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Foreign.
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Hey, folks, I'm Ray Lateef and you're tuned into Taste Radio, the number one podcast for anyone building a business in food or beverage. Innovation is everywhere, but the majority of what consumers see is incremental change. What does it mean to do something meaningfully different? Lasso is attempting to answer that question in this episode. CEO Mike Messersmith, the former Oatly executive who helped turn oat milk into a cultural phenomenon, shares how his company is rethinking food from the ground up with breakthrough technology that delivers high protein, clean label snacks without compromise. From its origins is a plant based meat startup to launching creative new brands like Crunch Club and Fruity's, Lasso is using its proprietary process to challenge the limits of taste, texture and nutrition while aiming to power the next wave of innovation across the entire food industry. Hey, folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio. Right now, I am supremely honored to be sitting down with Mike Messersmith, who is the CEO of Lasso. Mike, great to see you.
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Great to see you too. Excited to be here.
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Yeah. You've been in this business for some time. A CPG veteran, as it were, with your most recent stint prior to Lasso at Oatly.
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Yep.
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And helped build the US business for that brand. A lot of people don't realize that Oatly is not a U.S. company.
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Yeah, that's true.
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B
Yeah. Where is it based and when did you enter the picture?
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Yeah, so Oatly, you know, was a kind of game changing breakthrough brand. 20 years in the making. Swedish company, Swedish Origins built an incredible business over the 2010s in the Nordics and UK around 2016, seeing kind of the rise of that business and the kind of need for oat milk, the urgency of climate and sustainability aspects of that. They were looking to expand markets and that included both U.S. china, North America as well as China. And so I came on board at the end of 2016, which seems like a really long time ago now, and met Tony Peterson and John Schoolcraft and kind of the team that had built Oatly in Europe. And they were looking for somebody to build the business, build the brand here in the United States. We kind of took that from the first carton, the first time saying the word oat milk, a phrase that I had never ever heard said in my entire life prior to learning about that business. You know, describing to your parents you now run an oat milk company is an interesting explanation. They still thought I worked for an oatmeal company for years afterwards. And yeah, we took that from the first carton and at the beginning really focused on how do you build a category, how do you introduce a new product that no one has ever really has a frame of reference for. And we focused on specialty coffee shops, built demand and every oat milk latte that someone shout, you know, oat milk latte for Ray like was like, oh, they're building the brand, building the category. So we, we built it, you know, kind of carton by carton and seven plus years, from the first dollar up to a couple hundred million in net revenue. And just honestly, I love that brand. The people that we did it with just like the best experience. So really excited.
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I can tell how moved you are by your experience. It seems like you were very passionate about that business and brand. When I talk about alternatives to traditional products, dairy based milk versus oat milk, almond milk, I often talk about compromise and how consumers want the experience to be similar or even exactly like the experience they have with the traditional, quote, unquote, traditional products. How did you think about product experience when you launched oatly in the U.S.
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yeah, I mean, I think the, one of the key parts of that and that nation of like, can you create something that scratches an itch of a natural consumer demand without that compromise? So we thought about specialty coffee and you know, we had a lot of people in our team who were born in the specialty coffee world and described in vivid detail from, from the roaster or third wave specialty coffee shop perspective, the effort that went into sourcing these incredible espresso beans, roasting, caring for them, brewing a perfect espresso, and then having a consumer, a customer step up and say, well, they want a, you know, a soy milk latte, an almond milk latte, a skim milk latte. For real reasons, they have a dairy allergy, they want an almond milk latte. But, but does that match the quality of the espresso? And then the delivery of that latte, that cappuccino, the fat content, the flavor profile, the foam ability, and oftentimes it really was lacking. And at the time that we started oatly, you know, soy was holding on, but almond was the predominant format. And there's very real reasons, dietary preference, sustainability, that people might want an almond milk latte. But you've really felt this tension from a specialty coffee perspective of, you know, I have to delight my customers. These are my, they're paying the bills. But like, it really doesn't create that product experience that matches up to the quality of the espresso. And so from the beginning with oatly as our scientists created that product in Sweden, you know, they were really looking for how do we create something that has the right perfect fat content profile that when very, very difficult to get a non dairy based milk to foam appropriately so that you can get that like perfect latte experience without compromise. And so what we saw as we started launching the brand was both on the barista side and then the customer side. People just kind of had this huge paradigm shift of like, oh, I didn't think this was possible. And that's how, you know, you actually, I think, really have something with, with the product and creating a new category and you get that aha. Like, oh, wow. Like I was kind of conditioned to compromise and now I'm experiencing something that is totally different. And like this is. This changes kind of the whole dynamic there. And that's. We. We really felt like we were onto something. We just kept building from there.
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I remember seeing Oatly in coffee shops for the first time and I wondered if the company saw itself as an ingredient company or a branded company. A company that's selling a brand and behind the counter. Maybe I'm noticing it because I'm an industry guy, but most people would probably just overlook the fact that you're using, well, any type of brand totally. How did you walk that line of being an ingredient led company or ingredient focused company versus a branded focused company?
