164. From Plasmids to Pallets: How Erin Marasco Scales Biology at Cargill

Erin [00:00:00] The best signal for us is if a biotech company can talk plasmids all the way to pallets in the same conversation.

Erum Hey Carl, how's it going?

Karl Happy New Year Rum. This is the first recording of the year for the Grow Everything Podcast, where we explore the world of biology as technology. How are things going with you?

Erum Things are going great. we're kicking off the year with so many good things. I mean, first we wanna give a shout out to our friends that are at the JP Morgan conference.

Erum I saw my LinkedIn was blowing up with everyone. Like, are you at the JP Morgan conference? Are you And a lot of our friends are there. Wanna give a shout out to some people?

Karl Sure. I mean, John Cumber and Yvonne Joe Barrett of Symbio Beta, both attending, but there's a ton of people we know who are attending.

Karl Nick. Edwards, a potato is gonna be there. So, hopefully some of you people will all get together.

Erum it's very intense to have a conference right at the beginning of the year.

Erum So hopefully everyone makes their contacts, gets their press [00:01:00] releases out in time and does all their follow up. They have lots of follow up after going to the conference.

Karl Yeah, there's a lot. Exactly.

Erum Yep.

Karl Iam, you traveled around the world over the holidays. You went to South Africa, which I find to be fascinating.

Karl Why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about your trip, what you do, why were you there? What you've been there before?

Erum Yes, yes. So I went to celebrate a friend's five year anniversary. they were married when it was COVID, so they didn't really have a big celebration. five years later, here we are, things are safe enough to travel.

Erum And so we went there. We had a lot of celebrations, and then we just explored, you know, South Africa is so beautiful. It's rich in diversity. I'm talking about biodiversity, I'm talking about people, I'm talking about climate. there's very lush, there's a lot of trees, beautiful gardens. You can experience four climates in one day.

Erum So it'd be like, a little bit of rain, cold, hot. It was summer there. When [00:02:00] it's winter here, there's mountains and beaches and, forests. It's so beautiful and you can just drive around and just be in awe of. What's around you? There's, vineyards, so they have this area called the Winelands.

Erum It remind me a lot of Northern California, but more dynamic and intense. So I was just blown away. And the food's very delicious. They have in South Africa, they had the Kate Malay people. Which are the most genetically diverse people? They have ancestry from Africa, Asia, Europe. And so not only their genetics, but their cultures combine and create very interesting foods.

Erum and it's not like, you know, when you go to Southeast Asia, if you have like Malaysian food or Indian food, there's like a lot, a lot of spice. It's kind of did a good job of, keeping, The flavors in check. But, I will say that there's this one, like Spice Trader. It's called Atlas.

Erum And they have, these spice mixtures and they call them the [00:03:00] father-in-law and the mother-in-law. And the mother-in-law is super spicy. It's actually not super spicy for my spice. And I know you like spicy food, Carl. so it's not that bad And I'll

Karl to a, to a point,

Erum to a point, to a point. It doesn't reach that point.

Erum So again, still, still very friendly. I'll have to make something for you so you can try it.

Karl I'd like to compare the mother-in-law to the father-in-law.

Erum Yeah. The father-in-law's supposed to be more mild. Come.

Karl That's so funny. And

Erum the mother-in-law's like spicy in your face.

Karl when we were talking about this last week when you'd come back, you said it was like.

Karl Forex, Northern California. Yeah. You know, it was like four times, you know, it's like if you're Northern California, but more intense. and I remember last year I had visited the Botanic Gardens in Ventura where I grew up, and they have this huge collection of South African, plants. It's also Chilean plants.

Karl So I think, if you wanna get a taste of South Africa without going all the way there, you could get a taste of it at the Ventura Botanic Gardens. But find it fascinating. I'm super jealous. I had a little bit of FOMO while you were gone. and I [00:04:00] just can't, you know, it's like hard for me to picture it, you know, I know what vineyards look like.

Karl I know what some of those beaches look like 'cause I've, I've looked them up. it just sounds like a great trip.

Erum Yeah. Yeah. I'll have to send you all the pictures. I think I need to, level up on my storage and my iPhone because I took so many pictures and videos. I know we've been busy as soon as we came back, we, the ground running.

Erum So we haven't had time to debrief, anytime I travel, I always go and look at what's biotech happening here. what are the bioproducts that we can, observe and what's new and fresh? So, there's a couple things. One is that, I was, you know, sitting in a hotel poolside, enjoying a little drink.

Erum I had to set that one up and I got a drink that had a straw. And the straw was very interesting. And actually I saved it. It's this straw here. it's by a company called Vero, and it's made from sugarcane.

Karl Wow.

Erum So, you know, straw alternatives have been very, up and down from my experience. I mean, the paper straws, ugh.

Erum You know what I mean?

Karl Yeah. They fall apart.

Erum They fall apart. like [00:05:00] anytime I like bite into paper, which I don't do often, but like, just that feeling is just icky for me. Yeah. it's like, equivalent of scratching a chalkboard for me. Yeah. But, this sugar cane straw is very durable.

Erum it's, you know, you can hear it. I mean, like, I. drank a cold drink through here, I did the chew test, like I kept on chewing it 'cause I know some people have that and it's still solid, you know, like you can take a look at that. Wow. So, I mean, this is like a very great straw and again, the company's called Vero.

Erum I'll put that in the show notes, but I was like, Hey, cool. I don't know if they're faced outta South Africa, but it was there.

Karl That's cool.

Erum Yep, yep. And then there's another company, I didn't get to like see them, but I did go to pharmacies where they keep all of their, amazing skincare products.

Erum And there's a company called SAA Mycelium, and they make fermentation derived beta ccan skincare, so, oh, wow. Yeah, so like growth factors, different things that can really amplify your [00:06:00] skin. I have to go back and read about all of the different claims that they have, but, um, I will put that in the show notes too, but it was cool to see that there's a.

Erum Company in South Africa looking at fermentation, and using mycelium as their, main, microbe to create products. and so I was looking at different sunscreen there, and they have sunscreen that's import and there was one called,

Erum It's called Helio. It's by a company called Canta Bria Labs, they call themselves a pharma company, but of course, right. there's that blend of, companies that are making, pharma products, but can also come into the world, a consumer, and they make it from, a plant extract and it's a unique plant.

Erum The plant a tropical fern called poly podium. Luko Tomos, I probably pronounced that, incorrectly, but it's found in Central America and. I, of course was thinking, okay, it's a plant extract. Like where do they find these plants? How does it Right. You know, how much do they have to grow?

Erum I mean, this is, an ingredient [00:07:00] sunscreen, so I don't know how much of it has to be put into one, bottle. but like, could it be made through fermentation? Something that's been crossing my mind. but, Canta, Berea Labs, they're based in Spain.

Karl And it says the Fern block, which is what you're talking about.

Karl Yeah. is their hero ingredient and a disruptive innovation. We'll have to look into these guys, but yeah, they're based in Madrid, it the Tavian Sea. Is north of, Northern Spain. Yes. So, it makes sense.

Erum Always on the lookout for new biotech products across the world anti my travel. So well keep our eyes peeled.

Karl yeah. And we've met some innovators from South Africa. working with biotech at Symbio Beta, what, like three or four years ago there was a contingent, even like the Minister of Science was at Symbio Beta.

