Gilai Nachmann: So my name is Gilay Nachman. ⁓ I live in worked with Arla Foods for the past seven years. ⁓ Arla Foods is one of the biggest dairy companies in the world, third biggest in dairy, the largest cooperative in ⁓ Europe after our merger in April. We are a company of around 20,000 people right now, growing towards 30,000 people after the merger probably, 15 billion euro annual revenue at this stage. We have an ingredient B2B business and more of a B2C direct to consumer business. That's our main part of the company working. and global presence.

Alex Shandrovsky: Amazing. Well, thank you so much for taking this conversation. And what's your position in the business? What's your KPIs the company? ⁓

Gilai Nachmann: Right. So I'm an open innovation manager in the company. It's a new team. We've started the company around two years ago. basically set at that stage that we believe a lot of the more daring ⁓ will come from an external source into the company. So around three years ago, the company started a new strategy period. set a new goal for ourselves that by 2030, we want 30 % of our innovation ideas come from external sources. And because of that, we've set up this new team setup where I'm working called the open innovation and lab where my responsibility is on the open innovation side looking at the external partnerships in the areas where we're lacking competence in the company. If Aal doesn't know how to do this the best internally, who is the external partner that can help us achieve these goals whether it's a startup, ⁓ an SME, a big corporation, then I'm helping to enable these companies to work with us in a better way and scouting and identifying them. Then the other part of the team is the innovation lab, that's the rest of the people, we are five people team and they're working basically as an accelerator. How do we bring daring product ideas as soon as possible into the market? And the idea is we're maybe the third iteration of an open innovation team in the company. It hasn't worked well in the past, but what we're doing differently this time is by combining this accelerator and open innovation team together, we're enabling ourselves to work faster with these companies. So if we can do really good internal sprints, we'll be better doing also these external sprints that the company that work with us require a lot more speed than we are used to as a large corporation.

Alex Shandrovsky: So essentially, there's two parts of the business. One is going to try to drive new innovation internally through accelerating. And then another part of the business is looking for external innovation. And just to get a sense of, if I'm a startup, I'm listening to this podcast, I'm thinking, gosh, I really need to break into this business. I think there's a lot of I can offer. First of how do I know what problems you guys are facing?

Gilai Nachmann: Correct. Mm.

Alex Shandrovsky: Like, very simple. How do I know what is ⁓ priorities and problems he's facing in the business? What do I do to find that out?

Gilai Nachmann: We're still new at the stage of showcasing our problem statements, I'd say. So it's not as open. I mean, I really appreciate people reaching out and trying to showcase their business. And I can try to give us direct feedback as possible if this is something for us or not at this stage. If I can give very general advice, I mean, try to read our corporate report about which area, what's our strategy, what's our health goals. On a very general top line level, you can find that out about us. But if you need to understand more specifics about an you're working with, I'm very happy to provide feedback.

Alex Shandrovsky: Okay, awesome. So is that strategy kind of set for a year ahead, two years ahead? Because, you know, I have a runway for 18 months, 12 months, right? And I need to show validation, the industry needs my solution, right? for me, and I need that now, right? So how can you be a partner in that for me?

Gilai Nachmann: Mm-hmm. for sure. So we help out with piloting. We test solutions. We have pilot plans. We have legal teams that can help out. do LOIs, letters intention to showcase that there's an interest for us in the solution. Maybe not today, but in the future, something that you're working on but need to still fill up and is not mature, but could be interesting for us in the future. We're really open to do that. But really having an open discussion about what do we as a dairy industry need today. A lot of solutions to come for us, so maybe from indirect competitors, other areas of food that could be also working in the dairy category, and then we help them expand as a business into a new white space or category they haven't been facing before.

Alex Shandrovsky: OK, so I love all of that. So I think let's break down each one of those. stage should business reach out to you? Like, are you ⁓ only to talk to businesses that already have no technological risk? They're already looking for pilot partners at a large scale? ⁓ Or you even want to have a conversation with, say, ⁓ a scale at a university ⁓ project? Where you like to play?

