The Second Publicly Traded Plant-Based Meat Company: Mitchell Scott and The Very Good Food Co.

Mitchell Scott: [00:00:00] Just cuz there's something on the, the grocery store shelf doesn't mean there's not room for more. I mean, the, the whole space is gonna be growing like crazy. There's a lot of opportunities kind of all over the place. Welcome

Paul Shapiro: to The Business for Good podcast to show where we spotlight companies making money by making the world a better place.

I'm your host, Paul Shapiro, and if you share a passion for using commerce to solve many of the world's most pressing problems, then this is the show for you. Welcome friends to episode 70 of The Business for Good Podcast. You have probably heard about Beyond Meat's big IPO and their success as a publicly traded company.

Sure, they were the first plant-based meat company to go public, but are you aware that the Very Good Food Co is the second? Well, we have got their co-founder and CEO on this episode to talk all about their journey. But first I want to answer a question quickly from a listener who wrote in Via the form on our website Business for Good podcast.com.

Carrie from Finland wrote in saying, Huge fan of your podcast in your book. Thanks, Carrie. That's very nice of [00:01:00] you. You always ask your guests for book recommendations and it got me curious. What books do you recommend? Maybe you could share some in the coming podcast. Well, Carrie, I will take your suggestion and do that now.

Thank you for the question. I'm honored you'd be interested in my suggestions. A few relevant books that have been influential on. Include Shoe Dog, the story of the founding of Nike and the first years of that company, Uh, Conscious Capitalism by John Mackey, who's been a guest on this show, not once, but twice.

The founder of Whole Foods Market and their ceo. And I also really liked the Charisma Myth by Olivia Fox, who wrote a great book. Looking at the ways that you can improve your own effectiveness in life. So it's good for a variety of purposes, business included. So I hope that's useful. And other listeners, if you have recommendations as well, I'm all ears.

So just send a message via the website. Again, is Business for Good podcast.com. Now onto this episode as you'll hear what started just a few years ago as a dude selling his own plant-based concoctions at a farmer's market and a Canadian island has [00:02:00] turned into a publicly traded company with a 300 million market cap in between.

That was a Kickstarter, a plant-based butcher shop, and an appearance on the Canadian version of Shark Tank, which is called the Dragons Den and more the very Good Food Co is now selling a wide array of butcher type meats throughout North America. They acquired a plant-based cheese company. They just opened a new production FAC facility in California, and they recently posted their first million dollar month, not too shabby.

In this episode, we discuss their journey when they'll be at price parity with conventional meat labeling challenges for plant-based meat companies, and more for four disclosure. My wife and I became shareholders in the company when they went public, so I have a particular interest in this company, even though that's independent of my decision to feature them as a guest on this show as you'll now.

It is an impressive story and one that just might inspire you to follow in their footsteps. Mitchell, welcome to the Business for Good podcast. Thanks so

Mitchell Scott: much for having me, Paul. Uh, really excited to be

Paul Shapiro: here. Hey, it's great to be talking with you. I am a fan and customer of your company, so I [00:03:00] am particularly glad to be talking with you.

Um, but I know that plant-based meat has not been your, uh, entire life story here. This isn't like you've been in this space for your entire life and then you decided to start a company. Uh, it looks like, you know, you were doing like online marketing for unrelated companies before this.

Mitchell Scott: Yeah. Um, so I kind of started, I guess my career, if you could call it that, uh, at the, the Winter Olympics back in 2011, I moved up to Whistler, um, just to kind of check out the season there.

I started for working for a small startup company called Snowboard Addiction. So they made freestyle snowboarding, instructional videos, so basically how to do snowboard tricks, and that's when I really kind of fell, I guess, into entrepreneurship. It was a, you know, a small team, uh, had a lot of roles, was doing, you know, customer service website.

Quarter fulfillment marketing. Um, and that's kind of what lit that, I guess, entrepreneurial spark inside of me and, and things really kind of took off from there. Nice. So could you have

Paul Shapiro: ever, at that time when you were doing snowboard addiction, envisioned yourself, uh, [00:04:00] becoming, uh, the CEO of a plant-based meat company?

Mitchell Scott: No, not really. I mean, I, I ate plant-based meat. I, I grew up vegetarian. Um, but it was never something I saw myself doing for business and I mean, from snowboarding. I then ended up moving to Japan and working in the, the software and games industry, uh, for about five years or so, uh, which is also quite far away from, uh, you know, plant-based

Paul Shapiro: meat.

Why did you grow vegetarian? Were your parents uh, into it for some.

Mitchell Scott: Yeah, so it was, I grew up vegetarian. My parents, um, I guess converted, you could say, right around the time I was born. Uh, I think mainly for health reasons for them at the time. And then as they got more into it, they kind of, it just, you know, made a stronger and stronger case

Paul Shapiro: for itself.

That's so funny you say converted as if it's like a religion to which they, to which they converted here. Uh, I presume it was not religiously based. Um, but I

Mitchell Scott: Presum. No, not at all. It was, I think, you know, mainly health reasons. I think, you know, environmental and then, you know, ethical as well.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah. Oh wow.

Good for them. That's great. That's really fantastic. Uh, you know, [00:05:00] I did not grow up as a vegetarian, but I became one at a, at a pretty young age, at like age 13. And then my parents have since, uh, become vegetarian themselves. So there's like a little bit of a reverse order, uh, there in my own family. But, um, but Nice.

Yeah. That's awesome. All all good for you. So what happened then? I. You're like doing games, you're doing snowboarding, and then all of a sudden, you know, you're thinking, Actually I wanna become a plant-based meat entrepreneur. Like, you know what, what led you to think, Hey, this is the path that I'm gonna take?