Karl So, shout out to all of you guys if you happen to be listening. we're always excited to hear what is going on in biotech in different parts of the world and seeing it firsthand is always, you know, there's nothing beats that.

Erum Yes. Yes, [00:08:00] absolutely. and then while I was gone, I mean, there was a lot of big news happening in the world of tech.

Erum You wanna share, something with us?

Karl Sure. I mean, the big, kind of announcement in the last couple weeks was that Andreesen Horowitz, a big venture capital fund, Silicon Valley base, raised a $15 billion fund for the next decade. And we'll link to this in the show notes. That $15 billion really makes a 16 ZA mega fund, not just defining the future, but maybe even dominating the future.

Karl I ended up reading, kind of analysis and history of a 16 Z over the weekend by Packy McCormick in his Not boring, newsletter, and will put a, link into that. And he really discusses what the deployment of that amount of capital means. really impressed by what a 16 has done, particularly on the tech side.

Karl It might be interesting to do a deeper dive to see how successful they've been on biotech, and I think probably most of their investments in biotech have been on the biopharma side. Our friends at Asimov are funded by a 16 [00:09:00] among others, and a 16 was a big, you know, supporter of them from the very beginning.

Karl Jorge, Conde and, Vij. Pande, I think are the two. Mm-hmm. Uh, heads of the. Biotech or life science division of a 16 zine. So congratulations to A 16 ZI think is like a huge, big piece of news, particularly for those of us who are paying attention to, who's funding the future and what are they doing with it.

Erum Yeah. Yeah, that is a lot of money. I mean, I'd be curious to know how much of that will be going to biotech across not only healthcare, but also to everything we talk about here when it comes to growing. Everything, you know, all the different products and materials and ingredients. So that'd be really interesting.

Erum I was so curious to know about their check size, who the LPs are, all of that. a deeper dive would be interesting, especially as we learn how they invest in biotech.

Karl Yeah. And then the other piece of news, I think this just came out last week, was the new food pyramid. I dunno if you saw this e rum, [00:10:00] but, there's been a lot of talk about.

Karl Food and making America healthy And the new food pyramid basically puts meat and butter up on the top. it talks about eating less sugar, fewer processed foods. It actually ditches the limits on alcohol. And here we are, you know, dry January and, this food pyramid I think says drinking is okay.

Karl I need to dig into it a little bit more deeply. But, the document is citation free, and since it's coming from, our, you know, anti-vax, Robert Kennedy Jr. I think it's something that. We should be looking at. Of course, we all want to eat healthier. I'm not sure that the food pyramid is something that.

Karl A lot of people follow, but I thought it was interesting.

Erum Oh my goodness, Carl, I leave for just two weeks and this comes out and of course there's a lot going on in the world and, we're not necessarily a news, take down podcast. but this is just insane. there is a, a clear problem with people that have high cholesterol, high, blood pressure, obesity. It runs rampant in the United States, and it's starting to, [00:11:00] as more countries adopt Western cultures and, we're seeing it in India, we're seeing it in different places.

Erum this food pyramid is also upside down,

Karl that's weird.

Erum And so like, they have Yeah.

Erum Very weird, you know, so I don't know what that means.

Erum and I see it now and it has like whole grains in the bottom. And you're like, what?

Karl But the whole grain thing is kind of interesting because I think, one of the criticisms of this food pyramid is that RFK Junior has been surrounded by like, meat industry executives.

Karl And one of the criticisms of the previous food pyramid was that it was designed by grain industry executives. So, You gotta look into this and take it with a grain of salt,

Erum no pun intended. Grains. Oh, man. But the last pyramid has fruits and vegetables at the bottom. So even if it's, even if Big grain, you know, big carb, wanted to promote more of their products. They didn't put it on the, the bottom right, the

Karl right,

Erum it wasn't like you must have grains, right? They still kind of put it up. but to put, you know, red meat up top is like,

Erum [00:12:00] hopefully people get it right. They're like, all right, they're just trying to promote it. But my concern is if there's a campaign to replace this in schools, that's when it gets crazy, right?

Erum Yeah. So if it's like, Hey, we're just playing around and we're just gonna put this out there and let's see how the public responds to it. Okay. All right. I'm down to see. Let's listen. But they're like, Nope. This is now

Karl this is what we're teaching.

Erum Yeah. This is what we're teaching. This is part of the curriculum.

Erum This is truth. Then we start getting a little bit in trouble.

Karl Yeah. in this article that are willing to, in our Technica, they noted something that was conspicuously missing was the recommendations to limit alcohol consumption. Previously the guideline was, you know, no more than two drinks a day for men, one drink for women, and this guidance is really just drink less.

Karl And apparently when there was a press briefing. reporter asked Dr. Oz, you know, who is administrator at the Centers for Medicaid and Medic Medicare Services, about this. He said, [00:13:00] well, alcohol is a social lubricant that brings people together. He didn't address the health issues associated with alcohol.

Karl it's kind of nutty and, I don't know what to say, what else to say about it except for iam. You left. There's a new food pyramid.

Erum Oh my goodness. this whole food pyramid misses,

Erum highly processed food.

Erum It doesn't say where that lands. In here.

Erum but, and it doesn't have like things like coffee or anything like, as me, it's alcohol, but other drinks and then. I'm thinking about food and in this world of GLP one, what does a GLP one food pyramid look like? Is it similar?

Erum Just smaller, you know? Yeah, that'd be really interesting to see.

Karl Yeah, you gotta see the graphic because it's got, you know,

Erum yeah.

Karl Meat, I see it. Meats and dairy, and chicken and vegetables and fruit up on top, and then it's got whole grains on the bottom. It's just kind of funky looking. you know, it's an upside down pyramid.

Erum I feel like we are in the upside down. Speaking of which, yeah.

Erum but yeah, I mean, and I, I [00:14:00] mentioned coffee. I did wanna say something really quick too about that. you know, on my travels to South Africa, we, had a pit stop in Ethiopia, which is where coffee originated according to them. There's a lot of, Big Ethiopian coffee might have been just playing commercials and, know, just owning coffee.

Erum But that is a coffee that we drink in my household. it's a nice light-bodied coffee. but I bring it up because, when I was, on the plane and we took Ethiopian Airlines. They had, commercials before, you know, you watched any movie or anything on the screen and there was this whole like, invest in Ethiopia, invest in Africa, right commercial and specifically pointing out agri processing and agri business.

Erum And I was like, okay, this is very interesting interest. And they had like all this video footage of, people processing, you know, coffee beans, chocolate beans, other types of grains. I was like, okay, this is interesting because when I think of Agroprocessing in the context of what we talk about here and grow everything, you know, it's, it could be like a feedstock for a lot of fermentation processes.

Erum Right. And that is the [00:15:00] topic of today's episode.

Karl Right? So today, we're gonna be interviewing Aaron Morocco of Cargill, which we're super excited about. Cargill, if you don't know, it is one of the US' largest privately held multinationals and they operate in food, agriculture, finance, and industrial.

Karl They connect farmers to markets, provide essential products like grains, oils, meat, animal nutrition, and their mission is to nourish a world in a safe and responsible and sustainable way. I have met, Erin at Symbio Beta, but you had her on a panel. So why don't you talk a little bit about your experience with Erin before we get into the podcast.