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We had that debate so many times. I'm sure they're still having that debate today. I think that we felt really comfortable on it a couple different ways. One, we tried to make really distinct packaging. The design on Oatly was really like, you know, a labor of love hand created by our creative team. And oftentimes in these coffee shops, especially, you know, independent coffee shops, your local shop, you see the carton on the, on the, on the counter, Right. So we felt that there was tremendous power in that kind of like qualified validation of you're going to that shop to have this expert barista make you this beverage. They're using it, it's in their hand, even if it isn't fully registering. Like, there's such a distinct visual appeal with the packaging that it really makes that connection. Secondly, I think that if you're in a brand position where you're doing category creation plus brand creation, then we kind of viewed every win around Oat Milk as a win for Oatly. And so the power of sitting in one of those early specialty coffee shops and hearing customer after customer shout out oat milk latte for Mike. Oat milk Latte for John and all of that. If you're standing there waiting for your order, you're hearing people say oat milk, oat milk, oat milk. And that was doing so much heavy lifting for us that then if you are the first mover, the ubiquitous brand in olive, we thought there's ketchup and there's Heinz. Right. What kind of tissue do you use? Well, use Kleenex. You know, that's the goal for a lot of brands that are trying to create measures of ubiquity. So especially early on there, if you try to be too closed handed around, like, well, we have to have our logo on the menu or you have to say oatly, oat milk. And you try to be really prescriptive on those things, I think you lose the power of those partnerships. And we felt that building the category equated to building the brand and, and that those, like a win for oat milk was a win for oatly because that was, you know, we thought we, you know, we do that better than anybody else. And so we were willing to like accept the kind of like open handedness of that, I would say, because we felt it really ultimately would benefit the brand.
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It's difficult nowadays to say you're gonna build a protein X category or protein whatever. I mean, everything, protein, everything. Protein, grocery store, protein, microphone, protein watch, protein, everything for sure. And nowadays I think consumers think that they know why they need protein. It's really difficult for them to wade through, I'll call it the morass totally, of food and beverage companies and new brands that are claiming protein. And I think that's where Lasso is really trying to make its own mark about what protein should be, how it should be incorporated into foods, and how these foods should taste in a way that's going to resonate with a broad base of consumers. Thank you.
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Yeah.
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But let's back up for a second and talk about the origins of Lasso. Because there was a time when everybody was high on plant based meat and everyone was really excited about the future of animal based protein alternatives.
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Center plate, all protein approaches. Yep.
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There's been a ton of skepticism since, since those days of I call it
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2017, 20, 2016, early 20, 20, 2021, like different moment in time for that category.
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A lot of questions being asked about what is this, what am I eating, how is this made, so on and so forth. Is this really actually plants or is this plants manipulated to taste like something that it's really not? But Lasso started out as a plant Based meat company with tender foods. Talk about that evolution from tender to what is now Lasso.
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Yeah, so the founders of my company now Lasso Labs, formerly Tender Foods. And as a lot of startup journeys go, there's a few other names, kind of like you peel back the sticker on the door. There's a couple other names from the early days on there too. But the company was founded by four technical scientific co founders at a lab at Harvard University here in Boston who were working on kind of a multidisciplinary physics and engineering lab. And the centerpiece technology at that lab was this, we'll call it a fiber spinning technology. Think of it as a almost like industrial cotton candy spinner. So they were exploring applications ranging From Textiles to BioPharma 2. They figured out that they could take simple raw material ingredients and using physics basically like centrifugal force, weave those ingredients together to create structure at scale without having to use chemicals, temperature, pressure, binding agents. And they looked at a bunch of other things. I mean people look at 3D printing. How do you make things at scale that are repeatable, that are simple? And so they had this core piece of technology and at the time, as you mentioned, late 2000 and tens, early 2020, you see this massive movement around all proteins, plant based meat. Yet the critique that I think you saw in the market at the time, which honestly, as a consumer and not someone who's in the category at the time I felt was super valid, was one people might want that. You care about the ethics, you, you care about the cost, you care about the nutrition, you care about the sustainability of long term, you know, all of, especially in that time of COVID you know, the ethics of the animal kind of industry is tricky and there's been a lot of really significant reporting about like how that food gets to your plate. Right. So I don't think it's wrong for consumers to be like, we should look at other things there, like ethically, sustainably, cost wise, particularly I mean even in 2026, like it's expensive to eat beef and things like that. And what our technology enabled was being able to create something that was cleaner label. The critiques that people have is like, I like this, but boy, that ingredient list is long. And why does there have to be all these other this. It seems like there's a lot of sodium in here. Is that covering up for off notes in the protein? Why is this ingredient deck like this? I like it, but man, the texture is weird. I grew up on eating chicken or pork or beef and it's made in machines that are really good at making sausages and chicken nuggets, but it may not be able to replace a chicken breast or a pork tenderloin or things like that. That's something that people really struggle with. And so what our technology was able to do was basically create a line structure with simple ingredients. And so we were able to make an alt protein that was 6, 7, 8 ingredients and start with shredded pork, shredded chicken, and be able to get to a cost structure that we thought was really competitive. And so the founders were able to fund the company and take the idea from simple technology in the lab up to scaled deployed technology at a contract manufacturer getting going. But by the time they got there in 2023, 2024, really the market had kind of changed. And I mean, this is a piece that a lot of every brand, every founder would talk about. Boy, we were visionary, ahead of our time, or we did everything right. But then like, gosh, the market shifted around us and that happens. And I think what defines a company isn't like they created a great piece of technology. We used the enthusiasm behind plant based meat to scale that technology from idea to deployable tech. And along the way we've also discovered that it isn't a plant based meat machine. What we're fundamentally able to do is create stuff that's very extraordinary nutritional content with structure without having to use chemical binding agents like gums and sugars that people want less of in their food. And we can create protein, kind of like encapsulation. How do we deliver protein in novel and unique ways opens the door for us to explore lots of things. And so I joined the board for our company first, got to know us really well. Consensus from our investors was, boy, we still love our plant based meat product. We have people licensing the technology to make plant based meat in places around the world right now. So that idea might be ahead of its time, but we can't let that define the entirety of the success of the company. So how can we think about opening the aperture to demonstration of different other applications that might be more commercially viable than where we found plant based meat to be in 2024?
