Brian Furey - Nature's Fynd - Yellowstone's Gift of Better Food

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[00:02:16] Alright, we are live. Brian Fury, welcome to the future of fitness my friend.

[00:02:23] Thank you, Aaron.

[00:02:24] Yeah, it's a pleasure. Obviously doing this in person and doing it with someone in Whitefish is really, really cool.

[00:02:30] And thank you, Morgan, and the Deliver Fund folks for letting us use the studio today.

[00:02:35] So I'm trying to give some backstory. I met you what, like two, three months ago, right?

[00:02:39] I was at the Venture to Build event, which is a local event here for entrepreneurs and business owners.

[00:02:45] I got to see you speak, dude. And I was pretty blown away with, you know, your presentation, what you guys are doing in nature is fine.

[00:02:52] And then of course we got to know each other, took a couple turns on the ski mountain and had a couple beers and decided we definitely need to do a recording.

[00:03:01] So I'm going to let you explain what you guys are doing.

[00:03:04] It's fascinating how the product developed, the amount of funding you guys have gotten is pretty darn impressive.

[00:03:10] And I think it's going to have a lot of impacts on, you know, how we look at our food supply moving forward.

[00:03:15] But I don't want to spoil it all. I'll let you tell the story.

[00:03:17] So let's start with this, Brian.

[00:03:18] Don't mind, give us a little bit of your backstory. How did you get to Nature's Find?

[00:03:21] And then we'll see where that goes.

[00:03:23] Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, Eric.

[00:03:25] Yeah man.

[00:03:26] Exciting to be here.

[00:03:27] And I always love telling the story about Nature's Find.

[00:03:30] I think now that I've been there six years, sometimes I have to pinch myself, right?

[00:03:35] And remind myself of how cool the background story is and what we're trying to do.

[00:03:39] So I appreciate the opportunity to review it and share with your listeners as well.

[00:03:46] So let's see, my background.

[00:03:49] I have a background in biochemistry.

[00:03:51] Went to school at Montana State University.

[00:03:54] And when I was in school, I did an internship where I was working on natural products that were being used in vaccine adjuvants.

[00:04:04] And it was like this really cool compound that came from a tree bark in South America.

[00:04:10] And it was sustainably harvest and I had this immune response in humans.

[00:04:16] And the other cool part about it is that it couldn't be sent by humans.

[00:04:20] So it had to be harvested in a sustainable way.

[00:04:23] And so I started working as a chemist and was supporting some of the regulatory filings in the scale-up.

[00:04:31] And that really sparked my interest in the natural world.

[00:04:35] And since then, I've had roles that have ranged from utilizing natural products like that in drugs and pharmaceuticals to making biobase chemicals, films, adhesives, biodegradable water treatment chemicals,

[00:04:54] things that went into everyday products that you've used, dish detergent, shampoo, soap, all kinds of personal care products.

[00:05:04] And how I got into Nature's Find is at one of the previous companies start-ups that I worked at, a board member called me after that company had kind of dissolved and sold off some of its IP.

[00:05:20] And he said, hey, I had this conversation with a guy at a barbecue in Big Sky, Montana.

[00:05:26] And he said he's found this fungi that he wants to turn into food and we have no money.

[00:05:34] But it's this crazy project and I'm curious if you can help us.

[00:05:39] And so I'm like always into new ideas and especially with that natural product kind of baseline.

[00:05:47] I was kind of all in.

[00:05:49] And what I started doing before we raised money was building the concepts of how to prove that it's safe to consume and how we're a regulatory pathway to work with the FDA and global regulatory bodies to get it approved.

[00:06:07] And so that was in 2017, now 2024, so six, seven years later.

[00:06:14] Yeah, awesome.

[00:06:15] And there's a key part that I think you skipped and it's a bit of a segue, but Gilaunday skiing.

[00:06:22] Yeah, I learned this about you two.

[00:06:24] We're going to get back to all the Nature's Find stuff, but we were on the chair lifting your explain this to me and I was blown away that this is something that existed and that you do.

[00:06:34] So maybe explain to people really quickly what that is and why it's so interesting and kind of gnarly.

[00:06:40] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:06:42] So growing up in Montana, always outdoors, always looking for the next thrill.

[00:06:48] You know, growing up skiing was always looking to, you know, get bigger air, go faster.

[00:06:57] And a lot of my friends who are former ski racers, they were doing this thing called Gilaunday ski jumping.

[00:07:04] And what it is, is a Nordic ski jump.

[00:07:08] So in the Olympics, you see the Nordic ski jumping where they're up on the big platform and they go down and it's ski flying, right?

[00:07:15] Yeah.

[00:07:16] And they go sometimes, I think I've seen up to like five, 600 feet distance.

[00:07:23] And what Gilaunday is, is just taking a normal pair of Alpine skis, so a fixed heel and building a jump on the mountain and doing that same ski flying.

[00:07:35] You know, you do wear the speed suit.

[00:07:37] And so my friends were doing this.

[00:07:39] There's long traditions of Gilaunday skiing, especially in Montana.

[00:07:43] There used to be a handful of jumps.

[00:07:45] Whitefish used to have a jump.

[00:07:47] Two champions of Gilaunday skiing are from Whitefish, Rolf and Eric Wilson.

[00:07:54] And I believe they both live here now.

[00:07:57] But it's just this like, totally fun thing.

[00:08:01] And I was never very good at it, but love the camaraderie.

[00:08:05] And we would tour around the U.S. and there was like four or five jumps a year.

[00:08:09] So it was a good time.

[00:08:10] Yeah.

[00:08:11] And never got injured.