Erum I had the privilege of moderating panel where Erin was present. we also had p and g and two biotech innovators, which you know, I'll talk more about later.

Erum I had mentioned before in the podcast, but so Dr. Erin Morasco is a distinguished research and development senior director at Cargill. So she leads their global biology group. And with her background in biotech, Erin and her team are [00:16:00] at the forefront of innovation in ingredient discovery, strain development, enzyme applications, and metagenomic and microbiome research.

Erum So she's doing it all, and this is why when we talk to. Other people that work in CPG and that work with Cargill, they're like, oh, I know Erin. I know Erin. Everyone we talk to, you talk to people at Coca-Cola, we talk to people at record, all these other people, and they all just, they know Erin because she's looking across the spectrum of biotech innovation and how fundamentally, when you're looking at it from agribusiness, how does it, transcend from.

Erum The origination of a feedstock all the way to a product. And so she leads this team at Cargill. She's at the forefront. She really is also very passionate about science communications, and she's always out there really trying to bring people around this idea of using biology to grow everything. So with that, I'm really excited to introduce this episode with Aaron Morasco of [00:17:00] Cargill.

Erum Erin Morasco, welcome to the Grow Everything podcast. We're so excited to have you on our first episode of the year to kick off our CPG series. Welcome.

Erin Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. Yes. Excited to be here.

Erum I'm excited you're here because Cargill is a ginormous company that's doing so many things.

Erum It sits at the center of global food, agriculture, and materials We want to know where is biotech creating the most real leverage right now?

Erin Yeah, thanks. Thanks for having me here on the podcast, and thanks for letting me share a little bit about Cargill's story and our perspectives on Biomanufacturing and how it fits into food supply chains, material supply chains, animal nutrition, and the rest.

Erin Where we see biotechnology as having a real opportunity is leveraging it wherever biology can give us performance advantages in terms of carbon intensity. So that means chemicals, foods, [00:18:00] bioactives. So in the bioindustrial space, we recently launched our BDO product, which is a drop in for polymers.

Lizette Hey guys. Quick translation. Erin mentioned BDO, that's short for one four butane dial. A basic chemical building block used to make a ton of everyday materials. It shows up in things like plastics, polyurethanes, and stretchy fibers. Yes, I'm talking about yoga pants. Traditionally, BDO is made from fossil fuels, but here's the shift. You can make it through fermentation instead. Same molecule, but different, more sustainable origin story.

Erin we've been producing for over 18 years, lactic acid, which is used a lot in, bio recyclable plastics such as PLA. and in ethanol we also have a position, right? So thinking about fuels, we have a small position in ethanol. It just really shows how biotech can help scale energy solutions. in the food space, probably [00:19:00] our, most discussed solution is around sugar reduction.

Erin There we have two fermentation based products. One is everwe, which is a high intensity, high potency sweetener that is based on ste glycosides, which are found in plants. And then the other is erythritol. And they're both fascinating because they're fermentation products, but they come from different styles of fermentation and, and different origins.

Erin And then finally, if of course we would, we'd be remiss if we didn't talk about citric acid, right? that's like the, one of the most primary oldest staples in our food systems. And it's something that microorganisms naturally wanna produce. Where we're starting to get more and more traction and interest is in that health space and in the bioactive space.

Erin And one of those products where Cargill, has a, product on the market today is a post biotic called Epicor. And so that's really about immunity and wellness innovation. And so I gave you a number of examples right off the [00:20:00] bat to show that biomanufacturing for Cargill isn't a future concept. It's real products in global supply chains that we're producing today at scale.

Karl And it's something you guys have been doing for a while, right?

Erin Yeah. we trace our biomanufacturing roots back at least 30 years. Right. And, and we, we really do anchor on citric acid being one of our first primary fermentation products to go to market.

Karl Alright, so, what's so interesting about this is, recently you guys published this piece on demystifying fermentation.

Karl So we have a couple questions about fermentation. Why do you think it's important right now to ground the biotech conversation in fundamentals? Because fermentation is really the most fundamental of all biotech knowledge.

Erin first of all, the, article is wonderful. It was put together with a.

Erin Collaboration across a large number of different people within Cargill. And the reason why we wrote it is we didn't write it for the techies, right? We wrote it for the people who are the recipients or the users of the technology. So [00:21:00] the food application scientists at CPG companies who are curious but need to understand a little bit more before they're comfortable using these types of ingredients and the message that we wanna tell them is that fermentation's powerful.

Erin It's technically complex, but it is one of the oldest technologies that are out there. And so if we can understand and utilize some of these natural processes to our own ends through an understanding of the science, there's a lot of opportunity and benefit there.

Erum that's a really great piece. It's called Fermentations, nature's original Biotech. So yes, we will have that in the show notes, but like you mentioned, fermentation has been around for a long time, so why does it suddenly feel new again?

Erum What has changed in the past few years?

Erin Yeah, yeah. I mean, again, thousands of years we've been using it for beer, bread, yogurt. I would think that there's a couple of. Trends that have really made it more socially aware. the first one is from the technology side. The toolkits have changed, [00:22:00] right? We have a lot more advances in strain engineering.

Erin So the ability to do strain engineering is now much more cost effective. The precision that's available in strain engineering has increased and think about. Technologies like sequencing, which are now routine, right? In 2010, we had a non-canonical microorganism that we were trying to domesticate, right?

Erin So take something that had a unique purpose and then trying to make it viable so that we could engineer it and use it for commercial purposes. We needed to sequence that. That was kind of groundbreaking at that time, right? There was no sequence available for that today. It would be something that an associate scientist in my lab would do.

Erin So the amount of sequence information that we have has just made the innovation space so much more fruitful and available to us. We can look at interesting rare molecules that are out there and because of the sequence information, be able to trace back the metabolic routes to produce 'em. So now we understand the recipe to make these types of products.

Erin addition to [00:23:00] strain engineering, I think that there's been a lot more emphasis and interest in things like our microbiome, our gut microbiome, and, and how the interaction of molecules and bigger systems work together. Kinda that systems biology trend that was available in the early two thousands, I think that really caused a lot of interest in fermentation.

Erin We know the microorganisms in our gut are useful. We know that the microorganisms interacting on raw materials are producing useful products, and people are like, how do these systems work together? And then I would be remiss if I didn't, you know, represent the more technical side of fermentation and talk about manufacturing controls and, scale up and how much the advances have been there in terms of characterizing and controlling large scale fermentations.

Erin So think about your, monitoring systems. Looking at aeration, looking at pH and things like that. So those process controls and manufacturing discipline are making scaling up more viable?

Karl Yeah. I mean, fermentation is the oldest technology, right? I think people say that, civilization began when [00:24:00] we learned how to ferment things.

Karl But on the end, and it's, it continues to evolve, which is so fascinating to me. But talking about it today, I think we would also be remiss if we weren't talking about startups as well, because a lot of startups are, creating the innovations. and Cargill partners with a lot of startups.

Karl So why don't we talk a little bit, about how does Cargill think about partnering with startups, versus building things or a technology internally.

Erin Cargill is very interested and engaged in, partnerships and looking broadly across the biotech ecosystem, the main reason why is 'cause partnerships give us more shots on goal and a speed that internal development and acquisition alone can't match, right?

