Nature’s Fynd – Alternative Protein Through Fungi & USD
350m Capital Raise – 18 August 2021
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Specialist:
Title:
Moderator: Nyree Hinton (NH), Third Bridge Sector Analyst
Eric Routenberg (ER)
Former Contracted Creative Director at Fynder Group Inc
Agenda:
1. Nature's Fynd's USD 350m funding raise
2. Fermentation technology overview
3. Retail and quick-service restaurant channel opportunities
4. Category outlook for additional dairy- and meat-alternative applications
Contents
Q: What are your thoughts on the consumer trends around health and wellness and the rise of alternative
proteins? What is needed to market and brand that product effectively? Can you talk about the perception vs
actually being healthy for you, whereas certain products are not necessarily the best for you and just have a
health halo? What are your thoughts on that dynamic?
4
Q: What are your thoughts on the proliferation of alternative proteins and the read-throughs to branding?
Could you give us an industry overview? What have brands such as Beyond and Impossible done well with
their branding given that you said consumers are smarter now?
4
Q: What are your thoughts on Nature’s Fynd, its product roll-out plans and its recent raising of USD 350m?
What do you think about its plans for automation and growing and harvesting protein vs the cost structure
that is different from a brand such as Beyond, where it’s using so many more resources in that aspect?
6
Q: What are your thoughts on scalability and being able to communicate that story to consumers? How
challenging do you think it will be for a new upstart such as Nature’s Fynd to build partnerships with key
grocery retailers or foodservice channels? What might be the challenges there?
7
Q: How does Nature’s Fynd think about its category offerings? Why do you think it chose the products it did
to start with?
8
Q: What do you think about taste and Nature’s Fynd’s ability to execute on all the other ingredients that go
into its products, especially when it comes to cholesterol, sugar and things of that nature? How do you think
the company is approaching that?
9
Q: How does Nature’s Fynd think about allergies with its flagship production method? Has fungi fermented
through mushrooms ever come up in relation to people being allergic?
9
Q: Do you think there is anything that is commonly overlooked about Nature’s Fynd?
10
Nature’s Fynd – Alternative Protein Through Fungi &
USD 350m Capital Raise
Transcription begins at 00:00:08 of the recorded material
NH: Welcome to Third Bridge Forum’s Interview, entitled Nature’s Fynd – Alternative Protein Through Fungi
and USD 350m Capital Raise. I’m Nyree Hinton and I’ll be facilitating today’s Interview with Mr Eric
Routenberg, former Contracted Creative Director at Fynder Group Inc. I guess that’s another way to say the
parent company of Nature’s Fynd.
ER: Correct. Yes.
NH: Eric, before we get started with today’s Interview, please state I agree or I disagree to the following
statement: You understand the definition of material non-public information and agree not to disclose any
such information, or any other information which is confidential, during this Interview.
ER: I agree.
NH: Thank you, Eric. Could you start by giving our audience an overview of your background and the various
roles you’ve held in the industry?
ER: Hi, everybody. My name is Eric. I am a Group Creative Director or Creative Director or Executive Creative
Director, depending on where I’m working and what the industry is. In advertising is where I’ve spent my
career, most notably at Leo Burnett in Chicago, where I was the Senior Vice President and Group Creative
Director on various accounts in various channels such as Coca-Cola, Invesco, Samsung, UnitedHealthcare. I’ve
worked on McDonald’s, I’ve worked on, I mentioned Samsung and other agencies, so I’ve had a lot of
experience in large global brands and across tech, food, finance, etc. A couple of years ago, I left Burnett to be
a freelancer so that I could have different experiences like working directly in-house for a client, and I could
also work with some different-sized clients. Starting about two years ago, I transitioned to freelance creative
directing and I got to work at a very small social media company, I got to work at another global holding
company, a PR agency, and then I also was lucky enough to be contacted by the new CMO of Nature’s Fynd,
which, as you know, is an alt-protein company start-up, and this was in the summer of 2019.
