In this episode of "Let's Talk Farm to Fork", we're joined by Jonathan Goshen from Yeap Proteins, who we will be talking to about how their yeast-based protein products are a more sustainable, cost-effective, and scalable protein for the food industry.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Mitchell Denton: Hi there and welcome to "Let's Talk Farm to Fork," the PostHarvest podcast that interviews people of interest across the food supply chain.

Today on our show, I'm joined by Jonathan Goshen from Yeap Proteins, who I'll be talking to about how their yeast-based protein products are a more sustainable, cost-effective, and scalable protein for the food industry.

So with no further delays, let's get started.

Well, good morning, Jonathan. Thanks for joining me. How are you?

[00:00:27] Jonathan Goshen: I'm fine. Good morning, Mitch. It's great that you are hosting me, on this, uh, lovely podcast.

[00:00:33] Mitchell Denton: Oh, it's a, it's a pleasure to have you on. Before we get into it, I just wanted to give you opportunity to tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do, and maybe a fun fact about yourself.
[00:00:45] Jonathan Goshen: All right, cool. My name is Jonathan Goshen, I'm married to Llanit, father of Itay, twenty years old, boy and Alma, nine years old. And we actually born and live in Israel. My background is coming from the biz dev, sales, management arena, in previously starting, the startup, uh, with the other co-founder.
I was working in Palantir, the big data company. I was actually living part of the time in Asia Pacific region, even traveling to Australia and New Zealand for several times, doing some sales in APAC, and running the portable x-ray system company, where we develop in sales, portable system for security and NDT.
I, I, I'm not sure that it's a funny fact, but a nice personal fact that every time that I'm traveling abroad with, uh, Alma, one of the first things that we are doing is going to a toy shop and buying new Lego.
And right after we're going to the hotel and building it up, no movement, no movement till it's done.
[00:01:44] Mitchell Denton: Yeah. Yeah. I've got a nephew who's really into LEGO at the moment and it's kind of, it's rebirthed in myself, my own childhood love of LEGO as well. So I get it. I understand. They're, um, they're highly addictive.
But before we get bogged down in LEGO talk, let's talk farm to fork.
So, you've told us a little bit about yourself and what you do, but I was just wondering what was the journey that led to the creation of your yeast-based protein company?
[00:02:16] Jonathan Goshen: So, actually it started, uh, it's not at the 40 years old age crisis, but it started along that time. I wanted to start something from scratch, uh, working against the odds and take an idea and convert it into something real, a business.
For many years, my wife and myself were talking about kind of the idea of recycling the ability to use / reuse element that we use once.
And that even got stronger once we enrolled our daughter to an environmental kind of nature school, and we saw how much attention is coming in that direction with the little children.
[00:02:57] Mitchell Denton: Mm.
[00:02:58] Jonathan Goshen: My wife is coming from the fashion, and clothing ,and retail industry, and she actually started to expose us to several super interesting startup that involved both fashion and let's say sustainability / reuse.
And even led us to do some investments, in that field. Saying all of that, few years ago, a friend of mine came with an idea, to have a solution for a soluble plastic and wanted me to lead the project and with it to enter the kitchen up incubator, it's a well known incubator in Israel that is under the Strauss group. The Strauss group is one of the largest, the biggest food manufacturer in Israel.
Unfortunately, it didn't work out and she decided not to join the incubator, but several months later, the leaders of the incubator contact me and say, "listen, we have another entrepreneur with an idea. I think that you will like it as an idea and you will get along great together."
So, that's how I met Didier Toubia and Dominik Grabinski. And so beside creating something from scratch and upcycling used material into food, I also met great people and we started in September 2020.
[00:04:13] Mitchell Denton: Yeah, great. I, I see that the protein market has a number of alternatives ranging from animal-based through to soy and pea-based proteins. What, what are the advantages that yeast-based protein has over these alternatives?
