 So we understood that in the end, we are going to build a food system of our own. So I mean, as we move forward, we're always being compared to the meat industry, but in the end, we're going to be an independent food system of our own, and we're going to have our own footprint. And we, from the core of this company, was how we take this and build a sustainable and resilient food system. So the way we look at sustainability, we build it under four pillars of sustainability. The first is, of course, environmental. This is a major aspect in sustainability. A lot of times it's almost sometimes associated almost completely only to environment, which I disagree to, but it is a very important aspect. And we have declared that, so we call our manufacturing facilities biopharms. This is how we call them. So our biopharms are going to be carbon neutral by 2025. And our whole supply chain is going to be carbon neutral by 2030. But we're not stopping on the carbon neutrality. It's a very important aspect. But we want to also, we're building strategies regarding our water, land use, and waste, every second ability, circular production. I mean, so we have a very, I would say, elaborated strategy regarding the environment. Dr. Lee Recht and Didier Touvié are my guests on this episode of Inside Ideas, brought to you by 1.5 Media and Innovators Magazine. Lee's main passion and dedication lies between sustainability and innovation with a personal devotion to promote resilience in the global food systems. Dr. Recht is currently head of sustainability at Aleph Farms, an Israeli-based food company that paves the cultivated meat path as leader of a global sustainable food ecosystem. Working passionately to grow delicious real beef steaks from the sales of living cows. Her recent position include working with a global 1,000 companies, leading NGOs and high-level government officials from around the world, building them tailor-made ways to help identify and implement innovative solutions according to the strategies and efforts that she sees fit. Lee also established and directed the Builders R&D Innovation, leading Israeli ETA Hub external technology acquisition by the Coca-Cola company, and served as scientific advisor for the energy and clean-tech sector at the Office of the Chief Scientist, Ministry of Economy. Today, Israel Innovation Authority, IIA, Lee holds a PhD in biotechnology from the Ben-Gurion University, a BSC in food technology from the Hebrew University, and an MBA specializing in strategy and international management. I went with Lee first because she is our female and wonderful give-her-the-honor, and Didier is the co-founder and CEO of Aleph Farms, a cultivated meat company that is shaping the future of food by growing slaughter-free beef steaks directly from cow cells. So as you know, Didier co-founded and led many other successful companies, Icecure, which went public in 2010, and served as CEO of NLT Spine, which was acquired by Sea Spine in 2016. Didier was trained as a food engineer and biologist and holds a joint executive MBA from Kellogg and Rikanti. He is also co-founder of Blue Tree and Yeap. Welcome, both of you. I see that you're in the headquarters there. Aleph Farms, one of the conference rooms. Welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you for having us. Good morning, Mark. Good morning. It's so good to see you both. And just for our listeners, we definitely know each other and have known each other for a little while. We did hear and I first met the NUGA iFood in Cologne. It wasn't in the Cologne NUGA Messe. We were both speaking at iFood and saw each other there and met first in person. And then Lee and Didier and I met last year at the COP25 in Madrid, which was a crazy climate conference for the United Nations. It was, you know, first of all, it was to be in Santiago, Chile, and then it ended up in Madrid and was a disaster. But it was nice because it wasn't a disaster for us because we had some good conversations and really talked about how we can move forward on food and sustainability. So now that the listeners know how we met, I want them also to kind of know how both of you have weathered this crazy pandemic time up until now, since we last saw each other. What's been going on? How have you been? Yeah, actually, this time is definitely challenging, I believe, for everyone in the world. And yeah, other forms have been so far in a good situation, with no employees being contaminated or no one being sick from COVID-19. Everyone is healthy. And we've been able to continue and push our R&D goals through the entire period of through not always at full capacity. We're implementing very strict restrictions in terms of keeping our employees healthy, wearing masks, social distance, temperature checks. So it's challenging in terms of the operational aspect of continuing and working and making sure we stick to the goals and to the vision. But overall, no complaints. That's great to hear. I expected nothing different. So not only in your past companies, but in the way you've structured and set up left farms, but maybe also in your personal lives in Israel that in some respects, maybe you guys had a little bit of resilience or preparedness that you had some measures in place in your business plan to not be too reactionary, but to be proactive and preventative in your business operations and measurements, or is that not the case? I mean, can you maybe give us some more insight on, was it a transition? Was it difficult? Or did you already have some resilience or things in place that helped you guys, still helping you guys through this time a little bit better? Yeah, I believe that one of the things of being in Israel, which is a country where there are some emergency situations from time to time, is that overall, the people are very reactive and flexible and can react really quickly to an evolving situation. And we've seen that not only here in Germany at other farms, but also as a country. And the healthcare system was able to adapt very quickly when we had the first wave of COVID-19 throughout the end of the first quarter. And overall, the healthcare system have been able to really treat and take care of each of the contaminated people. And we feel that the situation is quite under control here. We did not have the same issues some other countries had. So that's good. In terms of other farms beyond these cultural positive aspects, I believe that each employee here is very committed to the vision, to the values of other farms, and to the patient, to the building trust, being respectful and responsible, one for the other responsible for the health of each of the team members, but also responsible for the community preventing the spread of the virus, responsible for relatives and family members, making sure that we will keep everyone safe and take our responsibilities on the community and the national right. Yeah, I would divide it into all the operations and then the business when you had, when COVID-19 started and on the operation-wise, I definitely will do the same. I mean, I think we're all kind of adaptive. Also in Israelis, I think in their characteristics in our culture, we're kind of quick to adapt. And in the business side, I think this is kind of one of prior to COVID-19, our core strategy was to build a resilient food system. So once COVID-19 hit, we have course, we kind of immediately gather together and understand what we need to do to move forward. Actually, we really noticed that we're really moving towards building a sustainable and resilient food system. And that's where the wall meets to go anyway. So we're really just, as long as we're moving forward and we're going towards the right goals, I think that's really important and a matter. There's some different ways that you can look at cultured meat or cellular agriculture. And I maybe want to set that up a little bit for our listeners. A lot of people on your team are