I happen to have worked with the CMO of Nature’s Fynd when she was at Leo Burnett, so she knew me from
there, we had worked together briefly. She reached out to help her basically build a brand from the ground up,
even pre-product, pre-revenue, to help them develop their mission statement, values, purpose, and then brand
visual identification, brand assets, brand language, all the stuff, the foundational things a new brand would
need. That was concurrent as they were developing their products, and so through Nature’s Fynd, I was
recommended to also work at a, not so much a start-up anymore, but a younger natural foods company called
Simple Mills in Chicago, where I was working there, which is not in the alternative space, but they are in the
wellness and sustainability space. Then from there, I worked at R/GA in New York, a very large advertising
agency, worked on Samsung for nine months, and then now, currently, I’m working with Oatly, which if you
are familiar with the alternative dairy, alternative protein space, they’re the lead horse in the alternative dairy
space, at least as far as a brand and brand presence.
My background is in creating, concepting, brand advertising, brand voice, brand tone. With Nature’s Fynd, in
order to do that, because the brand didn’t exist, I was brought into more their operations, so I was able to
spend about 18 months with them. I spent a lot of time with the CEO one on one, was flown out to Montana to
where the lead and founding scientists are based, and learned about literally how they make the product from
the microbe, and then I’ve stayed on with them through the launch of their website and the launch of their
brand, film and social presence. Then the COVID-19 thing subdued their launch in a much bigger way than
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they had anticipated. Now they’re currently finalising their first distribution to be on shelves, and while they
do that, I’m working on other projects, but my background really wasn’t as a market analyst nor was it in the
business side, but it was in the consumer perception, how do we represent the brand? Then I have a great deal
of familiarity with how the product is made, what it tastes like, the advantages vs competitors, stuff like that.
[00:06:12]
Q: What are your thoughts on the consumer trends around health and wellness and the rise of alternative
proteins? What is needed to market and brand that product effectively? Can you talk about the perception vs
actually being healthy for you, whereas certain products are not necessarily the best for you and just have a
health halo? What are your thoughts on that dynamic?
ER: As far as the consumer perception, the segment that is really wanting and focused on, for shorthand, I’ll
just say food that nourishes humans but also nurtures the planet, so think of like nourishing people, nurturing
the planet, those two things. There are plenty of foods out there that just nourish people, but they are horrific
for the environment. Dairy milk, I’m just using that as an example, nourishes people, but the production of it
is horrific for the planet. The nurturing the planet part is what the young millennial to mid-age millennial is
really looking for, so it’s not going to be probably our parents’ generation, but there’s a demand that’s starting
in the teenage years, the current teenage years, that’s stretching all the way into the 20s and 30s, people who
are currently 20s and 30s, of they’re realising, they’re highly educated, but they’re also highly conscious
beyond themselves. At Nature’s Fynd, the target was called the optimistic advocate. These are people who,
they’re growing up in a totally turbulent time. They’re aware of climate change and what it’s doing, they’re
aware of the code red warning from the UN, they’re aware of all the geopolitical turbulence, but they still have
optimism that the world is going to be okay or that the world can be saved or helped, and so what they’re
looking for is brands that align with their own values.
Brand-wise, yes, they want something to taste good, but to your point about their perception of brands in the
space. They can tell the difference between brands that are just making something that’s organic or natural
and good for the person, and they can tell the difference between that and something that is vegan, non-GMO,
good for the person, but also has a tiny climate footprint and is a much more efficient protein vehicle, protein
delivery vehicle than the traditional things. There’s going to be an increased demand for brands that are
perceived as aligning with the values of this sort of optimistic advocate, this late teens, 20s, early 30s,
educated, progressive-minded, environmentally minded person who has money, they have the money to
choose. Their thing is, “We don’t have to do harm to the planet just do not do harm to ourselves.” Meaning we
can do good for ourselves and do good for the planet, and that’s a value that they hold and maintain. There are
some brands that are very transparent to this target as greenwashed brands. A brand that is clearly spending
more money to advertise their environmental do-goodery than they actually are spending on operations to
make their company more sustainable, that’s very transparent to this young, progressive, eco-minded target.
Taste is going to be the first driver of this they buy again, but if they buy first, the first time this target buys, it’s
going to be because they perceive that brand values, in as much as a brand can have values, as matching their
own, as being in a line with their own, their own world view about the earth and transforming the global
industrial food system, transforming the industrial transportation system. They’re looking for perceived
alignment with their own values, but somebody in a Gen X or an older generation, that’s way lower down on
the priority list.
