Aylon Steinhart brings his entrepreneurial grit and amplifies it through convincing and motivating people to start plant-based meat and clean meat companies.
But isn’t that hard? To start your own company? The short answer is yes, but it’s something worth pursuing.
Aylon and I tag team to break down the tips and tricks to becoming more innovative and entrepreneurial. We go from tips on getting into Expos for free, why it might be a good idea to start corporate for a bit, and the amazing resources the GFI has, to help you start your plant-based or clean meat company.
To give you some sort of disclaimer, this interview was conducted before I decided to team up and start my own company. But perhaps this interview was one of the factors that when the offer was presented to me, I accepted.
Sponsor – BAKERpedia
This episode is brought to you by BAKERpedia – your one-stop, resource that answers all your questions on industry trends, ingredient information, food safety and more. It’s shared knowledge, freely available, always. BAKERpedia.com – we do all the thinking so you can focus on your business.
Sponsor – FoodGrads
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Sponsor – ICON Foods
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Show Notes
When someone asks what you do for a living, what do you tell them in a sentence or less?: I work for a non-profit that is transitioning to animal alternatives. We’re trying to create a healthy and sustainable food supply through healthy innovation. I help startups and inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs to go into this space
Videos on Aylon
This is a video of me speaking in Korea (highest quality video of me speaking). I’ve attached a few photos from that talk if helpful.
This is the Stanford panel.
How did you become an entrepreneur?: I was an account manager in Puerto Rico. I was studying business at Berkeley. Afterward, I took a leadership development training course at AT&T. I saw joining a leadership program to explore the learning ground of corporate life.
Once I found out about industrial agriculture, things picked up fast and I wanted to make an impact. I saw that Beyond Burger and Impossible Burger were making an impact, and I wanted to be part of it.
Impossible Burger vs Beyond Burger
Even though I didn’t have a food background, I did a consulting to make a website for a food company. However, it was my innovation skill set that helped me with the GFI.
Me not leaving the GFI alone is also another reason
How to get to Expo West: Looking at the list and asking anyone to volunteer at their booth
Startup Advice: Ask the right questions, make things as simple as possible, you need to think: “how easy will this be for the consumer to understand?”. Think of the end consumer.
Are plant proteins premium?: Not really. It depends on a lot of different things
Clean Meat is hard to commercialize, right?: Yes, but people are bright. The issue is to find Technical Cofounder
Good Dot – Plant-Based Meat India Market
Impact on both Plant-based Meat and Clean Meat is much more impactful than Academia
How can we get more technical cofounders in the alternative meatspace?: You might know more than you think if you study muscle or plant knowledge. The GFI has 2 really good white papers on alternative meats and just email us.
The GFIdeas community
You join by filling out this form. The description of GFIdeas from the top of the form says: “GFIdeas, a community for forward-thinking entrepreneurs who are transforming our food system away from industrialized animal agriculture and toward clean meat and plant-based products. GFIdeas offers entrepreneurs the opportunity to connect with each other via monthly calls, a Slack team, and of course, outside of formal GFI channels.”
Slack Channel
Kraft Heinz Incubator
Good Catch
Memphis Meats
Many innovative companies in Israel
We need more companies in both fields
GFI company database
What is one thing in the food industry you’d like to know more about?: What do consumers really want? Do they care if the meat tastes exactly like meat? Or can we actually make a better meat?
Rennet: used to be gathered form the stomach of calves and then we discovered that we can ferment it with bacteria. Same concept is being explored with clean milk and eggs
Who got you into Veganism?: Kip and Keegan. I watched a documentary. Media is important
Pat Brown and Ethan Brown convinced me to go to Food. Bruce Friedrich too.
Favorite Book: Artisan Vegan Cheese. I’m am making a probiotic beverage made by soaking Quinoa, mixed with a cashew blend and makes a cultured nut product
Zak’s Bechamel sauce using cashews
Favorite Food: Tom Ka Gai Soup – Coconut Milk based soup using plant based chicken
24 Vegan – vegan fish sauce
Any advice for anyone who wants to start a food business: If you want to start a food company, I would urge you to start a plant-based meat and clean meat company
Plant-based meat is a quarter of 1 percent of the meat market. In 3 decades, it will be a 1/3 of the total market. This was before the plant-based meat was actually shown.
70 billion dollars of market share is up for grabs
But that’s hard: Yes, it’s not easy. Things that aren’t easy are probably worth doing. GFI has a list of white space company ideas for you to start their own company
The White Space Company Idea
You could import plant based food in Asia and sell it in the US.
There is pre-extruded textured products as well
GFI Blog. Look for me and find the resources
You can email me directly if you ever want to start a food company: aylons@gfi.org