47. Berry Controversial: A Candid Chat with Kevin Folta on Science and Scandal

[00:00:00] Karl: Kevin Weger of La Lamond, we are so happy to have you on the Grow Everything Podcast.

[00:00:07] Kevin: Great to be here. Thanks Roman Carl for, uh, for inviting me to this podcast. Really interesting.

[00:00:14] Karl: Let's get some background on you and Lallemand. You have a career that spans, you know, enzyme research and development at novazymes to leading technology development at a company called Mes Scoma, which we wanna talk about.

[00:00:28] Karl: And now you're really involved in strategy shaping strategy at La Lamont. What was it that made you interested in microbes and fermentation?

[00:00:38] Kevin: Yeah, thanks. Uh, good question. Thank you for that. Um, yeah, I, I came to this industry from a chemical chemistry and chemical engineering background, kind of a traditional.

[00:00:54] Kevin: And, um, I always, uh, thought, uh, that, uh, biotechnology would be interesting, but I didn't know much about it. Um. Then when I went to grad school, I took a microbiology course, just basic microbiology. And, um, I really enjoyed that. I just loved learning about all the different microbes and the different techniques in microbiology and, uh, so that sparked my interest and.

[00:01:22] Kevin: Also then I started brewing beer at home, and when I started brewing beer, then I was hooked.

[00:01:27] Karl: There you go. The gateway for many people to microbiology is beer or wine.

[00:01:35] Kevin: It's the gateway to our industry, more or less. Yeah. Um, yeah, so it's a lot of fun and, um, you know, um, from there I got just, um, did my PhD work in fermentation technology.

[00:01:52] Kevin: So, uh, my interest, uh, just continued to grow from there. A lot of fermentation, um, research. Um, and, uh, so after grad school ended up, uh, going to Novazymes. Um, and I was, uh, at that time just very interested in fermentation. Uh. So I was really a fermentation person and, uh, my interest in, uh, them where they were fermentation company.

[00:02:24] Kevin: So I said, okay, I'll.

[00:02:27] Erum: Nice. That's incredible. It's great that, again, beer is your gateway. That is how we describe what you know, biomanufacturing and, you know, fermentation. Um, being one of those awaits to bio manufacture. And thanks for sharing your early career. You know, enzymes, industrial biotech. You've been, you know, and I hate to position it this way, but you've been at it for a while.

[00:02:49] Erum: So considering all the work you've done back in the day, what convinced you that microbes could be a major industrial platform?

[00:02:58] Kevin: Yeah. Um, so like I said, I was really working in fermentation, uh, early in my career. Uh, I started working in the fermentation production area, large scale manufacturing of, uh, these enzymes using different microorganisms.

[00:03:16] Kevin: And one of the things that I saw there, so at that time I was not. That, um, knowledgeable or skilled in strain engineering topics and genetic engineering bioengineering. So that was a big part of, uh, the, the enzyme industry back then. But what I saw when I was working in the fermentation area was we had some examples of.

[00:03:43] Kevin: Let's say traditional enzyme manufacturing that was done not using biotechnology tools. And then we had examples of the same enzyme that was produced using biotechnology tools. Um, and the enzymes that were produced using biotechnology were so much more productive. Um, that I was said, oh wow, there's really something interesting to this technology here.

[00:04:11] Kevin: I could see that it was just so much more efficient. Uh, so that was really what spurred my interest in sort of biotechnology more broadly speaking.

[00:04:22] Karl: And can you maybe talk a little bit about like some of the challenges that you faced in those early days when it came to. Large scale biomanufacturing, particularly when it came to, you know, these enzyme production plants, you talked about how much more efficient it was, but what else was there that, um, you know, made it a c cha made it a challenge or made it work?

[00:04:43] Kevin: Yeah, I, I mean, looking back it was, uh, quite a learning experience working in a full scale biomanufacturing facility, uh, biomanufacturing. Sounds high tech, but it can also be kind of stinky and problematic and difficult at times. And, uh, so, um, you know, um, we learned a lot about, um, what it takes to successfully do large scale fermentation.

