More about Josh March
Joshua March is the co-founder & CEO of SCiFi Foods, on a mission to disrupt the $1.2T meat market by leveraging the power of genetic engineering to make cultivated meat (real meat grown from cells) a commercial reality. He was previously the Co-founder & CEO of Conversocial, a digital care platform for messaging that works with many of the biggest brands in the world (acquired by Verint).

The Business of Being an Author and Influencer with Toni Okamoto of Plant-Based on a Budget
This is a special episode of this podcast, because the guest is not only an entrepreneur making money by making the world a better place, but she also just happens to be my wife. Toni Okamoto is the founder and CEO of Plant-Based on a Budget, and she has her fourth cookbook coming out right around the time that this episode drops!
Long-time listeners will recall that Toni was actually the co-host of this podcast for the first 20 episodes, and medium-time listeners will recall that she was an interviewee two years ago on episode 51 when her last book came out. It was a fun interview that I recommend going back and checking out, but this is even more fun and doesn’t require knowledge of the first episode to enjoy.
When Toni and I first met, Plant Based on a Budget was just a passion blog she did in her free time. Fast forward to today, and with no external investment, just through revenue generation alone, Plant-Based on a Budget is now a profitable company employing five people and reaching millions with a message of how to save money by eating in a way that’s better for you and for the world. 
In addition to talking about Toni’s latest book, Plant-Based on a Budget Quick and Easy, we also talk a lot about the business of being an influencer, how being the CEO of a profitable company that puts her in the spotlight has changed her life, and more. I had fun doing this interview, and I hope Toni did too. You be the judge. 
Resources discussed in this episode
You can get Toni’s new cookbook here.
Our past episode 51 with Toni.
Toni recommends listening to the Food Blogger Pro podcast, including a recent episode with Toni about her business.
Our past episode with Moby and his new documentary Punk Rock Vegan Movie.
Alfonso Revilla’s stellar photography.
Paul recommends following science and engineerinfluencer Mark Rober.
Vox’s story on the trend of kids wanting to be influencers.
Investor Seth Bannon’s tweet arguing that influencers aren’t creators, but rather entertainers.
More about Toni Okamoto
Toni Okamoto is the founder of Plant-Based on a Budget, the popular website and social media platform that teaches millions how to save dough by eating veggies. She’s also the author of the Plant-Based on a Budget Cookbook, and the co-host of The Plant-Powered People Podcast. Okamoto’s work has been profiled by NPR, NBC News, Parade Magazine, and she’s a regular presence on local and national morning shows across the country, where she teaches viewers how to break their meat habit without breaking their budget. She was also featured in the popular documentary What the Health. When she’s not cooking up a plant-based storm, she’s spending time with her husband and their rescued dog in Sacramento, CA.

