You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim Stenebek on Bloomberg Radio.
We're going to talk about something different. Right now, we have a really cool guest.
Or the same, depending on your pet.
That's true. He has bicycled more than thirty four hundred miles from Montreal to the Pacific Ocean. Classically trained French chef, he's founded a couple of food companies. He has sold them. He has spent more than three decades thinking about the vegetarian food world, creating everything from a veggie hot dog and more. Matt, so he knows the space, all.
Right, I'm interested. I'm very interested to hear about this because I would love to be a vegetarian if I could. The way we treat, especially factory farm, which is almost all of our animals from cows to chickens, is disgusting.
Yeah, processes.
On the other hand, meat is so yummy and it's packed with protein.
Right.
Also yummy is seafood, and he's now got a new venture involving vegan seafood. It's known as Conscious Foods. So with us is is chef Eve Potvinn. He's president and founder of garden. I believe I'm saying it, I hopefully correctly and Conscious Foods with us on Zoom from Vancouver, British Columbia. And forgive me if I've mispronounced. I studied a lot of Spanish, not a lot of French.
Now, but it's a famous name here in New York, pot.
Dan, you know, yes, it is, it is. That is true. Welcome, Welcome. Tell us a little bit about yourself, because you have done some really interesting stuff and you've really spent a lot of time on you know, the vegetarian world and the plant based food world.
How come well, Matt, I'm like you, I'm a flexitarian, so you know, I believe there's you should always try to make a contribution for a bit of world. And so I was, like you said, trained chef, and somehow I humble into the plant based business. And for the last over thirty years I've been developing different brand and very excited to present Conscious Conscious with the Cave today.
So we're a new innovative brand and we're on a mission to change the way that people eat by providing a line of frozen sushi or nigiri and poke bol that this is close to my heart that it tastes good first, and it's good for the people, good for the planet. And we're so excited to launch our nationwide with folk food this week.
I mean, it's I think an issue that's close to our hearts as well. Carol and I are both scuba divers, and we've all seen the problems. All of us that have been underwater have seen the problems that giant fishing expeditions create. And then for a while I thought, Okay, well, factory farm salmon, that must be a better alternative. Turns out it really isn't, because they don't do a good job of raising those fish either. But the taste has
been a problem for me. I've only try artificial you know, plant based beef burgers like Impossible Burger or what's the other one beyond beyond meat. I couldn't really stomach either one of them. So how do you overcome that problem?
And that's why I'm so excited to be here in talking to you, Matt and Caroll, because evidently you are conscious, you are aware of your environment and the way the younger population today they vote with them out and they say, well, I want a better future, So it has to be something that tastes good, it's good for the environment. And another thing that we're excited about conscious is that we
have price parity. So a lot of the company that you mentioned before, I think there's something like twenty percent of the population that would like to incorporate plant based protein in our diet, but they say it's too expensive. Well with the person I think of this new generation innovative brand that it's price parity. It's not more expensive
and nutuitional traditional protein. So but because of my chef background, it has to taste good and consumer now they're looking for sustainable choice that are affordable, and so you can go to Whole Food and buy a California role a Japanese courier in the gary or salmon poke bowl and it's going to cost you seven ninety nine or eight ninety nine. You don't have to break the bank to eat consciously. Now.
I guess the one thing too I will go back to is things like impossible and beyond me. What I had had a problem with Eve is that there's a lot of sodium in and to me, that wasn't I think of planet based proteins and I think healthier and less impact on the environment, like it has to take off a bunch of boxes for me in order and it has to taste good. So tell us about the nutritional value or some of the metrics so that if I turn over the box, what am I going to see when it comes to sodium or.
By the way, that's a lot of boxes. It has to tick better for the environment, yep, it has to cost the same or around the same. Right, it's got to taste good and it's got to be good for you because obviously Eve, you know, uh, there's a lot of protein and meat and it's not packed with salt.
As Carol says, yeah, totally right. And so we are looking at and Matt, you're you're totally right. You know, in our lifetime, we know that somewhere in the next twenty thirty years we're going to drive elect a car or any other form of a car that is not fueled by petroleum. But it's the same thing in our life. We know most of the farm, most of the fish we're going to EAT's going to be farm farm raised, and you know, a lot of salmon in the market
right now. It's artificial color, artificial flavor, et cetera. So we're on a mission to change the way we eat. I said earlier, is because we have a third of the sodium of traditional sushi that you eat in the supermarket. We have less fat, and we have ingredient that are easily recognizable. So our tuna as first ingredients is organic tomato. The second one is conjact. Conjact is a rude vegetable that has tremendous dietary fiber and it's good for you.
So yes, there's many books that the customer is looking. First of all is the price, Well, we take care of that one. Nutritional we have about half of the protein right now that salmon or tuna has. But it's okay. Most people don't buy just because of the protein, they buy because of the whole package. But we are working very closely to trying to increase the level of protein. No artificial ingredient, non GMO, organic ingredients, etc. So I think we've done a good job putting your package. But
most important, it's convenient. My wife likes to say frozen to yummy in five minutes, and people ask me that why do you need frozen sushi? Well, there's twenty thousand sushi restaurant in North America. There's a need for it to have it in your freeze.
But you know something like salmon, right, I go for it because of the Omega three fatty acids. Right, that's good for me, and I would rather, you know, kind of grew up with a family. You know, everything in moderation and better to eat as true to how it is grown or cultivated, hopefully and do less of it. So do I get that benefit?
You do? We have ome got three comes from different sorts. One of them is the fish oil, but it's also vegetable oil that we incorporate in our product that has the same level as ome got three that you have in traditional fish.
Interesting, really interesting.
I'm convinced.