[00:05:16] Kevin: Um, you know, um, fermentation is. Quite interesting in that there's so many steps, uh, that have to go right in order to have a successful fermentation. And when you do that at a large scale, you just sort of magnify the, you know, the risk of challenges, uh, and all those steps and. Um, so that was, uh, we had some definitely interesting times, a lot of late night phone calls, uh, with different, uh, challenges and problems in the fermentation area, trying to fix those, because at the end of the day, it's a full scale running facility and, um, it needs to be making the product, um.

[00:06:03] Kevin: Reliably. So, yeah, it was a good experience. I would say the overall takeaway is understanding it. It gave me a good understanding of what it takes to what teamwork is required. To successfully do biomanufacturing because you have all these tanks with all of the valves leading into those tanks and all of the feedstocks coming into the plant.

[00:06:32] Kevin: And you have a lot of people, you have 30 or 40 people running that plant, and everybody needs to be fully trained on, um. Running their part of the process and everybody needs to do every step exactly right in order for that fermentation to be successful. So it was a real good experience, not only in learning more about fermentation, but also learning the importance of teamwork and training, things like that.

[00:06:57] Kevin: People involved in the process.

[00:07:01] Erum: Yeah. Yeah. That's incredible. 'cause I'm like thinking about. You know, in fermentation you have, you know, your microbe, hopefully just one microbe. And then, you know, obviously if some invaders come in, then you can get, you know, the stinkiness happening and all the things could go wrong.

[00:07:16] Erum: You get contaminated. Um, but then it's, you know, I'm thinking about, well, you also have all these people that need to be able to work together to produce a product. So it's just. Kind of this, you know, analogy between, you know, organizing the microbes and organizing people, um, to really make this work, which I I really appreciate that, uh, perspective you just shared.

[00:07:35] Erum: Um, yep. So for, for listeners that are not familiar with La Laman, could you tell us what the company produces and sells and who are the primary buyers?

[00:07:46] Kevin: Sure. Yeah. Uh, so Lale MA is a, just to sort of back up a little bit, Lale Ma is a privately held company. It's been around since the early 19 hundreds, and, uh, the core of the company from the early days was Baker's yeast.

[00:08:04] Kevin: And baking ingredients. Um, so, um, I'm sure most people are pretty familiar with Baker's yeast and what it does and how it's used, um, but. The company really grew from that, um, sort of core, core business. And, um, today, uh, the company, uh, focuses primarily on microbes. So selling living microbes, um, to other businesses that use living microbes for different applications.

[00:08:37] Kevin: Um, and also in addition to the living microbes, we sell a lot of, um. Products, um, like enzymes and nutrients and things like that, uh, that are used in processes in conjunction with microbes. Um, since the early days, uh. We branched out from baking industry into brewing and wine, sort of all the traditional yeast industries, um, biofuels, animal feed, plant care, things like that.

[00:09:15] Kevin: Uh, also human nutrition like for probiotics, uh, things like that. So a lot of different applications for microorganisms and anywhere that there's a. A good application or a good business for microbes. We tried to be involved in that.

[00:09:34] Karl: Now let's, let's talk about, you had been at a company called MAs.

[00:09:39] Karl: Correct me if I'm wrong, was acquired by La Lamond and Yeah. And, um, they, mus scma developed engineered use platforms like transfer, which produces enzymes during fermentation. It increases ethanol yields. What was the key idea that made that commercially viable in, how did that shift the economics and efficiency of, of byproducts?

[00:10:03] Kevin: Yeah, so Mascoma was a biofuels company we were working on. Develop new technology for biofuels and the objective was really to expand the use of biofuels using microbes and biotechnology. We moved into, uh, the transfer product, uh, type, uh, kind of late in the stage of the company and one of the ideas there was, um, in addition to.

