Podcast #20 : Karana Co-founder Dan Riegler speaks with Andrew D. Ive from Big Idea Ventures about founding Karana, Asia’s first whole plant based meat made from Jackfruit.
Podcasts
SPEAKERS
Dan Riegler, Andrew D Ive
Andrew D Ive
Hi there, welcome to the big idea podcast focused on food. Today we’re going to be talking to a great company called Karana. Karana have made a range of products. Their first though, is focused on plant based dumplings, and boas and other amazing foods. Their first markets are in Singapore and Hong Kong and they’re shortly bringing this product to the United States. So let’s listen to Dan. Have some conversations with him and find out what’s new and great and amazing about Karana. If you have questions or comments, please do post them below. Subscribe and enjoy the podcast. Thanks very much. Bye.
Andrew D Ive
All right, Dan, from Karana, how are you Sir?
Dan Riegler
I am good thanks. How are you?
Andrew D Ive
I’m very well, very well. I also need to make sure I’ve got all my various bits and bobs recording so that we can turn this magical conversation into people. So you’re one of the co founders of Karana. Why don’t people a quick overview of what of what you guys do?
Dan Riegler
Sure, well, we make meat from whole plant. So I think everyone who’s watching this is probably pretty aware of the plant based meat movement. Where we sit is really focusing on the ingredients we use, how they’re sourced, how they’re grown, what that impact is on everyone from the farmers in the communities where we’re getting them to consumer health.
Dan Riegler
But of course, at the end of the day, what we’re doing is making it as delicious and accessible as possible. So we’re starting with jackfruit as our main ingredient. There’s a lot of reasons why we’re focusing on that but we’re turning it into really interesting end products, starting with a pork that chefs can take in a lot of different directions, as well as some consumer products that are more convenience ready to cook focus, starting with dumplings and dimsum.
Andrew D Ive
Okay, so dumplings and dim sum pork made from jackfruit. You didn’t say burgers, how can you not say burgers?
Dan Riegler
Well you could make a burger with our products, it’s definitely doable and some people are doing that. But we do look at the market and we see a fair amount of saturation on the burger side and certainly on the beef side. So we’re very much sitting in that pork segment. That doesn’t mean you can’t have a pork burger but what we want to do is with chefs and food service give a really blank canvas that that can be made into anything.
Dan Riegler
And for consumers I think it’s really about making this as turnkey as possible. So burgers are a good way to do that but there’s a huge world beyond burgers, and especially in a lot of the markets we’re looking at. Now we are looking at the US, which is definitely a burger center but there’s a lot of other needs in the plant based world. We need more products, more variety and more options. So we’re very happy to be doing things beyond burgers.
Andrew D Ive
So beyond burger, sorry. That sounded strangely …..
Dan Riegler
Yes. It’s with all the different names, right? It’s Yeah, it’s very easy to get sucked into unintended puns, sorry.
Andrew D Ive
Okay, so dim sums, pork, etc. You are turning, as you say to the US, where is this currently? Where are you guys? where have you’ve been focused to date? How old a company are you?
Dan Riegler
So we’re a Singapore based company, we’ve been operating for about three years, we were born and bred in Singapore as a startup. We are in the market in Singapore and in Hong Kong. We launched our products there earlier this year and we will be looking at the US over the rest of this year.
Dan Riegler
So we’ll be focusing on those three markets and growing those for the immediate term. But yeah, we’re very excited to be focusing on the opportunities both in Asia as well as I mean, there’s obviously a very strong market demand in the US. I think there’s huge opportunities all over the world but we’re very focused on, you know, building our presence in a few key places and growing from there.
Andrew D Ive
So given that you’re selling this product right now in Singapore and in Hong Kong, it sounds like this product is as authentic as it gets.
Dan Riegler
We hope so. We focus on giving chefs a platform that they can work with. We see a huge opportunity in the APAC market, but there’s also an opportunity in markets like the US as we were just saying, outside of just the burgers or the ground beef products that are out there, just to expand the range of what we have available in terms of ingredients, in terms of the end applications that those can be put towards.
Dan Riegler
So, I mean, definitely, authenticity is something we’re going for. But ultimately we we’re about making really good food products that chefs are excited to work with that consumers are excited to use. A big part of that is localizing and making sure that it’s something that fits into where there is local demand. So in Asia, that demand for pork products has definitely inspired a lot of what we do but again, just looking at under serviced categories across the market is really what drives us.
Andrew D Ive
Okay, so you talked about chef’s, this isn’t, by the sounds of it, this isn’t going to be a product that I’m going to walk into a, you know, a Walmart or another grocery store of some kind and see under, you know, under packaging, or is it?
Dan Riegler
Yeah, absolutely. The first product line we have in the market, our food service products are available through restaurants, we are in a number of restaurants in both Singapore and Hong Kong and we’ll be launching in a similar way in the US and the West Coast over the rest of this year. We are definitely moving towards retail products and our intention is very much for you to be able to walk into a store and see us on the shelf in the not too distant future.