Gilai Nachmann: Duh. Maturity scale is very different depending on the type of business they're bringing into us. a, it's a big food company, there are like maybe four general areas that's really interesting for us. It's usually ⁓ types of ingredients. It's a packaging, it's processing, and it's the more digital AI space. I would say ⁓ you are in the first three, like processing, packaging, ⁓ we're looking at more mature businesses. Once it have done pilots that have something that they can bring and test with us already. Maybe don't have to be at the scale where they can sell to the town. that we're purchasing today, but still something that we can test today and taste. Something that's regulatory approved in Europe, that's our core markets, and Nordics is very important for us. For the AI digital services, we're looking at more immature services maybe that can build together with us, that we can co-develop with.

Alex Shandrovsky: And I think what you said that's super interesting is again, if you're a novel food ingredient and you're not, you know, you're still three years away or two years away or four years ago away. That's is that too early to engage?

Gilai Nachmann: minute. Two years away from what? Is it two years away from commercialization? EFSA. If you're two years away from EFSA, I'd say that's the perfect time to engage because we want to be first runners in the area. I mean, and if it's ⁓ not a self-assessed EFSA, but it's a real EFSA approval, then yes, definitely that's the right time to approve so we can all launch together when you're ready.

Alex Shandrovsky: EFSA. EFSA approval.

Gilai Nachmann: If you're two years away from EFSA, I'd say that's the perfect time to engage because we want to be first runners in the area. I mean, ⁓ and if it's not a self-assessed EFSA, but it's a real EFSA then yes, definitely that's the right time to approve so we can all launch together when you're ready.

Alex Shandrovsky: Okay, so I love that. Do see your team having a budget to deploy cash as a VC as well to support these technologies or a partnership you're more looking for just like we want to integrate and pay you as a user or as a buyer of the solution?

Gilai Nachmann: We have a budget, but we depend a lot on our business units. So the challenges need to make sense for our business units. So budget will contribute. It's quite small ⁓ case there is no other budget to go in with it, but it needs to be a challenge that's really anchored in our business. And we do that on purpose because we don't want to run projects that are inside the open innovation team bubble. It needs to be a challenge in our business actually once our colleagues paying for it, then it makes sense for the whole business as well.

Alex Shandrovsky: Yeah. would you take an equity position in the business or only pay pilots position? ⁓

Gilai Nachmann: No, only pay pilots. What's really valuable for us is often more of an exclusivity deal rather than an equity deal. So saying that we will be the ones entering with them in a certain category or market when we're launching.

Alex Shandrovsky: Okay, and why is that? Can you explain to us the thinking of why is a partner position not different from an equity position? Why not do a CVC? Why do open innovation?

Gilai Nachmann: We are a dairy cooperative. That's how we do our business. We earn our revenue by growing dairy and creating health. And that's the category we want to invest in. We don't believe in growing small companies. We more believe in enabling them to be the best possible suppliers for us and partnering up together with us. we're happy to help coach them, develop them on a journey, sign LOIs, but the investment is not in our current capabilities. It's maybe something that will enter the company in three to five years time, but it's not something we're looking at today.

Alex Shandrovsky: Okay, yeah, I appreciate that being extremely direct and also for our listeners. Again, our listeners have a very short-term path, right, 12 to 18 months. They need to figure out, what strategy do I pursue? And if I'm a startup, you know, one of the things that we've had people share is that when you engage with... you know, with a company that's a corporate, you know, unless you have a sample, they're very rarely going to engage with you. need samples to test. Would be accurate ⁓ with business as well? ⁓

Gilai Nachmann: Yes, if we're talking about the food products and yes, samples would be, I mean, to interact with us, no. Of course, you're allowed to reach out and we're happy to give feedback about what type of product it is. If we're talking about entering some sort of a piloting or testing phase, yes, there needs to be something to test, of course.

Alex Shandrovsky: Yeah, 100%. So other thing is, one the challenges I've had also ⁓ friends mine face is, look, we need to get a sense of where the price point is in the market for our ingredient, right? What are we trying to replace? And you you'll never ⁓ a binding offtake agreement a company that's ⁓ still early right? So that's not going happen. ⁓ How can you a startup who's let's say have they have samples, but they don't have the volumes that would require to launch a large business process. But what do they need? They need... Hey, they need to know the price of the ingredient, really. Like, they need to understand, hey, this is the price point that we'd buy this. This is the total volumes that we're currently using of it. We can potentially see you guys contributing to this much in the short term. And we'll also write you a letter to explain that so you can use that for fundraising. Is this something that you see you guys being able to partner with startups on?

