How Bioengineer Mina Mekhail's Startup Extends The Shelf Life Of Salmon

Fresh salmon can have around 14 days of shelf life if the cold chain stays perfect. The problem is real life is never perfect, and one small temperature slip can turn premium seafood into waste. We’re joined by Mina Mekhail from Dartmouth-based Fresher Technologies, an EY Entrepreneur of the Year, to dig into what “freshness” actually means, why bacteria accelerates with heat, and how packaging can quietly make or break food quality.

Mina walks us through his unlikely path from biomedical engineering and biomaterials research to building a smart packaging company focused on fresh proteins. The big insight is not just technical, it’s commercial: extending shelf life only works if the market wants the solution. You’ll hear how customer discovery pushed him to pivot away from low-margin produce, move into high-value seafood, and then pivot again when processors rejected anything sprayed directly on fish because of additive and labelling concerns.

Tune in to get the inside scoop on how the technology works. We also talk about the B2B reality of adoption cost, plug-and-play integration on existing packaging lines, protecting a moat with patents and trade secrets, scaling a global business from Halifax, and what it means to partner with Mitsubishi Chemical in Japan for premium markets like wagyu beef. Mina even shares how he evaluates AI at work with clear KPIs, plus the medical potential he’s deliberately not chasing yet so the company can stay focused.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Cheers. Cheers. Welcome to the Afternoon Point. I'm Mike Tobin. I am Matt Conrad. And who's with us today? Mina Mikhail from Fresher Technologies. Fresher Technologies.

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Entrepreneur of the Year. EY Entrepreneur of the Year, yeah. Yeah. Cool. That's pretty cool.

Cheers And What Fresher Builds

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Yeah. So are you in the lettuce industry or what do you keep fresh?

SPEAKER_02 0:19

You know what? Yeah, I would have been, but I'm in a higher value freshness industry. Okay, okay, okay.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

Seafood and fresh proteins. Oh, seafood and fresh proteins, right on. Yeah. So uh tell us a little bit more about Fresher. Like, are you guys a like a Halifax company? Yeah, we're based in Dartmouth. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 0:36

Uh we've been in Dartmouth since 2020. Okay. Prior to that, we were in Montreal. So wow, okay, for a couple of years. Okay, so did did COVID move you out east? Is that what happened? You know, it's a funny story. We I founded the company in 2018, uh registered in 2017, but really started working in 2018. And we started the company, we started, you know, I can tell you a bit about the story later, but essentially when COVID hit, I originally was from Halifax, so I immigrated from the Middle East in 2001. So that ages me a little bit now. But no, you could have been two. Uh yeah. Right. Yeah, and I was doing my uh engineering degree at two, right? There you go. At DAL. Genius. And then so so we started in Halifax. My wife is from Halifax, so we got investment from you know, we got an investment from Invest Nova Scotia. We had a couple of angels who invested in us as well from the region. So all kind all stars lined up essentially when COVID hit, everything shut down in Montreal, and it was easy for us to essentially pick up and move to Halifax. Plus, the seafood industry here is huge. Right. Yeah. And it makes a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Were you doing seafood in Montreal as well? Or did you decay? Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:48

Yeah, we started actually tackling the shelf life of salmon as our entry market. And there's no that's still our market. Okay. First yeah, point of entry.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

Fresh salmon, yes.

SPEAKER_02 2:02

So fresh

Cold Chain Basics For Salmon

SPEAKER_02 2:03

salmon has 14 days of shelf life if it's not frozen. So and that's if you maintain the cold chain. It's much shorter if the cold chain gets broken for whatever reason.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

And the cold chain to people that might understand what you mean by cold chain.

SPEAKER_02 2:14

So cold chain is from the harvest of the salmon up until it ends up at the retailer, the temperatures should not rise up above a certain limit for a certain amount of time.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

Up a certain limit.

SPEAKER_02 2:25

So it can't be too high either. No, no. So I four degrees is where you would like it to be at all times between zero and four.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:32

If it hits above four for a certain amount of time, your shelf life just plummets.

SPEAKER_01 2:36

Just curious, I'm a I'm a big salmon guy. Like, is that is that like uh for sushi grade salmon? Is it very particular for that as well?

SPEAKER_02 2:43

For essentially, for uh I would say it's a general statement for any grade of sushi. Okay. I mean, the sushi that we get at the retailer is one grade, uh usually one of the highest. The highest end usually goes to sushi restaurants. Right. But any grade, uh it's just a it's a biology kind of thing. Once temperature goes up, bacteria starts growing a lot quicker.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

So it's exponentially growing as opposed to if you keep the temperature So this actually makes sense because I actually people always talk about sushi grade like fish, but I I heard that that's uh actually not a thing. It actually has everything to do with just keeping the the temperature down. Yeah. So the the grade is not any different, it's just the whether they broke the chain or not.

SPEAKER_02 3:22

So yes, and it also depends if you are if it's a farmed salmon piece of salmon or if it's a wild cod piece of salmon. So wild cod has to be treated, it has to be flash frozen at sea usually to kill any parasites, and then you know, it's that that's the best way to treat it. And then farmed salmon for the most part, it's it's pretty safe.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 3:43

There's a lot of controversy with farm salmon. Like why? Yeah, I know. I we work with uh one of the biggest producers of salmon based in Atlantic Canada. They're have a global footprint. I think the story uh this is the thing about you know big companies. The truth is always somewhere in the middle. Yes. You know, I think people like the polarizing all of these issues. They either focus so much on the negative or focus too much on the good. Right. I think it's somewhere in the middle.

SPEAKER_03 4:09

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:10

Definitely the industry has some challenges, you know. When you're putting a ton of salmon in a pen in the even in the ocean, but they're in close proximity to each other, they can transfer disease a lot faster, parasites and so forth, like lice and whatnot.

SPEAKER_01 4:23

That makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 4:24

And can also transfer to the wild, you know, who come closer to the to the pen and and and swim away. So but you know, the industry is dealing with that. Yeah, yeah. There's also some you know about the feed that you have to give the salmon, how is that pro, you know, produced? Is it sustainable or is it not? You know, so there's a whole but on the other hand, you know, if you think of farmed salmon, when you're when you have a growing population worldwide, you know, it's one of the most sustainable ways of producing salmon. You know, it it it is. Yeah, and and there's a lot of data to support that. And this is independent data. This is not data produced by the salmon companies, this is data produced by FAO and others. So it is, it's still a sustainable per kilo of salmon that you're producing is still more sustainable, let's say, than a kilo of beef. You know, beef produces a lot of methane, just right just cow roaming around, you know, doing its thing. Yeah, gas. So, you know, there there's there's still some and also you also look at how much if I'm feeding the salmon a pound of food, how much of that translates into meat? Like how much of the weight is gained. So that is also very sustainable when it comes to salmon farming.