[00:08:12] I started watching YouTube videos after you mentioned it to me and I went down a bit of a rabbit hole.

[00:08:17] And it's not something I want to pick up at 47.

[00:08:20] Let's put it that way.

[00:08:21] I know.

[00:08:22] That's a good idea.

[00:08:23] Okay, so getting back to Nature's Fine.

[00:08:25] Thanks for that.

[00:08:26] You know, I would imagine, I mean, in my small exposure to the FDA, they're not easy to work with, right?

[00:08:34] So, you know, as you started, well, let me back up.

[00:08:39] Let's dive into the discovery of the fungus, right?

[00:08:43] Because this is a pretty crazy story.

[00:08:45] I mean, everyone obviously knows Yellowstone now due to that damn TV show.

[00:08:49] But it's something that's a kind of scientific marvel really and how they discover it.

[00:08:54] And then I'm curious too, when they did discover it, do they immediately think like, oh, this could be food?

[00:08:59] Like what, like how did that whole thing unfold?

[00:09:02] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:09:03] So our scientific founder, Dr. Mark Kosebel was working under NASA and NSF grants through Montana State University when he was getting his PhD.

[00:09:15] So getting his PhD in microbiology.

[00:09:17] And under this grant, they're looking for something that could grow in extreme environments.

[00:09:24] And NASA was looking for that for something that could grow in space, either for travel or colonization purposes.

[00:09:34] And there are two objectives.

[00:09:37] Those two were either looking for something that could produce fuel or produce food and high protein food specifically.

[00:09:45] And so, you know, there's all kinds of amazing microorganisms in the park, many that haven't been discovered yet.

[00:09:53] And so what he found was this filamentous fungi that was in one of the hot springs.

[00:09:58] And the hot springs are in extreme environment, right?

[00:10:03] People think, yeah, it's hot, right?

[00:10:05] And so an extremophile is what they're classified as microorganisms that can grow there, is that these extremophiles can withstand high heat.

[00:10:14] Well, there's also a whole bunch of like chemistry that's going on in those springs as well.

[00:10:20] Because you have all that water that's coming up, you know, from below the surface and it's picking up all kinds of different minerals, right?

[00:10:29] And these minerals are beneficial to the growth of not only microorganisms but also all cellular function, right?

[00:10:37] And what this fungi that he discovered, what it would do is it would live off the minerals in the water.

[00:10:44] And also anything that would blow in to the or fall into essentially the spring, right?

[00:10:51] And so a lot of fungi can easily adapt to what's available to them.

[00:10:57] And so what we found is that you can feed it all kinds of different things, right?

[00:11:02] Different feedstocks is what we call it, right?

[00:11:05] So you could feed it waste biomass, anything from leftover corn husks to spent brewer's grains to purified forms of sugar, for example.

[00:11:17] And what it does is depending on what you feed it, it'll produce different macronutrients.

[00:11:25] So if you feed it like something that has a higher fat content like biomass, it'll produce more oil and it could produce oil for fuel, right?

[00:11:36] But what we do is we feed it more of the building blocks to make protein, more nitrogen and carbon and oxygen, which is essentially protein.

[00:11:45] And what we see is it produces about 50% protein.

[00:11:51] Yeah. So what Dr. Kozibal did was he's like, hey, this can be that food, right?

[00:11:58] But we're talking about it grows in about four days.

[00:12:02] So it's extremely rapid, right?

[00:12:04] So it could be a great candidate for NASA for them to use as a food substance and grow in space.

[00:12:12] That's incredible. I mean, this type of research is it something like are they constantly looking for new environments to find this type of fungus?

[00:12:21] Was it a stroke of luck or was it something that is constantly being looked for all over the globe?

[00:12:30] How big is this type of research?

[00:12:32] Yeah. I mean, it's not huge research but it's building, right?

[00:12:37] There's this focus becoming a more focused lens on the world of mycology and fungi.

[00:12:45] And what we're seeing is it's really cool is that fungi is actually its own kingdom, right?

[00:12:52] So people kind of lump it into the plant kingdom.

[00:12:56] However, it is its own kingdom separate from animals.

[00:13:00] And so what's cool is that it's actually fungi are more closer to animals than they are to plants, right?

[00:13:10] There's more homology of like genes and how like fungi consume their feed.

[00:13:17] It's more similar to animals.

[00:13:19] And so what people are seeing is that you're seeing like high protein, you're seeing complete proteins that are highly digestible that are more similar to animal based proteins than they really are to plant proteins.

[00:13:33] And so what it's doing is like providing this wealth of more funding and information.

[00:13:40] And I don't know what the current metrics are on how many fungi might exist like the estimate, but it's like millions of different species.

[00:13:49] And we've only really discovered a fraction of those.

[00:13:53] And so so many things in our daily life come from fungi, right?

[00:13:58] Firmation products, beer, sourdough bread.

[00:14:02] That's all fungi, antibiotics, right?

[00:14:05] From fungi, right?

[00:14:07] Penicillin is the first antibiotic discovered from a fungal species.

[00:14:14] And so, you know, what we think about is like how do we embrace the research community?

[00:14:20] How do we provide more funding to the research community so that we can find things that could be break through from a food perspective, from a drug perspective, from environmental remediation, which fungi are good at as well.

[00:14:35] So there's just a huge wealth of things that could be explored.

[00:14:39] Yeah, awesome.

[00:14:40] I think you and I talked about this too.

[00:14:42] Isn't the like the largest known living organism fungi, it's like an organ or something like that?

[00:14:49] Yeah.

[00:14:50] Yeah.

[00:14:51] So it's the mycelium, which is essentially the root structure of a fungal organism, right?

