In the final episode of Feeding 10 Billion Season 2, we contend with some of our enduring questions - what will humans eat in a world that is rapidly warming and exposed to the worst effects of climate change? And how do we preserve our links to tradition and the foods we love to eat in this new world? A dystopian future threatening those traditions is already rearing its head in a multitude of ways. Alternating extreme weather cycles like drought caused by water scarcity or floods caused by sudden storms are already stripping the soil of its ability to sustain us. While we stay in to fend off the worst pandemic our generation has seen, we’ve also witnessed biblical proportions of pestilence ravaging our crops. This year, parts of East Africa, Iran, and India witnessed their most disruptive locust swarms in decades, while the UK’s unprecedented weather reduced wheat yields to their lowest levels in 40 years, threatening to convert it from an exporter to a net importer. If we want to prioritise food security, we will need all the answers we can find - all technologies, communities, and platforms that can help us build a more resilient food supply. Today’s guest is an entrepreneur working on exactly the kind of foods that can enable us to reverse - or, at the very least, withstand - the ravages of climate change and public health crises. Thomas Jonas is CEO and cofounder of Nature’s Fynd, a company whose story is as fascinating as any science fiction you’ve ever read - it involves NASA, space exploration, and the world’s largest supervolcano. Nature’s Fynd has big plans for fueling the planet sustainably with complete protein from fungi - learn more on the season finale of F10B.NOTES:Companies Mentioned:Nature’s FyndBibliographyBiblical, on steroids, and across generations: The coming food and nutrition crash can be averted if we act now to counter the COVID-19 crisis, IFPRI BlogClimate crisis: Extreme weather means UK faces worst wheat yields in 40 years, farmers’ union says, IndependentBeyond vegan burgers: next-generation protein could come from air, methane, volcanic springs, ReutersDo These Tiny Organisms Hold the Key to Lab-Grown Food? BloombergFood Startup Takes Microbes From the Volcano to the Table, The Wall Street JournalNature's Fynd (formerly Sustainable Bioproducts) raises $80m to grow food from microbes, Food Navigator USANASA’s Small Investments in Small Businesses Pay Big Dividends, NASAFor Further Reading:Sustainable Bioproducts Makes Animal-Free Meat with Volcano Microorganisms, GFI BlogBeyond Plants: Using Fermentation, Fungi, Algae, and Bacteria to Create Novel Proteins and Ingredients, The Good Food Conference, 2019

Feeding 10 Billion

S02 E10: Plagues, Pestilence, Smart Protein: Our Resilient Food Future

In the year 2050, we tend to focus on the fact that there will be nearly 10 billion human beings on this planet - but we won’t be the only species to worry about. We are currently witnessing an unprecedented loss of biodiversity and species loss as climate change makes this planet inhospitable for them as well. It’s clear that we need a way to feed not just ourselves but also ensure other species thrive on Earth without being too extractive from Nature. What’s also clear is Bio-tech is going to be key to this transformation, and will rule the world just as software did for the last few decades. And there are a few people building the future of food at the very vanguard of this development.Our guest this week is one of the most prolific investors and early stage funders of numerous biotech companies in the alternative protein space. Ryan Bethencourt is the CEO of Wild Earth, that is creating pet food with protein made from fermentation-based products. He is also a partner at Babel Ventures, an early stage consumer biotech venture capital fund. As the co-founder, and CEO of incubators and seed funds like IndieBio (an SOS Ventures backed accelerator, and early stage seed fund) and Berkeley Bio Labs, a startup incubator, and sector builder, as well as the head of life sciences at the XPRIZE foundation, Ryan has funded well over a 100 companies in the alternative protein space. Some notable companies he has funded include Shiok Meats, Memphis Meats, New Wave Foods, Clara Foods, Finless Foods as well as Mumbai’s plant-based egg company, Evo Foods. Ryan’s aim overlaps with ours at GFI India - we want to positively impact the lives of billions of people and animals!NOTES:Companies Mentioned:Wild EarthIndieBioBabel VenturesBerkeley Bio LabsXPrize FoundationBibliography:Why Wild Earth Cofounder Ryan Bethencourt Is Applying The Science Of 'Vegan Biohacking' To Pet Food, Forbes.Eat For The Planet #71 - Ryan Bethencourt: Reinventing Pet Food and Building the Post-Animal Bio Economy, EFTP.This biotech startup is growing protein-rich vegan pet food in a lab, FastCompanyShiok Meats takes the cultured meat revolution to the seafood aisle with plans for cultured shrimp, TechCrunch.Tour the San Francisco lab that’s growing meat in a petri dish, CNBCA foodtech EVO-lution: this startup is set to disrupt India’s plant-based food market with its ‘clean’ egg substitute, YourStoryFor Further Reading:Ryan Bethencourt’s writing on Medium.Ryan’s videos on the Singularity University page.What does it take to create a conducive environment for scale-up of new protein companies? Future of Protein Summit, YouTube Channel.

