Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Quick Takes Tim Stinovic from Bloomberg Radio, and coming up,
Speaker 1: we've got a great guest. We've talked to him a
Speaker 1: few times before when he was chief financial officer of
Speaker 1: Impossible Foods, and we've talked a lot to on air
Speaker 1: about just how food production, food products in general. They
Speaker 1: are seeing a lot of disruption, a lot of innovation
Speaker 1: when it comes to how we produce food or the
Speaker 1: types of offerings that are out there, and that is
Speaker 1: expected to continue when you talk to a lot of
Speaker 1: those and individuals in those space, and it's just a
Speaker 1: case of kind of scaling up. So let's get to
Speaker 1: David Lee, because last time we did talk with him,
Speaker 1: he was CFO of Impossible and he was on the
Speaker 1: board of the green tech aggs startup app Harvest, while
Speaker 1: he's now president of apt Harvest, which now trains trades
Speaker 1: under the tick are a p pH after going public
Speaker 1: via a spack. It's a certified B corporation. So David,
Speaker 1: so nice to have you here on Bloomberg. How are you.
Speaker 1: I'm well, I'm so glad to speak to you again.
Speaker 1: I'm excited to share the latest about that harvest. Well,
Speaker 1: tell us about the latest you guys have gone public, um,
Speaker 1: why and why through as back Well at that harvest,
Speaker 1: we recognize the urgency of the mission we have required
Speaker 1: that we find long term partners and access capital to
Speaker 1: scale our business fast. And with the ability to partner
Speaker 1: with Novis Capital and now to be traded on ASDAC,
Speaker 1: it's a wonderful sign that investors are ready for companies
Speaker 1: that are making a better food company. You know, we
Speaker 1: like to think our product using a fraction of the
Speaker 1: water and producing a delicious tomato for now but more
Speaker 1: to come, will appeal to consumers. But we're now seeing
Speaker 1: that our company, a company that treats its employees better,
Speaker 1: that's better for the environment and for consumers health, is
Speaker 1: being appreciated by investors as well. Yeah, it's interesting to
Speaker 1: see and I feel like a lot of investors are looking.
Speaker 1: You know, I talked about innovation disruption. We've seen it
Speaker 1: in a lot of spaces, UM, and I think you know,
Speaker 1: everybody's now watching the food space very closely. You mentioned
Speaker 1: David Tomato, you mentioned less water, it's indoor, there's no
Speaker 1: chemical pesticides, the yield, uh is about thirty times more.
Speaker 1: You're doing it Appalachia. That's where you're doing it, um
Speaker 1: so in an interesting part of our country. Um specifically
Speaker 1: we I called it a green tech agg startup, but
Speaker 1: I feel like you're doing a lot more in terms
Speaker 1: of the cycle and supply chain of food. What is
Speaker 1: it about the technology that you really stands out and
Speaker 1: is very strikingly different from what we know and we've
Speaker 1: come to understand, is how we get all of our food. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: you know, I like the things that that harvest is
Speaker 1: revolutionizing food from speed all the way to the plate.
Speaker 1: That means that's an on GMO be steak, tomato seed
Speaker 1: that we grow in these enormous greenhouse since we have
Speaker 1: a sixty acre indoor farm nearly two point eight million
Speaker 1: square feet under glass in the heart of central Appalachia,
Speaker 1: that we not just grow great tomato us from the seed,
Speaker 1: but that we employ highly skilled workers in the United
Speaker 1: States who can have a great living wage and make
Speaker 1: a product that uses less water, have no chemical pesticides,
Speaker 1: of taste grape. You know it, it's from seed to
Speaker 1: plate that the whole company is designed to be better.
Speaker 1: And it's whether it's our nono bubble technology that allows
Speaker 1: us to have the right amount of nutrients and oxygen,
Speaker 1: and the recycled rainwater, or the fact that we're looking
Speaker 1: at automation to help our human employees, the data intensity
Speaker 1: we have AI so we can watch how our plants
Speaker 1: each grow. It's all of that that allows us to
Speaker 1: stop shipping in nearly two thirds of the vine crops
Speaker 1: we import into the United States from outside the country.
Speaker 1: It's all the way from seed to plate um. That's
Speaker 1: what we're seeking to do here and at how part
Speaker 1: this of For those folks who are watching us right
Speaker 1: now on YouTube, you can see some of the video
Speaker 1: in terms of what they're doing, or go to their website.