[00:14:59] So most people think fungi, they think mushrooms, right?

[00:15:03] What you see in the grocery store like your crimini mushroom or oyster mushroom.

[00:15:08] What that is is actually just a structure of the organism, the total organism.

[00:15:13] And it's the fruiting body.

[00:15:15] And so in some fungi, they do produce the mushroom.

[00:15:19] Some they don't, right?

[00:15:21] So that mycelium is in every fungi, but for many you don't eat it, but for some you do.

[00:15:29] And so for our organism, so we call it fusarium flavolapus is the Latin name for the species.

[00:15:38] And flavolapus is Latin for Yellowstone.

[00:15:42] And what fusarium flavolapus does is it just produces the mycelium, so that root structure.

[00:15:50] And that's what we grow in nature is fine.

[00:15:52] Yeah.

[00:15:53] Awesome man.

[00:15:54] Super interesting.

[00:15:55] How does the process work with like growing the fungi and then actually making it into a food?

[00:16:01] Like what does that process look like?

[00:16:03] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:16:04] So I want to note is that we took one sample from Yellowstone Park, right?

[00:16:11] So we don't need to keep continuing going back to Yellowstone to harvest it.

[00:16:16] And what's really cool is it's again very similar to other fermentation products that we consume.

[00:16:23] You really just need one small amount of it to start with, and then you can propagate into perpetuity, which is incredible.

[00:16:31] And so we have these like what we call different generations of the original.

[00:16:37] So essentially take the first one, you propagate it into, you know, hundreds of samples.

[00:16:42] And then we use a new sample every single time for every day's production.

[00:16:49] So what we do is we take one of those samples and we essentially grow it in a large fermenter.

[00:16:57] And we feed it all the things that it likes to consume, like things that we studied the chemistry of that hot spring, as well as what generally fungi like to consume.

[00:17:09] They like to eat sugar.

[00:17:10] They like to eat carbohydrates, right?

[00:17:12] So they can convert that into protein and fad and fiber.

[00:17:17] And we grow that mycelium in a tray.

[00:17:23] And so that tray creates a lot of the texture and the bite that give it very similar consistency to like muscle fiber, right?

[00:17:34] So you think about this filamentous style organism, microorganism, the fungi.

[00:17:39] And what it does is it creates these fibers very similar to muscle.

[00:17:43] And so when you bite it, it has that texture that's very rewarding, right?

[00:17:50] When you eat a piece of meat like a steak, right?

[00:17:53] When you take that bite, it's part of that like feedback loop that is like rewarding not only the flavor and the salt and the fat, right?

[00:18:02] But also that bite which people enjoy.

[00:18:05] So you get some of that from that filamentous structure.

[00:18:08] We grow it in these trays and we can grow it to the ceiling, essentially.

[00:18:14] And they're just stacked.

[00:18:15] And then we harvest it after four days and we steam it.

[00:18:18] And then we give it a quick wash and then we turn it into amazing foods.

[00:18:24] And so at that point, once we create the ingredient, we call it phy protein.

[00:18:30] So you have the organism itself, which is fusarium flavolapus.

[00:18:34] And then once it turns into the ingredient through that process, we call it phy protein.

[00:18:40] So fy like from Yellowstone.

[00:18:43] Got it.

[00:18:44] And then our name, nature is fine.

[00:18:45] So fymd.

[00:18:46] Yeah.

[00:18:47] Yeah.

[00:18:48] And in the process of getting through the FDA, I mean, I know that's your wheelhouse, right?

[00:18:53] Yeah.

[00:18:54] Difficult?

[00:18:55] Easy?

[00:18:56] Somewhere between?

[00:18:57] Yeah.

[00:18:58] So it's to me, it's fun.

[00:19:01] It's a lot of fun.

[00:19:02] Okay.

[00:19:03] So what the regulatory world for me and why it's exciting is that you have to have a strong

[00:19:12] understanding of science.

[00:19:14] You have to have a strong understanding of how we may interact with a new food.

[00:19:21] And when I say interact with like, what kind of foods is it going to be in?

[00:19:25] How much are you going to eat?

[00:19:27] What are we going to turn it into?

[00:19:29] Right.

[00:19:30] And all of those things can have impacts on the safety profile.

[00:19:36] And you add in like the science, this like exposure, this toxicology, public policy, regulatory

[00:19:44] science, and also the opportunity to communicate.

[00:19:51] Right.

[00:19:52] And so working with the FDA, yeah, they seem like this, you know, large government institution.

[00:20:00] It's full of curious, thoughtful, well-trained scientists.

[00:20:06] Cool.

[00:20:07] Right.

[00:20:08] And so one thing that I do as a regulatory professional and a lot of folks do is have like a consultation

[00:20:15] meeting to introduce them to new concepts, new ideas.

[00:20:20] And they're very curious.

[00:20:22] And so you have these conversations with them that are like this deep dive into the

[00:20:27] science and how you're going to show the FDA or regulatory body that these new ingredients

[00:20:34] are safe to consume.

[00:20:36] And I think starting with that and having that relationship built goes such a long way.

[00:20:45] And of course, there's going to be things that come up as you put in your application

[00:20:50] that are going to be, you know, you didn't discuss in the consultation meetings.

[00:20:56] At that point, right, there's opportunities to have further discussions that you can clarify.

[00:21:01] You know, what exactly are they looking for that's going to be beneficial to them for them

[00:21:05] to be able to make a decision?

[00:21:07] Yeah.

[00:21:08] Yeah.

[00:21:09] Well, you know, everything at the end of the day is people business, right?

[00:21:11] Yeah.

[00:21:12] Yeah.

