Parendi Birdie of Asentia

In this episode of the Cultured Meat and Future Food Show, host Alex Shirazi interviews Parendi Birdie, an entrepreneur and leader in the alternative protein industry. Parendi shares her extensive background, including how she transitioned from running her family’s Montessori business to becoming a key figure in the cultivated meat space. She discusses her journey in building startups like Good Meat and Mission Barns, her role in advancing the field of cultivated meat, and the challenges and opportunities within the industry.

Parendi Birdie Bio:

Parendi Birdie has thrived in startups for the past 15 years and is currently building her fourth, Asentia.

Parendi has been at the forefront of the alternative protein industry since 2013. She earned a degree in biochemistry from the University of Kansas, with the goal of advancing the sector. She then helped build two leading alternative protein companies from the ground up: GOOD Meat and Mission Barns. Throughout her career, Parendi has established and led multiple functions, including R&D, marketing, strategic partnerships, and product development. She is a well-rounded entrepreneur with a track record of success, from closing tens of millions of dollars in VC funding to securing a partnership with one of the largest meat companies, to leading the development of the first commercially available cultivated meat cell lines.

Today, Parendi is the co-founder & CEO of Asentia. Her ambitious vision is to make meat that’s better than anything we’ve ever known. She’s starting with hybrid meat for the massive, untapped market of people who want to eat better, but don’t want to give up meat.

Parendi also serves the industry as an impact investor and advisor to Food System Innovations, Alt-Collective, and Talist.

Beyond alternative protein, Parendi also ran her family’s business (Montessori school), growing the business to $1M+ in annual revenue and a successful acquisition exit to a PE firm.

Parendi has spoken about Alternative Protein across multiple formats and continents:
Traditional Media: TIME Magazine, BBC News, ScienceLine, Meatingplace Magazine, Alt-Meat, Green Queen, and more.
Conferences/Lectures: Harvard Business School, Johns Hopkins University, Saudi Agricultural and Livestock Investment Conference, The World Zarathushti Chamber Of Commerce, Good Food Institute Conference, and more.
Podcasts: MeatingPod, National Association of Manufacturers, Re:Planet, Alt-Protein Careers, and more.

AI Generated Transcript:

 Welcome to the cultured meat and future food show. I’m really excited to have Parendi Birdie on the show today. Parendi, welcome to the show.  Thank you, Alex. I’ve been a fan of your podcast for several years and excited to be a guest. I’m really glad you’re in the guest seat today, and I feel like ever since I started in the alt protein world I’ve always seen you and your presence there.

So for our audience please tell us a little bit about your background.  Yeah. Thank you for that. I’ve been working to advance the alt protein sector really from its earliest days and I’ve worn many hats. Everything from scientist, entrepreneur, investor, advisor, and more. I’ve helped build three companies from the ground up, and I’m just so excited to take on my fourth year, which I know we’ll talk about.

Yeah, I’ve been building startups for the past 15 years.  Back in 2010, my mom expanded her Montessori business and it started to grow really quickly to the point where I actually dropped out of college to take over all of the business functions.  I didn’t know much about running a company at the time and had to quickly learn all the fundamentals.

But within a few years, we grew it to 30 employees, a million dollars in revenue a year and a successful acquisition exit to a PE firm. And I was able to retire my mom, which was  definitely a highlight of my career.  And then zoom ahead a few years to 2013. I learned about this It was called in vitro meat, what we know as cultivated meat today.

And back then there were about a dozen or so people who were working to make it a reality. But really there were, zero companies, not much research being done. But overnight I became one of those people. I earned a degree in biochemistry to advance the field and joined as an early member of Good Meat.

And a few years later, Mission Barnes.  I helped build these cultivating companies from the ground up from developing the vision, setting the strategic path and hiring the team. And in both startups, I began on the technical side with my background in biochemistry and molecular biology. I contributed most on the cell line and media development areas, but really being an entrepreneur at heart, I gravitated towards the business functions. 

I led efforts across various departments, everything from business development, marketing, HR you name it.  And then about a year and a half ago, I joined forces with FSI and the incredible David Meyer, who I imagine many of your listeners are familiar with. He’s just an absolute force of nature and a bit of a celebrity in our space, you could say. 

