Growing $20,000-a-Gram Medicine in a Warehouse | Sam Bertram

Summary

Podcast Summary

Podcast: The Neuro Experience
Host: Louisa Nicola
Episode: Growing $20,000-a-Gram Medicine in a Warehouse | Sam Bertram
Guest: Sam Bertram (Co-founder of 1.1/Apollo Farms)
Date: July 14, 2026

---

Overview

This episode explores the future of food, nutrition, and medicine through the lens of advanced plant science and AI-driven indoor farming. Guest Sam Bertram, co-founder of the vertical farming company "1.1" (also referred to as Apollo Farms), explains how his startup is using technology to grow ultra-nutritious food and even therapeutic molecules inside automated, robot-assisted warehouses. The conversation covers food security, technology, business adversity, nutrition science, personalized health, and the looming possibility of plant-made pharmaceuticals at a fraction of today’s prices.

---

Key Discussion Points

1. [Founding Mission: Solving Malnutrition at Scale]

(06:03 - 08:48)

• Sam and his brother John started the company after learning that 1.1 billion people began the millennium malnourished.
• Malnutrition, especially micronutrient deficiency, is still a huge problem even if global hunger numbers have improved.
• Sam Bertram [07:43]:
  "We came back to what is the biggest problem, what kills the most people. It came back to micronutrient deficiency. It sounds so benign... But, you know, think about all the things that are needed to operate a house... Those are the micronutrients."
• Apollo Farms focuses on manufacturing nutrient-dense plants, believing the right nutrition can prevent much chronic disease.

---

2. [Adversity & Business Survival: Lessons from Bowery’s Collapse]

(01:11 - 05:46)

• Major vertical farm Bowery collapsed due to technical, economic, and biological challenges, echoing what brought down similar startups.
• Apollo Farms survived by making painful, low-ego, cost-cutting decisions (firing 80 employees, cutting monthly burn from $2M to $200k), learning from past failures, and promising investors they wouldn’t quit.
• Sam Bertram [03:14]:
  "We made our promise to the investors that we wouldn't give up. That was a primary promise... It only matters when things are hard."
• The biggest challenge remains navigating complexity and financial pitfalls, more so than typical startup rhetoric suggests.

---

3. [Technology Overview: The Automated Farm]

(09:23 - 13:38, 15:55 - 18:51)

• Apollo Farms uses robots, AI, automated climate/light/water control, and a modular warehouse system (AutoStore partnership) to grow plants without soil or sunlight.
• Plants are grown in coconut husk medium, given custom light and nutrient regimens to maximize their micronutrient expression.
• The system's "Rubik’s cube" look is a function of automation; robots move and monitor plant bins for optimal growth.
• Sam Bertram [13:17]:
  "The robots that you can see up there behind you... we deleted 90% of the company. We started again with Auto store. Our partner."
• Humans are still essential for maintenance, troubleshooting, and certain nuanced decisions—especially in plant biology.

---

4. [Personalized Nutrition & The Closed Loop Vision]

(11:09 - 12:30, 40:04 - 41:33)

• Future vision: Farms partnering with retailers like Whole Foods enable consumers to order tailor-made produce based on individual health data (Apple Watch, smart beds, etc.).
• Plants can be customized down to micronutrient expression depending on consumer needs, potentially integrating feedback from personal health devices.
• Sam Bertram [40:10]:
  "That's how we want to close the loop... We want these farms to be your farms that you control... It's going to interact with your Apple Watch... and then we'll see where we go."

---

5. [Biology vs. Intelligence: Where Robots & AI Meet Nature]

(26:58 - 28:49, 34:05 - 36:48)

• Robotics and software are indispensable for achieving high-density, high-efficiency, and scalable indoor farming.
• Sam notes they cracked the "code" not just with unit economics but by leveraging AutoStore’s efficiency, growing denser, and smart site selection (cheaper energy, proximity to distribution).
• Humanoid robots—expected in 5 years—will further increase efficiency by taking over dexterous, decision-heavy tasks.
• AI allows the farm to operate with a lean team (13–14 people) and automate complex control systems.