Gilai Nachmann: I'd say there are two types of projects for us. If we talk about ingredient and functional ingredients space right now, there will be projects that's about a return on investment and profitability where we're saying there's a customer demand for this and we need to create this as soon as possible. Yes, then we can talk pricing and volumes. If instead we're saying this is a trend, we're forecasting, we're saying this is something that might happen on the market in three to five years, a project is not about. ROI, profitability, it's about learning. It's about building knowledge. So what is the win-win between us and the startup company? And in this case, we're less keen to talk about pricing exclusivity. It's more about, let's see how your ingredient functions in our Dairy Matrix as an example.

Alex Shandrovsky: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So, because you don't believe that there's a pull at the moment from the market, and therefore we just gonna be...

Gilai Nachmann: We foresee a coming pull, but the pull is not there today. We don't have a customer waiting on the other side to put the product on the shelf.

Alex Shandrovsky: Okay, this is great. So let's take that step deeper more. So will you communicate to a startup, hey, this are the three, four areas that we really need help on. are, ⁓ it could be an example right now. We know that whey protein, ⁓ is very high demand. ⁓

Gilai Nachmann: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Alex Shandrovsky: ⁓ the supply chain is under pressure, right? So prices are rising, there seems to be not enough this ⁓ I'm that's a core part of your value proposition. ⁓ So company that's saying, hey, I have a real solution about increasing expression of whey protein, or I have an alternative whey protein that you could provide. Is that okay, that's urgent. Yes.

Gilai Nachmann: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Alex Shandrovsky: that be an example of, okay, this is something that would be urgent and we can tell you exactly, hey, ⁓ protein right now we're paying, that's cost of it, we need to buy it ⁓ at rate ⁓ and is the volume is for us to even ⁓ consider a partner on. Does that level of transparency exist?

Gilai Nachmann: Okay, let's take it part by part because I think the example you're giving is very interesting because it's about, is it about precision fermentation of whey proteins? Is that what we're talking about here? Yes.

Alex Shandrovsky: say, I think that that's probably the people who are trying to, ⁓ seen ⁓ announcements, pretty significant announcements in funding for companies like this. So I'm not talking about a more effective technology on the farm traditionally of how to ⁓ increase viability of the, let's say PF, right? ⁓

Gilai Nachmann: Mm-hmm. But let's start with that. is a farmer owned cooperative. And opinion is we're not going to look into precision fermentation as a core area for our business. We're going to focus on building our farmers capabilities to the best we can. It's a that we are observing, but it's not something we're going to invest in doing pilots on at this stage, at least. If it would more on the cow yield, as you were giving an example on, then we're very happy to work a lot more closer with that topic. ⁓

Alex Shandrovsky: Mmm. Yeah.

Gilai Nachmann: today I don't think there is a high transparency on what our problem statements is and it's just because we are quite of a small team at this stage we are growing we have the intention of being more transparent in the future with what our problem statements are but we're still maturing and trying to figure out how do we create the most value inside the business

Alex Shandrovsky: So if you think about a company that recently reached out to you and you like the way that they reached out to you or, you know, give us an example of, hey, these are the people I want to talk to, right? It sounds like you're not able to share publicly. These are the four areas I care about, right? need color. You know, I, ⁓ great.

Gilai Nachmann: Mm-hmm. I can do that. ⁓ can share publicly. ⁓ don't have a website that says what the areas I'm interested in are. ⁓ very open to sharing. ⁓

Alex Shandrovsky: ⁓ so great. so perfect. yeah, so, so let's, let's unpack that. Cause I think that would be great for our listeners to hear. Like this is really, I care about these five things right now. And I want to talk to companies at this stage and the way that I can help you is this three ways, honestly. And the timelines we work on is usually timelines. Because again, if we go back to a startup, little runway.

Gilai Nachmann: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Alex Shandrovsky: They have to make very critical decisions about where they put their emphasis on, right?