And he offered to fund me to work on various projects to advance the alt protein sector. So I took on many projects, everything from helping co found an industry wide Mark Homs organization to conducting research into the blended, or you may know it as the plant rich or plant forward meat sector.

It’s really a brand new sector, so we’re still figuring out the nomenclature. And yeah, I just felt like this category had the potential to be this silver bullet to solve some of the largest challenges place facing plant based meat. But at the same time, it was just, wildly underexplored.

And so I conducted in depth consumer insight research. Higher food scientists and chefs to do some R and D. And every week that went by, just increasingly felt optimistic that plant forward meat products really holds massive potential to, to transform the food system. So yeah, I recently started my own company in the space to do just that.

And that research was under the project with David Meyer. Exactly. Through FSI, Food Systems Innovations. Cool. And I want to track back to the Montessori school because I will admit, I don’t know, when I hear the word Montessori, I don’t really know too much of what to think.

Can you tell us a little bit about Montessori? What that is. Yeah, sure. It’s a unconventional, I guess you could say education philosophy, early childhood education philosophy. So today, imagine if you go to a school, you have 20 students sitting in a classroom, there’s a teacher lecturing, teaching some lesson about math or English or whatever the topic may be.

But the Montessori education of philosophy really encourages children to think independently and different and have a lot of freedom. And so the way that classrooms are set up.  Is there’s what we call equipment aligning the walls of the classroom and the children have the freedom to choose what they want to work on, when they want to work on it and really encourages individuality and confidence and really just thinking different and outside of the box.

And I was definitely raised with that philosophy and hold it near and dear to my heart. And, many of the, topics we’re going to talk about thread back to this idea of thinking different, thinking big and changing the world, which is something that’s talked a lot about in the Montessori philosophy.

Very cool. Yeah. And now that I think about it it’s some sort of Montessori toy or something that my son has where I see that name pop up. So it definitely is a very interesting education method, okay. Thank you for that. And now. I also wanted to say that I remember that you offered a tour to, to GoodMeat.

And I was with Cody Creelman, who was, he has a huge YouTube channel. I think he’s doing more of a vet practice now, but. You gave us a tour of the facility and I remember we walked out of that meeting just feeling wow,  the future of food is going to be really cool. So I want to say, thank you for that.

It was a very kind of eyeopening experience just to talk to somebody who is so passionate about moving the field forward and also seeing. Some of what a lab actually looks like.  Oh, thank you for mentioning that. Yeah. I remember that day well and to feel really grateful for my time at just, and to be able to give, I probably gave gosh, a few hundred tours throughout my time there.

And I just loved those moments of seeing people’s space slide up just as I did when I first learned about cultivated meat and yeah, I still feel very optimistic about the future of food.  So you’re obviously very entrepreneurial, but when you started working on the projects with David Meyer, did you know you were going to turn that into a company and start a company? 

No, I really didn’t have any idea of doing that at the time. Yeah, not at all.  Okay, great. And so what was the process like to say, Hey, we have a very good kind of direction here, or, maybe use case, you can call it, what was the process like to jump in? Stepping back to give you a bit of the backstory of how I knew I wanted to start the company.

So my parents immigrated to America. So my sister and I could live these extraordinary purpose driven lives beyond just personal fulfillment and. When I was young, when I was asked what I wanted to do when I grew up, my response was change the world. But I didn’t really know what that would look like.

But when I really took a deep and honest look at the intersection of some of the world’s largest problems, I found the food system at the epicenter. And so I’m now dedicated, as to building a better, more sensible food system. And my aim is to really be a leading force driving real change, not just along for the ride.

This isn’t a job for me. It’s not a career. It’s really my life’s purpose.  And so for this startup specifically I’m a numbers person and I knew I wanted to have a really big impact. And so when I was looking how I could have the biggest impact my calculus and really just a lot of soul searching pointed me to the plant forward meat industry.

And so I was torn between working at this kind of sector wide level as we’re speaking about to help build a category or start my own company. And I decided to start my own company because based on my research, my experience working in the alternative protein sector just my intuition.