[00:10:35] Kevin: Um, pushing new feedstocks for ethanol. Uh, we thought we could sort of improve the economy and the productivity of existing ethanol plants. And, um, so the, the yeast that we developed was a yeast that, um. Ultimately improved the yield of ethanol. So the amount of ethanol that you get out per the amount of feedstock that you use, this yeast made a significant improvement to that yield.

[00:11:09] Kevin: And also, uh, it provided enzymes. To break down the feedstock. So the tradit, the ethanol producers would traditionally purchase enzymes and purchase yeast, and so we developed a yeast that was, uh, sort of providing both the enzymes and the yeast and an improved ethanol yield. That was our main innovation.

[00:11:36] Kevin: I would say the thing that enabled that to work that was innovative and new was that we really focused on the industrial robust yeast host, um, rather than working with a laboratory strain of yeast. Um, so we can dig into that a little bit more, but, um. Many people work with Croce SE VCA Baker's yeast in the lab.

[00:12:08] Kevin: Um, but there's many, many, um, different strains of Sakas SE VCA that are used out there in the industry, and they all have their strengths and there's a tremendous genetic diversity even in that one organism in terms of its capability. So, um. I think the thing that we did that was unique and different was focusing on that, that, uh, genetics around the ethanol industry and improving that rather than starting from a lab strain.

[00:12:41] Erum: I mean, let's talk about that a little bit more then. Right. You we're talking about not using a yeast in the lab scale. You, you engineered the yeast to operate on an industrial scale and you know, that's not a straightforward thing. Um, so can you tell us a little bit more about that? Um, and maybe a moment where something didn't go according to plan, but um, with this new yeast, um, but then ultimately it led to better technology or insight.

[00:13:08] Kevin: Yeah, for sure. Um, that was a, a brand new kind of product, uh, for the industry at the time. And, um, for sure it was, uh, not easy to convince the customers to transition from their kind of traditional yeast into this new kind of yeast. So, uh. For sure we had a lot of, uh, proving we had to really prove that, that, uh, that new engineered yeast in the industry.

[00:13:40] Kevin: I would say in, in terms of specific challenges. One of the things that we found was when we went from, uh, an initial scale up. So we scaled up, um, and we introduced the product and everything went fine. Um, but then when we went from a kind of a big scale to an even bigger scale, that was when we started to find some scale up challenges.

[00:14:07] Kevin: And, um, we started to find that this, the yeast strain that we had developed did not perform quite as well as what it did in the lab. And so then it was the challenge of figuring out, okay, what is the cause of that? Challenge. And, um, as you can imagine, when you scale up to very large scale, you know, a lot of things change.

[00:14:32] Kevin: You've got new substrates coming into play. You've got new manufacturing facilities coming into play. You think you're starting with the same strain of yeast, um, but suddenly it's behaving different when it comes out of the plant. And, uh, we had to do a lot of, uh. Investigative work to figure out, uh, what that problem was.

[00:14:52] Karl: And, and just to keep on that, uh, kind of thread, when you were selling this to potential customers, it wasn't an easy um, sorry, lemme just repeat that. Um, I don't know whose phone that is. I'm gonna wait. Um, when you were selling this new strain, uh, could you not make the argument that it was gonna be cheaper because the clients didn't have to buy the enzymes that they traditionally would buy?

[00:15:19] Kevin: Absolutely. That was a key part of the, the, um, the selling process was to point to the value and say, okay, this new yeast is gonna make your product cheaper. It's gonna improve the productivity of your plant. That's the value that we're bringing. Um, uh, the one thing to keep in mind is that, um, it's a relatively small, we're talking about, uh, you know.

[00:15:42] Kevin: Up to 1%, uh, sort of improvement in the cost. Uh, which if when you multiply it over billions and billions of gallons is a huge value. Um, but it's still a relatively small improvement. So I. The yeast has to be performing very optimally in order to see that little 1% gain. Um, and the plant has to be out running with it very optimally in order to get that value.