Dan Riegler
The format will probably look a little bit different to consumers than it would to chef or food service customers. So one of the things that we see is that people are really wanting to make the switch to plant based but at the end of the day, it’s quite intimidating. These are new products, it’s a new concept so people are a bit risk averse when it comes to cooking and preparing food at home sometimes. So we want to make it as accessible and as convenient and simple as possible so people can have a really good experience eating a wide range of plant based options.
Dan Riegler
So when we think about our consumer products, we’re very focused on making it turnkey, making it convenient. So the format that retail consumers are likely to interact with, with our products, is going to be in the form of ready to cook. So starting with those dumplings, frozen dumplings, that will be very familiar to a lot of consumers might be new to some, but should be a fairly simple product for people to try and not be worried about not having a good experience with them.
Andrew D Ive
So step one by the sounds of it will be in restaurants. Step two is likely to be the frozen dumpling in a grocery format. In terms of restaurants what are we talking about here? Is it kind of quick serve, you know, PF Changs style restaurants? Or is it you know, individual Michelin star chef restaurants who are going to kind of lead the thought process around this particular category in terms of authentic Chinese starters?
Dan Riegler
Well it works very well and it’s been designed around being used in a lot of traditional Chinese Singaporean and we work with a Michelin starred restaurant in Singapore. We’ve been working more on the premium side, the higher end side of the f&b sector to start, because there is a lot of benefit in working with really amazing chefs working with restaurants where consumers have awareness and a certain level of trust in that chef and what they’re going to get.
Dan Riegler
So that helps open the door, especially in a market like Singapore and Hong Kong, where it’s a very food focused market, food is taken very seriously and there’s a lot of high expectations. So we want to again, make sure that that those first interactions with our products are in such a way that people are going to have an amazing experience, it’s going to be through a chef that they trust. And that’s also a great way for us to understand the full range of what our products can do by working with chefs like that.
Dan Riegler
But we work with a wide range of restaurants. We have some fast casual partners that we’re working with in both Singapore and Hong Kong, we work with a brand called grain traders in Singapore that does really amazing grain bowls is a very accessible place for people to get really good quality food, they have a restaurant in LA as well, that we’ll be looking at working with over here.
Dan Riegler
So it’s arranged but definitely the goal is to be making this as widely available as possible. So as we get into the market, looking at fast casual QSR institutional catering, these are all very high on our list as well and especially now the last year has been quite challenging in food service. So that’s also been a bit limiting in terms of the types of restaurants that we’ve been focusing on but as we start to come into a relative new sense of normalcy, or things start to normalize in some way we’re definitely seeing food service come back and I think it will continue to rebound in various formats.
Andrew D Ive
So let’s let’s very quickly just touch on the Michelin star chef you mentioned in Singapore who’s been using your product. Give us one example of a dish that they’ve created that has received good reception using Karana.
Dan Riegler
So that’s Chef Malcolm Lee at the Candlenut. I think anyone who’s in Singapore’s is probably familiar with it. It’s a really amazing restaurant and in a beautiful setting. So he’s done what’s very cool. It’s very traditional Chinese Peranakan and if people aren’t familiar with that, it is sort of a Chinese Malaysian fusion cuisine. So very distinct to Singapore and parts of Malaysia very unique food culture that brings together a lot of different flavors and elements.
Dan Riegler
So this is made with our jackfruit and mushrooms but it’s just a really delicious, interesting take on a very iconic, traditional dish. So for me, I love seeing that sort of thing and seeing how chefs are taking these very traditional, as you said, authentic flavors, and just rethinking the baseline ingredients and how you can get a very similar outcome.
Dan Riegler
So a Nokian is a traditional dish that you would get in a lot of homes, something that you would grow up with your your grandmother or family members making probably at home. So it’s a dish that would be very familiar to a lot of people and it’s essentially a ground pork roll. So you might equate it a little bit like a sausage but with a lot of spice, a lot of flavor, a lot of different things happening, it might incorporate prawns into the traditional way.
Andrew D Ive
So whenever I’ve seen you guys at shows and events, there’s always a line of people queueing up to try your baos and dumplings, every single time. I’m guessing this chef, you just mentioned, might have had a very similar experience serving your product.
Dan Riegler
I hope so. The feedback has been very, very positive but it’s a whole range. I mean, at that level it’s just more limited, there’s only so many seats and so much turnover at a restaurant like that. So we see similar or even higher volume at a place like Grain Traders, where again, you can get to a much wider variety of customers. So it’s going very well, the feedback is extremely good and again, we just focus on making these ingredients as easy and delicious as possible.
Dan Riegler
I think that’s the real key, whether it’s our own products, where we’re doing everything to it, or whether it’s something that we’re giving to chefs to work with, the end goal for us is that we focus very much on the quality of the ingredients that we use, which is key to all that but really we make the products in a way that we want them to be easy to make delicious and I think that speaks for itself. But the results, as you’ve said, are loved by consumers.
Andrew D Ive
I know that for a fact. I’ve seen that. I’ve seen the happy faces and the smiling faces, every time people try the product. The restaurants, grocery stores, those sorts of things. How are they responding? And what are you looking for, in terms of moving into new markets? You mentioned the US which is already on the horizon for you.