SPEAKER_01 5:29

Your preference, like for you, what do you think do you enjoy the taste of farmed salmon or wild salmon better? Or do you would you honestly say you know the difference? I know some people would and some people probably wouldn't. You can't tell the difference. You can't.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

I mean if you if you eat enough salmon, you can. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. The foreign salmon tends to be a bit more pink, the fat layers between the flakes is a bit thicker, the wild, the fat layer is thinner, and it's more red.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

But you really don't think most people would notice the difference. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_00 5:56

If if you don't eat salmon that much, you wouldn't notice the difference. No, no. Okay, cool. So what he's saying is the ones that are in the cage are a little more fat because they're fat and lazy. Swimming out there. Yeah, I think that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_01 6:07

I tell you, I eat both. I eat farm salmon and wild salmon. I don't notice the difference. So that's that's why I'm asking, right? And I I mean, you know, it's it and I've also like know where I flipped a my my partner. We've been trying coho salmon lately in comparison to Atlantic, and and Mo's different. What? It even tastes a little bit quite different from Atlantic salmon. Yeah, yeah. I love the taste of coho salmon though, quite a bit too, right? In addition to Atlantic. I think I've always just went for Atlantic just because of where I live, right? Right. But interesting stuff.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

I don't think I have a preference, to be honest with you. No, I don't think I really do either. Yeah. Yeah, like if I'm really thinking about it, it's like I I mean I like salmon in general, and I generally like you know, cook it or whatever. I I I guess I'd have to sit back because when I cook it at home, you always add like lemon, dill, and whatever, right? But like I guess you'd have to really have it as sushi, like sashimi sashimi, yeah, for me to really think, like, really tell the difference, I think. And most sashimi you're getting at, you know, your average sushi restaurant is farmed.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

Is that what it is? Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

Alright.

SPEAKER_01 7:07

So, like, what got you into this business where you started analyzing temperatures to keep the preserve the uh integrity of salmon and other proteins?

SPEAKER_02 7:17

Yeah, funny enough, uh I'll give you a bit of a backstory here because that's relevant. So I uh I did my engineering degree at DAL in 2001, started and finished in 2006, did a master's and and and I focused on biomedical

From Biomaterials To Food Waste

SPEAKER_02 7:32

engineering, so that sounds like completely out of like left field here, but did biomedical engineering but focused on what's called biomaterials. So these are materials that are used either to solve some biological issue in the body. So, you know, think if you put a stent in or if you put a heart valve in for a patient, you know, all of these are materials going inside your body. Yeah, so they need to be designed, engineered to react to your body, and you know. So that's kind of the field I focused on. So did a master's in that and then went to McGill in Montreal, did a PhD continuing that. My work and my PhD was actually related to spinal cord injuries. Okay. So it's about designing a material that you can inject where the spinal cord injury happened to hope and regain some, not function, but some sensation in the depending on where the you know the injury happened. So some recovery of some sort, right? So so it's all I've been a materials, I call myself a materials guy at the end of the day, right? That's my expertise. So finished my PhD, um, worked for a few years, and then I wanted to start a I've I've been an entrepreneur, I've had the entrepreneurial bug. I started a tutoring company on the side when I was doing my PhD, which my supervisor didn't know about. So that was kind of fun. Yeah, and it was actually in Halifax while I was in Montreal. I had the tutoring company here. Oh no, really? Because I there was a bigger gap in the market here, so I decided to focus here. So just do virtual sessions? No, so I didn't do the tutoring myself, so that's the fun part. Is I hired a bunch of people here, and I I just uh you know, you just match them and you make a cut, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:56

So it was an easy yeah, dummies like us could do that. Almost. They'd have to have faith that we can educate them first. Yeah, we don't have to hire other people. That's right, that's right. That's that's the smart right. You just need to hire smart people. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 9:09

Yeah, exactly. Um, yeah, so I've always had the entrepreneur bug. So I wanted to start a company using my biomaterials expertise. Yeah, didn't want to do it in the medical field because there's a lot of red tape and it's very hard to take a product to market. So, you know, it takes millions of dollars and and and years and years to get a product to market. So I was very passionate about the food waste problem. Always been. Mainly from my background. You know, I come from the Middle East, from Egypt originally, but I lived in Qatar, Dubai. Okay. Qatar, Dubai, very affluent. So we come from a middle class, so it's not like we struggled with with food insecurity, but in Egypt, you see a lot of people struggling with food insecurity. Like it's very wide.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

And here's a question: I don't know, but in general, when you were growing up, was food waste like, you know, just frowned upon? How is it? Very frowned upon. Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:53

So talk a little bit about that. Very frowned upon. This is something that gets beat into you like when you're a kid, like you know, you and it's not just you have to eat your vegetables. No, no, this is like we don't waste. So it and it's on all levels. So like parents going shopping to buy enough food that will last us for that period, not more, not less. Yeah, yeah. You're eating whatever's on your plate. When you're eating out, you don't overeat. Like it's making sure that you're not wasting any food. Food is is is still a big uh is a is a big deal in in in Egypt at least, right? So the idea is don't waste any of it. So that's hammered in you know into you when you're a kid.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

That's so cool.

SPEAKER_02 10:32

Yeah, and and and it was not an it was, you know, I never knew that I would start a company that was focused on food waste, but you know, here to here we are.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:40

And so essentially I wanted to tackle the food waste somehow. So just wanted to use my materials expertise to tackle that problem.

SPEAKER_01 10:47

So is it just refrigeration or is there certain like other elements that you have to put into this packaging in order for it to sustain that temperature? Are there certain chemicals that help it sustain like chemist that the sorry the temperature?

SPEAKER_02 11:00

Yeah, yeah, so we don't do anything with temperature. So we are just working in addition to this to the cool chain. Oh, okay. So what we do is our technology essentially is a

The Coating That Slows Bacteria

SPEAKER_02 11:09

coating that we apply on the packaging. So when the coating gets in contact with the food, absorbs a little bit of the water, yeah, creates, you know, what we call I don't want to get too technical, and essentially by reducing that the water activity on the surface, we reduce the growth of the bacteria so we can extend the shelf life of the product. It's like smart Tupperware. Yeah, you know, yeah. A lot of people thought it is, you know, think of it as like smart saran wraps, yeah, simple bags, smart tupperware, like yeah, brilliant. Okay, but we don't have we don't do a B2C business, we're a B2B business. So we we are working with you know either processors or film manufacturers to integrate our technology into their existing infrastructure.

SPEAKER_01 11:49

Yeah, cool. That's awesome. I got it now. You got it, yeah. It took took me a minute.