Mitchell Scott: So I was doing the, the games thing. I was actually working remotely, uh, cause I couldn't get a, a working visa for Japan. So for about four years I kind of just traveled around working for my laptop, go back home to Canada. Every now and then we'd go back to Japan. Um, and I was home one summer. Um, And I was on DN Island, so a little kind of semi remote golf island on the west coast of Canada.

Uh, I was at a family barbecue and I tried this veggie burger and it blew me away. I was [00:06:00] incredibly good. You know, I'd grown up, as I mentioned, grown up vegetarian, had some not so great veggie burgers. Uh, but this thing was incredible. I was like, you know, what is this? And it turns out that my sister's, husband's, sister's husband, Had been making these things on this island, little island.

Um, so basically his, his name was James, uh, classically trained French chef from England. Uh, he came over to Vancouver, started working at a plant-based restaurant there, uh, you know, watched some documentaries. Ended up going vegan, you know, met a Canadian girl, had a kid all in the space of, you know, a few months or however long that takes.

He then moved from Vancouver to this little golf island. Uh, and he quickly realized, You know, there was no work for him. He had to get a little bit entrepreneurial. Uh, at the same time he was, you know, really not impressed with, with what was in the grocery stores. Uh, this was, this was spring, summer of 2016.

Um, everything was very processed, full of ingredients he couldn't pronounce. Um, and so he kind of turned to his chef background, went into the [00:07:00] kitchen for a month. Uh, came out with two products, uh, an English breakfast sausage, and a classic veggie burger. Uh, and basically he wanted to create something that I could kind of happily feed his, his growing young family that was healthy and good, had good ingredients.

Um, so this was a handmade Satan. Uh, so it was beans, veggies, herbs, and spices, uh, and a bit of wheat flour to bind it all together. Um, he took these products to the local farmer's market, you know, sold out in about half an hour. Um, so that summer is when I kind of linked up with him. So him and his wife were spending every week in the kitchen.

Making these things and then selling out every weekend. Um, and I, yeah, I tried them. I was blown away. Uh, we got to talking. Uh, I'd always wanted to kind of, you know, start a business. Uh, but I'd never had what I thought was a good idea or a good product. Um, and, uh, I, you know, I got talked to James and we kind of just decided to team up and, and see where we could

Paul Shapiro: take it.

Wow. And so he thought, you know, I have this great recipe and here's this dude who has some entrepreneurial background. Let's team.

Mitchell Scott: [00:08:00] Yeah, exactly. Cuz he was, they were kind of, you know, just doing it for the, the, the summer market season and they were thinking of doing something else once fall rolled around.

Um, and I was like, you know, these things are amazing. You, let's, let's see where we can take this. And, and uh, I thought I had, you know, not a ton of experience, but I thought I could figure out how to get to the next step, to the next step and kind of keep building and growing the brand. Um, Yeah. So that's kind of how

Paul Shapiro: we started.

So lemme just ask you, I mean, you know, only a couple years then go by, I mean was this was still back in 2016 when you guys met or

Mitchell Scott: no? Yeah, so this was summer of 2016. He's, he'd been doing it for a couple of months. Did he have a

Paul Shapiro: name? Was he calling it the very good butchers or was he had no name at all.

Mitchell Scott: Yeah, he had called it the Very Good Butchers. He posted a couple pictures on Facebook. And he, he'd made a little label just on, uh, like some card paper, and I think he may have come up with our mascot, which is Birdie the Bean, which is a, a big dead bean .

Paul Shapiro: I've seen this beam with like, I've seen this bean with like the X's on his eyes.

Mitchell Scott: Yeah, [00:09:00] it's very kind of punk rock. Um, and his idea was kind of so the very good butchers, you know, were so good that we don't have to, to kill any animals to make this delicious plant-based meat is kind of where it came from. Uh, and we just yeah, kind of ran with. Was, was

Paul Shapiro: Birdie the bean humanely slaughtered?

At least he was, yes. Okay, good. I wanna, I wanna make sure that, that

Mitchell Scott: before his eyes, he's, he living, he's living his best life now. On a on a t-shirt,

Paul Shapiro: me, He's gone to the bean rainbow in this guy. Um, Yeah, so, okay. Lemme just ask you then, Mitchell, so you know, it's 2016, you guys hook up here, you're like, Yo, let's see what we can start.

And how long before you then start thinking we have to actually raise some money for this, And then you guys ended up doing your first Kickstarter. Yeah.

Mitchell Scott: So. We, um, kind of decided to team up. Um, and then our first event together was like a Christmas market. So there was a few months in between, I think I went traveling again or something.

Um, so our first event was a Christmas [00:10:00] summer market in Victoria, sorry, a Christmas winter market in Victoria, which is kinda like the next biggest city, two and a half hour drive from this island. Um, we drive down there with some coolers, posts on the local vegans of Victoria Facebook group. You know, once again, have a great response to have about a hundred people show.

Um, and this is like a big year round indoor market. So there's Dave vendors on the inside selling, you know, jewelry and crafts and stuff. And then there's these retail restaurants and spots around the outside. Um, the market manager comes up to us and says, Hey, you guys are, are super popular. Wanna take a look at one of these, uh, retail spaces.

Um, and we say, Sure. Uh, and we kind of just dive into it. I mean, a few months later we opened the first vegan butcher shop on the west coast of Canada. Uh, we have about a thousand people show up at our opening. Have to shut down a week after that just to restock everything. Um, so that, that was like a kind of our, our first kind of launch, I guess.

Where

Paul Shapiro: were you manufacturing this product? I mean, were you just, you know, using a commercial kitchen or what? Yeah, so

Mitchell Scott: at this point we were manufacturing it up on Demon Island. We, we took over the old [00:11:00] bakery there, uh, and got a few people in. So it was a, you know, a five, six hour round trip to, to get product to Victoria who's paying for all this.