President Biden recently signed into law the FDA Modernization Act 2.0, new legislation that ends the FDA’s mandate that all drugs be tested on animals prior to human clinical trials. The new law doesn’t prohibit animal testing, but it does give companies the choice of whether to conduct animal experiments or not, and could lead to many fewer animals being used as test subjects. 
If we don’t use animals as test tubes prior to human clinical trials, what should we use? Emulate claims it has the answer. The organ-on-a-chip company’s CEO Jim Corbett testified before Congress in favor of the new legislation and says his company’s products deliver much more reliable data than does animal experimentation. 
And why shouldn’t it? We all know that rats (the most popular animal on whom to experiment) have pretty different biologies than humans. For example, people with pet rats are regularly warned not to give their rats onions since it can sicken them. We all know dogs are apparently not supposed to eat chocolate. Yet humans do just fine eating these foods that are toxic to rats and dogs. 
So what if we could test on actual human cells that have been placed on chips which mimic the functions of a human body?
In this episode, Jim discusses Emulate’s technology, its promise to slash the number of animals used for testing while delivering safe drugs to market more quickly, who opposes their efforts, and where this is all leading us. 
Emulate so far has raised a whopping quarter-billion dollars of venture capital investment, so someone believes that these folks are onto something big. Time will tell, and for now, their CEO will tell you the Emulate story.
Discussed in this episode
Emulate was birthed from Don Ingber’s lab at Harvard with funding from DARPA
Fast Company and WIRED on Emulate’s work.
Nature Communications Medicine Performance assessment and economic analysis of a human Liver-Chip for predictive toxicology (2022)
Science Translational Medicine Reproducing human and cross-species drug toxicities using a Liver-Chip (2019)
Jim recommends the book Endurance to would-be startup founders
Jim credits the Center for a Humane Economy with leading the passage of the FDA Modernization Act 2.0.
More about Jim Corbett
Jim Corbett has served as a leader of successful international businesses across diverse sectors, including biotechnology, medical imaging, analytical instruments and in vitro diagnostics. His experience ranges from Fortune 100 companies to entrepreneurial start-ups. 
Until becoming the CEO of Emulate, he served in leadership roles at PerkinElmer during an 11-year tenure, including Executive Vice President and President of Discovery & Analytical Solutions. His other roles at PerkinElmer included President of Diagnostics & Life Sciences, Senior Vice President of Life Sciences Solutions, and Vice President of North America Genetic Screening.
Prior to PerkinElmer, Corbett was President of ViaCell, Inc. which was acquired by PerkinElmer in 2007. Previously, he co-founded CADx Systems, a company focused on the oncology market, where he held the position of Executive Vice President and Director with responsibility for worldwide sales and marketing, technical support and business development. Following the 2004 acquisition of CADx by iCAD, Inc., he was named Chief Commercial Officer. 
In addition, Corbett worked for Abbott Laboratories for 14 years in a variety of sales and marketing positions including Worldwide Marketing Manager for Abbott Diagnostics Immunoassay Systems and Region Manager for Abbott Diagnostics. Corbett holds a Bachelor of Science from The University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

You’ve heard of the companies seeking to build new brands of animal-free meat, but you hear a lot less about the B2B companies working behind the scenes to give those pioneers the tools they need to succeed.
One such company, Matrix FT, recently debuted what it’s calling Ohio’s first cultivated chicken nugget, featuring chicken cells grown on the scaffolds and microcarriers it produces. Via a technology called electo-spinning (more like this than this), Matrix FT is creating edible, animal-free, cost-effective ingredients that cultivated meat companies can use in their media to more effectively grow their meat. And now the company’s starting to work with plant-based meat companies to improve texture, as well.
Recently Matrix FT’s founder and CEO Eric Jenkusky stepped down from his role, and their executive Teryn Wolfe assumed the helm of the company. In this interview, we talk with Teryn about what circumstances in her life led her to be running an alt-protein food tech company, what she views as the big hurdles in the space, and why she thinks it’s taking longer for cultivated meat to reach your plate than many had predicted.
Discussed in this episode
Using electro-spinning for plant-based meat (cool tech here on this too) Using electro-spinning for cultivated meat Teryrn recommends the Good Food Institute’s deep dive into cultivated meat science She also recommends New Harvest’s resources About Teryn Wolfe
Teryn Wolfe is the Interim CEO at Matrix Food Technologies, where she was the former Vice President and Director of Corporate Development and Strategic Relationships. Before joining Matrix F.T., Teryn founded and managed Measurement Matters, based out of  Colombia. She is also the founder of a startup that helps female artisans and entrepreneurs get their products to market, and a NGO. She is  Fulbright Research Scholar Alumni, a former Adjunct professor and possesses a diverse, international professional background, marked with unique experiences that have been driven by curiosity, determination and desire to deliver on creating meaningful, positive change in the world. Teryn lives in Columbus, Ohio with her son, Adrian, and her dog, Penny Lane. She spends her free time reading, cooking, playing, conjuring up new business ideas and planning logistics of adventures to come! 