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I have to say, and this is from an outsider's perspective, I have no connection to the company. I don't know how much went into it, the proverbial or the, the metaphorical blood, sweat and tears that go into building a company like this. But I would think for me, I'd say, okay, well, this concept, tender foods, didn't really work the way we thought it would. We're already licensing the technology elsewhere. Why are we banging our heads against the wall trying to create a food brand or food brands, which you're now doing. And then I'm on your website now, lasso labs.com and there's a whole bunch of pictures here of I assume, the people that work there, perhaps the founders.
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That's right.
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And it says, hi, we are Lasso, a company built to change the way food is made.
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That's right.
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So clearly the vision, the big hairy, audacious goal for Lasso is to do something dramatically different in the food business.
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Yes.
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Why is that so important to you and the founders?
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Yeah, I think there's a bunch of reasons. I mean, some of it's rooted in my experience with Oatly of first off, there's a consumer need. People are not satisfied with the state of packaged goods that they get at the grocery store. Like there is a, like the in it, you walk to Expo west, you see brands. There's no lack of vision, energy for entrepreneurial building things. There's a consumer demand for change. What does that change look like? Can I get more nutritional content in my food? I want more protein in my food. I'm open to categories and experiencing that in different ways. I want more fiber in my food for all sorts of like real reasons. I don't think that's a fad. Like one in eight people are taking a GLP1 protocol. People are listening to podcasts. They're more informed than they ever were about their food. Like they're open to change. People are frustrated at the, like, their perception of ultra processed foods. They want less dyes and gums and chemicals in their food. They want their food to be more affordable. I mean this is like big ticket political issues in this country right now is the price of groceries is like the biggest hot button defining topic in our incredibly polarized political ecosystem. So there is like massive demand for change and no one is particularly satisfied with, with the state of consumer packaged goods across the grocery store. So there's an impetus there of like, we need change, but how does that change occur?
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Money.
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Money is helpful. Right. And I think that that's a tricky part in 2026 where you candidly have had a lot of like, there's less governmental and federal investment in the type of research that can enable game changing innovation in both ingredient and process technology. Investors have been like, there's a whole narrative around kind of the. Applying tech multiples to food companies has been very tricky from a valuation and Fundraising standpoint. So how can we find both consumer funds, technology funds, venture funds, family offices who are passionate about this space to fund the work that companies like Lasso and many others are trying to do to create big, hairy, audacious, like, change visions in Foodscape. I think the limitation that I've seen when you walk around somewhere like Expo west is there's a consumer demand, there's an entrepreneurial ambition to make differentiated food. The barrier is that we're often still trying to make our food on machines that were designed 80 years ago that are basically industrial play doh presses and were originally conceived to process industrial plastics. Like, why can't we create higher nutrition, higher protein, higher fiber, clean label foods? Honestly, all the food we buy at these stores is oftentimes made on the same machines. We haven't been able to actually innovate on underlying process tech. When we did a bunch of things with Oatly. I mean, you guys have a lot of relationships with the coffee RTD space booming, right? The number of times I would talk with roasters, all of them have their own rtd. The difference between the espresso you drink in the coffee shop and the RTD you buy on the store, the Internet, their TikTok shop, is that all that stuff has to go through retort high temperature processing and the frustration that a great coffee brewer has of, boy, my espresso has all these incredible flavor notes when we brew it on our machine in the shop versus how that manifests into kind of this inevitable dampened middle after you go through processed food packaging. And it's important, like retort's important, so you get to like a quality process, but you're all making it through the same machine so everything tastes the same same. You lose all the nuance, you lose the innovation, you lose the point of difference. And so what we're trying to do with Lasso is can we create a new paradigm that enables really interesting, differentiated, ownable, true innovation? Not like, oh, I got two more extra grams of protein shoved into my breakfast cereal, but can we make it in a different way? And so it's, I mean, we started by talking about like, I am somewhat of an industry veteran now. I've spent the past 15 years in CPG. Big companies, small companies. And what I think the industry is really craving right now is more underlying innovative process opportunities to be able to make the next generation of like, truly breakthrough food products that scratch the itch of like, consumers who are craving more. And I don't think that happens by continuing to utilize all the same machines that we've been using for the past 80 years.