[00:04:29] Jonathan Goshen: So looking, looking at the yeast itself, not the Yeap yeast protein, but the yeast protein itself is a great source of protein. It's a complete protein with nine essential amino acid. It's even accepted by vegans.
[00:04:43] Mitchell Denton: mm-hmm
[00:04:44] Jonathan Goshen: It's non GMO, no allergens, and it's already grass certified and a Nobel food. Saying that the Yeap protein we actually, with our process what we know to do is to take the side stream of industrial processes and changing them and converting them into functional protein that it's not only functional protein, but it's also a concentrated protein.
Our actually protein can replace the functionality of an egg, the soy, and the milk protein with the advantages of functional and concentrated. Allowing amazing, creamy texture. Very high PDCAAS, even higher than soy, allow us to scale it up easily.
Because we are using existing production lines, allow the creation of clean label product for the food manufacturer because it's made by only one ingredient. We have a resilient supply chain. We can use several streams coming from several industries from several geographies. So we are not limited by climate or geopolitic changes.
And the last thing, and one of the beauty of that is that sustainability upcycled food, circular economy is embedded not as a slogan, but rather the real thing. And that's mainly what people are after those days.
[00:06:07] Mitchell Denton: Oh, that's fantastic. So I see that Yeap has a focus on tackling a range of the UN's sustainable development goals. Would you mind expanding on the different SDG areas that Yeap believes it can be a part of the solution to challenges such as climate change and the scarcity of resources?
[00:06:27] Jonathan Goshen: Yes, of course. I, I'm sure that every company is putting more attention into that. The worldwide attention is growing in that aspect, which is, which is great. It's a small step towards a bigger step. So the main purpose is to create more sources of protein coming from side stream of industrial, eh, processes.
So we have aiming for like, I believe any FoodTech startup for zero hunger to come up with more affordable sources of food. So that's how we are kind of relate to SDG. Number two, we are aiming to produce a healthier and less processed food minimum of ingredients. So here we are actually tackling the area of SDG three.
[00:07:10] Mitchell Denton: Mm-hmm
[00:07:11] Jonathan Goshen: In our production process, we are actually upcycling, spent yeast SDG twelve, by using those, we are actually saving land. SDG eight, water, SDG six, gas emission and reduce the amount of waste in the planet, SDG 12,
[00:07:31] Mitchell Denton: Yeah, no, that's fantastic. So I, I see that currently your initial product is a functional, concentrated protein. Are there plans to commercialise any other product options?
[00:07:43] Jonathan Goshen: Yes, sure we are working in several direction. Our next phase will be the TVP texturised, vegetable uh, protein that we are already working on and more to come.
[00:07:54] Mitchell Denton: That's fantastic. So then what would you say is the biggest challenge Yeap are currently facing with researching and developing your yeast protein products?
[00:08:04] Jonathan Goshen: So here, I would say that process optimisation is our kind of main focus at the moment. We have a great process in place that is scalable working. We are already producing hundreds of kilos, per year.
But we need to make it even more efficient from all perspective, raw material, lands, output, and cost. And this is the thing that we are working and doing at the moment.
[00:08:32] Mitchell Denton: Mm, okay then. So has the COVID pandemic for better or worse, had any effect on your day to day operations?
[00:08:40] Jonathan Goshen: So, here I would say no. I'm even surprised with what we started actually in September, 2020 and, right in the middle, over the beginning of the COVID. I'm even surprised with what we have reached in less than, uh, two years and with the limited budget that we have as well.
I, I can say that, yeah, the COVID kind of stretched a bit the schedule, for once you are flying to Europe for, uh, let's say for experiments, and then you need to stay five days in the hotel and you are moving to another country and you need to stay another five days in the hotel, but it did not affect in a critical way, so no affect of the COVID.
On the contrary, I think that the COVID pushed all of that environment of the alternative food further on to a new, to a new era, a new step and, and awareness.