Dan Riegler
Yeah, at this point, we’re really focused on scale and the world is complicated and changing right now. So we’re looking at markets where we have the biggest opportunity to scale quickly, because I think that the need for not just our products but for a lot of plant based products, has never been higher. I mean, we see what’s happening with our climate, we see the weather impacts, we see this across the entire sector.
Dan Riegler
So we’re really focused on the impact side of things and how we can scale up as quickly as possible. So we’ve taken the last year to really focus on improving our product offerings, improving our formulations, getting the product into a position where we can scale. So the US market is moving very, very quickly. We’re looking forward to getting into things here and really getting on as many plates in front of as many consumers as possible.
Andrew D Ive
So restaurants, grocery stores, have you already started having those conversations with restaurants and grocery in the US?
Dan Riegler
You said “here” does that mean that your background is the US versus Singapore?
Dan Riegler
Yes we have. We’re moving as quickly as we can. It’s always a step by step and somewhat painful process but yes the feedback is very, very promising. So we’re going to be looking to accelerate both our food service rollout here, we have a few interesting conversations in the works, which hopefully we will be able to start sharing fairly soon. And then we will be pushing the retail side of things as quickly as we’re able. So I mean, that will start with our dumplings and we’re very much looking forward to getting those on shelves.
Dan Riegler
I say here, because I’m here right now and I’ve been in a lot of different places over the last year. Here really, for us, includes the markets we’re operating in. So still growing and servicing Singapore and Hong Kong, and we may even be launching our retail products and in those markets first, because Singapore is our home market, it’s our test market where we launched, it’s where we try a lot of things. So it’s very likely that anything we do will have a Singapore launch phase first.
Dan Riegler
We are one of the first, if not the first plant based, certainly whole plant based meat, being produced in Singapore. So we’re very proud of that and Singapore is really an amazing ecosystem and market to test products in. But when we look at scale, Singapore’s obviously limited as a market. So people that are now in our team or a population in Singapore, Singapore is about five and a half million people. So it’s a kind of small, really reasonable sized city sort of thing.
Dan Riegler
It has some advantages to that. So it’s very concentrated, there is a lot of awareness, there’s a lot of sophistication around food and flavors but there’s also very high standards, so it keeps us to a fairly high standard, which I think is good. But of course, it’s then limited where you can go I mean, the markets immediately bordering Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia, which are complicated markets to operate in.
Dan Riegler
So Hong Kong is a logical next expansion point but from our base in Singapore and Hong Kong, it gives us a good visibility and opportunity to look at where all the interesting developments are happening across the APAC region. So obviously, China’s a big opportunity. There’s a lot of interesting markets, you know, all throughout the region that we’re looking at which we can get a lot of good insights being based in Singapore. So there’s a lot of advantage that we get from focusing there. But as we look to scale these days, I think everything is localizing more and so being present physically in a few different markets does give us a lot of on the ground insights and helps a lot with our in formulation and adapting products, specifically for those markets…
Andrew D Ive
Given your audience, Singapore and Hong Kong, why is the US the next logical step versus China?
Dan Riegler
It’s still the biggest market for plant based products. The level of sophistication, the products are growing so fast, developing so quickly, I would say it’s certainly more saturated, more competitive as well. But that’s not a bad thing at this stage. You know, it sort of forces you to be better and to up your game. We believe that where our products sit, we are quite differentiated in the ingredients we choose, how we formulate and bring them to market.
Dan Riegler
I think there’s a clear demand for that. A lot of people have been getting very comfortable with the existing range of products over the last few years and are now looking for the next generationof products that fit higher standards around health around the sourcing story, around the ingredient list and labels. So that’s very much hitting a sweet spot for us here and I think that will certainly come and develop in Asia.
Dan Riegler
But I think it’s still a little bit early with the need to be present and on the ground to really effectively launch. Marketing in China is not easy, it’s difficult to launch a product. So while we see the opportunity, I think we want to cut our teeth a little bit in a scale market where we see an immediate low hanging fruit opportunity. And then of course, China is very much on our radar and a market that we will continue to look at as we grow but taking on China requires significant volume, requires a lot of planning and execution will be difficult to manage largely remotely at this point.
Andrew D Ive
I think that’s one of the things I’ve always loved about you guys. You start very much with great taste and authenticity, and you’re very focused on the consumer experience. You’re also very, very cognizant of where you’re sourcing your ingredients from clean label, low impact sustainability. Not something that plant based capital has always managed, which is kind of squaring the circle. How are you guys squaring that circle? Clean label?
Dan Riegler
It really comes down for us it’s quite simple. We are a good food company. We’re about good food and this is the question we ask anyone who’s interviewing with us. This is something that comes up repeatedly in our internal discussions. What does good food mean to us? And good food is not just about moving away from animal agriculture. That’s a big part of it but it’s industrialization of food in general. And it’s about, you looking holistically at the impact of this, who grows it? What does it do to my body to our family’s bodies, you know, what is the best format to bring these types of products to market where people will connect to it in a different way.
