Talking Shiitake
My mission is to help make our food system healthier, more sustainable and ethical. In a market where consumers are making more informed decisions about the food they buy, I believe that food businesses catering to these needs will be the most successful. I’m Michael Fox, CEO and Co-Founder of Shiitake mushroom company Fable Food. For years I’ve been obsessed with our food system. Welcome to my podcast where I Talk Shiitake with successful chefs, food industry executives and entrepreneurs to learn about what’s lead to their success in the food industry.
Talking Shiitake
George Peppou of VOW: Woolly Mammoth Meatballs and will consumers accept cell based meat?
Welcome to the first episode of my new podcast Talking Shiitake!
In this episode I talk shiitake with George Peppou, co-founder of cell cultured meat company VOW. George and I met back in 2019 when we were figuring out our paths in the alternative protein space. George went with the cell cultured approach, I went with mushrooms!
We each thought the other was crazy but put small angel checks into each other’s businesses just in case we were wrong and the other was right! So far we’re both happy with our decisions but we’ll see how this plays out!
George has done an incredible job building VOW, they’ve progressed tremendously well. On the technical front VOW is fully vertically integrated, their costs of production are coming down into premium meat territory and they’ve built the largest operating cell culture line for food production anywhere in the world, by quite a margin. And they’ve achieved this having raised 1/10th the capital of other major cell based meat companies.
George has taken a very clever go to market approach. Rather than trying to leap straight to the mass market, VOW have launched their luxury FORGE brand and Quail Parfait product into 3 high end restaurants in Singapore with more restaurants and cities launching this year. Next stop will be the premium health niche targeting customers looking for meat products with very high protein, iron and micronutrient density in a highly bioavailable, delicious format.
It’s a strategy taken straight from one of my favourite business books, Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey A Moore, which inspires us at Fable too.
We talk about the potential challenges for the cell cultured meat space given strong consumer trends towards “real” food and George provides some interesting analogies with the growth of the cereal category.
Finally, George shares the story of their incredible PR win that he and his co-founder Tim Noakesmith drove with their Mammoth Meatball which lead to coverage in nearly every major global news outlet and appearances on Stephen Colbert amongst many other TV and news shows.
This was a very inspiring conversation and exactly why I wanted to start this podcast - so I can Talk Shiitake and share some of the incredible conversations I’m fortunate to have with inspiring people like George.
I’m new to hosting a podcast and I’d love any feedback on what you liked, didn’t like or think I can improve.