Yeah. So I, I, uh, put in close to a hundred K to kind of get things started. Well, not, not immediately, but over, you know, over the first say six months or so. And

Paul Shapiro: was this, was this a loan that you made to the company or were you getting equity in the company for your cash?

Mitchell Scott: No, I, I'm trying to remember how we structured it.

Um, I think I just, I, I think I put it in as part of, part, as part, part equity and the arrest was kind of sweat equity. Okay. So I did that and then, I mean, we were, we were selling everything we made as well, like we were selling in the markets from the start. Um, the first couple years we basically kind of, you know, with the exception of the Kickstarter, we bootstrapped.

Um, so we were like this manufacturing facility. It's, you know, it was a cheap rented space. And it's not like we brought a bunch of equipment or anything. Like, initially we were just kind of, you know, we were rolling [00:12:00] sausages by hand in, in, uh, like plastic and tinfoil and then boiling them on a, basically a pot of water over the stove and then sealing them up.

So it was, it was, uh, it was very labor intensive. Uh, but it was also, I think it, it forced us to kind of find that product market fit. Get, find something that people really. And that we can sell. Um, and, you know, for the most part break even those first couple years.

Paul Shapiro: So you were basically not selling for a

Mitchell Scott: profit?

Yeah. I mean, any profit we had, it was kind of reinvested. So we, we'd go and buy a slightly, like a steaming oven was one of our things that we bought. Mm-hmm. after the first few months. And

Paul Shapiro: were you guys taking a salary at this?

Mitchell Scott: No, we, So myself and James didn't take a salary for the first, I wanna say.

Yeah, it was a couple

Paul Shapiro: years or so. It's so funny. I was, I was talking, um, with somebody, um, recently who was uh, essentially alleging that, you know, people, you know, going into entrepreneurship and startups cuz [00:13:00] they wanna become really rich. And I was just thinking, A lot of these people aren't even taking salaries at first and their chance of becoming rich is so low.

Like the mortality rate for startups is so high. That would be a really bad way to try to get rich. I mean, it's like, you know, most of these people are doing it cuz they really think they're trying to solve a problem. Uh, you know, they're really either trying to save animals or, you know, over climate catastrophe or do something for public health or something.

Um, but, you know, hearing your story about how. You know, you're not even taking a salary for the first few years, um, you know, putting in your own money into this thing. Um, it, it's a, it's a so boring reminder of what life is like for o stage entrepreneurs.

Mitchell Scott: Yeah. And I, a lot of other, especially in food, it's, it's really hard to make, you know, profit until you've kind of scaled, scaled up.

Right. And get those economies of scale and access, you know, markets.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah. So at what point did you guys decide that you wanted to raise some outside money then? Yeah, so for

Mitchell Scott: us, we kind of got this, this Victoria Butcher shop up and running. [00:14:00] Um, and so it's basically a little retail shop, you know, some big deli cases, um, had that early success and that's when we're like, Wow, you know, we might be onto something here.

Or people are, are showing up, they're, they're liking the products, uh, we need to expand. Um, and my first thought was, Kickstarter, Uh, I, I'd run one in the past for my previous company. I just, I love the experience of, of kind of bringing a community together. And so basically we treated this Kickstarter as a giant pre-order for our product.

Um, so you put in a hundred bucks, uh, and then, we'll, you know, we'll use the money to expand into a larger facility. And then we'll give you roughly a hundred bucks worth of meat and a thank you card or video and that kind of thing.

Paul Shapiro: So they weren't getting shares in the company or were they, They were getting meat or they're also getting

Mitchell Scott: shares.

So they were getting meat and then later we did something called front funder, which is a way to get shares in the company. Okay, so the Kickstarter was, first we raised about 74,000, I think from about 800 people around the world, uh, mainly in North America. Uh, we used [00:15:00] that money to expand into a larger space.

Uh, so we're still in the same indoor market, but we're just kind of tripling our, our footprint there. Um, so that allows us to move our production from Victoria into, sorry, from DO to Victoria. Um, so we don't have that five hour round trip in between. Uh, so then we're producing in the. Butcher shop is in the front.

Uh, we expand our, our, our product line and our hot food offering. Um, and the concept, I mean, is kind of like that of a traditional butcher shop. So you come in big deli cases, meats, cheeses, you know, we'll slice it up, serve it by the a hundred grams. Uh, we've got a fast casual restaurant attached to it.

Basically just trying to show that plant-based food is approachable. It's delicious. Uh, you don't really have to, to, to give up anything to have a, a big juicy burger or a. Um, it's essentially, yeah, like healthy vegan comfort food. Um, so we used the Kickstarter funds opened that. Um, I think we did it pretty quickly.

I don't wanna say this was like September, 2017 or something. Um, so, you [00:16:00] know, about eight months after we first opened, we'd already moved into a different spot. Um, and then one of the next kind of big things for us was our, our dragon stand appear. , Um, which is like the, uh, the Canadian Shark

Paul Shapiro: Tank. A lot of people, uh, don't know.

So what's the name of it again? Dragon What? Dragon's den. Dragon's Den. So it's Shark Tank, but in Canada. Same exact premise, right?

Mitchell Scott: Exactly. Exact same family. There's one in the, it comes from the UK version originally. Um, but yeah, exact same premise. Um, and this was kind of our, our next big thing. I mean, I went for an open audition and then they said, Okay, come to Toronto and we will film you for it.

Um, so me and James, we, we flew out there. and it was April. Um, but we were doing a, a Christmas, uh, a Christmas episode I guess. So we brought everything to, to do a big, you know, vegan Christmas dinner for the Dragons. Um, and got to the CBC studios, realized that they didn't have the, the big oven or any of the stuff they said they had, but still managed to pull the dinner together.