[00:21:13] Why is this so significant of a fine?

[00:21:14] I mean, I guess what I'm looking at is like, what is, I think everyone's pretty

[00:21:18] aware that there's problems with our food supply, whether it's the quality of

[00:21:22] the food, ultra-processed foods.

[00:21:24] You know, people say we have 60 good years of agricultural left in this country, right?

[00:21:30] Before we completely waste the soil.

[00:21:32] So there's some obvious problems, but you know, how do you define the problem of our food

[00:21:38] security, I guess for lack of a better term and like why is this so significant to that problem?

[00:21:43] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:21:45] So I think there's three things that's shot on there.

[00:21:48] There's the food security piece.

[00:21:50] There's the sustainability and the nutrition, right?

[00:21:55] And food security.

[00:21:57] I mean, we see so much that is issues with our food supply, right?

[00:22:03] It was exemplified when we went through COVID, right?

[00:22:07] Just the supply chains alone.

[00:22:10] Like people were running out of food left and right and or you could just get a certain kind of food, right?

[00:22:17] We don't need to get into like supply chain and toilet paper, but the food was issues, right?

[00:22:22] We saw so many stories of food being wasted, right?

[00:22:26] While on the other hand you have people that are hungry.

[00:22:29] And that was exemplified during COVID, but it happens every single day, right?

[00:22:35] And the amount of waste that comes from food is incredible.

[00:22:40] And when that gets into the sustainability conversation, right?

[00:22:45] It's like, how can we just improve that piece that we're just landfilling a significant portion of our food?

[00:22:53] And how can we improve on the supply chains?

[00:22:56] But also how do we identify that things can be a little bit more local and scaled down?

[00:23:05] Because I think some of that was obvious during COVID is that you saw that there are farmers that had hundreds of tons,

[00:23:15] thousands of tons of food, right?

[00:23:17] And they had no way to get it into a small package for a consumer because they were like maybe only doing it for industrial size or scale, right?

[00:23:25] So for people to retool it became really difficult.

[00:23:28] And so with FI protein, right, we can produce that at small scale, at large scale.

[00:23:37] We can tailor it to a lot of different occasions and a lot of different foods.

[00:23:43] And what makes it so unique is that we right now are products we make, sausage, cream cheese and yogurt.

[00:23:52] And what that does is it demonstrates that it can be an alternative protein that can span across both dairy and meat alternatives.

[00:24:04] But we're just getting started on the food categories.

[00:24:08] We can make, we can dry it down, we can make pasta, we can make flour out of it to turn it into bread.

[00:24:14] We can make drinks, like high protein drinks, right?

[00:24:19] And so what we could do is tailor based on our food security issues to make foods that can be available and readily available to consumers.

[00:24:30] That's amazing.

[00:24:32] So you mentioned the product line.

[00:24:33] I mean, talk to us about like the production, like where are you guys doing it now?

[00:24:37] I mean, what do you see as far as the future of how it's produced?

[00:24:40] Is it produced here in the United States?

[00:24:42] Yeah.

[00:24:43] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:24:44] So we currently produce it in the U.S. in Chicago.

[00:24:47] We've got a team in Chicago, about 150 people.

[00:24:51] And we are building a second facility in the U.S.

[00:24:57] So working with some partners to do that.

[00:25:00] We are exploring outside the U.S.

[00:25:03] So a little bit back to the regulatory piece.

[00:25:06] So there's the U.S., there's the FDA.

[00:25:09] But we look at this, it's not a solution just for the U.S., it's a solution globally.

[00:25:15] And so with the regulatory approvals, so we've received regulatory approvals in not only U.S., but Canada, Singapore,

[00:25:25] and then some smaller countries, Japan, UAE, the Cayman Islands.

[00:25:31] Nice.

[00:25:32] And we continue to work on additional approvals places like the EU, which the EU is like in terms of the regulatory world

[00:25:41] is like the gold standard for their review, their scientific review.

[00:25:47] And so that one actually being that it is the most robust, it takes probably the longest in the world.

[00:25:54] And so to answer your question, yeah, we're in the U.S. right now, but we're very quickly looking to expand across the globe.

[00:26:02] And when you talk about like the cost of production, I mean, is it on par with kind of our normal food production costs

[00:26:11] that we know now or is it cheaper, more expensive? Do you think it will get cheaper over time?

[00:26:15] Like what about the cost of all of it?

[00:26:17] So costs right now, when you look at it compared to let's just look at two categories like plant-based.

[00:26:24] So you're looking at like pea protein and soy protein.

[00:26:27] Yep.

[00:26:28] Those products are usually a concentrate or an isolate.

[00:26:33] Right?

[00:26:34] So when you're eating a lot of plant-based foods these days, you'll see on the label like a pea protein

[00:26:40] or soy protein concentrate or isolate.

[00:26:43] And so what that is just the protein from those plants.

[00:26:48] And what you see in a lot of these, those types of foods is that you have to add a lot of things back in.

[00:26:54] So you have to add in fiber, you have to add in fat, you have to add in things that do the binding

[00:27:00] to make it stick together like a burger.

[00:27:03] What's different about fiber protein is that we use that whole mycelium from the fungus.

[00:27:10] And what it's got is protein, fiber, fat and it's got all these texture characteristics, right?

[00:27:17] And so when you talk about the cost, you have to look at more than just the ingredient itself.

[00:27:23] You have to look at like the whole product that you're making,

[00:27:26] which gets into a little bit of like the process foods discussion

[00:27:30] and some of the discussion these days about ultra-processed foods that are not great to your health,

[00:27:38] where we can do it with less ingredients, less processing.