SPEAKER_00 11:58

It's almost like he was telling people. So yeah, yeah, we can't I can't go and buy stuff to preserve you for longer. No, no, no. I'll need a few more years to develop that. There you go. Hey, I'm all for that. There you go. Let's let's uh get to reversing age, that'd be awesome. Yeah, so okay. So then it's like it's such an amazing thing that you that your journey because you took from materials and then you you matched it with this thing. So it's like I don't know how I I'm trying to get to the point where like, how did you actually like come up with this this idea? Like, because it's so cool. Uh we we've worked in commercial insurance, so we get to talk to people all the time who like come up with an idea and then we have to try to find a way to insure it. Yeah, like how do you come up with an idea out of nothing? Like you just pulled something out of the air.

SPEAKER_02 12:45

Yeah, it seems like it's out of yeah, but it it actually was an evolution, right? So so my first idea is I essentially went and Googled a bunch of who's extending shelf life, how are they doing it currently, right now? But why'd you think of that? What made you think of that? Well, it was essentially where I matched my desire to tackle

Customer Discovery And The Big Pivots

SPEAKER_02 13:04

food waste with my technical expertise. So I had these two things. Um I was thinking, how can I bring these two things together? So how can I use materials to reduce food waste? So my first my first intuition was you know, extend shelf life. Yeah, okay. Um and I looked at fresh fruits and vegetables, and my first product that I kind of that was my goal was to develop a spray to spray fresh fruits and vegetables to extend their shelf life. Right. So that seemed like a very easy, kind of intuitive idea. There was a company, and they're still, you know, they're still here. They're called Appeal Sciences out of California, so they're in Silicon Valley. So they they are worth $2 billion now. And that's what they do. So they're spraying, and they're not even splay spraying all the all produce, they're only spraying uh lime, avocados, and bananas or something like that. Okay, and extending the shelf life. And they're worth two billion dollars. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 13:55

So is your how does your product apply? Yeah, so I'll I'll come to that.

SPEAKER_02 13:59

So my my initial idea was okay, let's do that, and I can do it cheaper, better, whatever, yeah, than these guys. But so that was my idea. And then I joined a program in Montreal where you have to do something called the business model validation. And this is key because I think a lot of deep tech entrepreneurs, like people with a lot of technical expertise, they fall in love with the product or the idea and they just go and do it. Yeah, so essentially what I this was the idea that I went in with, and they challenge you. So they say, Well, good idea, but now I want you to go through what's called the customer discovery program. Yeah, it's part of the business model validation, where you go to talk to a hundred people in the supply chain or in the in the industry that you want to work in. So I went and talked to the produce farmers, you know, wholesalers, and all of everything that I kept hearing over and over is you if this thing is, it has to be super cheap, like pennies. Right. This is a low-value commodity. Yeah, so even if you go avocados, which is considered like on the top, or strawberries or blueberries, which are on the higher end because they spoil quite fast, yeah, you still this thing needs to be like super cheap. And in my head, I was like, you know, if you're a startup developing a new tech, there's no way you're gonna make it cheap out of the gate. Yeah you know, you have to be in an industry where it's able to absorb some of that high cost at the beginning. So moved away from produce. That was my first pivot is move away from produce, yeah, low-value commodity. Yeah, yeah. Moved into seafood. I said, okay, what is from all the foods, what is highest value per pound? And seafood came on the top. On average, seafood is very expensive. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Looked at what's the highest selling by volume, and it's salmon. Well, perfect. So salmon is the way to go. So I my idea pivoted into spray salmon, extend the shelf life. Talk to salmon producers, farmers, associations, retailers. I talked to, I remember like guys from Soapies, Costco, uh everywhere. It changes consumer habits, right?

SPEAKER_01 15:48

Because you know, I mean, a family like us, we give away groceries on Sunday, right? You know, and we get our food for a week. So that salmon's not going to make it two days, and the salmon might not go get in the current that way. Exactly. Right? So you need your salmon and you need some of your proteins to last exactly four or five days. Right. If you're going on a if on once on a once-a-week run. Exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:08

So, and and and that is a there is a huge need in in retail. I'll talk about that later separately. But essentially, when I talked to them, they said, Yeah, we love the idea of you extending shelf light, but we don't want you to spray it on the fish. Because if you spray it on the fish, it goes on the on the label, on the food label as an additive. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:23

So if you're if you I was gonna talk about that because some people get more like you know, people get a little bit kind of bugged out about spraying things on food, whether it's been tested or not.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

Oh, I get bugged out about that stuff. I don't understand it, I'm not comfortable with it, right?

SPEAKER_03 16:35

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:36

So so they that's what they said. So that that was a red flag for me.

SPEAKER_03 16:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:40

So I said, okay, we don't want to put anything on the food. So the next pivot, so there's my second pivot, is how can we that instead of spraying it on the food, let's put it on the package and let's chemically bind it to the package so nothing actually goes into the food.

unknown 16:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 16:54

It only extends shelf life when in contact. Once you remove the package, nothing left nothing is off that coating is left on the food.

SPEAKER_01 17:01

It all goes that that seems weird to me, because I mean, uh, and you're probably correct. Me, if you have a Ph e I do not. No, no, no, no. But like all molecules and stuff, I've always thought they always kind of intertwine to some degree when they touch, even if so it's almost it's almost impossible because once two things make contact, yeah, they now become a part of the sum of two things. Like, do do they not to some degree? Yes and no. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 17:24

So when you have two things in contact with each other, in our case, think of it as a very thin layer of a sponge.

unknown 17:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 17:33

I think that's a good way to imagine. Sure, yeah. Think that you have a very thin layer of sponge on the film that is in contact with your with your salmon. The sponge is not gonna go into the salmon. All it's gonna do is suck up a little bit of water from the surface of the salmon, retain it, so the bacteria doesn't have enough water to grow, okay, and redu and slow it down. Yeah, cool. So I think that's the easiest way to imagine what the product is.

SPEAKER_01 17:56

Okay, cool.

SPEAKER_00 17:57

That's pretty cool. Also, you're yeah, like molecules do move in and out of like the probably molecules of me have moved into you at some point, and just in this conversation, I don't like when you say that.

SPEAKER_03 18:09

I don't want to know about this.

SPEAKER_00 18:10

Yeah, I know. That sounds like a different show. Yeah. But yeah, no, so okay, so yeah, so you're spraying on the packages. So then you don't have to include it on on the food, which is I think people will obviously that puts some like puts their mind at ease. Right. Because, you know, anytime someone everyone on the internet today is saying, like, you know, if you can't say certain ingredients, don't buy it. That being said, you know, there's lots of ingredients that are completely natural, normal, that yeah, we don't know how to say them. But right, still, I think it's I think it was the wise choice for your company just to kind of go in that direction. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:43

So so we did two things. We decided that we're gonna so I hadn't I had not designed any product yet. I had zero product. This was just me trying to validate what I call the product market fit. Because the last thing you want to do is spend a lot of time and effort developing something that you think is a great idea.