doctors or scientists, they're researchers, they're specialists in this area. So just inherent in the research and development and the development of the cultured meat and the left, there are already measures and not only sustainability measures, but measures in place to follow proper protocols, avoid pathogens, kind of how do you record and follow that research and development process, which are almost, they are in a place of sometimes social distancing in a place of not chain of custody is not the right word, but procedures that really should allow you to continue operations, should allow you to do many things because to avoid cross-contamination or any other issues while you're doing things, it's got to be done in the right way so to protect the health of not only the planet, but mainly health of people that you're trying to make the meat for. Yeah, I would say that first for whom is not completely familiar with cultivated meat or cultured meat, and I can explain briefly the concept, it's ready to re-pick a natural process occurring inside the animal for cells to multiply and build the muscle tissue, which is basically meat and we're starting with beef, and so we're working with a cells to isolate from a kettle, and which have this capacity to regenerate muscle tissues in nature, same as in our own bodies, the body of the cause renews itself every few months, cells die and are born all the time, so we would build new tissues to replace old ones, and what we know to do is to isolate those cells which make new muscle tissue to transfer them into a controlled environment which mimics the same conditions as inside the animal, so that the cells continue to behave like the world still in the animal, multiply and make muscle tissue but under control conditions on the outside, so we're kind of an extension of the animal, and the advantage of that is that we can make, in theory, an infinite amount of meat by replicating the process many times with the same cells without the need every time for a raising and slaughtering an animal, which is obviously helps us being much more efficient in the way we produce the meat, we just need the amount of resources, water, needed to make the steak, we don't need to sustain the whole animal for two, three years until it reaches a slaughter age, then only 40% of the animal is meat, so it's very inefficient, and we also avoid animal welfare issues associated with concentrated operations for animal farming, and on top of that, to your question, we can grow this meat and we grow this meat in a completely closed system with no possible contaminations from the outside, which also avoid the use of antibiotics, we don't need antibiotics because the system is closed on sterile, so we disconnect the animal from the workers making the production completely acidic, completely safe, completely controlled, each of the steps is documented and tested, and that's where we can make meat on one hand, which is safer without any pathogen, but also make the production of meat more resilient, and we've seen in the US and Germany as well, quite a few, especially in the US, in central in time, the production of meat went down 50% in, I think it was in May, due to the close up of meat processing facilities and meat-making facilities, which are very crowded environment for workers, and was really the source of different pandemic developments and contaminations, so the production itself is much more resilient, and on top of that, it also enables us to produce meat in a locally, where it is produced, and even when we cannot raise and form animals, so this type of production, we believe, it presents a lot of advantages, especially versus industrial farming, like concentrated operations for farming and slaughtering animals, and we believe that on the long term, it will replace a large part of those, what is called factory farming practices, and will evolve and coexist together with more regenerative, more extensive, or traditional farming practices, which we see our trend today, which are better in terms of animal welfare and they're more respectful to the environment and the animals, but not as efficient as the factory farming on one hand, kind of that good, and cultivate on the other hand, so we will need to have a mix of those different solutions to meet the goals of the overall agricultural ecosystem. Yeah, and I would add that, when you think about food security, which is super critical worldwide, but especially now since COVID-19, you have three elements that you have to take in consideration. You wanna make sure that your food is available, both on nutritional availability, so the food is healthy, that you're providing, food is affordable, and that you have a resilient supply chain that can distribute the food properly, and we are putting, it is clear to us that that is focuses that we need to put a very strong emphasis on creating healthy, affordable food and building a resilient supply chain that can be able to distribute the food as well, and this is something that we've done prior to COVID-19, but it's only showing us, I mean, for us, COVID-19, and this is something that everybody's talking about is that COVID-19 is gonna be like a dress rehearsal for climate events that the future might come, and we need to prepare our food systems in a more sustainable and resilient way, and these are things that we're putting a major focus on as well. I'm glad that you brought that up, Lee, and thank you for your nice explanation, Didier. I think that helps a lot of the listeners kind of understand what you're doing a little bit more understanding with that, and I'm sure there'll be more questions that arise. It is true, it's not only production has gone down worldwide, but also consumption has went down worldwide, and I'm kind of in epicenter of meat problems. There was a lot in the U.S., but in Germany, believe it or not, a big company called Ternus was really extremely affected, and large-scale where all German stores for a long time didn't have any meat products at all because it was so bad and how many things, the processes and the production were really not up to snuff, not only how they produce and process the meats but how they protect their employees during that time, and that's a stark difference between how Lef envisions the future of their products and this you call a closed system. There's a similar term in vertical farming called controlled environmental agriculture. It's a little twist on that same closed system, pathogen-free, very controlled environments and elements, which is really an efficient model. Just to touch on one more thing that you mentioned in that process to Jay, and some people might know this, is this has been, this and last year, have been really some pivotal times for Lef, even though the pandemic, there's been some milestones and some wonderful things reached. You guys sent some meat out into space and got a lot of news coverage from that, and some people are kind of torn. They're like, oh, well, who cares? You know, we don't wanna go to space, but the thought process behind that is the reason is, is in space, you have to use your resources efficiently. You have to use your energy efficiently. If you can do it in the harsh conditions of outer space, you have that built-in resiliency. So yeah, there was a lot of marketing and promotion for this, you know, going to space, but it was really a test of how good is that closed system, can it function, and all different types of environments? And those are all things that can really be applied here on earth to change how we produce, to be more efficient, as you both know, not just the meat industry, but the entire food industry, waste and exorbitant amount of energy, food, resources, water, land, et cetera, et cetera. And then the waste is turned into methane, into greenhouse gas, and it almost turns into an exponential problem, or it does turn into an exponential problem for us. So