Dan Riegler
So we look very holistically at everything from the farmer. I think a lot of times we’re very disconnected from the food we eat and in a lot of ways, whether it’s plant based meat, we like the clean, sterilized chicken breast, we don’t like to think about the chicken and the life of the chicken and the people caring for that chicken or not caring as it often is.
Dan Riegler
And it’s the same with an ingredient like, you know, soy, we don’t want to think about how a lot of these commodity ingredients are grown. But it’s so important the quality of life for farmers, the income opportunities for them, soil health, these things matter. And there’s no one quick, easy solution. It’s about fundamentally disrupting, addressing the issues in our food system, from a farm level all the way up. So it’s very hard to solve everything perfectly. But we look at what is the most holistic, net positive impact that that hits all these points.
Dan Riegler
So you know, the communities where it’s grown? Is it going to add value there? is it going to add value throughout the rest of the supply chain? in terms of the impact of shipping it producing it? Is there going to be a health impact on the product and the consumers eating it? A positive one isn’t going to be a great culinary experience. At the core of what we do everything is culinary.
Dan Riegler
I mean, we love food on our team, everyone does, we care deeply about making sure that people eat good food. But good food is not just something tasting super delicious, because it’s full of salt and flavors. It’s because it’s been sourced in a meaningful way. It’s because it’s using quality ingredients that have a story and significance behind them. So we’re trying to take these great ingredients that we feel proud about using in our products.
Dan Riegler
And we hope that people will feel proud and good about eating, but making them as accessible as possible, because it’s really still not very accessible to eat in this way. And that’s a big problem. So that’s really what we want to do, bring good food to the world. And good food doesn’t mean just delicious. that’s hugely important, but it means it has to tick these other boxes as well.
Andrew D Ive
So, Karana is two co founders, yourself and Blair. We can get into that in a minute or two. How did you guys come together and how do you divide up what you do and how you do it. I know that of the three years you guys have been in existence, you have been very focused on supply chain sourcing the raw ingredients. I’ve had numerous conversations with you where you’re either about to go out or have gone out or actually are in situ, in, you know, Srilanka and other places. sourcing great jackfruit, good quality jackfruit. You don’t just go to a market and buy your ingredients and go make it in factory or whatever, you guys have built the whole supply chain. Why don’t you talk about that, just for a moment so people get an understanding of what you guys have accomplished in the last three years, which isn’t, as you say, just a delicious product on the table.
Dan Riegler
We chose jackfruit in the first place, because it fit the framework for the type of ingredients that matched our values, for what we can effectively commercialize. My background, I’ve spent a lot of time developing markets throughout my career a lot of whch have been in Southeast Asia and some other markets in Eastern, Southern Africa as well.
Dan Riegler
A lot of that work has naturally lent itself more towards agricultural projects. So that gave me a first hand look at negative issues with agriculture and food products. This lead to a desire to do something that was different and that would have a more positive impact. So that’s really driven what we’ve been doing and how we’ve been focusing on our ingredient selection.
Dan Riegler
That involves, with a crop like jackfruit, that is not always very effectively commercialized, not always processed in the most interesting ways that allow you to do interesting things with it. That means we have to roll up our sleeves and spend a lot of time you know, on the ground, we spend a lot of time with farmers understanding their needs, their issues, how we can deliver more value directly to them, because oftentimes, they’re getting the shortest end of the stick and they’re the ones who really matter. At the end of the day, if we want to have enough food to eat in this world, the farmers need to be taken care of and need to be growing things that will allow them to keep producing food over the next 10/20 years.
Dan Riegler
So it’s very important to us that we do spend a lot of time on site. My background naturally lends itself to that but the rest of our team as well. I mean, we have Carsten Carsten is our chief science officer. He’s run r&d with with large organizations in Germany, but he’s also spends a lot of time deep in the field. There’s both business technology and sustainability elements throughout every piece of our business. And again, we really look at the entire value chain and how we can be, you know, as involved and integrated across the entire thing. Because ultimately, we believe that how we build value as a company is by making sure we’re engaged with every stakeholder in our ecosystem, and making sure that we’re delivering value where it’s most needed.
Andrew D Ive
How do you want customers to engage with you? Obviously, you want them to try your products, and wondering what more can they do, in terms of encouraging or engaging or supporting or whatever
Dan Riegler
What I want from our customers, obviously, I want them to have a great experience, I just want them to eat our products and say, you know, that was really delicious, and hopefully feel better for the food choice they make. Because whether it’s with our products, or with any other plant based food product, I would like customers to connect with what is behnd the production of the food they choose to eat.
Dan Riegler
I was a huge carnivore, for most of my life, I really did not connect. I’ve always cared about food but I did not connect with the sustainability piece with my own hedonistic, food desires, which are strong. And that’s been a big shift for me over the last several years, but it’s been a journey, and then how I’ve approached it, which I would encourage everyone to do, is just think about every meal as an opportunity, right? Like we all eat once, twice, three times or more a day. You know, each meal is an opportunity, each time we’re consuming something, to think about what has gone into this, how is this grown? Where’s it coming from, you know, just think a little bit more deeply about that.