SPEAKER_01 19:01

You're like all in on salmon. That's yeah. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_02 19:03

Yeah, and and like if I had gone with spray it on salmon, you know, that's that's what I think is a great idea, it's brilliant. From a technical perspective, it's it's good, it's easy, I can implement. But when you look at the market, the market doesn't want that, right? Yeah. So you need to find that product market fit. You need to see what the market needs. So whatever you're developing fits the needs, right? It's very simple, it's it's it's it's funny because it's a very simple concept, but you would be surprised at the number of deep tech companies that don't have a good product market fit. Huh. That will go to market with a product that the founder fell in love with, fell in love with the product, not the problem.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

Yeah, yeah. And they're should translate to a public need, right? And it has to do that and it has to manage all their insecurities. You have to understand how Mike or Matt thinks.

SPEAKER_00 19:47

Yeah. So is there like when you go to when you go and you take your idea to you know a hundred people and talk about it, like, is there any type of fear that you're like, ugh, am I giving away too much that someone else might jump in and take this thing? So you don't actually tell them your idea. There's an art to how you do customer discovery.

SPEAKER_02 20:03

Yeah, okay. So customer because if I tell you the idea, you're gonna be nice to me and tell me like a bunch of, oh, this is this is a Yeah, that must be a fear. Yeah, yeah. A great solution. So you don't want to bias. So there's an art to it. So we had to learn that. So the way you do it is you don't even say that I'm I'm not developing anything. I'm just coming to you because I'm doing research on the fresh protein industry. Okay. And I don't mention anything about shelf life or anything. I just say I'm I'm a student. Yeah. I'm doing some research on shelf life. You as an industry player, what are your top three problems when it comes to fresh proteins? Huh. I don't I don't mention any. If shelf life is one of the top three things that they mentioned, then I know that there's a need. Okay. But that doesn't mean that I've validated my product yet. I just I've only validated the need. Yeah, you found the the problem. Exactly. You don't have the solution yet. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 20:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:50

But then after that, then you ask them, okay, how do you currently tackle your shelf life issues? Then they will list whatever they're doing. Refrigeration, salt, salt, yeah, exactly. Smoke it, salt, salt it, do whatever, right? Yeah. And then at the end, all of these are unbiased answers, because I have not biased them based on what I'm doing. And then at the end, you propose and say, well, if there was a solution to extend this way, what would you perceive? Like, would that be positive or not? And then they would give you the I think by then you've already won their trust, and they would be like honest, more honest than if you're just called calling someone and they don't know you and just want to be nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good idea. It's kind of like offering them a beer to come on a podcast.

SPEAKER_00 21:28

Yeah. More or less. Yeah. That's the only trick we've got. That's it's great, it works well. Yeah. So that's that's interesting because yeah, because I always thought about that. Give you one around telling a lot of people your idea. It's like I didn't disclose that.

SPEAKER_02 21:44

There's a huge gap. I mean, I can tell you that ideas are a dime a dozen.

SPEAKER_00 21:48

Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_02 21:48

And then with we have sixteen a day. I've learned that too, because I had this fear that you're talking about. I don't want to disclose my ideas, I don't want to disclose, but what I learned is to go from idea to ex. Execution to like the final product. So much work.

SPEAKER_03 22:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:03

So that's your that's your uh moat. That's right. That's where most of the yeah. That's where you don't worry. Like you can mention your idea.

SPEAKER_00 22:10

Good point. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So then you take you found your idea, like you, you know, you got found the problem, you're now working on your solution. Like, how do you like how do you launch this to the world? Like, how do you launch it to your customers?

SPEAKER_03 22:26

Right.

SPEAKER_02 22:27

So I'll start from the point where I pivoted. Yeah. I'll tell you because it kind of it explains how that happens. So when I said let's put the stuff on the packaging itself, nothing goes into the food.

SPEAKER_01 22:38

Nothing.

SPEAKER_02 22:40

And it was just an idea. And I cold called the one of the biggest salmon producers in the world, actually, the sixth biggest. And

Getting Traction With Major Players

SPEAKER_02 22:48

I and I was like, hey, I talked to one of the directors there, and we had the same exchange where I was just not biasing them in any way, and at the end saying that if a solution like this existed, would you be interested? And essentially, this is when the guy said, Where the heck do we buy this thing from? Like, we're we're very interested. Like, where do we get this? Huh. Then I heard this from others, two or three others, that validated that the solution has legs. So not only that there's a need that shelf life is a problem, but this way of doing it, this way of solving it is the way that the market wants. There's actually an there was a there's an art to approaching them as well. Yeah. So they kind of taught us all of that in the incubator, which I'm very grateful for. Stuff I never learned in a PhD, right? Yeah. You don't but depend you first identify the person. You go, you don't just approach anyone, you don't go to the contact us page, you don't do that. You identify the person. You learn everything you can about the person, yeah, including have they given any talks? Or you know, have they are they and any press release? Are they what are they responsible? You and you just draft the email by first acknowledging, you know, oh, I've heard this thing that you're just yeah, yeah. You really like you want to grab their attention. I I learned that now because I'm I'm on the receiving end of such emails now.

SPEAKER_01 24:13

So like now I like when people said that's 101, right? You know, and an email today, I I actually just said PS. And I mean I this wasn't something I meant. But I said I love the work that you guys are doing. Yeah. Because I do. And and I mean that's I wouldn't invite you on the show if I didn't, right? But that gets a response too. Yeah. Right. So you know, I'm being genuine in what I say, right? It's a true compliment. Exactly. Yeah. But at the same time, it takes a little bit of extra digging and a little extra research to see the work they've done or the commitment they've made to society. Right.

SPEAKER_02 24:42

Yeah. And that resonates, right? I mean, that's sales. I mean, you guys are both. I mean, I I was not a sales guy. I'm a very technical guy.

SPEAKER_01 24:49

So for me to learn this was uh You sound like a sales guy the way you you manipulated me on that salmon play, like the molecule play. You've got you've you've got it, man. Yeah, you're a closer.

SPEAKER_02 24:58

Yeah. I had to learn it on the job, right?

SPEAKER_00 25:02

But uh but yeah, so you have like this health healthcare type of innovation background, yeah. You know, maybe there's something to be said about like you know, spraying people with this thing.

SPEAKER_03 25:15

Keep it them off, keeping them longer.

SPEAKER_02 25:18

This is like a solution for ER wait times and how you spray those guys before they go to the house so they can last longer. They're gonna be there for six hours, anyways. Oh, you got your sticks. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:31

You might be on to something else.

SPEAKER_02 25:33

There you go. I just disclosed the idea.

SPEAKER_00 25:35

Yeah, there you go. All right. Well, we thought of it, so we're partners. A lot of work.