I really like that aspect of the closed system, a different way, a modern way of producing that I wanted to touch upon. And then what Lee was saying, I'm full in agreement that we really are gaining so much resilience and future food security by changing and having global food reform altogether. One other caveat I need to give my listeners is that I sit on the board as a sustainable advisor for a left farms, and that's kind of how we came together and meet. But this year, just a month ago, maybe it's been two months ago, the World Economic Forum recognized you guys as a true leader and innovator and especially around food. Can you tell us a little bit more about this recognition that you got from the World Economic Forum and what that means for what you guys are doing? Yes, exactly. I think that the approach of other farms, and I would say that what is called tracing other farms is a combination of few unique aspects in technology, but also an approach about really leading a transition toward a more sustainable global food ecosystem. Other farms believe that this emerging industry has to be built right and is a cornerstone of this transition we're seeing globally, not only for the resilience of the production, but we also see a lot of food security issues as mentioned, especially in Asia, where a lot of food is imported. China has imported 90% of its beef. Japan, 65%, Singapore, all of its beef. And we believe that we need to build a global platform for local production. We believe that the new global will be local and we've seen a trend of a reduction in global trade already starting two, three years ago. Global trade was down 6% in the beginning of the year following COVID-19 restrictions on trade and transportation and exportations. So we need to make sure that we address the food system as a systemic global challenge. It's not just the issue of making meat and delivering it to the markets. It's a matter of thinking how we can transit and lead a just transition toward a system which is good for all the stakeholders. And the collaboration with the organizations like the World Economic Forum and others who've been actively involved with is for us a way to really make sure that we can connect with the right players in the space. And Aliphance is working as an ecosystem and not as a single company but also regarding collaborations we have with the large industry players. And we believe that the transition has to come from within the food system. And I personally don't believe that one startup company can completely break down and rebuild the whole food ecosystem by its own. And there's a lot of awareness today among the big food companies that we need to rethink our food system and we have to work in coordination with them to lead that transition hand in hand. And so if we talk about organizations like the World Economic Forum, FAO, WWF on one hand, World Economic Forum is a public private platform so it's slightly different. If you talk about working directly with the leading industry players, the leading universities in the world which then I believe are the center of this ecosystem which is by fuel there's a magnitude larger than Aliphance and that's where we can try more impact and make sure that we offer the benefits of cultivated meat as not just an additional option but in this is the solution to reach the world and many organizations goals to work achieving this transition right and efficient thing. Would you like to add anything? Yeah, also by the way, this is an opportunity because next week we're being also announced by UNESCO as one of the top 10 innovations towards promoting the SDGs. And something that we're putting a lot of emphasis on that we are not only promoting this new technology of cultivated meat which is amazing and we are one of the leaders in it but we are going to need the way to build a sustainable food system and sustainability is complicated. It's a sustainability and resilience 20 years ago and 50 years ago it's not even necessarily very similar to what it is today and we constantly need to adapt towards changes that are happening on our planet. If you wanna can share with you a little bit about how we're approaching our sustainability goals and what kinds of how we're looking at it. I would love to hear that and so would my listeners. So we understood that in the end we are going to build a food system of our own. So I mean, as we move forward we're always being compared to the meat industry but in the end we're gonna be an independent food system of our own and we're gonna have our own footprint and we from the core of this company was how we take this and build a sustainable and resilient food system. So the way we look at sustainability and we build it under four pillars of sustainability. The first is of course environmental. This is a major aspect in sustainability. A lot of times it's almost sometimes associated almost completely only to environment which I disagree to but it is a very important aspect and we have declared that. So we call our manufacturing facilities biofarms. This is how we call them. So our biofarms are gonna be carbon neutral by 2025 and our whole supply chain is gonna be carbon neutral by 2030 but we're not stopping on the carbon neutrality. It's a very important aspect but we wanna also we're building strategies regarding our water, land use, waste, recyclability, circular production. I mean so we have a very, I would say elaborated strategy regarding the environment. Sustainable sources, sustainable packages, it all kind of fits a closed loop system. That's really important for us. We wanna be able and you spoke a little bit about our space production, our space experiments and really that you kind of explained to yourself but the concept behind the space production was that in the end, we wanted to prove and show that cultivated need is something that can be produced anywhere in the world at any time in the world and to anyone in the world. And there was no better way to prove that than up in space in the most isolated and scarce conditions that possible. And the more we've actually moved forward with it, we've understood even though we're very much focused on the earth and on the market here down here but we've understood that there is a lot of, I would say a lot of goals that are very much mutual in the way we approach a building a closed loop independent efficient and sustainable food system up in space and down in earth. So that was kind of a little bit about that concept. The second pillar of sustainability is our social stability aspect and did you touch this a little bit about the just transition? And it's really important for us that we actually we're not coming here to replace anybody. We're coming in to be an additional and a diverse portfolio and the landscape of the meat industry and actually we're very much interested in we really are an extension to the agriculture and we actually believe that the best way we can move forward is in collaboration with the meat industry, with the livestock farmers, with agriculture in general. So we're putting an interest in general all strengthening the local communities. That's a really important aspect for us as well. Our third pillar is, and this is already where we spoke a little bit about the food security but the third pillar is nutrition and health and sustainable diets. So we're putting a really strong emphasis on that as well and we're really providing accessible nutrition and nutritional food. And of course the last pillar is the economic aspects of the sustainability and that's where we make sure also enough food security aspect regarding affordable food and with the resilient supply chain and that our business and this is something that's really important that our sustainability is a driver for the growth of our business. In the end, to be sustainable you have to have all of these aspects and then we do want to grow and we believe