[00:27:42] And similar to some animal products, right?

[00:27:45] Sure, if you're just having a burger, a beef burger,

[00:27:49] people usually are adding ingredients to it, right?

[00:27:53] Most people that consume burgers are from a fast food restaurant.

[00:27:59] They're just a whole bunch of stuff in that.

[00:28:01] Right? It's not just beef, right?

[00:28:03] So when we talk about the costs, we look at that whole picture

[00:28:06] and right now we're about on par with both of those plant-based and animal-based

[00:28:13] and looking to improve as we continue to scale.

[00:28:16] Yeah, yeah, awesome man.

[00:28:18] I mean, one of the things that when I heard you talk originally, Brian was,

[00:28:22] that blew me away, was the fundraising that you guys have done in such a short period of time.

[00:28:27] I mean, you know, I come from the fitness and wellness industry

[00:28:31] and I don't hear these numbers very often.

[00:28:34] So maybe give us some insights into how quickly you guys were able to raise

[00:28:38] why you think that happened and kind of the process of that

[00:28:40] and then yeah, give us more insight. It's pretty amazing.

[00:28:44] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:28:46] So we...

[00:28:48] The company as itself before kind of that grant money and that research all or so,

[00:28:54] that was the first phase, was the research in Yellowstone with the grant money.

[00:28:59] So that was about 2012 through 2018 and we raised our series A in 2018

[00:29:08] and what that was is, okay, you have the concept.

[00:29:13] We think you guys can prove that you can scale it, that it's safe,

[00:29:17] they can get regulatory approvals

[00:29:21] and without her, we had a couple investors and from the food industry, right?

[00:29:27] So some big agricultural backing

[00:29:32] and we ran with that for about a year

[00:29:36] and then we got our... went through the FDA, what it's called is the grass process.

[00:29:42] So generally recognize this safe

[00:29:44] and then we launched in early 2021.

[00:29:49] So it took us about 18 to 24 months before we had our first product launch

[00:29:56] and it was really cool.

[00:29:58] You talk about startup world and being pushed and the speed to do things

[00:30:04] on February 14th, so Valentine's Day of 2020.

[00:30:11] So right before COVID really was taking hold.

[00:30:16] Yep.

[00:30:17] On 60 Minutes, Anderson Cooper and Bill Gates were talking about Nature's Find.

[00:30:23] Bill Gates is one of our backers to breakthrough energy ventures

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[00:31:41] Now on to the show.

[00:31:44] He's eating our food on 60 minutes, which these are like prototypes that we're making on the bench.

[00:31:50] And we just looked at this and we said, this is a huge opportunity for us.

[00:31:55] We have to launch products.

[00:31:57] It doesn't matter if what's going to happen in the world, we just have to buckle down and do it.

[00:32:03] And what we did in that, and we had about four months before we had them on shelf

[00:32:09] and we're providing it to consumers, but we just had to go crunch time.

[00:32:14] You don't have those types of opportunities very often and you got to run with it.

[00:32:19] And so what we did is we launched both our breakfast sausage and cream cheese

[00:32:23] to show that versatility.

[00:32:26] And I mean we got rave reviews.

[00:32:29] And so with that, we raised the series B in middle to late 2020.

[00:32:35] So again, right in the middle of like our first understandings of COVID and coronavirus.

[00:32:43] And what our investors were seeing is this food insecurity, this supply chain issue.

[00:32:49] And they're looking at this opportunity that is five protein and nature's find.

[00:32:55] And it's saying, look, this can grow rapidly.

[00:32:58] We can deploy it quickly and it's nutritious.

[00:33:02] You know, it's good for your health and the regulatory clearances are already there.

[00:33:08] And so we're able to gather a lot of funding in a short period of time.

[00:33:15] Also around that time you also saw a lot of other alternative proteins raising money.

[00:33:20] Right?

[00:33:21] And there was a ton of money that was available as well.

[00:33:24] Yeah, it's crazy.

[00:33:25] I mean venture money was like going out the door.

[00:33:27] The good old days.

[00:33:28] Right?

[00:33:29] Yeah.

[00:33:30] And we didn't stop at the series B so we raised a series C as well.

[00:33:34] And so at that point that was in 2021 we were already had products that were on shelf.

[00:33:40] We already had some, you know, good information about consumers.

[00:33:46] And we call our consumers the optimistic advocates that want to buy this.

[00:33:51] They want to see it, right?

[00:33:52] They're curious to buy it again.

[00:33:54] Yeah, it's pretty good.

[00:33:55] Yeah.

[00:33:56] Yeah.

[00:33:57] So you guys, you have some runway.

[00:33:58] We do.

[00:33:59] Yeah.

[00:34:00] That must feel good.

[00:34:01] Yeah.

[00:34:02] I know you're not a nutritionist.

[00:34:03] We talked about this, but give us some ideas like, you know, as it compares to,

[00:34:07] you know, the normal proteins in our, at least our Western diets.

[00:34:10] Like what was the nutrition of value of this has it stuck up?

[00:34:13] Yeah.

[00:34:14] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:34:15] I think despite, you know, not being a classical trained nutritionist or dietitian,

[00:34:22] it is one of the exciting things about Phi and Phi protein is to have something.

[00:34:30] And as I talked about, as we eat that whole fungus, right?

[00:34:34] It's not further processed.

[00:34:36] And it's about 50% protein and then 35% fiber and about 10% fat, healthy fats.

[00:34:46] And so what it does is like this macro, this kind of powerhouse macro ingredient.

[00:34:52] And the protein we talk about, and I'm sure, you know, in the fitness world,

[00:34:56] people talk about protein quality a lot.