S02 E09: Building the Bio Revolution

What seemed like science fiction just a few decades back, is increasingly becoming a reality. Early research pioneered by NASA on how to feed astronauts in long haul missions to planets like Mars brought closed loop systems and fermented ingredients to the spotlight. These systems don’t rely on limited natural resources, and could potentially be key to feeding 10 billion sustainably by 2050. And those fermentation machines? They’re none other than microorganisms like bacteria, yeast, and microalgae, which can make nutritious protein from little more than air, CO2, and water! Our guests this week are both accomplished PhD’s - one is from the investment side of the equation while the other is a biotech scientist who has turned entrepreneur. Ritu Verma is co-founder and managing partner at Ankur Capital, a firm that is funding ideas for the next billion, while Ezhil Subbian is CEO and Co-Founder of String, a synthetic biology company which makes microbial protein from methane. Ritu has backed Ezhil’s vision with the catalytic capital we keep talking about on this show. In developed startup ecosystems like Silicon Valley, academia partners with investors and entrepreneurs to leverage technology transfer and fuel innovation. In India, those pathways are still being built out - but before that happens, we need focussed intervention in the form of grants, funding and other incentives from the government to create those cradles of scientific enterprise within universities and other players. Ezhil and Ritu are the perfect guests to tell us more. Listen to find out what it really takes to scale biotech innovation in emerging markets.NOTES:Companies Mentioned:Ankur CapitalString BioAir ProteinSolar FoodsGevoC-CAMPBIRACBibliography:The Bio Revolution: Innovations transforming economies, societies, and our lives, McKinseyWhy Software is Eating the World, Marc Andresssen, Wall Street JournalFSSAI manpower shortage: Govt sanctions nearly 500 additional posts for food regulator, FirstPostFor Further Reading:Bridging the Valley of Death between Innovation Funding and Market Adoption: Forbes

S02 E08: Conquering the Valley of Death

Smart protein, if done right, can be a big win for the planet. By now, hopefully, it is clear that foods that replace animal-sourced meat, eggs, and dairy tend to use fewer resources, do not contribute to rising greenhouse gas emissions, and diminish the risk of zoonotic diseases and antibiotic resistance. But equally exciting is the sector’s potential to tackle issues that we grapple with and mention on Feeding 10 Billion all the time - like malnutrition. India faces the tremendous challenge of being home to a third of the world’s total stunted children, and half of all under-5 child mortality in the country is due to undernutrition. Poor nutrition in the first 1000 days of a child’s life is crucial to tackling this issue, as is a young mother’s health. Irrespective of whether they feed their kids breastmilk or formula, (and face guilt over whatever they choose), if mothers are grappling with anemia or poor nutrition, their kids do not have access to the nutrients they so badly need. Meanwhile, over 10% of cow’s milk production globally is actually absorbed by the infant nutrition market. Our guests this week, (which is timed perfectly with World Breastfeeding Week), have a solution that could allow mothers to feed their children actual human breast milk without worrying about a baby’s ability to latch, their own nutrition, or supplementing inadequate feed with formula made from animal-sourced milk. All while giving their babies the nutrients they desperately need. Michelle Egger is the CEO, and Co-Founder of BioMilq, while Leila Strickland is the CSO, and Co-Founder. They are a women-owned, science-led, and parent-centered infant nutrition company producing breast milk cultivated from cells!NOTES:Companies Mentioned:BiomilqTurtle Tree LabsScientific Definitions:Cellular Physiology: Cellular physiology is concerned with the mechanism of transport of nutrients, ions, and water into and out of the cell, as well as how cells communicate with each other through signaling pathways, or respond to external cues.Epithelial/ Epithelium (Intestinal, Kidney, Corneal, Mammary): Membranous tissue composed of one or more layers of cells separated by very little intercellular substance and forming the covering of most internal and external surfaces of the body and its organs.Human milk oligosaccharides (HMO, also known as human milk glycans): Sugar molecules that are part of the oligosaccharides group and can be found in high concentrations exclusively in human breast milk.Bibliography:Bill Gates’ climate-change investment firm bets on lab-produced breast milk, CNBCBIOMILQ Could Be The Next Major Food Disruptor: Getting Real About Entrepreneurship With Co Founder And CEO Michelle Egger, ForbesBreakthrough: Two women producing breast milk - outside the body, MediumThe Business Case for Investment in Nutrition, Chatham House WHO and UNICEF warn of a decline in vaccinations during COVID-19, WHOOverview of Malnutrition in IndiaWHO on Nutrition and BreastfeedingFor Further Reading:Feeding Lessons to tackle malnutrition, FrontlineUnfolding the Human Milk Microbiome Landscape in the Omics Era, Frontiers in Food MicrobiologyBreastfed Right: How Shrirampur’s Babies Escape Malnutrition: IndiaSpend