Dan Riegler
And it’s hard. I see this all the time, I’ve been through this, it’s really hard to really know. So we want to try, as much as possible, to communicate that to our consumers. And, again, give people the information where they can make better choices, feel good about making better choices, and I see a lot of products now entering the market that are doing similar things and I think that’s a very good thing.
Andrew D Ive
So if I’m a chef, and I want to try your products, are you guys from a food service perspective, giving them the kind of jackfruit that’s been prepared in certain ways. I mean, jackfruit, in the US, we can get right. You can get jackfruit from different sources. So I’m wondering, why would they want to engage with you guys around the ingredient that you’re producing? What’s different about it? What’s unique? Or are you looking more from a restaurant perspective where they would take the finished dumpling that you’ve created, or the finished bao or etc, and they’re just expected to serve it to their consumers? How are you hoping to engage with chefs and restaurants?
Dan Riegler
Sure, well, there’s definitely an opportunity and we see a lot of interest in the finished products from various restaurants and food service channels. So that’s definitely an opportunity that we’re exploring. Raw jackfruit is not a product that we sell, we are focused very much on jackfruit right now, but again, we make meat from whole plant so we look for the best possible whole plant ingredients. We look to ingredients that we do not have to do massive amounts of processing to. We don’t have to strip out nutrients from or D nature or do a lot of intense processing to. The jackfruit we use is really pure jackfruit. It’s young, unripe jackfruit.
Dan Riegler
We now have three patents filed, we have several different ways that we work with the jackfruit, dense raw material state as well as doing various forms of value addition to it. Again, still keeping a very clean, very minimally processed profile, but delivering it to chefs and to consumers in a way where it’s just easy to work with. It’s intuitive, because jackfruit, like many new ingredients is intimidating. If you’re not willing to put in the time, effort, energy required, it’s a beast of an ingredient to work with, whether it’s fresh, or whether it’s coming in some of the readily available formats that you will see in the market.
Dan Riegler
And it’s a bit limited what you can do with it in those ways. So for us, really, it’s about bridging that connection. Like, I think a lot of people connect jackfruit with pulled pork and pork products. But again, actually getting that result in a kitchen format is not always easy. So we just want to make that as simple and intuitive as possible. So the product formats that we deliver to chefs are really more like they can in Asia, for instance, we have a shredded pork and a ground pork, that we’re we call it our minced pork in Asia.
Andrew D Ive
With the right Asian flavors and so on?
Dan Riegler
We gave it a sort of baseline umami savory profile, but we haven’t done and this is something that we may change in the future as we expand our range but again, it’s a very culinary chef oriented product so we didn’t want to go over the top with really taking it in a certain direction, we want to give it to chefs. Because if a chef is buying, pork in the market, if you just take a piece of especially a leaner cut of pork, steamed or fried in the pan was no salt, no seasoning or anything, it will have a little bit of a Porky taste but when you think about cooking meats, so much of what we experience is typical meat flavors come from a bit of marination, a bit of salt, a bit of you know, augmenting that flavor with a bit of seasoning that’s the nature of food.
Dan Riegler
That’s why when we cook our food we season it, that’s something that most species don’t do. So again, we want to give a really blank canvas as much as possible to chefs. There is sometimes, especially this is more of an issue in Asia where jackfruit is more traditionally known as a sweet fruit, where sometimes chefs will see or hear jackfruit and think, oh, maybe this needs to go into dessert. So we do want to give it a little bit of a savory profile to reiterate that yes, there’s no no question that this is a meat product, or meat oriented product. But we don’t go over the top in terms of our flavoring with the dumplings at something that’s a bit different. We’re really replicating a dumpling profile, very distinct you know, pork and chives, pork and cabbage so for that we go a little bit further in terms of replicating that flavor profile.
Andrew D Ive
So from an end product perspective you mentioned there are two right? There’s the product which you work with restauranteurs where you’re giving chefs the product that they can then go create the dishes. You mentioned the Michelin chef chap who was in Singapore doing that. You were also potentially bringing plant based Chinese style or China dumplings, etc. to grocery in the US. Do you think there’s a significant demand for plant based asian style foods? I don’t think I’ve seen that in America. I don’t think I’ve seen much in the way of Chinese products, I’m thinking probably a very underserved category.
Dan Riegler
I would agree with you and I think there’s a huge growing interest. If you look at the data it definitely supports that. That is one of the more underserved and fast growing categories and one of the reasons we chose dumplings is because there’s such a universal recognized and love food format. I mean, pretty much every culture has a dumpling in one form or another.
Andrew D Ive
It’s the Asian burger equivalent, right?
Dan Riegler
In a way … But I think it’s maybe more of a nugget because it’s like this sort of mix of some kind of meat or protein, carbs sandwich together in a tasty comforting package. You know whether you take a sandwich and empanada a tortellini perogy or a dumpling. Exactly like a pie. It’s all the same principle. It’s a pretty tried and true format.