SPEAKER_02 25:39

You guys equity. Exactly. But yeah, so that's how it started. But then once you do that and you get in touch with these people, then you have one company, and then you use that one company to leverage a second, you know, like, hey, I'm working, so and so. If if if it's under NDA, you cannot disclose if it's not again. But then you'll use that to leverage and get other connections. So we've we've and funny enough, like um again, not to say that like in any boasting manner, but we've had a lot of inbound interest. Like we do little outbound biz dev. Okay, so business is good then. It's good in the sense that we you know, it's good, it's a good problem to have, let's just say that. Okay. Because because if business has come to you and you're not ready, so if it's too early, yeah, then you kind of burn that cart early. So our one of the major retailers can disclose, NDA, yeah, very very got very excited, said we're gonna deploy this thing in Toronto in a bunch of our stores in Toronto, high like a premium, yeah, high-end shoppers. Yeah, they wanted their salmon fresh. This makes sense. We didn't have the capacity to produce like a thousand samples or oh wow. We don't have like I I we were five people, and uh we were doing a whole bunch of stuff, and I I just I I I couldn't I couldn't meet their ask. So that kind of it was good that there's the validation, but I I couldn't match the how many people is your company now? We're 12 people, we just hired another person, we're 13 now.

SPEAKER_01 27:04

So we're fairly small. Yeah, yeah, that's great though. Small, but like you know, quite do you have competitors in the region, or are you pretty much a one-of-a-kind type of?

SPEAKER_02 27:13

I would say we do have competitors in people who are trying to extend shelf life in general, yeah. Using different ways of extending shelf life, but exactly like the way we're doing it where we're putting the stuff on the packaging itself, there's no one that I know of.

SPEAKER_00 27:25

Is there any worry that someone could like copy that and become a competitor though? There's always that risk. Yeah. You can never there's no patent to protect the product. Oh, of course there is that.

SPEAKER_02 27:35

Yeah, oh yeah, yeah. We have patents to protect your product. Yeah, but it's in the sense that would

Patents Trade Secrets And Speed

SPEAKER_02 27:40

someone else have a workaround or start doing it differently, but kind of similar. Yeah, that's always a risk for sure. But there's always being a first mover that gives you that advantage. So we're that's why speed to market is is top of our mind, like top of mind for us. We need to penetrate the market and and try to like get a big chunk of that market before someone else because it will happen. I mean, people, especially from some regions of the world, yeah, they'll yeah, you know, say you'll find all these, you know. So but you have to build a moat. So part of our moat defensive moat is IP. So having a strong IP strategy both on a patent and trade secret side. So because a patent is made public, right? So you wanna patent it to protect it, you want to put that in the outside world, but you want to leave certain elements as trade secrets so that you're even if someone reads the patent, it's gonna be very hard to duplicate.

SPEAKER_01 28:31

100%, unless they're really on the inside. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 28:34

Yeah, and then at the same time, you want to build moat by just by penetrating the market as fast, be a first mover, make sure you are the name, the brand, the brand is a moat. So pressure becomes the the brand that people go to when they think extension of shelf life proteins, right? So that's a moat.

SPEAKER_00 28:51

So when when you're building building a company like this, because you're really trying to be a global company. Do you find like because you came from a big market, obviously you're from like you know, you were going to school here in Halifax, but you went to Montreal, you that's a big market city. Do you do you find it's any like is it harder to be a global company

Building From Halifax In A Small Market

SPEAKER_00 29:12

in a smaller market like Halifax?

SPEAKER_02 29:14

I would say yes and no. There are some advantages, some disadvantages. So the pros of being here is you can be a big fish in a small pond.

SPEAKER_00 29:25

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:26

In a way, you can grow, like, and you can be a significant player in the in the region, right? Yeah. And we hope to be that one day. We hope to be like a significant part of the Atlantic economy.

SPEAKER_03 29:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:38

Atlantic Canada economy. So the disadvantages though is when you go raise money, so I raise money from investors, right? So I remember going, I was raising my uh previous round, and I would talk to investors from Silicon Valley and they had no clue where Halifax is on the map, right? Exactly. Like they're like, hey, you're where are you from? Canada. Oh great. Are you Vancouver? No. Toronto, no. Uh Montreal, no. So where where are you based? Keep going. So and and Halifax is is and I would say that that's changing slowly. Ten years ago, the startup ecosystem was nowhere close to what it is today. I think I think today the startup ecosystem is a lot stronger in Halifax.

SPEAKER_01 30:17

And it's that's a good thing to hear. It is a good thing. Yeah. I've heard I've heard things that don't actually reflect that. I've heard we need to do a lot better here. We're not doing we're not we're not nearly as focused as we should be with the education systems that we have in place here in Halifax. Like we have some brilliant minds coming out of Dalhousie University every single day. Right. And other universities also, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:38

Right. No, and I and I don't think we're there. I just think that if you compare today to 10 years, there's an improvement. I think there's still more to be done. Yeah. I mean, if if I looked at the Montreal ecosystem, the startup is way stronger. Like and it's just sheer size of Montreal, the fact that a lot of HQs of big companies were in Montreal for a very long time. But I think, anyways, we can talk about that because uh, you know, why why isn't the Atlantic region as strong? You do have some of those unicorns that come, you know, up in Newfoundland here. Well, it's a great question though.

SPEAKER_01 31:07

Like, why why do you I mean why do you think the Atlantic region isn't so strong? I mean, in your opinion. I I love just understanding the perspective of someone that's done it.

SPEAKER_02 31:15

I think it's multiple reasons.

SPEAKER_01 31:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:19

I think for the longest time the Atlantic region has been very much focused on the resource industry. So, you know, your forestries, your fisheries, you know. And there was much less focus on high value industries, manufacturing, yeah, you know, even even the resource industry, thinking like lumber and turning it into high-value products, selling that, there's not much of that. Like it's just sell the raw, raw ingredients, right? So there needs to be a shift in mindset from resource focused, which I know the current government is very big on resources and resources, you know, it does. It's yeah, I mean, we know we need to equation for sure.

SPEAKER_01 31:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:56

But but if you look at if you look at in the if you look at the US, for example, innovation is what drives the US economy. If you look at Taiwan, like this tiny, you know, island state, yeah, but they are the biggest microchip producer. Like their innovation is really what drives the long, I would say long-term innovation.

SPEAKER_01 32:15

You're taking the words right out of my mouth. From like about two weeks ago, I wrote something on the arts community here in Halifax and this potential to be an export, you know, around the world. And and I mean, you know, that sounds like a totally different thing, arts community, but it's the same thing. Right. Like, you know, it's it is this innovation, right? That that you know, we need to trust in ourselves to that we can create.

SPEAKER_00 32:34

I think that's a theme that we've had on our show for a while now, is that we need to start understanding that we can't just like cycle the same money around this province. We need to start taking money from other spots, right? Which means we need to start being more global, right? People like yourself, like you know, you need to start selling your product to Europe, right? Or you can, at the very least, you can assist at selling fish to go to Europe because you can keep it for longer, right? Kind of thing, things like that. So you're gonna assist the economy in two ways, right? And we need more of that. We need more people, like you said, like in actually like just making things here, because if we can make things here, that means we can sell them to the world. And yeah, I mean, uh yeah, we need resources, it's true. I'm for all for that. Uh, because we we need to bridge the gap between now and ten years from now when we have wind farms to sell electricity to people, right? We only have resources or mines for so long.