Erin So Cargill prides itself on our scale and our expertise, but we are limited in the number of people that we can dedicate to early stage innovation. if you look at our global footprint, we're involved in so many different spaces. Everything from animal nutrition to specialty nutrition to proteins and, and bulk lark starches.

Erin And [00:25:00] so to be able to do innovation across all of those spaces would be impossible with our employee footprint. So startups can bring speed and fresh ideas. Then we partner with them, bringing some of that manufacturing discipline, supply chain reach, customer trust, and just experiences. collaborating early on allows us to create proof points, to share risk and then, and really just start to establish new products in the marketplace.

Erin It's kind of taking that entrepreneurial agility that the startups are. Really known for and pairing it with our operational excellence so that these promising ideas can kind of move from the lab into the marketplace.

Erum Yeah, that's great. We do have a lot of founders and innovators that listen to the podcast and they, would love to work with companies like Cargill, but what is the biggest misconception?

Erum That you think these innovators or founders have about working with a company like Cargill in terms of its size and scope?

Erin [00:26:00] Yeah, I think what I have seen the biggest misconception to be is that big equals easy access to unlimited dollars and free assets, right? And so people approach us and they're like, well, you have this bio-refinery campus.

Erin in Blair, Nebraska with all of these fermentation tanks and millions of gallons of fermentation assets, let's go. But in reality, right, to run effectively as a, business, all of our resources are tied to performance, compliance, and customer commitments. It's a failure on our part if we have idle assets, right?

Erin So often it's about finding the right products that would have to displace an existing product because it's more valuable. The other factor is that scale really brings about complexity, right? At Cargill for the size that we are, we take our responsibility in the world very seriously, right? I mean, if you think about our mission, right, to nourish the world, that means more than just food and people, it means the environment, it means everything.[00:27:00]

Erin So we really have to take seriously our responsibility to food safety, regulatory requirements, global supply chains. It makes it hard to just flip a switch, right? a startup would look at us and say, we're slow. And it's really important that. Founders and partnerships understand that cost structures, timelines and shared risks are something that we wanna talk about and assess really early on, and that's kind of how we move from great idea to a viable product.

Karl Yeah. It's not just, Hey, we've got this great thing. turn on the bioreactors for us.

Erin Right, right. we have like assessed IP in the past. Right. And when you assess ip, then the lawyer will say, well, how would our, ocean transport business feel about this?

Erin Mm-hmm. And you're like, But that's the scope of Cargill, right? Yeah. we're a large multinational entity in many different categories and marketplaces. When we look at interacting with anybody, we have to think about the holistic part. And so it causes a lot more assessment and [00:28:00] caution. It doesn't mean that we don't do things we do, but we are very responsible to our guiding principles and that leads to conversations.

Karl Yeah, so what I'm getting from you is, one, you are open and willing to partner, but partners need to really do their homework to understand how it has a bigger impact on the company.

Erin Exactly. I do wanna give another point out there, and this is not all startups and this is not all founders, but it is a phenomenon that I have seen.

Erin And, there's myths sometimes that big company scientists aren't innovative or creative. And, when I think about my team, I think my talent could sit on a bench in any company, in anywhere around the globe and be creating these innovative, unique solutions. And so. Just because, our scientists are maybe one of many, many, many employees, it doesn't really diminish their scientific prowess or their, technical capabilities.

Erin It's just that the solutions [00:29:00] that we're working on internally within Cargill have to compete against a vast array of other internal ideas before they leave the doors of the lab.

Erum I'm really glad that you said that. Have heard founders say things like that.

Erin Yeah.

Erum And, that's a great perspective because there's a lot of opportunity to innovate, but you have a strategy that you need to align on and you have to get the work done versus, the spaghetti on the wall shotgun approach and, you know, how is that going to land, especially when it comes to the bottom line.

Erum But I really appreciated that you were very candid about that.

Erin I think also, when we talk about innovation, right? Sometimes I like, I mean, your analogy of spaghetti on the wall, right? Sometimes it's like fun to just try everything. I think when you're, a scientist in a company like Cargill and you know, in the end you're gonna own the manufacturing.

Erin It brings a little bit of constraint and discipline all the way to the beginning because we're not gonna try Yeah. Post strains and we're not gonna try schemes that would [00:30:00] not eventually be commercially viable. Like we may think about, and we may talk about 'em haha, in a meeting or over coffee, but if we know that it would not be financially viable, we kind of take those out of our research plans and just have them as conversation points or what ifs.

Karl I wanna ask you about product readiness, but I was hoping you would step back, Erin, and, and describe, you know, what is your role? Like, tell us how you fit into the organization.

Erin Yeah, so I have, I think one of the best jobs in the world. So I have a PhD and my PhD was about strain engineering and I now lead a group of scientists who create microorganisms that produce useful products.

Erin So my team, Is made up of chemical engineers, food microbiologists, microbiologists, metabolic engineers, all sorts of different biology based scientific disciplines. And we do a lot of fermentation, strain engineering. So think about, design modifications in microorganisms and producing products out of those [00:31:00] as well as enzyme discovery enzyme applications.

Erin And then I have a team. Especially my team in Europe is really focused on food microbiology. So the microorganisms that are commonly found in our food, how do we use them on raw materials to either change the texture or the flavor, the nutritional profile without any type of genetic modification or engineering.

Erin and then of course, we partner very closely with our fermentation colleagues in moving through, to develop fermentation processes that can be scaled. So I lead this team, which means that I give some people in career advice, but then I also work strategically across Cargill with our different product lines and enterprises to look at what are possible targets and how could biology unlock those targets for the organization.

Erin I like my role because I have an awareness of what's going on in the animal nutrition space, as well as bioindustrial spaces. Food. And what I'm looking at is how [00:32:00] does our technology unlock things for those businesses? And then the businesses are coming to me and my group saying, you know, here's what we're trying to do.

Erin How can your science help us? And so it's that meeting of the minds where expertise meets expertise and we collaborate.

Karl Yeah, I love that. So going back to like what we were talking about earlier when it comes to startups, and I really appreciate the context. When is a, a startup ready? Like what does product readiness mean to Cargill when you're evaluating a potential biotech partner?

Erin I think there's no one answer to that. I wanna be really clear. and so it's a little bit less about readiness and more about what expectations does that startup have of target. we have startups talk to us at every single stage of their journey, but how we interact and we invest with them will differ while, when we start to talk about serious financial support, we definitely wanna see some proof, right? We will probably ask you for. Some of that [00:33:00] molecule to test in our application spaces, you know, certain quantities of it. We will want to understand really well your, techno economic assessment, your timelines, your milestones, where you wanna go, and how do you wanna scale,

Lizette Erin just said something that founders hear a lot. A techno economic assessment or A-T-E-A-A-T-E-A is where biology meets the spreadsheet. It looks at costs, inputs, and what happens when you try to scale. You can have beautiful science, but if the economics don't work at industrial Scale, it's not considered a product yet. It's still a research project.

Erin scale

Erin companies that are very, very early stage Cargill Ventures may, may be wanting to talk with them at,like.

