In the first episode of @AuManufacturing Conversations with Brent Balinski for 2023, we hear from Kristi Riordan, co-founder of plant-based food ingredient maker Harvest B.
Episode guide
0:30 – What they do plus Riordan’s entrepreneurial background “in areas where categories were rapidly transforming.”
2:00 – Migrating to Australia and identifying a new venture aligned with Australia’s competitive advantage in agriculture.
4:10 – Identifying “a complete lack of innovation” in a particular part of the plant-based food value chain.
5:10 – Sites at Penrith, for R&D work and commercial production, and at Surry Hills, which tests for downstream applications of their ingredients.
6:08 – An appreciation for the view put forward by the Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre: “It’s fundamentally a technology business. It might be a hardware business, but it also requires a lot of software.”
7:20 – Why they’re bringing data to the “black art” of extrusion in food manufacturing.
9:10 – Why consumer-oriented problems needed to be tackled first for the category, though there are currently opportunities beyond “formed meats.”
12:10 – Why what they’re doing is different from seitan, a centuries-old fake meat product. “But I think what we’ve learned from seitan is that there is this special ability of gluten to be able to create textures that are quite desirable to our palates.”
14:05 – Targeting a consumer need for simpler products with fewer ingredients without binders.
15:50 – Why language and attitude matter when trying to grow the category among mainstream consumers, rather than appeal to just the idealistic early adopters.
18:50 – Why arguments about plant-based meat look a little like arguments about politics.
22:20 – Near-term and five years ahead. Plus unexpected inbound requests for vegan pet food and what changing, more localised supply chains could mean for overseas markets.
25:35 – Riordan’s point of view on localising production within Australia.
Relevant links
Harvest B's website
https://www.harvestb.io/
QUEENSLAND, WOOLWORTHS INVEST IN MANUFACTURING
https://www.aumanufacturing.com.au/queensland-woolworths-invest-in-manufacturing
SIMPLIFIED INGREDIENT LISTS AND INCREASED ECONOMIC COMPLEXITY
https://www.aumanufacturing.com.au/simplified-ingredient-lists-and-increased-economic-complexity