that this is the right way as well. So these are kind of the ways we're approaching it. And of course all of this is being done together with building these partnerships and building an ecosystem around it and working together with some amazing strategic partners and brands that are all very much in the mutual goals towards a better future. I would agree as well. So congratulations on the UNESCO. That's a fabulous thing to hear and you guys know and my listeners know that I'm an advocate for the Sustainable Development Goals and I work on many projects with the United Nations and all 17 of the Sustainable Development Goals are tied to food. 11 of them intrinsically tied to food and we've had many discussions on how they integrate and those pillars and that transition. So I really like to hear that that's continuing and that we were originally supposed to see each other and get a tour of the facility in the lab in July but because of the pandemic that has obviously changed things but the progress and the roadmap really has kept continued to go. As I mentioned, the World Economic Forum recognition, now the UNESCO, some other wonderful partnerships and things that have occurred during that time we're still able to see each other virtually and progress on the roadmap in this transition. What I'm hearing overall and we're almost halfway into the show and we haven't really asked a lot of the major questions and it's really that you had that resilient preparedness with the business model, the way your operations were and the way you were thinking of producing and conducting business with all facets involved that has actually proven to be a fabulous model, business model to get you through hard times through pandemics, through Black Lives Matters and Beirut explosion and whatever else to come and I believe strongly that you will also have that resilience going forward in production. Didier has heard me say this before and probably some of my listeners before it's not the brand or the product or the future that is the most important. It's really how we produce in the future that's the most important. If you look back at the way we conduct schools from the 1930s to today, there's not much that has changed and with the agriculture, food and beverage industry it's almost the same. We've got a little mechanization, some automation but there's only been about six innovations and there's really the productions and the processes have not changed that drastically but yet the waste and the impact on health and other things has been dramatic and so it is time for a global food reform. It is time to change how we produce and I don't know if the listeners hear it out but I definitely hear it as you want to produce in a clean tech way, in a closed environment without waste, efficiency of resources without harm on environment and planet and human health and that is really a successful menu for a successful product because it's virtually impossible to produce a product that is done under those great conditions with innovation, with those tools that uses renewable energy and uses resources efficiently then to have a product that tastes like crap or is no good or bad on human health and environment. Those two don't go together, that's a different path and so I really like to hear and say that I just kind of wanted to mirror that back to you. Didi, you took some notes so I think you might have something you want to tell me before I get to my next question. Yes, I think if we talk about the business model for other firms and the platform we've been building since we started the companies operations three, four years ago and this platform is exactly suited for the post-COVID times and I think on one hand we believe that the current crisis accelerating with trends which were already ongoing before the COVID-19 for more environmental friendly and the transition toward carbon neutrality production within Europe for instance, the European Commission published the green deal plans at the end of 2019 before COVID-19 but they actually accelerated the transition and decided to invest more resources to upgrade the European infrastructure with the just transition fund and part of the recovery plan of Europe is allocated also to agriculture and building back a better food ecosystem while supporting the transition toward carbon neutrality the farm to fork the biodiversity strategy all those plans have been accelerated following COVID-19 and are completely in line with the philosophy and the vision of other firms. We see also other trends we've talked about for more food security for instance in Singapore as this 30 by 30 plan to produce more food locally China has been acquiring livestock farms in Southeast Asia and Australia for the last three, four, five years to ensure access to meat and food security and those plans have been accelerated now with COVID-19 and a lot of trends have been accelerated. On the other hand, we do see that there have been also some changes and what you mentioned about resilience I think especially as we talked about the meat industry has been striking, 70% of the meat produced in the war today is produced in the same factory factory farming facilities we discussed earlier meaning intensive concentrated operations and those large meat companies have been focused on efficiency, efficiency and efficiency for the last three decades, gaining another 1% of efficiency in the way you grow the animals, the way you slaughter the, if you've been in a slaughter hall it's really a super efficient factory where animals are slaughtered at the speed of light and it's really one hand striking how we lose the connection with the animal and this whole supply chain has been focused only on producing more protein, more efficiently and following COVID-19 and the disruptions in the supply, in the production, in the trade we see a big shift from efficiency towards resilience and big meat companies are today really thinking about diversifying the source for the meat changing the practices to ensure resiliency and to ensure resilience in terms of incorporating more digitalization, automation, flexibility in the supply chain and we're exactly there meaning the culture of meat is produced in a fully digitalized and automated way we have a full flexibility, very short a reaction time it takes two, three years to take a beef to slaughter it and to get the meat so you cannot really plan in advance anything I mean you have to plan three years in advance you cannot adapt with a short notice to changes in the market and if the supply chain is 100% efficient but 0% flexible in our case we're both we're 100% more efficient than the current supply chain and production system but we're also completely flexible it takes three weeks to make the meat we can adjust supply and demand we can, as I said, produce the meat locally and provide the communities that the consumers today want to know where the food comes from and they want local food production they want to trace the food back to their source culture meat is 100% transparent 100% traceable and we can provide the full story of the steak to the consumer back to the single sale used to produce it and our goal would be to produce the meat to cultivate it locally what's consumed so I think overall we do see this transition of the global food ecosystem which is completely in line with the strategy of ALEFARMS and our philosophy from day one and that's why there's more and more interest in cultivating meat if a couple of years ago and this type of research and again that there is no product cleared in the market yet all the companies in ALEFARMS is considered probably one of the three, four leading companies in this emerging industry all the products are still either at the development phase or to transfer to production that's why we stand here at ALEFARMS but we see today that the European Union is taking cultivating meat in account in rebuilding the economy