Uh, and just [00:17:00] had a really great experience pitching it, uh, to these. Guys and girls, um, we had offers from about, I think five of the six dragons. Um, we ended up doing a, a handshake deal for, I wanna say it was 750 k plus a million dollar interest free loan, uh, for 10%. Um, which was really, you know, great for us at the time.

Kind of a great valuation. Um, and that was our first real, So other than the, the Kickstarter, that was our first. Venture into looking for funding.

Paul Shapiro: And, and, and so just to be clear, 750 K for 10%. So you guys are valuing the company of seven and a half million at that point? Exactly. Yeah. Okay, cool. And, uh, you know, that's pretty good for only, um, being, you know, a couple years old there to already being valued by these experts at seven and a half million dollars.

We were

Mitchell Scott: blown away. I mean, unfortunately it didn't end up panning out in the end, which is apparently quite common with these [00:18:00] shows. I think something like 80% of the deals end up falling through. Um, I think what happened is they got a bit excited on the show. They were kind of outbidding each other, uh, and then in the end they ended up offering us much less than that.

Um, so we actually ended up turning down their, their offer. But it was great publicity for us. And then this is where the, uh, the front funder campaign comes in. So we then went to the crowd, uh, and were able to raise on a very similar valuation, um, about $600,000.

Paul Shapiro: Well, that's great. That's really great.

Congratulations. So what year was this again, that you were started raising, uh, hundreds of thousands of dollars for the company?

Mitchell Scott: Good question. So it would've been, so 20 17, 20 18. Yeah, towards the end, I think it's towards the end of 20. Um, we had that front funder campaign.

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Again, that's brahe creative.com/f O R G O O D. Now back to the episode. So, uh, lemme just ask you like, you know, you're, you're telling [00:20:00] these people, Hey, you know, we have this awesome product. People really like it, it's a wheat-based product. Obviously Field Roast is already on the market. You know, there's, there's other companies that are using wheat wound to make plant-based products as well.

I is the proprietary nature, Like, is your moat in the recipe, like the trade secret? Is there a particular technology, Like how do you persuade these investors that, you know, it's not easily replicatable by some copycat once you get.

Mitchell Scott: Yeah, so when we raised that 600,000, we didn't really raise it from kind of traditional investors.

Uh, it was from our, so like our, our, our fans, our customers, our supporters. Um, it was an equity crowdfunding campaign. So, you know, we had people putting in 500 bucks. You know, some people putting in five grand, some people putting in 10 grand. Um, and I think that it was basically based on this, I think the strength of the products, I mean the products taste great, um, in terms of, you know, moat and how we, we look at that, it is recipe based.

You know, it's kind of hard to, to patent or trademark. Um, so I think what really [00:21:00] focus on is the quality of the products. Um, in terms of, you know, ingredients, in terms of taste, in terms of texture, uh, and then also the, the branding and the business model. Um, so having that kind of vintage butcher shop branding and then not just being like a traditional food company where we sell into grocery stores and restaurants.

Uh, I mean, we, we open our own, you know, brick and mortar butcher shop very early on. We've been doing e-commerce since I think our first year in business. Um, so we have a very. Varied business models and we have all these different touch points, uh, with customers and potential customers, both online, in store, you know, events, uh, and then with that, the brick and mortar

Paul Shapiro: as well.

So has the recipes changed since those early days on, on Daven Island, or is it still the same original formula? It's

Mitchell Scott: very similar. It has been scaled up. Uh, as you scale up a recipe, obviously you don't just double, triple, quadruple everyth. But we're still using, you know, real vegetables, you know, getting them chopped up and putting them in the recipe as opposed to switching to [00:22:00] powders or powdered or dried vegetables.

Um, you know, still using a lot of whole foods, you know, beans, veggies, um, et cetera. So it's very similar. It's just with bigger, now with bigger equipment. Uh, and just at, kind of at scale,

Paul Shapiro: Okay. Uh, so let me just ask you then, you know, I think, you know, lots of people were, you know, extremely presently surprised by the reaction of the market when Beyond Me went public and, you know, they had such an unbelievably successful.

IPO and it led a lot of investors to the space and a lot of interest and, and money started flowing into the space in the hopes that somebody could create the next Beyond Meat. At that time, they were the first and the only publicly traded, plant-based meat company. And so what led you Mitchell to think we should be the second.

We should be the second plant-based seed company. Even though you were, you know, dramatically younger and less mature as a company than Beyond Meat was. When you look at, you know, Impossible Foods, they've been around for a [00:23:00] decade. They've raised like one and a half billion of capital so far. They still haven't gone public.

Um, you know, other companies like Eat just have been around for a decade and they've never gone public. Like why should the very good Food co have thought, ah, we are the ones to be the second publicly trading.

Mitchell Scott: Yeah, so I think it's just, it's just kind of the way it worked out. And I'll, I'll give you a bit of detail.

So we did this big equity crowdfunding round. Um, so, you know, raise, well big, you know, raised 600 K from 250 investors across Canada. Um, and used this to build a, you know, start building a production facility in Victoria. Um, I was then out. On the hunt for, for additional funding, um, for about six months to a year.

So I was pitching VCs, I was pitching angel groups, uh, pitching funds. Um, got some interest, uh, you know, got a few term sheets. Um, and then I was actually just, well I was also pitching, I was still doing deliveries for the company. I was doing a delivery in Vancouver. Um, ended a delivery at [00:24:00] super nice house there.

Ended up talking to the guy, um, customer of ours, you know, big fan of what we're. Um, and he was kind of wondering, you know, what the plans are for the company and was saying he would like to invest. Um, his whole thing was that he didn't really like investing in private companies. Uh, I, you know, mainly cuz I guess there's, he's still invested in ones from 20 years ago.

