Hello everyone, it's Anthony Chadwick from the webinar Vet. With another episode of Vet Chat, I do apologise today. I do have a bit of a cough, so if I do start wheezing, then please accept my apologies, but I'm really excited to have Lauren tracked on.
Lauren is one of my LinkedIn friends. We met on LinkedIn, and we've been chatting ever since. Lauren is a vet, an American vet who qualified from Madrid.
And it's got a real interest in alternative proteins for pet foods. So we're gonna be talking about that today, but before we launch into that topic, Lauren, tell us a little bit about how does an American vet end up qualifying from Madrid? So it's a quite an interesting story, so when I was 15, I was living in Los Angeles and I really.
I wanted to study abroad, so I, I chose the first I was gonna go to Italy, but then I decided that Spain would probably be more practical, being that huge population in the world speaks Spanish, and only one country speaks Italian. So I decided on Spain. Also, I was totally obsessed with the Andalusian horses, so it was like my paradise land.
So, yeah, I, I did my finished my high school studies in Spain. And decided I wanted to also do my university in Spain. So, yeah, I started actually, I started in Leon, which is kind of in the north of Spain, and then I, I went to finish my studies, veterinary studies in Madrid.
And Madrid is of course a beautiful city as well. Most certainly, so beautiful. And as you say, it's a real skill, I think to pick up another language is.
It's such a blessing, isn't it, and it opens the world even more for you and particularly also in America, if you're in California, you know, the possibly the second language is, is, well it probably definitely is Spanish isn't it, that's spoken similarly in Florida and places like that as well, so. The US is is very multicultural, isn't it? For sure, yeah, the more languages, the better.
Yeah, brilliant. So, . Practised a little bit in in Spain since you've qualified, but I know you're also excited to to go back to America to be able to practise there as well.
Sure, yeah, so, actually, so I was doing tonnes of practical work before my University ended and once I graduated I had to wait a year to get my citizenship in Spain. So in that time I decided to work in different American companies, different business ventures. I gained tonnes of business experience, sales, negotiations, strategy, marketing, communications, so I'm, I'm so thankful for all of that because it's not exactly something that's taught in vet school.
So yeah, I, I just really took advantage of some, some great opportunities, but, and they weren't in the vet space, but I really missed being in the science and vet space, so I decided to see what things. Things were of great interest to me. The vet salaries in Spain aren't very wonderful and competitive.
So I was looking into other industries that worked with either veterinary products or pet food. Since I have tonnes of business experience, and yeah, I stumbled upon alternative proteins. I have a, a very keen interest in, sustainability.
So I just saw it as, you know, pet food is replenishable. It's, as far as a business model, it's very, it's a very interesting product, and I just thought that, you know, Something new and important, especially different improvements could be, could be done in that space and are being done. Yeah, no, I think it's really important and looking at plant-based alternative proteins, also fungi, you know, insects, is perhaps worth user starting off with plant-based ones.
I know you're working also with some companies at the beginning of this, probably a disclaimer, I have some shares in one of the insect protein, companies, and it's fascinating to, To see all the, the, the kind of advantages, but also some of the real tribulations that some of these companies are going through, because although it sounds like a great idea, then you actually hit the reality of it. And they're perhaps not as easy as as we thought they would be. Perhaps we can start on the, the plant-based, you know, the vegetarian and also vegan diets.
Obviously with dogs and cats. Tell us a little bit about your thoughts on what are the potential advantages of them, but also, you know, what are the limitations of some of these diets as well. Sure, sure, so, .
I'm gonna talk about two really keen advantages. So, number one, we have tonnes, specifically dogs with tonnes of allergies, tonnes of skin allergies, tonnes of GI upset. So, a lot of these diets, these plant-based diets, use novel proteins from plant sources, whether it be, well, yeast is kind of in it's another category, but it's a lot of times, used in different plant-based formulations, proteins coming from rice, from peas, from soy, from wheat, from potatoes, so many different sources.
So, a lot of animals who have meat, dairy, or egg allergies really do very well on these diets and a lot of the, they either skin conditions or GI upset or, you know, patients with IBD or also pancreatitis, really a lot of them see a huge improvement. And their symptoms. I was talking to somebody at the London vet show about a a dog with phylosis.