we're talking at a high level with different ministries in Singapore, in Japan we're now starting a national plan for an economy recovery and food security in Israel or home country talking with different some of the largest meat companies in the world to incorporate this type of production within the existing supply chain so there's an acceleration of the awareness and the interest in cultivated meat as an additional production method which would integrate and provide advantages to the current meat supply chain I would add that the current food system is very focused I don't know also being efficient but in a very profitable way like the focus is only about the revenue and there hasn't been enough focus on external costs of the food system and external costs I mean this is a problem that also is by the way also because the governments and the regulation it doesn't exactly know how to convert these external costs to an actual price tag and I think that's happening now with COVID-19 I think it's been like this is part of that transition because in the end something that we're constantly saying is that when you build a sustainable and a long-term vision towards food system and supply chain and it is actually more profitable than taking in consideration just the amount of money and revenue you can have this year or next year and also not taking enough in consideration the insecurities of where the market is going what kind of pandemics and climate events can happen in the future The true cost, the total environmental cost not only as percentage of EBITDA but how that all those externalities are actually included in there because that is something that's a lot of companies who talk about resilience or sustainability they also say we're going to reduce our carbon emissions by 70% by this date and we're going to go neutral by this date which is fine but all the things that they've been doing or emitting since they've been in business all those external costs the true cost, the total value since they've been in business they're not talking about that like removing their historical carbon emissions or making sure that since they've been in business whatever they've polluted or effect by not talking about total environmental cost or the true cost that they're going to take care of that and those are not only emissions and pollutions and impacts on our planet that someone has to rebalance or account for that we have to fix just by if the entire world were to stop and say yeah we're going to do it good by this time there's things in the past that we have to kind of make right or get back into the safe operating space of our planetary boundaries so this really transitions nicely to the first question and that is you guys operate internationally you're working with all different types of companies you're from Israel I'm in Germany, I'm from America but I get asparagus and potatoes from Israel all the time they're the innovators and food experts on how to grow in extreme harsh conditions and they're not even in outer space because they know how to do it efficiently properly and do it very well my question is do you guys feel personally or as a company like your global citizens and what would a future feel like for you without borders, nations, divisions of humanity because during this pandemic the one thing that wasn't on lockdown that wasn't stopped among a couple other things besides the virus was food food was transcended all borders, divisions, nations and it kept moving not as efficiently we had a lot of food securing other issues but it's one that when the humans stopped moving that was also still moving around our world what are your thoughts and ideas or feelings about that and you both answered I believe that it's a very good question and we do believe that and that's against an acceleration of a trend we've seen occurring in the last few years many consumers are looking for better quality food than they were before COVID-19 and are more aware about the nutritional value for them the well-being and the health aspects of food are more cooking at home more interested in the quality of the raw materials of the food they eat during this pandemic and that's actually a trend we've seen towards organic production for instance in the US and Europe towards locally produced from farm to fork that's a, I would say that connects to a pre-existing trend but which has been in all of these accelerated as other trends by COVID-19 and that's one of the, you know one of the challenges that other farms is ready to on one hand connect and provide good solutions to those, you know, local production requirements and resilience, sustainability, sustainability and transition towards carbon neutrality which are even more critical now than they were last year on the other hand, we have also to take into account those wishes and those aspirations of the consumers for more sticking to natural and to local food and the standard and the no and obviously the cultivation method for me is a new method, it's a, you know parallel to let's say hydroponic cultivation of fruits and vegetables, same as a religious which is produced in urban farming or vertical farming framework is produced with the same seed and that's with the same end product which is grown and disconnected from the soil and the controlled environment as you mentioned before with exactly the amount of water and nutrient needed in a clean environment, we do the same we implement the same approach to meat and that's definitely, it requires some education at other farms, we're really working very closely with the consumers to make sure that we also feed into this trend I mentioned we're working with the non-gentically modified cells and with the meat which is a non-GMO and which is very important for many of the segments we're talking about and we stick as much as possible to the natural process and replicating the experience of meat, not just making protein and would be meat especially within food is not just a functional product food as a whole is a very social, emotional, historical product it's not just internet to fuel the body there are a lot of other connections to food and meat especially meat is the center of the plate that's all we call meat in the catering and food service industry so we want to make sure that we connect to the tradition of meats we're talking about contemporary tradition meaning updating an existing tradition and not changing it or not disrupting tradition reconnecting to the communities and making sure that we can cultivate meat at start with the attributes of the meat growing inside the animal in terms of nutritional quality, culinary quality, sensory quality without the need for additives or modifications so one of the challenges of other farms is to combine new technologies which are needed today to drive the world toward a thriving future we cannot continue managing our food system as of today and leave legacy worth living to the next generations and so we have to incorporate technology in the food system on the other hand we want to make sure we don't we don't disconnect with the consumers because of the technology input in the product which is that sensitive and emotional and that's fascinating I mean I've always been fascinated by food because it actually combines so many culture, history, emotions, experiences so many aspects and it's loaded with so many different psychological and social aspects and we're taking that into account very seriously, for instance being the first company in this emerging space of cultivated meat to open a visitor center which is today not active because of COVID-19 but the idea is really to open a genuine and the candid dialogue with the larger audience hear the concerns, exchange ideas, answer the questions share facts and there are very little facts on culture meat today, a lot of opinions but zero facts, I mean all very little facts and we need to be trust in