Peter Mortimer of FPG Media

On the Future Food Show, host Alex Shirazi interviews Pete Mortimer of FPG Media about his path from fine dining chef in the UK to leading sales and growth in the alternative protein space. Pete shares how the intensity and teamwork of professional kitchens now mirrors the shared mission he sees across sustainable protein innovators.

They discuss FPG Media’s evolution from virtual events and digital publishing into large in-person conferences, including events at McCormick Place, plus the growth of its magazine, webinars, and event app. The focus: building a collaborative ecosystem across cultivated, fermentation-enabled, and plant-based proteins while making events more accessible through strong digital tools and free expo access.

Learn more about the upcoming event at www.culturedmeatsymposium.com

Future of Protein Production Chicago:
https://www.futureofproteinproductionchicago.com/
Future of Protein Production:
https://www.futureofproteinproduction.com/

Automated Transcript:
 Thanks for tuning in to the Future Food Show. This is your host, Alex Shirazi, and we’re excited to have Pete Mortimer of FPG Media on the show today. Pete, welcome to the show. Thanks, Alex. Um, yeah, good to be here. Thanks, Ellie. Thanks for the invite. I’m excited to dive in. There’s a couple topics that we’re gonna be jumping into, but first, introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your background.

Okay, so yeah, my name’s Pete Morser. I’m, I work for FPG Media and yeah, my background, I suppose, I first got interested in the food space in my, some years ago, in my early twenties where I was chefing in London and in the south of England and just had a real passion for food and. Cooking and just really got involved in that.

Really. I started off as a com chef in a hotel and then worked my way up to sous chef there and then moved into restaurants and came down as a chef of the party, which is a chef that looks after a certain section, and then, yeah, moved around all the sections and did a bit of pastry, did a bit of sauce, did a bit of edge.

So yeah, just really. Having a, a real passion I suppose, about working out and trying to get the best ingredients. I suppose that was one of my passions is really sourcing where we could get the best foods from, best meats from, and then, and when we went more into the sort of fine dining stuff, truffles and stuff from Italy and really exciting stuff like that.

And yeah, it was just a fascinating space to be in and I really enjoyed obviously the cooking and it’s a place where an environment where. You get really close to the people you work with, I guess because you’re spending a lot of hours. A day together, more so than I was my wife or any of my friends at the time.

It was, you spend a lot of time and I suppose there’s something about that as well. There’s something about that really draws you in if you’re a certain type of person that that sort of in invokes and accentuates that passion because we’re all there in that space sharing that same passion and it doesn’t matter how many hours you’re doing or whatever, you’re there doing that and this is like fine dining in London or somewhere else.

Yeah, just, just outside London actually, just on the south, just off the south of London. A little place called Drygate where I was living. I did do a bit of chefing in London, but the sort of fine dining came to a semi celebrity chef in that way who did quite a bit of TV and adverts and stuff like that.

Wrote a couple of books and yeah, it was really interesting. It was really interesting space to work, and as I said. It’s that environment and being around people who are, who equally as passionate and all looking to achieve the common goal of getting through a night service, trying to deliver the best food that we could to our guests, and that was the passion.

And then, yeah, from there I was, I’d recently been married and me and my, my new wife wanted to start a family. And we found that we weren’t seeing each other very often with my job and job. And obviously when you want kids you need to see each other a bit ’cause that’s how biology and stuff works. But, so I came outta Chefing and, and I started in a sales role, literally for a food company and then started working for another big FMCG company, a tobacco company, actually a top footsy company.

And yeah, I started as a sales rep in independent retail and. In southwest London and then, yeah, worked hard and got a few promotions and ended up in sort of sales training and people management and had a good career with them for about 12, 13 years. Yeah, it was a really good time of life. It was a good company to work for.

We were well looked after. There was a lot of partying and at that time, and it was, yeah, it was a good, it was a good place to live, but I suppose I missed the cooking and I missed the food, but I gotta cook at home because it was safer for all of us if I, rather than my wife. But yeah. It was a good time.