Erin we starting out phase, like pre series a, series A type of conversation. and then much further along if there are gaps in our portfolio that we know we directly need to go out and obtain, [00:34:00] that's a much more accelerated and targeted conversation. So it's hard to describe with one answer, Carl, because it's a spectrum.

Erin I would say, just. With respect to your listeners, if somebody's like, oh, that doesn't help me. I don't know how to approach Cargill anymore. Right,

Karl right.

Erin I think it comes down to understanding what you are making as a company. Why you are making it right. Who are your customers?

Erin What do you think Cargill can do for you? You know, like Why would we be valuable to you? how is it a partnership and not just transactional. And then understanding very well where your business is going and where you don't want it to go. At least that structure's a nice starting conversation.

Erum Yeah. Yeah. that's, I think very helpful because just like, you know, Carl mentioned earlier like, when a partner wants to approach Cargill, they need to do their homework and really visualize how they fit. And ask questions. I think, when I was a startup founder, I would just blab, blab, blab on about my idea, my product, my company, and just [00:35:00] hope that the partner or the client that I was going after would just, you know.

Erum Put the pieces together and tell me what to do. And that was definitely the wrong way to do it. but I think your guidance here has, is very helpful, because you did really do a good job of laying out a framework in how to. get into Cargill shoes a bit, or even any large company

Erum Right. Just think a little bit more about how they work and how you fit in and what's the specific ask that you have, is it just money? No. You know, that can't be it. Right, right.

Erin The best signal for us is if a biotech company can talk plasmids all the way to pallets in the same conversation.

Erin Right.

Erum Whoa. Plasmid to pallets. That's the name. That's the name of the title of this episode.

Karl Yeah. Plasmids to pallets. I love it.

Erin If you could show an understanding of the supply chain and not just the science, right? How are you approaching your economics and your execution? it's really helpful, right?

Erum Mm-hmm.

Erin And we know, and companies know, right, that [00:36:00] the teas, they're not static. They change over time, they evolve. This processes optimize. And if you as a startup can understand that, it shows that you have a sense of maturity, right? It's not just the fermentation tanks that make biotech products successful.

Erin It's logistics, it's quality systems, it's customer acquisition, even customer service. So we have to be able to talk about plasmas to palates in the same breath.

Erum Yeah. Yeah. And how is it going to be, lucrative or helpful to Cargill? what is the. Value proposition there too, not just for the

Erin Yeah.

Erum The innovator, but for everyone. How's everyone going to rise

Erin together? Yes. How do we value share across that supply chain? Yeah. And often it's not just a startup in Cargill in that supply chain, right? it's going to be the CPG company who's receiving it in the next step and Right. There's many, many people in the supply chain.

Erum I would like to know, I mean, if you could share what are some examples of successful partnerships that Cargill has entered [00:37:00] into, and how did that work?

Erum if you can share a couple that are public.

Erin Yeah. Selfishly, I'm gonna talk about my favorite example because I was there from the napkin conversation at the dinner. I wanna talk about Avania, which is a joint venture between, DSM, Firmin and Cargill to produce everwe. And so, as you know, sugar reduction, it's, it's a big ask from consumers and from customers.

Erin The amount of sweet that people want to have in their diet is consistent or growing, but PE everybody talks about limiting sugars in their diet, right? And then, mm-hmm. there has been interest from consumers to have sugar replacements that are from nature, right? So Stevia is a, you know, for thousands of years it's been used in teas and in other ways to sweeten.

Erin in the Stevia leaf itself, there's like 72 different molecules that contribute to that sweet profile. And over time [00:38:00] scientists have discovered which of those are the sweetest molecules. Cargill was exploring with a startup, known as Volva. We were looking at, oh yeah, what are the sweetest molecules in the Stevia leaf?

Erin Cargill had already had a position in the LEAF business, but we knew that Rev A has its place, but some consumers would prefer Rev m Andre D because of their taste profiles. More roundedness, less bitterness. And so working with Evolvo, we looked at biotech solutions and decided that a fermentation approach was the right approach.

Erin after a number of years of, of working with Evolvo, we had technology that was poised and, and ready to commercialize, and we went through the process of piloting and obtaining, and no objection letter from the us FDA. In a similar path, DSM, they could read the same trends in, in the food space as we could.

Erin And they were all, they also have fantastic biotechnology capabilities, and so they were developing Stevi [00:39:00] Glycoside solutions. And then it came to a point where we realized that we would be better together. the fastest route to supplying consumers with what they need would be to form this joint venture.

Erin And so we looked at. What different opportunities each company brought and we, in the first meeting, you know, we kind of mapped it out and then strangely enough, when the joint venture was, finalized, it was pretty similar to that, those initial conversations. But we just looked at the different phases of the project and who, who would lead and who would follow or support in those different phases of the project.

Erin Then we quickly, within two years had the Blair facility where we produce ever suite today up and running and, and shipping and working with customers. And so, that was a very successful partnership. And it's an interesting example, I think for this, because we started, Cargill started with, a different partner.

Erin but then as relationships changed, that one didn't work out. [00:40:00] But the molecule was still compelling enough to form new partnerships.

Erum Wow. Yeah, I love that. That's a great example. We had a, a former CEO of Evol a on the podcast, a morally, uh, mu swami. I don't know if you know I morally, and it, you know, the way that I've understand Evol a was that they were like a pre ginkgo, similar in terms of strain engineering and bringing new innovation when it comes to biotech to the market.

Erum So that's, a great example. Thank you for sharing that.

Erin I can share some examples in the, bioindustrial space.

Erin and it's kind of an inversion, this story. So there was a company, called BioAmber. And BioAmber was really interested in bringing bionic to the market.

Erin And in the early part of the podcast I referenced that we had a proprietary microorganism that, that Cargill. Worked on and developed tools to engineer and, and to bring to market. this microorganism is valuable in low pH settings, and so we actually partnered with BioAmber to be [00:41:00] their organism supplier.

Erin And so we did some strain development work for them in the bionic space that then they took to market and commercialized the end product. And so that was, that was a very nice. Relationship in that case too, because it was really looking at who has the right expertise and capability and then who's going to drive it forward into that market development.

Erin our latest, collaboration story is around, Kira, which is a, core is the company, Kira is the product, and it's around BDO. And there's a partnership between Cargill and Helm. On the, product side, but some of that technology is a partnership with Geno. Mm-hmm.

Karl Okay. I see. Because Gen Manica, they also, had partnerships with Lululemon or some athleisure companies. Correct. So, correct. 'cause you guys are very like foundational, the cargo's very foundational when it comes to, I mean I wanna talk about feedstock soon, but then obviously your [00:42:00] bioprocessing and then you help, really create the core products or ingredients to make.

Erum Everything that we use. So this is why you're the perfect person to speak with. Yeah. At the start of this CVG series,

Erin it kind of really struck home to me recently because we were preparing to talk with a customer and we took a floor print of a typical store. and we said how many biotech products would be per aisle. Right. And we started to walk up and down the aisles virtually, you know, looking at a floor panel.

Erin Yeah. And we just, it was like almost every aisle has some level of a biotech product in it. And then if we take it away from Biomanufacturing and just look at Cargill's influence, like almost every aisle has a Cargill in it. But it was, it was a little bit awe inspiring. I was like, okay, wow. If I feel frustrated at work someday, I need to like, take a step back and realize the impact that people at my work can have in the global supply chains.