S02 E07: Tackling Malnutrition with Smart Protein: A Glimpse of the Future

The Beyond Meat IPO in 2019 marked an inflection point not just for the global alternative protein ecosystem but the fledgling Indian innovation ecosystem as well. Calls to offer capital, R&D and entrepreneurial talent started pouring in. But the best things take time, and building something entirely new takes much more. An innovation ecosystem takes patient capital, collaborative partners, supportive incubators, and years of developmental research being translated from the university to the market via entrepreneurs collaborating with researchers. While these components exist in every market, in India, the ecosystem is still embryonic. Each of these elements - research, incubation, capital infusion, product development, industry collaboration, and finally market launch takes enormous effort and has to be built from scratch. Connections between these players have to be forged, and we’ve played matchmaker for technology transfer, talent pool development and connecting catalytic capital or corporations to the right companies. Today’s guest Shardul Dabir is GFI India’s Innovation Specialist. Shardul has been thinking of food systems since his teenage years, and offers some innovative answers for how we can grow the early stage Indian ecosystem in smart protein.NOTES:Organisations mentioned:NIFTEMICTCFTRIIIFPTIIT-KGPIIT-DelhiCCMBMOFPIICARBIRACCSIRDBTDSTRISECompanies Mentioned:Impossible FoodsMosa MeatMemphis MeatsBeyond MeatJUSTGood DotGood MylkBibliography:Shardul’s Blog: The India Smart Protein Innovation Challenge: Unlocking talent bottlenecksThe India Smart Protein Innovation ChallengeGFIdeas India Smart Protein Innovation CommunityFood Pathshala Essay Competition - 2016. Blog by ShardulFor Further Reading:Innovators' Lightning Showcase: Hear from the most promising Indian entrepreneurs in new protein at the Future of Protein Summit 2019.For more on our GFIdeas India Webinars check out our YouTube page.

S02 E06: Building a Food Innovation Ecosystem

Understanding what consumers want has been the holy grail for innovators across industries for decades. In the U.S. and other countries, products like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods demonstrated that a huge and viable market exists for burgers made from plants for people who love their meat. In the U.S. consumers love their burgers and eat three a week, but in India could a similar case be made for our biryanis (which we consume at the rate of 1.6 every second as per Swiggy data from 2019)? The key in India to understanding consumer behaviour is to look at what they buy and how they act rather than what they profess to do in market research. This is because the large swathe of flexitarians in India are guilty non-vegetarians and so far we have not had concrete data points about this cohort to help formulate precise products for them. Indians are not a homogenous consumer group either; our cuisine varies every 100 kilometres. On this episode of Feeding 10 Billion, GFI India’s Corporate Engagement Specialist Dhruvi Narsaria and our Market & Consumer Insights Specialist Rajyalakshmi G, tell us about the important cues for consumer insight and what need-states innovators need to cater to, when they develop alternative protein products in India.NOTESCompanies Mentioned:Beyond MeatImpossible FoodsNX-FoodBibliography:Study from Penn State University that confirms the first wave of products are meant for meat-eatersEAT Lancet Report on how we can feed a future population of 10 billion people a healthy diet within planetary boundaries? Our annual per capita meat consumption as per the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)73 Percent of Urban Rich Indians are Protein Deficient: 11 High-Protein Foods, NDTVIn 2019, Indians ordered 95 biryanis per minute from Swiggy: Report: LivemintFrom meat and fish to vegetables: These 9 charts show how India eats, Hindustan TimesMintel: Tackling the sedentary lifestyle: 64% of Indians say they don't exercise. A Survey of Consumer Perceptions of Plant-Based and Clean Meat in the USA, India, and China in the Frontiers Sustainability in Food Systems JournalIPSOS study on today's views that will shape tomorrow's foodBCG Turn the Tide Consumer ReportLokniti-CSDS-KAS Survey: Mind of the youth, Indian ExpressFor Further Reading:Plant Protein: An Indian Consumer Perspective - by Dhruvi Narsaria at the Future of Protein Summit 2019Feeding 10 Billion, Season 1 Episode 1: Inside the RevolutionYou can follow Dhruvi Narsaria @dhruvi.narsaria on Instagram and @dhruvinarsaria on Linkedin& Rajyalakshmi G on Linkedin 

S02 E05: Beyond the Burger - Decoding what Consumers Want

In 2019, Dean Foods, America’s largest dairy producer filed for bankruptcy prompting analogies of the proverbial canary in the coal mine as the 94-year old company’s struggles narrowed down to one undeniable fact: conventional milk sales have declined for the last 4 years in the U.S. Alternatives like plant-based dairy products have meanwhile soared to a $17.4 billion industry, staking claim to 13% of dairy sales by value. During Covid-19, plant-based milk sales have gained further with brands like Oatly becoming predominant. Technology think tank RethinkX predicts that this is just the beginning, and within a decade, the U.S. dairy and cattle industry will collapse and a slew of technologies will satisfy consumer demand, effectively rendering the cow obsolete as a food producer. What does this trend mean for India - where the cow is holy, dairy products are not just on our plates but also used for worship and dairy brands like Amul have a storied legacy in our economic development? GFI India’s Sci-Tech Specialist Siddharth Bhide joins us for this special episode to talk about pathways to growth for plant-based dairy in India with the gains made by companies like pioneering plant-based dairy company, Good Mylk and yoghurt brand Epigamia, which recently launched its first coconut-milk based yoghurt. Siddarth explains how food technology is key to the 2.0 version of plant-based dairy products.NOTES:COMPANIES MENTIONED:OatlyGoodMylkChobaniPerfect DayRippleTurtle Tree LabsBiomilqBibliography:The RethinkX report5 charts that show how milk sales changed and made it tough for Dean Foods to avert bankruptcy, CNBCDairy farmers forced to dump milk as demand drops amid coronavirus closures, NBC NewsAmul aims to achieve a business turnover of Rs 50,000 crore by 2021, The Economic TimesIs the milk you are having safe? Here's what you need to know, The Economic TimesFeeding 10 Billion, S1Ep.04, The Business of Food with Mark KahnClimate change: Which vegan milk is best? BBCFor Further Reading:The GFI India Plant-Based Dairy Webinar by Siddarth Bhide, Miranda Grizio and MJ Kinney will be uploaded soon on our website.GFI's Plant-based State of the Industry Report, 2020Contact Us:You can write to us at india@gfi.org or connect with GFI India on LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube or join our GFIdeas India Smart Protein Innovation Community on LinkedIn.