I had this clear vision of how a plant forward meat company could be successful. And I thought that to have the biggest impact I would really need to build my own company rather than trying to convince others. And yeah, that’s how I got into it. I also really believe personally that People perform at their best when they find roles that really fit well for who they are and how they’re wired So my role today as CEO really just it works well with me I know many CEOs who don’t really love the day to day, but honestly, I love my work and Just going back to what I said earlier, I think I’m an entrepreneur at heart and I’ve been building companies for as long as I can remember.

I, I grew up with two entrepreneurial parents who operated businesses out of our homes. So my summer’s working alongside them, just really learning to. Think big, develop resilience and use business as a force for good. So yeah, I think it all ties together quite well. There’s definitely an entrepreneurial mindset where you either have it or you don’t, and you’ll see people that, you know, especially your background, you have worn many hats.

A little bit about  a lot of different things, and probably a lot about, Many other things as well. But what I’m trying to get at is, a lot of times you’ll see that entrepreneur and entrepreneurs will have no problem really doing anything that needs to get done, whereas sometimes you’ll see people that are in certain levels of leadership or executives, and they are very good at what they do.

They’re very good at. Big managers, but  they can’t put themselves in maybe one of the other roles and succeed. And I’m excited to talk a little bit about that more. And also your background in Alt Protein. But actually let’s jump to the company Asentia. Tell us a little bit about it and how it’s different.

Yeah, I’ll give you the backstory first. So over the last several years of working in the alternative protein sector, I’ve noticed this stark disconnect,  where 9 out of 10 Americans want to eat healthier, half of the population tried plant based meat, fast food giants have raced to launch these products, but it’s not quite sticky. We don’t see the repeat purchase rates really needed to drive meaningful impact. And so this disconnect led us to ask what if we can think outside of the box, beyond the black and white thinking we have today, and build a new category of foods that really offers the best of both worlds. And at Asentia, what we’re doing is we’re developing plant forward meat products, such as a truffle mushroom meatball, a lemon chicken cauliflower cutlet that really combines animal and plant proteins to offer that authentic taste of meat, enhanced with these plant powered benefits that we all want more of. 

And so a guiding R& D question we had was, what is it that separates the most exquisite cuts of meat in the world from the average ones? And how can we recreate that sensory experience at a molecular level? And so this led us to develop a novel enzymatic fermentation technology, which we use as that kind of cornerstone of our IP. 

And these products are designed to really, truly elevate both taste and flavor. Nutrition. Our goal is to unlock that massive untapped market of people who want to eat better.  Don’t want to give up meat.  And when you say plant forward, it’s and I know you said you’re working on the perfect term for that or a better term, but plant forward means primarily plant based it.

Is that a good way to say it? So it’s a good question. It’s a discussion we’ve been actually having as a sector right now is trying to figure out how we can define it and what the percentages need to be. So right now there’s not a clear definition. I would say a majority of the plant forward or blended or hybrid meat companies they’re about 50, 50.

So 50% meat 50 percent plant ingredients. There’s some that are 90 percent plant ingredients. There’s some that are 70 percent meat. And so there really isn’t one term that captures that right now, but it’s something where we’re actively working on. Okay, cool. And you said that there’s a proprietary or you said novel fermentation technology that allows you to essentially have a cut above the edge or above others in terms of the ingredients that you use to make these products. 

Yeah, that’s correct. A guiding question that we had when we were starting the company was, what is it that separates the average cuts of meats from the most exquisite ones in the world? What really is that? And so we took products like, let’s say an aged steak product that’s been aged a hundred days.

And what’s happening at a enzymatic molecular level what is that these proteins get broken down into these.  savory amino acids. These carbohydrates get broken down into more simple sugars that aid the Maillard reaction. These fats get broken down into aromatic fatty acids that coat the mouth.

And so when looking at that, we thought what, how can we create, recreate that? And essentially what we do is we use this enzymatic hydrolysis to really elevate this meat at a molecular level to get that depth of flavor and richness that’s really found in the best cuts of meat. 

What I like about this is, other than the fact that you’re creating extremely delicious, definitely delicious sounding, we’re on a podcast, right? Delicious sounding food. It, it also, there’s this stigma a lot of time, a lot of times against fully plant based foods like beyond or impossible.