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Do you see Lasso as a tech company more than a food company? You see it as a food tech company. I mean, because what you're talking about is redefining and reestablishing a standard for how to create great tasting, great textured products that people will love.
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Yeah.
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And it feels like you're straddling that line a little bit. And I think about food companies and beverage companies for me as flavor first companies. It has to taste amazing or you've got no shot and no shot in the long term. Maybe in the short term people will accept a lower quality taste than they're used to because it has some sort of functional, not for long, functional benefit. Not for long, exactly. In the long term, it's just not going to work. So again, are you, do you think of yourself more as a food company or as a tech company? Again, food tech is one way you could describe Lasso.
- [21:47]
A
But yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, whether it's brands we make or. Or brands we enable a partner to make, consumers have to love it. It's food. It's the most personal of choice. It's a reward, it's a treat. It's not just fuel. We're not that programmed right now. I mean, people eat a lot of like bars. Like we talked about compromise earlier. Like you're willing to accept some compromise particularly for, you know, massive functional benefit or cost structure, but like the win is more of everything. Like eliminate the or statement in that. Right. All ands, like better taste, better nutrition, better cost structure, et cetera. So we believe like it is a technology core that creates food platforms that we think are really innovative and directly aligned with this tension that exists in the kind of, this movement in consumer packaged goods right now. People wanting more, more protein, more fiber particularly, and being incredibly against ultra processed food and desiring clean labels and less gums and binders and artificial stuff in their food. So that is an incredibly tense thing to solve because oftentimes the way you get more protein in, you just dump it into your formulation. Well, unfortunately you need more sugar to hold the structure together. You need more binding agents, gums, food glues, a lot of somewhat lousy food chemistry to be able to enable those. And so we believe that our technology fits right at the intersection of those of enabling extraordinary nutrition and delivery of really tasty food, while also being able to do that in a somewhat revolutionary way of being able to clean up
- [23:33]
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the ingredient structure consumers care about the texture and flavor you're delivering.
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Absolutely.
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B
The, the background story, everything that you mentioned earlier is much more of an industry conversation and story for sure. And you had a wide variety, I would imagine, of categories that you could get into. And you've gotten into crunchy salty snacks with a brand called Crunch Club.
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Yep.
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And you got Frubies, which is a brand of fruit snacks.
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Yep.
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Why these two categories? Why did you feel like you had permission to go into these categories in a way that consumers would understand and, and appreciate?
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Totally. You know, we talked a little bit about category creation earlier, whether it's alt, dairy, plant based, meat, et cetera. Like one of the pieces we talked about first was understanding what does our technology enable? Where do we have an advantage? I mean we have a suite of patents. What can we do? And so the ability for us to create high protein, high fiber, texture, clean label things now that could manifest itself as a platform that is like low moisture, crispy, crunchy, it could manifest itself in a way that is more like mid moisture, like soft bite, but still shelf stable, you know, kind of starbursty, sort of fruit chew, fruit leather sort of things. So how do we show breadth of the applications with platforms? And then let's create some brands that are representative illustrations of what the technology can do. And as we were aiming those building companies, building brands is super hard, especially when you're trying to do something innovative. So let's go into big, growing, thriving categories where people are desperate for change. Salty Snacks is a great example. Like there are a bunch of brands that have built really successful protein chips. Protein crisps. I love chips. I love. Salty Snacks is my favorite category. I, I started my career at Frito Lay. I had a brand management stint on Doritos. Like I personally and professionally love that category. And I taste a lot of those protein chips. I was like, I think these guys have it wrong. Like there's macros for sure, but I think it's too much of a compromise. They're not crunchy enough. They're a puffed pop snack that has protein in it. And yeah, it delivers on high protein, but it's not really an acceptable substitute for a traditional salty snack.
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Does it really even deliver on high protein? Earlier you mentioned that people are willing to compromise if they're maximizing or if they're getting a product that's maximizing the amount of protein in their products. In some of these existing protein chips, salty snack brands, you're getting maybe 7 or 8 grams.
- [26:11]
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Like there's a pretty famous one that just launched here recently, that was like seven like this is where I think you are trying to innovate and deliver on what you believe is the consumer opportunity. But the execution, because of the tools you have to build your brand ends up with something that is 7 grams of protein per serving and a first ingredient on your ingredient deck that is oil. And I think that's tricky to really feel like you have a winner there on that. So again I think you see a spectrum and undoubtedly you both have an opportunity where big, the biggest, big CPG brands are trying to like they're talking about it in their earnings reports all the time. They want to incorporate more protein, more fiber into their categories. They see that as a vulnerability of their portfolio. They're renovating iconic like multi billion dollar brands to try to offer protein related offerings to those. And you see a whole bunch of innovations. We think that's a great space to be in because we don't have to educate people on protein chips. Other people have already done that. If we can then take these, introduce them on TikTok, put them in the hands of people and like deliver 20 plus grams of protein, zero net carbs, like really great fiber macros and like an actual satisfying crunch. Super cool. Fruit snacks was similar but like that's a category that like on fire. I mean honestly that one was rooted in like the consumer behavior of boy, we have a lot of parents of little kids on our team and we're talking about the food we can make and what we could do. And you're just talking about like the lived consumer experience of people on our team driving around Boston in their minivans, their Subaru outbacks, digging into the center console at like 4pm trying to fish out for the millionth time to toss a bag of Cheez, its Goldfish crackers, a loose bag of Cheerios, into the ravenous backseat of their car for their 6 year old, their 8 year old,
- [28:06]
B
their 10 year old artificially flavored fruit snacks.