---

6. [Plant-Made Pharmaceuticals: Manufacturing $20,000-A-Gram Drugs]

(16:16, 45:25 - 54:53)

• Plants engineered and trained to manufacture complex molecules—monoclonal antibodies, enzymes, virus-like particles—offer a cheaper, scalable alternative to mammalian cell culture.
• Apollo Farms has already successfully grown rituximab (a real-world anti-cancer monoclonal antibody) for UC Davis.
• Sam Bertram [51:44]:
  "A monoclonal antibody, Rituximab, a Non Hodgkin's lymphoba drug. We've grown that in partnership with UC Davis, inside of plants, inside of our system to a very high efficacy..."
• The vision is to mass-manufacture off-patent, safe, effective drugs cheaply so anyone in the world can access them.
• Regulatory hurdles remain significant; everything will need to meet FDA and USDA standards.

---

7. [Nutrition, Exercise & Health: Food as Medicine]

(44:25 - 45:11, 55:11 - 57:10)

• Sam, after suffering years of unexplained exercise intolerance, espouses a "fuel the engine" philosophy: eating well is more foundational than exercise for health (though he supports exercise).
• Sam Bertram [43:31]:
  "All of my metrics, through and through, because I ate well. I didn't eat crap."
• He cites evidence that most chronic disease in the US is "a problem of food," but grants that genetics and outliers exist.
• Advocates for real, fresh, unprocessed foods with high micronutrient density (vs. current supermarket produce).

---

8. [Pesticides, Food Safety & Quality]

(22:22 - 23:50, 46:33 - 47:12)

• Apollo Farms’ crops are so clean that Sam recommends not even washing them, as washing could introduce bacteria.
• Sam Bertram [22:22]:
  "No, we recommend you don't wash because it'll probably make it dirtier."
• Discussed the dangers and benefits of pesticides, making nuanced arguments about exposure, concentration, and risk.
• Food safety is tightly regulated—daily and weekly testing for contaminants is mandatory, with oversight from Whole Foods, the company’s organic certifier, and SQF audits.

---

9. [Market Impact, Economics, & Scale-Up]

(12:33 - 13:38, 30:10 - 32:45, 57:54 - 59:13)

• Plans for expansion depend on fine-tuning the business model before taking more capital investment.
• Critiques Silicon Valley’s "raise big, burn big" VC culture. Warns that too much money too soon leads to inefficiency and catastrophic failure if not managed.
• Pricing of nutritious, fresh food is complicated by economic inflation and systemic monetary issues.
• Louisa Nicola [58:58]:
  "I bought a smoothie the other day for $20 in LA."
• Goal is mass market impact and affordability, eventually enabling the return of farmland to nature.

---

10. [Future Vision: Space Farming, Food Sovereignty & Next Decade]

(38:54 - 41:17, 59:13 - 60:27)

• Indoor farming is the only feasible solution for fresh food on Mars—must be autonomous, closed-loop, and adaptable to new conditions.
• Ten-year vision: widespread infrastructure that democratizes nutrition, brings the cost down, and allows nature to reclaim land.
• Sam Bertram [59:28]:
  "Those will happen at different rates. They're all achievable. You know, think about would we live in a world where everyone can talk to anyone at any time? 70% of people have cell phones today. Incredible. What was that took 30, 40 years. Incredible. Same thing will happen with food... I think that's probably 10, 10 years away."