Andrew D Ive
I guess what I’m saying though, is if in the US, the burger is the most ubiquitous sort of American food, that people are eating in huge volumes, you know, in McDonald’s and various other places every day in Asia the dumpling is the sort of go to, n the same way.
Dan Riegler
I would say, it’s very much up there. Yes, it’s a huge category. It’s got virtually limitless, ways that chefs can either customize their own or would want a more turnkey product offering. So absolutely there’s huge opportunities in terms of volume and again, it’s just such an iconic and universal dish that we knew that it has a lot of significance for both Blair and myself, as well, we both grew up eating and loving a lot of dumpling and dimsum.
Dan Riegler
And it’s been hard to find a really good plant based option. There has always been a lot of good veggie dumplings, but something that replicates that juicy pork dumpling, potsticker and whatever you’re going to call it, there’s so many different names and iterations. But at the end of the day, it’s sort of the same satisfying thing. And yes, it’s a huge category and huge opportunity and it’s pretty well loved. But I would say there’s also a huge world beyond just dumplings, there’s a lot of similar types of products, similar formats, that we were not limited to that in any way and we will very much look beyond that to other types of Asian product offerings, but also other cuisines and categories. We have a very flexible and versatile ingredient that can go into a lot of different formats.
Andrew D Ive
I’ve got to say I’m waiting. I’m getting very tired of vegetable Lo Mein and fried rice. It’s getting really boring.
Dan Riegler
We have some good new versions for you to try.
Andrew D Ive
Yeah, well, let’s get them into I don’t know pF changs and various other chains in the US so that everyone can can broaden their consumption. How did Blair kind of get into this? What’s obviously difficult to tell somebody else’s story? Maybe a different way of asking it. How did you guys come together as the co founders of Karana I think
Dan Riegler
Blair and I are qualified and confident telling each other’s stories, we’re pretty conjoined. Blair and I have both similar and different backgrounds. I mean, we’ve followed I think similar paths, we both like to use the term reformed bankers. Blair spent longer in the banking world than I did, but I stayed sort of in the finance consulting sphere. So we’ve both been on that side of the table, which I think has been helpful and and helped us navigating through this process. But we both come at this again, from a love of food. Blair has been a more dedicated vegan, I’m not a vegan. I’m mostly vegan, or plant based. But Blair has really been, focussed vegan.
Dan Riegler
Just occasionally?
Dan Riegler
In general, when I’m traveling, if I need to eat something for benchmarking, like I said, for me, it’s been been a journey, I’ve gone from being very much probably negative 10% plant based, you know, a few years ago to now being well over 90%. And increasingly, I’m in that direction. But I think it’s something that everyone needs to, you know, do on their own terms in a way that works for them.
Dan Riegler
Blair is the opposite. Blair has been a very dedicated and committed vegan for a lot of his life and so he really comes at this from a very strong moral position, but we’re both very much geared towards sustainability. We care deeply about environmental issues, and trying to make the world a better and more sustainable place through food and agriculture. But appealing to, again, will win over consumers making delicious good food. But we met at a conference, the clean meats symposium in San Francisco a few years ago, and just sort of connected.
Dan Riegler
Blair was born and raised in Hong Kong. So we’ve both spent significant portions of our life in Asia. We had similar overlaps in our career, we were at similar places and thinking about the way to sort of bridge this you know. Asia and the opportunity with what was some of the trends and what we were seeing happening in the Wes,t the need to move beyond just burgers. So we had a lot in common and we’ve always gotten along well and yeah, it’s just grown from there.
Andrew D Ive
Was it Blair or yourself that was previously with another plant based company that shall remain nameless?
Dan Riegler
That was Blair so yeah, he had been dabbling more in the industryI sort of started, I dabbled in insect protein before I moved towards plant based and I’m very comfortable and happy committed to the plant based side of things now, but yeah, Blair always saw that from the beginning.
Andrew D Ive
Got it. And from entrepreneurial perspective, I’m sure the last three years has been interesting, up and down. You’ve obviously had COVID, right in the middle of your three years of starting and growing the company, aside from the pandemic thing, because I think we talked too much about that and hopefully, we can move on from it. What kind of thoughts or advice if anything, would you give to anyone that’s considering starting a company? Particularly, for example, if it happens to be in the plant based space? Or the alternative protein space? Would you? Would it be a screaming, you know, hands in the air hair on fire running in the opposite direction? Don’t do it? Or would you wholeheartedly encourage someone to do it and give them some thoughts on how best to tackle it?
Dan Riegler
I would say absolutely do it. You can’t really have this conversation without, acknowledging the COVID elephant in the room. The world has changed fundamentally and that creates a lot of challenges, but also a lot of opportunities. And I think there has never been a better time to look at starting a company, I mean, these create some of the best opportunities for disruption, the need for disruption for new products and not just for products, there are so many opportunities across the entire industry.