That's, you know, liquidity can be hard. Um, his pitch was to basically him, him and a few friends would put in, you know, just under 2 million help the company scale up. Uh, and then with the goal of taking it public, uh, within the next year or. Um, I will say going public in Canada is different than it is in the States.

Uh, there's a lot of smaller kind of cap public companies in Canada. Um, so it is a, I think, a more viable route than it might be in the States for a smaller company. Um, and for us, I mean, we looked at the offers on the table and his kind of terms and, and deal were, were much more attractive than the venture capital offers we had on the table, which would've involved us giving [00:25:00] up, you know, control and, and a, a pretty big chunk of the company.

Um, at the same time we had, you know, 250 investors on our cap table, which makes things tricky as well, uh, when you're, when you're negotiating. Um, so we kind of just made a decision, decided to go for it. Obviously, you know, Beyond Meat had gone public. Um, so there was a lot of kind of retail interest, uh, and we just, yeah, we just decided to go for it.

And how'd

Paul Shapiro: it go? What was the verdict? Yeah,

Mitchell Scott: so I wanna say, so we closed this, this, this 2 million in July. Uh, not last year, I guess it's the year before now, July, August. Um, and, you know, started the process, brought on a, a full-time cfo, um, went through the audit. I mean, for us it was challenging. It still went back to our first year in business, which for us was shoebox receipts.

So, uh, that took quite a bit longer. . Um, and, but we got through the process. We, you know, got the lawyers to prepare this, you know, the prospectus offering document a [00:26:00] hundred, a hundred plus pages. Uh, we were all ready to go to go public in, I wanna say February. Uh, then Covid Hits Markets tank. Uh, we kind of shelve it for a few months, uh, end up going public a few months later.

I wanna say almost just over a year ago today, I went. And it just, it just took off. I mean, we, we went public at, you know, 25 cents a share, um, which I wanna say valued asset, like, you know, 15 million or something at the time. Uh, it shot up as high as two 50 a share within the first week or so, you know, settling it around, I don't wanna say 1 50, 1 75.

Um, so we raised, we raised 4 million with the go public offering. A few weeks later we raised another, I wanna say eight to 10. At that, you know, much, much higher valuation. Um, and it's been, you know, it's been really great. It's been a learning experience. Um, but now we have kind of, you know, easy access to capital, um, at a, I think a much higher [00:27:00] valuation than we get privately.

So we can use that to, to hire great people, to get equipment to scale, to grow. Uh, and to really just kind of move a lot faster. Uh, at the same time, myself and my co-founder are still the, the largest shareholders by far. So we're very much in the driver's seat. Uh, we're running the company and we're kind of getting to do all these things that we've been kind of.

Dreaming of for years, but haven't been able to because we've been limited, uh, by

Paul Shapiro: capital. Well, that's really great. And as of the time of our recording here in July of 2021, I, I see that the, the stock price is now at, uh, over, it's like $3 and 11 cents, and you guys have a market cap of over 300 million.

So obviously something is going right for you guys, and, uh, if you, and. Your partner, our big shareholders here, that means that you all have done quite well. Um, so congratulations on that. I'm really proud of that. Um, so when you look at the company then, you know, it's such a rapid ascent. When you go from, you know, farmer's [00:28:00] markets on an island in Canada to now having a market cap of over 300 million and being a publicly traded company, has it changed your life at all?

Like, uh, in your day to day life, do you feel or do anything differently than you did when you were, uh, you know, just a guy rolling sausages, , and on an island?

Mitchell Scott: Yeah, I will say that, you know, running a public company, It's, it's almost like running a second company. So like the core business and company has to be really strong and good.

Uh, and then there's the whole public side with, you know, Investor relations and quarterly earnings and all this, these other pieces as well. So they need to, to work well together. So I'm spending more time on that side. Um, but the nice thing is I've been able to bring in on some really strong people who are kind of focusing on the operational side and who are doing a, a much better job of it than I would , uh, to be quite, uh, honest.

Um, the nice thing about Vancouver, which is kind of where we're headquartering now, is there's been a lot of big plant-based companies have come out of. Um, you [00:29:00] know, Dia Garine Vega. So there's a lot of really good, smart people who have successfully scaled and grown with plant-based companies in the area.

Um, so we've really been able to kind of, to lean on some of them and get them to, to join the team and, and really help us, help us grow.

Paul Shapiro: Oh, that's great. That's great. Yeah. You know, there does seem to be something about that area that is like a, a birthing ground for a lot of, uh, plant-based entrepreneurship.

It's really cool. So you guys have really been expanding a lot, Mitchell, I know that, I'm actually kind of close to me in Sacramento. Um, you, uh, opened up a new 25,000 square foot production facility in Patterson, California, which is like in the Central Valley of California. To, uh, have greater distribution.

You, you say that you're gonna be, um, producing half a million pounds of product per week, every week in this new facility alone. So, uh, as you scale up, I imagine you're getting, uh, greater, um, efficiencies and economies of scale, allowing you to either reduce your price or make a better margin. So what is the retail price per pound now for your [00:30:00] products generally?

Mitchell Scott: Yeah, so we do it, we do it in, in kilograms as well. And it, it does depend on the product, uh, the product type and where it's sold. Uh, so if we're selling through a grocery store, if we're selling online, um, but it's usually, it's around, I wanna say $16 a pound.

Paul Shapiro: Okay, so this is a question that I have then about the entire plant-based meat space, of which I, you know, could hardly be more enthusiastic.

I, I'm a, you know, I'm a customer and participant in, in this space myself. So, uh, but at $16 a pound, you know, at, at retail, like organic grass fed beef is probably like $8 a pound, whereas commodity beef, um, is, you know, closer to, I don't know, maybe three 50 or $4 a pound retail. And so the question that I have is like, what's the.

