Episode 169: The future of protein is based in fungi, with Nature's Fynd's CEO, Thomas Jonas
Episode 169: The future of protein is based in fungi, with Nature's Fynd's CEO, Thomas Jonas
Today's guest is Thomas Jonas, Co-Founder & CEO of Nature's Fynd. We dive into the unique solution that Nature's Fynd is providing, the problem the company is working to solve, and the startup's market strategy.
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What is Nature's Fynd?
Nature's Fynd is a food tech company and we’re based in Chicago, I'm actually talking to you from the old Stockyard. For those of you who are familiar with Chicago, it's literally what used to be the center of the meat industry, and what we do here is a new type of protein. It's a fungi-based protein. The company was based on research that came out of work that we did for NASA, that my co-founder Mark Kozubal did for NASA at the time. The objective of that research was to try to figure out if NASA was gonna send a probe to the moon of Saturn or to Mars. How do you look for life in that very different environment?
That's what really put us on a path to exploring life in a very different environment, which is the acidic Volcanic Springs at Yellowstone. So we discovered a bunch of microorganisms there and one in particular, which we used to develop the technology, which is an amazing microorganism, which is not a plant, which is not an animal. It's part of that third branch of life that is all around us and that we never think about. And that's the fungi. You can say fun guys if you want. You know, I like that terminology, Fungi are amazing and they are literally--I don't know where you are when you're listening to us right now, but you are going to be breathing some spores and it's okay. Don't panic. You've been breathing these spores your entire life and you've been fine and you're okay. They're literally all around us and they have a big role in nature. They're actually many big roles in nature. They have a lot of functions and one thing that's very interesting, about fungi is that they're actually closer to you and me than they are to a plant.
Had you ever been in this type of R&D intensive environment before? How did you found your way in this environment and why was it a fit?
What company building is it's a sports team. What matters is that everyone plays their position. So you need to know what you can do well, and you need to make sure you have the right people who can do well, what you cannot do. I solely do not have any pretension to be a biotech scientist and we have a whole team of phenomenal people. I think the way I was thinking about my job is that I have to be the guy who asks the question that makes sense in terms of guiding the science toward solving questions that are relevant to build a business.
That thing that's really tricky when you are into deep science is that the real currency is new knowledge. And that currency in itself may or may not have economic value. You might be able to just build another mousetrap in a different way, and that may or may not be better than an existing mousetrap. And that's really a big part of the scientific discovery process. You don't really know until you've discovered the new mousetrap. A big part of what I was trying to bring to the party here in this constant conversation that I was having with the R&D team is how do we make sure we work on what is going to put us on a path to have something that could be a business that could solve big problems that would have some level of value. And that's really what we focus on. So I have always read a lot of science. It's the kind of thing I love to do. I just find it fascinating. So I was very curious about this thing, I managed to get enough knowledge, to be able to ask the questions, not necessarily to fully understand the answer but to ask the right question. I think in whatever business 90% of what you need to do is ask the right question. What is it that really makes sense? What is it that you should be working on? That's kind of my job.
One thing that VC's like to say, and maybe they drill into your head in business school for better or for worse, is that “you don't wanna be a technology in search of solutions”. It strikes me that these fungi were essentially that. So, how do you feel about that idiom? Do you think that this is actually a way to start a business that can be repeatable and should be?
I absolutely do not think that it should be a way of setting up a business. Usually, I'm the one who says "A technology looking for a solution is really a bad place to start.” But here is the thing though, I think it's all about the degradation of that. And it's all about again, defining the question. At the very early stage before you start pumping money behind an idea, you need to ask yourself in a very honest fashion, if I have this technology and if you're looking for a solution, then is it going to deliver on problem A, problem B, and problem C a better option than the existing option? If the answer is yes, then it's worth continuing and developing the technology to the next level. If the answer is no, then you have to stop there.