[00:09:33] Mitchell Denton: Yeah, definitely. Definitely. So then what would you identify as the biggest pain point in the food industry from your perspective?
[00:09:42] Jonathan Goshen: So, I believe, and my personal thought is the biggest pain point in the industry is the lack of protein from animal and the plant-based source because of the global warming and the lack of land.
[00:09:55] Mitchell Denton: Yeah.
[00:09:56] Jonathan Goshen: I think that in order to overcome this shortage, new disruptive technologies taking from other industries, such as, for example, the, the BioTech and the Pharma, or using other new alternative protein sources will have to be adjusted, embedded, upcycled fast and cheap, of course, by allowing more efficient yields.
[00:10:19] Mitchell Denton: Yeah.
[00:10:20] Jonathan Goshen: For example, using precision fermentation, using a microorganism to express protein. But at the same time that we are using those processes and we are yielding more protein, those processes will yield as well, enormous amount of downstream biomass that we'll have to find ways to be used and converting into upcycled food as well - things that are being evolved those days as well.
[00:10:47] Mitchell Denton: Mm. Yeah. So then is there a particular group or innovation within the industry that you're excitedly keeping a watchful eye on?
[00:10:55] Jonathan Goshen: Of course, our competitors, but, um, no, but now, but now seriously, uh, but we are following up on them as well, but the one that, uh, upcycling or recycling, uh, food, we became members of the upcycled food association.
And this community that converts used material into new one, amazed us. Uh, we are actually as well, waiting till we start selling in the US and then we will apply for the UFA ingredient standard.
So, every time that I look at their website or get the newsletter and hear about new startup that are coming from the UFA I'm amazed of their work. So this is one, and, on the AgriTech section my kind of, personal preference, there is a startup called, Vanilla Vida.
[00:11:48] Mitchell Denton: Okay.
[00:11:49] Jonathan Goshen: They actually cracked the way of how to grow vanilla and not in Madagascar, where the majority of the vanilla is coming from.
The vanilla is even more powerful than the known and original one, and as someone that's very much into sweets, I think their startup is amazing and they will change the world of growing vanilla.
[00:12:13] Mitchell Denton: So do they have like a different method of developing the vanilla? Or is it the same method, just in a different area?
[00:12:20] Jonathan Goshen: I think the process and the conditions that they needed, they know how to replicate that to have it done in other places around the world.
[00:12:30] Mitchell Denton: That's fantastic because creating vanilla is actually quite a manual process. There's quite a lot of needling and we, we've done a whole lot of research into it and it's, um, it's actually quite a lot of work, so that's exciting. I'll keep an eye out for that.
So, what's one thing you wish you had known when you first started developing protein, alternative products?
[00:12:52] Jonathan Goshen: Actually that food development takes more time than you think.
It's long, it's long, it's long cycles, although it's evolving fast, at least what I have seen in the last couple of years, it's it, it start to move even faster, which is great.
[00:13:08] Mitchell Denton: Yeah, that's fantastic. So Jonathan, we are coming to a close, but before we do, I just wanted to ask what is the most important message you want our listeners to take away from this episode?
[00:13:20] Jonathan Goshen: The the most important thing is that let's try to keep on developing and investigating new food ingredients, especially those that are actually coming from used resources.
And all of that is in order to keep our planet for more years, it's a lovely and amazing place even as it is, but we need to keep it for more years to come.
It's a long journey and we will all reach new peaks with amazing new solutions, evolving all the time.
[00:13:50] Mitchell Denton: That's fantastic. That's a, that's a great place to leave it. Well, that's all for today's episode of "Let's Talk Farm to Fork". Thanks for listening. And thank you, Jonathan, for joining me today.
[00:13:59] Jonathan Goshen: You're welcome. Thank you for hosting me.
[00:14:01] Mitchell Denton: If you'd like to know more about Jonathan and Yeap Proteins, check out the link in the description of this episode.
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