Speaker 1: Because your your greenhouse is massive. I think last time
Speaker 1: you're on we talked a little bit about this. But
Speaker 1: what about power efficiencies because I know one of the
Speaker 1: concerns has been about some of hydroponic and some of
Speaker 1: these in house big greenhouses is the use of power. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: we're working hard to leverage, for example, passive solar and
Speaker 1: new technology. You know, we like to use the natural
Speaker 1: place that we're located for the recycled wave model and
Speaker 1: for the fact that we can use the natural sunlight
Speaker 1: that pierced through our farms. You know that the country
Speaker 1: just went through a lot of tough weather in many parts.
Speaker 1: And what I was gratified to see is the hard
Speaker 1: workers that harvest in our more Head farm. You know,
Speaker 1: sometimes they had to show up in a tractor, but
Speaker 1: they showed up. And our business model ended up being
Speaker 1: incredibly resilient, much more resilient than an open field farm
Speaker 1: would be. Um and so we'll get better and better
Speaker 1: on everything on how we use water, on how we
Speaker 1: reduce our power consumption, but for now, we thought it
Speaker 1: was important to create a big step forward for US
Speaker 1: agriculture in Kentucky. Hey, David, before we get back to
Speaker 1: talking about app harvest, I want to know something our
Speaker 1: team wanted to know. I mean, you were both CEO
Speaker 1: and CFO over it Impossible, and many would argue they
Speaker 1: were on the cusp of just a lot more to come.
Speaker 1: Why did you move on? Well, to be clear, I'm
Speaker 1: a huge believer in impossible foods, and between you, me
Speaker 1: and I guess the rest of the world. On this call,
Speaker 1: I I exercised every single option that I was granted
Speaker 1: because I really believe in the business to be built.
Speaker 1: It was interesting. I was listening to some of the
Speaker 1: commentary on your show, and you know your consumers that
Speaker 1: Impossible Foods are meat eaters leaders like you, And when
Speaker 1: you can raise one point five billion dollars from sophisticated
Speaker 1: investors kind of shows that the world really is ready,
Speaker 1: not not a plant based world, the meeting new world
Speaker 1: is ready for products like the Impossible burgher. So to
Speaker 1: be clear, I am a absolute huge believer in the
Speaker 1: business we built there, and full disclosure, I've had some
Speaker 1: um plant based sausage and beef. I have tried it,
Speaker 1: so I do try well. The thing is, I also
Speaker 1: listen what you guys are doing too. At app Harvest.
Speaker 1: We cover the difficulties, the increasing difficulties because the climate
Speaker 1: change and other situations and metrics in terms of being
Speaker 1: able to feed the world. And I do wonder you
Speaker 1: know with what you guys are doing an app Harvest
Speaker 1: and what you were doing at Impossible Foods, like how
Speaker 1: do we need to think about feeding the world going forward?
Speaker 1: And what's it going to require in terms of space,
Speaker 1: technology ingenuity, Like how do you approach that? Well, the
Speaker 1: importance of the question you're asking can't be um. You
Speaker 1: can't be underscored enough if you think about what it takes.
Speaker 1: It takes the recognition first that whether you love d
Speaker 1: eat meat or you love d eat plants, the bottom
Speaker 1: line is this world cannot make enough of it for
Speaker 1: the demand that institutions like the u N forecast by
Speaker 1: and in the phase of climate change, it's so much
Speaker 1: harder for these American agricultural workers to keep pace. You know,
Speaker 1: the solution has to be a combination of the best
Speaker 1: technology which we think we have, that app artist a
Speaker 1: recognition that we have to use climate to your advantage.
Speaker 1: I mean, the recycled rainwater is because our farms are
Speaker 1: in areas that seem to be getting wetter and wetter.
Speaker 1: And then it requires a recognition that you have to
Speaker 1: be transparent. You have to shoot straight with the consumer.
Speaker 1: The consumer is pretty sophisticated. They'll pick the right future,
Speaker 1: but they've got to be given another opportunity to pick
Speaker 1: better for their own health but also for the planet.