What's the pathway to actually competing on costs? Like obviously, you know, companies like yours can compete on saying it's way more sustainable, it's way more humane. Um, it tastes great. Um, but when it's dealing at [00:31:00] multiples over the cost of conventional meat, like do you see a pathway to getting down to something that is price competitive with even, let's just say with like grass fed beef, let alone commodity.

Mitchell Scott: Yeah, I think there is, I mean, I think we're, we're still very much in the scale up process. Uh, I think our, our inputs are relatively inexpensive. I mean, it's beans, it's veggies, So for us, a lot of that cost comes in on the labor side. Um, I think actually that might have been, I give you, I might have given you the price per kilo there is, is around, is 16 to 20.

Um, so price per pound comes in closer to 10 bucks. Um, Okay. So yeah, I think there is, there is a root there. , but you have to, yeah, you have to be able to, to scale. Uh, and we're still just kind of beginning, beginning that process on our end. Uh, but definitely aiming to have a, a premium type of product like, like what you would find in a butcher shop.

Paul Shapiro: Mm-hmm. . And so, yeah, it's a, it's a good point. I don't know what butcher shop costs are. I presume [00:32:00] they're more expensive than just going to the supermarket. Um, and. It's probably not a fair comparison, but I mean, I'm really thinking more about the entire plant-based meat space here, not just your own company, because none of the companies are there yet.

I mean, even beyond, which has, you know, billions of dollars of, of, of, uh, market cap and so on. Like, you know, you're talking about, uh, their products still to this day are still more expensive than commodity beef. Um, their executive chairman said they intend to be price competitive with beef. By the year 2025.

Um, but still, you know, chicken is, you know, much cheaper than beef and, uh, you know, the vast majority of animals who are going into slaughterhouses are chickens, not cows. So, you know, it's, You know, it's like, it's hard to see like what the pathway is. Uh, you know, short of like a really massive scale up and huge amounts of mechanization to ring out, uh, the, the labor costs that are associated with making all this do.

Do

Mitchell Scott: you think that's true? Yeah, and I think it's, it's challenging [00:33:00] because a lot, there's a lot of government sub subsidies going into animal agricul agriculture as well. At least here in Canada, you know, the dairy industry gets kind of bailed out it seems every few years. Um, so they're subsidizing these products to make them kind of artificially cheaper.

Um, so I think if they, if, sorry.

Paul Shapiro: So do you intend to get involved for like a public policy level or are you already, you know, you look at the meat companies, they're involved in extensive lobbying to not only achieve subsidies, but all types of other carve outs and everything else that they get. Um, do you think that that is something that you guys are already doing or want to be doing more of, either to remove those benefits to the meat industry or to, you know, maybe get subsidies of your own or get something, uh, that would be beneficial to help you guys?

You know, just as an example, there's lots of r and d money from the government going into clean energy research, right. To solar and wind and, and geothermal and more why not for alternative Perth?

Mitchell Scott: Absolutely. And there is, you know, there is some stuff here in Canada and we've, [00:34:00] we've looked at accessing some of it, but for us, the, the big focus is on what we're doing and what we can kind of materially affect and change, uh, on our end, uh, as opposed to, Lobbying and waiting and hoping, um, that, that things are gonna change.

I mean, government is notoriously, uh, slow to, to change anything .

Paul Shapiro: Uh, yeah, it certainly is. But you know, the media industry is lobbying them for a reason. You know, they, they, you know, they, they want to benefit. Um, but yeah, I mean, I'm not saying I know what the antidote is, but it does seem. Um, you know, there's lots of businesses in the meat industry that employ lobbyists to, uh, you know, garner economic benefits for themselves.

So, uh, maybe the plant-based companies need something similar. I don't know. Now it's of course, you know, far fewer in terms of the resources that are available to the plant-based companies. Um, but still, you gotta start

Mitchell Scott: somewhere. And there, there are some good groups, like, you know, the Plant-Based Foods Association, uh, and, and what that we're part of.

And they're, they're doing some. Um, so I think supporting, you know, those efforts [00:35:00] Yeah. Is, is valuable. That's.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah. That's great. So speaking of, have you guys faced any challenges either in Canada or elsewhere on the labeling issue? Um, you know, like as you know, there's like been lots of efforts to crack down on labeling, not just for plant-based milks, but also plant-based meats too.

Um, are there anything that has been a hindrance for you guys as you have scaled up and started to meet market forces where they are? Uh,

Mitchell Scott: a few kind of minor things which we were able to, to kind of fix or get around, I guess. I know our friends at a blue hair and creamery, a plant-based tea shop in Vancouver, uh, got a, a big thing from the CFA about not being able to, to use cheese on their label.

Uh, and then there was a big kind of customer outcry in the, the C F I A. So the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, uh, kind of backed off. Uh, my understanding is that they're working on, on changing the rules and regulations and, and making it kind of more modern. Um, so we've. Continued, you know, we comply as, as much as possible and to make sure it's safe and stuff.

Um, but I think [00:36:00] it's, it's very silly if you look at some of some places in the States or in Europe where you're, where they're saying, Oh, you can't call it a burger. You have to call it a disc or a pucker, or that kind of stuff. Uh, and that's something we'll always push back against as hard as possible.

Cause you know, it's not, it's not like people are being confused. They're not looking to buy a meat burger and accidentally buying a veggie burger. So I think we should be able to use the language that best describes what the product is.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah, man, it's so funny in that these products are typically sold at much more expensive prices per pound than the conventional products.

So nobody's getting duped into buying them. You know, like people are paying more for them because they perceive there to be a benefit, whether it's a health benefit or an economic or, or a. Uh, you know, social welfare benefit or something like people are paying more for, uh, your products precisely because they know it is not actual animal meat.

Um, so it does seem like a, a rather desperate attempt here, and it would be almost like, You know, imagine if when cell phones started coming out and landline makers were [00:37:00] doing a campaign to say, Oh, you, you have to call these fake phones. You know, these aren't, you know, these are, these are fake phones.