[00:16:11] Kevin: So it has to, it has to go out there and perform without any compromises, without any problems, uh, in order for the customer to see that value. Uh, so. That was a very involved process to bring that product to market and to, uh, do the trials at the customers, to con, to show them, uh, that there's the value in the product.

[00:16:34] Erum: Um, I have a quick follow up question too. You know, you, you're mentioning, um, you know, the challenges from going up to like a large scale to an even larger scale. And that there's some problems that a arose, but specifically like what were those problems? Was it, um, you know, something that, where. You had to rethink what the feed stock was or the bioreactor or all of those things.

[00:16:59] Erum: The timing that, you know, um, did it have to be like right, rather than these larger tanks, we have to do, you know, a lot of smaller tanks. We'll have to kind of get a little bit more idea because this is kind of the biggest question, right? I was like, how do you scale up bio manufacturer? So I'd love to hear a little bit more specifics around that.

[00:17:14] Kevin: Yeah, yeah. Um, you know, the, the, um. When you're faced with a problem like that, um, everybody, um, I immediately starts looking for a single smoking gun. Like, okay, there's one nutrient that's a problem, or there's one particular part of the process that's a problem. Uh, or it's, you know, the genetics of the strain that you've constructed.

[00:17:39] Kevin: Does it somehow have some genetic elements that are, uh, causing this problem? And, uh, what we found in that case was. Um, really a, a combination of genetics and environment, um, that created an issue, uh, for our product. And, uh, we were able to by studying the genetics of our yeast very closely. Able to understand when the problem was occurring and so be able to monitor the problem, uh, which is, you know, kind of the key at least to getting a handle on any problem is can you at least sort of see when the problem is happening?

[00:18:18] Kevin: Um, so we were able to monitor that and, uh, we also did find some nutritional things with the substrate that, um, again, we could not completely control, but at least kind of have a handle on and be able to control enough to make a. Uh, reliable products. So yeah, it was about a solid year of a lot of lab investigations and troubleshooting, things like that till we got a complete handle on it.

[00:18:44] Kevin: And for sure over time as we've brought out, um. More improved versions of that product, we've been able to address the genetic issues and, and be able to avoid further problems like that. So it was, uh, really related to the fact that that was a. First of a kind product that we had to go through all that.

[00:19:09] Karl: Yeah. I love that story because it touches on a bunch of things that we get to talk about here on Grow Everything. But one thing that stands out to me is the, you know, the fact that you can make a 1% improvement, which just multiplies as you go across a process. Um, and in many cases that 1%. Improvement really can translate into, you know, millions of dollars, uh, you know, downstream.

[00:19:34] Karl: Um, LA Laman has worked on technologies that allow yeast to not only fer permit traditional sugars, but more complex ones from biomass like Xylose. How important is that kind of metabolic flexibility for the future of, of Bioproducts and Biomanufacturing?

[00:19:53] Kevin: For sure. That's, uh, extremely important. That's been a.

[00:19:58] Kevin: A big part of our r and d efforts over the last, uh, 15 years at least. And, um, there's not so many applications of XYLOSE as a substrate today. I think what we all realize is that if the industry is gonna grow to the scale that we all envision that it can, you know, we're gonna have limits on the feed stocks for the industry and, uh, we probably won't be able to, um.

[00:20:32] Kevin: You know, displace petroleum and replace all chemical manufacturing using just glucose or sucrose, pure glucose, pure sucrose as, as the feedstocks for fermentation. So we need to basically expand the range of, uh, of sugars and, and feedstock inputs that, that we can use for biomanufacturing. So things like xylose and other biomass derived sugars are gonna be an important.

[00:21:01] Kevin: Uh, part of the, the mix in the future for sure. So it's an important starting point, I would say. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:21:12] Erum: And, um, so over the years you've watched in industrial fermentation expand from fuels into food materials and specialty ingredients. So from your vantage point, how has the role of microbes in manufacturing evolved?