Dan Riegler
Everything from sourcing, technology around the growing and farming, traceability data, ancillary services, distribution, marketing, I mean, there’s huge needs across the entire space across every area of our food system for disruption. And I would highly encourage anyone who is passionate about that, who is interested in this, to, to look at it and look at doing things, not just replicating what other people are doing in the space, but to look for new opportunities that are emerging, quickly adding to this changing world.
Andrew D Ive
Couldn’t agree more. The interesting thing is that people can do things at a micro level by as you say, making a decision with every meal they make, what sort of wealth they’re creating, or contributing to or not based on their consumption patterns. But there’s certainly an opportunity within the food space more broadly, across multiple sectors, whether that’s, you know, food tech, or data or you know, whatever. But in the plant based category, you guys, I mean, Asian style food is one of the largest foods consumed in the US. I think, if I remembered my data, aside from American style food you’ve got I think, either Mexican or Italians are the kind of food strongest numbers perspective, I think Chinese is up there as well.
Dan Riegler
When you’re talking about a market like America, trying to categorize it into these, I mean, this use of the term ethnic category is always for me a bit silly, because America is made up of different ethnic foods and categories.
Andrew D Ive
The amount of money that’s being spent on Italian style food, Mexican style, Chinese style food, I think Chinese style food is one of the largest categories yet and you guys are probably one of the first movers from a plant based perspective, which just goes to show how much opportunity there is across the food arena.
Dan Riegler
Absolutely and even just going a step further from there, taking pork, if you look at how many people are going into beef and now chicken, I mean chicken nugget wars are going to be the new hype cycle and plant based, but I mean, how many chicken nuggets in the market? You know, I think there are so many more open opportunities, and the wider variety of products of offerings, the wider variety of formats of flavors profiles, however you want to carve out a niche.
Dan Riegler
I think because we come from Singapore and have this origin story that we’re very proud of but we get grouped into this Asian category a lot, but we’re a global food company and we produce a lot of Asian food products, because it’s cuisine that we love and know very well and that our products are very well suited towards. But we will look across the whole range of categories wherever there are these underserviced opportunities.
Dan Riegler
So I agree with you that Asian food in the US as a category is absolutely one of the fastest growing and one of the most underserviced. And I think it’s an area I’ve seen firsthand and every time I come back in, because I haven’t spent a lot of time in the US in the last 10 years, to be honest. But every time I do come back and visit new cities, I’m always amazed by the the caliber of authentic Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Burmese, really nuanced, Cambodian interesting types of restaurants and cuisines that are available.
Dan Riegler
So definitely the level of interest and sophistication is clearly growing. But that exists across a huge range of categories. In general, I think people are getting more sophisticated and interested in their food and the flavor profiles, the story it’s telling. So again, I think just just looking across the different opportunities is very important.
Andrew D Ive
I think you’ve gone through a lot of I mean, I’ve been with, you know, we’ve been with you guys, from early days, you guys have gone through a lot of trials and tribulations in terms of this dedication to sourcing, making sure you’re sourcing from specific types of farmers, making sure that they’re well taken care of, and so on. How do you grow your products, and your variety of flavors and ingredients, while maintaining that commitment to farmers? I wouldn’t say it’s easy, but you’ve gone through the pain of doing that for jackfruit. As you say, you guys are going to go beyond jackfruit. So how do you make sure that you’ve always got that taking it back to the farmers level? Everything that you do, because Dan, I’ve seen you go through a lot pain.
Dan Riegler
It’s not easy, it is painful but again, it’s one of our core values and that’s important. I mean, if it was easy, it probably wouldn’t be worth doing. And that’s true with a lot of things. I mean just because something is not easy, and is painful does that mean that, that’s an automatic barrier to doing it? What our hope is and what we believe firmly and we’ve already seen a lot of the results of this, is that putting in that effort and that pain early on, yields results and value over a longer period. And that gives us more security in our supply chain.
Dan Riegler
I mean, that has resulted in our ability to manage our supply chain, even with this. I mean, that’s been extremely challenging during COVID without being able to travel as freely and go and spend time. But having that involvement, having that understanding has allowed us to really accomplish a lot of things that we probably wouldn’t have otherwise been able to do. And having that sort of level of involvement in the supply chain and presence also hedges against some of the risks that we’re seeing across the industry.
Dan Riegler
I mean, if you look at being more heavily reliant on commodity prices, or commodity inputs that’s a crazy space as well. Right now competing with everyone around, with a limited supply of very standardized inputs, and being solely focused on formulation, versus actually having a more proprietary own supply chain, I’m very happy with where we’re sitting right now. So I think it’s been well worth it. But it’s an ongoing effort and it’s just something that we make sure that we keep at the core of what we do. We keep in focus, and we hire around that we build our team and our culture around that. And we try and pass that on to consumers as much as possible. And I think that’s something that consumers and investors recognize and appreciate increasingly.
Andrew D Ive
I agree. The product quality is amazing, because of this kind of dedication that you guys have, the fact that you have such a strong supply chain, despite the challenges of COVID it gives you more surety in terms of consistent supply and good quality supply and so on. I hope as the business scales, as you guys bring it to the US, as as it sort of takes off ,as it inevitably will because you know, I’ve tasted it.