S02 E04: Paving the Way for Plant-Based Dairy in India

Agriculture forms a significant bulk of the Indian workforce, with over half of our workforce dependent on the sector. Relentless urbanization notwithstanding, low and middle-income countries like India will have to nurture their rural populations’ agricultural contribution in the coming years to feed all of us sustainably. The potential to leverage agricultural output and biodiversity for new, exciting sectors like alternative protein is immense. But without the necessary infrastructure or investment, entrepreneurs can find themselves face to face with a valley of death between product innovation and commercialization. This just ends up crippling momentum and blunts opportunities in emerging sectors. Today’s guest on Feeding 10 Billion, Hemendra Mathur, is a Venture Partner at Bharat Innovation Fund and Co-Founder of corporate innovation platform ThinkAg. Hemendra has successfully built pathways among what he calls the pancha tatva (five essential ingredients of any ecosystem) of government, industry, R&D, investors or incubation, and entrepreneurs to forge patient, ecosystem-enabling, “catalytic capital” for vital sectors like agri-technology. We talk to Hemendra about how we can replicate this success with ecosystem building for alternative protein.NOTES:Companies & Organisations Mentioned:ThinkAgBharat Innovation FundIndian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)JUST EggDefinition:Catalytic Capital falls on the impact investing end of the spectrum of investment, just shy of philanthropic grants and is often used to fill gaps for impact enterprises and facilitate additional investment. From Tideline's Catalytic Capital: Unlocking More Investment and Impact. Adapted from Barby, C.; Pederson, M. (2014)Bibliography:Several states amend the Mandi and APMC Act during lockdown to enable farmers to sell 46 fruits and vegetables directly without the Mandi. (Source: Business Standard)2017 - the inflection year for Indian Agtech, by Hemendra Mathur, YourStory Patient capital a must for deep-tech funds and startups: Hemendra Mathur, Bharat Innovation Fund, TechCircle How "Zomatoisation" will impact Indian food supply chain? by Hemendra Mathur, Inc42 How Indian agritech can help address climate risks by Hemendra Mathur, AgFunderNews Indian Agritech: Accelerate the Adoption of Agritech Innovations By Enabling the Ecosystem, by Hemendra Mathur, AgFunderNewsIndians are protein deficient, and it needs immediate attention, Forbes India Further Reading Material:The Future of Protein Summit 2019, Panel on “What does it take to create a conducive environment for scale-up of new protein companies?” Featuring Hemendra Mathur, YouTube

S02 E03: Connecting the Dots for Catalytic Capital

Last year was groundbreaking for plant-based food, and we’re also on the cusp of making secure, sustainable, and cultivated meat a reality. Despite Covid-19, this year’s been no pushover either. The amount of money raised in Q1 2020 ($930 million) was more than what was invested in the smart protein sector in all of 2019 ($824 million). But much of this progress is centred in the U.S. While the Indian and larger Asian market has gained momentum, we still have some catching up to do. On the second episode of Season 2 of Feeding 10 Billion, we are talking to Andrew Ive, Managing General Partner, and Founder of Big Idea Ventures (BIV), a venture capital firm supporting entrepreneurs to solve the world's biggest challenges. Mumbai-based plant-based egg company Evo Foods was chosen to be a part of their accelerator in their recent cohort. Swiss food processing giant Bühler and BIV also announced a partnership to accelerate plant-based startups’ journeys to deliver animal-free protein alternatives. In this episode, find out why investors like BIV are bullish about India’s role in the global smart protein sector.NOTES:Companies Mentioned:Big Idea VenturesEvo FoodsBühler GroupTyson VenturesBibliography:Asia’s First: India Plant-Based Egg Startup Evo Foods Announces Angel Investment, Green Queen Media (Also covered by YourStory)Bühler & Big Idea Ventures Partner To Champion Asia Plant-Based Protein Revolution, Green Queen MediaAAK collaborates with the Good Food Institute India driving innovation within plant-based foods, AAKFurther Reading Material:GFI’s State of the Industry Reports for Plant-Based Meat, Eggs, and Dairy; Cultivated Meat. Coming soon: Fermentation.BIV is featured in the list of 100 of Asia’s top protein disruptors launched by GFI APAC: Asia ALT100If you are an innovator interested in joining the smart protein sector, connect with our GFIdeas India Smart Protein Innovation Community on LinkedIn.