[00:21:27] Erum: No pun intended.

[00:21:30] Kevin: Yes. Uh, you know, so many things are starting to happen. I think a lot of entrepreneurs, scientists, businesses are starting to recognize the, the potential, um, for microbial products. And, uh, you just see so many things coming out now, you know, the out mycelium based materials and, uh, fermented proteins and, uh, things like that.

[00:22:00] Kevin: It's just, uh. It's just amazing, uh, that every, that the array of products that people are, are working on. Um, you know, and some, some will succeed, some will fail, but, uh, everybody's trying a lot of different things right now. It's great to see.

[00:22:19] Karl: Kevin, you had mentioned that, you know, Lamond has this long history start off in yeast and, and fermentation across industries, um, you know, baking, brewing, um, and, uh, and today, you know, selling microbes to different industries.

[00:22:35] Karl: But thinking about the legacy of the company, how does that shape the way the team today approaches innovation?

[00:22:43] Kevin: It's a great question. I, you know, I think the fun thing to see is that. Whenever people talk about new biotechnology applications, they always refer back to these traditional fermentation applications.

[00:22:57] Kevin: People always say, oh yeah, you can make this new product like we've always made beer or like we've always made yogurt and um. And that's all true, but it's true that those legacy applications are still happening too, uh, and are big, big businesses and, and growing areas. And so I look at the traditional industries as a fantastic starting point.

[00:23:23] Kevin: Like these are places where we know microbes are doing an important job today in important products. And what can we do to. Bring more science to the, the knowhow because a lot of the traditional applications have just evolved over time as people do trial and error, and they find these different, uh, fermentation applications.

[00:23:46] Kevin: Um, but so what can we do to bring more science to it and what can we do to improve those microorganisms, um, and expand the, the use of those products? Um, as an example, um. One example is we have, we made the sour VCA yeast for making sour beer. So, uh, that's, uh, a new innovation that we brought to the table also relatively recently.

[00:24:13] Kevin: Um, it's a single yeast that enables you to make a sour beer. Instead of doing two fermentations, a beer fermentation and a sour beer fermentation, you can do it all in one fermentation using one yeast.

[00:24:27] Erum: Yeah, the, the Brooklyn Craft Brewers, thank you for that. Sour Beers is so popular here.

[00:24:39] Karl: Yeah, I think they do s what is it? Sour Beef. Sour Beer Month or Sour beer Week. Some of the bars do, um, I think September, you know, late September, October is, you know, they a, a lot of the bars doing craft beer feature the sour beers.

[00:24:55] Kevin: Yeah, it is. It's one of those things, you either love it or you hate it.

[00:24:59] Kevin: Uh, some people taste a sour beer and they don't want to have anything to do with it again, and other people love it. It's funny how people react to it.

[00:25:08] Karl: Yeah, I'm, I love it. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:25:11] Erum: I, I, I think it depends on like the flavor profiles of course. And like some brands can do it well, others, you know, not so much.

[00:25:18] Erum: Right. So it's always. About the, the flavor profile. And I think, um, if you get introduced to the right one, then you're just like, okay, I'm, I'm a fan. Otherwise, it's like, hmm, stay away. Um, but I think that's the beauty of microbes, right? Um, and obviously there's a lot of other factors, you know, when think of the feedstock and, you know, the, the process.

[00:25:39] Erum: But, um, I guess that's a, that that's the beauty of fermentation, right? To be able to like, you know, control or like, uh, work with not control. Work with the microbes to be able to impart flavor and mouthfeel and all the things that, um, we love with fermented drinks and food.

[00:25:56] Kevin: Yeah, that's right. And you know, one of the challenges of the traditional sour beer is, has been, it's kind of been a natural fermentation sometimes, which is kind of hard to control.