Erin It's amazing.

Erum You can just, it's amazing. Can [00:43:00] you can just take a stroll on one of those big. Stores and be like, yep, I'm have an influence in that. Yep. I have an influence in that.

Erin Yeah.

Erum And you're like, okay, I have a lot of work to do.

Erin That's exactly right. It's, it's a bandaid of like, wow. And there's, there's so much more work to do and so much more we can improve, right.

Erin So that it's more accessible to more products.

Karl I think that that kind of leads into this next question. you're talking about biology touching everything, and it's what we talk about in this podcast as well. But how has Cargill's approach to innovation changed as biology moves from kind of niche products into infrastructure?

Erin that's an interesting question because for. Us. I would say like our roots are a commodity company and when we think about the way that we produce products through Biomanufacturing, there's nothing niche about it, right? we're at millions and millions of gallons of fermentation capacity and hundreds of metric tons.

Erin Our conversations internally can be a little bit more about how do we accept. [00:44:00] Producing smaller quantities, higher value products instead of the tons are us type of approach. Right? So that's a sensitivity that we have internally. I think if I, I, I take your question a little bit differently and, and, think about infrastructure and footprint and how critical it is to success.

Erin I would say that over the last 30 years and $2 billion of investment we recognize that. The assets really drive the output of the innovation. In my lab. If I come up with 30 ideas, I'm not gonna be able to commercialize 30 ideas because we can't spend, you know, 30 ideas times a couple hundred million for each one to be successful.

Erin So we really need to look at what are the right metrics of success is the right metric of success? Bringing something that is found in low purity, bringing it. Or something that's found in, in very small quantities, but being able to unlock it and make it accessible because we can get higher purity through fermentation.

Erin Right? So it's an [00:45:00] unlock, it's a new product that nobody has ever gotten, or is it like really releasing ourselves from petroleum feed stocks? Is it now we're making something in a way that has better carbon intensity scores. and that's the motivating factor and that's compelling because customers want that.

Erin sustainability. In their supply chain? Or is it really about supply chain security? Like there's something that we need and we're dependent on, but if we can't continue to produce it because of a fire or, some type of flooding or some something that disrupts our agricultural systems, but we still need this product, is that a motivation to do that?

Erin And when you start to look at those rationales for why you would make something. Through fermentation or biomanufacturing, then you have to, you score them against each other. but not all of the products are gonna make it to market. And we're gonna have to make those types of, market-based choices and, and products will fit that differently, right?

Erin So if you think about some of the stuff that's going into the [00:46:00] beauty space, a lot about that is enrichment, right? We know these products are good for us. But we can't harvest enough plants to get them 'cause they're, they're found in really small quantities. So Biomanufacturing unlocks it and it brings us new products.

Erin If you think about some of those in Bioindustrial, things that I talked about, that's really more on that sustainability play of, you know, how are we better with the resources we have on our planet? And then, you know, where I'm most excited about the future going is the new unlocks, right? These molecules.

Erin That will improve our health and wellness and, and how do we get those to consumers broadly, bring 'em to market in a way that's so cost effective that they're accessible for everyone.

Erum there's so much to u unpack there. I mean, there's a lot of exciting things. I wanna talk about it all, but, um, let's talk about from the beginning, like, let's talk about the feedstock.

Erum You talked about your agricultural systems. Mm-hmm. when I'm thinking about Cargill, I'm thinking about corn, right? is that the primary feedstock? I know, I'm sure soybeans are a part of that. Can you give us a little bit of idea of what are some [00:47:00] popular feedstocks that may be some new ones that are being explored and you're thinking about?

Erin so from a Cargill perspective, corn is certainly our North American seed stock of choice, right? So row crops have. Over the last, you know, since the Borlaug revolution, like the amount of efficiency that we get outta agricultural to grow ops corn is tremendous. And so we process a lot of corn and we actually convert corn into like 20 or 30 different products, right?

Erin So every single element of the kernel of corn is used, everything from the germ to the corn oil to the starches, which then get broken down into the sugars that feed our fermentation. But that's a very North American US centric view of feedstocks. If we think about Europe, you know, in Europe we're gonna be talking more about wheat and getting the starches and, and things from wheat.

Erin right now we're really talking about a, a, carbohydrate based feedstock system. You know, if you start to talk about oils, then you're talking about things like [00:48:00] sunflower and soybeans. And then still on the, the carbohydrate train, if we go down to latam, you know, Latin America and that region, you have more sugar cane as your influence in your feed stocks.

Erin And in certain regions in Asia Pacific, it's again, you know, sucrose based feed stocks coming from, from sugar cane and other things. And so, we in North America have a bio-refinery model. Around our, our feedstocks and our feedstock utilization. So we have corn that comes in and we grind and process the corn and we, as I said, fractionate it and send it to all of its different, potential outputs.

Erin And that corn going into starch, coming into to simple sugars like dextrose can get shuttled across our campus into five or six or seven different types of fermentations. Some of those fermentations, Cargill owns and operates, and some of them are, co-location partners. So in Blair we have, for example, Ivan is on site, NOESIS is on [00:49:00] site, and they share with us.

Erin we provide them, carbohydrates, we provide them electricity, we provide them. Wastewater support in some cases. it's this integrated model that allows us to scale effectively and reduce waste and, and be more efficient with energy utilization. Similar things are happening in Europe, right?

Erin If you look at, there's a relationship we have with, This company called Enough, which is looking at Myprotein. You know, they're using that bio-refinery concept to take advantages of some of the infrastructure that Cargill already has in place. so that's a little bit about feedstocks from a carbohydrate perspective.

Erin Cargill is also. Largely invested in oil processing, and so we do produce a lot of cooking oils and oils that go into other applications today. We are not running fermentations on those oils. it's an opportunity in the future, but we have a crop innovation team, and our crop [00:50:00] innovation team is looking at new oil sources.

Erin And they have a relationship with the University of Minnesota, for example, to look at sustainable aviation fuels. And so when we think about technology and Cargill, it's not just microbial technology, it's crops as well, and that full integrated system.

Erum I love it. I mean, I love talking about it.

Erum I know Carl has been going deep in the world of, biomanufacturing. And looking at not just, crops that are being grown for bioprocessing, but also, crops that might be used for other things, but looking at the agricultural waste and using that as a feedstock, has that been something that you've explored or

Erin It is. It is, and it's, something that we are continuously monitoring and, and participating in. There were, I would say between like 2000. Five in 2015, 2000 in that timeframe. You know, cellulosics were really, a point of interest in the United States, right? It was, there was funding going towards looking at cellulosic [00:51:00] supply chains and investing in it.

Erin Cargill had a position there also in, in the team that I'm part of, you know, we had a fermentation organism that worked really well on C five and C six sugars. And so we had staked our position as being a technology provider into that space. there been a lot of different changes in subsidies and political positioning around those types of cellulose feed stocks, and that's Has less momentum today than it used to, but over the last two to three years, I'm hearing it coming back up. You know, there's a lot of complexity around those types of supply chains. but I think if we look at the way sequence availability and sequence space has expanded. And it, so access that we're going to have to new enzymes to help us manage and break down these product products.

Erin I'm very optimistic about the space. I think it will come back again and there will be new innovations in that space.

