Today we’re interviewing Durgalakshmi Sathiakumar, or Durga for short. She’s the COO and first employee for Shiok Meats, one would say the most ahead of the cultivated meat ecosystem in Asia. It’s currently, in Series B and raised $21.5 million according to CB Insights and is valued around $99 million. Though a modest amount in United States standard, this is huge when it comes to Asia.
So I learned shiok is basically a term for deliciousness which embraces the focus of Shiok Meats as it is specifically headquartered in Singapore.
What was surprising is that Shiok actually does more than just shrimp. It’s also doing Wagyu beef thanks to an acquisition. Do they synergize? The answer’s fuzzy.
You’ll not only learn why Shiok focuses on seafood but also the perception on cultivated meat in Singapore, and we compare it to places in the United States. Though the data is ever changing.
Durga herself gives some valuable advice on some of the skillsets you need in the industry as well as trying to find your ikagai, or purpose in life.
What’s up with Adam
Nothing much! Well, I’ll tell you how much I hate moving companies. I’ve moved four different times and it always frustrates me how unreliable they are. Anyways, I wanted to discuss this topic before diving into the interview.
The beauty of My Food Job Rocks is that you get a first hand account for complex food industry topics to help you become a more aware scientist so I’m personally very excited to talk about some really tricky technical terms. Let’s talk about Upstream and Downstream
I’m not sure if you’ve heard of these two terms but they’re extremely important.
When I first heard of these terms, I thought about fish. You know, salmon goes upstream and then go downstream.
A lot of industries use these terms and even different departments use this term which can bring a lot of confusing. In general, it’s a bilateral differentiation of producing something. The gas industry, DNA and boating industry uses these terms and they are all different. Even certain CPG sectors believe upstream is producing food, while downstream is selling and distributing food.
In this specific instance, we are talking about food tech. You might have heard of these terms often in our recent interviews and I found it enlightening to understand when I worked at Motif Foodworks. It is a generally a simple differentiation of growing biomass versus processing biomass.
So biomass is basically the stuff, whether it be bacteria, yeast, cultivated meat, mycelium, or substance produced in generally a giant vat which is then processed down.
I’ll give several examples from different food tech categories and go from there.
So upstream is growing something in vats. If you recall two episodes ago, I talked about precision fermentation and the process behind that. Basically, we are trying to grow the biomass. From mycelium to cultivated to precision fermentation, the concept is the same when it comes to upstream: find a way to optimally grow the best strain most efficiently with the end goal is to have a strain and process so cheap and so efficient that we can feed the world. There are whole industries devoted to growing strains and there are fantastic systems that are used to improve this process. Questions like what feed do you use? What concentration? What temperature? What rate of gas? Oxygen? Nitrogen? Carbon Dioxide? When do you add that gas? What allows us to design experiments and optimize the growth of our little microbe?
Downstream is after the biomass is grown, how do we process this into something we can transfer safely into people’s hands? So downstream is a little more creative and industrial and from what I understand, no two methods are the same. For example, what do you do when the biomass you have has your ingredient that’s intracellular or extracellular? What machine do you use to extract it? Do you even need to extract it? When you extract it, how do you handle it? Do you dry it? Do you freeze it? Do you need to further process it? Basically, I find downstream a puzzle. You’re given a beginning and an end, and you have to find a way to go from there.
Both upstream and downstream take an entirely different skillset and creativity and it’s always fun working with them to understand their personality when tackling these complex challenges. Overall, it’s a huge field that I feel doesn’t really get talked about in food. So hopefully that gives you some insight on how these food tech companies build their products. It’s a very small piece, but quite the intense one.
Enjoy this interview with Durga. We do online. I was in Malaysia at the time!
Links
Innovate 360
Denge Virus
wagyu beef startup bought by Shiok Meat
Cultured Decadency acquired by Upside
Cotton Supply Chian Disruption
Chicken Supply Chain Disruptions
Growth mindset
ikagai
Cloud Forest
Growth mindset
Durga mentioned a bit about growth mindset. Have you heard about it? It’s easier to preach than to apply, but it’s important to understand what it means.
The underlying concept of growth mindset is to counteract a fixed mindset. Generally, a fixed mindset includes things like “I’ve never been good at math”, or “I don’t think I’ll ever start my own business because I just don’t have the skill” while a growth mindset kind of counters that philosophy. Instead, the framing works as “Even though I’m not good at math, I’ll learn because I know this will be helpful”, or “Even though I’ve never started a business, other people have, so I think I can too”. Overall, it’s how we view challenges, failure, and obstacles with the enforcing principle, that with enough practice, anyone can do anything.
One of the most frustrating talks I’ve had with people is not believing they can do anything and then make excuses. Some excuses are valid and I’ve been in situations where I didn’t realize the validity of it. Some people will always have a fixed mindset, and that’s just life.
And nobody’s perfect. Though we all like to think binary, everyone can’t be 100% growth mindset and 100% fixed mindset. There are so many topics and expertise in life, that we can’t do it all. Though who preach you can are selling you something. For example, I never was a good public speaker until I started practicing by podcasting and just kept on editing my own voice. I still struggle a lot reading this script for instance. Though I feel like I’ve been getting better. I have a hard time learning how to raise money because it’s really boring to me and to be honest, I’m not sure if it’s worth learning how. But I’ve forced myself to learn more about it thanks to some friends.
Point being, I think just informing people about a growth mindset is good enough. It’s an easy rabbit hole to get into. There’s tons of books, biographies and motivational videos to get you started. Eventually, the lessons ingrain into you. It might take a few years, but constant enforcement is key.
For me, a growth mindset got me out of a very dark time in my life. It’s hard to explain how it changed things, but once I stopped telling myself “I can’t do this”, to “I want to do this”, it allowed me to take the first step to where I am right now.
Next episode is another first hire in the cultivated meat industry. I was invited last week to Upside Foods to talk to my good friend, David Kay on the state of the cultuivated meat industry in the United States