[00:34:58] Yeah.

[00:34:59] Right?

[00:35:00] And so you have a lot of people eating like whey or casein protein.

[00:35:03] That's the base of most protein supplements, powders that people are eating and consuming.

[00:35:09] And the protein quality, what it is, is looking at the amino acids, right?

[00:35:15] And people talk about essential amino acids and branch chain amino acids.

[00:35:19] And there are nine essential amino acids that not only are essential,

[00:35:24] but essential in these kind of golden ratios.

[00:35:29] And those ratios are kind of curious is it's compared to the diet for a two to five year old.

[00:35:37] Why do we do that comparison?

[00:35:39] And there's other comparisons, but that is like generally the most accepted is because that's as a growing human,

[00:35:48] the time that is crucial in your life to have those right amino acids and the right ratios.

[00:35:54] And so what you have is what's called the PDCAS, the Protein Digestibility Corrected Amino Acid Score.

[00:36:01] Which is one of a couple ways to measure the quality of the protein.

[00:36:07] And with that, you have your whey and casein protein as your gold standard.

[00:36:13] So what those scores are one.

[00:36:15] So it's essentially 100% digestible.

[00:36:19] And in these studies that you do, and you can do modeling both outside an animal or in an animal, right?

[00:36:28] So you can use rodents or you can do some of this like digestibility modeling.

[00:36:33] Which we've done both.

[00:36:36] And what it shows is that the five protein is a 0.92.

[00:36:42] So 92% digestible.

[00:36:45] And just, you know I said like whey and casein are one.

[00:36:49] But to put it in perspective of other foods, other proteins, things like ground beef are 92% 0.92.

[00:36:57] Things like, we were talking about pea protein concentrates.

[00:37:02] It's about 89-90% digestible.

[00:37:05] And then if you go down to things like nuts, like peanuts, right?

[00:37:10] Which sometimes you see protein claims that are on nuts and good source of protein claims.

[00:37:17] Those can be anywhere from like 50% to 70% digestible.

[00:37:22] Now it kind of sounds bad, right?

[00:37:25] Okay so you're only really adjusting 50% in nuts.

[00:37:30] However that other protein that's there, that's not digestible, kind of acts as fiber.

[00:37:37] And in phi we have 35% fiber which includes beta-glucan fiber.

[00:37:44] And what we're seeing in some of these fungal protein studies that some universities are doing

[00:37:53] and some other companies are funding and we're starting to work into some of these

[00:37:57] like human clinical trials to look at the benefits of consuming fungal proteins

[00:38:02] is that fiber is helping to reduce cholesterol, especially LDL.

[00:38:08] And it's helping with metabolic health.

[00:38:11] So what that fiber does in the fungi is it's good for satiety.

[00:38:18] So it makes you feel fuller, faster.

[00:38:20] And so you're not overeating and it kind of slows your digestion down.

[00:38:26] And so what they're seeing is that with that slow slowing of digestion

[00:38:32] is that blood insulin levels are moderating and you're not seeing sugar spikes

[00:38:39] which is incredible like potential benefit of consuming these fungal proteins.

[00:38:44] The third part of it we talked about the digestibility of the protein

[00:38:49] and the quality of the protein is that there's been some recent studies about muscle building

[00:38:54] when people eat fungal proteins versus casein and whey.

[00:38:58] And they're seeing higher muscle building and muscle synthesis from eating fungal proteins

[00:39:05] than from eating whey and casein.

[00:39:07] And it's like obviously a lot more needs to be done before there's claims that can be made

[00:39:13] that are unpacked and generally accepted by the FDA which is a process to get those approved

[00:39:20] but it's really exciting kind of cutting edge beginning research that people are looking at these things

[00:39:26] and seeing benefits not only from just feeling full to metabolic disorders to heart health to muscle building.

[00:39:34] Yeah, it's critical.

[00:39:37] I mean I think the quality and amount of protein that people have in their diets

[00:39:41] is really starting to come into life for a couple reasons.

[00:39:43] I mean you look at what are claimed as or named food deserts, right?

[00:39:47] So a lot of these places where they don't have access to a lot of fresh vegetable

[00:39:51] or vegetables and fruits, high quality proteins, things like that.

[00:39:55] That's really important for those people and also we're starting to see as a rise of a common topic on this show

[00:40:01] is the GLP one, ozempics, things like that, these miracle whey loss drugs, right?

[00:40:05] But what happens on the effects, I don't think they're called side effects,

[00:40:09] they're just effects but people aren't getting enough protein, right?

[00:40:12] They stop eating enough, they don't really know how to eat correctly so they don't get enough protein.

[00:40:16] They're losing muscle mass so as we kind of go into this new era of the GLP one era

[00:40:21] that's really critical too and just giving access to high quality protein is really important.

[00:40:25] So that's super exciting man, I love it.

[00:40:29] Give me an idea like where do you think this is going, right?

[00:40:33] Like 10 years from now and you guys have some direct to consumer products.

[00:40:36] Do you think this is ever going to get to a point or you can be like licensing this to food companies?

[00:40:42] Yeah, let's put a time stamp on it 10 years from now, Brian.

[00:40:45] Like where do you think this is going to be?

[00:40:47] Yeah, well I see a lot of opportunity and you don't...

[00:40:52] There was I'd say a spike in excitement about alternative proteins right around COVID.

[00:40:59] Right, I think there was a lot of people had a lot of time to kind of slow down

[00:41:04] and think about food, think about diet, think about the supply chain issues as they can't get.

[00:41:10] You know what they used to be able to just go to the grocery store and it's just immediate.

