Josh Tetrick has advice for the alternative protein industry he helped start.
He’s certainly war-scarred from his efforts to mainstream first plant-based replacements for mayonnaise, then eggs, and more recently cultivated meat from chicken cells. Since starting in 2011 as Beyond Eggs (later renamed to Hampton Creek Foods and now Eat Just), Tetrick has lived through just about everything one can in his campaign to disrupt the massive industrialized food system we all dine on daily. Having his startup anointed by Bill Gates. Being sued by global food giant Unilever and targeted by the American Egg Board. Facing multiple controversies, from the company’s science and its labeling to buying its own products to boost sales. Raising $850 million to date and achieving unicorn status. Betting early on cultivated meat and becoming the first company to win the right to sell it commercially in Singapore. And more recently, being sued by a former partner while facing scaling issues and unit economic challenges to reach profitability.
So I’ll leave it to you as to whether Tetrick, the cofounder and CEO of Eat Just—best known for its egg replacement, Just Egg—deserves the right to offer sage advice. But after spending a day with him in December at the company’s rather quiet headquarters in Alameda, California, I find the engaging Southerner-turned-Californian to be his usual candid self. While talking about Eat Just’s not inconsiderable challenges, we tasted the company’s forthcoming commercial products (his culinary ambitions are solid), and discussed what he’s reading. When he’s not peering over spreadsheets, Tetrick listens to audiobooks—his list on Audible is expansive. A few recents include What We Owe the Future by William MacAskill, Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, and The Long View by Richard Fisher—a book about the importance of long-term thinking, or as Tetrick sees it, “a lesson in acting with near-term urgency with a long-term view.”
Because Tetrick has been in the food-tech space longer than most, and despite any missteps, his insight is meaningful for every would-be founder, not only in food tech but certainly any hard tech and possibly any startup. “The most important objective for this whole place before the end of 2024,” says Tetrick, gesturing toward the hallways, “is to generate enough dollars—enough margin dollars—to cover overall operating expense.”
Translation: After more than 12 years at the helm, he’s finally getting serious about profitability.
Does Tetrick still have money in the bank? He assures me he does. Venture isn’t flowing, but he doesn’t worry about securing more investment—if needed. “There are less than 150 companies out there and 10 companies probably have 90% of the capital raise,” he says. Can the industry support that many? “It’s good for people to try things,” he says. “Folks are going to fail and make mistakes, and we’re going to learn from each other.”
Tetrick’s priorities are to optimize process development and increase cell density of cultivated meat and lower media costs. Advising his younger self, he says he’d tell him to think beyond this year or next. “The objective is to maximize what you’re trying to do over the course of a lifetime plus.”
In other words: What’s the rush?
He cautions anyone against building anything beyond a pilot plant. “Until you figure out how to build a large-scale facility at a minimum of millions of pounds a year for under $200 million a year,” Tetrick says, “I wouldn’t do it.” This from a guy who signed a contract in 2022 with ABEC, a biopharmaceutical manufacturing specialist, to build 10 $250 million bioreactors (the largest yet for cell-cultured development). It’s the kind of deal size that even a company like Apple might cringe over. After Just stopped paying its bills, ABEC, which had already equipped the startup’s pilot plants in Alameda and Singapore, decided to sue. “It’s not news to anyone in the company that we spent too much money on bioreactors,” says Tetrick. Deal estimates place the cost for a facility like that at $1 billion, with ABEC’s share of the capital expense likely north of $550 million.
“If I thought that the world was ready to pour money into cultivated meat,” Tetrick tells me, “then I actually don’t think you would need to rethink it. But cultivated meat isn’t artificial intelligence, it’s food.”
Few have tried cultured meat (another name for cultivated meat). That won’t change for a very long time. Just’s current commercial production is done by a pharmaceutical grade co-manufacturing partner in Richmond, California. How much do they produce? He minces no words: “It’s tiny. It’s costly. The vessels are so small, the cell densities are too low. All these are gating items on making a significant amount.”
What everyone may not realize is that scaling a novel industry is fraught. “Never, ever be under the impression that what is true in the lab is necessarily true at large scale.” This is why vertical farms are going under and cultivated meat is sold at only two restaurants in the United States.
Because it’s so expensive, Tetrick rarely samples his company’s own product. He made an exception for me. The cell-cultured chicken, prepared by Zach Tyndall, a chef and senior product developer, was served on a plate atop Rancho Gordo heirloom beans, caramelized onions, and six delicate broccoli spears. The meat showed sear marks and featured a shiny brown glaze. Most of it was for me, but Tetrick leaned over and grabbed the end while simultaneously joking about how much it cost him.
The morsels—60% cultured cells plus 40% plant protein and fats—are savory and delicious. Worlds better than any protein that’s fully plant-based in terms of its taste and texture. My parents, your grandparents, you would be happy eating it in place of the real stuff.
More often, Tetrick is tasting and retasting Just Egg, which has sold the equivalent of 475 million chicken eggs and holds 99% of the plant-based egg market. “I would’ve been much, much more aggressive about getting to profitability on the egg faster,” he says, adding, “Pay attention to the criticality of reducing your warehousing costs and your packaging costs.”
The buttery yellow liquid “egg,” created with mung bean protein isolate, is continually tweaked for improvements. At the top is reducing protein costs, but Tetrick also wants to optimize the sensory experience: mouthfeel, texture, fattiness, and functionality. You can pick up version 4 at the grocery store. In a sustainability nod, soon Just Eggs will be sold in paper instead of plastic.
Recently, he tasted version 5.14.4. “Have you compared it to a conventional egg?” Tetrick asked his three chefs. They hadn’t. Every moment for Tetrick is a lesson. “The point is not to just be good,” he says. “The point is to understand where we are in reference to what people eat today and not be in our own heads about something.” This is why Tetrick, whose veganism has always been a part of his company’s story, now sometimes eats meat in his company’s lab.
Just is at an inflection point, and it’s wise that Tetrick peers outside his box. These are the things that keep him up at night. “I would say many seemingly mundane things can end up being some of the most critical things. . . . I’m worried that we’re not going to get to cashflow break-even fast enough,” he says. “I’m worried that version 5 is not going to come out at the time we’ve all committed to. I’m worried that we’re not going to figure out a way to get to a low-cost facility fast enough. I’m worried that we’re not going to be able to recruit X person to come here.”
About that lawsuit with ABEC and rulings that may or may not cripple the company, Tetrick would have told his younger self to be more risk averse about placing certain bets. And being cognizant of costs isn’t enough to make any of this stuff work. “It requires an absolute obsession with it.” Meaning: Spreadsheets are your friend.
In the kitchen with Tetrick, we tasted our way through several new frozen-food SKUs that will be launching in grocery stores this year. No detail was too small to engage his attention. And his three product developers, all trained chefs who have been with the company longer than most, were adept at being “grilled.”
The theme for 2024 is “no burn.” To help get there, the company is consolidating into a single building in Alameda to house its roughly 100 employees.
What he wouldn’t need to tell young Josh—or anyone after this forever pandemic—is to be resilient. “Ironically, sometimes holding back a bit—holding back a bit in terms of reducing a price, holding back a bit in terms of spending more money on a big bioreactor or whatever it is—can ironically increase the probability that you succeed.”
Whether Just and Tetrick succeed is still in question, but if he sticks to his runway of a “lifetime plus,” then he’s still got plenty of time.
Reported for Fast Company on January 21, 2024.