Starter Culture — A CoLabs Podcast

We've got skyscrapers, moon missions, and always-on tech… and yet a staggering number of people still run on empty when it comes to nutrition. We’re joined by Wesley Cook, founder of Nutrition Lab, for a wide-ranging conversation that connects the dots between micronutrient deficiencies, degraded soils, modern diets, and the chronic disease burden showing up earlier and earlier in life.

Wesley shares the personal story behind the company, from growing up in South Africa during apartheid and seeing inequality up close, to working in non-profit community development and disaster relief, and then confronting health directly after a multiple sclerosis diagnosis in his family. That turning point drives a simple but demanding question: how do we move the health conversation upstream, before the shock of diagnosis, and give bodies the building blocks they need to thrive?

From there we get practical. We dig into why Nutrition Lab chose Moringa oleifera, what makes it uniquely nutrient-dense, and how it can be grown at scale in warm climates while potentially improving degraded land. We also unpack the tricky part most supplement labels ignore: bioavailability and bioaccessibility. If the Western gut microbiome is losing capacity to break down plant cellulose, how much of a 'superfood' do you actually absorb? Wesley explains Nutrition Lab’s whole-plant approach and their multi-state biocatalytic process, including an in vitro result showing a 2.75x lift in target nutrients moving into the soluble fraction.

We finish with the business model and the ethics. Wesley outlines a built-in impact flywheel (30 daily serves purchased helps fund 10 for communities who can’t afford it) and a bold governance idea that could share value with farm workers upstream, not just shareholders downstream. If you care about health, regenerative agriculture, and better ways to build companies, this one’s for you. Subscribe, share with a mate, and leave a review with your biggest question about nutrition and modern health.

Starter Culture is a CoLabs podcast – conversations from inside Australia's bio and deep tech ecosystem, with the people building what comes next.

If something in this episode sparked an idea, here's where to take it:

🧪 FIND YOUR SPACE
PC2 lab benches, private lab pods, engineering and fabrication space, laser rooms and coworking desks – in Brunswick and Notting Hill (Melbourne) and Eveleigh (Sydney). Whether you need a bench for a few weeks or a home for years, there's room to grow here.

🛠 COLLABORATE WITH US
Validate an idea, find the right talent, sharpen your sales and marketing, or bring your science to life on camera with Studio CoLabs, our in-house content production team.

🌱 JOIN A PROGRAM
Kinesis – a challenge-led pre-accelerator with real lab access, for founders ready to test their ideas at the bench.
Impact Program – support for ventures working on human and planetary health. 

📬 GET THE NEWSLETTER
Member stories, new episodes, events, open calls and the occasional strange idea – straight to your inbox.

Got a guest suggestion, a question or a collaboration in mind? Say hello at [email protected]

Starter Culture is produced by Studio CoLabs.

Starter Culture is a CoLabs podcast – conversations from inside Australia's bio and deep tech ecosystem, with the people building what comes next.

If something in this episode sparked an idea, here's where to take it:

🧪 FIND YOUR SPACE
PC2 lab benches, private lab pods, engineering and fabrication space, laser rooms and coworking desks – in Brunswick and Notting Hill (Melbourne) and Eveleigh (Sydney). Whether you need a bench for a few weeks or a home for years, there's room to grow here.

🛠 COLLABORATE WITH US
Validate an idea, find the right talent, sharpen your sales and marketing, or bring your science to life on camera with Studio CoLabs, our in-house content production team.

🌱 JOIN A PROGRAM
Kinesis – a challenge-led pre-accelerator with real lab access, for founders ready to test their ideas at the bench.
Impact Program – support for ventures working on human and planetary health. 

📬 GET THE NEWSLETTER
Member stories, new episodes, events, open calls and the occasional strange idea – straight to your inbox.

Got a guest suggestion, a question or a collaboration in mind? Say hello at [email protected]

Starter Culture is produced by Studio CoLabs.

Paloma is the co-founder of Elita, a preventative healthcare platform for pets. She speaks about meeting the Draper family — which spans 4 generations of venture capital — and why she asks founders about how they did something interesting, rather than about how much they’ve raised.