It was a good time. I was gonna say, it seems like actually, from what I’ve been, what I have heard, a lot of the tobacco manufacturers, they’re also heavily involved with food manufacturing. They might have subsection or kind of division that is dedicated to food. I don’t know if the company that you worked for did, but it.

It sometimes makes sense because it’s in many ways a similar type of process of growing crop and getting it into manufacturing. Yeah. So we didn’t specifically have a our hands in any height, but what we did do, we supported farmers where tobacco was growing ’cause it’s a rotational crop. As is obviously many vegetables.

So when the tobacco season was growing or rotating out, then we might be growing maids or we’d support farmers throughout the year. So it wasn’t just the tobacco that they were getting paid for, they were able to make a living throughout the rest of the year as well through their oh one. So yeah, I see the connection there, definitely, and I suppose it being FMCG as well.

Everything fast mover consumer goods is gonna be, is gonna be, it’s gonna have some sort of synergy, isn’t it? So yeah, it was all, I think those companies at the time, a lot alcohol, beverage companies as well, were, was another sort of synergy where people would come in and, and move outta and there was a lot of, uh, movement within those companies, particularly at the middle management level.

You’d get a lot of movement within those companies as well. Cool. And then, so that was a very interesting transition. How did you meet the folks at FPG Media? Yeah, so I’ve been working, I’ve been friends with Nick Old drinking buddies for a while, and I’d taken voluntary redundancy from the tobacco company I worked for.

’cause if I’m really honest, they offered me a really good package and it was the time of my life and I was a certain age where. It was like you wanted to make a new career move or it might be too late, kind of thing. And working in a tobacco company for a few years, for a number of years, I thought by the time I get to the pearl gates, I might need to restore the balance on ethics, morality, maybe a little bit.

It reached out and said there was an opportunity, uh, with FPG media in a sort of sales role and what they were doing really excited me. We had a couple of meetings about it and everything else. It was a really exciting place to come into because it was an evolving industry. Obviously it was looking at something I hadn’t really thought of before, but had that connection with food and going back to my passion for food and stuff as well.

So yeah, it was, that’s how that came about really, was Nick reaching out and we got this opportunity. Do you fancy it? Cool. And tell us a little bit about FPG Media and the full name Future Proof Group Media, the history of it and the umbrella. Yeah, sure. So when I came in mid 2022. The, the sort of format we had at the time, we were doing a couple of virtual events, which I believe, I think you might have been involved in one of those actually, Alex, from memory, we had a digital magazine and I suppose the strategy at the time was ’cause obviously we’re just coming outta COVID so people weren’t traveling or weren’t particularly confident in traveling a huge amount.

But it was about building up a really strong network of connections and, and people, and do you know what really excited me about it was. Was what I described actually about being in a kitchen. It was that everyone had a vested interest. Everyone was passionate about what they were doing, and everyone was heading in the same direction and had, although people were doing very different things, they were all heading towards.

Or trying to achieve the same holistic outcome of feeding 10 billion people on this planet in a more sustainable and friendly way than we’re currently doing. I think that was something that really excited me about it. So yeah, going back to your question, we were, it was about building up a network and building us up to a point where we could go to to an in-person event when the time was right.

So, like I said, I started mid 2022. We did a couple of virtual events. I think we had a couple of early webinars we were doing at the time as well. And the digital magazine. And then, and then around March and April, 2023, I think we did our last virtual event in February, 2022. Then March, 2023, we decided that we’d built up a really strong network.

It was time to, to look at maybe doing a, an in-person event and it being March, we said, let’s do Amsterdam in October in a rather large and well known venue. And that’s what we did. And yeah, our first in-person event was in that October in 2023. I love our live events. I get. I spend all year looking at people two dimensionally, and I’ve got that time where I get, you’ve seen me at events and I get very excited about seeing people three dimensionally and everything, and it’s really great to see people in that space when you’ve put a lot of work in through that time.