Gilai Nachmann: Mm-hmm. Okay, cool. I'll start with the first area I hold close to heart because I work very closely with it for the past six months and it's a personalized nutrition. That's a very interesting area for us because as a business, how do we react to the fact that our consumers will be choosing their food in a very different way in the digital future? So if the AI picks your food for you, what is the position of a big FMCG company in this world? And we have a lot of data as in a big dairy company about food structure, how it works, how it gives health. health benefits, what's needed for people. We don't have as much knowledge about what people are eating, how are they eating it, when are they eating it. There's a lot of services out there today who are documenting and recommending diets to people based on AI in different ways or purchasing things for them. we would like to be ⁓ health partner in this network. How can we support all these companies with our knowledge and expertise? They're going to help our consumers find a specific product on the shelf, but we want to ensure that that's a product that's interesting for us too, that we believe.

Alex Shandrovsky: Okay, so that would be example of say OpenAI, ⁓ example, where somebody would say, ⁓ I need a good ⁓ menu for the next three days, the fill of macros, ⁓ and then I you to go and just order it for me on Instacart.

Gilai Nachmann: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, something like that. It could be a...

Alex Shandrovsky: ⁓ And you want to make sure your products are being put in that basket. want to make sure that the AI is being trained, ⁓ your solution is the right solution for the customer's problem.

Gilai Nachmann: Correct. Exactly, correct. Or at least that our products are not ignored in the future. Maybe in a future where I select food products for you, brands don't exist. And how do we stay relevant in that future in that case?

Alex Shandrovsky: Okay, that's pretty interesting. First of all, love this. Is the fear there that you believe that AI, example, ⁓ OpenAI, right? Because they have talked about doing ads. ⁓ believe that they can do the exclusive private label food comp. ⁓ might start doing private label food businesses like an Amazon. ⁓

Gilai Nachmann: Mm-hmm. I think we see that already today to a certain extent. Like if you look at the HelloFreshers of the world that are sending meal plans out to you, you don't really see the brands of the food products that are compound inside these packages. It says Bay Corporation is serving them and our brands as part of the strong part of our company as well. So how do we maintain that strength still?

Alex Shandrovsky: Okay. So that's interesting. So it's not just that it is like that fear of an Amazon that's to a private label and then cuts out a branded product. So there's a fear there. There's a, there's a fear that AI will ⁓ be the dietitian ⁓ the ordering manager for a family. And therefore we want to make sure that AI understands the value we bring into the consumer as a partner to us, rather than choosing to work with other vendor or their

Gilai Nachmann: Mm-hmm.

Alex Shandrovsky: own subproducts. I love that.

Gilai Nachmann: Correct. That's one side of it. Another side of it is the recommendations that these services are giving to people are not always based on specific products. would be like meal plans, diets. And we would like to know if we're trying to target a specific health benefit, let's give a GLP-1 and weight management that's super big right now. There are some apps that are using pre-diabetics with their meal plans. How can we tap into knowing what these needs are and what they're eating? How can we make products that are specifically needed for these people based on all of these services?

Alex Shandrovsky: I love that. So you would essentially partner with a potential engine, recommendation and then using that data of the recommendation engine, you create or co-create products specifically for their customers.

Gilai Nachmann: Exactly. And we don't want to build these engines. We think there are companies who are much better than us at building apps and services and owning this cloud space. not our business, but we want to be ⁓ the health partner or driver to take them in the right direction or support them with the product development.

Alex Shandrovsky: Yeah, I think that's really interesting. Perfect. So that's one use case, really interesting. Yeah. ⁓

Gilai Nachmann: That's area one. the more functional ingredient space, we're looking at sugar reduction. ⁓ can we provide sweetness for our consumers without putting too much sugar? ⁓ a lot of controversy today on ⁓ versus aspartame. Some people like one, some people like the other, some people don't care. ⁓ how can we provide still sweetness, but as well health to our consumers? And then we're working a lot with scanning what are the opportunities out there? What are the startups working on? Is it sweet proteins or sweet fiber? or other ways to enable sweetness that are not an ingredient actually? Can you change the packaging of the product to make it taste different? So a lot of opportunities there, but still an area we're exploring. If somebody out there has anything in this space, we're interested to hear more about it.