And so  that kind of stigma is completely off the table. Not now. And everybody’s going after carnivores in terms of their primary market but there’s always that thought, oh, should I get the real meat or should I get, and I use the term real meat as a bad, as a poorly described term of what people call it, but they say real meat or vegan meat, a lot of times.

But here it’s not about that. It’s, should I get the steak or should I get this really, should I get the Asentia steak, right? And so I guess and I don’t want to say that you guys are making steak or anything like that. That was just an example, but is it right to assume that you or your team is creating like a consumer product or is it going to be a more of a B2B model?

Yep. Consumer facing products. Okay, cool. Awesome. Okay. Excellent. And I, you talked a little bit about your background and how that was able to, shape. The person that you are and get you into this really nice direction of  making sure that research aligns with the need and creating a Asentia.

You have actually spent so much time, you have seen how the alt protein industry has changed. So I wanted to just ask you, what are some of the major changes you’ve seen in the alt protein industry over the last few years?  Yeah, um, working in the early days of the alternative protein industry, specifically the  cultivated meat sector back in 2013 was incredibly exciting.

At the time, there were only about, like I said, a dozen people truly committed to making cultivated a reality. And the questions we faced were very foundational. We were asking ourselves, is this even possible? What fundamental R& D needs to be done to assess if this is even viable. It was a period that was filled with so much optimism and excitement.

There was a real feeling that we’re on the forefront of something truly revolutionary. And there was this strong, tight knit community of passionate people all working towards the same goal. Those early days were filled with a lot of, member memorable experiences charting unknown territory, but also, um, I’d say the true impact lies ahead, but really everything my past has led me to this moment in my career and how I view my theory of change.

And so today, the way that I think about things is that to drive change. Meaningful change. We need to make products that people really love and they crave and they fit into who they are and our identities. And so I think the industry really needs to move in that direction and kind of move towards that more laser focused consumer obsessed mindset.

And I think that we’re doing that and I feel very optimistic about the future, but that’s something that I think that we’re learning and growing in right now.  As you start to build your team for Asentia tell us about who’s already part of the team and really what was your pitch to, to get them on board? 

Yeah. So I feel very fortunate to have two co founders who are just such all stars. I spent a lot of time recruiting and something that I just really, I believe that the success of a company is determined by the strength of its founding team. And so I spent countless hours interviewing dozens of talented candidates, but when my two co founders, Eric Hetzren and Tom Lynch, came to the picture, I knew that they were the people I wanted to build this company with.

Together, we formed this perfect complimentary team. Eric brings 20 years of CBG experience, including roles at General Mills, Eat Just. He was recently the director of product development for Impossible Foods. as well as previously he was the director of R& D at NotCo. Tom brings 15 years of cutting edge R& D experience including his roles as head R& D chef at the acclaimed two Michelin star restaurant 42 grams.

As well he was one of the earliest foods, food technologists at Beyond Meat. And in terms of kind of the pitch I made to them, I didn’t have to pitch them too much. They just they got it. Some people, Immediately see the potential and understand that these plant forward meat products are going to become this huge category.

And Eric and Tom just really saw that. And it’s not just them. We’ve seen so much excitement behind this vision that’s enabled us to form this broader really stellar advisory board. We have leadership from Tyson foods, Tesla, kind apple, dunno, not co even SpaceX and we. These advisors really have a deep understanding of the food sector and consumer trends.

And they’re really getting behind this vision in a meaningful way. So I feel like I said, just incredibly optimistic about the future.  So that, that’s an amazing team, especially because not only your co founder’s background, but your background and I think you use the word complimentary, but it definitely seems like it’s a very well rounded team with big players in their experience.

But, as you’re continuing to grow your team beyond the co founders, what qualities do you look for for hiring in general? And you don’t have to answer it maybe necessarily just for Asentia maybe just in general in the alt protein sector.  And I, and maybe I’ll cut you off and say a lot of times, you hear that there are founders or even folks that are really into the plant based movement or they’re vegan, or maybe you could even go as far as to say they’re advocates.

And so maybe as a follow on, do you think there’s a role or a special role for like advocacy within traditional roles in the alt protein sector and how you view that?  Yeah, they’re good questions. I’ve hired for, I are dozens of roles over the years in the all protein sector and I feel like I’ve found some kind of common threads of people who I think are just the highest performers.