Nobody could treat it, you know, even the dermatologists, and actually changing it from a, you know, a hypoallergenic type diet over to a plant-based diet had actually made a huge improvement for this, for this dog. So, certainly things like dermatology and often I found in my dermatology practise if the animal was food allergic, one of the first. Easy symptoms I would know that perhaps it was food allergic, was that when I put it on a hypoallergenic diet, Within the first week, the actual quality of the faeces had improved.
Now the skin hadn't improved, but actually the faeces quality was often an indicator that I was on the right line, so that the two things, you know, basically intestine is just an imagination of the skin, isn't it? Totally, 100%, yeah, I mean, a lot of times. You know, every case is different.
So a lot of times people will have to try different formulations, but at the end of the day, it's, it's really a great tool that we have in our toolbox to use. Also, a lot of these formulations have a lot of fibre, so also, You know, one, another huge issue that we face is obesity. So, a lot of these formulations are quite satiating.
Obviously, you have to check each formulation and to see also the, the calorie content, the energy content of, of the formulation, but a lot of them are quite high in fibre, so it's definitely more satiating. And for our, our friends, our furry friends who might not get as much exercise or live more sedentary lifestyles, that's definitely something that's, that's on our side. Yeah, I mean, obesity is a huge problem, isn't it?
And it seems, although there's been obesity diets for such a long time, it's still. An increasing problem both in the human population, but also in the animal population, and often when you see an animal that's overweight and then often the owners are overweight as well, aren't they? So it's the diet is part, but it's also educational.
It was something I was very passionate about. Even as a student, I used to be giving out obesity type diets, but you need, as well as the diet, you need the education side as well, don't you? Sure, 100%.
And another, and another point I wanted to bring up, one of the huge advantages as well, Is consumer behaviour, so. We're seeing huge, a huge wave of consumers that are adopting more plant-based diets, even if it's not a completely plant-based diet, more consumers are adding more plant-based foods into their diets, which is, which is wonderful, has a lot of health benefits. So, you know, consumers constantly, are humanising their animals.
So, A lot of times, you're not marketing necessarily to a consumer who wants the best thing for their dog and has veterinary knowledge, or, you know, what's good for the animal, quote unquote knowledge. But something that sounds tasty to them. I mean, I see tonnes of formulations that I, I read them and they just sound so delicious.
And at the end of the day, That's, that's who's buying these foods for their pets. So, obviously, we're talking about plant-based diets, but obviously there's a difference between vegetarian and vegan, and often people are wanting to feed their dogs or their cats a vegetarian or vegan diet because of their own er attitudes towards eating meat, or eating, you know, eggs and dairy and so on. Is there a worry with some of these diets that they will be deficient though in certain nutrients?
Obviously we talk about taurine in cats, you know, we talk about cats. Certainly when I was at veterinary school being obligate carnivores, in other words they had to eat meat to, to survive and if we stopped their meat, then there would be deficiencies that would develop. So Do you think it's possible to have a vegan or vegetarian diet for for cats as well?
So actually there is an interesting study that came out recently, that was talking about this exact subject and was mentioning how if properly supplemented. You know, with, with taurine supplement that cats should be fine on a vegan diet. Obviously, I think it's, it's wise to be still quite cautious, and maybe to To start mixing, you know, half and half, you know, non-vegan with the vegan food.
But I think that at the end of the day, you know, the food industry is so advanced, food science is so advanced. We've been able to supplement so many different things at the end of the day. If the molecule is there, it shouldn't be a problem.
And, and if, you know, in, in laboratories, they do tonnes of testing as far as bioavailability and whatnot. So, You know, I think, I think we've come a long way as far as what we're able to do with, with different formulations. And of course we now are at the point where we can ethically .
Produce a product that is like beef, but isn't beef, you know, that has actually been produced in the laboratory, obviously, you know, without animals being involved, do you see those as becoming products that might get involved in the alternative protein, pet food industry? Sure, so cultivated meat, there was actually a recent approval for it to start its new adventure in pet food in Europe. So, So, yeah, regulation was passed and cultivated meat is going to be allowed in pet food in Europe.