Alex Shandrovsky: And is there milk naturally has sweetness in it? Right? So is there a movement towards trying to reduce sugar inside of milk in general?

Gilai Nachmann: Mm-hmm. Yeah, we do that on a regular basis. mean, consumers like the sweetness they're getting. So if we lowered the sugar in our products by half a gram every year or two years, it's not noticed. But if we do a big change, then people stop buying the product. So we can take a move as a company, but we are feeding a lot of people, a lot of products. And if there are opportunities to sort of prepare a pipeline for the future.

Alex Shandrovsky: Okay.

Gilai Nachmann: some sort of ⁓ a new type of sugar ingredient that is offering health benefits or not offering as much harm, that's interesting for us to know about.

Alex Shandrovsky: Yeah, fast setting. Perfect. Great.

Gilai Nachmann: Another area that is really, I think a lot of founders are looking at right now is the alternative cocoa. So alternative to ⁓ chocolate cocoa powder, cocoa butter. part of our portfolio is chocolate milk. We see a very volatile cocoa market right now. ⁓ do we prepare ourselves for a future where maybe we cannot afford to have chocolate milk for our consumers?

Alex Shandrovsky: So I was in the chocolate space for a long time. So before joining Aya and I, was in cell culture cocoa rights. I know a little bit about it. Is that still a fear given the prices collapsed very quickly over the last seven months? Is that still a priority or it's been not as prioritized as it maybe was a year ago?

Gilai Nachmann: would say that it's, ⁓ there is a discussion about it, at least because the prices are stabilizing. And personal belief, the problem is still going to be there. It's not disappearing just because we have a big supply right now and we still need to prepare ourselves. And that's the, message intend to sell inside organization that it doesn't matter that stable today. We know it might not be in a few years and we need to prepare. This is one of those examples of there is no customer waiting for us around the corner. This is us about learning what these ingredients would behave like in our products and then preparing yourself for a future to say. look, there is this company who can offer this.

Alex Shandrovsky: So this may be a little controversial, but a lot of our guests on the podcast have our alternative solutions right there. You they're ⁓ so talking about upcycling ingredients. ⁓ That be a good example. You know, one of my favorite companies is a plant A or ⁓ a like prefer that's taking positions right there. There's no cocoa. There's a quite a few. Your position is you think that the consumer will would be adopted chocolate milk that can't be called chocolate.

Gilai Nachmann: Our position is that we need to understand the area more. We don't know what a consumer will think, but we are the one who can figure that out because we have such a big consumer presence as a company. if we start asking these questions, if we start talk to our regulatory teams and to our commercial teams today, we will be ready in three years when the demand will come. When our commercial retailers come around the corner and say, I want this product in a couple of weeks, we have already tested it with a couple of startups.

Alex Shandrovsky: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, okay, perfect. Okay, I think it's going to excite a lot of the people that are going to be reaching out to you about that use case. Okay, what else?

Gilai Nachmann: is an interesting one that we haven't put too much time on but I think will become more relevant later ⁓ it is that Denmark is going to be one of the first countries in the world to have a CO2 tax on our farmers on the dairy and means that products such as say cheese or butter is going to be very very expensive that has a higher CO2 emission comparison to for example milk. We need to figure out How do we attack that in the right way? Is it creating more hybrid dairy solutions that are combining fats from alternative sources or proteins from alternative sources? haven't had too much time to explore the area, but we're starting to feel it.

Alex Shandrovsky: interesting, ⁓ ⁓ there's a certainty that that will continue as legislatively believe that's going to continue in Europe. ⁓ say that because EUDR, for those who are listeners who understand, you should look into EUDR and its history ⁓ in ⁓ You'll that priorities in Europe change from a legislative standpoint. ⁓ You believe that law will pass?

Gilai Nachmann: Yes. I believe there is a likelihood that it will pass. I'm not an expert in ⁓ but I believe my role to future-proof organizations for these kind of things and help our farmers be able to still sell their dairy products. So what technology is going to enable them to do that?

Alex Shandrovsky: Hahaha ⁓ ⁓ say I heard these, ⁓ use cases and I'm thinking, wow, I think I'm really good fit, right? ⁓ do I make sure that you are my champion? What will happen if I reach out to you? Just talk it through us. Like this is the, typically happens is this. And then if that goes well, then this will happen. And then that goes well, this will happen. Like what is the open innovation pipeline look like?