S02 E02: Big Ideas, Big Investments

Season 1 of Feeding 10 Billion launched in a banner year for alt-protein. 2019 was the year Beyond Meat had its record-setting IPO, the year Impossible Foods raised $300 million in its Series E and overall, more than 800 million dollars was invested globally in companies making meat, eggs, and dairy from plants, cells and fermented ingredients. It was also the year, when nine out of the top 10 largest U.S. meat companies got involved with plant-based meat and when GFI US successfully used free speech laws to block a Missouri law from restricting what we can call plant-based meat, and dairy. We truly witnessed the spark that fuels the food revolution that we spoke about in Season 1. On the first episode of Season 2, we are talking to someone who was instrumental (essential?) in lighting one of the first sparks, and fueling important scientific conversations, framing essential policy frameworks and guiding tectonic industry shifts that have led us to where we are in the global alt-protein sector. Join hosts Varun Deshpande and Ramya Ramamurthy of the Good Food Institute India as they talk to GFI’s co-founder Bruce Friedrich about why we do what we do, and how food can fix some of the biggest problems of the world.Additional Reading:NOTES:Companies Mentioned:Plant-based food companies:Beyond Meat Impossible FoodsJUSTCultivated meat companies:Memphis MeatsBibliography:Future of Food, Bill GatesBeyond Meat’s Chicken Strips Came First, CNBCCan a burger help solve Climate Change? New YorkerAmid rising demand for Beyond Meat burgers, US farmers can’t solve this supply problem, MarketWatchBuilt on MU Professors research [into high moisture extrusion of fibrous meat analog], [Beyond Meat’s] meatless burger sells out. University of MissouriNew Brazilian Startup Fazenda Future Announces Plant-Based Burger, GFI BlogMemphis Meats' $169 Million Series B is a Turning Point for the Meat Industry, GFI BlogBeyond Meat Goes Public, Raises $241 Million, GFI BlogGFI Goes to Court for First Amendment, GFI BlogTED Talks:The next global agricultural revolution | Bruce FriedrichMeat Without Animals: The Future Of Food | Bruce Friedrich | TEDxGateway Market Forces and Food Technology Will Save the World | Bruce Friedrich | TEDxSonomaCountyFrom Agitator to Innovator: Why I Swapped Activism for Food Tech | Bruce Friedrich | TEDxBethesdaMeat is the New Mobile - Leapfrogging our Way to the Future of Food | Varun Deshpande | TEDxKITCoEK

S02 E01: Building the Foundation of Alternative Protein

By the year 2050 we will have 10 billion people on our planet - a sixth of whom will be in India. If we want to feed all 10 billion of us in a sustainable, healthy and just way, we need to reimagine how we source our food. Feeding ourselves cannot come at the cost of global health, worsening greenhouse gas emissions, excessive land, water and resource use, zoonotic diseases, antibiotic resistance, and needless suffering. Last season, we brought you a ringside view of the next food revolution that is rethinking the future of protein. Companies like Memphis Meats, Impossible Foods, Beyond Meat and JUST Egg had a blockbuster year making meat, eggs, and other animal-sourced foods from plants, or cells, or other ingredients that are delicious and nutritious for us, and vastly better for the planet. The Covid-19 pandemic has only made the importance of protein diversification evident. If you want to be part of the future of food and work on solutions to some of the biggest problems of our time, join the Good Food Institute’s Varun Deshpande and Ramya Ramamurthy on Season 2 of Feeding 10 Billion.

Season 2: Announcement

In the season finale of our 10 part series Feeding 10 Billion, we focus on one word that has come to dominate our discourse and perfectly captures our theory of change - leapfrog. The themes in our podcast this season have given you an inkling of the range of work happening in the new protein sector - from cultivated and sustainable seafood to plant-based protein enriched foods. We hope it has also underlined the fact that however you approach this - be it through the lens of climate change, public health, malnutrition, farmer incomes, water shortage, land use, species extinction or animal welfare - we need to leapfrog over the industrial animal agriculture that has led to a broken food system. The analogue to mobile telephony or digital payments exist but to create new pathways in food (which is also socio-culturally loaded in our country) we need all the insight we can get. This episode we speak to Michelle Adelman, the CEO and Founder of Infinite Foods, who also heads the companies, Go Fresh and Accite Holdings. Michelle works in South Africa, Botswana and beyond to bring the most exciting plant-based foods like Beyond Meat, JUST egg and Miyoko’s cheese as well as Oatly milk to these developing markets. Her lessons from this continent have tremendous import for the work to be done in India. And with that, it’s a wrap on this season of Feeding 10 Billion. We hope you enjoyed this season, and we will catch up with you again in the new year in 2020!