[00:26:08] Kevin: And so then you can get this sort of. Yeah, veering into weird flavors. Um, and that was one of the things that we thought would be, um, interesting, uh, for people to use the sour vca is that'd be a lot more controllable, easy to control, uh, rather than doing a. A wild or a bacterial fermentation. Uh, yeah.

[00:26:32] Erum: Yep.

[00:26:33] Erum: And speaking of wild microbes, um, uh, we were talking earlier that, um, Congress just passed the American, sorry, the America's Living Library Act of 2026. And what this would do would be to direct the government to sequence and catalog the genomic data of microbes, fungi, and plants and animals across US public lands and.

[00:26:55] Erum: They wanna take that data and make it AI ready and publicly accessible. So for a company like Laman, which has spent so many years curating and working with microbial cultures, what does a move like This mean? Does a public genomic library of America's wild microbes change what's possible for fermentation and making different bio products, and does it feel like government is finally catching up to what the industry has known for a very long time?

[00:27:24] Kevin: Yeah, I, that's, I heard about this act just recently and that sounds very interesting. I think, um, it's gonna be important. The accessing of genomic information is really key to our r and d process at Lamont for sure. Uh, we've been over the years curating physical samples of different microbes and using that.

[00:27:52] Kevin: As a data storage, uh, a data warehouse for, uh, biological information. But increasingly we also use, uh, genomic information from databases to, um, to uh, kind of initiate and work in the r and d process. So. It sounds exciting, uh, what's being proposed, basically because it'll increase the amount of genomic information that's out there.

[00:28:19] Kevin: And, um, there's al already a lot of genomic information available to our scientists. Uh. But the more genomic information that can be put out there, um, it'll definitely advance scientific process over time. It sounds very interesting. Um, I think, you know, the Human Genome Project was sponsored by the government, uh, in some way also.

[00:28:44] Kevin: And, uh, this seems analogous to that. Um, and it's create seems to have a potential to advance the, the science in our area quite a bit.

[00:28:55] Erum: Yeah. And um, you know, one of the things that's really interesting and you know, is that, um. There's trillions of microbes in the world as that's, that's what's proposed, right?

[00:29:06] Erum: The people have done modeling and you know, suspect that that's the number of different species, which I know species is also kind of a very interesting category categorizing for microbes. 'cause microbes evolve very quickly and change very quickly. But, you know, um, you know, some. Friends of ours, um, yeah, ginger Dozier, Mike Dozier, bio Mason had been looking at this, um, very closely in terms of what is that entire, um, what does that micro verse look like?

[00:29:35] Erum: And from their efforts, they looked at all these databases and it's really like 0.0001% of microbes have been, um, studied and not, you know, not even to talk about their genomic data sets being, um, you know, uh. Extracted or, you know, defined or used. So there's a lot out there and I always wonder, you know, what's that new wild microbe that can make that new wild beer or drink or something that we're like, oh my gosh, this beer tastes like roses.

[00:30:01] Erum: You know, like truly, um, without having to add roses or something, you know? So be so. Unheard of. Um, but it, we found it because it was in a geyser at Yellowstone Park Camp. It's like, what? So very exciting.

[00:30:18] Kevin: Yeah. It's truly stunning the amount of biological potential there is out there in the world. And. It does happen a lot.

[00:30:27] Kevin: And when we're thinking about new products, you think about the metabolic pathway that we could use to create that product. And we say, oh, wait, yes, we could do that, but there's this missing activity that doesn't seem to be present in any strain that we know about. And uh, so let's go search for it. And uh, so that kind of information being further unlocked can lead to new products being made for bio manufacturing for sure.

[00:30:52] Karl: Yeah, it's super exciting. Um, so, you know, lo sorry. We've talked about how La Lamond has been fermenting with yeast, bacteria, you know, on this industrial scale, and now you're sitting in a coalition with L'Oreal and Ionic trying to unlock commercial scale. Biomanufacturing, what's the through line for Lamond and uh, why does this problem feel urgent to you personally?