Gilai Nachmann: there's usually a scouting face in the beginning, we have a problem statement that we're interested in. It's most often that when there's a success story, it's a problem that comes from inside our organization rather than outside the organization. It's very rare that somebody comes to us and then it ends up in a pilot. It's usually the other way around that we reach out to people. There is a problem statement of some sort. We do a first meeting with the companies. We check if there is a win-win scenario between what we want and what they want. Hopefully we do an NDA in one to two weeks so it goes as quickly as possible, ⁓ but usually what happens in the next

Alex Shandrovsky: Yeah.

Gilai Nachmann: And then it's very common that there will be some sort of... A pilot or a proof of concept. Usually Arla will pay for the pilot itself because they were not taking the equity plan and said that's what we're giving these companies. We're giving them partially that we will lead the pilot, partially some reputation so they can talk about the fact that they've worked with Arla, done a pilot that can bring in some other customers to work with them as well. Maybe a letter of intention at that stage. And lastly, if everything goes perfect and we have the right price points, we can talk about like supply agreements or joint development agreements. or how do we prepare their productions for meeting our quality assurance requirements, so things like that. And it really depends if it's a digital solution or a more food ingredient solution, like we mentioned before.

Alex Shandrovsky: And then... And when I spoke to CJ, the head of their open innovation platform, he said, look, my KPI is very simple. It's about deploying projects into business opportunities. Is that how you're tracked as well? you know, is how much external projects you can actually bring into the business unit and bring it all the way to the market? Or is it a different KPI that you looked at?

Gilai Nachmann: It's not yet. think the ultimate goal is that I would be measured on that, but because we're quite young, my GPI is right now about more inspiration, like teaching our organization about that things are happening outside the company. is going on? What are the trends? What are macrotransit? What are opportunities and how do we react to them in a way that makes sense to us? So make people look outside the window, essentially. ⁓ have an initiative that I work on called Open Innovation Talks, where I invite external speakers to the company ⁓ other

Alex Shandrovsky: Yeah.

Gilai Nachmann: companies, from startups, from venture funds to just do a presentation about macro trends in the food industry or what they're working on. So in a couple of weeks, we're going to have one of the Coco startups coming to our Innovation Center and doing a presentation sharing about like all the work you're doing with us and why they believe in this opportunity.

Alex Shandrovsky: Okay, that sounds really exciting. I know a few founders would probably love to be giving those talks, I'm sure. Now, if I want to try to have you become a champion for me, have you seen startups do a really good job of this? You felt like they really understood your pain point and they knew how to be able to execute appropriately. Any guidance to a startup about how they can make sure that you become an advocate for their business internally in organization?

Gilai Nachmann: you

Alex Shandrovsky: Thank

Gilai Nachmann: Yeah. I will always try to be an advocate for their business, I'd say, but they need to not only ⁓ me, they need to convince everybody else in the company. And then it's so much about understanding our problem statements and trying to be the right company to ⁓ with us. Let's that you are a Cocoa startup. What is your UVP compared to the other six Cocoa startups that we're meeting with? So really understand us and then be clear about how you're different from your competitors, because we will be interacting with companies similar to yours as well.

Alex Shandrovsky: Yep. then why is the business looking for 30 % of its innovation coming externally? Why do they see that as being a goal? ⁓ not build in-house ⁓

Gilai Nachmann: I think we're trying both and we've just seen more success from Some of our competitors, other types of companies and industries from working with this more open innovation model. I think our CMO got inspired and said, look, this is an approach for us to take. We have worked a lot with external sources in the past, but maybe we haven't really documented how much of it is actually happening and what is the actual value that's coming out of that. So I think we're still in the learning phase in our organization, honestly, and they will be more clear on what is the right KPIs to have in the right place. But I think it's also a very exciting time to part of the organization because we're almost running like a startup inside a big organization. Everything is going very very fast and we're adapting to whatever the business needs are.

Alex Shandrovsky: What you think startups are getting wrong when they try to approach you or try to make a ⁓ with, your business? have you seen not work?

