223: Using Science & Technology to invent Plant Based Meat… Paul Shapiro of The Better Meat Co.

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Background on Paul Shapiro of Better Meat:

Paul Shapiro is the Co-Founder and CEO of The Better Meat Co. In addition to being the CEO of the company, Paul is also the author of the national bestseller, Clean Meat: How Growing Meat Without Animals Will Revolutionize Dinner and the World, and the host of the Business For Good Podcast. He is a four-time TEDx speaker, he has twenty years of experience as a nonprofit executive and has published more than a hundred articles on food sustainability, from daily newspapers to academic journals. Paul lives in Sacramento, California with his wife Toni Okamoto, author and founder of Plant-Based on a Budget, and their very friendly pitbull Eddie.

The Better Meat Co. is a business-to-business startup that helps institutional food sellers achieve their goals of culinary excellence by providing mycoproteins and plant-based proteins for food service providers and meat processors to make their meat, in a word, better. Their mycoproteins and plant-based proteins work perfectly as the basis of fully plant-based meats, and blend seamlessly into ground meat products, enabling major food users to enhance the taste of their products while improving both health and sustainability, all in a cost-competitive way.

Time-Stamped Show Notes:

  • [1:00] Paul Shapiro, 42 years old from Sacramento, California, is the CEO of The Better Meat Co. Paul explains what his company is all about.
  • [3:38] According to Paul, most people want meat but not necessarily the slaughtering part.
  • [7:08] Better Meat Co produces alternative meat that is packed with protein, iron, potassium, and most importantly, fiber.
  • [9:19] Paul’s wife is a social media influencer and has started a business.
  • [10:21] The process of creating alternative meat in Better Meat Co is vastly different from the conventional ones that come from soy, peas, and wheat. Paul fully explains how they create alternative meat from fungi.
  • [17:16] The Better Meat Co uses mycelium, which is a part of the fungi, to create food that tastes a lot like meat. They have tested it on people and they could not tell the difference from real meat.
  • [21:45] In case anyone wants to try the products made by The Better Meat Co, Paul offers some recommendations.
  • [25:30] Paul talks about technological innovations throughout history that helped abolish animal cruelties and changed the way we live.
  • [33:49] There are several reasons why The Better Meat Co chose the B2B route.
  • [39:38] One of the things that Paul has done right in his life is to surround himself with smart people or people who know a lot more in this industry.
  • [40:44] When he was 13 years old, Paul saw a video about what happens inside slaughterhouses. This opened his eyes to animal cruelty and he decided to become a vegetarian.
  • [45:00] For more than a decade, Paul helped to pass laws that would lessen animal cruelties and offer more animal protection.
  • [49:28] Paul wrote the book called Clean Meat, which chronicles the entrepreneurs and the people that wants to commercialize real meat grown from animal cells. This experience also led him to become the co-founder of The Better Meat Co in 2018.
  • [51:41] At 39 years old, Paul co-founded The Better Meat Co. He talks further about certain people who started their own business at a much younger and older age.
  • [58:42] Opening a larger manufacturing plant for The Better Meat Co is already in the planning and designing stage.
  • [1:04:07] Paul talked about how he met his co-founders.
  • [1:08:04] Not wanting to lose his investors’ money is one of Paul’s motivations to keep moving forward.
  • [1:11:32] Being in the fermentation space is quite expensive, which is immensely challenging for Paul and his co-founders.
  • [1:16:02] Paul shares his work hours and how he handles his work-life balance.

Paul Shapiro's Aging Process since Going Vegan:

Paul Shapiro with his Co-Founder, Eddie, in 1991

 

Paul Shapiro saving Cows in the Year of Our Lord – 2021

 

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Fabulous 4 Questions:

  1. 📖📚 Favorite Books? Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica
  2. 🙌😎 Favorite Amazon.com purchase? Dog Cooling Mat
  3. 🌱💸 Favorite Tool that's GROWN your Business? The Hunter Extension on Chrome
  4. 💭💡 BIGGEST Challenge keeping your Business from GROWING? What we're doing is capitally intensive since we have to build very large fermenters. The payback on such investment is massive but it requires serious upfront capital

Key Point from the Interview:

  • “Imagine if you could enjoy the experience of meat consumption but with a tiny little sliver of the land and water and greenhouse gas emissions needed with also less saturated fat, less cholesterol, fewer calories, more fiber, and something that was extremely satiating. I mean, to me, that’s better meat.”

Resources Mentioned:

 

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