[00:31:20] Kevin: Yeah, good question. We view Biomanufacturing as key, um, to our business, so for sure. Being able to bio manufacture large scale low cost microorganisms has been key to the development of the Laman business so far. And we view that as being a core part of our business going forward. So, you know, we kind of look at, um, anything that's being bio manufactured, we could play a role in that potentially.

[00:31:59] Kevin: Um, we use the analogy of an iceberg quite a bit, um, when we say that our existing business and the business that we know about in biotechnology. Um, industrial biotechnology, um, being basically just the tip of the iceberg. So it's what we can see today, but we know that there's, uh, 90%, uh, still is under the water.

[00:32:24] Kevin: And, uh, so we're out there, uh, looking to explore, um, you know, all the potential, uh, that can be part of our future business. And that's, that's what that, what what we see happening, uh, that the coalition is trying to do.

[00:32:43] Erum: And, um, so you're saying, um, and we also know this and feel this very intimately from this podcast, is that there's a lot of opportunity out there and one of the, um, outputs of this coalition was, um, is a report called The Molecule Manifesto, which looks at four molecule families that they believe are ready to scale the priority molecule families that are ready to scale.

[00:33:09] Erum: What was Lale Man's read on those choices? Were there any surprises?

[00:33:15] Kevin: Yeah, the report is, uh, coming soon and, um, I think first of all, it's, uh, amazing that you can pull together like a group of experts from, uh, the, all these different, uh, big companies and startups and, uh, people who are very knowledgeable in the industry and, uh, without.

[00:33:37] Kevin: Too much trouble come up with this four priorities, uh, out of all the possibilities that are out there in the world. So it's pretty amazing, uh, from that point of view that, uh, the team was able to agree so clearly on the different, uh, molecules. I think what we, uh, what the coalition has come up with in terms of the four categories, if I could name them, maybe the terpenes, hydroxy acids, peptides.

[00:34:05] Kevin: Non catalytic proteins are the four key areas. And, um, I would say no, those are all good choices. Big, no big surprises there for us. We're, we're present in, uh, most of those areas, uh, in one way or another. Uh, so we see those as, as, uh, interesting areas for a laman as well. If I was gonna give a read on those things, uh, I would say, you know, our, um, focus as a company, um, we, where we think we can bring the most value is in more specialty products.

[00:34:45] Kevin: So products that have a unique activity, a bioactivity. Things like that, that, um, are large scale, but not at the super large scale, not commodity products, commodity chemicals. So, um, from that point of view, I would say, um, probably La Lamont, uh, you know, little most more interested in the peptide area and maybe the terpenes things are things that are a little bit more specialty type.

[00:35:16] Karl: Got it. And just so, and just so you know, Kevin, like the. The report will have been out by the time this airs. So we'll also, you know, add some color to the intro and the outro when we talk about it. Um, yeah. Um, so, uh, looking ahead 10 or 20 years, what advances in fermentation or synthetic biology do you think will most transform how we produce fuels, food ingredients, or chemicals?

[00:35:46] Kevin: That's a great question. Uh, 10 or 20 years is a long time. Things are changing really fast every day from what I see. You know, we are, the technology for, um, engineering things, doing synthetic biology, moving DNA around making genetic modifications is pretty mature. What still needs to advance quite a bit is the basic knowledge of, um, the DNA code and, um.

[00:36:23] Kevin: The, uh, metabolism that's happening, um, in all kinds of organisms. So I do believe that, you know, what will be more transformative is this idea of, um, having a digital twin of a cell, um, where all of the knowledge of. Metabolism in genes, um, is incorporated in a, in a, in a sort of a high data based model that one can use to, um, make changes, um, in the model and understand what's going on, uh, much more quickly and low cost, uh, than doing trial and error in the lab.