- [28:09]
A
Yeah. Or just like, you know, like. Yeah. Cause I mean fruit snacks like again there's a spectrum of the like kind of like gummy candy ones that we grew up on that like they're good, like I get it. But there's no nutritional content in that. There's also brands that have created really amazing sort of like super clean label like fruit leather, like it's mango and strawberries, like I get it, good for them. But there's also no like nutritional content really. And there's no protein, there's no fiber. And so when we like our employees who run our product team. They talk to their friends, they're like, boy, I would love to, to be able to toss something in the backseat that I know my kids will eat. And I actually got them to eat some protein and some fiber in this. So they're going to stay full longer. They're working out, they're growing all those things. Like, could we make that? Yeah. And that's a category that's on fire. Like, there's so much innovation there, but there's nobody who's able to do it. Like, we're able to do it because of the underlying tech. And so the vision is for the business is like, let's launch these, let's launch them online, put them on TikTok, sell through our website, let's sell on Amazon. We don't necessarily have an ambition with these brands that we're going to take them into nationwide retail distribution. These should be illustrations of what we can create with our technology and demonstrate that we're using that both as kind of like a vehicle to show to the industry and consumers what is possible. We're also working out all the fine tuning and the kinks on our process scale up so that we, when the day comes that somebody wants to license this technology from us, we're ready that we can make a whole bunch of it. And my goal with these isn't to beat one of those big CPG companies out there that are talking about, boy, how do I get more protein, how do I get more fiber? Which doesn't even have to be the multinationals. There's huge, big companies that are in these categories. I'm not trying to beat them with these products, I'm trying to help them. I would love to be able to use the technology that we have here to, to give them a new piece of innovation that they can put. They already have their factories. They have the best factories in the world, the best procurement teams, the best sales teams. Let's give you some new process tech underneath to give you something new to sell. And so that's the benefit of actually being a technology company. To your question before of like, we're using brands, we really, really excited about these. We think we're going to sell a bunch of them, but also we're really happy to partner with companies to help them create a high protein, high fiber, amazing texture version of their own brands.
- [30:31]
B
So to be clear, what I'm hearing is that Crunch Club and Fruities are more proof of concept brands than they are potential billion dollar brands.
- [30:39]
A
Yeah, I Mean, talk to any entrepreneur who sits in a chair like this and is at the beginning when you've sold less than $1 million of a product, like, believe me, if these turn into a billion dollar, like, I've been on the side of that with oatly of like, I know what hyper growth feels like. We'll have a different conversation with our board and our investors if we feel like, oh wow, we caught lightning in a bottle with this. You at least have optionality as a company, but as a business, it doesn't just have to be that. Right? Like when you own the technology underneath. The magic, I think is that it can be deployed into a variety of manufacturing environments, a variety of geographies to help businesses that are facing that question of like, boy, we're seeing some slowdown because our consumers keep telling us we want some protein in this. We're open to this. Like, where's the innovation coming from? We'd love to work with them truly and like license the tech to let them build something incredible on the machine that our team has built and patented. And so yeah, these are illustrative concepts that demonstrate what the technology can do. Two already we have like two more, which is kind of crazy that like we're launching multiple brands in the same year, but they're all built on the same machine. They're all going to be sold through, you know, the magic of the Internet. And you know, I think that like channels like TikTok and Amazon are amazing for that. And then it just continues to showcase the breadth of what is possible with new food processing technology. Projo, winner of the 2025 New Beverage Showdown, is launching their Power Coffee RTDS into every nationwide this August experience. Powerful energy and great taste with 25 grams of protein and 225 milligrams of caffeine. Visit idrinkprojoe.com to learn more.
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B
As business grows, financials get more complex.
- [32:39]
A
We put together a free guide in collaboration with Belay Solutions to help founders better understand margins, inventory and cash flow. Download it now@tasteradio.com belay that's tasteradio.com b
- [32:54]
B
e l A Y to help your business make smarter financial decisions. As much as you're learning about how the technology can be applied to cpg, I imagine you're learning some things about how consumers are are responding to the messaging that you're putting out there, the packaging that you're putting out there.