But yeah, like I said, our first event was in, in October, 2023, we. The events, very much content led, so it’s a very strong conference at the time. That’s certainly what it was. It was a very, and still is, a very strong content driven event with an expo on the side there as well. And I think for our first event, it was a pay to attend only.

We had 21 exhibitors, around 75 speakers over the two days and 324. Attendees, and I think that was the one that Dr. Mark Post opened. He did, yes, he did. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That was cool. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, it was really exciting. And these were, there were these icons that I hadn’t really come across in the space, but everyone was like really overwhelmed by their presence and, and I were.

And again, going back to that sort of passion that people had, that’s what really excited me and that’s what, why I still continue to love working in this space is because of that. So yeah, that was our first one in, in 2023. We followed that up with a, an event in Chicago in April, 2024. And then, which was around the same size, I think maybe a few less attendees, but around the same size in Chicago.

And then we were back in Amsterdam. For 24 and then last year again, and then we’ve got our fourth edition coming in, in, in November this year. And there’s been a, a really nice substantial growth and the, the sort of dynamics of it has. Our sort of recipe, I suppose, if we keep food puns alo been true to our recipe of success with that.

It’s, it has evolved and then the expo’s getting bigger. So we’ve, we’ve strategically moved stuff a little bit to, to accommodate that. So for this last year, we’ve had a free to attend event, uh, free to attend ticket available as well, because the content’s so good. When that’s on the exhibition, space is quite quiet.

So with the exhibition space growing and having more exhibitors, it was really important to make sure those exhibitors are kept happy and there’s a nice flow of, of footfall going through throughout the event. So yeah, in terms of growth, like I said, in 23, we were 21 exhibitors, 322, 324, 25, attendees 24 was 46 exhibitors, 507.

Roughly attendees and then last year we, you’re a numbers guy. I get a bit geeky sometimes. Alex. I was gonna say, I really loved what you said about it. It had the atmosphere of a kitchen, right? Yeah. Like a fine dining kitchen. Right. ’cause fine dining kitchens are highly efficient machines, like every second counts, right?

Yeah. And if you could bring that also mix it in with the passion that’s cool. For any type of business. Yeah. So it’s a nice analogy. Thank you and absolutely. That blew me away. Actually, going back to that, what you’re saying about fine dining kitchens, it blew me away when I went to a free Michelin star kitchen once.

I never actually worked there full time, but they’ve got like 40 chefs covering 35 covers, and there’s literally one person cooking each element of a dish. Whereas in, in slightly still good dining, you’d have four chefs doing 120 covers. But yeah, you’re absolutely right. That analogy is that passion and people are working towards that common goal, as I said.

So, yeah, and as I was saying, on last year’s event, we upped our numbers again to our 54 exhibitors and around seven 50 attendees. So it’s been a really nice growth with, and it’s, and alongside that, talking about that sort of, you asked me about the fm, the Future Proof Group Media umbrella. The other side of our digital assets has been growing at the same time as well.

I think with our webinars in 2024, we did six throughout the year. Last year we did 15. We’re set to do 20 webinars this year and while still running our Coursely magazine as well. And, and the introduction. And I wanna, yeah. May, maybe we can dig into to the magazine. Tell us about it, how often it goes out and.

These days, it’s actually really nice because every time you log into LinkedIn you see some updates and it’s always some nice eye candy from people in the industry. It’s actually really cool. Yeah, it’s a really nice, it’s something I’ve never come across before, but yeah. Nick, Nick, our editorial director and co-founder, he’s.

He’s fantastic at putting that, that together and it’s grown in terms of readership, I’m not gonna start quoting exact figures because honestly, I dunno, but we’re in the realms of around 30,000. Active subscribers for our digital magazine, I believe. And uh, it’s quarterly, as I said. So every three months or so we, you, we get a publication out.

We’ve got our regular columnists, so we’ve got someone talking about maybe ip and then we’ve got someone talking about regulatory affairs and stuff like that. So we’ve got a good few columnists that are regulars. And then I suppose what’s really great about the digital magazine, which blew me away. It’s an asset that you can, it’s the gift that keeps on giving almost.

