MIHIR PERSHAD: What we’re doing is growing a cell of an animal instead of growing the whole animal. Making the same biology that you get from the fish you eat. If you catch tuna out of the ocean, we’re basically making that same tuna at a cellular level.

CARLA DeSANTIS:  If we start reimagining that I don’t need land, for example, and I don’t need the traditional vehicles by which I produce food, well, now can you imagine that? That footprint can be anywhere. It could be my roof; it could be my kitchen.

MIHIR: We are basically producing food more independently from the day-to-day trials of how nature shifts. That’s a huge step forward.

LIZZIE O’LEARY: Every time you sit down to eat a meal, —you’re at the end of what has been an incredible journey for the various ingredients, traveling thousands of miles—through a global network of farmers, traders, manufacturers, and retailers.

FEMI OKE: And with nearly 10 billion people to feed by 2050, that system is going to be under more pressure than ever. Plus: with climate change threatening crops and geopolitical crises disrupting supply chains, new solutions are desperately needed.

LIZZIE: So, feeding the world requires a completely new way of doing things. How can businesses work together to produce the volume of food the world needs to survive, create value for themselves, the environment, and society at large?

FEMI: I’m Femi Oke, a broadcaster and journalist.

LIZZIE: And I’m Lizzie O’Leary, a podcaster and journalist. And this is a special series of Take on Tomorrow, the podcast from PwC’s management publication, strategy and business.

FEMI: Today, ditch your farm equipment and fishing gear and grab your laboratory coat, as we look to the future of How We Feed Ourselves.

LIZZIE: To help us better understand how the food system currently works, we’re delighted to be joined by Carla DeSantis, PwC US Consumer Packaged Goods Leader. Carla, welcome to the show!

CARLA: Hey, glad to be here.

FEMI: So, Carla, the food system is quite complex. There are multiple players involved, from growers all the way through to sellers. Could you briefly explain how our contemporary food system operates?

CARLA: Most of us interact with a branded company, someone that makes the food or the beverage that we consume. But upstream, it can go all the way back to the farmer, all the way down to where it’s received in a production facility. Then downstream, obviously, those food products and beverage products are sold maybe in a farmers market in our local town or city, or, obviously, in a boxed retailer, as we like to call them. And there may be partners for distribution that allow for access for that product through those various channels along the way.

LIZZIE: And so, when you look at those different players, what do you see as the biggest challenges facing them right now?

CARLA: It’s a confluence of things that you have to make sure that you’re solutioning around going forward. If we are talking about the food system, in your introductory comments, Lizzie and Femi, you did mention, obviously, the future of population growth and the need to feed that population.— So the source of that food is going to become tremendously more critical as we go forward in trying to feed that population.

LIZZIE: Carla, thank you so much. We’re going to come back to you in a little bit. And I want to pick up on what you just mentioned, producing food in the volume that our growing population needs. That taxes land, it taxes the seas, and it taxes the environment at large. It’s clear that we need to start doing things differently.

FEMI: Exactly! But Lizzie, what if I told you that in the near future, your favourite sushi restaurant may not get its fish from the sea, but from a laboratory instead?

LIZZIE: I am intrigued, cautious, but intrigued.

FEMI: It could be possible. In fact, scientists are working on it as we speak. To find out more about the opportunities of cell-cultured seafood, I spoke to Mihir Pershad, the founder and CEO of Umami Bioworks, who began by explaining how his company’s technology works:

MIHIR: At the core level, what we’re doing is growing a cell of an animal instead of growing the whole animal. Now, how it actually happens is a little bit more complex. We actually have to isolate a stem cell, select the ones that will grow the best in our bioreactors, which is our manufacturing hardware that we use. And then we go through the whole process of figuring out what to feed the cells, what temperature they like to be kept at when they grow. And then we basically end up with, from one cell, many millions, billions of cells that form a few kg of fish, in our case. And we have to then turn the fish into a range of finished products. It doesn’t come out structured the way that it does in an animal. It doesn’t come out as full muscle tissue. So then we actually have a role to play in shaping the finished product texture and form as well.

FEMI: So Mihir, people will recognize what you are saying. It sounds quite familiar, because there is a whole industry now of looking at meat substitutes. What is the difference between what Umami is doing with seafood cultivation and what is happening with creating meat substitutes?