this new industry and we're doing our best to make sure that as one of the leaders in this space we have a responsibility for building this industry right and we're doing our best to do so. Now I would say also I mean technology and innovation is critical moving forward but education is not any less than that and it's not only education on cultivated meat which is very important for us to teach the consumers of potential new products but we can see this, the trends of the new generations are interested in responsible consumption and really understanding where they're buying their food why they're buying it, people what is healthy what's the definition of healthy food is sustainable diet is it all about the environment or is it about also being healthy with your body and these are things that the more we investigate it the more we see that there's still a lot of progress that needs to happen towards a consuming food I mean just in general in consumption but so education is like super critical for us also in looking at just in general I mean how much food should you consume I mean we have some areas in the world where everybody's been in over consumption while other areas in the world actually the most one of the things that I read to COVID-19 is that first of all unfortunately the amount of hungry people worldwide is going to increase tremendously by the end of 2020 but also that the food that's the most accessible to these hungry people is actually ultra processed food which is extremely unhealthy and it maintains their malnutrition so also understanding I mean so of course it's complex and different geographies have different situations that you need to take in consideration but I think that's a really critical thing and when you talk about borders so I'm not gonna get into political or geopolitical issues at all but we have now social network and we have a digitalized world where you can add literally in at any place that you live pretty much you can reach out to people worldwide and I think that's something that we need we're taking in consideration so like understanding that now this is beyond the geopolitical border but we're talking about we have this open towards consumers worldwide people are interested worldwide in what we're doing we have people approaching us through the visitor center from Africa, from South America, from Asia I mean literally everywhere and it's easy it's accessible, it's approachable so maybe not physically they can visit us but they can talk with us. We also have a really interesting program called the Gen V Board and it kind of sits on a little bit about what Divya was talking about about thinking about our future generation so we have a program where every year we have a Gen V advisory board we bring in about I think around 10 members of that all from generations at the Z so they're pretty much pretty much the age of 16 to 22, 24 and it's kind of this mutual relationship where we're also educating and helping they're very interested in what's going on and out as far as if we're also getting a lot of their perspective and how they look at the future and what they want to see from food systems themselves and we're both it's extremely beneficial I think for both sides so. Thank you for being so politically correct but you did answer the question and I do feel that it's complex because it can get geopolitical it can be that way that's the world we live in there's decisions that for example Bolsonaro in Brazil has made that affect us all around the world and those are not only political decisions they're food and resource decisions that affect our entire planet and so this food as a global voice and an improvement from what we've had over the last since the industrial age and even before that is so vital that we get it right because it's also, it's the biggest impact of human health and environment but it's also the biggest lever that we can use to make things right and to draw down and to correct mistakes to get us back into not only true cost and total environmental cost but into the safe operating spaces of our planetary boundaries to sustain ourselves for multiple generations not only with resources but with the wherewithal and resources to keep our companies and humanity flowing further. My first really hard question for you guys is the burning question it's WTF and it's not the swear word it's what's the future? I think it's a good question I'm optimistic about the future I think that what happened in the last six months is for us an alert I think it helps us stop everything and reset a lot of practices I believe together with all the sorrow of the collaterals and the impact and the victims of this pandemic which is obviously a very sad event on the mid to long term I believe it's helping pinpointing the weaknesses of the way we build our globalization and I agree with you that the global world is the way to manage our resources and our communities on the other hand, we have to build it right and we have to take care of the resources getting back to balance with nature we have to make sure that we uncover the communities that we share the resources and the wealth in a better way and overall, the one is for the need to change the way we manage our world is increasing not only by the people like you and me but also by governments we do see that there have been a lot of nice goals in the last 20 years but very little real actions, incentives, political acts I think this is changing and many companies are also accelerating their goals towards more capital neutrality and that there would be an acceleration of a change in the good direction at the end of the day, my main driver for Alphonse is primarily to build a better legacy for my children and the children of my parents and I believe that the vision is gaining much more clarity in those times and is also gaining more adherence by the different communities throughout the world so overall, I'm optimistic and I think we're heading toward a better world where technology will be used for positive and good purposes to really push human progress forward and I believe we'll have a better reputation of the world we'll have, we'll find the right balance between global platforms and local productions and empowering local communities and I do see that we will revert climate change we will find better ways to manage our natural resources and so I'm optimistic, a healthy world in balance with nature and people with a more connection to their communities and more control over their lives Well, I'm also optimistic but maybe I look at it at a different perspective I think we're in a critical decade and in general changes happen slowly especially in this magnitude I mean, you can, I mean even looking at women's rights even looking at this massive change that are worldwide these don't happen they don't happen in short times I mean, they don't happen in one generation these are, they happen slowly and that's okay as long as we're moving forward, that's okay but we are in a very critical decade where we need all players within our ecosystem governments, institutions the young technology companies and manufacturers, consumers only to kind of work together towards making that change and that's a bit, so I think in that aspect I think the COVID-19 was actually has a positive outcome because it gave I think everybody an opportunity to really understand how scary it can be in the longer term and I think people needed to feel that a little bit and I hope and if there is the word out there is to build back better and we were definitely part of that movement and we hope and that's where we're going to continue I mean for me personally as long as I'm focused on a personal level, on a professional level that what I can leave here what I can do for my children from the next generations I think we're moving towards we're moving to a better place but I do think this is not a place where you can stay you