---

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Grit and Mission:
  "We promised our investors we wouldn't give up...It only matters when things are hard."
  – Sam Bertram [03:14]

• On Plant Science:
  "Our original motto back in the day was unleash the power of plants on humanity. It is totally leashed. It is, it is in its 1 to 2% infancy."
  – Sam Bertram [37:50]

• On Plant-Made Pharma:
  "I will manufacture [the drug] at such a low cost that anyone in the world who needs it can get it."
  – Sam Bertram [16:16], [51:44]

• On Food Safety:
  "No, we recommend you don't wash [these greens] because it'll probably make it dirtier."
  – Sam Bertram [22:22]

• On the Taste of Farm-Grown Microgreens:
  "Everyone hates kale until they eat it out of our clamshell. I swear to you, I'm not a foodie. They tell me strawberries the same."
  – Sam Bertram [57:20]

---

Timestamps for Key Sections

• 00:00 – 05:46 | Startup adversity, Bowery collapse, promises to investors
• 06:03 – 08:21 | Origin story: choosing micronutrient deficiency as core problem
• 09:23 – 13:38 | Box farms, robots, IP, distribution model
• 15:55 – 18:51 | How plants grow in Apollo Farms, automation details
• 22:22 – 23:50 | Pesticides, food safety, not washing Apollo produce
• 25:42 – 28:49 | Economics, AutoStore partnership, competitive advantage
• 34:05 – 36:48 | Light regimens, increasing plant metabolism, UV/IR wavelengths
• 40:02 – 41:33 | Personalized nutrition, closing the feedback loop
• 45:25 – 54:53 | Plant-made pharmaceuticals, regulatory landscape
• 55:11 – 57:10 | Nutrition’s primacy over exercise, “fueling the engine”
• 57:54 – 59:13 | Food pricing, inflation, cost challenges
• 59:13 – 60:27 | Ten-year vision: global nutrition, food as infrastructure
• 60:28 – End | Salad tasting, product flavor and quality

---

Final Thoughts

This rich, candid conversation demystifies the science, business, and philosophy behind the revolution in food and pharma manufacturing. Sam Bertram, equal parts idealist and pragmatist, contends that the convergence of plant biology, AI, and robotics can eliminate malnutrition, produce affordable personalized medicine, restore nature, and—maybe—grow kale that people actually love to eat. The next decade, he argues, can see a world of “food as infrastructure,” food as medicine, and health sovereignty.

---

Additional Noteworthy Passages

• On the limits of medicine (early in the ep):
  "Everyone gets cancer five times a day. Your body knows how to take care of it."
  – Sam Bertram [00:00]

• On regulation and the public good:
  "Let the referee do its job in the most minimal case... I think ultimately it's up to us."
  – Sam Bertram [45:11]

---

(Skip ads and sponsor messages; focus is purely on the content.)

Transcript

[Sam Bertram]

Everyone gets cancer five times a day. Your body knows how to take care of it. Unleash the power of plants on humanity. It is in its 1 to 2% infancy.

[Podcast Host]

Does that mean you're against Western medicine?

[Sam Bertram]

I did not exercise at all for eight years. What happened to my body? Nothing.

[Podcast Host]

People are paying 30 to $40,000 per visit.

[Sam Bertram]

We've grown that in partnership with UC Davis. Inside of plants, inside of our system. I will manufacture that at such a low cost that anyone in the world who needs it can get it.

[Podcast Host]

If this works, a handful of companies could control how the world is fed and dosed.

[Sam Bertram]

That's how we want to close the loop. Every human walking around the street has the opportunity to live. I think that's probably 10 years away.

[Podcast Host]

Sam Bertram, co founder of 1.1 welcome to the Neuro Experience podcast.

[Sam Bertram]

Thank you for having me.

[Podcast Host]

What I'd love to elicit with today right, is I would love you to treat me like I am in fifth grade.

[Sam Bertram]

Okay.

[Podcast Host]

And I want to really understand and put forth what you are actually doing because I do think it is monumental. And I want to first start with what was the largest farm in America and that was Bowery, worth $2.3 billion if I'm correct, in 850 stores. But they collapsed.

[Sam Bertram]

Collapsed.

[Podcast Host]

So talk to me about that and why you think that this is not going to happen to you.