- [33:16]
A
Yeah, and there's different kind of like need states that we're tapping into for each of them. You know, a lot of times we talked about compromise and people looking for this, like, macros maxing sort of idea before. And what people who were, you know, you want a salty snack, you want a treat. You want like that kind of reward moment for like sticking to your plan. You don't want to break the plan and the progress that you've put together. And so can we deliver more on that? Can we deliver more protein, more fiber so that you stay full longer, that you're better delivering on your goals? And it's a more satisfying eating experience because you get that really crunchy, texture, iconic, like, salty snack thing that you have been trading off against. And so these ones, like people that are on fitness journeys, that are on a regimen, that are on the chips, people have been really, really excited. They also like the texture of our chip, delivers the flavor really well. So we, like, took a lot of time to make sure the seasoning was spot on and, like, locked in. And we've gotten really great feedback about people think they taste great, which is oftentimes incompatible with the idea of, you know, I've really locked in my gains with the protein and the fiber stuff. On the fruity side, we built them with the idea of big kid active healthy lunchbox set. What we found has been a lot of adults. This is the classic thing about snacks that are built for kids. Truly, this is my own Personal story. 11am Every day or 3pm I'm trying to bridge in between breakfast and lunch, and I'm trying to knock it off course and can I have a little bit of something that has protein, that. That's a little bit sweet, that has some texture, some fiber, so I stay full longer. And these sort of micro snacks that don't derail you, whether you're just someone who's trying to live a balanced, healthy lifestyle, whether you're taking Ozempic or Mounjaro and you're just like, boy, my diet has fundamentally changed. I want a break from my handful of almonds. Can I get something that is just a nice bridge snack for me? Like, we've heard a ton of feedback about this on the fruit snack side that we're, like, excited about. So if you can position it as like, boy, this has like a couple brands of protein, fiber, no added sugar, super clean label, vegan, pleasant to eat. Then like, people are in on it and they also don't see anything like it on the market. So it works really well as like a show and tell brand of people, like, try it, like, huh, that's different, but different good. I'm interested in it. And then we just started to see some momentum pick up from there.
- [35:51]
B
Yeah, Frubies definitely feels like the older gen Z out there. So someone who's maybe in their late 20s, early 30s, like this is. This really speaks to them. Yeah, I just called you an older
- [36:02]
A
gen Z. I mean that's, that's a great compliment to me. Thank you.
- [36:06]
B
I imagine this also informs the early traction or early sales of these brands, informs you a bit about demographics and where you can go in terms of innovation. Totally, yeah. So when you talk about two more brands in the pipeline, how does innovation, how does demographics, how do these things all come together to inform you about where to go and where people really want to see more protein in what categories, where does it work? Because that's a big question for a lot of folks listening is, yeah, I want to incorporate more protein or I want to take advantage of this trend, but in a way that's truly authentic to my brand and authentic to the consumer experience.
- [36:46]
A
Totally. And I think like if you had done this 10 years ago, you would have hired an insights agency to go off and do, you know, 3,000 consumer interviews and all this proprietary research and in home studies and stuff like that. Like, I'm a startup, I don't have the money for any of those things. You know, we work with and really do look at like there's a strong willingness particularly amongst younger consumers. Gen X, Gen Z, millennials around, they want more protein and more fiber in their diet. They're concerned about clean label. They're more open to experiencing protein and fiber in different sorts of categories than generations that have come before them. So they're open to experiencing protein in. You see it in beverage today, pasta, cereal, chocolate, candy, like all of these segments that 10 years ago didn't have any functional benefit to it. I'm not saying that the brands today have any of that. Like, right, like who's to say? Maybe they nailed it, maybe they didn't. But there's a consumer openness and willingness to discovery there coupled with the fact that I think you have commercial platforms that as an entrepreneur and as an early stage startup business, we can kind of like aim small, miss small of like doing small dial adjustments on our offering our assortment by leaning into platforms like TikTok and direct to consumer sales where we can match products to specific targeted communities, whether those are healthy moms or GLP1 enthusiasts or like home entertainment sort of audience folks or like just like travel and outdoor stuff like We've gotten a lot of good feedback on fruitbies as like boy, this is perfect for me to like put in my backpack on a hike. I go hiking every week. I want a healthy snack. This is like convenient, it's clean. Like I feel great about myself when I have it. And so like we can get that in front of those people quicker than we ever could find our people, find our kind of like consumer tribe using the platforms of social commerce that aren't necessarily available. Or you put it into a grocery store where you just have everybody and how do you find that discovery? How do you build that audience in? I think is trickier. So we with our brands are trying to be very intentional about what does the technology enable, what is natural to us? Where can we win? Where does our advantage sit? Secondly is how do we match that to audience discovery driven by honestly like insights we glean off of social selling platforms so that we are able to take one of these and dial it in from the start without having a ton of excessive financial exposure. We can take multiple shots at these things and get it going faster.
- [39:23]
B
Well, I'm convinced.
- [39:26]
A
Amazing.
- [39:26]
B
You know, if I had a million bucks, maybe I had to invest some money last. So. But candidly, I think that this is part of your job, right. Is, is really convincing people as to the, the future of protein and Lasso's role in that future. And you've raised money. We have. You've raised, you know, quite a bit of money. And this is a hard question because obviously if I was asked to ask your investors how they evaluated Lasso, they would be able to give me, I hope, an unvarnished picture of, you know, of what they see.
- [39:59]
A
Let's bring them in.
- [40:00]
B
Well, yeah, but you convinced them. How did you convince them? How did you get them to evaluate Lasso as a great long term opportunity for their funds?