I feel looking back over the last few years of working in this sector, I feel like there’s a few people that really moved the needle in a big way and kind of the common traits that I found would be  People who are mission driven, people who just, as you said, are advocates and really passionate about the space.

There’s definitely some just that little extra push that causes them to become incredibly impactful. I love people who are really first principle thinkers. People who are self aware, leave their ego at the door to, to serve that mission. People who are user obsessed, who have that that consumer in mind at all times. 

People who have grit and passion and willingness to do whatever it takes to make it work. And this might sound generic, but just people who are incredibly intelligent that, that really goes a long way. So in terms of people who I’ve seen and hired in the Alt Protein space, that’s just really a common theme.

And something that I found that, yeah, helps us build the companies to, to great heights.  And I guess in terms of advocacy background, do you think it helps, it hurts or maybe there’s a special role if somebody is really an advocate?  Yeah. I think, I guess in my mind, I’m tying that into mission driven.

I think people who are really passionate about this work, I think that really goes a long way. I think that sometimes people who are maybe too Too naive about, about how to build a business that can get in the way. I think people have a clear business mindset and strong business acumen and understand the numbers behind all of it.

I think that’s really important, but yeah, I think people who generally have a strong kind of mission and experience in past with doing advocacy for the space that can only help. Is that answering your question, Alex? And mission driven is a much, much better way to say that.

I think, you look at. Advocacy as a term, it can also be similar to activist, which sometimes is very extreme. So mission driven is definitely a better term for that. And thank you.  Definitely. Okay. So I want to go back to, you previously mentioned a little bit about the cultivated meat industry, but I wanted to ask, what are the biggest needs for the alt protein industry now in general alt protein?

And and especially from our learnings over the last. Yeah, I’ve been teasing this a bit but I just really believe that we need to be laser focused on the consumer. I think that companies that have a consumer obsessed mindset are the ones that are going to win. And we need to sharpen our understanding of food psychology and things like, for example, the concepts of familiarity and place in food psychology.

For our survival, evolution has wired us to seek familiarity and an understanding of the origins of our food, and these primal instincts still influence consumer behavior today. For consumers to embrace a new food source, it’s helpful to envision its origins. Evolutionary wiring makes it easy for us to envision how, let’s say, a cow becomes a burger, but more challenging to envision how peas transform into a burger.

And so this confusion then creates room for doubt and allows these narratives of unnatural processed fake meat to really gain traction. One thing I’ll mention is that these plant forward meat products as you actually mentioned, can really sidestep this discussion by focusing on meat that’s simply enhanced with plant based ingredients.

And this approach really allows these products to confidently occupy the realm of real in the consumer’s mind without questioning its authenticity. But yes, I believe overall companies that succeed here will be the ones that have that consumer obsessed mindset. Of course, taste first approach and really connect on that.

Deeper emotional gut level.  We talked about this a little bit on our prep call is that, a lot of times meat is a very big part of culture. And I think you use the term food origins. And and I think, that’s something where you know a classic example is instead of having a turkey for Thanksgiving, maybe you have a, a tofurkey or, a Or a holiday roast actually is quite popular in my family.

But everyone is still asking for, what about the Turkey, what about this, it’s some sort of tradition that, is now in our family, it’s traditional not to have a Turkey. But a lot of the rest of the world will want that. I don’t want to say Turkey because that’s more of an American thing and we are coming up on Thanksgiving, but they have their own types of traditions that include meat.

So I guess.  By going this approach where, meat is still part of the equation, so to speak, you can stick to those food origins.  Exactly. I couldn’t agree more with that observation. And that’s definitely a driving force behind what we’re doing and why I feel that this category, the plant forward meat category, has a potential just to become so, so massive. 

You’ve mentioned it a couple of times, but now I’m starting to, it’s starting to stick with me and I’m starting to like the term plant forward. I know at first I asked what it is, but now I really liked the term plant forward. It also seems oftentimes we hear reducetarian but that also seems like you’re you’re maybe becoming a little bit of an advocate for something.

Whereas plant forward is more of you have organic and you got plant forward. I don’t know. I like the term and I know it’s still evolving, but I get it and I like it. Thank you. Yeah. There’s a survey that I think is going out just this week actually to help us get more clarity on the nomenclature, but I have a good feeling about that term. 