Karl I agree with you. We're very excited about that.

Erin you hear about it in some sectors, like [00:52:00] in our cocoa business.

Erin They get a lot of traction and, and a lot of reach outs from people who are looking at things like holes and how do you upgrade holes. And, there are roles within Cargill where we do look at, co-product streams or co-product and see how we can, do that, internally the first priority is our own streams, but often our customers will ask us, you know, what could we do with, with our byproduct streams?

Erin And so that's an area of interest.

Karl Amazing. Nice. So where do you see the most unexplored opportunity are at this intersection of food systems, materials and biology? I know it's a really broad question.

Erin Yeah. where I want to see the most, traction, 'cause I think it will have a real lasting impact.

Erin is that. Turning nutritional science into everyday foods, safely and at scale, right? So there's a lot of information out there and there's a lot of good nutrition, science [00:53:00] about different types of molecules. And there's a very active supplement space, right? But most people don't wanna get Their lifestyle advantages from supplements. They want it to be part of their, their snacking, right? Yeah. They want it to be part of their everyday, food systems. And so I think those molecules are really interesting targets for biomanufacturing, right? Those small molecules or fibers that seems like great biotech targets.

Erin The challenges there, like those bioactives is getting them into the everyday products, right? How do we have enough. Funding and momentum and, collaboration to do the right safety studies and clinical trials. How do we not lose the patients as we're going through those processes? how do we get through those regulatory hurdles so that they can be used in food?

Erin I mean, our food scientists in North America are just so creative and so amazing, right? You walk down the, the grocery store shelves, there's so much diversity and so I think if we can. get these [00:54:00] ingredients to a point where food scientists can take a forward, that would change the story, right?

Erin So now you're going to be consuming your probiotics as, as a part of your everyday life. And it's not something that you have to think about at the end of the night when you're, you're doing your evening routine or, you know, carrying your little pillbox with, it's just like,

Karl I love that.

Erin Eat this in the car on the way to practice.

Erin That's where I'm excited. So making nutrition accessible and trusted through the food systems and not just in niche products.

Erum food is medicine, right? and this is a, the intersection of our work.

Erum at messaging lab you work with biopharma and then everything else that's biology. And it's so interesting to see, and I come from pharma, that's my background. and there's a lot of engineering and sometimes a bit over-engineering of some molecules that are helpful of course. but you know, they're just like isolated as a one molecule.

Erum But we know biology is way more complex. It requires multiple molecules. you know, you have vitamin [00:55:00] C, but you know, vitamin C is more effective with magnesium and other types of, vitamins. So like, you have to have that mix. And coming from the healthcare world too, is that there's this issue of you know, medication adherence.

Erum And even though taking supplements too, it's like I buy the supplements, I'll take it for three days and then I'll forget about it. That's just my. Bad habit. I'm sure there's people that take supplements religiously. and that it also comes, from this whole like, movement of longevity. People like, oh, what's your supplement stack?

Erum I just like to eat food and I just wanna make sure, you know, I, I would like to trust that our food system has those things and it does have good things, but can it have more optimal things? And I think that's, you know, what you're talking about. and like I'm starting to see it. I'm sure you've seen a lot of these functional beverages.

Erum like Ali Pop or Poppy, where they're prebiotic sodas. And I live in, Brooklyn, New York, so it's a bubble. And I, I can't speak for the, whole United States. So I don't know if this is what's happening around the, around the country. Like, a lot of like kids are now drinking poppy and like I am too.

Erum So I, I'd like to drink it. Like I, don't drink, Coca-Cola or [00:56:00] Pepsi or anything like that. And, we might be having them on the podcast, so I'm sorry. but like, they, I mean, I think one of them did buy Poppy, because it's a prebiotic, it's fiber. People gain more fiber. That's what we need.

Erum And it just tastes great, in the end it tastes great. It's, it's bubbly. the clans are colorful, so the branding's really nice. And it's just a part of my life. I'm not like, oh, I need to eat fiber, so I'm gonna drink a puppy. It's like, no, I'm thirsty and I want something delicious.

Erum And okay, it has, five grams of fiber in it. So Wonderful.

Erin and I think fiber is a great example, right? there's not just like one molecule that's fiber, there's a lot of design space, opportunity space. And if we can figure out ways to pair those like functionality studies and those proof points about how valuable these molecules are with quicker cycles of developing 'em.

Erin It's really exciting as long as consumers come along with us, right?

Erum Yes,

Karl yes,

Erum yes. Yeah. Oh, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. There's

Karl so much opportunity there.

Karl Aaron, you know, thinking ahead over the next five or 10 years, what do you think success looks like for biotech's role [00:57:00] inside global food and maybe materials?

Erin Yeah, I would say success means that biotech isn't specialty. It's just a preferred engine for foods and materials, right? we just manufacture that way because there's a place for it.

Erin we need to see more investment in infrastructure. We need to see more products being proved out in the marketplace on delivering in their sustainability and performance promises. But I would love to see labels signaling preferred and not novel. If you looked at the back of a, of the pack and it said, cultured, X, Y, or Z that you like, that's the one that I wanna buy.

Karl Yes.

Erin When did X, Y, Z? That's the product for me. I think biotech is gonna be embedded in our global supply chains. We need it to be trusted by consumers, and then we need to have it supported by proven economics and, and really proven sustainability. That's kind of how we move from like this promise that we're sitting at.

Erin To being the backbone. Right? Yeah. Resilience, climate smart [00:58:00] systems that prove out.

Erum Yes. Here, here. Excellent. I love it. You are the perfect person to speak with because you're talking about the going to the stores and seeing how everything is influenced and can be influenced by biotech.

Erum And here we're talking about growing everything. So wonderful, wonderful answer. Thank you so much for sharing that. But now it's time for the last segment, the fun segment, the quick fire questions. I can kick it off and then Carl and I will go back and forth. let's get started. What's the most underrated part of the food system?

Erin Food safety.

Erum Wow. Yeah. Yeah.

Karl What's the food system change you wish would happen? Faster

Erin acceptance of genetically modified organisms in gene editing.

Erum Wow. Here we go. There we go. Yes. No frills. No, you're not wasting any time.

Erum Okay, great. Go for it. Okay. Speaking of which, all right. The, the technology you're rooting for, but still skeptical of

Erin enzymatic cascades to produce [00:59:00] products. There's a couple of different ways of describing it, but it's really. Coupling together a series of isolated enzymes and feeding the co-factors and getting product without the little cell envelope and metabolism.

Lizette Let's break down enzymatic cascades, shall we? First, quick reminder, enzymes are nature's tiny chemical machines. They're proteins that speed up very specific reactions. So an enzymatic cascade is when those enzymes are lined up, each one doing a single transformation, and then passing the molecule to the next until you get the product you desire.

Lizette Instead of using a whole living cell, you're directing the chemistry step by step With biology, it's elegant, it's precise, and while it looks clean on paper, making it work at scale is actually pretty difficult.

Karl Are you an optimist or realist when it comes to the future of food and biotech?

Erin At my heart, I'm an optimist, but at work I have to play a pragmatist. [01:00:00] I'm an

Erum optimist. Well said. Well said. Everyone at Cargills, the Cargill executives are very happy you said that. the buzzword, you'd happily retire forever.