[00:41:14] Right, and so people started to become more aware of food, more aware of diet

[00:41:22] and what we mentioned before is that optimistic advocate is what we call our consumers.

[00:41:29] Yeah I love that.

[00:41:30] And it's kind of fun is there's really three reasons why we see consumers that are interested

[00:41:39] and it's growing.

[00:41:41] And so those three reasons are people are looking for alternative proteins for a few different reasons, right?

[00:41:50] And so some are about sustainability, right?

[00:41:53] That's awesome, right?

[00:41:54] Thinking about climate change.

[00:41:56] You know, people that are looking at it from an animal welfare perspective.

[00:42:00] And then the third group is you're looking at people that from a health perspective where

[00:42:07] and you immediately think kind of these optimistic advocates are more of like millennial Gen Z,

[00:42:13] more people that are more open to new ideas.

[00:42:16] But we're also seeing as a larger demand from boomers, right?

[00:42:23] They're thinking about their health, right?

[00:42:25] They're going to the doctor and they're saying your cholesterol is high

[00:42:28] and you can't eat five burgers a week, right?

[00:42:32] You've got to find something that's different.

[00:42:34] And so as those optimistic advocates, that idea expands for whatever reason, right?

[00:42:43] Is that people are changing their diet and thinking about,

[00:42:47] okay how do I reduce my median take?

[00:42:49] And we call them flexitarians.

[00:42:52] And those flexitarians are eating one less piece of meat per eating occasion.

[00:42:58] So they might not eat meat for breakfast or they might have meatless Mondays

[00:43:02] or do a vegetarian or vegan January, right?

[00:43:06] And some of these trends are really taking hold and people are like,

[00:43:11] hey I don't have to have red meat five times or even more times per week.

[00:43:18] So with that expanding consumer base and interest,

[00:43:22] I really see that yeah there's been some ups and downs in the alternative protein market,

[00:43:28] but it's going to continue to rise, right?

[00:43:31] There's no doubt that we cannot feed the world on our current diets.

[00:43:37] Not on a Western diet, right?

[00:43:40] And especially in countries that are rapidly expanding India and China

[00:43:45] and some Asian countries, right?

[00:43:48] As the GDP goes up there's more demand for meat and the world can't supply it.

[00:43:56] Not only from what's currently available but from just a climate and sustainability perspective,

[00:44:02] the world can't supply that amount of meat based foods.

[00:44:08] And what we see is that with FI protein it can be rapidly deployed

[00:44:12] and it can grow in less than a week.

[00:44:15] It's incredible.

[00:44:16] How is it, I think about putting myself in your shoes

[00:44:19] and it must be really cool to wake up every morning knowing that you're like

[00:44:23] going out of problem that's so critical.

[00:44:26] So not just like, you know, your local community,

[00:44:28] but like the human race, right?

[00:44:30] Like this was a big deal.

[00:44:32] Explain to me how is it, how is the culture in your company

[00:44:37] and leadership, like is everybody, I mean, it must be very optimistic, positive environment.

[00:44:44] I would only imagine but explain it like how is it like going to work every day

[00:44:47] with this team and what are they like?

[00:44:49] Yeah, it's a lot of fun.

[00:44:51] You know, it's difficult, right?

[00:44:53] And I think people think about startups and how much effort it can take.

[00:44:59] And to me, the joys and the excitement of being in a startup is making decisions

[00:45:08] without 100% perfect, complete information.

[00:45:12] Yeah.

[00:45:13] Right?

[00:45:14] And you got to make a decision at that time with what you know.

[00:45:17] And our leadership team really embraces that.

[00:45:21] And so we have like our CEO is Thomas Jonas.

[00:45:25] And I mean, he is embracing of a culture that we're changing the world.

[00:45:31] And it's never easy to change the world, right?

[00:45:35] And it's going to be messy and we're going to make mistakes.

[00:45:42] And so when we embrace that these mistakes are going to happen,

[00:45:46] but we join together as a team to solve them,

[00:45:49] and we have such a strong connection to people within the organization

[00:45:54] cross-functionally, right?

[00:45:57] And so they see that, well, there is a mistake, you know,

[00:46:01] by maybe the R&D team or the regulatory team or the marketing team, right?

[00:46:06] But then there's a support that comes in that's like, hey, let's get through this.

[00:46:12] Let's figure out how we do it better and not make that mistake again

[00:46:16] and move forward.

[00:46:17] Yeah.

[00:46:19] You know, as an industry and when I talk about that,

[00:46:22] like fitness, health and wellness kind of is all coming into one industry now.

[00:46:25] It's merging.

[00:46:27] But what can we do to help you?

[00:46:31] Like what do you need right now as a business,

[00:46:33] as you know where you guys are at?

[00:46:35] Like if people want to reach out and they want to talk to you,

[00:46:38] like what do you want to hear from them about?

[00:46:40] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:46:41] I think there's a lot more conversation to be had about the nutrition and the benefits.

[00:46:48] And especially in the fitness world where it's over important, right?

[00:46:54] Is nutrition is so important, right?

[00:46:56] And there's a lot of wonderful research that exists

[00:47:01] and there's some research that maybe be, you know, less than stellar.

[00:47:09] And then there's so many emerging new things, right?

[00:47:14] And so I think in the fitness community and where Phi protein can support

[00:47:19] or vice versa is thinking about what other studies could be done, right?

[00:47:25] There's already like I talked about some of those like those granules,

[00:47:29] granular kind of starts to things that could be really impactful

[00:47:36] in the fitness world.

[00:47:38] And you have a lot of folks in the fitness world that are also some of these optimistic advocates, right?

[00:47:43] And they're like how do I reduce my animal protein intake or be more sustainable?