Gilai Nachmann: A lot of times I feel founders are in love with their solution and of course it makes sense. That's why you're working in a startup and very passionate and that's great. But when you're trying to your technology and are more interested in your own technology than solving the problem of the company, it becomes very difficult to get rapport our colleagues. my tip would be really ⁓ try focus on the problem statement and then... shift and be agile, try to work around how we can develop a as simple as possible pilot together. Because a lot of times maybe we blow up the problem too big or make too big of project, but we just need to get started on it. The rest is easy.

Alex Shandrovsky: And two things is from what it sounds like, ⁓ organization can actually move quite fast. ⁓ that if I'm a startup and I need to get, ⁓ feel like I'm ready to deploy, you know, once it gets through legal and initial conversations, you can actually bring a solution to a pilot relatively quickly. ⁓

Gilai Nachmann: Y'all come and like this. It's very different from case to case. There are examples where a startup came to us and said, I have this sample. I want you guys to taste it and tell me what you think about it. And if you like it, let's sign an LOI. And that's it. And that can happen within like two, three weeks. And then they have their LOI and that's done. But are cases when we want to do ⁓ a pilot, but it's, have to enter our data systems in some way, or extract some information from us. And we need to talk about how they can use the data in the right way. And ⁓ could months of work. for startup that doesn't have the time to do that. We are very slow in some cases and we're very fast in others. Not a direct answer.

Alex Shandrovsky: And then for, no, I think it's directed off and let's just do a rapid fire to close us off by use cases. US, is there a play for a company that's based in the US that's trying to sell, you know, has a solution into the US or you only focus in primarily Europe right now?

Gilai Nachmann: Mm-hmm. Primarily Europe is our focus.

Alex Shandrovsky: OK, great. OK, so primarily Europe. So for novel ingredients into the regulatory side, two away from approval is the right time to ⁓ build relationships. Four years, five too far away from the market, correct? OK, ⁓ great. ⁓ Any important, just say, ⁓

Gilai Nachmann: Correct.

Alex Shandrovsky: metrics that you want our founders to think about before they approach you. Imagine this being a conversation where before the founder approaches you, they'll listen to this podcast ⁓ you want them to know these things about that conversation so they just know it's worthwhile for both sides. ⁓ there anything else you think is important for you to mention? Say, look, ⁓ this and this, just keep that in mind because I'm going to be asking you these questions. That's exactly what's going to happen. ⁓ you don't have a good answer for those three things, probably maybe you're too early to have this conversation with me or too late.

Gilai Nachmann: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Thank you. Yeah, I would like them to think always about the win-win. We would like to know both what's in it for them and what's in it for us at the same time, because we need to understand their side of it and how much they expect. So setting clear early expectations has always helped us have a faster collaboration together so that we're not getting problems later on in the collaboration.

Alex Shandrovsky: then ⁓ would not see yourself funding an R &D project or a new product for a startup. It has to be a startup that already has a solution they've brought. Like, for example, a sweetener solution, right? ⁓ already has to be in a place where they can give you a sample of this to in your product line rather than say, hey, ⁓ within of Technology, they can go and develop a new sweet protein for you.

Gilai Nachmann: Mm-hmm.

Alex Shandrovsky: Yeah, other-

Gilai Nachmann: They need to have sufficient quantity for us to pilot it. So it doesn't have to be production ready manufacturing, selling it to a big retailer, but they need to be able to at least create if it's a 20 to 50 kilos so we can do a pilot plant test of whatever product is we're interested in testing.

Alex Shandrovsky: I think that's exactly important. Amazing. question for us is for those listeners who want to give back, you've been very generous with your promise statements, what you're thinking about. How can they help you over the next 12 months to achieve your goals? What would be ideal if they listen to this podcast? What would you want their next steps to be ⁓ to help in your mission? ⁓

Gilai Nachmann: If they feel any of the four problem statements are relevant to them, then I'm very happy for them to reach out and have an open discussion about if we're a good fit. mean, if they are the right partner and there's the right scope and it's the right time in, if you bring those three, I'll bring the factories and the farmers and the millions of consumers. we can find the right collaboration.

Alex Shandrovsky: Thank so much for your insights and we really enjoyed this conversation.

Gilai Nachmann: Thank you, Alex. It was great. Take care.