Andrew D Ive
I know what you guys are actually delivering to the consumer. I hope you can maintain that sort of supply chain commitment to the farmer and so on. I think that’d be amazing. I know there are a lot of consumers that care about this stuff. Okay, I think we’re almost coming up to, I think we’ve probably gone way beyond but this was way too, way too interesting. Two kind of very quick questions. One is, how do you if someone’s a restauranteur, if someone’s an investor, if someone’s a consumer, how do you want people to reach out to you engage with you? Where can they find you? What’s a good way of sort of joining the Karana story at this early days? Sure.
Dan Riegler
Well, the easiest way to follow us right now as we start gearing up for our launch and announce everything, and just get a sneak preview of what we’re going to be putting out soon, is to follow us across all our social media channels. So eatkarana on Instagram, I would say we’re most active. LinkedIn look for Daniel Riegler. People are very welcome to find me and connect on LinkedIn.
Andrew D Ive
What’s your LinkedIn user named Daniel?
Dan Riegler
I’m Daniel Riegler on LinkedIn and I am the co founder of Karana
Dan Riegler
Yeah. And for any inbound inquiries you can email info@eatkarana.com but we will be making some announcements fairly soon on social media regarding our plans and we’ll make sure that that’s very likely the first channel where we’ll be announcing any of our major updates.
Andrew D Ive
So give me a range of when I can expect to find Karana somewhere in the United States and if I have to fly or walk long distances.
Dan Riegler
Well, we will be starting in California. We’ve just set up an office space in the Bay Area. So we’ll be launching around San Francisco in Southern California as well. So San Francisco and LA and the surrounding areas will be our launch markets for the US. And we’re planning to be doing actually some small events, and some initial activations as early as September, October. And we’ll be looking at having our products available in some restaurants and food service channels going into the end of the year and likely retail we want to be ready to hit the ground running for beginning January and give an option to everyone who’s coming up the holiday I think this year will be a much deserved holiday indulgence period. So starting in January, we want to be ready.
Andrew D Ive
So basically, January 2022, is when it will start popping up in restaurants and other places.
Dan Riegler
Yeah and hopefully a bit before that but on a more limited scale.
Andrew D Ive
Okay, remind me, there’s a restaurant in LA that does a lot of these amazing things. and we know the guys over there very well, we should connect you.
Dan Riegler
The Vegan scene in LA is pretty amazing. I spent three months in LA this summer and yeah, it makes it very easy to be a vegan.
Andrew D Ive
Princeton not so much. Okay, so we’ve let people know where they can find you, where they can reach out to Karana, whether their restaurant is interested in playing with your your food. I know you’re not supposed to play with your food. But chefs are allowed to,
Dan Riegler
We encourage it, that’s fine.
Andrew D Ive
So chefs can reach out we’ve told them where, investors can reach out we’ve told them where awesome. I should ask and I and I’m sure there’s a story here and maybe you’ve told it to me before, but I’m getting on in years so I forget things. Karana Where did the name come from?
Dan Riegler
Yeah, so the name has to two meanings. It comes from a Hindi and Sanskrit word Karana which means to do or doing. So one of our core brand values is about, as we mentioned before, taking action, making better choices, taking those steps in our lives. So that’s something that’s very important to us and also has it’s the origin of jackfruit is from India. So a lot of Sanskrit words have translated throughout Southeast Asia. So there’s some significance and meaning for us behind that. It also comes from a Balinese phrase, try to Karrana which is a basically is a kind of it’s about the Balinese way of life, which is about achieving prosperity, through balance with nature and spirituality essentially. So really about this achieving more balanced about being more connected to nature and profiting and being successful or at least more fulfilled based on that. So that’s also something that’s very important to us.
Andrew D Ive
Perfect name then. I can’t believe I haven’t asked you before.
Dan Riegler
On our website, I’m pretty sure.
Andrew D Ive
I’m pretty sure it is too. Right Dan this has been a great session. Thank you. You know, this has been really fascinating for me. So I hope people do reach out to you to Karana and join in the journey, even if it’s just in terms of finding you somewhere, and buying and taking you home and making as many meals as possible with that balance in one’s life thatwe should all be looking for.
Dan Riegler
We just want people to enjoy what they eat and feel good about it. I mean, it should be delicious and it should be that you’re fulfilled after eating in multiple fronts.
Andrew D Ive
Absolutely. So Dan, Maximilian Riegler, thank you for your time. I’m going to press the pause and then Don’t go. Don’t go anywhere. Alrighty, then. I think I press stop. Yes, I press. So thanks for coming along today and listening to the conversation between Dan one of the cofounders of Karona and myself. Thanks for being a listener to the big idea podcast focused on food. Again, if you love what we do, if you don’t love what we do, please engage, please let us know. Be great to get you as a subscriber so that we can update you on more podcasts or YouTube videos as they come with. We put this out on both formats. So that’s it. Thanks for coming along. Hope you enjoyed the conversation. Until next week. Bye.