Definitely there are tonnes of scalability issues as far as cultured meat. And yeah, it's definitely gonna be a long road to really achieving price parity with other things on the market, other ingredients in the market, but I definitely think as far as a sustainability standpoint, it is very interesting, especially if using renewable energy as an energy source, but definitely, I mean, the, the land usage, the water usage, the, you know, the feed usage, . There are so many benefits of cultured meat, so I'm very, very excited and optimistic.
Technologies are constantly, there's so much capital being invested in in cultured meat, both for humans and animals. So, I definitely think that That it's gonna be something very interesting in the future. I like that.
I, I hadn't heard that before. That's why I was struggling for the word cultured or cultivated meat. I will remember that for future reference.
The, the other problem, you know, obviously I, moving over to fungal diets as well, fungi diets. Obviously I, I eat quite a lot of corn, which is a, a human product in, in the UK I make a very mean spaghetti bolognese, Lauren. And people still think it's meat, I don't tell them.
They don't know unless they've come a few times and they go, oh, it's spaghetti bolognese without the meat in it. And and some of my friends can be a bit disappointed. But part of the other worry I have is that we're always being encouraged to move away from ultra processed foods, you know, a lot of the food we eat is.
Loaded with sugar, salt, etc. Whereas if we eat pure food that we kind of, you know, actually cook ourselves, we know exactly what's in it. What, what, what's your thoughts on some of the more processed type foods, of which I would guess corn is one, is that something that we should be worried about, you know, foods that are overprocessed, or is, am I?
Conflating two things and actually they're not true, so where would you place some of the some of the sort of, you know, fungal type foods, I suppose? Sure, I mean, great point you bring up, it's. One of the most debated arguments specifically in the, the food industry, I think that a lot of it comes from studies that were done, linking obesity to a lot of ultra-processed foods.
However, bear in mind that a lot of ultra-processed foods that were being, I mean, a lot of ultra-processed foods in general are super high in fat, high in sugar, high in, Just a lot of refined ingredients that, you know, we know sugar, fat, and salt is like a bomb for the brain as far as its addictive properties. Super easy to keep eating. So, so I think that that, it's just kind of stuck in everyone's brain like, oh, ultraprocess equals, you know, higher risk of obesity and a lot of diseases related to obesity.
So I think, I think it's really important to Understand that not all ultra-processed foods are necessarily linked to obesity. I mean, there, there are tonnes of ultra-processed foods, for example, baby formula is, is pretty processed. You know, vitamins are pretty processed.
There are tonnes of different, you know, or, you know, Energy bars are pretty process. I'm not saying to live off of energy bars, but I mean, they definitely serve a purpose for, you know, athletes or, or even, you know, if you're going on a, you know, you go hiking every weekend, you're not going to bring your own, a mini fridge with you. So I think that, it's important to really Before generalising, really, I mean, most, mind you, most kibble is pretty ultra process.
So I think that it's important to, instead of Just to having this blanket idea over what ultraprocess is and means and, and the consequences, really also kind of ask questions and, and research because there are a lot of benefits that, you know, processed foods can bring, you know, they can be more shelf stable, they are just more sustainable. We can't just Everyone in the world can't live off of totally fresh foods because it's just, it's just not realistic. And another huge benefit is that we can add a lot of nutrients into these foods, be it fibre, be it protein, be it healthy fats, be it, micronutrients that otherwise we might not get.
Yeah. Fantastic. So, maybe discussing specifically fungi foods, do you see those as being something that will also come in or I'm not aware, but obviously I'm not an expert in the area, as some of these fungal based foods starting to come into the pet industry, the pet food industry.
Sure. So little by little, I've seen different companies working on formulations. So the great thing about fungi and specifically mycelium, which is the mushroom root, is that it has a very similar texture to meat fibres.