- [40:11]
A
Yeah, and look, it's a tricky something that I've even had to adapt to as I've taken over the CEO of this job. Like it isn't always a fit for what I would consider traditional consumer funds. So most of the brands that I see in your fridge are out on the shelves. Like if the startup journey is we have an idea, we created a brand, we're making it a comand, we're really good at selling it, but there's maybe not a tech capital need underneath. You can go raise from incredibly qualified consumer funds that have great track record and are at a stage that we're at might put a couple million dollars into a seed or a Series A for X amount of, you know, the company alternately like for us, like there's, there's like real engineering and technical scientific needs of like if you're creating something that has patents, that has a real moat behind it, it requires a different sort of capital stack than a traditional consumer brand. So therefore it pulls us into more technology. You know, it's a different sort of investor pool. And truthfully that's been tricky because a lot of those companies, it's been tough in the journey of the last five to seven years of food technology, whether it's plant based meat, whether it's precision fermentation, a lot of those haven't gotten closer to the types of exits and payouts. And you gotta understand that these investors operate their funds on cycles and placing bets to get to winners. And it's hard. And I think that we're not, we're not an ingredient company. A lot of the investment in food might be in new alternative protein ingredient sources. We're a hardware play. And so how do we position that? How do I sell that? I think one is we demonstrate the opportunity of, let me show you, let me stack the applications that we have and let me show you the size of category opportunity. We're playing in salty snacks, fruit snacks, meat snacks. We could come to the lab someday and I could show you possibilities in confectionery and consumer pet and like big segments that are highly competitive and where we could apply our technology for advantage. So is the market opportunity there? There's absolutely a benefit to me having product in a package rather than just an idea. You can sell the vision. When someone is able to take this home, share it with their kids, share it with their mom and get feedback and like, oh, I like the food. Like that sells it, right?
- [42:35]
B
I just got to interrupt you for a sec because the tangible really does matter. I talked to a lot of early stage entrepreneurs who are pre launched and don't have any packaging and are asking me, do you know anyone that can give me money? I'm like, you got to have, you got to start with.
- [42:48]
A
I'm good at talking, I'm good at selling the vision. Selling a deck and some samples in a plastic bag. Like I've been in those investment meetings where it feels like you're having kind of like a drug deal over a kitchen table where it's like I have a plastic baggie full of a thing and let me like, do you see the deck? And you could like you're trying to talk and sell the vision and that can work. To an extent, but there is no substitute. I mean, look, we're on a journey of this. Like, do I have millions of dollars of ARR to be able to make it undeniable? Like, no, we don't have that yet, but we're working towards it. And so the next step of this is like, is it tangible? Does it taste good? Can people see the vision versus like, we show them the competitive landscape of stuff that's on the market, but we'll buy them the competitive product and you take it home and do a taste. And if you don't see the advantage of what we can do, then you're probably not the right investor for it. And so I think that we're able to sell now the vision of like, wow, these guys. Like there is something different. We as a consumer, you don't have to be a technology visionary to get like, boy, I do feel like I need to get more protein. I feel like I'm behind on my protein and fiber. My wife's talking about that, my husband's talking about that all the time. There's a consumer need state there. You show the breadth of applications. I don't think it works as well if it's a single category or a single product application. The technology can't be a fruit snack machine because that is not as big of an idea, right? But if the technology can be the core to a wider aperture of different high profile applications that both gives us multiple monetization avenues and multiple exit opportunities at the end of the day. So like, we then can sell the vision of like, what does. Let's allow ourselves to dream for a second about what does five years, eight years look like down the road for lasso is like, well, if we can show that the technology enables really special innovation across a wide breadth of potential categories, there's optionality there of partnership acquisition both from consumer goods companies, from machine and engineering companies, from big consolidated ingredient companies who are very good at making lots and lots of protein. Well, they need different ways to put it into things and they're really good at going vertically integrated. So maybe they would view our technology as a means of value addition to their base business. And so you have to sell the vision on those pieces too. And so we've made the right steps. Like it's definitely, you know, a capitally intensive business. But on the flip side of that, the nature of our technology, the machine itself is honestly the size of a washing machine. So it's not super large. I've made the commitment to my investors, one of the beauties of our company is I don't need us to build our own factory. It plugs into somebody else's existing capacity. We don't need to be putting millions of dollars into building big steel tanks, giant AI data center, simulators. The machine, the hardware, are they work. We can build them, we can scale them. It's proven. And we've taken away a lot of that technology risk. So we're making good progress. And I think that the fundraising journey is always tricky for founders and for companies. And so you have to make yourself undeniable and you have to find those partners that are true believers in what you do. Like, you got to put your energy into finding your true believers rather than trying to convince skeptics, because there's always a reason you can say no. Like every fund, any business, you bet in, an investor, like, they don't want to do it, there's always a reason that they can find. So you got to find your true believers who like, really get it. They have a passion for this space. They want a diversification of their investment portfolio to be having some access into some complementary other plays. And we've been successful. We have great investors who've really, really been supportive of the journey that we've been on.
- [46:30]
B
Investors who are believers in what you're doing, but also investors who believe in you. And by you, I mean you, Mike. And I think in this role, it feels very entrepreneurial in a way that maybe your experience hasn't been in the past. I could be wrong.
- [46:45]
A
Yeah.