We’ll do like an interview, but we’ll video the interview. We can then get the transcript from that video and edit it down to a couple of pages in the magazine, but then we can embed the video of that interview into the magazine so people can watch it. If they’ve got a particular interest in that individual or that subject, I can watch it.

That asset becomes, it’s owned by the person who’s done that interview. So then they can take snippets and that, or do whatever what they wanna do with it. We can put it into the editing suite and take out all the ums and the ahs, and then release it as a podcast as well. So it’s, it’s a really valuable asset that, that can keep giving and drip feeding throughout, throughout a period of time.

And I suppose that’s. That’s where as a company at FPG Media, that’s what differs from a traditional event company. It’s not, thanks for your money, see you next year. It’s okay. What can we do next to support you? And it’s not always pay to play either because as, as well as the magazine, as I said, we’ve got the webinar, the podcast, but we’ve also got a weekly newsletter that goes out.

Based on LinkedIn and via email. So that hits a good number of around 20 to 25,000 subscribers, I think, across both channels. So it’s, it’s a really useful asset and it we’ll keep supporting the industry. It’s, it’s an ecosystem, I suppose is the word that we’re trying to, we’re trying to look for. There is, yeah, we’ve got this ecosystem where we can support throughout the year in many different channels, depending what people are looking to achieve and everything else.

So we have a couple upcoming events, notably February 24th and 25th in Chicago. We’ll go into a little bit more detail about the events later, but, so yeah, next event, February 24th, 25th in Chicago, and then another one in Amsterdam in the fall planned. But you and I had a really interesting conversation about light.

And so I wanna actually bring that into the, this podcast episode. Yeah, because, and another thing is hosting events, the venue is always very important, right? And a lot of times people like venues that they’re familiar with or that they’ve heard of before, or a lot of times if you’re in an exciting place, city venue, you’re a little bit more intrigued to check it out and being at huge places.

McCormick Place. And what’s the venue in Amsterdam called RAI or the roi? The rye in Amsterdam. Yeah. RAI. Yeah. Yeah. So these are huge places, right? Yeah. And the events are big, but these are iconic places. So tell us a little bit about, um, the thought process behind that. And also I’d love to revisit that’s a discussion of light that we had.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It’s a little bit of a quirk. A quirk, I dunno. I suppose having spent a long time in sales and understanding a little bit more about how people’s minds work and how people feel comfortable, I personally and I, there’s no scientific evidence that I’m aware of this whatsoever, but personally, I believe if there’s natural daylight in the environment, I think it, it helps people feel more at ease because it’s a natural thing, isn’t it?

Or maybe it’s down to us. Limbic brain, I think it’s called, or neocortex, that sort of caveman part of our or woman and part of our brain that that reacts to stuff. I mean our subconscious, but I, I think it’s, I’m very passionate about any venue that we have has in the exhibition space has natural daylight.

’cause a lot of people. They work really hard and they spend two days in, in that space networking, talking to people, and I think it’s, it really helps to have that natural daylight. I think it, it creates an environment where people feel more at ease and more, and particularly going back to that sort of theme of people being passionate and really invested in what they’re doing for this common goal.

I think it just helps people feel at ease. It’s really hard to put into words, and I’ll probably put into words in the conversation that we had previously a lot better. But I believe it’s, it’s critical really for creating an environment that we like to have. The feedback we get from our events is always.

I felt like part of a family, I felt like part of a tribe. And I think, I suppose that’s what I’m getting at is that’s that natural daylight help, I think helps create that. I think it helps create a really safe, comfortable environment where people can feel that. And if they’re feeling that, then they can go on to have conversations that are really open, transparent.

And I think that’s where people get to have, have a really good time and do the best in terms of business and collaborations and so on and so forth. So. I think that’s what we kind Gotta last No, that, that’s great. And it, I’m trying to think about how to phrase this without kind of throwing shade on other events, but there was this, sometimes you’ll go to an event and it’s in the back alleys of some sort of hotel conference room with no lighting and it, I was recently in Las Vegas for CES.

