Starting next week, we will do an episode twice a month.

But I'll still be on every week! Listen to the R&D Radio podcast on the Startup CPG podcast!

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Bruce Friedrich, president and founder of the Good Food Institute, joins the show to mark GFI's 10th anniversary and unpack a decade of building the plant-based and cultivated meat ecosystem.

Drawing on his acclaimed new book Meat (a Publishers Weekly Top 10 and Nature Top 5 science pick, praised by Jane Goodall, Nobel laureate Michael Kremer, and Kim Stanley Robinson), Bruce makes the case that the real challenges were never about taste or technology alone. They were about scaling, regulation, and money.

Adam and Bruce dig into how cultivated meat costs have plummeted 100,000-fold on a fraction of the funding of any comparable technology, why so many plant-based startups mistook themselves for "the next Impossible," and how 30+ governments went from zero funding to hundreds of millions in just six years. Along the way: Gartner hype cycles, the Waymo and Tesla parallels, the surprising promise of blended products, and honest career advice for food scientists eyeing an underserved field.

A grounded, optimistic conversation about technology adoption, the fragility of our food system, and the unglamorous work of changing the world one tech challenge at a time.

📘 Learn more about the book at meatbook.org · Connect with Bruce on LinkedIn · Newsletters at gfi.org/newsletters

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Light bites and refreshments are included with your ticket; please indicate any dietary restrictions in your ticket order confirmation form.

Heads up, as always, we'll have VIPs in attendance as well!

Hey Chicago: Startup CPG is hosting our first-ever Founders & Formulators event!

Join us at the historic Palmer House Hotel for an afternoon of structured "speed-dating" with the top food scientists and product developers in town for IFT FIRST 2026.

Finding the right formulator on your own usually means months of cold outreach, dead-end calls, and guessing whether someone's expertise even fits your product. This event skips that process entirely, giving you 1:1 time with multiple formulators.

Each expert brings different knowledge, experience, and working style, so you’ll get lots of different perspectives which you can use to improve your product.

Not necessarily looking to bring on a formulator? Come anyway. These formulators can taste your product, evaluate your formula in person, and give you expert insights you can't get from a call with someone who's never actually seen your product.

Whether you're still in development and looking for a partner or trying to scale something that's already on shelves, bring what you're working on!

Light bites and refreshments are included with your ticket; please indicate any dietary restrictions in your ticket order confirmation form.

Heads up, as always, we'll have VIPs in attendance as well!

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Kirsten Maitland co-founded Rebel With Cheese out of necessity

But this episode isn’t just

Adam and Kirsten get into how

Resources Kirsten mentioned:

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Suzanne Allers built her career bridging two worlds most people never connect: P&G beauty product development and the fast-moving, low-margin world of food innovation. As a partner at Untapped Innovation Consulting, she's spent over 20 years helping brands translate consumer insight into product and product back into story.

In this episode, Suzanne breaks down why food consumers don't think in "problems" the way skincare consumers do, and what that means for how you research and design a product. She digs into why R&D teams are often the best-positioned people in a company to write a brand's core story (and why marketing still has a critical role to play after that). The conversation also covers the GLP-1 effect rippling through food and beauty, the "premiumization" of ingredients like fiber and protein, and how to tell a real cultural shift apart from a fad before you bet your roadmap on it.

Suzanne also shares a first look at her upcoming book, Untapping Innovation, a practical playbook of the tools and frameworks her firm has used across categories from personal care to PepsiCo.

What we cover:

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Lauren Senne, Senior Manager of Applications and Taste Modulation at Imbibe, joins the show to demystify what flavorists actually do and why their work is one of the most fascinating fusions of art and science in our industry.

We dig into the realities of formulating beverages with high-protein, functional, and botanical ingredients, the difference between bitter blockers and maskers, and why sweetener proteins like Thaumatin and Brazzein are a space to watch.

Lauren also shares practical tips for vetting flavors quickly, choosing flavor profiles that harmonize with off-notes (peaches, berries, anything-and-cream), and what it really takes to become a certified flavorist. A must-listen for anyone formulating drinks, working with functional ingredients, or just curious about the hidden craft behind your favorite RTD.

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Stephanie Zhuang is the founder of Tidal Brand Management, a fractional marketing services firm specializing in startup CPG brands across food, beverage, and supplements. In this episode, we cover her journey from fine arts to corporate brand management at Johnson & Johnson, Kimberly-Clark, Vega, and Campbell’s — and what finally pushed her to go out on her own. Stephanie shares why CPG marketing is more analytical than people realize, why supplements outperform food in DTC, and the real math behind premiumization. We also talk about the honest questions you should ask yourself before leaving a corporate job to build something solo.

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Ever wonder why some food brands seem to blow up on Amazon or Instacart while others burn through their ad budget with nothing to show for it? In this episode, I sit down with Mat Drela, CEO and founder of Retail Media IQ, who has spent 17 years mastering performance marketing across thousands of campaigns.

We dig into the world of retail media the ads you see on Instacart, Amazon, and your favorite grocery apps and what CPG founders actually need to know before they spend a single dollar. If you're building a food brand and you're curious about how to turn digital shelf space into real sales, this one is for you.

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Becca Wright, founder of Piedmont Pennies, joins the show to share how a grandmother’s cheese cracker recipe became a Southern specialty brand sold in 450+ stores across 47 states. She breaks down why specialty retail is the smartest launchpad for new food brands, how demoing reveals truths your spreadsheet never will, and the mindset shift that keeps founders steady through the highs and lows.

We also dig into the North Carolina food ecosystem, Eastern vs. Western barbecue, and what “community over competition” really looks like in CPG. A masterclass in scrappy, intentional brand building from the heart of the Carolinas.

Promo Code

Use code FOODROCKS20 for 20% off at PiedmontPennies.com

Key Links for Show Notes

•   Piedmont Pennies website: piedmontpennies.com

•   Social: @PiedmontPennies (Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, Facebook)

•   NC IDEA grant program

•   NC State Food Lab

•   Startup CPG community

•   Weaver Street Market (Raleigh/Carrboro/Hillsborough/Southern Village)

•   Reed’s Fine Foods (Charlotte)

•   Fresh Market, Lowe’s Foods (NC local sections)

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What does it really take to understand the numbers behind your CPG brand? This week, Adam sits down with Abby June Richards, founder and fractional CFO of The CPG CFO, to demystify the financial side of the consumer packaged goods world. Abby shares how she went from 20+ years in public accounting to building a thriving fractional CFO practice serving emerging CPG founders and why she'll never go back to traditional accounting.

In this episode, you'll learn the difference between finance and accounting, why most financial models sit unused on a shelf, and how the simple 4:1 cost-to-retail ratio can be a cheat code for pricing your product. Abby breaks down why retention is one of the most powerful (and overlooked) levers in your business, why raising prices is often the bravest and smartest move a founder can make, and how collaboration between finance, sales, and operations is where the magic really happens. She also shares the now-famous Lupini pizza story — where an accidental $25 price tag still moved units and proved that special brands can charge what they're worth.

Whether you're pre-revenue, scaling into retail, or just trying to figure out if your business actually has margin, this conversation will give you the clarity (and courage) to look at your numbers with new eyes. Because as Abby says: if you don't have margin, you don't have a business.

Find Abby:

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