[00:12:04]
Q: What are your thoughts on the proliferation of alternative proteins and the read-throughs to branding?
Could you give us an industry overview? What have brands such as Beyond and Impossible done well with
their branding given that you said consumers are smarter now?
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ER: There’s a brand that’s good vs a brand that’s good for the planet and the human. They can tell the
difference, at least this target, they care enough to be smart about it, to do it. The alternative protein space
obviously is getting more crowded by the day. It’s divided into two. Right now, you can divide the alternative
protein space into two buckets. One is alternative protein that is plant-based, that is going to be your Beyonds,
your Impossibles, your Incogmeato, your Lightlife. All those are plant-based. They’re going to make their
products, one way or another, from plants that use lots of land and water to grow, peas, soy, etc. Those are
plant-based alternative proteins. Then there are non-plant-based alternative proteins, and those are what you
would call mycoproteins, myco. Those are going to be fungi-based, and when I say fungi-based, I mean
mushrooms. Mushrooms, the veins in blue cheese, that’s a fungus. There’s fungus everywhere. There are all
sorts of things. Beer is fermented using a process very similar to how Nature’s Fynd protein is made, same
thing with bread, so in the alternative protein space, plant-based are way out ahead of the game. They are the
oldest. Even though it’s a fairly new category, they are the oldest and they are established, and companies like
Beyond and Impossible are the two 800-pound gorillas in the space.
They would be considered mature because obviously their valuations, but also just penetration, ubiquity and
also acceptance. When you get a fast food restaurant, which is normally the venue of choice for not particularly
eco-minded people, when you have fast food restaurants like Burger King and KFC and others, accepting,
putting Impossible Burgers on the menu, that’s pretty established, that’s pretty mature. The mycoproteins,
meaning the fungi-based, non-plant-based, those are still in the emerging phases. There’s a company called
Quorn in the UK, that it’s really actually not corn-based, but Quorn is named after the small town where it was
founded. They are fungi-based, but they had never really blown up. It had never really expanded and gotten to
a brand status in the US. They are old. They’re many years old. I think they’re 30 years old, something like
that, but they’ve never achieved a massive, huge penetration or ubiquity in the US. It may not be something
they’re trying to do, but that is an older, more established mycoprotein or fungi-based competitor.
I just wanted to touch quickly on one of the reasons I think we’re seeing all these alternative protein brands
pop up, and that is, there’s a slide in the Nature’s Fynd investor deck. It’s a chart and it shows the projected
demand for protein from the world over the next 20-30 years, and it’s charted against the current protein
output that Earth is able to deliver from traditional means, animal protein, and at some point the Earth is
going to be protein-deprived from traditional sources, from animals, but the demand is never going to abate,
it’s going to keep going. You’re seeing all these brands, they mostly come from, a lot of them are popped up out
of university research labs where they’re figuring out how to take one type of protein and convert it into
another type, so a pea protein or a soy protein, and then convert it into a burger form or a patty form or a
sausage form. There’s going to be a macro fork in the road where there won’t be enough animal protein to
supply the world demand. Then that’s happening, at the same time, you’ve got this younger generation who is
inheriting the earth and they’re aware of that vs an older generation that’s just been living here, not really
aware of what we’re doing to it, not really aware of what we’re handing down. So you’ve got a younger
generation, it’s highly populous and growing by the day, demanding alternatives to this traditional protein, not
just for dietary reasons. It started out as dietary, but now it’s about environmental. Now it’s more eco-
crusading.
Brand-wise, of all the brands that we could toss out, so the plant-based ones like Incogmeato, Better Meat Co,
Impossible, Beyond, I would say only Beyond and Impossible have established brands. Things like Lightlife,
they’re such small players. I know Lightlife is owned by a much bigger company, I can’t remember which one,
but their advertising is scant and it’s pretty invisible. They don’t have a specific point of view. Incogmeato,
same thing. Owned by a much bigger company, but you don’t see much in the way of brand development or
you also don’t see a differentiation in how they’re telegraphing their values. Remember I was talking about the
target is looking for brands that have the same world view. I think a lot of brands think that as long as they say,
“Better for the planet and gives off less CO2 emissions than animal meat or uses less land or uses less water,” I
think they think that’s enough, and I think those are data points about sustainability, but not necessarily brand
values. Beyond and Impossible, they both have, I think Impossible has more of a point of view. They have a
pretty combative CEO and who’s very visible, very vocal, and Beyond and Impossible have a vis ID and a
penetration out in the market that is their advertising. I don’t think either one of them has really launched
traditional ads. I’ve seen a film from Beyond, but it just ends with Beyond Meat, meaning it’s saying, “What if
there was a way to enjoy this and that and this without hurting the Earth? What if we had to go beyond cows
and beyond this?”