Ep. 10: No Food to Good Food

It’s no secret our oceans are in trouble. Climate change and bad policy continue to contribute to major shifts in one of the most complex ecosystems on the planet. Among the most pressing challenges are ocean acidification (the ocean today is, on average, 25% more acidic than in pre-industrial times), overfishing (a staggering 93% of all fisheries are being fished at or beyond capacity, while demand for seafood continues to rise the world over) and plastic pollution (about half of which is a direct result of fishing and seafood consumption; more than 640,000 tons of “ghost gear” — discarded fishing equipment — ends up in oceans every year). And while efforts to address these issues have ramped up in recent years, they have often focused on the wrong things. In this episode of Feeding 10 Billion, Varun and Ramya sit down with Jen Lamy, manager of the Sustainable Seafood Initiative at the Good Food Institute, to discuss the problems facing our oceans, the complex and opaque seafood supply chain and why plant-based and cultivated seafood are the best way forward. SHOW NOTES: What is plant-based meat and seafood? Plant-based products are direct replacements for animal-based products, such as plant-based meat, seafood, eggs and dairy. These include products that use the biomimicry approach to replicate the taste and texture of meat, as well as plant-forward products (like jackfruit, seitan, tofu and tempeh) that serve as functional meat replacements. Source What is cultivated meat and seafood? Cultivated meat (often referred to as cell-based meat or clean meat) is genuine animal meat that can replicate the sensory and nutritional profile of conventionally produced meat because it’s comprised of the same cell types and arranged in the same three-dimensional structure as animal tissue. It isn’t imitation or synthetic meat; it’s actual meat that is grown from cells outside of an animal. Source Dr Mark Post’s Ted Talk at TedX Haarlem in 2013: Meet the new meat What is aquaculture? The term aquaculture broadly refers to the cultivation of aquatic organisms in controlled aquatic environments for any commercial, recreational or public purpose. The breeding, rearing and harvesting of plants and animals takes place in all types of water environments including ponds, rivers, lakes, the ocean and man-made “closed” systems on land. Source What is ocean acidification? Ocean acidification refers to a reduction in the pH of the ocean over an extended period of time, caused primarily by uptake of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere. Source Organizations, Institutes, Cultivated, and Plant-Based Companies: The Good Food Institute’s Sustainable Seafood Initiative  Developing and commercializing plant-based and cell-based seafood is the most tractable path for ensuring seafood sustainability and improving the health of our oceans. GFI’s Sustainable Seafood Initiative provides targeted research and support with a laser focus on accelerating this sector.   FAO The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to tackle food insecurity, world hunger, and food sustainability.   IPCC The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change.   Shiok Meats Shiok in Singapore and Malay slang means fantastic and delicious. Shiok Meats is the first cell-based clean meat company in Singapore and South-East Asia. Their mission is to bring delicious, clean and healthy seafood like crustacean meats (including shrimp, crab and lobster) by harvesting meat from cells instead of animals. Their meats are animal-, health- and environment-friendly with the same taste, texture, more nutrients and no cruelty.   Avant Meats Avant Meats Company Limited is a start-up that focuses on R&D of cell-based agriculture. They strive to bring down the product costs of cell-based meat by researches (sic) and collaboration with companies of tangential technologies.   BlueNalu, Inc BlueNalu's mission is to be the global leader in cellular aquaculture™, providing consumers with great tasting, healthy, safe, and trusted seafood products that support the sustainability and diversity of our oceans. Their aim is to supplement current industry practice, in which fish are farmed or wild-caught in our ocean and seas, by producing real seafood products directly from fish cells, that are as delicious and nutritious as products that have been grown conventionally, in a way that is healthy for people, humane for animals, and sustainable for our planet.   WIld Type  Wild Type’s mission is to create the cleanest, most sustainable seafood on the planet. They use cellular agriculture technologies to address the most pressing challenges of our generation: climate change, food security, and health.   Finless Food Finless Foods is a food startup working toward a world where everyone has access to healthy, delectable seafood, without the environmental devastation or the health hazards of traditional fishing and aquatic farming. Starting with bluefin tuna, they use cutting-edge cellular-agriculture technologies to grow marine-animal cells, creating fish and seafood products enjoyed around the world.   Good Catch The Good Catch team are passionate culinary rebels with a cause—seafood without sacrifice. They bring you the rich flavors and flaky textures of fine seafood—from fish-free tuna and burgers to crab-free cakes—made with nutritious, sustainable ingredients. Their mission is to “preserve the ocean’s natural resources while introducing awesomely delicious “seafood” choices that benefit you and the world. Nothing fishy about it.”   Ocean Hugger Ocean Hugger Foods offers healthy, delicious and sustainable plant-based alternatives to your favorite seafood proteins. Created by one of America's top chefs, Certified Master Chef James Corwell. Their flagship product, Ahimi™, is the world's first plant-based alternative to raw tuna, perfect for use in sushi, poke, tartare, ceviche and more.   ADDITIONAL READING: Find more information about Maharashtra's ban on single-use plastics here Read about Indian Prime Minister Narandra Modi’s pledge to ban single-use plastic here Read why the push to ban plastic straws — when fishing accounts for 46% of all ocean plastic — is well intentioned but misguided *here** More information about the dire state of our oceans and why plant-based and cultivated seafood are the best way forward can be found here Read more about Canada’s seafood traceability issue here  Read IPCC’s “The Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate” report here More information about the rising levels of microplastic in our oceans can be found here Read more about the Van Cleve Seafood Company’s first plant-based seafood launch, Wild.Skinny.Clean, here Here’s an article about Northern Harvest’s salmon die-off and cleanup efforts.