MIHIR: At a foundational level, what we’re doing is really making the same biology that you get from the fish you eat. If you catch a tuna out of the ocean, we’re basically making that same tuna at a cellular level, where many products that are alternatives are plant-based, aiming to mimic an experience. The thing we think is really powerful about cell-based and cultivated production is the ability to create products that are biologically so similar, and, foundationally, can be identical to the point that people don’t feel like they’re missing out. Because I think this is actually one of the biggest challenges to adoption in this industry is, I think in our brains saying, “I'm eating a plant-based tuna,” doesn’t tick the same box. And that challenge is a big barrier, because a lot of people, part of their identity is the foods they eat, the cultural kind of experience of food we grew up with. And it’s hard to change that. So I think being able to create products that people feel like, when they eat them, this is the same thing, that, to me, is a very powerful differentiator of what we can do.

FEMI: Because you can do it, the question has to come, why would you do it? What are the main challenges you are addressing?

MIHIR: I think the macro largest challenge is simply, population continues to grow. Population in countries that have been developing is continuing to get more affluent. So particularly, in Southeast Asia, to some degree in a few countries in Africa, and increasingly now in South and Central America, seafood consumption is higher than it tends to be in the US and in many parts of Europe. So demand is continuing to grow. We’ve been fully fishing much of the ocean for the last 30 years, and an increasing percentage of the species we catch out of the ocean are now deemed overfished. Which means, if we keep doing what we’re doing, we will very likely put them on the brink of extinction. And so we need to come up with, best estimates, say, roughly 70 million tons of new production by 2050, to meet the projected demand. Seventy million tons is roughly a third more fish production per year than we make today. So it’s a huge supply gap. And for the last half-century, farming has filled all of that gap. But it can’t keep growing at that same rate because we’ve done the easy bit. We’ve used up the best areas. So we need to think about additional ways of producing the food people want.

FEMI: Is this concept, this idea of cultivating seafood, is it scalable? Could it happen all over the world? And do you foresee that it will?

MIHIR: So, one of the core things we set out to do at Umami was build a business in a way that would allow us to scale rapidly. And so that meant maybe you could build a brand. But can I build a brand for ten countries? Realistically, no, because different countries have different perceptions, different desires. My better bet is to partner with people in each country and be a technology enabler for those companies and those partners to scale. And I think the way we’re building now is very much a core enabler of this “prove it and scale it out” philosophy. Because fundamentally, 70 million tons is a huge amount of production. And the benefit of that is also [that] each of these partners brings their own understanding of their local ecosystem, the local consumers, the local ways of doing business. People now are looking at that saying, “I’m buying food from who I’ve always bought food from.” They happen to just be making it with the help of someone else.

FEMI: If we look at supply chain challenges in terms of getting food to different parts of the world, making sure that food doesn’t spoil so that it hasn’t got to be thrown out, how does what you are doing, the work that you are doing, address some of these big supply chain challenges?

MIHIR: The biggest foundational challenge we have today is when you grow fish or when you catch fish, you have to do it where the environmental conditions are conducive to that particular fish. And while people have regional preferences, as the world has globalized, so have food tastes. So people now want to eat salmon sushi, even in Dubai, where there’s no salmon in a few thousand miles, right? Same is true in Tokyo. Same is true in LA and Miami, where people want to eat mahi-mahi, which does not grow in those areas. And I think the core thing that cultivated seafood can do is bring production of these species near the population because we can control the environment. So we can grow mahi-mahi cells or tuna cells in the same facility. We could produce those products somewhere within an hour of Los Angeles, let’s say, even though those fish live only a few thousand miles away. And so ,this actually can potentially solve many challenges in the supply chain. Shorter supply chain means less emissions, less potential spoilage. And I think one of the other things we can do is diversify food availability in a way that means maybe you don’t have to eat salmon twice a week, if you prefer to have more diversity in your food supply.

FEMI: So what will it require for people to be on board with different ways of buying and eating food in the, actually, not even in the future, now?

MIHIR: It is a tricky question, because I don’t think there’s a single uniform answer for everyone. But I think the macro pattern is that food familiarity takes time. I don’t think we can push these in front of people and say, “You have to eat this because the planet needs it.” So being able to give people options, present the products, and then win those consumers over by making trustworthy, reliable products that are exactly what you say they are, and give people the opportunity to adopt them. I’m reminded of a story that I can’t recall where I first heard about the fact that we used to call ice “artificial ice,” when it was made with an ice-maker, because the old way of getting ice was literally to carve it out of rivers when they froze in the winter, and store it. And I don’t think anybody in the last 50 years has probably called ice “artificial ice,” because it’s familiar. I think the same thing can happen, but that sort of change is not a five-year change. Right? It’s a generational change.