know on a low profile everybody needs to kind of get it and move forward and I think a lot of it has to do also with education because I think a lot of still, a lot of people are still not really clear about what is exactly happening and what's and when people don't understand what's happening they tend to kind of freeze just kind of say never mind and I and I'm a big believer that we need to be part of helping everybody kind of engaging everybody and it starts with good education it starts with good regulation and then of course building resilient operations so yeah I think I'm positive but I'm also very I'm very clear about that we need to act and we need to act fast yeah I agree with you and I thank you for both of your your views and what happens is not a lot of us get this deer in the headlights you know type of we kind of freeze we don't know what to do the other thing is there's this fight or flight with humanity that if we see a tiger or a lion or a bear then we kind of react with this fight or flight but if we see a graph or a chart or climate change what sometime is not always you know immediately as pronounced as a tiger lion or bear that we say oh there's another graph another chart or oh yes they're in India or in Brazil something's burning or something's going on and so the reaction is a little bit different we don't know how to process this big unfathomable thing we've mentioned the word resilience quite a bit today and I want to I want to break that down a little bit sustainability is not only the buzzword but it's been around for a while and it's something that we need to do and achieve and work towards the reason we're using this resilience is because it does absolutely does not matter how sustainable a country a city a community a company is when tomorrow a hurricane hits you a pandemic or those things usually those type of natural catastrophes or events especially climate change are enough to wipe out even the most sustainable organizations within one day so those sustainable companies that were just hit by the hurricane in Louisiana they're gone it's going to take them probably four to five years to build back up to get their operations to get their agriculture and everything back up in alignment back in Puerto Rico a few years ago Hurricane Maria hit there was hardly any sustainable organization or infrastructure there but that is something that does not get built back up in the next day and so when we talk about resilience it's about resilience is really neat because it has sustainability ingrained within it and if you have a resilient business model when the pandemics when the natural catastrophes when those things those environmental issues other issues occur you can weather those storms fairly resiliently to still deliver essentials to still function and recoil back from that global view to that local view and say okay we just went through this now we're going to make sure the people in Israel or in Germany or wherever are fed and given what they need the resources and those things put you in a real unique spot as a company as a start up you guys have been involved in other companies big and small sustainability and resilience has really always been a really hard sell over the years you know is it cost effective do we have the budget for it can we do it why should we is it going to return a profit you know whatever the hold back was over the years during this pandemic one thing that we've learned and one thing that we can pull out of it that really has completely changed not only that the world can unify and turn on a dime to change the power of humanity the gravitational pull of humanity to change on a dime and go in the right direction and fix things that we were able to do things during this pandemic but this resilience is really not called sustainability anymore it's called environmental social governance ESG and for those businesses that began early years ago and even as late as last year 2019 the last quarter of last year to divest and invest in environmental social governance business models and investments and funds really have shown a strong proof and I kind of just want to tell you about a few of those examples that for those who are listening those startups and those people who are thinking what's the best model to use and what way to go there's some proof that we have in the first and second quarter indexes of this year that for every company that invested or divested in environmental social governance index stocks or funds if you just look towards the New York Stock Exchange the NASDAQ the S&P 500 the S&P Global the stocks Europe 600 benchmark the Collier the capital the NICI index Goldman Sachs and HBSC and I could go on and on research reports during the first and second quarters of 2020 in the middle in the depths and the thralls of a pandemic and economic global economic severe issues layoffs and on and on all of those research reports during those quarters show that sustainable index funds lost less than their conventional counterparts and index funds 7 out of 10 sustainable equity funds finished in the top half of the morning star categories that is 25 out of 26 environmental social and governance tilted funds outperform the closest conventional counterparts publicly traded companies who take sustainability and environmental social governance seriously seem to always outperform their conventional counterparts across various markets and various geographies fossil fuels are stranded assets global Goldman Sachs has said and the only other commodity looking as precarious as oil and fossil fuels is livestock ESG risk factors leave companies exposed to global shocks and what we mentioned today Ternes in Germany and those meat companies in the US those business models have actually come back to bite them very hard I don't say they need to go away but it's time to get up to speed with our exponentially growing world and build that resilience and tell models so that when times like this come we have a better model that brings us out on the other side much better much more secure not only for our children and grandchildren but just that's the that's the better model that's the way we need to do it you wouldn't go to Elon Musk or Tesla and say hey you guys just produce that new cool cyber truck I want you to throw 40% of those away immediately they'd say hey that's a bad business model why would we do that if you go to the oil coal and gas industries you just pulled all that that great fuels out of the ground and oil and coal now throw 40% away and then we can start that's what we've been doing in our industry the food agriculture seafood food and beverage industry for years and it's just a bad inefficient model it's not working for human health in our environment the proof's in the pudding and so I know you guys are aware of this but I wanted to make sure our listeners knew that that you spread that message to those that you speak with and I have three or actually yeah three last questions for you that are so vital and they're really more or less a sustainable take away that I want for my listeners if there was one message that you could debar to our listeners a sustainable take away that has the power to change their life if they're in your same situation as an innovator or startup what would you say is something that they should think about to make a real impact on our world just an easy question isn't it just an easy one no I'll tell you what I think I think it's sustainable there's a lot of less consumption when it comes to sustainability I think people that live sustainability like us and you Mark really understand that sustainability is holistic and it has a lot of balance in between it and it contains many colors for many people they look at sustainability and they kind of think it's a nice to have thing it's more about donating back it's not about a business plan and growth and it's a lot about very much focused