I wanted to ask where is actually the company based and where are you based?  A good question. I split my time. I spend about half my time in the Bay area where the all protein industry is very much hubbed. And about my half my time in Houston, Texas where my husband and his company is based.

So I’m traveling between the two, but spend most of my time in Houston and the company’s based here in Houston.  Cool. And I, I do hear that Houston is a very, Big food hub and itself and a very big, when I talk about food in Texas, people say Oh, Austin, Dallas, but when somebody is really passionate about a restaurant or food or something like that, they always say Houston, I don’t know why that is.

Is that also common in Texas?  Yeah. Houston in particular is just a huge food scene. I don’t know the origins of it. I should look it up actually. But yeah, it’s definitely a big thing here.  And yeah. Oh, okay. So you’re based in those two places. Where’s the company officially registered?

And in Houston. In Houston. Okay, cool. And so let’s talk about the future, right? Outside of what you’re doing at Essentia, where do you envision the future of the alt protein market to be? And will we continue calling it alt protein in, in the future?  Yes. Unsurprisingly, I definitely believe plant forward meats will become a big a big category.

I wouldn’t have started the company if I didn’t believe that I’m very mission driven, as but overall, I feel incredibly optimistic and not just for a plant forward meat, but when I look at the future, I see massive success for all pillars of all protein cultivated fermentation, plant based.

I believe that there’s room for all of these sectors to thrive within this massive trillion dollar meat industry. The number of flexitarians is growing and there’s space for everyone here to be successful. When you look at market trends over the last few years, products that help us eat better without sacrificing taste, of course, are the products that win.

There’s so many examples like Goodall’s hippies Alipop that really demonstrate this. So yeah, I definitely, believe in a world in which all protein or we are, whatever we may call it becomes incredibly mainstream. And I definitely think we’re going to move away from the term out protein.

I was actually just, um, working on a side project actually to help explore additional names for the sector. I think that will be something that will change. My guess is in the next year or so.  I think so too. And and I’m excited to see this evolution. I think there’s been a lot of things that have been tried.

And there was what I would consider the last generation of, the impossible and beyonds, and now the kind of like this next generation of startups is starting to come. And I think it’s pretty exciting. Okay. So as we begin to wrap up, I wanted to ask you, if you have.

Any last insights for our listeners today and what is the best way to connect with you and Asentia?  Yes. If you’re interested in learning about how you can contribute to the alternative protein sector in, in any capacity or want to learn more about how you can get involved with my startup, please reach out.

You can reach out to me on LinkedIn. I’m really passionate about this mission and want to help you how, however I can. I have, maybe, 10 people or so every week reach out to me on LinkedIn, and I definitely take the calls and try to help however I can. This is, like I said, not just, a job or career to me.

It’s really my life’s work. So I’ll do whatever I can to help make this industry successful.  In terms of, Insights, advice. I’m looking at my desk here right now and I have some quotes on it, which I can share with the readers, which really provide, insights and advice for me.

So I’ll read it. I’ll read a few of them here. So the first one is from Vincent Van Gogh and it reads, if you hear a voice within your head saying that you cannot paint, then by all means paint. And that voice will be silenced. I love that one. Second one is. By Thomas Edison, if we did all the things that we’re capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves. 

The third one is from Byron Katie. It reads, Don’t believe everything you think which I love. And then the last one I have here I don’t know who said it, but I took a picture of it from my friend’s house. Actually, Paul Shapiro, who’s one of our mutual friends and just a great inspiration to us all. 

And this is my favorite one. It says, Nobody cares. Work harder.  And I feel like that captures the spirit of a startup quite well. Yeah, no, absolutely. And I feel like the listeners will maybe, reverse a couple steps and then listen to each quote and pause, cause there’s a lot to unpack there,  but for that.

I love that. Parendi, thank you so much for joining us on the show. And and. And 30, 30 or so minutes went by and it feels like we just started talking, but thanks so much for being guests on the show. Absolutely. Like I said, I’ve been a fan of your show for many years, so thank you for having me on and I look forward to seeing you soon, Alex.

This is your host, Alex, and we look forward to seeing you on the next episode.