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My point is, brand-wise, you’ve got established players like Beyond and Impossible in the plant-based
category. Then you’ve got up and comers who may or may not be able to spend enough and establish their
brand, like Lightlife, Incogmeato, Better Earth Company. In the mycoproteins, it’s the wild west as far as
brand building. Quorn has been around the longest, but in the US they haven’t asserted themselves. They don’t
have a brand. Most people, when we met with consumers, with people over months and had them testing food,
the thing about that, most of the US target that we were after had never even heard of Quorn. Nature’s Fynd,
which is well-funded and has experienced people at the top, it is a young company, but the people running it
are definitely a seasoned, more veteran generation. I think they’re going to be going more toward a traditional
brand-building playbook. They need to get their products actually on shelves so that they’ve got revenue, and
then I think they’re going to be, Nature’s Fynd has a chance to build a brand, not just launch a product.
The other names in the mycoprotein space are so small I’ve only heard of them once or twice, aside from
Quorn. There’s a company called Enough, that’s all I know about them. I don’t know if they have a product out
yet. A lot of these other mycoprotein products are where Nature’s Fynd was two or three years ago, meaning
they’ve just announced themselves and they are trying to develop a first product. Nature’s Fynd is on the verge
of having their first two products on shelves, they’ve got their second few products locked and loaded in the
chamber and ready to go. Obviously, they’ve been in development on even more products after that for the last
several years.
[00:22:35]
Q: What are your thoughts on Nature’s Fynd, its product roll-out plans and its recent raising of USD 350m?
What do you think about its plans for automation and growing and harvesting protein vs the cost structure
that is different from a brand such as Beyond, where it’s using so many more resources in that aspect?
ER: Especially in this recent Series C raise for Nature’s Fynd, I know that even 18 months ago or the last 18
months when I was with them in 2019-20, the plan, let me first start with, stop me if you know all this, but the
way that Fy, Nature’s Fynd’s protein, the way it’s grown is inside in a special chamber that is temperature-,
humidity-controlled, etc, and it’s grown on racks. These racks, each level of the rack has a cafeteria size, like a
cafeteria tray, and on that tray is the microbe, samples of the microbe, along with what they call media, which
is food for the microbe. When they feed that microbe simple sugars, the microbe ferments it into protein, and
so the way Fy is made is it originally took about four days to go from feeding the microbe and letting it ferment
into protein and grow in the rack, in the special chamber. It took about four days to get to a finished what they
call a sheet of Fy, of protein. They’ve reduced that to two-and-a-half days at last count. In two-and-a-half days,
with no soil, no sunlight and no worries about weather or rain and very little water, next to none, they can
grow and harvest a complete alternative protein with all 20 amino acids. It took me a while to learn how
amazing that is, given things like the following.
The Fy protein, it has a 365-day-a-year growth cycle. It’s not like peas or soy where they can only be grown
during summer or spring or fall. It can be grown 365 days a year. Also, with agricultural plant-based
alternative proteins like a Beyond or Impossible, where they get their pea and their soy, where they get their
plant-based protein, that stuff can only be grown in certain places. It can’t just be grown anywhere. You can’t
go and make Beyond Burgers or Impossible Burgers in the desert or in the plains of Africa. You can take the
special chamber, the microbe sample and the sugars they feed it, and you can take it to the desert and you can
make enough Fy to feed a village or a town or a city anywhere in the world. There’s no limiting growth cycle
with Fy. There’s also no geographic limit to where it can be made because of how it’s made is so fast, so
efficient and it relies almost not at all on traditional agriculture’s resources and timing. That’s a huge
advantage I learned about when, if you can look at Beyond or Impossibles, how long it takes them to go from
the raw material to a finished burger. It takes Nature’s Fynd a fraction of that time to go from microbe to a
sheet of the alternative protein, and then it also obviously costs a lot less because it uses a thousandth of the
land and 10,000 times less water, something like that, if I have those numbers right, to create. I want to go
back to the question that started this answer, you wanted to know about how is it made vs the others, and then
there was another part to your question.