almost only on environment and I think maybe that is something that I would kind of say that you need to look at sustainability as a driver for your business to grow and to be profitable and then it just needs to be balanced between and there's going to be trade-offs like everything in the world you're going to need to decide what you're promoting and what you're going to have to pay for it but you do need to look at it in a more holistic approach so I do think that that is something and I really do believe that looking forward and you kind of just proved it with your data all about the successful companies in the last two quarters but sustainability is actually the right way to grow your business on a long term a lot of times young companies can only and I understand why can only think about the short term but there always needs to be in the back of their head looking in the longer vision how we build it how we stay towards being existing in this pretty much the same mythology also in 50 years and 100 years and 200 years and you know as someone who's worked with many multinational companies in the past few years this is what they're this is their main challenge they have infrastructure a hundred years that have been built from the inception in a linear model that it causes a lot of waste and a lot of inefficiency and now they understand that they need to make these changes and these changes are going to cause them a lot of resources and it's going to take a lot of time so actually for a younger innovator that's building their company I think these are things I need to be taking every time I think that's a good point I would suggest that the key issues to be taken today should be obviously one of the key of the world one of the most resource intensive what to produce food especially beef in terms of the use of land, water greenhouse gas emissions I think some animal welfare issues meat is really one big issue to be taken beyond that I agree with you that the waste issue in the food system is a very important issue to be addressed and I think there are a lot of ways to improve that and some companies and startups are working on those issues I also believe that the water issue should be deserve more attention and on the food and health combination of food and health I believe that sugar reduction is a very, very big and important objective for the food industry if you could have the chance to experience or learn something and your professional journey what would you have loved to know from the start when you began whether it was your other companies or even a left what would you say man I wish I would have known from the start and could you impart that to that the startups or those people who are knowing what could you give them as advice I wish I would have known this from the start it would have saved me a lot of heartache and trouble and learning curve and be humble when you're humble you listen and you're receptive so you make less mistakes you also make sure that you you connect to the players to your vision and you build it together with them instead of imposing things as innovators we think that we have a good solution we'll change the world we'll make a big impact and at the end of the day it doesn't work like that someone who is an arrogant does not listen does not understand the real needs of the ecosystem of the industry and will not succeed of the consumers and customers when we're developing the product so I think being humble is probably the key to succeeding in the innovation world and we've seen a lot of examples demonstrating that I would say I have this expression I always say to my kids that you don't need to be don't be right, be smart sometimes even if you know there is a way that you see but you need to engage people to work with you and you need to work around with people to have different perspectives and their perspectives are something you need to honor and understand and find a way to work together with and I think that's a really important part sometimes people are putting too much emphasis on being knowing more and knowing better but not necessarily knowing how to engage and work together and we all need to work together to promote these goals and resilience for systems so that is something that would also took me a while also to establish this but it's definitely something that I think is very important the last question I have is really your advice for those in your same field as cultivated meat what two or three actions can citizens and decision makers take to accelerate or impact your field to help you guys consumption habits whatever it is what is something that the consumer out there could help you with or that you're looking for or some kind of action that they could take to help you guys as a company in that transition we're in the quite intimate interaction with the larger audience all the time and with potential consumers and I believe that what's important is to ask the right questions and on that side and for us to provide good answers and to be open, transparent to be trust I think it's important that you know especially when we talk about new new technologies and that we don't you know take positions based on opinions and already on on facts and again today we get a lot of support for many people all around the world and there is a lot of interest in cultivated meat from all the different social demographic layers and different countries of the world but still I think that we want to make sure that the new technologies are accessed by each of the consumers with the you know what they they have access to to accurate information and they might decide to purchase or not to purchase cultivated meat that's perfectly fine trying to dictate anything but I think even when you want to buy it or you don't want to buy it I think it's important and it's also part of our responsibility to make sure that we open a genuine and candid dialogue and we ask the potential consumers and the younger generation and older generations people interested in space to really learn it to understand what the benefits are what the limitations are to ensure that we have a sincere open and transparent dialogue Louis? They say that survivors are not strongest the ones that know how to adapt and I think that's something that we're constantly also looking at an understanding we see that it's a dynamic evolution cultivated meat in general is still not in the market there's still a lot of people that are learning the concept and we're we have this Gen Z program is really just so we can constantly be in that communication with the consumers an understanding where we need to always kind of refine and adapt we have a very clear vision but we also want to be always in that I guess the engagement and dialogue with our consumers. That's all I have unless you guys want to ask me any questions or if you have any final words that you would like to say I really appreciate you guys being here. Do you have anything that you'd like to add or ask me before we say goodbye? I'm just going to say thank you, thank you for having us it's been an honor and we really appreciate it we always love working with you and it's great to have this kind of talk about together. It was a great conversation thanks a lot now and in case any of the auditors have any further questions we'd be glad you know if they would just switch out to us to a website or directly. We'll put the link to the website on the podcast show notes and and all the social media postings so they will definitely see and hear about it and they can reach out to you and see how they can get involved and support and help and follow your wonderful great progress as well. I'll keep them up to date. I've talked to about you guys in another podcast because I think you guys are fabulous and I love what you do and I hope that we see each other very soon. Thanks so much you guys have a great day. Rest of the week. Thank you.