FEMI: I know you think a lot about work, but if I ask you to step back a little bit and think how biotechnology, the approach that you are utilizing in your very specific mission to cultivate seafood, does it have applications elsewhere?

MIHIR: Something like two-thirds of all materials we currently use on the planet tt could be in some way manufactured or produced from cell culture. That number is an absolutely astonishing scale of potential, across clothes that we wear, across shoes, across materials for vehicles for transport. At the end of the day, the trick is always how much can you bring things to a reasonable price that’s as close as possible to how much it costs to do now? And so then there’s maybe a smaller spectrum of things that are near term, interesting opportunities. Materials are certainly quite a few of those. Because right now, quite a lot of our clothing and material to produce that is petrochemical derived. We wear a lot of synthetic fibers. And if we can find ways to make natural fibers from cell-cultured products in some way, that potentially allows us to phase out polyesters and rayons and lots of these petroleum-derived materials—which is another massive industry that touches every person on the planet, to one degree or another.

FEMI: So for other businesses who are not in the food business, this is why they should care about this conversation, right? Because the raw materials that they may be using could be created from biotechnology.

MIHIR: Definitely. And I think the other big thing is, biological systems in many cases can be incredibly efficient in ways that we’ve never been able to engineer any of our systems to emulate. And I think you can look at materials like spider silk, which is incredibly strong. It’s something that, our best bet, if we want the properties of spider silk, we don’t want to be farming trillions of spiders. If we could produce that via biomanufacturing, we get properties that we haven’t yet been able to mimic from nature. And what we’re doing is essentially harnessing nature as a manufacturing system, as opposed to trying to reengineer it.

FEMI: Finally, ten years from now, how do you see the world feeding itself?

MIHIR: I think the core foundations will probably be similar in a decade. Right? But I think if we can lay the foundation for not just seafood but also for meat and for other products that are becoming more at risk from climate impacts, where we then have the ability to produce these—whether there’s a drought, whether there’s a hurricane—we are basically producing food more independently from the day-to-day trials of how nature shifts. That’s a huge step forward. Because it means people can eat reliably, they can eat great food. And that, to me, that level of independence comes with a whole set of unknowable things that can follow it. So I think it’s going to be interesting to see what we can achieve when we’re able to say, “OK, we’re in parts of the world that are desertifying, but our food supply’s secure.”

FEMI: It’s been so fascinating chatting to you. There’s so much to talk about. When I’m in Singapore, you know I’m going to come visit. Thanks for joining us.

MIHIR: Yes, please, do come visit us. Thanks for having me.

LIZZIE: Carla, Mihir talked there with Femi about some exciting new ways of feeding the world and really this idea of a different type of industry, in this case, a tech company, coming into the food space. How do you see that type of change, and I guess industry crossover, play out more widely in the kind of work you do?

CARLA: Technology is impacting not just challenges we’re facing but how we’re solving for them. In food, we are seeing it show up in areas like crop science, material and chemical engineering, manufacturing and production techniques, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But let’s keep in mind the answer to this question as to what is changing about the industry is going to be very different depending where I sit in the world. Here in the US, very developed country, our solutions are quite advanced, arguably, in terms of how we use technology to really advance the production of food and food sources. [That] would look very different in other parts of the world, clearly. So the greatest challenge, or dare I say, opportunity, is getting more even distribution and, sort of, getting the whole world at scale to address, would ultimately be our food shortage in the future.

LIZZIE: There are a large number of stakeholders involved in the food industry. Even with a lot of players, is this an opportunity for new ways of working and collaborating?

CARLA: Going forward, I really do think we have to evolve to an ecosystem mentality where the value pool for what I am trying to do in the future could come from a variety of different places. This allows for innovation to be far more expansive than just a traditional partnership ever imagines. And companies really need to embrace that ecosystem mindset, that we are better together, to be thinking creatively and disruptively about what that could mean going forward. I think there’s tremendous opportunity.

FEMI: That opportunity also means that the public, the consumers, have to be brought along on that journey. So if they’re being introduced to new ways of growing and eating food, that can be quite challenging for businesses. How would you suggest that they approach it? And of course, it’s going to be different in different parts of the world.

