food technology startup tender food raising $12 million
in a seed round led by chris Sakas,
lower carbon capital
tender says it specializes in creating
alternative meets with an authentic texture.
It also says it's on a mission to make alternative meats so delicious,
so nutritious and affordable
that eating meat from animals just won't make sense anymore.
Here now to discuss is the Ceo and co founder of tender christoph chantry christoph.
Welcome to the show.
What are the plant based meat products that tender is offering here?
I can't really share exactly what we're developing right now, but
we're gonna, you know, be launching products that are of pork,
beef and chicken and this year and the years to come.
Okay,
so tender says the difficulty of replicating
the structures and textures of whole muscle cuts
from animals has been a challenge that
has prevented wider adoption of alternative protein.
So how is tender trying to find a solution for this?
Because it does sound complicated.
Yeah, I mean,
I think that the short answer is is creating
a piece of meat of muscle is extremely complicated,
right?
Uh It has this muscle fibers, this fat,
this connective tissue that's all organized in a very specific way.
And right now, most of the companies that you have, you know,
whether it's impossible beyond in others,
they've been making things like burgers, chicken nuggets.
Uh and these are great a lot of people are buying these,
but over half the meat that is consumed globally is not these processed products.
It's a real piece of meat. It's a steak.
Uh it's a pork chop and it's a chicken breast and that's what we're developing and
the way we're doing that is we're recreating
this true muscle fiber that you actually have
in these pieces of meat.
And we're developing technologies that originally developed at Harvard.
And we're using those technologies to create something
that really looks like a muscle fiber.
What makes the alternative meat you make different
then let's say beyond meat and impossible foods.
And how do you plan to stand apart in this sector? That is getting very crowded?
Yeah, no, it is getting very crowded.
But I think what we're seeing is that a lot
of the companies that are in this space are again,
you know, mostly focused on these processed products.
It's a lot of, you know, chicken nuggets, chicken tenders or burgers
and what's lacking are these, these whole muscle cuts,
which I think consumers are really excited and are demanding for.
Um and so we're using these technologies, these fiber manufacturing platforms
to create something that looks a lot more
like steak or chicken breast uh nutritionally.
I think obviously it's also something that's very important.
There's been a lot of criticism in the past, you know,
is this actually healthier for you.
You know, it seems there's this huge list of ingredients.
Uh and so what we're doing is really, really trying to, at the same time and reduce
that number of ingredients to really keep it
short and clean, so that, you know,
when the consumer goes to the supermarket and they see that short list,
they're like, okay, this is actually clean, this is healthy for me.
And also it tastes delicious.
I'm so curious here, christophe, what kind of meat is the hardest to replicate?
I mean the, the steak, you know, I think is the, definitely the Holy Grail.
I think it has this complexity at the very small scale where you're really trying,
you know, to do what we're doing right now, which is create this, this muscle fiber,
but then you also have to create, you know, microscopically,
what is it going to look like?
You know, it has fat in a certain place that has the connective tissue.
It has all these different things that are kind of organized
in a very specific way and that kind of creates that that
extra level of complexity,
but we're working on that, we'll get there.
You mentioned that you are using a
proper license processed by engineers at Harvard.
Can you offer more details about the process of making alternative meat
feel like the real thing and taste like the real thing.
Yeah.
Yes. So these are platforms that we've been developing for many years at Harvard
uh and then a little bit over a year ago
we spent at the company and of licenses technologies from,
from Harvard University.
Uh these technologies were originally intended
for building uh structured tissues.
A lot of applications that we had originally
for these for these technologies was healing wounds,
regrowing issues for biomedical research.
But I think me and my co founders,
we were always very interested in by applications and food because of, you know,
the huge potential benefits of creating better food products on the market today.
And so we decided to explore that in the context of food. And then,
as I mentioned a little over a year ago, so pronounced tender to actually
make that happen.
I see you're in boston massachusetts tender has been collaborating
with local chefs in boston with this alternative meat.
How's it been going so far?
The responses have been very positive.
Yeah,
we have a chef that comes over almost every week that works
with us and we're hoping to get more on board right now.
I think really for us the idea is to work with a couple of chefs that really believe,
you know,
in these new products that we're trying to create them that are
gonna help us uh create the narrative and the story for it.
I think
it's really important that we're able to explain to the consumer that, you know,
this is not something that is weird that is made in a lab.
This is really just, you know, taking plant ingredients, you know,
soy protein pea protein,
these kind of very common ingredients and then processing them into these fibers
that allow going to allow us to create these uh these meat products.
So it's quite simple,
but I think it's it's really it's important for us to kind of get that that kind of
narrative writes that consumers are very clear on what
it is and are excited to try it.
Lower carbon.
Like I mentioned, lower carbon capital led the new funding round,
congratulations on that round.
Also,
we hear participation from actress and animal
rights activist Natalie Portman is also involved.
What do you think is attracting them to tender?
So I think, I mean we were very excited to get lower carbon capital on board.
I think this is a fund that you know,
has now been renowned for investing in
in climate focused companies and we wanted that
as part of our round all over the investors that we have on board,
lower carbon and others, you know, are
really focused on developing technology solutions to better the world
in one way or another and climate is a huge
problem that we have right now um and we believe
we actually have technology solutions that can help address that.
Uh Natalie Portman and another,
I think actors are or around the world are getting a lot more interested in this.
Also for the same reasons.
Uh Natalie Portman has been a vegan or vegetarian for
a very long time and is an animal activist,
animal rights activists and I think she was excited uh to support us on this journey.
Alright, Christoph Sean tree Ceo and co founder of tender.
I can't wait to test out your product. Thank you so much for your time, christoph.
We hope you come back.