SPEAKER_01 33:24

Yeah, and then the mine runs out, and then it's what you got. Like, I mean, that that that's really kind of where I get stuck on that on that equation, right? You know, you need uh a truly renewable resources, brilliant human beings, and artistic human beings, and people that live and love and breathe where they live, right? And then they create cool stuff, right?

SPEAKER_00 33:42

Right? No, 100% agree. Yeah, we we we talked about mining and stuff like that in here, and it all that's great now, because we do need that now. But the fact is that when you say when and we hear really nice things where they say, like, oh, we got enough whatever, like oil to mine for the next 35 years. It's like, great. What's gonna happen in 35 years though? Yeah, where's that gonna be then? We've used all that up, right? And it then you're just like you're just kicking the rock down the street, right? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:11

And there's something else about I mean, we can go down that rabbit hole, but I mean there's something else about renewable energy, which which is it it the the current the current oil heavy heavy economies in the world right now, you know, very much dependent on oil, you know, stuff like what's happening right now in the Strait of Hormuz is impacting the entire globe. Yes, right? So having renewable energy kind of detaches you from that, gives you that sovereignty to you know not and and and if more countries do that, I mean there's there's something to be said about that. No, but yeah, you're absolutely right.

SPEAKER_01 34:51

Like isn't a little bit silly that we as a globe rely on this this this body of water, right? This this to for all of us to really do okay, and I mean and it's in a stable spot, yeah. Like, you know, there's no there's no nice way to say it. It's obviously uh a delicate area of the world, like maybe it has been for a long time. It's never not been, right? Yeah, absolutely, Matt. Like it's like, why are we not trying to do things and create, and why do we keep going back to the old tricks whenever we try to innovate? Because it just again, it fizzles out. I mean, I love I mean you you have a product here that could go around the globe, I think. I mean, potentially. I mean, I don't know enough about it to say that for sure, but we do have, I mean, we already have global partnerships.

SPEAKER_02 35:38

You do, right? One of our biggest partnerships is with Mitsubishi Chemical Corp in Japan, for example.

SPEAKER_03 35:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 35:43

So they've come here, they've visited Halifax again, they've never been like the ones who've been to Canada, they've been to Halifax, so it's not. Are you spraying dirt bikes? Sorry?

SPEAKER_01 35:51

Like, I'm sorry, like what are you

Global Partners And New Proteins

SPEAKER_01 35:53

what are you doing with those guys?

SPEAKER_02 35:54

These dirt bikes need to be more fresh. So Mitsubishi is not just the automotive, I'm just holding, you know, but it's it's a complicated structure, but Mitsubishi Chemical is its own company. Okay, yeah. And they, you know, they're one of the biggest conglomerates in uh in Japan. They make massive, massive. They're very big. Yeah, and so one of their business units is uh packaging business unit. So they're very interested in our coding on their film as an add-on for their customers in Japan. Oh, that would be huge. So we're looking at Wagu beef, for example, very premium.

SPEAKER_01 36:26

Yeah, yeah. You want to get that from the other side of the world. Let's go.

SPEAKER_02 36:32

Uh bring that bring that Kobe beef over. Yeah, Kobe beef, waggle beef, yeah. So it's uh, you know, they're very interested in that. You know, so so that's and that and this is the application we're working. So we've actually expanded into beef because of their interest in beef.

SPEAKER_01 36:45

So now we're focused on salmon and beef is your next market, I think, hands down, right? Because I'm uh you know, I know a lot about you know certain types of beef, so does Matt. So we're uh yeah. Are you guys why why is that? I just barbecue like we're both meditarians, more or less. I'm actually reformed. I'm much more vegetarian now than I have ever been, though, because we actually do meat this month again at our home, and now we're doing at least two vegetarian meals a week, and we might even move to three soon. Because I had to bring my cholesterol on at 42.

SPEAKER_00 37:15

Uh so uh yeah, that's but that being said, I think both of us, like both of us just feel at home cooking meat over a fire. Yeah, yeah. There was something about it. It's 100% the best. And wagu too. I mean, have you tried Wagu? Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:28

I haven't tried an official A5 Wagu from Japan. No, yeah. No. I mean, I I haven't. I'd love to.

SPEAKER_02 37:33

It has to be So there's there's a bunch of farmers in uh there's one in New Brunswick, there's one in Alberta, they have Wagu, and but they they crossbreed them with uh Angus on meat.

SPEAKER_00 37:42

But also, like, give a shout out to the two boys over in Cole Harbor. They actually brought in Japanese. Oh, did they brought in official? Yeah, okay. Yeah, they brought it in. Man, it looks uh it's like it's like a hundred dollars a pound or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 37:54

I see a lot of like Australian Wagos and other stuff flooded the market right now. And some of it's just like I mean, Superstore sells a Wagyu burger for eleven dollars. It's not the same. I don't think it's the same idea. You need to eat the actual steak, yeah. The actual steak. I want the whole experience. So I'm not I mean, I just don't want to do it until the conditions are the dissolve in your mouth feels. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't want to cook that one. You don't need teeth. Yeah, you don't you can just it just melt. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 38:21

Yeah, sounds weird, but I'm getting that yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:24

I know, I'm getting low on my beer too. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 38:27

Anyway, back yeah, so yeah, the the there's the end basically it's endless where you can go when you're kind of when you're looking at like what you're kind of preserving. But I mean, because I mean, realistically, we're talking about food here, but really lots of other things.

SPEAKER_01 38:38

You said something grim earlier about bodies, but if you think about it, I mean, honest honestly God, if you're in a certain way to for funeral hopes. No, you're laughing, but no, but why? But like I mean, I mean, there's we're trying to help you out, man. You're laughing at us. Yeah. Maybe we're too dark, maybe we're too morbid. Yeah. I'm happy to license my technology to you guys. You can get smoke on markets.

SPEAKER_00 39:00

We we just became official salespeople for fresh or you'll have to have that funeral for three more weeks.

SPEAKER_01 39:05

We'll be fine.

SPEAKER_00 39:09

Embalming? That's just intrusive. This is a naturally derived uh exactly. Sorry. Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 39:17

Yeah, we're going off the rails here. I apologize. See, this is why we we have a rough outline of what you get to do.

SPEAKER_00 39:22

Yeah, it's a rough outline, but you know, you get you get a you get a laugh about food preservation.

SPEAKER_02 39:26

Yeah, yeah, it's true. I never thought it could be funny, but you guys do.