So it's being, I mean, there's huge growth as far as human food because the The fungi and also the mycelium really takes up flavour and other, you know, whether it's, you know, natural food dyes to make it look a different colour or more similar to meat. It's, it's a really great functional ingredient and also it has a great amino acid profile. So, it's a very functional and nutrition and nutritious, .
Food source. So I think that definitely there is, especially for like maybe more fresh foods for dogs, or even cats. I mean, it's, it's still, you know, needs to be researched more, but kind of, you know, wet foods or kind of, you know, the, the more fresh, I don't wanna say raw, but, you know, pre-cooked foods.
I think it has a lot of potential. And it's also pretty cheap to make, which is obviously very important. Did you know the webinar that Virtual Veterinary Congress is back for 2024.
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Yeah, moving on, you know, maybe from fungal based diets to insect-based diets, one of their big problems is, of course they're very expensive. Very. There is that opportunity, I think also with plant-based diets, as we've already discussed, to use these as novel proteins for dermatology and and .
And gastrointestinal problems, but where do you see insects fitting in, you know, I, I saw them, and the reason I invested in one of the companies was that very much as a circular product, you know, a lot of waste food, you know, a third of our food is wasted, we need to get better at that in. You know, in the world because obviously that's why we say we can't feed everybody, whereas actually we can, we just don't distribute very well, . So how do you see insects fitting in there, you know, I know there's a lot of laws now that actually the food that you feed the insects is quite limited.
So do we need to change law, do we need to, you know, accept that insects can be a great way of getting rid of waste? Obviously creating a diet that we can then feed to animals. I know a lot of insect foods are fed to fish, for example, you know, in a commercial setting.
We have a, a programme on in, England called, Who Wants to be in the Jungle or I can't remember because I never watch it, but people then are eating insects in, in, in that as well, although. I think there are some welfare issues there, but insects obviously could potentially be, you know, part of people's diets, cos protein. Is an important source for all of us to live be we humans or animals, isn't it?
So, where do you see insects fitting into this, or do you not see a role for them? I definitely, I do. I think it's a very interesting source of protein.
Definitely they are easy vectors of different diseases, so, so that is a consideration. So that definitely needs to be, Always, you know, you, you always have to stay on top of that and make sure that they're not vectoring any diseases. And I definitely think that the the quality of the protein and the fats that we get from insects are very good.
So the main insect companies that I've been working with, the, the main insects they use are mealworms, black soldier flies, fruit flies, and crickets. So, the protein is very good, like I said, and, and so is the fat, which is, which is very important, however, supply chain and sustainability of the, of the supply of the product is definitely a challenge right now. So different companies are, are trying to scale up and and seeing how they can suc successfully scale up.
So, I think that the quality of the product is, is wonderful, as far as nutrition profile goes. However, you know, cost is cost is king, and if it's not cost effective, I mean, it's, it's not very realistic and, and as you said, a lot of insects. Are used in fish food, also in a lot of bird food, whether it be you know, chick like birds for, for our food consumption or, you know, other types of birds, you know, zoos.
Or whatnot. So, so there are a lot of different outlets that when I've talked to a lot of these companies in the process of scaling up for the production of, of pet food, they're really tapping into some of the other industries to help them be able to scale up to that next level. And then another thing, very interesting and important consideration is just the consumer acceptance of insect protein.
I mean, Whether you like it or not, a lot of people are gonna think that there's gonna be, you know, insects popping out of the of the bag and a little weary as far as that. So, you know, with a lot of Consumer education and also having the vet also be educated and and explain some of the benefits to, to different clients. I think that could definitely, that, that is definitely a key part of the strategy and its success.
I'm definitely one of their . Customers because I of course I buy, buy mealworms for the birds, the garden birds in my garden and, and actually the hedgehogs are very addicted to it as well, so they, they will have a, a go at the at the mealworms as well, so it's, it's definitely an interesting area and. You know, I'm very interested in circularity.
I remember that I was listening to somebody recently talking about a data centre, and obviously people think that virtual companies, digital companies don't have a carbon footprint, but of course if you're storing information in the cloud, there are these huge data centres that produce huge amounts of heat from all of the information that they store. They need air con to cool their plants down, . And this particular company was quite close to a local council run swimming pool, and they were actually able to export the heat to the swimming pool to actually heat the swimming pool.