Speaker 1: I think all these things are important. It's why all
Speaker 1: of us together impossible foods app harvest. Many of the
Speaker 1: companies you cover, all of us are required to see
Speaker 1: the outcome we expect. Well. Cousin T. J. Who's listening
Speaker 1: to our show big time and just set me. I
Speaker 1: had tweeted out ah out of your website and the
Speaker 1: highlighted back you know, central to our mission, meaning your
Speaker 1: mission app harvests mission. We're within a day's drive of
Speaker 1: seventy the population. You know, Solving climate change will ultimately
Speaker 1: also mean like, if we can figure out how to
Speaker 1: grow things, make things grow, you know, locally, and I
Speaker 1: do think about that. How much of what you guys
Speaker 1: are doing can we scale up? Can we do enough
Speaker 1: of this around the country to make, you know, to
Speaker 1: provide a significant portion of food to America? You know? Um,
Speaker 1: some of this forecast is that he studies would have
Speaker 1: done one so that the US needs twenty thousand acres
Speaker 1: of climate controlled farms like ours. And if you think
Speaker 1: about it, all the long distance trucking of tomatoes and
Speaker 1: bine crops brought in from outside the United States doesn't
Speaker 1: do the world any good and frankly doesn't give the
Speaker 1: consumer a great tasting product. Oftentimes they covered in these
Speaker 1: chemical pest designs. The Netherlands is an incredible real world
Speaker 1: example of a country that embraced these enormous at scale
Speaker 1: indoor farms and then one of the largest exporters AP
Speaker 1: protest to Europe. We intend to do the same thing
Speaker 1: right in coal mining country and Central Appalachia, you know,
Speaker 1: take some of those lost jobs. It's a coal coal
Speaker 1: of the coal mining industry, and tournament is sustainable, skilled
Speaker 1: labor that serves more locally product that people can believe in.
Speaker 1: That's that's the idea, and I think we can do it. Well.
Speaker 1: You know, did you say you brought up the Netherlands
Speaker 1: Because reading around your website and just reading in on this,
Speaker 1: you know, I was going to ask you because you
Speaker 1: guys are tapping into the aggon construction firms and universities
Speaker 1: in the Netherlands. I mean, what is it about? What
Speaker 1: do we need to know here in the US about
Speaker 1: what Netherlands is doing when it comes to farming, Because
Speaker 1: I do feel like these are the trends, the innovations
Speaker 1: that investors are going to be increasingly looking at. Well,
Speaker 1: I think it's a wonderful case study. You know, many
Speaker 1: investors um they need to understand how things can be accomplished.
Speaker 1: And the great news for our harvest is the technology
Speaker 1: of today pioneered across the world, not just in the Netherlands.
Speaker 1: I was on a call with a large institution in
Speaker 1: the Middle East. You know, there are parts of the
Speaker 1: world that have developed not only the technology but the
Speaker 1: economy as you find in the Netherlands and Holland, as
Speaker 1: well as the expertise to produce large scale farms that
Speaker 1: produce product better. Um. I think that when you have
Speaker 1: technology already exists in consumers that have long awaited something better,
Speaker 1: it just takes corporate will and capital to achieve the outcome.
Speaker 1: What about the cost of the produce that's going to
Speaker 1: come out of it? You know, the criticism for organic
Speaker 1: for a long time and probably still to some extent,
Speaker 1: is just like, Okay, it's great, but not everybody can
Speaker 1: afford it. What was really important that we create the
Speaker 1: ability to be affordable and available. A big part of
Speaker 1: that for us is the fact that we can increase
Speaker 1: yield by thirty times. You know, when you use a
Speaker 1: thirty times improvement in yields when you use less rain
Speaker 1: water and and you as a result produced a product
Speaker 1: that actually is better than the average product. You know,
Speaker 1: we think we'll be able to provide a great compelling costs.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we talk about our product is actually premium in quality,
Speaker 1: but we don't intend it's priced to be premium because
Speaker 1: we think our economics can bear out affordability as well. Hey,
Speaker 1: just got about thirty seconds left here. So what are
Speaker 1: we going to be hearing from you guys in this
Speaker 1: coming year? Is it build out? Is it more investors?
Speaker 1: What's what do we expect from just quickly? I think
Speaker 1: it's going to be very similar to what you've seen
Speaker 1: in the last sixty days. Um, I it's there's going
Speaker 1: to be built out. UM. There will likely be more
Speaker 1: and more investors interested in a company like that. Parvist
Speaker 1: will have to wait and see, and you're also going
Speaker 1: to see us be able to look at other companies
Speaker 1: and partner with them. One of the privileges of being
Speaker 1: early to being public when you're a pioneer in the
Speaker 1: US in your field is that you can set the
Speaker 1: course and find other like minded companies and to partnership
Speaker 1: the business development or at right acquisition create a brighter future.
Speaker 1: I think all those things will come in time. Well.
Speaker 1: I hope you'll continue to carve out some time for
Speaker 1: us because we'd love to hear more about your progress
Speaker 1: as you continue on this. UM, David, thank you so
Speaker 1: much David Lee. He's president of AT Harvest from Our
Speaker 1: CFO and CEO AT Impossible Foods