SPEAKER_00 39:29

There you go, there you go. We try, right? Okay, so I I I want to like talk a little bit. I I wanted your opinion on because I mean it it's like awesome, fresher, great kind of actions that you're gonna be doing to bring in the economy for Halifax, help things out in Nova Scotia. But I we did want to talk a little bit about your like

Medical Potential Without Losing Focus

SPEAKER_00 39:48

because you have a like a healthcare type of background. Yeah, we'd love to get your opinions on that because you know, right now you're you're focused, you're you're you know, you're uh like raison d'et, your reason for being is is food preservation for scarcity, but we do need a lot of work in healthcare. I mean, is if is there is there any desire there at all like to think about like hey, what can I use my resources to go back and improve the healthcare world right now? Because obviously that is in dire straits too, and in in some ways, right?

SPEAKER_02 40:21

Yeah, I would say our technology itself has medical applications. Okay. I just I'm trying to be laser focused on food. Fair. You know, we want to succeed in that market, we want to, you know, capture the market share. Moving into another vertical is, you know, maybe I'll digress a little bit, but I'll come back to that point. One of the mistakes, too, that I feel, you know, I'm trying to learn myself is as a deep tech entrepreneur where you develop this technology is don't follow every shiny object. Yeah, you have to stay focused. And uh and I've seen companies in the past, you know, including unfortunate like okay. I think we're good. You know, like I don't know if you guys heard recently about meta materials, for example. You know, they've they were one of the unicorns out of the region. They've developed this again, their materials company.

SPEAKER_00 41:09

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_02 41:10

They grew, they got listed, they went to IPO and this reverse acquisition thing, and essentially, anyways, they grew into a billion dollars and then they plummeted and then they declared bankruptcy, and there's a whole drama about it. But anyways, it kind of peaked and went down fairly quickly. And one of the what I I mean it's a sad story because I think definitely interesting technology, but one of the things I'm trying to learn is I look at all the different companies and say, okay, what can I learn? You know, from these so one of the things is that they were in too many verticals.

SPEAKER_01 41:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 41:38

And I I don't want to do it, but definitely there's a medical medical application. And the medical application would be in in wound healing specifically. Okay, yeah. All right.

SPEAKER_00 41:47

Yeah, because our technology, we I was also thinking about like organ trans, like organ, like not transplants, like but like preserving our organs before they get transplanted. But that's actually where I was kind of going with this. Is like, you know, is there a way that I'm sure there's always someone who needs a kidney and always needs a heart or something like that, but like what if not? Like what if we somehow have a surplus? Is there a way that you know? What's funny is I actually looked into that.

SPEAKER_01 42:11

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_02 42:13

But I didn't want to get too excited because uh I wanted to stay laser focused. But yeah, there's definitely an application in in or in the organ transplant industry, but there's also an application in wound healing. Okay. The the coating that we've done, we can make it into a powder, you know, we can put it on band-aids, and it has you know antimicrobial properties from the medical side. So it has a whole bunch of stuff that we can use it in. And and the stuff that we used to make, the coating, they're naturally derived ingredients. So we're actually one of the things we was one of the boundaries, our design boundaries, was to make it as sustainable as possible. So one of the ingredients actually comes from the waste from the waste uh from a waste stream in the seafood industry. And and the other ingredients are naturally derived. So so that was actually by design. That's very, very interesting. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 43:02

I think I was just trying to preserve my face, man, but you you guys are going on a whole nother tangent, right? When I pass, I just wanted to stay look I just wanted to stay looking good.

SPEAKER_00 43:12

Well, it's just I I know that like when it comes to like there's always like such a rush when it comes to if you have a kidney donor, it's like you need to like come right now and get your kidney, you know. And I'm just wondering if they're if the you know if you're on the brink of like maybe having some technology where it's like it's like no, don't worry about it. We'll schedule in like you know two weeks from now.

SPEAKER_02 43:30

I don't think we can replace current what it what currently is being used, but we can be an add-on that can provide some more time. Okay, okay to organ.

SPEAKER_01 43:39

So we gotta get another 10 questions respecting your time. I know you have somewhere to be. But let me ask you this though. I mean, do you want to give a shout out to anybody here right now or about anything or do check out Fresher?

SPEAKER_02 43:49

Oh yeah, I can I mean uh first I would actually I want to shout out to the Fresher team. Yeah, yeah. I think uh one of the things is well, I'm just the face here, like,

Who Should Reach Out To Fresher

SPEAKER_02 43:58

but there's a lot all the people doing the work. We have a growing team here in Halifax, hired everybody locally, so we're very proud of that. We actually I got a bunch of people. Like I I got a buddy of mine from Montreal, convinced him to move here. It's a funny story. Oh cool. I'll tell you about that later. But but yeah, we you know, shout out to the Fresher team, first and for all, uh foremost, and then the investors, everyone that invested in us. You know, we have we have very strong partnerships, like I said, existing and and we have this inbound interest. If you're in Nova Scotia and you are a seafood processor, you know, especially lobster, if you're doing like processed lobster and you want to vacuum pack it, this could be for you, yeah. Huge collaboration. You know, processed lobster is actually quite expensive. It's like $50, $60 a pound if it's if it's you know processed out of the shell, vacuum packed. Right. And it has a very short shelf life to it. We just dropped a bunch of tariffs off of uh China. So it's back. It's back. We need to send it overseas. It's literally the other side of the world. It needs to be fresh. Yeah, I mean they do it frozen now, but the idea is once you thaw it, you you don't have that shelf life the second you thaw it. So if you want to have more time with it when once it's thawed, it's we can do that. Salmon, there's not a lot of salmon in Nova Scotia, but in New Brunswick and other places in Atlantic, there's a lot of salmon. So again, salmon processor interested in fresh. So any any essentially fresh meat processor that is interested in a packaging that can give you an edge by giving you more time. So what I my pitch to a layman, you know, is we give you more time with the protein. Awesome. That's it. That's that's that's what we said.

SPEAKER_01 45:26

Salmon's my number two pro my number two protein, man. So I'm sure I've experienced it more more than once with your packaging, haven't even known it yet. So very cool. Alright, so let's move on to 10 questions. Alright, 10 questions. Let's go. All right, here we go. All right. So these questions are silly by design. Some of them are smart. But uh Matt, you lead them off and we'll we'll go from there.

SPEAKER_00 45:44

Alright. So what's harder? Coming up with an idea for getting people to actually adopt

Lightning Round AI Books Advice

SPEAKER_00 45:50

it.

SPEAKER_02 45:53

I would say getting people to adopt it.

SPEAKER_00 45:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:55

Yeah. Change is hard? Yes, especially especially when you're dealing when you're a B2B business and you're trying to get these big companies to adopt a new tech. So one of the things we also keep in mind is keep adoption cost as low as possible. Right. Make it a plug-and-play solution where nobody so to processors, we actually coat the film role that sits on the packaging line. So they don't need to change anything. Huh. Okay. But in other situations, we've, you know, with other partners, they want specific, you know, things done to the film, the coded film, so we have to adapt our technology in a way to satisfy their needs. Because they don't want that either hiring new people or changing workflows, they don't want that. They want this thing to be a seamless integration with the lowest cost.

