Tony Martens, co-founder of Plantible Foods, joins Neal to walk through the company’s eight-year arc - from a free greenhouse in San Marcos to a commercial-scale rubisco protein facility in West Texas. They get into the science of duckweed and why rubisco is both the most abundant and most bioavailable protein on the planet, the modular “crawl, walk, run” scaling philosophy that kept Plantible from getting buried under capex, and how landing in El Dorado, Texas lifted the surrounding county’s median household income by 62%.
Plus: why the Taco Stand in Encinitas remains the most-mentioned spot on the pod.
Key Topics
Why our food supply chain hasn’t been updated in 3,000 years
How rubisco from duckweed competes with eggs, dairy, and meat
The “crawl, walk, run” approach to commercial scale-up
Why avian flu volatility is driving bakery and egg-replacement demand
Modular agriculture vs. billion-dollar capex projects
Living on the San Marcos farm in RVs through COVID lockdown
Lifting a West Texas county’s median household income by 62%
Where Plantable products are showing up on shelves today
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