CARLA: Oh, you bet you. So, let’s take the first part of your question, right? How do we get consumers on board? Mihir mentioned the relationship of humans to food. It can be very culture rich, rooted in traditions, very deep affiliations that aren’t easily transferred or replaced, potentially. Especially as you travel around the world, you’ll have to think about what constitutes trust in those different locations. In one location, government may be viewed as the one voice of trust—universities, educational institutions, think tanks, science labs. So maybe the partnerships look like that. In other parts of the world, well, maybe it’s an influencer who has a tremendous following and is known for doing the forensics on sources of food and quote unquote “certifying” that this food is legit. Maybe your partner is more of a physician, or a hospital, or a bunch of health institutions, whereby you’re catching the consumer earlier upstream. It’s not about your branded product anymore. It’s about changing the concept of nutrition and how you consume food, and in what ways and forms you’re consuming food. If you think about it that way, you’ll start to think [of] the new ways of collaborating and reinventing how you engage with a consumer while you’re also building trust with them.

LIZZIE: One of the questions we often ask, Carla, is, what are the opportunities for society if we get this right?

CARLA: Yeah, so it would be absolutely amazing. So, according to our Future of Food study, we said we need 50% more food to feed our population in 2050, and we need about 60% more land to do it. So if we start reimagining that I don’t need land, for example, and I don’t need the traditional vehicles by which I produce food. Well, now, can you imagine that? That footprint can be anywhere. It could be my roof; it could be my kitchen. Mihir mentioned two-thirds of all materials can be produced or manufactured from cell cultures. I mean, imagine that. And now we don’t have to worry about finding a way to get it to some remote place in Africa or the southern part of India or eastern China, right? where roads and infrastructure and things of that nature are really difficult. So, it would be tremendous.

LIZZIE: So, if you are listening to this right now, let’s say you’re an executive at a company that is somewhere in this value chain, what can businesses start doing right now to start enacting change to how we feed ourselves in the world, especially in this moment where the world’s population is growing?

CARLA: Well, get aggressive about dealing with waste management practices in a very disruptive way. Invest in regenerative agriculture to make sure your future sources of supply are assured. Work with farmers and their communities to help them understand optimal land use. And mitigate against farm waste. Apply technology solutions, inclusive of AI, to better understand where your greatest opportunities are; and create solutions to capitalize on them, not just for improvement, but reinvention. Reimagine how any of this can be used and thought through and solved for. Leverage your ecosystem of partners for help, because I guarantee at least some of them are trying to do the same thing that you are. And you are absolutely better together than doing it alone.

FEMI: So, in a decade, what do you think it will look like in the way that the industry gets food to people, gets food onto our plate?

CARLA: I think there’s going to be significant reconfiguration of this system we call food. We have a consumer product survey imagining what the future looks like, even just five years out. And it’s not just improvement or even transformation. It’s true reinvention. Five years out. So there’s goning to be an urgent need to evolve business models, without overhauling things like product traceability, tracking back to origins. Companies are going to risk obsolescence. Value pools will change. New ones will emerge. Some existing, they'll expand probably; others will vanish entirely. Players across all sectors from start-ups to giants, public and private, will probably start converging or certainly leveraging each other to develop a new way of which you and I consume food. And businesses certainly will be challenged to rethink nature’s role in all of that.

FEMI: Carla DeSantis, thank you for sharing your thoughts of how we feed on Take on Tomorrow. It was a pleasure chatting to you.

CARLA: Thank you for having me.

LIZZIE: Femi, I’m sitting here thinking about what Carla said and thinking about your interview with Mihir, trying to imagine what my plate is going to look like in ten years. I kind of feel like this is one of the interviews that we’ve done where I can feel the breadth of change in the most personal way, because what we eat and how we feed our families is so fundamental to who we are as people.

FEMI: And also, Lizzie, I’m thinking about not just the food on our plates are changing, but really the speed with which it gets to us, how much food that we’re able to use and to utilize, maybe not wasting quite so much. It’s produced much closer to where we live. And then that protein, salmon, or tapia, whatever it is, is not going to look lab grown or cell cultured, how we imagined it might look. Whatever our future communication is in ten years’ time, we should take a picture of our cell-cultured fish, cell-cultured fish and chips. [laughs] I cannot wait.

LIZZIE: We can return to this moment and say, like, “Oh, all right, it turned out a little differently than I thought.”

FEMI: That’s it for this episode. If we inspired you to think about your business in a new way, please follow Take on Tomorrow wherever you listen to podcasts. For more, visit pwc.com/takeontomorrow.

FEMI: Take on Tomorrow is brought to you by PwC’s strategy and business. PwC refers to the PwC network and/or one or more of its member firms, each of which is a separate legal entity.