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It was about the Series C raising and plans about automation. I’ve told you how it’s made. The reason why I
wanted to tell that story first was because there’s always been a plan at Nature’s Fynd to automate the process
of the growing of the Fy, of the protein, and then the harvesting of it. Right now, the growing and the
harvesting are done by humans, meaning there are humans filling the trays with food, putting the trays in the
racks, putting those racks in the chambers and then pulling them out, taking off the sheets of Fy, rinsing them,
boiling them, rinsing them, prepping them to be the raw material that ends up being chicken nuggets or
yoghurt or chocolate mousse. The plan is to build an automation system, at least I know here in the Chicago
headquarters, in the processing factory or warehouses, to have it automated. I know that that was always a
plan even way before the Series C raise, was automating that, and I remember sitting with the CEO in
Montana, we were driving in his car and I said, “So you’re going to automate,” he said, “Fully automated,” and
I said, “How?” He said, “With robots,” and I said, “So robots will set up the trays, feed them, put them in the
chambers and then, two-and-a-half days later, pull them out, harvest them, everything?” He said, “Yes,” and
he said, “What that creates is, Fy can be created then anywhere in the world, 24 hours a day.”
His vision is to catch up with that slide in the investor deck about the demand for protein is going to outstrip
supply, so if there are not channels of supply that can be more efficient and, let’s see, outrun traditional animal
supply, then earth is in trouble. The goal of automating, which as you can imagine, it’s an expensive
proposition, robotics and software and programming, but it allows a continuous 24-hour, anytime, anywhere,
efficiency to create as much protein per acre as possible, and the protein per acre created vs animal protein,
it’s giant. It’s like 10 times more protein per acre. I think that number might even be too low, so the
automation process is planned for the growing and then the harvesting of Fy into its final raw material state.
[00:31:11]
Q: What are your thoughts on scalability and being able to communicate that story to consumers? How
challenging do you think it will be for a new upstart such as Nature’s Fynd to build partnerships with key
grocery retailers or foodservice channels? What might be the challenges there?
ER: For sure. There are two challenges. One of them is more pedestrian, which is actual product creation and
taste. Each company, each distribution channel has pretty rigorous quality control gates that a company like
Nature’s Fynd has to go through. I think there are going to be two challenges for Nature’s Fynd. One is picking
and deciding the right initial channels for distribution. One option is the gold standard of get into Whole
Foods. Once you get into Whole Foods, almost anywhere else will take you, or do you go to the B-tier things?
Do you go to the Mariano’s and the Targets and the Walmarts, stuff like that? At the Whole Foods, that’s
where the target is shopping, and probably Target too a little bit, but maybe not so much at the Mariano’s and
the Walmarts. One thing is going to be how fast can their products be adopted and get traction. Taste is going
to be the number one driver, and then after taste is going to be a tie, which is price and the environmental
effect or the lack of environmental effect. In all of the research we did with people, those were the second two
and taste was first.
They have spent from last spring to now, working on distribution partners. They have been approached by
some QSRs, quick service restaurants, fast food restaurants, I’m not allowed to say which ones, and they have
experimented with direct sales, meaning they did a release earlier this year where they sold breakfast kits of
their cream cheese and sausage or meat-free breakfast patties. They sold directly from their own website, a
limited amount to test the waters, and it went really well. It sold out. I think that they either have to figure out,
do we want the widest distribution at the most biggest mass stores but our target might not necessarily shop
there, or do we want to go first to just the stores where we know our target shops, and which one of them,
which of those options is going to give them the biggest traction. I think once they’re not pre-revenue
anymore, they’re going to start building advertising around the first two products and then the next two.