Usually when you hear about meat’s connection to methane, it’s about all the methane that cows are emitting into the atmosphere, accelerating climate change. What if, however, you could capture methane before it goes into the atmosphere, and feed it to microbes which in turn convert it into protein-packed ingredients to make alt-meat?
Sounds like magic, but it’s not magic, it’s science! And it’s a science that Dr. Ezhil Subbian and her team at String Bio are advancing right now.
The India-based company in 2022 closed its $20 million Series B round and is now scaling up to commercialize its microbial protein ingredients.
In this interview, Dr. Subbian and I talk about how she started the company, why she moved it from Silicon Valley to Bangalore, India, where they get the methane to feed their microbes, and much more.
It’s a fun conversation with someone passionate about fermentation and seeking to scale it in a part of the world where it’s desperately needed—where meat demand is rising the fastest: Asia.
So enjoy this conversation with a real pioneer in the microbial fermentation space as she tells you her story of going from biotech researcher to startup CEO.
Discussed in this episode
Our past episode with Zero Acre Farms. Ezhil recommends Meditations by Marcus Aurelius  Paul’s favorite quote from Meditations: “Everything that happens is either endurable or not. If it’s endurable, then endure it. Stop complaining. If it’s unendurable … then stop complaining. Your destruction will mean its end as well.” Ezhil recommends The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee  Finally, Ezhil recommends Good to Great by Jim Collins More about Ezhil Subbian, PhD
Ezhil is a scientist, innovator, thinker, hiking enthusiast and a citizen of the world. Ezhil is driven by a passion to leverage the power of biology to deliver sustainable and cost-effective solutions. Her experience in biobased product development over the last 20 years helps her bring deep technical expertise to the work at String. Ezhil’s work was most recently recognized with the Women Transforming India Award 2018 from United Nations/NITI Aayog.
Ezhil completed her degree in Industrial and Biotech engineering from Anna University, Chennai, and then went on to do a PhD in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland. She then worked for over 12 years in Silicon Valley’s Bay area as part of the biotechnology industry. She worked as a scientist and technical lead across multiple companies before becoming a consultant and then starting up.
Ezhil is a scientist, innovator, thinker, hiking enthusiast and a citizen of the world. Ezhil is driven by a passion to leverage the power of biology to deliver sustainable and cost-effective solutions. Her experience in biobased product development over the last 20 years helps her bring deep technical expertise to the work at String. Ezhil’s work was most recently recognized with the Women Transforming India Award 2018 from United Nations/NITI Aayog.

Nearly none of the plastic we use gets recycled. Even the plastic we throw into the recycling bin often ends up in landfills since it’s just not economical to recycle the plastic, especially now that China has banned imports of American plastic waste. So what are we going to do with the vast oceans of plastic we love to use?
Shelly Zhang has an idea. As you’ll hear in this episode, the death of Shelly’s father led to the birth of her company, Molten Materials. Armed with her PhD in engineering, Shelly has pioneered a method of taking plastic waste and upcycling it into pavement sealers, asphalt rejuvenators, and more.
In other words, she’s betting that she can take our trash and turn it into her treasure, all while solving the pressing problem of what to do with all our plastic waste. 
Already, Shelly’s earned seed investment, hired a dozen team members, filed for various patents, and is now readying her first-ever product, an upcycled-plastic DIY pavement sealer you can use on your own driveway or other cracked surfaces. 
Her story is an inspirational one, moving to the US from China, earning her PhD, and now founding her own company. I think you’ll be impressed, so let me allow Shelly to tell you her story herself.
Discussed in this episode
Shelly recommends Shoe Dog by Phil Knight Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman, by Richard Feynman Our past episode on nuclear waste with Deep Isolation CEO Elizabeth Muller More about Shelly Zhang
Shelly Zhang earned her PhD from California Institute of Technology (Caltech). In 2020 Shelly founded Molten Materials, her vision is to create a clean and sustainable world for future generations by replacing big oil. She believes that through technological innovation, it is achievable to solve the toughest problems our world faces."