Obviously in these times of the cost of energy and so on, this was a huge boon for the council as well. And I think we need to look at more of these secularity situations. So can we have an insect farm close to somewhere where obviously excess food is being taken or whatever.
Because to me, if we're having to feed really high grade food to the insects, then it rather misses the point of why we're doing it in the first place. So that's kind of a, a quandary that I think we need to, to sort out, which I'm sure we can, but there needs to be that will and that would of course bring prices down as well, wouldn't it? Sure, sure, yeah, I mean, I, I, I mean, it's a really ideal situation and there are so many wonderful people working on solutions.
So definitely. Definitely, since, since we're ingesting these products or in this case, our pets are ingesting these products, definitely. You know, there are extra considerations as far as, you know, health considerations, .
At least a lot of the food grade for the, the pet food grade is not as strict as for human consumption. So that is a little bit of a help. However, still, yeah, there, there, there's a lot of Of talks trying to, again, really improve the circularity of of of food in general in in this space.
Great. Lauren, I've really enjoyed chatting to you. It it is an area that is fast developing.
It was fascinating at London Vet show talking to some companies that are in this space. As a conservative profession, we can poo pooh it and we can say well actually this is the way we've always done things and this is the way we will always do things, but I think it. You know, particularly here at Webinar that we're an innovative company.
We want to be continuing to push the envelope and and see what the next thing is. And, and these, as you say, from consumers are being driven as well. It's definitely an area that we need to, to look at.
So thank you for educating me and, and hopefully the audience listening as well. Sure, sure, yeah. And one last point is that I think I work with a lot of companies specifically as far as marketing strategy, branding, and, and just sales and how to really get their product, you know, into the hands of consumers in a very successful way and grow their customer base.
And so one thing I work with a lot of these companies and is, just really teaming up with veterinarians because. At the end of the day, clients, sure, they, they see ads and, they might see these great ads for pet foods or they know so and so who feeds their dog this and swears by it. But at the end of the day, you know, people do have very tight relationships with their, with their veterinarians.
So really, it's so important to get veterinarians on board and I help a lot of these companies really work closely with veterinarians, to really. Not just educate them, but just make it easier for them to accept these new, these new products, giving free samples, giving, you know, test, different, you know, like a, a week free trial. You just need to, you need to lower any kind of possible resistance and again, you know, Speaking to the points that are important to veterinarians when you need to and speaking to the points to clients when you need to.
So, anything that these companies can do, I, I look at what any, what these companies can do to really help both of those groups because it is such a wonderful solution for many different reasons and not only, you know, to help pets, but it's, it's a huge category that's being demanded by consumers. So, you know, you need to work with the consumer to give them a product that they want. I mean, there's a big company carries a big food ingredient company, and they state on their website that according to their, their, data, the plant-based pet food industry.
Will grow. It's right now at 26 billion. It will grow from now until 2032 to I think 57 million.
I mean 57 billion, sorry about that. So more than doubling. By 2032.
So this is a very important trend that we need to get on board with, and that also affects, you know, a lot of people are buying food from, from Chuy and, and a lot of different online retailers, but still there are a lot of that clinic. That are selling pet food. And when someone goes to the vet and they have no idea of what to do with their pet, you know, that's, some extra income that vets can make.
So if we have these sample packs and these, these food packs at their clinics, you know, it's another great source of income. Yeah, just maybe one final one, which I thought of. Obviously we do do a bit of work with Royal Cannon, but one of their products which I really enjoyed, you know, helping them with was .
When when they when they launched it was the an allergenic diet, which of course is made of chicken feathers. Which again is a circularity product, you know, this, where would we put this previously, but hydrolysed down into small pieces, you know, it's a great diet for, for doing food trials and so on. And again, you know, we're we're reducing waste, which I think is, is an important area if, if you're into sustainability as, as we both are.
For sure. Lauren, thank you so much, thanks everyone for listening. This has been another episode of Vet Chat, the UK's number one veterinary podcast.
Looking forward to seeing you on another episode very soon.