I think one challenge will be which path they choose or they get for distribution into these green-halo stores
where their target already shops, that don’t have as much national penetration, or the Walmarts, Targets,
Mariano’s where maybe their target is not shopping there, but it’s a huge, huge, huge, much bigger mass
audience. Then I think that one more challenge they’re facing is, I think us here, we can quickly easily
understand the difference between Beyond or Impossible and Nature’s Fynd, meaning those guys are plant-
Private and confidential 7
based, Nature’s Fynd is fungi-based. I think it will be a challenge for the brand to get people to understand
that so that there is brand differentiation, meaning I think there’s a risk of even the optimistic-advocate target
consumer going, “Cool. Another plant-based food. Why do I need to buy them vs I’m already buying
Impossible or I’m already buying Beyond?” The differences when they start building their brand are going to
be that fungi-based is even more efficient and planet-friendly than plant-based.
Then they’ve got to tell people as a brand that they are not just meat and burgers, which, currently, Beyond
and Impossible right now, they are. I know one of them, I can’t remember which one, one of them has already
announced that they’re going to come out with chicken nuggets. With Nature’s Fynd as a brand, right now
Beyond and Impossible are meat-focused brands. That’s where they live, alternative meats. Nature’s Fynd, you
can make dairy and meat with Nature’s Fynd. You can also make bread with Nature’s Fynd. You can make
noodles with Nature’s Fynd, you can make milk, you can make chocolate mousse. They’ve got a whole other
universe of foods besides meat that can be made with Nature’s Fynd. That is going to be a huge brand
differentiator. I think it’s going to be a challenge for them to make sure their target knows, to let their target
know that, “We’re not plant-based and that we don’t have any of the limitations of the food we can make for
you, for the planet, that plant-based does.”
[00:37:48]
Q: How does Nature’s Fynd think about its category offerings? Why do you think it chose the products it did to
start with?
ER: Nature’s Fynd has been in development, food-wise, for several years, at least I would say 4-5 years.
They’ve worked with the French Pastry School here in Chicago, and then in the last two years when they were
building the company and staffing, they’ve hired a head of food innovation. The determination was made to go
with the first two products being a sausage patty, or a meatless sausage breakfast patty, and cream cheese to
immediately show that they can do meat and dairy because dairy production is just as egregious as animal
production, comes from a lot of the same places, requires the same resources, etc, and so differentiating
themselves by saying, “Here’s a cream cheese and sausage patties. The next two products are going to be a
yoghurt and chicken nuggets.” Again, you see a strategy which is, “We’re not just going to keep bringing meat
alternatives, we’re going to bring a meat and a dairy, a meat and a dairy, a meat and a dairy,” because Beyond
and Impossible can’t do that yet or at least they’re not doing that yet.
I hope consumers will be smart enough to pick up on that differentiation. “Wow, this is…” because there are
plant-based companies that make milk and there are plant-based yoghurts. There are not fungi-based
yoghurts yet and there is not a fungi-based cream cheese. Nature’s Fynd, they’ve got other things in
development. They’ve got hamburgers, obviously. Those things are not as far along in development as far as
taste, mouth feel, desirability, yet as these things, and they want to make sure that dairy is something that’s
always being put forward as a new product because it’s a card that the competition, at least Beyond and
Impossible, they can’t play that card yet.
Once Nature’s Fynd steps into dairy, then they have a whole new competitor set because there are many, many
brands that make dairy alternatives, but that don’t make any meat products, so differentiating themselves yet
again, when Chobani comes out with a plant-based. Oatly has a plant-based Oatgurt. There are tons of plant-
based milks, there are the soys, there’s the almond, there’s the pea, there are just tons. That’s going to be a
whole other consideration set where they’re going to have to lean on not being plant-based to differentiate.
They’re going to have to lean on, “Not being plant-based lets us make this with less impact to the environment
than the plant-based yoghurt and plant-based milk you’re drinking now.” They’re going to have two different
competitor sets. One, I think, will be the alt-dairies, and one will be the alt-meats. What’s interesting is that
Nature’s Fynd can do both, and I’ve yet to see an alt-dairy company that can make a meat, and I’ve yet to see
an alt-meat company that can make dairy. Nature’s Fynd is a bit of a unicorn in that way that they can do both
and they are going to come to market with both at the same time.
Private and confidential 8
[00:42:09]
Q: What do you think about taste and Nature’s Fynd’s ability to execute on all the other ingredients that go
into its products, especially when it comes to cholesterol, sugar and things of that nature? How do you think
the company is approaching that?