Yeah. Uh, or, or like, you know, a typewriter company saying the computers need to be called artificial typewriter or something. like, it's just, I mean, it's just, It does seem rather nonsensical. Um, so what about, uh, the steps from here? You know, I noticed that you guys have some, uh, interesting products that you all market, maybe not all year round, but like for example, I wanna know more about the stuffed beast.

Not only cuz the name sounds good, but you know, I think a lot of people have been, um, discontent with holiday roasts that have been available in the past from plant-based companies. So what, uh, what is different about the stuff to Beast? First of all, what is it and what's different about it? And can we get it here in.

Mitchell Scott: So stuff Beast is our holiday roast. Uh, we've been doing it for a couple years now. It's basically, uh, kinda a handmade Satan chicken Turkey style, uh, and then just really good homemade stuff inside. Wrapped it up. Uh, kind of like a, I guess if you're familiar with the tofu, but [00:38:00] I'd say a, a lot better. And media.

Um, and basically, yeah, you put it in the oven, you based it, you cook it for 45 minutes, and then it feeds four to six people. Um, we ship online across North America, so we've sent, you know, thousands of these to the states. I think this, this Thanksgiving and Christmas, we will be, have a, a retail launch in the states as well.

Uh, it's usually a pretty, uh, popular item, uh, so places sell out quickly. Um, and so, yeah, I mean, that's our, that's our stuff piece. It's kind of a seasonal favorite. Yeah, we do it Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter.

Paul Shapiro: That's awesome. I I would love to try it. Um, I really like the field roast on crew. I don't know if you've had that.

Um, but I think that's a really good one. And yeah, I, I agree with your comments about also, um, the Toki roast, but. Um, you know, one thing I've wondered why nobody has yet mimicked. Cause there's like a plant-based alternative for everything now, but so far nobody's done this. So here's my idea for you guys,

Mitchell Scott: Mitchell.

Okay. I'll get my pen and paper out. Good.

Paul Shapiro: The plant-based turducken. [00:39:00] So, you know, nobody, uh, very few people even eat turducken, but it's such a quintessential dish, right? So for those who aren't initiated, it's a. It's a chicken stuffed inside of a duck, stuffed inside of a Turkey, and then you cook them all at once and you can eat the flash of three birds all at one time simultaneously.

Now why anybody would wanna do that? I don't know. But if you're like an artisanal butcher chop, like very good butcher, maybe you wanna do the plant-based turducken and have your, your chicken duck Turkey. What do you think? I like

Mitchell Scott: it. Uh, we, we have tossed the idea back in the past and we just thought it would be challenging to have so that those three different types of meat are.

Somewhat similar. Um, but like, cuz you know, they're all, they're all foul, right? Mm-hmm. . Um, so we haven't quite cracked, you know, Uh, let's, we, we have our chicken and then we have a bit of a, a blend to make it more of a Turkey. We haven't, we haven't done a duck yet. Um, so I think it's definitely something to work on.

Uh, it could be pretty

Paul Shapiro: interesting. Uh, I made my own [00:40:00] plant-based tur duck in this past year. I called it Fieldable, uh, because it was a field roast that was stuffed with both beyond and impossible meat. Oh, nice. And so, And so, you know, which is three different species of plant. You know, field roast is wheat beyond his p and impossible with soy.

So I, I figured it was kind of like a turan and I had three species of plant all stuff together. So, uh, I'll email you Mitchell. My, I did a video about the Fieldable and you can check it out. At least I can do a very good butcher version of it. Maybe this upcoming. Yeah, absolutely. So we'll see. Yeah, I'll they get that and, and we'll I'll up with a better name than Feelable for it with you guys in there.

Uh, so speaking of different species of plants and even different species of animals, Mitchell, I've seen that you have also. Touted in some other interviews that you have done, uh, cultivated meat too. Now of course it's not legal to sell meat that isn't cultivated from animal cells just yet. Um, but when it is, do you think that's something that you guys would be interested in pursuing as well?

Yeah,

Mitchell Scott: so we, we [00:41:00] haven't done cultivated meat, uh, as a company. It's something I'm very, very interested in. Uh, I read a book you might be familiar with called, uh, Clean Meat .

Paul Shapiro: Apparently it's a great

Mitchell Scott: book. Yeah, I loved it. I, I wanna say I read it maybe a year and a half, two years. Um, so I've been kind of following the space and, you know, reading headlines and stuff.

Uh, very excited about the possibility, the potential. Um, I don't know if, if and when it's something we'll pursue as the very good food company. Um, but very, yeah, very excited.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah. Well, first, congratulations on having, having such sophisticated and, uh, refined literary taste . Um, Uh, but second, yeah, you know, there there'll be, uh, some companies which are branding their own products.

So I imagine there'll be other B2B companies that would be happy to supply you with product. Of course. Um, if you think plant-based meat is expensive to produce today, uh, you know, cultivated meat is gonna be up there for a while too, so, Um, it may be the type of thing that you hybridize where you use like some animal cells to offer some [00:42:00] either flavor or textural component or something like that, uh, combined with a, a plant-based substrate.

In fact, most of the companies that have, um, offered like journalists to taste their cultivated meat. It's not entirely animal based, like it's partially my best already. Yeah. Um, yeah. Interestingly in, uh, Singapore, what EAT just is doing with their cultivated chicken that they're selling, it's actually, um, it's majority animal sales, but it's um, I believe I read an article that said it was about 40%, uh, plant-based protein as well.