You're gonna spend your wealth forever, or you risk spending your wealth forever, trying to find that thing. So we set up very early, a few questions on this line, and we were able to demonstrate that there was a real advantage from making protein. So that enabled us to continue on that path. It was very important to make sure we were not going freely trying every possible problem under the sun, as you would try a pair of shoes and see if it fits, we zoomed very early on, on a very limited amount of business application. We design experiments so we can validate quickly. If yes or no there was a fit and a way forward. And then we executed from there. We took a little bit of risk, but I think you kind of have to, right? You kind of have to take a little bit of risk. There are different levels of risk, you have to make sure you understand the level you're taking that's that key and you can never fall in love with an idea and a technology just because you're the one who discovered it. That's a very dangerous thing to do.
What you're saying about waste and costs and those things, I can see why as a species, that's a good thing. And I can also see why as a business person, it would be a good thing. What about from a consumer standpoint? If I'm eating products made from Fy versus say either kinds of alternative proteins or meat-based protein or dairy etc., what are the trade-offs and the advantages that Fy brings?
One of the things that are very interesting about Fy, the cellular machinery inside the cells is much more like an animal. And one of the consequences of that is that you have a lot of protein, And you have a protein profile. That actually is very, very good. It's one of the reasons why this is a complete protein and you have very, very, very few plants that are actually complete protein. That really gives you the complete suite of essential amino acids; you do need all these Essential amino acids if you wanna have a balanced diet. So of course you can supplement through a bunch of different plants that compensate in terms of profile. There are amino acids so that you get these balances, but it's great to have one source that has it all.
It makes it easier. It makes it safer for your own health. And that's something that we have natively. The digestibility here is also very high. As I mentioned earlier, it's actually higher than beef. People think about beef as the big protein and this is more digestible than beef. So if you look at a lot of the plant-based [options], there are really not a lot that have that sort of profile. Pea is not a complete protein. There is some concern about the digestibility of soy for some people. There are some continued nutritional aspects as soy. There are some real advantages there that I think, from a consumer point of view, there has been a little bit of pushback around some of the plant-based products in the sense that consumers perceived them a little bit as the new vegan junk food because it's very processed. The way you do a soy-based burger or pea-based burger is you need to extract the protein fraction from the pea or from the soybean. Then once you have this nice fluffy, white protein powder, you need to extrude it, process the texture in it, and then you need to process the water back in it. We don't have to do any of these things. So we have very minimal processing. We pick up a sheet of protein that has moisture, that has texture, and that's what we use for the formulation.
Another aspect that's very interesting is we developed an original neutral taste profile that really enables us to be very clean in the formulation of the texture and get a very clean taste. So we don't have to mask a strong flavor profile from plants. If we do a strawberry yogurt, we can use a very simple strawberry base to flavor. It's just like you would flavor a yogurt. So that gives us versatility that really enables us to go from meat to dairy. And it's something that we understand from the discussion we have with consumers that they really want to consume products that are better for them and better for the planet, but they don't want a hamburger every single day. And when they find a source of protein that they like, one of the questions that they have is, "how can I have this more often in my diet?" We are able to offer a range of product versatility that will enable people to have that every single day they want to because the new protein platform it's not just one particular application.
You talk about some constraints around the supply chain in that it doesn't really exist in some of these new areas. What about the supply? These fungi that were discovered in Yellowstone, is that only place where it exists?
I had people asking me if we were going to put a factory in Yellowstone National Park, and the answer is absolutely not. We have a few fridges in the world where we keep the original sample and we never have to go back to Yellowstone. So think about it like yeast or like sourdough during the COVID year, people have been working on sourdough a lot of sourdough culture, and there's been a lot about how some people got this sourdough culture from their grandmother, it's kind of like that. What's really interesting with microorganisms is the speed of the application and the key to better economics is coming from this speed of the application.
A simple way to think about it is from one cow to get two calves, it takes two years. From one cell of our microorganism to make two sons or daughter cells, it's a matter of hours. And that's the beauty of the power of two, two times, two times, two times, two times, two times, two times, two times, two times two gets very quickly to very big numbers because of that. We can make a lot of biomass very rapidly, a lot of protein very rapidly. And we never have to go back [to Yellowstone]. We just go back to the fridge, take, uh, one cell from time to time and restart from that no supply issue in that perspective.
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