ER: I’ll use hamburgers as an example. Hamburgers are still in development. I think the last version I tested
was version 97. With hamburgers, they can make a hamburger using Fy, but they also, as a brand, they want to
be vegan, they want to be non-GMO, they want to be all those good things, all those lists where “blank”-free,
free of this, free of this, free of this, free of this. The burgers that they’re developing, last time I had them, will
never approach the taste and mouth feel of a Beyond or Impossible because of what Nature’s Fynd is not
willing to add to them. When you talk about things like fat, fat gives things taste, especially in a burger. Right
now, Fy, it’s incredibly nutritious. It’s incredibly low in fat, it’s incredibly high in all the good things and it’s
incredibly low in the bad things. That leaves, let’s say, a burger from Nature’s Fynd doesn’t quite have the taste
or the mouth feel of even a Beyond or an Impossible Burger because they’re not adding things that Beyond or
Impossible is willing to add into their burgers.
Let me give another example. Chicken nuggets. Chicken nuggets are slated to be in the second product roll-out
for Nature’s Fynd. I’ve had them, I had them last year. It was practically perfected. I don’t know if any of you
have kids or how many chicken nuggets you eat, but when I tasted the chicken nuggets, everybody knew these
are ready to go to the market, but they didn’t have to add anything extra, it was just the way the Fy works as a
chicken substitute in texture, taste. They cannot add anything that they don’t want to add and still keep it
vegan, non-GMO, low in fat, high in this, low in that, and it’s indistinguishable from an actual chicken nugget.
In fact, a short anecdote, when we were shooting a brand film for Nature’s Fynd, we had a scene where a
bunch of grad-student-age women are sitting around a dining room table studying and there’s a big plate of
Nature’s Fynd nuggets sitting in the middle, and we were shooting them, each one reaches forward grabs one
and takes a bite. After the shoot, we told them that those were not chicken nuggets, and they didn’t believe us.
I was surprised. I thought they would for sure know. They had no idea that it wasn’t chicken, and then,
obviously, they couldn’t believe that it was a fungi. They weren’t grossed out by it, I thought they might be, but
they were not.
To answer your question, it is going to be a push and pull. There’s a tug of war as they develop more products
between, the tug of war is how much will they need to add to their base ingredient Fy when they’re making
something to still keep it, quote, unquote, pure, meaning non-GMO, low in fat, no cholesterol, voila, but how
much or little can they add or not add to keep it that way, but also make it taste good enough so that people
will buy it as a substitute for the traditional version? There is going to be that tug of war. In chicken nuggets,
they perfected it, they didn’t have any problems. Hamburger, it will take a little while longer for them to figure
out how to get the taste and mouth feel that everybody is happy with, so it’s at least as good as a Beyond or
Impossible without compromising the nutritional profile.
There’s something about Fy that’s unlike any of the other alternative proteins, is that it’s unbelievably
versatile. It can be made into a powder, it can be made into a solid and it can be made into a liquid. That’s
pretty amazing. Powder can be sold in bulk as an ingredient to the foodservice industry. If it’s a liquid, you can
use it in all kinds of things. You can drink it straight as milk, it can go like Oatly did and be in coffee shops as a
dairy alternative for tea and coffee. There’s huge versatility. With that versatility, because they can make so
many different foods out of it, there is always going to be a tug of war of how good can they get the taste for the
human palate without compromising the nutritional and the environmental profile?
[00:48:28]
Q: How does Nature’s Fynd think about allergies with its flagship production method? Has fungi fermented
through mushrooms ever come up in relation to people being allergic?
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ER: Yes, so that’s interesting. When we were doing all of our research focus groups with the food and on the
brand values and brand manifesto, we had everybody who was tasting the food sign a thing listing any allergies
or saying that they have no allergies to fungi. As far as how Nature’s Fynd is dealing with it when they go to
market, that I am not sure. I know that, obviously, they’re dealing with the FDA every single day and they have
literally one person who’s entire job it is to be the regulatory liaison. I have not heard yet of any instances,
meaning within the company or within the tastings that they’ve done, of any allergy sensitivity to it, so that’s
an interesting question. Something like yoghurt, that’s officially not cooked, could that trigger an allergy to
fungus? I don’t know. Something like sausage or something like chicken nuggets, because those do get cooked,
it’s possible that any sort of allergy bacteria could get killed off. I know that they are taking every precaution
and they’re going as slow as they have to go, as they need to, with FDA and regulatory stuff about that. I know
that allergies has been thought of because we screened people to make sure they didn’t have fungi allergy. I’m
not sure, though, what the plan is when they go mass-scale distribution to consumers.