SPEAKER_01 46:41

Okay. Question number two. How do you balance innovation with consumer safety? That's huge.

SPEAKER_02 46:48

That's from day one. That's by design, as I said. And we are regulated by healthcare bodies. So in the US, it's the FDA, in Canada, it's Health Canada. Cool. So we have to satisfy a very stringent list of requirements.

SPEAKER_00 47:03

Awesome.

SPEAKER_02 47:03

Great answer.

SPEAKER_00 47:04

Question number three. So, do you feel that you have to like prove more because you're not in a bigger market, like a bigger city?

SPEAKER_02 47:12

I haven't experienced that. No, okay. No, it only came from the investment side where investors were not familiar. But most of the companies that come to us, they they don't care where we are really. Like they're you know, they like the tech. We happen to be in Halifax, so that has not been a barrier. That's awesome. Yeah. AI. Brilliant innovation or overhyped? Your take. Yeah. If you would have asked me a year ago, I'd have said overhyped. Yeah. Big time. And I and I was very reluctant to adopt AI. But the way we're we're launching AI in our business now. Okay. But the way we're doing it is very systematic. And my you know, my messaging to my employees is AI is a tool. Let's not overhype this. Let's not, you know, spend a lot of it's a tool, and we defined it. It's actually supposed to amplify our employees' capacity. Right. And we defined that even more. We said it either has to cut cost, so you know, if if someone had to use a third party to get something done, but now they can, you know, do it by themselves, so that cuts down an overall cost.

SPEAKER_03 48:13

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:14

It either has cut cost, it either has to accelerate a process, or it has to improve efficiency.

unknown 48:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:21

These are the three things. This is this is why we measure our AI capabilities within the company, and we have a 90-day, so we set a KPI to measure each of those tasks. Yeah. And every 90 days, we go back and look at it and are we meeting our KPI? Simple, smart. That's brilliant. So we're we're really like, yeah, we're not just adopting it in every fashion and you're measuring it too.

SPEAKER_01 48:45

But I mean, the only the only weird challenge with that is AI could change so rapidly that it could have be a completely different equation in three months, right?

SPEAKER_02 48:53

And that's why as a management team we have to come together every quarter and see what's out there. Is there anything new that can we should integrate or not?

SPEAKER_00 49:00

I I love the way you're doing it though. That's cool. That's very cool. All right, next question. So if you had to pitch your company to someone at 2 a.m. and they've had a few Guinness, how would you do it? It's like fish wrappers, man.

SPEAKER_02 49:15

So yeah, you can do the drunken pitch at 2 a.m.

SPEAKER_00 49:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:17

What do you do? So I can do it in a line, but uh we're trying to change the line now. But essentially what it is is we sell time to the fresh protein industry so that you can ship your protein cheaper, ship it further, reduce waste, and capture more revenue.

SPEAKER_03 49:34

There you go.

SPEAKER_01 49:35

Pretty good, man. I like it. Next one. All right. If you had a swap swap careers with a totally non-scientific, non-innovative job, I want you to think of like a peaceful life where you just didn't have to think or worry so much. What's the job you'd like to do? You saw a guy doing it a job, but man, that'd be a nice, cool job to do. Farming.

SPEAKER_00 49:56

Farming. All right.

SPEAKER_01 49:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:59

Not an easy job, but a but a but a brilliant one. Yeah, so I do a lot of gardening myself. Okay, cool. So uh and I want to I'd love to do more gardening on it, larger capacity. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:09

Farming in general. Yeah. All right, next question. What's your plan for when the zombies come?

SPEAKER_03 50:16

Spray them with my uh preserving zombies, keep them shiny and new. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 50:23

I actually need to develop the opposite of what I just to get rid of. You're you're not going to be able to do that. Okay. Give us a harmless hot take or position you have on something controversial. Okay, so you know these hot takes are popular in social media right now. What's one of your positions on something a little bit controversial you could think of? Uh, that's a good one. Uh we need to narrow this down a little bit more, but uh uh you want me to give you one, like throw a law ball and you can just kind of hit it out. Yeah, yeah, go ahead. Tomato, fruit or vegetable. Controversial.

SPEAKER_00 51:00

Yes. Fruit.

SPEAKER_01 51:01

What's your take? Fruit. Well, you think fruit? It's fruit, okay.

SPEAKER_00 51:05

Why? Because it technically is.

SPEAKER_01 51:09

I know scientifically, but you don't put fruit on a on a burger. Yeah, you can. I mean, you can do anything. You put pineapple in your pizza. Yeah, I know. You can do anything now. The world got crazy 25, 30 years ago. You have mango sushi. Yeah, I know. I know, I know. But but to a man who has rules, man.

SPEAKER_00 51:28

Tom has rules. Moving on to that. Alright, second last question. We got what's a book that you would highly recommend people read?

SPEAKER_02 51:37

So it depends who who are you referring to when you say people. I mean, if you're an entrepreneur, a bunch of them actually. Good to Great, I think, is a great book. Good to great. Playing to Win is a great book that I just recently read. It's kind of it's it's a it's a book that helps you think about strategy. Okay. It's probably one of the best books I've read about strategy. It's called Playing to Win. Cool. Good to Great. Starting with Why is a classic one, a lot of people. I think I think it's important to just to have that as a foundation for anything else you do. Starting with Y. Yeah. Yeah. Simon Scenic. It's another one.

SPEAKER_01 52:08

I mean, I'm very familiar with Simon Scenic and his work though. Yeah, it's his first part. Brilliant guy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:13

Cool. Yeah, so I mean, depends. I mean, I like a bunch of genres, but this is the business.

SPEAKER_01 52:17

That's good though. Yeah. Yeah. Last question. Okay. Okay. Be honest now. How often do you console Google or something and say, I shouldn't know this, but I need to ask Google? All the time. Okay. And what was the last thing that you can remember?

SPEAKER_02 52:32

Like, geez, man, I should have known this, but it was my kids' football club that I sent him to a year ago, and I could not for the life of me remember what it was called.

SPEAKER_00 52:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 52:42

And I'm not going to say the name.

SPEAKER_00 52:43

No, that's fair. That's fair. Okay. We always ask last question. This is the last call. So, what's one piece of advice that you were given that you'd like to share with us?

SPEAKER_02 52:55

There's a few key things, but I think I always say this is product market fit is key. Beyond the product market fit, I think don't fall in love with the product, fall in love with the problem. That resonates. That resonates all of them.

SPEAKER_01 53:09

That's great. It's never been nothing closer has ever been said before. So amazing to you. Thank you so much for sharing your time with us. Thanks, Jim. Cheers to you. Cheers. And I know I'll be trying your product in the future without even probably knowing. Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 53:23

Thank you very much.