Today we’re interviewing Franklin Yao, who is the CEO of Youkuai Group, where they make Zrou meat. For those who don’t know, it’s a kinda pun of zhurou, which means pork in Chinese. Yes, even though I don’t know a lick of Chinese, I know a lot of food in Chinese.
Funny story, when I was in Vietnam, I went on the street and tried to order a banh mi sandwich but I didn’t know how to say meat. So I kept on getting egg sandwiches! I had to call on my Linkedin connections for ways to say chicken pork and beef. It’s gaye, haeyo and boah respectively thank you very much
This interview is my first Chinese startup. So my favorite part of this interview is asking Franklin a million questions on the differences between Chinese and American everything. Consumer mindset, entrepreneur culture, and the value of meat and we volley back and forth comparing and contrasting how we see each culture act on each subject.
You’ll learn similarities and difference a lot of aspects in what a young Chinese alt protein startup has to deal with and it’s enlightening to know we have the same successes and the same challenges that many other alternative protein companies have
I really enjoyed this interview with Frank. It’s an inspiring story on how to form a stellar team, winning superfans and building for the long game.
Themes
Marketing Foreign Brands
Building a Team
Food Safety is high priority in China due to antibiotics
Young Mothers are a big demographic for Youkuai
Links
5 year plan China
Trirack Singaporean VCs
K3 Ventures Singaporean VC
Overseas Chinese, Canadian, Graduated from hong Kong, moved to China in 2005
Pepsi
Ferrero
Gucci
Previous Podcast with Frank
Dan Dan Noodle
Mapo Tofu
Cynthia – Operator
Li Chen – Finance
Podcast with Andrew Ive
Instagram
Documentary of Szcehuan Cuisine
WeChat
What’s up with Adam
I’m in South Korea and just got done eating my way through Seoul. I would say? Up there with my favorite food places so far. It’s just soo good. Also, the aesthetic, cleanliness, and politeness of the city is really refreshing. I’ve never seen a park so clean, with so many tents where families just chill and enjoy a nice sunny day.
I’ll be here for two weeks and will be conducting a couple of interviews
Today I want to talk about context in alternative protein. Essentially, I’m going to be ranting about plant-based chicken nuggets. This has to do with some of the observations I have with the FHA conference in Singapore. By the way, a fantastic, well-ran show.
For those that don’t know, FHA Expo in Singapore is essentially a trade show where a lot of international buisnesses go and try to break into the Asian market. You have Austrlaian beef, American Cheese, Nordic ice wine, it’s really delicious! This is the first time FHA installed an alternative protein section which had a lot of activity and probably the most samples.
Anyways, my only complaint? One that has me a bit worried about the environment?
TOO MANY CHICKEN NUGGETS
Ok so when you have literally every other booth in the Alt-protein section have a chicken nugget,
Tyson’s booth was also sticking out of there (because they had to combine their booth with their plant-based brand which by the way is DIFFERENT from their United States plant-based brand and guess what, their actually chicken nugget was honestly the best. To say we have a long way to go just to get a chicken nugget down is an understatement.
The biggest issue I have? Out of the 10 chicken nuggets I’ve tried, none were very unique. They were all soy and/or wheat extruded nuggets deep fried in oil. No one has made a health differentiator claim, and to be honest, you can taste the salt on these things. This has been a huge issue but interesting case study on the viewpoint of plant-based meat, which is essentially a race to the bottom in terms of cost, innovation and investors telling the companies to feed more kids junk food. Ironically, the first plant-based product I developed was a chicken nugget and guess what, chicken flesh was cheaper than the oil they fried it in. I also worked in a poultry processing plant. You are dealing with a waste product in the chicken carcass industry.
Look I know, chicken nuggets have a high TAM and they are really easy to cook but seriously? The plant-based industry says they are making healthier products, but this is a prime example of an industry bending to volumes and investor demands rather than innovation.
Though I saw a couple of ubnique product formats in the show, they were maybe 1/3rd of the chicken nugget onslaught I experienced.
On the other side of the world in the United States, the plant-based world expo popped up. I do believe that from what I’ve gathered, not many chicken nuggets compared to last year. Which tells me that the shift is already happening.
Ok so what does this actually have to do with this episode? Youkwai is doing Chinese food. Frozen food made by legitimate Chinese chefs and this shows a budding trend, that many companies are probably going to contextualize their products and explore and experiment different ways of showing and sharing alternative protein products.
The big issue with this approach? Not enough data for invested companies to pull the trigger on making diverse SKUs.
Therefore it will be the smaller players who will have a leg up exploring the field. A fresh, blue ocean for people to explore. You’re going to see a lot of new products in different contexts in the next couple of years. I’m personally looking forward to it.
Though America is still top dog in innovation, Alternative Proteins are going global and we will be seeing that it’s all not burgers, sausages and nuggets, but dan dan noodles, rendang and fishballs that might burst out of the market in the near future.
End of Show
Let’s talk about long termism.
Right now, we’re a culture that thinks in the short term. It doesn’t take a genius to see this. In the United States, our political representatives seem to only car about getting elected and posing for the cameras and they literally intentionally state that their reason for being in office is to block the other guy’s bills.
But even individually, we see this. When bitcoin started to rise, people just kept on telling me that they’ll be rich in the short term and it’s the fastest way to get money. And when it all crashed, everyone who invested in a crypto coin began to cry impending doom.
In the plant-based meat industry, investors are pulling back, and skeptics are going full force in claiming that this industry is done for.
The question “where do you see yourself in five years?” doesn’t even register any more because things go by so fast.
And I’m the product of this too. I get anxious if I stay in a job for more than a year, I’ve decided to travel because I feel like I’m running out of time.
I don’t have a lot of advice for this to be honest because anything I say probably won’t work. I will say, that it’s important to be aware, and educate yourself on what’s crazy, and what’s sane. Understand technology cycles, and the history of many things, discuss with tough topics with smart people, these things help you level your head.
What gives me hope is that governmental institutions are starting to realize that we need to push technology to make a better world and though it might be painful to implement now, we have to for a better future.