[00:50:52]
Q: Do you think there is anything that is commonly overlooked about Nature’s Fynd?
ER: I would say two things. One is, I’ve worked for a couple of start-ups and, usually, a start-up, maybe even
in this category, it’s younger, the management is younger, maybe less tested, maybe less seasoned. The people
running the company and making the decisions really are grown-ups, and I don’t say that pejoratively or as a
dis to anybody who’s not, quote, unquote, a grown-up, but it’s a start-up, so it’s young, but the management is
seasoned, and that was super surprising to me. Of course, there are plenty of younger people and millennials
once you go down the org chart and stuff, but I was impressed that even though they’re always billed as a start-
up, the management is not very start-up at all, and so I was impressed with that. I’d say the other thing is
plant-based foods are now mainstream, meaning when you can get an Impossible Burger at Burger King,
that’s a pretty big signal that plant-based isn’t some weird new thing that’s still struggling to get acceptance. I
think fungi-based or mycoproteins are going to have to go through that. They are farther back on that journey.
They’re several years behind, so people understanding and being totally cool with fungi-based instead of or in
addition to plant-based, “I can eat and buy fungi-based,” that’s another category of alternative food, that’s
going to take some acceptance over time. That’s not necessarily something amazing about the company, but I
do think that they’re going to have to face that and they’re still several years behind the plant-based
acceptance.
Another thing that I don’t think people realise is how unbelievably versatile, and I was shocked by this, I’m not
saying this because I used to work for them, I don’t have any equity in the company or anything, but how
versatile the product is. I can say that there are initiatives in the company where things aside from food can be
made out of Fy, and that is being explored. Meaning, Fy can be made and used to make things that aren’t
necessarily food that you eat, so there could be several, there could be multiple billion-dollar product lines that
could come out of Fy. I don’t think a lot of people realise that yet or know that yet because the company, that’s
not something that they’re, but the versatility of it goes beyond food, which is cool, but right now, their
mission as a company is to solve the global sustainability and food issue, so that’s what they’re about right
now, but there is going to be a versatility to the product that will go beyond food.
Then something else which this goes back to how the company was founded, which is there were a couple of
scientists at the University of Montana that were doing research on extreme life, extremophiles, tiny
organisms that can live in extreme life, and that research was funded by Nasa because Nasa was interested in
what kind of life can live in extreme environments on other planets, so they were using extreme environments
on Earth to look for life, organisms. Even now today, that partnership or that collaboration with Nasa is still
alive, and Nature’s Fynd is working on products and projects for Nasa that involve a sustainable source of food
in space, and I think that might be something that when people are just hearing about Nature’s Fynd and
learning about it, that’s usually at the end of the deck, and that’s maybe not something that’s immediately
known because they’re so food-focused.
NH: That’s an interesting point, that this technology can be made anywhere.
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ER: Correct. It’s really crazy. There were moments where I was standing in Montana looking at the process,
the fridge, all the stuff and standing at the processing plant down in the home of the former meat yards here in
Chicago, and you can literally take a chamber and you could put a chamber on a spaceship, and then you
would need samples of the microbe and then you would need the media, meaning the sugars, to feed it and
then you could make food in space. Obviously, that’s not something that is going to be advertised or yelled
from the mountaintops now because the company needs to get sausage patties and yoghurt into stores, but I
don’t think that’s something that people realise, is that’s not a future science fiction thing, that’s an in-
development thing now at the company. I was very impressed because that’s not something, I don’t think
Beyond or Impossible or some of the other companies that you would think of as all-protein competitors could
go anywhere near that kind of ambition.
[00:57:48]
NH: Let me close by saying thank you, Eric, for your input. Clients, if you would like to speak to Eric in a
private call or meeting, please let your relationship manager know. Thank you again for joining Third Bridge
Forum's Interview today, this now concludes our meeting. Goodbye.
ER: I appreciate it. Thank you, everybody.
Transcription ends at 00:58:10 of the recorded material
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