Inside the Room

Around the world, valuable nutrients are lost through food and agricultural waste even as pressure grows to produce more food with fewer resources. Emerging circular technologies, including insect bioconversion, offer the potential to transform underused organic materials into valuable inputs for food, animal feed, and agriculture. 
But moving these technologies from scientific possibility to commercial reality requires more than technical success. Which materials can safely be used? How should risks be evaluated? What traceability and food-safety controls are needed? And how do we build regulatory and societal confidence in systems that do not fit neatly within traditional frameworks? Join us as we explore how science, policy, industry collaboration, and public trust must come together to unlock the potential of circular food systems, brought to life through distinctive case studies in insect bioconversion.

Take a peek inside the room where strategy, science, regulation, and technology come together to shape the future of food. 

Guest contact

Dr. Maria Velissariou, CEO and co-founder, Food Security Solutions
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maria-velissariou-phd/

This has been an episode of Inside the Room, the conversations behind successful food innovations.

I hope you enjoyed this episode!
If you found this conversation useful, please like, subscribe, and share it with someone who'd benefit.
- Susan and the Inside The Room podcast team

Susan's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/susan-bond
Website: https://www.bondadvisorygroupllc.com/

Listen on:
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0z4x4D6NAQIrcaSRG3ZmpN
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/inside-the-room/id6817019440
Amazon: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/de2b748b-fbcd-4dac-900c-41538c669d04 

#insidetheroom #fdaregulatory #foodregulation #regulatoryaffairs #foodsafety #foodtech #alternativeprotein #functionalfoods #dietarysupplements #agtech #foodinnovation #regulatorystrategy #marketaccess #foodindustry #compliancestrategy

Inside The Room is a podcast of conversations with the food, nutrition, and ag operators who turned regulation into a competitive edge, for founders and operators building the next generation of these industries. Each episode is a look at the regulatory gate standing between a promising product and the market, and what it actually takes to get through it.

Host Susan Bond spent over twenty years inside the regulatory world, including roles across the Food Safety Preventive Controls Alliance and the Sprout Safety Alliance at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Kerry, and Abbott, and holds a Master's in Biotechnology. She now runs Bond Advisory Group, helping organisations turn regulatory complexity into a strategic advantage, and brings that same operator's view of what it takes to bring a product to market on schedule to every episode.

Inside The Room is built for founders, CEOs, chief scientific officers, and regulatory and quality leaders at funded, scaling companies across novel ingredients, functional foods, alternative protein, fermentation, dietary supplements, pet and animal nutrition, and agtech. Listeners get a genuine, peer-level look at how the operators ahead of them cleared their own regulatory gates, and what they'd do differently next time.

Take a peek inside the room where strategy, science, regulation, and technology come together to shape the future of food. Today's guest is
Brandon Chen, CEO & Co-Founder of Finless Foods, a company pioneering cell- cultivated seafood to help redefine how the world produces sustainable seafood.
Their innovative approach has the potential to expand consumer choice while reducing pressure on wild fisheries and oceans. As the regulatory landscape for novel food technologies continues to evolve, bringing these innovations to market requires more than scientific breakthroughs, they demand a clear understanding of the approval pathway and consumer adoption. That makes this a timely conversation about the intersection of science, regulation, consumer acceptance, and commercial success.

How a tuna cell line is established and expanded without ever going back to the fish
What the FDA dossier process for a novel food actually involves
Why Finless Foods shifted to a business-to-business manufacturing model in 2025
The role consumer trust and education play before a product like this can launch
What Brandon sees as success for the wider cultivated seafood industry five years from now

Connect with Brandon Chen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandonchen/
Learn more about Finless Foods: https://finlessfoods.com

If this episode gave you a clearer picture of where sustainable seafood is headed, share it with someone who'd find it interesting, and follow Finless Foods on LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook to keep up with their progress.

I hope you enjoyed this episode!
If you found this conversation useful, please like, subscribe, and share it with someone who'd benefit.
- Susan and the Inside The Room podcast team

Susan's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/susan-bond
Website: https://www.bondadvisorygroupllc.com/

Listen on:
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0z4x4D6NAQIrcaSRG3ZmpN
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/inside-the-room/id6817019440
Amazon: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/de2b748b-fbcd-4dac-900c-41538c669d04 

#insidetheroom #fdaregulatory #foodregulation #regulatoryaffairs #foodsafety #foodtech #alternativeprotein #functionalfoods #dietarysupplements #agtech #foodinnovation #regulatorystrategy #marketaccess #foodindustry #compliancestrategy

Inside The Room is a podcast of conversations with the food, nutrition, and ag operators who turned regulation into a competitive edge, for founders and operators building the next generation of these industries. Each episode is a look at the regulatory gate standing between a promising product and the market, and what it actually takes to get through it.
Host Susan Bond spent over twenty years inside the regulatory world, including roles across the Food Safety Preventive Controls Alliance and the Sprout Safety Alliance at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Kerry, and Abbott, and holds a Master's in Biotechnology. She now runs Bond Advisory Group, helping organisations turn regulatory complexity into a strategic advantage, and brings that same operator's view of what it takes to bring a product to market on schedule to every episode.
Inside The Room is built for founders, CEOs, chief scientific officers, and regulatory and quality leaders at funded, scaling companies across novel ingredients, functional foods, alternative protein, fermentation, dietary supplements, pet and animal nutrition, and agtech. Listeners get a genuine, peer-level look at how the operators ahead of them cleared their own regulatory gates, and what they'd do differently next time.