#136: Building a Next-Generation Ingredient Company With Shiru's Jasmin Hume
As the former head of food chemistry for Eat Just, Jasmin Hume thought there was a lot of white space for innovation and thought a company should exist to build the next generation of ingredients for plant-based food. So she created it. At Shiru, Hume and her team make novel ingredients by identifying proteins with function such as taste, texture and more utilizing cutting edge tools like machine learning. So far, the company has raised over $20 million and just recently hired Impossible Foods' former VP of R&D and strategic ingredients. On the podcast, Mike and Jasmin discuss the following topics: -how the alternative protein market is evolving from early fully vertically integrated brands to companies like Shiru that build ingredients and solutions for a variety of companies -the new cohort of food companies utilizing AI and ML to build the next generation of food -how what Shiru is doing with precision fermentation is different from that of Perfect Day and others trying to create animal-identical proteins -Where Jasmin sees the ingredient industry going in the future -Plus lots more! You can find out more about Shiru at www.shiru.com via Knit