Erin Precision fermentation.

Erum Oh, snap.

Erin Yeah. And this gonna get me in trouble at the, at the home office. But the challenge I have with it, my backup would be synthetic biology.

Erum Oh

Karl yeah. We would retire it too. Or at least I would.

Erum Yeah, same.

Erin the challenge I have with both of them is the same thing, is it sounds nice, but I don't know what it means.

Erum Yeah.

Erin Right. I, I,

Erin what does it mean? Like where, if you're making something, if you're making citric acid, is it imper precise or is there a certain amount of purity you have to have before you go into downstream processing to be precise?

Erin I, I just don't understand it and I'm a little too reductionist to like let that flow. There's so many types of fermentation. Right? And, and I think it, it makes it like, what about the ones that produce like 10 [01:01:00] products? Like those are great organisms too.

Karl yeah.

Erum Great answer. Okay, we'll have to dig into that some more.

Erum maybe do a fermentation episode to talk about the different types and we can have you on the help.

Erum That would be really good. I think it'd, help clarify and give people options, you know, might. be new to biotech.

Erum a lot of people are listening to this podcast from other industries that are passionate about biology and they started, they're starting to learn that this is a great tool, but even within biotech, there's so much nuance. and there's different pathways and one can be better for one product than the other.

Erum So, thank you for saying that. I really appreciate it. We're, again, we're not holding back here on the podcast. We're gonna say it like it is. Thank you so much, Erin, for coming on the podcast and sharing your perspective, telling us what's going on in the world of Cargill when it comes to biomanufacturing and fermentation.

Erum Thank you so much.

Erin Well, thank you for what you do. I am so excited to be a part of this. I love that there are people out there who are talking about. Science, [01:02:00] talking about technology, talking about fermentation, it's, it's great.

Erin And I hope everybody listens to your podcast.

Erum Oh,

Karl we hope so too.

Erum Thank you.

Erin Thank you. Have a great day.

Erum You too.

Erum So Carl, what'd you think of that episode?

Karl So Erin is an amazing person, like you said at the beginning. Everybody seems to know Erin, and I'm surprised we didn't have her on before, but she's [01:03:00] the perfect person to kick off this series on CPG for us.

Karl And, just the way that Erin talks about, bringing everybody into this and understanding how central Cargill is, I think is really fascinating. One of the things I really loved that she mentioned was kind of imagining the grocery store aisles, aisle by aisle, and thinking about what products in an aisle could be biotech made or processed by biotech.

Karl I just love that.

Erum Yeah, that is a beautiful way of thinking about it. again, you know, as I mentioned in the episode, it's just, super aligned with what we think about here. I do the same thing. the way I do it, I'm thinking about it from a. Who do we need to talk to?

Erum Who's out there, you know, who's already using biotech, which I'm sure she does too. But, for someone in her position at a company that could really fundamentally change the way a lot of things are made because they have such broad reach and legacy and everything, it's very fascinating to see that, you know, she gets out of the factory, out of the [01:04:00] lab into.

Erum Storefront and look at what's on the aisle and to think about it deeply from her lens is a, is a beautiful thing.

Karl Yeah. And she also, just kind of to drive that concept home, she said, plasmids to pallets and you like, reacted very positively to her saying that, and that is really one of the things that we spend a lot of time thinking about.

Karl It's like, yeah, working in the lab is great, but What does it take to translate that lab discovery? Into pallets worth of products, pallets that are really gonna impact a lot of people's lives. this is one of those, to me, one of those statements that I'm gonna keep top and center and I'm gonna start asking people, how are you planning to move, you know, from the lab into pallets.

Erum Yeah. Yeah, that is, something we talked to a lot of innovators about. Arnie gave a lot of great, feedback and advice for innovators to work with companies like hers. And that also translates into other large companies too, right. to be thinking of. what's it like for Cargill to adopt that innovation?

Erum To put [01:05:00] yourself and have the empathy to be thinking about how do you create win-win situations? And I also appreciated how she said, look, we're not just Luddites that are sitting in a lab, right? Like, not like just doing one thing. Like they have lots of innovation happening, at Cargill and these other big CPG companies, but they just can't go after it all.

Erum And we've seen companies, startups that. You know, raise a lot of money, throw spaghetti at the wall and falter, Yeah. What we talked a lot about, when we had Veronica Breckenridge on and she talked about the graveyard report, some of those companies kind of fell victim to that, going across the spectrum and trying to, do a lot.

Erum Right. a, there's a difference between taking some strategic multiple shots on goal and being very, disciplined about that. But then there's another thing to be like, oh, this is a good idea. Let's just go for it and see what happens. Right. and people will just come, right?

Erum You build it and come. So, for someone like Erin who, works with the large companies, because those are Cargill's clients, [01:06:00] and to be able to speak to all the innovators, she sits at this intersection where she can really unlock that, the challenge of these, innovators to go from, you know, a plasmid to the palette.

Erum For her clients. Right. And so, you know, we could probably have two or three more conversations with her. So Erin, if you're listening, we definitely wanna have you back on in a few months or so. especially as, you know, new things progress.

Karl Yeah. And I think, you know, what that really, drives home and something we've talked a lot about over the last year is really this importance of collaboration.

Karl you're a small company, you're very smart. maybe you are thinking about how do you get out into the marketplace and you really wanna make that kind of impact. You really wanna be producing at that pallet scale. How do you work with, Cargill? You know, Erin made it clear that she's very interested in talk to, small companies and innovators because that's something that they think about and they don't do everything in-house, but [01:07:00] you have to be able to,

Karl Think about how you're gonna collaborate with a big company like that, which we know is challenging.

Erum Yeah. Yes. It's, easier said than done, but there's a method to the madness, I would say.

Karl Exactly. Yeah.

Karl the last point I wanna make about the conversation is Aaron pointed out that there's unexplored opportunities when it comes to safety at scale.

Karl Using bioactives as targets for new products. And to me what this spoke to is really this idea of non catalytic proteins or peptides that have multiple uses. So a peptide that can be both a preservative, but also maybe, you know, conveys a sweetness or a color to a product.

Karl And I think that that means that there's really infinite opportunities once you start looking at bioactives that way. Erin nailed it on the head when she mentioned this, and I think it's just something that people who. Listen to this podcast should also be thinking about,

Erum right? Yes, exactly. And, she's kicked off the CCP G series.

Erum Perfect person like me's been saying [01:08:00] to really ground us and put us in this foundation. Of course, not only from the Cargill, value, right? They are creating these foundational products, the ingredients, the feed stocks, you know, the supply chains, the global access, like they are the basis of. A lot of the different products that we use today.

Erum and then we're gonna continue. So our next episode is going to feature, JC Garcia Garcia and Amy Trejo of PNG. And we're excited to talk to them about so many things. We do focus a lot on. Collaboration and how innovators can work with some of these large CPGs and what they need to take into consideration when it comes to approaching CPGs for partnership.

Erum So that's going to be a very exciting one, so stay tuned for that.

Karl Yeah, so I think that's the pod. please like, and subscribe, watch us on YouTube. We are on there. And actually Spotify has our videos up too. And, subscribe to our substack and give us a shout out and let us [01:09:00] know what you think about the episode.

Erum Thanks so much. That's the pod.