01:03 - Pivot to preventive dog health
09:19 - Making informed decisions using health data
15:41 - Oral and gut microbiome tests
19:20 - Integrating vet care with data
25:01 - US funding trip and ethical capital
33:13 - Cultural contrasts between Australia and overseas
38:54 - Texas trip
42:43 - Insights from travel
46:48 - Learning from US venture landscape
47:53 - On not just celebrating how much a founder has raised

Starter Culture is a CoLabs podcast – conversations from inside Australia's bio and deep tech ecosystem, with the people building what comes next.

If something in this episode sparked an idea, here's where to take it:

🧪 FIND YOUR SPACE
PC2 lab benches, private lab pods, engineering and fabrication space, laser rooms and coworking desks – in Brunswick and Notting Hill (Melbourne) and Eveleigh (Sydney). Whether you need a bench for a few weeks or a home for years, there's room to grow here.

🛠 COLLABORATE WITH US
Validate an idea, find the right talent, sharpen your sales and marketing, or bring your science to life on camera with Studio CoLabs, our in-house content production team.

🌱 JOIN A PROGRAM
Kinesis – a challenge-led pre-accelerator with real lab access, for founders ready to test their ideas at the bench.
Impact Program – support for ventures working on human and planetary health. 

📬 GET THE NEWSLETTER
Member stories, new episodes, events, open calls and the occasional strange idea – straight to your inbox.

Got a guest suggestion, a question or a collaboration in mind? Say hello at [email protected]

Starter Culture is produced by Studio CoLabs.

We've got skyscrapers, moon missions, and always-on tech… and yet a staggering number of people still run on empty when it comes to nutrition. We’re joined by Wesley Cook, founder of Nutrition Lab, for a wide-ranging conversation that connects the dots between micronutrient deficiencies, degraded soils, modern diets, and the chronic disease burden showing up earlier and earlier in life.

Wesley shares the personal story behind the company, from growing up in South Africa during apartheid and seeing inequality up close, to working in non-profit community development and disaster relief, and then confronting health directly after a multiple sclerosis diagnosis in his family. That turning point drives a simple but demanding question: how do we move the health conversation upstream, before the shock of diagnosis, and give bodies the building blocks they need to thrive?

From there we get practical. We dig into why Nutrition Lab chose Moringa oleifera, what makes it uniquely nutrient-dense, and how it can be grown at scale in warm climates while potentially improving degraded land. We also unpack the tricky part most supplement labels ignore: bioavailability and bioaccessibility. If the Western gut microbiome is losing capacity to break down plant cellulose, how much of a 'superfood' do you actually absorb? Wesley explains Nutrition Lab’s whole-plant approach and their multi-state biocatalytic process, including an in vitro result showing a 2.75x lift in target nutrients moving into the soluble fraction.

We finish with the business model and the ethics. Wesley outlines a built-in impact flywheel (30 daily serves purchased helps fund 10 for communities who can’t afford it) and a bold governance idea that could share value with farm workers upstream, not just shareholders downstream. If you care about health, regenerative agriculture, and better ways to build companies, this one’s for you. Subscribe, share with a mate, and leave a review with your biggest question about nutrition and modern health.

Starter Culture is a CoLabs podcast – conversations from inside Australia's bio and deep tech ecosystem, with the people building what comes next.

If something in this episode sparked an idea, here's where to take it:

🧪 FIND YOUR SPACE
PC2 lab benches, private lab pods, engineering and fabrication space, laser rooms and coworking desks – in Brunswick and Notting Hill (Melbourne) and Eveleigh (Sydney). Whether you need a bench for a few weeks or a home for years, there's room to grow here.

🛠 COLLABORATE WITH US
Validate an idea, find the right talent, sharpen your sales and marketing, or bring your science to life on camera with Studio CoLabs, our in-house content production team.

🌱 JOIN A PROGRAM
Kinesis – a challenge-led pre-accelerator with real lab access, for founders ready to test their ideas at the bench.
Impact Program – support for ventures working on human and planetary health. 

📬 GET THE NEWSLETTER
Member stories, new episodes, events, open calls and the occasional strange idea – straight to your inbox.

Got a guest suggestion, a question or a collaboration in mind? Say hello at [email protected]

Starter Culture is produced by Studio CoLabs.