And walking around. I ended up in this, there’s these huge hotels, right? And I ended up to try to find the, to the restroom. I ended up taking escalator down, trying to find the restroom, and I found this entire space, huge space. And it was the conference center, but there was no conference happening there, and it was like in the basement, in the corner.

It looked like something out of a movie set because it was so eerie, right? Yeah. And sure when you have signage and there’s people walking around, it’s different. But I totally understand what you mean by being in a place where there is natural light. It gives you this feeling of. I’m in a safe place. If we need to find safety, we can go towards the light.

And it’s an interesting feeling. And I think some of these big hotels, they do have a lot of pathways and that kind of stuff, so I guess they, they have to do it. A lot of the new convention centers, they’re multi-billion dollar projects with beautiful lighting coming in. And so it, I think that a lot goes into the design of what makes a very beautiful convention space and definitely in, in the Rye and at McCormick Place you do have that.

Yeah. We’ve worked with venues and people within the venues have worked with us to find that space specifically, and we said, I want natural daylight in the exhibition space. It’s a bit of a, what’s the word I’m looking for, Alex, help me out here. Not a game changer, but it’s, yeah, it’s really critical to what we wanna achieve and, and working with those people.

I’m just being honest and transparent about that’s really helped us find those spaces because like you said, McCormick’s absolutely massive and there’s huge conference spaces and everything else, but yeah, we’re lucky to have found this space where we can have two conferences running and, and have that, that.

Shared expo space as well with that natural daylight. Yeah. So let’s talk about Chicago. I’ve mentioned the dates several times. At the end of this month, February 24th and 25th in at the McCormick Place in Chicago, a future of protein production, which is the event that has. Been longstanding is now co-located with the Cultured Meat Symposium, which is really exciting.

When we started hosting the Cultured Meat Symposium, there were always things that we added to our wishlist, like having, having an app where you could see all the attendees. And I think being on, in a venue like McCorick Place was probably further down on that wishlist. ’cause it’s a, a big dream come true.

But, so we are really excited about that. Tell us a little bit about the format, the session, the expo, and also a little bit about the free tier that’s available. Yeah, thank you. So yeah, as you said, just to reiterate, it’s the 24th and 25th of February and yeah, we are co-located with CMS. The Culture meets symposium for the first time, which is so exciting.

And I think as this space, even in the short time that I’ve been in it. The way the space has evolved and focus has evolved. And I think even when I first came in, people were very much, we’re gonna change the world. Everyone’s gonna eat non-meat products and we’re gonna do it all on my own and everything else.

But I think there’s a lot more collaboration now. I think people realized that they haven. Haven’t got the skills or expertise to do everything on their own. And I think it’s really important that we have that collaboration, which is part of the reason for these events. But also I think it’s, I think we were having a conversation the other week, Alex, about thinking about consumer.

And what’s really important is that we’re creating products or create products are being created that the consumer’s actually gonna have at the end of it, otherwise. Where are we going with it? And I think that’s what’s really exciting. I think with the emergence of hybrid products coming more and more into the fall, that it’s, it’s a really good time for us to do this co-location.

So you’ve got that full focus on, on the cultivated meat side of stuff, obviously with CMS, but also. We’ve got the other pillars of fermentation enabled and plant-based proteins going on as well. And then with the emergence with more, I think there’s, from what I’ve seen and experienced in the last year to 18 months, there’s been a lot more talk around nutritional values and some real gains in nutritional values of alternative proteins and therefore sport nutrition and stuff like that.

So I think it’s, it’s, it’s a really good time to. To do that. So with the introduction of the CMS conference, it allows us a little bit more space on the other, on the FPP conference to, to start engaging with some of those conversations and having some fireside and stuff like that around that as well. So yeah, we’ve, we’re gonna have two conferences running.