Wow. Yeah, so anyway, uh, it doesn't have to be either or is the, is the point here. Um, but anyway, you know, Mitchell, I, I'm impressed by the ride that you guys have had. It's an, i, it's a really inspirational tale to go from, you know, where you were five years ago to now, you know, running a, um, publicly traded company that has a market cap of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Um, it's, it's an impressive tale. So, Let me ask you, are there resources that have been useful for you, Mitchell, [00:43:00] in this entrepreneurial journey, uh, that you would recommend for other people who are inspired by your own story, who want to do something similar?

Mitchell Scott: Yeah, and I think it, you know, different points along the journey, different resources and books and stuff come into play.

Um, but I think the most important part are those kind of early days and just. Coming up with idea, just starting and just diving right into it without worrying too much about having a full business plan and having everything fully developed. Um, and so like for that, like there's a book called The Lean Startup I found really valuable.

It's, it talks about a mvp, so a minimum viable product. Um, that's probably one of the, the more formative ones. Um, and anything to just kind of kick that entrepreneurial, uh, spark and get you to try something cuz even if it, you know, doesn't end up working out, you're gonna learn so much through the process.

Um, yeah.

Paul Shapiro: Okay. So we in startup, I really liked that book. Um, I thought it was a good one. I'll definitely include it in the show notes for this episode for other [00:44:00] people to go check out. Um, in terms of other ideas, are there companies that you wish that existed that you would encourage somebody who's listening to say, Oh, cool, I really like what Mitchell's doing.

He suggested this company needs to exist. I'm gonna go. Yeah,

Mitchell Scott: I think there's still a lot of kind of Roman in plant-based, say meats and cheeses for, for smaller producers with kind of that local farmer's market kind of handcrafted approach, I guess. Um, and I know that, you know, they're popping up in, in different regions.

Um, but I think there's a lot of space there and specifically doing kind of more unique, interesting products. I know there's been a lot of talk about plant-based seafood really taking off in the next couple years. I'm, I'm so really excited about plant-based eggs. Um, so no real specific recommendations.

Um, but I think there is a ton of space and just cuz there's something on the, the grocery store shelf doesn't mean there's not room for more. I mean, the, the whole space is going to be growing [00:45:00] like crazy. There's a lot of opportunities kind of all over the place. Um, and that's actually kind of why we went public as the, the very good food company is we didn't wanna just be doing, uh, plant-based meat.

So it's very good butchers. We wanted to get into all these other verticals. Um, so we recently acquired a plant-based cheese company. Uh, and basically our goal is, you know, we wanna go into someone's friger pantry and. Take every animal based product there and, and replace it with a, a taster, better, healthier, you know, plant-based version.

Oh,

Paul Shapiro: cool. So are you guys going into seafood as well then?

Mitchell Scott: Uh, yeah. We're looking at it. We're still, you know, determined whether we, we develop it in house, whether we look at an m and a opportunity, um, and whether it does that live under the very good butcher's brand, do we, you know, spin up the very good seafood co.

Very much kind of, yeah. Looking at landscape and, and figuring out our, our next moves.

Paul Shapiro: Nice. Yeah. You know, there, there's so much that's happening right now in the space, and I agree with what you were implying a moment ago, Mitchell, that just because something exists doesn't mean that there doesn't need to be more of it.[00:46:00]

I mean, as I've said, like. You know, there's room in the market for McDonald's Burger King and Wendy's, and they're ultra selling fast food burgers, you know, and so the plant-based meat industry is a tiny, tiny, little insignificant fraction of the total meat industry. You know, if there's room for those three behemoths to all compete, let alone all the other fast food burger places, there's room in the world for lots more plant-based meat companies.

Um, you know, there's room for, you know, impossible and beyond and very good food Co and so many others. So I'm, uh, I'm enthusiastic about lots of, uh, companies getting started in this space and innovating and, you know, creating awesome new game changing products that can help to, um, to really make the world a better place.

So, uh, hopefully very good food Co will continue growing and will help to inspire even more people to get involved and do great things as well. So, finally, Mitchell, let me just ask. Um, you know, you all have made a big impact. You're selling a lot of product. Uh, this is not just like a, you know, a small experiment or a [00:47:00] tiny startup anymore.

Um, what is it that you view as the greatest legacy? Like right now, you know, if your life were coming to an end, unfortunately, like what would you view as the greatest legacy? Are you mainly interested in the benefit that you're doing this company for, for animals or for other reasons? Like what is it that really motivates you to.

Go out and, and work as hard as you are. Yeah. I

Mitchell Scott: think what excites me is just, just seeing the growth. I mean, in the industry, in the company, uh, and just. Inspiring people and showing them that, you know, plant-based eating is approachable and delicious. Uh, and then maybe even amongst in the company, inspiring.

What I'm hoping is that, you know, another wave of entrepreneurs, right? If people can see that, you know, these , these two guys from a little golf island can, uh, go from a farmer's market to an IPO in three or four years, maybe that'll give them a spark to, to try and start their own company and maybe even do something even more world changing.

So that's, yeah, really what excites me gets me outta the bed in, in the morning, you know, every, every day is different. Um, there's [00:48:00] so many different exciting things going on. Uh, and yeah, really just excited to see what the future

Paul Shapiro: holds. You and me both Mitchell, you and me both. Well, congratulations on all your success.

I will be cheering you on from here in Sacramento, and I, uh, I can't wait to get my hands on a stuffed fe and maybe the upcoming Thanksgiving myan, uh, plant-based tur duckin will, will be featuring, not just the, but we'll have some, something that will be very good in the name.

Mitchell Scott: Awesome. Yeah, just send me your, uh, your mailing address and we'll, we'll get one out to you,

All right, sounds good. Thanks again. Cool. Thanks so much Paul. Cheers. Thanks

Paul Shapiro: for listening. We hope you found use in this episode. If so, don't keep it to yourself. Please leave us a five star rating on iTunes or wherever you get your podcast. And as always, we hope you will be in the business of doing good.