- [46:45]
B
But, you know, as a quasi founder here, I think people will refer to you as a. As the founder of the company. Do you feel like your experience or what part of your experience has really set you up for success? And I'm going to be talking about, you know, your education, your experience in the military and in the US Navy, your corporate experience, your work with Oatley. Where do you feel like you are really benefited to get yourself in a position where you can operate in this again, quasi founder role.
- [47:13]
A
Totally. So at first, I be the first say, like quasi founder is probably the most. I would accept that. We have, we have incredible technical actual inventors who had like back to the future style. Like, I came up with it in a dream and a vision sort of moments. And there's nothing that we could be building on any of these foods without that, like the technology development of our four founders and the team that have built this over the course of years grinding away on it. And so I think as the CEO, steward of the company, can we take this incredibly magical, innovative technology idea and can we harness that and pull that into, you know, business applications that really work? And so what I bring, I think is like, and you're right, like, it is. I think I expected this when I joined 18 months ago, but it definitely is intense of the, you know, as a CEO, as the. The laying out the vision to founders, to potential partners, you have to really, like, sell it. And I think that there's like a relatability that I have of, like, the experiences, the wounds, the paid of, like, different parts of my background of, like, boy, like, I have been a part of companies where we spent tens of millions of dollars building factories that were really tough. And so I'm able to talk about, boy, the model for us is like, you don't need to spend capex on this. We don't need to build our own factory. It works. It's high throughput, it's scalable, it's small capex, low footprint, low utility. So I have credibility to talk about that part. I also have credibility to talk about the frustration. We talked about the journey and the origins with oatly of when you really do get lightning in a bottle on something magic. And then you're like, wow, it worked. This category's on fire. We're out to a lead. And then you see other brands who didn't put in the time, didn't develop the science, don't really care about the sustainability, but they've got big factories with slightly empty pipes, and they start making a product in the same category as you, and you're like, oh, boy, like, what do we have here? Like, I thought a lot about this idea of moats and where is your ownable, like, durable moat? Over time, you can build a great brand. We build a killer brand with oatly. Like, it's tough to continue those things over time. How. How enduring is that? A channel moat, like building a coffee shop strategy? Well, eventually, like, that shop closes or the decision maker leaves or somebody else offers them $5 less per case. And like, the moat you thought you had on that channel is really difficult. An ingredient moat. Like, you look at what David is doing. Like, whether you love that business, hate that business. Like, they have successfully built a like, product moat with an ingredient that they vertically integrated. It's harder to rip them off when they've been successful. Like, people call those barco packers and say, can you make me my version of that? The answer is like, not really. And that is valuable to them. We try to build something with Process mode. So I thought about that a lot with Oatly, where you really like oat milk was on fire. And then you have everybody, lots of brands, dairy brands don't really care that much about oat milk, but like, they want to get a piece of the pie. Private label things like, where is your sustainable advantage? And so I'm able to talk about that authentically of the challenge that poses to your long term growth horizon. And like, with what we've built with Lasso and the technology underneath the patents, I'm not saying that like it's a moat that can last forever, but like, if you can build a cool brand with a great product, if I could partner with a company that has a killer sales force and a factory that's already up and running, I could give them something that like, is a pretty valuable advantage and a moat in this market to help them win at bigger levels. And so having walked that path myself, both the positive aspects and honestly, the challenges and the hard parts about it, I think that there's an authenticity of having, like, gone on that journey that I'm able to bring to both investors and like, potential strategic partners of, like, what are we trying to create and how could that, you know, come together for them that. That I think has resonated and hopefully will continue to. To help us grow.
- [51:24]
B
Yeah. Well, it remains to be seen. I think you're on the right track.
- [51:27]
A
Thank you, sir.
- [51:28]
B
And that's just from a perspective of a podcaster, so I don't know how much value there is in that. We'll take it.
- [51:33]
A
Nine out of ten podcasters agree.
- [51:37]
B
Mike, this has been tremendous. Thank you so much for coming over to Bevin and hq. I know your office is in Somerville, which is not too far away from our office, but you live in New York City, so thanks for making the trip. I'm really excited for the future of Lasso and I'm excited for your personal journey in this company. It seems like you're enjoying it.
- [51:53]
A
It's cool. It's really fun. It's a great journey and I'm excited to bring something new and hopefully people can check it out.
- [51:59]
B
Hopefully indeed. Thanks again, Mike.
- [52:00]
A
Yep.
- [52:04]
B
That brings us to the end of this episode of Taste Radio. Thank you so much for listening. Taste Radio is a production of BevNet.com Inc. Our audio engineer for Taste Radio is Joe Kratchi. Our technical director is Joshua Pratt, and our video editor is Ryan Galang. Our social marketing manager is Amanda Smerlinsky, and our designer is Amanda Huang. Just a reminder, if you like what you hear on TV Taste Radio, please share the podcast with friends and colleagues. And of course we would love it if you could review us on the Apple Podcasts app or your listening platform of choice. Check us out on Instagram. Our handle is Bevnett Taste Radio. As always, for questions, comments, ideas for future podcasts, please send us an email to askaceradio.com on behalf of the entire Taste Radio team, thank you for listening and and we'll talk to you next time.