Full Stack Food

Amol Dixit is used to living in two different worlds. For one, he calls himself a company guy and an entrepreneur. Amol heads up G-works, or General Mills’ startup incubator, which creates companies that will eventually be spun back into General Mills.

The team is made up of what General Mills calls “corporate entrepreneurs,” which sounds like a contradiction in terms. But Amol insists it’s not. He should know. He’s worked at the consumer packaged goods giant for 15 years. But in the middle of that time, he was laid off, and instead of going to another big company, Amol decided to follow his dream of democratizing Indian food by launching a food truck. That dream is rooted in his own personal story - which again…begins with Amol living in two worlds.

Jeff Grass and Eman Pahlevani are a pair of entrepreneurs who were working on a business when they stumbled upon a personal pain point - how can they access affordable, fresh, home-cooked food when they’re stuck in an office all day? That’s how they came up with the idea for Hungry, a platform that connects chefs with companies for catering. The business took off and the founders clinched some high-profile investors, including Jay-Z and Usher. That was in March of 2020. Almost overnight, the world went into lockdown , offices closed, and Hungry’s business was effectively eviscerated. Instead of coasting, Jeff and Eman were clawing their way back. Not exactly the script they had written when they started Hungry…but then again, food-tech was a path neither of them expected to take.

Dr. Leila Strickland and Michelle Egger believe the $100 billion dollar infant formula industry isn’t serving the nutritional needs of newborns. So they’re taking on a daunting task - to make and eventually produce at scale - lab-made human milk for babies (aka recreating breast milk in a lab). In this interview, the BIOMILQ co-founders share with us the opportunities and challenges in their quest to make a game-changing difference in the lives of mothers (and fathers) around the world.

Matt Barnard grew up in a family of farmers, but was always drawn to technology. So, after a stint in the wireless technology business, he returned to farming, but with a twist. Barnard is the co-founder of Plenty, a Softbank-backed vertical farming company that seeks to feed the world in the most sustainable way possible. He speaks to us about creating, at scale, autonomous farms run by robots, to produce the most delicious produce available on the market.

A bagel with cream cheese may not seem like a catalyst to change the world, but that’s exactly what it was for Ryan Pandya and Perumal Gandhi. The two are co-founders of Perfect Day, a company that makes the proteins you find in milk in a lab using a method called fermentation. As grad students, Ryan and Perumal found themselves gravitating towards the same scientific problem - is it possible to make a nearly identical replacement for dairy without the cow? For the pair, the answer is a resounding yes. Today, Perfect Day is a unicorn with former Disney chief Bob Iger on its board. From their first meeting in Ireland, to a pivotal presentation to an influential VC (where they wore white lab coats to look "the part"), Ryan and Perumal take us on their memorable food entrepreneurial journey.

Full Stack Food is a podcast about food and innovation. We cover topics ranging from plant-based meat to robot-operated vertical farms, and the impact of COVID on the startup scene. Join journalist Aditi Roy and investor Brett Brohl to navigate the exciting world of food tech.