[00:47:48] And this could be an option.

[00:47:50] So I think there's, you know, what we're looking for is partnerships on

[00:47:54] like clinical studies and exercise studies and those kind of things

[00:47:58] where somebody may be consuming Phi protein

[00:48:02] or somebody consuming like a whey protein based protein drink or something like that.

[00:48:06] Yeah, yeah.

[00:48:07] Awesome man.

[00:48:08] Well, yeah, I can definitely think of a handful of people that would love to get their hands on this.

[00:48:12] And I mean it'd be super fun too to have there are athletes that are like,

[00:48:16] hey, I want to try that is like the core of my diet.

[00:48:19] Yeah.

[00:48:20] And see how it might impact, right?

[00:48:22] And we on my team, I have a wonderful dietitian

[00:48:25] that she can help like put together some meal plans and ideas

[00:48:30] of how they're not going to be, you know, losing out on their key nutrition

[00:48:38] where we can match like protein levels.

[00:48:41] We can match fiber levels.

[00:48:42] We can match, you know, carbohydrates or whatever they're looking for.

[00:48:45] That's incredible man.

[00:48:46] I mean, I just as you're talking, I just imagine this world where everything's like

[00:48:49] food supplies hyper localized, right?

[00:48:52] Very adaptable, you know, customizable, I guess to the nutrition needs of the community.

[00:48:57] And that can be anywhere.

[00:49:00] I mean, it's the problem is so complicated.

[00:49:04] You know, I like you mentioned, I think the statistic I heard is like 50% of all food is thrown away, right?

[00:49:10] In the United States.

[00:49:11] And yet there's people starving over the planet.

[00:49:14] Like that's a problem, right?

[00:49:15] So we just need to figure something out come together.

[00:49:17] So really appreciate the work you're doing, Brian.

[00:49:19] People want to get ahold of you or learn more like is there any places you specifically want them to go online?

[00:49:25] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:49:26] I mean, nature is fine.

[00:49:27] We're on all the social media.

[00:49:29] So and it's find as F Y N D and then website is naturesfind.com.

[00:49:37] But yeah, I can be found, you know, LinkedIn.

[00:49:41] I can share my email.

[00:49:43] And yeah, I think we're very curious, right?

[00:49:47] We're optimistic advocates and we're curious to continue advancing the research that we do,

[00:49:55] and we're continuing advancing the product.

[00:49:57] And I think also helpful is like going out and buying it, right?

[00:50:02] And so all our foods are available in all the whole foods, sprouts markets, fresh time.

[00:50:08] And so we're in about 1000 stores right now.

[00:50:11] And yeah, go out and try it.

[00:50:13] We just launched yogurt in January.

[00:50:16] We have three flavors and they're wonderful.

[00:50:20] We have vanilla peach and strawberry and they're low on sugar.

[00:50:24] And high on protein and they're really good.

[00:50:28] Yeah, awesome.

[00:50:29] Well, you know, I think the thing with getting new products out to the market too is people,

[00:50:33] once they understand the story, they have a connection to it, right?

[00:50:37] And then we're apt to buy it and support it.

[00:50:39] So, you know, getting on podcast, you know, as this is no Joe Roken here,

[00:50:43] but you know, getting on stuff like this and continue to tell the story is really critical.

[00:50:46] What do you guys have because it's amazing.

[00:50:48] So great job, Brian.

[00:50:50] Great description, great background, great, you know, just laying out the

[00:50:54] whole vision and story was excellent.

[00:50:56] So thank you for coming on, man.

[00:50:57] It's always a pleasure to see you and talk to you and ladies and gentlemen, Brian Fury.

[00:51:01] Yeah, thank you.

[00:51:02] Yeah, just on one closing.

[00:51:04] Please.

[00:51:05] I want to bring it full circle as we talked about the origin story with NASA.

[00:51:10] And two summers ago, Fi was grown in the International Space Station.

[00:51:15] Awesome.

[00:51:16] And it grew totally fine and zero gravity.

[00:51:19] So it was really cool.

[00:51:21] Yeah, you guys are intergalactic company.

[00:51:23] Yeah.

[00:51:24] Now none of us got to go to space to grow it.

[00:51:27] Right.

[00:51:28] Yeah, it was a cool project.

[00:51:29] Right on man.

[00:51:30] That's cool.

[00:51:31] Very exciting.

[00:51:32] Thanks, sir.

[00:51:33] Let's go skiing.

[00:51:34] All right.

[00:51:35] Cool.

[00:51:36] Thanks.

[00:51:37] Hey, wait, don't leave yet.

[00:51:38] This is your host Eric Malzone.

[00:51:39] And I hope you enjoyed this episode of Future of Feminist.

[00:51:42] If you did, I'm going to ask you to do three simple things.

[00:51:46] It takes under five minutes and it goes such a long way.

[00:51:49] We really appreciate it.

[00:51:50] Number one, please subscribe to our show wherever you listen to it.

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[00:51:56] Number two, please leave us a favorable review.

[00:52:00] Number three, share.

[00:52:02] Put on social media, talk about it to your friends, send it in a text message, whatever it may be.

[00:52:07] Please share this episode because we put a lot of work into it and want to make sure that many people are getting value out of it as possible.

[00:52:14] Lastly, if you'd like to learn more or get in touch with me,

[00:52:17] simply go to thefutureoffitness.co.

[00:52:20] You can subscribe to our newsletter there or you can simply get in touch with me as I'd love to hear from our listeners.

[00:52:26] So thank you so much.

[00:52:28] This is Eric Malzone and this is the Future of Feminist.

[00:52:30] Have a great day.