Ep. 9: Fishing for a Fix

Through this season of Feeding 10 Billion, two names that have cropped up in nearly every episode are the pioneers of plant-based meats: Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods. Beyond Meat had the biggest IPO in North America in the last two decades this year. Impossible Foods was first served in Michelin starred restaurants in 2016 and is now making waves at chains like Burger King thanks to its plant-based beef burger being served as the Impossible Whopper - leading to BK’s best quarter in the last four years. On this special episode of Feeding 10 Billion, we feature a conversation between senior executives of these companies (Seth Goldman - Executive Chairman at Beyond Meat, and David Lipman - Chief Scientific Officer at Impossible Foods) and representatives of organisations like FAIRR, Centre for Biological Diversity and Institute for the Future’s Future Food Lab, along with Varun Deshpande, Managing Director at the Good Food Institute India. The conversation took place at a panel during the blockbuster second iteration of the Good Food Conference in San Francisco. With 900 people in attendance, the session focused on some of the weightiest issues surrounding plant-based and cultivated meat’s potential to address antibiotic resistance, global malnutrition and poverty, climate change and natural resource utilization. Of course, this is a massive undertaking that needs to balance business with issues such as biodiversity as well as global access to good food. The government, investors, companies, and even themselves - these panelists pull punches for nobody! Show Notes- This episode features panelists from the panel: The “Why”: Mitigating Environmental and Public Health Risks at the Good Food Conference held in San Francisco this year. If you would like to look up the other panel discussions held at the event, you can find them on the GFC website. If you want to learn more about how India fits into the puzzle of the global alternative protein’s dizzying growth, or are keen to collaborate and build this new protein sector as an entrepreneur, investor, food corporation or scientist, please do visit the Future of Protein website and register to attend. The event is on from Nov 11 to 12 in New Delhi and entry is free! COMPANIES MENTIONED: Beyond Meat is a ten-year-old company that had the biggest IPO in North America in the last two decades this year. Beyond makes meat directly from plants and its revolutionary food-tech products made out of proteins like peas, mung or fava beans, brown rice and sunflower and fas like cocoa butter, and coconut, sunflower or canola oil that replace burgers, sausages, mince or ground meat can be found in 58000 grocery stores in the US. Impossible Foods which was formed in 2011 and was the first plant-based meat to be offered by Michelin restaurants in 2016 and soon made it to the menus of White Castle followed by Burger King last year. Impossible Burgers are made with 96% less land, 87% less water and 89& fewer green house gas emissions than burgers made from cows. FAIRR - Established by the Jeremy Coller Foundation, the FAIRR Initiative is a collaborative investor network that raises awareness of the material ESG (Environmental, Social or Governance) risks and opportunities caused by intensive animal production. FAIRR helps investors to identify and prioritise these factors through cutting-edge research that investors can then integrate into their investment decision-making and active stewardship processes. Centre for Biological Diversity : Based in Tucson, Arizona, is a nonprofit membership, this is an organization with approximately 1.1 million members and online activists, known for its work protecting endangered species through legal action, scientific petitions, creative media and grassroots activism Institute for the Future's Future Food Labs: The Institute for the Future is a California, US–based not-for-profit think tank that was established, in 1968, to help organizations plan for the long-term future, a subject known as futures studies. IFTF’s Food Futures Lab identifies and catalyzes the innovations that have the potential to reinvent our global food system. We help stakeholders—multinational food companies, farmers, chefs, entrepreneurs, and more—make sense of emerging technologies, social behaviors, and scientific breakthroughs and take action toward a more resilient, equitable, and delicious future of food. Honest Tea - a product mentioned in the podcast by Seth Goldman - is the top selling organic bottled tea brand in the US and was founded by Seth Goldman and Barry Nalebuff in 1998. It was sold to Coca Cola in 2011 and sales have been reported in the 100 million dollar range post acquisition. BIBLIOGRAPHY Max Elder writes about the opportunities driving the future of affordable nutrition in the report titled Good Food is Good Business Coller FAIRR Protein Producer Index analyzes companies like Hormel and the Brazilian meat firm JBS, finding that many of the 60 largest in the sector aren’t taking the necessary steps to reduce their environmental impacts. Amara’s Law by Roy Amara, the former president of the Institute for the Future, states that: We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run. 