[00:37:07] Kevin: Uh, so yeah, I think that will rapidly, um. Be deployed and, and start to, uh, you know, increase the rate of innovation in the industry. And the, you know, what the industry really needs, I think is, you know. Lower product development cost, because if we want to bring out all these different molecules, the cost of development of each one of each product and molecule has to be lower than it is today.

[00:37:38] Kevin: Uh, so at the end of the day, if we can be able to develop these products quicker with a lower cost, that's gonna move things forward quite a bit.

[00:37:49] Erum: Yeah, well said. I mean, the digital twin, you know, creating that cell, the simulations, doing things in silico. Very exciting stuff. Um, you know, again, we have people on the podcast that spoke to this, um, which is, you know, very upstream.

[00:38:02] Erum: But it's great to have someone that's really making the products that are in this large scale, you know, near the la large scale tanks actually producing at scale. So I really wanna thank you for sharing your perspective. Appreciate that. Okay, so now we're at the part of the interview where we like to have a little fun, ask very, very friendly questions.

[00:38:26] Erum: Um, we call it the quickfire round. So are you ready for this, Kevin? All right, here we go. Here we go. Okay. Um, one thing, microbes do better than humans.

[00:38:41] Kevin: So many things to choose from. At first, I was gonna say die, but that's not, uh, not very positive, but I, I'd say work together in harmony.

[00:38:52] Karl: What's a, what is a fermentation superpower you wish that microbes had tomorrow?

[00:38:58] Kevin: If I was gonna wish, I would say that we could do everything anaerobically doing anaerobic fermentation is so much easier.

[00:39:05] Kevin: So, and reduces your operational and capital costs by a huge amount. So anaerobic everything.

[00:39:12] Erum: Oh, love it. Anaerobic everything. Um, sounds like a. A book or we're gonna have to use that.

[00:39:19] Kevin: Everything is anaerobic. Yeah.

[00:39:20] Erum: Oh yeah. There we go. That's, that's your podcast. Yeah. Okay. Um, one industrial process that biotechnology should replace next.

[00:39:32] Kevin: That's a good one, but I, I keep thinking about water treatment. Like I know there's some, some bio processes, but I think there seems to be just so much more huge potential both in wastewater and clean water or drinking water treatment, um, where biotechnology could be a lot more precise than it is today.

[00:39:55] Karl: And what's the, what? What is the most underrated microorganism in biotech?

[00:40:02] Kevin: I think, you know what I'm gonna say on this one, it has to be Es Sarah, VCA, the champion, the sugar loving beer yeast. It's so, so diverse and so capable in so many ways.

[00:40:13] Karl: Yeah. Aren't if they're like a yeast, uh, I think there's like a yeast database that, that, that's produced in Belgium given their tradition in, in brewing.

[00:40:22] Karl: I'm sorry. I, I like, I know we're doing the quick fire, but I had to mention it.

[00:40:26] Kevin: Yeah. Yeah. Uh, there's quite a few ones and um, it's uh, when you overlay the genetics of the ones that are used in beer baking wine, it's just amazing what the diversity is out there that's humans have created over the years.

[00:40:42] Kevin: Amazing,

[00:40:43] Erum: amazing. Okay. Final one. If microbes could manufacture one impossible product tomorrow, what would you ask them for?

[00:40:52] Kevin: Really the single use plastics. And I think that's such a opportunity. We have pilot polyethylene that just lasts forever. Um, and we have paper that only lasts five minutes. We need to come up with a material that lasts the right amount of time.

[00:41:09] Kevin: And I think bio biotech has the. Untapped potential to do something there.

[00:41:14] Karl: That's so great. Well, Kevin, thank you so much for coming on the Grow Everything podcast. This has been such a nice conversation. Really appreciate it.

[00:41:23] Kevin: Thank you very much. I really enjoyed it. Uh, really, uh, it's great to meet you guys and, uh, you're doing such a great job talking to everybody in the industry.

[00:41:32] Kevin: Really enjoyed this.

[00:41:34] Erum: Awesome. Okay, that's a wrap.