I'll tell you what. I'm convinced enough. We have a whole foods right down here. Try on third and fifty seventh. I'll walk down there and get some for sure.
Yeah, I'm try.
Just follow the instruction, very tree easy way to prepare it microwave one minute. If you don't like microwave, you can put the patent pending packaging in hot water for eight minutes, or you could leave it at room temperature and it's ready. Polyunch.
We're talking with Eve Puffin, president and founder of Conscious Foods, on Zoom from Vancouver, British Columbia. Hey, Eve, one thing I wanted to ask you. I mean, Matt and I talk a lot about food and just the way we produce things and trying to feed this world, and a lot of the ways that we do it are not great for the environment. There's also a lot of food waste.
And there's an interesting Bloomberg opinion columnist that talks about big food should be esg's next target, basically just going after the alter processed food makers.
Should be esg's first target. Should have been esg's first target, because if you want to stop carbon emissions, right, you got to go after the beef industry, even before you go after the internal combustion engine.
So how do you think about all of this? You know, you've been working in the food industry for a long time. How do you think about it and what is a better way forward?
Well, it's about diversity. You know, last year August, we reached the milestone of eight billion in population. We know that, and that's what's one of the reasons. You know, I have a younger daughter when she was born not that long ago. Twenty five years ago, the population was three point seven billion. Now we're at eight and we're going
to be at ten billion. So and that was my idea, And I said, Lissonse, we know and think in Vancouver's salmon reach the price of thirty dollars a pound this summer, so traditional protein is going to go higher and higher in price. So why not diversify the protein and use the plant base, you know. And the question is having manufactured and processor like the innovator that takes those protein, the pea protein, all the different sources of protein put it in a way and a forming in the shape
that people are accustomed to. Because people won't start feeding themselves lentil and chickpea and a thing like this is too complicated. So and that's what we do. We use traditional sushi and we make our own snow crab, our own to our own salmon. And I'm really excited for you, Matt, to go try it, because you're going to say, wow, this tastes great. And I feel very proud about what we accomplish. And I think the world is changing. The younger population is voting with them out and I think
the question of using all our source of protein. That is what we're going to find a solution, not just beef, not just seafood, but using the protein from a variety of sorts. Seaweed is fantastic source of proutein all right.
So, and the sushi, it's packed full of protein. What's the protein and the calorie value of that of that sushi those California roles.
Calorie is about three hundred and fifty calorie for eight coin and it's about you know, traditional sushi is about eight percent protein. This is about four percent. So, but most people don't go to the sushi and say I'm eating there because of protein. Most people have too much protein and their dye. That's that's that's the reality. So I think it's more about nutrition. What you bring nutrition, and I think our product is pack of neutral. We have all dividing in d A, b et cetera that
your body needs so and it. But most important is what we're offering is convenience. You can have sushi, unigary, poke bol at lunch, dinner, snack, have a party with your friend. So having the product available in your freezer and ready in five minutes, and it's about giving a choice to the consumer that whenever you want, you can have a product that you like. Like I said earlier twenty thousand sushi, five thousand poke bowl wrestlant, there's a market.
For so Eve as demand. Let's assume that this takes off and as demand picks up, can you keep it at the cost level that you have now or will? Just like with kind of regular food, it just feels like, as you said, the growing population, like demand just has gotten out of control. And as the developed world has a much more or the developing world has more of a developed diet, like right, there's more demand of that
traditional food thing. So the cost, I'm just curious about the process and the cost as demand ramps up.
The main one of the main inputs peas.
Well. The rice comes from California. All our vegetables are from British Columbia, so we're trying to buy local as possible. But we have a thirty four thousand square feet facility in Vancouver. Over here we can produce four thousand row an hour, so that's that's a fair amount of volume. But our plan is to open a factory or a processing facility in the US. One in Asia and one in Europe. So your question, Carol, is more about ingredient.
Has you increased the demand? Well, the beauty with root vegetable is you can grow more, you know from I'm not anti beef, I'm not anti fish, but it's just it's not a logical way to grow your protein. It takes eighteen months to raise the cattle and half of the you know take you fit it more than what you get at the end, so versus the plant based protein. That's why it makes so much sense.
Even with climate change, even with climate change making it sometimes more problematic or difficult.
And depending what you're growing, Carol, you see if you're growing more corn or more wheat or more soy. But you know there's a lot of place in Asia, for example, that's where the root vegetable conscious. It's all over Asia. But rice, there's lots of room to grow rice and so and you need you need to eat something. You know, at one point people asking me why in my previous business, why are you using wheat or soy excecaid. I don't use nilk, I don't use dairy, I don't use egg.
You need to eat food something you can't just live with with water and air, and I think the food we grow, the food we use that conscious is very good. And yes, it's just pay them interesting, all.
Right, We're going to leave it on that note. Really really fascinating. And I do feel like more and more we continue to see the food space slowly being disrupted, if.
You will, Yeah, well, And I'm also the deeper I look into it, the more problems I have with the way our food is produced or farmed or caught. And as I said, you know, salmon is one of the biggest conundrums because I don't want to support industrial fishing and I don't want to support the factory farming of salmon, but I love salmon.
There was just a story, did you see the New York Times about the fate of Alaska's king salmon and starving orcas at orcas like don't have enough food, and so they're trying to figure out what to do, and they're thinking about maybe that we have to stop fishing them. But then you've got, you know, folks that rely on it for.
Are and we can't and you can't, they won't stop.
I don't know, It's just tricky. Eve. Thank you so much, really appreciate it, Eve Pop and hopefully you'll come back soon and get us an update on the business. President and founder of Conscious Foods, showing us on Zoom from Vancouver, British Columbia,