With a shared exhibition space. So yeah, it’s really exciting. It’s nice being some new companies into the exhibition space and onto our agenda as well. It’s obviously been great working with you, Alex, putting this together as well and, and collaborating through that and. I think we, we spoke about it early days, just making that transition really smooth so people who were previously diehard CMS attendees and sponsors and stuff didn’t feel that it was one or the other and they had to make a choice or they feel like they were cheating on anyone or anything like that.

It’s not me, it’s you and all that kind of stuff, but the, the iron is. A lot of, so a lot of the core CMS founding team members actually live in Chicago now and, and all of us actually went to school at the University of Illinois. So that’s how we met. So it’s, it is, the irony was that we never hosted it in Chicago until now, which is very cool.

Which. I, I wanted to, I wanted to ask you about protein production technology International PPT of the magazine, and specifically David Ziskin of Mock Global Advisors had such a cool spread in there with his photo and everything. If somebody wants to get involved with the magazine, what is the best way to, to reach out?

So obviously you can get onto our website. P PTI i’s got its own designated website for that and you can fill out a form there that you’re interested. Obviously, I’m happy to share my details or Nick’s details. And we’ve also, my colleague Kieran, who heads up that side of our digital assets primarily as well, he’s the guy really to get in touch with coning.

So he’s, he’s the guy that’s putting together all the webinars and putting together the packages for people who are getting involved with the P pt. I. Or just reach out and let us know what, what’s going on. Let us know what news you’ve got as a business or as an individual or as a startup company. We’re not, it’s not about, as I said earlier, it’s not about pay to play.

It’s, it’s a, it’s a publication for the industry, and that’s what we want to keep it as. Anything that’s. Good news or exciting news, or is newsworthy is going, we wanna hear about it when we wanna get it involved in our magazine or on our news pages as well. So yeah, just reach out, let us know what’s going on, and yeah, it’d be great to get you involved.

As we begin to wrap up, do you have any last insights for our listeners today? Yeah, just something that you mentioned, Alex, actually, around, around the event itself, and I think you said talking about getting. Knowing who’s going be attending, or you mentioned the free to attend, which I failed to answer, so my apologies.

Yeah. Oh yeah. Let’s definitely get into that. If you’re able to make it to Chicago, which, you know, O’Hare, I think is actually the biggest airport in the United States and it’s the busiest it, yeah. Yeah. Busiest, biggest one of those things. But if you’re able to attend Chicago at the end of this month, there is a free tier, which gives you access to the Exfo Hall.

And so tell us a little bit about that and how people can sign up. Yeah, so as I said before, it’s, it’s just, yeah, just getting onto our FPP website or the CMS website, we’ve got, you’ve got had free to attend option there or you can attend it as a delegate obviously, but the free to attend. As I said, we started that up in Amsterdam last year because the expo space is growing and it’s just to give people an opportunity to come and see what we’re all about.

Connect with other companies and like-minded individuals in the space. We’ve got a, a really good event app that we use as well, which allows. Um, we open it two weeks before the event starts, and that allows you to have full visibility of everyone who’s attending two weeks before the event. Depending if you’ve got free to attend or a full delegate pass your exhibitor, there’s different levels of interaction that you can use that with, due to licensing and stuff like that we have to pay for.

But it’s a really interactive app. I think on average our. It’s around 93% engagement rate across the events on our app. So it’s not just something that sits there and looks pretty, it works and it does its job and it’s a real critical way of connecting with people and getting the most out of the event as well.

Yeah, coming up to before the event, you can connect with people, you can book meetings on networking area, so there’s a lot you can do and you can view the exhibitors and there’s a virtual booth for each of our exhibitors as well as a physical booth during the event as well, so. It’s, it’s a really good way of getting involved and seeing what’s going on before you get there and planning how you’re gonna make the most of it, and who you’re gonna connect with and everything else.

But as I said, that opens up two weeks before on the 10th. That’ll open up to everyone who’s registered, so you’ve got full visibility of that. Pete, thank you so much for being a guest on the Future Food Show. It’s been an absolute pleasure, Alex. Thanks for having me on. This is your host, Alex, and we look forward to seeing you on our next episode.