Ep. 08: Dispatch from the Frontier of Food

Food makes the world go round - with apologies to Shakespeare! And what makes food so irresistible are ingredients - which can be broken down into the flavour components that build the dish. A simple tempering of spices in our home kitchens inform the flavour bombs of a dish. This process is researched and replicated on an industrial scale by flavour companies across the world, who have to get the recipe exactly right to create the perfect food product. In the alternative protein sector, as companies seek to bio-mimic meat with plant based or cultivated meat, flavours and fragrances are a crucial piece of the puzzle. On this episode of Feeding 10 Billion, we talk to Dr Ganesh Bagler, associate professor at IIIT Delhi and a pioneer in the exciting field of computational gastronomy. His work applying machine learning and artificial intelligence to culinary data on flavours, has created a wealth of insights on food - including a recipe index with more than 118,000 thousand recipes from across the world! Tune in for insights about what makes Indian food so unique, why seafood is an open frontier, and the work still needed to unlock the science of food. SHOW NOTES: If you want to hear from speakers like Ganesh Bagler, register for our Future of Protein Summit being held in New Delhi on November 11 & 12th! IIIT DELHI : The Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, Delhi, is research-oriented state university focused on computer science and related areas. FlavorDB : This is a database created by the complex systems lab at IIIT Delhi. It comprises of 25,595 flavor molecules representing an array of tastes and odors. It is intended to facilitate an exploration of flavor molecules for divergent applications, including finding molecules matching a desired flavour or structure, discovering novel food pairings and finding the molecular essence of food ingredients.Data-driven studies based on FlavorDB can pave the way for an improved understanding of flavor mechanisms. RecipeDB : RecipeDB is a structured compilation of recipes, ingredients, and nutrition profiles interlinked with flavor profiles and health associations. The repertoire comprises of meticulous integration of over 1,18,000 recipes from cuisines across the globe (6 continents, 26 geo-cultural regions, and 74 countries), cooked using 268 processes (heat, cook, boil, simmer, bake, etc.), by blending over 23,500 ingredients from diverse categories, which are further linked to their flavor molecules (FlavorDB), nutritional profiles (USDA) and empirical records of disease associations obtained from Medline (DietRx). DietRx : DietRx provides a platform for exploring health impacts of dietary ingredients by integrating interrelationships among food and key molecular agents. The resource assimilates dietary factors (food and chemicals), their health consequences (diseases) and genetic mechanisms to facilitate queries for investigating associations among these entities. Also see BitterSweet INTERNATIONAL FLAVORS AND FRAGRANCES IIF is a global leader in the development of scents, tastes, experiences and ingredients for a variety of different products. Headquartered in New York, it has over 110 manufacturing facilities and 100 R&D centers across the world. FIRMENICH Firmenich is the largest privately-owned perfume and taste company, founded in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1895. GIVAUDAN Headquartered in Switzerland with local presence in over 145 locations, Givaudan is a global leader in the creation of flavours and fragrances. SHIOK MEATS  Shiok in Singapore and Malay slang means fantastic and delicious. Shiok Meats is the first cell-based clean meat company in Singapore and South-East Asia. Their mission is to bring delicious, clean and healthy seafood like crustacean meats (including shrimp, crab and lobster) by harvesting meat from cells instead of animals. Their meats are animal-, health- and environment-friendly with the same taste, texture, more nutrients and no cruelty. ALEPH FARMS Aleph Farms is the food-tech startup specializing in high-quality sustainable cell-grown meat. Aleph’s proprietary 3D technology uses the four core cell types of farmed beef to recreate a real food experience. It grows slaughter-free steak without the need for devoting vast tracts of land, water, antibiotics usage and other resources to raise cattle for meat. Aleph Farms recently became the first company to grow meat in space. Bühler Group Bühler is a Swiss-based family owned company that is a global, industrial solution provider for processing foods and for manufacturing advanced materials, contributing to food security and high energy efficiency. SCIENTIFIC DEFINITIONS Computational gastronomy as defined by Dr Ganesh Bagler: Cooking forms the core of our cultural identity other than being the basis of nutrition and health. Starting with a seemingly simple question, ‘Why do we eat what we eat?’, data-driven research conducted in our lab has led to interesting explorations of patterns in traditional recipes, their flavor composition, and health associations. Our investigations have revealed ‘culinary fingerprints’ of regional cuisines across the world, starting with the case study of Indian cuisine. The increasing availability of culinary data and the advent of computational methods for their scrutiny is dramatically changing the artistic outlook towards gastronomy. Application of data-driven strategies for investigating the gastronomic data (such as traditional recipes, molecular constituents of ingredients, percepts of flavor compounds, and health associations of food) has opened up exciting avenues giving rise to an all-new field of ‘Computational Gastronomy’. This emerging interdisciplinary science asks questions of culinary origin to seek their answers via the compilation of culinary data and their analysis using methods of statistics, machine learning, natural language processing, pattern mining, and chemo-informatics. Backed with complementary experimental studies, it has the potential to transform the food landscape by effectively leveraging data-driven food innovations for better health and nutrition. Bibliography: The Weizmann Institute continuously monitored post prandial blood sugar levels in 800 people for a week and found that bodily response to all foods was highly individual. So we need more data to understand how diet prescriptions can work as medicine, especially in the case of lifestyle diseases like Type 2 Diabetes Data driven approaches to leveraging food for better health | Dr. Ganesh Bagler | TEDxDAIICT The digital way forward for Indian Cuisine by Dr Ganesh Bagler 

Ep. 07: Dining in the Age of Data Mining

By the year 2050, we will have 10 billion people on our planet. If we want to feed all 10 billion in a sustainable, healthy and just way, it is time to re-imagine our food systems to make food better. Making food that’s better for the planet and for us, has to come without negative consequences like climate change, excessive land and water use or without leading to zoonotic diseases and antibiotic resistance. The next food revolution is here and it involves rethinking the future of protein. On Feeding 10 Billion, the Good Food Institute’s Varun Deshpande and Ramya Ramamurthy talk to experts in the food industry on every episode to find out how we will eat in the year 2050.

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Feeding 10 Billion

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