[Sam Bertram]

I'll start more broadly. Every, if not all of the things that have brought down our competitors have also happened to us. We were burning 2 million a month. They were burning 20. Turning that ship is much more difficult than turning a 2 million dollar ship. And by the way, we took it from 2 million to 200,000. We hung around, we stayed gritty, we made a couple of low ego decisions, quality technical decisions, and we managed to stick around. Bowery, specifically. The same disease that took out the created the Irish potato famine took them out. It was a waterborne pathogen that they just could not contain. And what that actually meant in real life was they could not deliver against the promises that they had made. And that problem is a very, very difficult problem. That's not a problem that can be easily solved. We've got our own mitigation mechanisms learning from that, of course, but that's the reality of agriculture. I think coming into this, I was the same. As a fifth grader, you are the same. The complexity of agriculture is unimaginable. Plants rock up in people's grocery stores. And that sort of seems to be how it's done. I mean, the level of Complexity is out of control. And the fact that any of this exists is a complete miracle. So the answer to your question is it's really hard. We all run into the same or similar issues. We made those mistakes at different orders of magnitude of spending and waste, and we. I think we paid payroll with our credit cards more times than they did.

[Podcast Host]

So you said something interesting. You went from 2 million down to 200,000. That kind of reminds me of the Elon Musk strategy, where you're just cutting all. All costs, bringing it all down to first principles.

[Sam Bertram]

Yep.

[Podcast Host]

And being really maniacal about that.

[Sam Bertram]

Yep.

[Podcast Host]

So really, the thing that's kept you alive, the difference between you and Bowery, was a single strategy. What do you think that one decision was?

[Sam Bertram]

We have our own internal promises, but we made our promise to the investors that we wouldn't give up. That was a primary promise that we made because I was 23 at the time of founding. John was 25. And we admitted we knew nothing of business. I didn't even know what incorporation was. I swear to God. We did actually give them our word that we would not give up. And that doesn't matter until things get hard. It only matters when things are hard. So things got hard, and we decided to dig our heels in, do the hard thing, fire 80 people, many of whom are our friends, many of whom I went to school with, many of whom we moved out here. That was a very regrettable period of time. But we managed to convince the board, Novak, Fred, Luddy, a few of these other guys give us another two years. We found a technological partner that can solve scalability issues and reliability issues, give us two years to turn their system into a farm, and then we'll see where we go. And we're about three years from that conversation, so it's a good thing.

[Podcast Host]

It must have been scary, though, seeing another company who have raised 10 times more than what you did still go

[Sam Bertram]

under Then there was plenty that raised 10 times what we did, and they went under. AeroFarms raised seven times what we did and went through chapter 11, but they emerged. Another raised 400 million. You know, another greenhouse company raised a billion. It's a minefield.

[Podcast Host]

Am I correct in saying that you're mission led first and that's what keeps you going and that's what's getting you above the line with the investors?

[Sam Bertram]

Yes. I wouldn't paint an illusion where it's like, I wake up every morning and the mission is the reason that I sit up and go have a shower. Life is a lot more Sort of brutal and practical than that. But in the moments, in the darkest moments where you're thinking, I'm 33 now, I could have gone a hundred different directions. Was this the right direction? You think back to the people that are suffering and the small ways that we can improve their lives over time. Because my metric at the end of the day, at base level first principle is on my deathbed, I do not want to have led an ineffective life. That's my number one fear, is to have led an ineffective life. And I think for whatever reason, my brother and I either have the tools or the stupidity to think that we can achieve some of these things. So yeah, the mission is very strong, but I think at its base level it is. I genuinely fear living a second rate life because I think I've been given a ticket to this carnival. I want to ride every ride, I want to eat every piece of food. I want to see everything I possibly can.

[Podcast Host]

Well, actually, let's talk about you and your brother for a moment. So you were 23, playing tennis and then you and your brother found the one number that changed your life. 1.1 billion people started this millennium malnourished. Can you take me to the moment

[Sam Bertram]

where you read that the lead up was very much, let's analyze what the big problems are in the world. You know, seek truth is another one of those sort of base level concepts that he and I implement as much as we possibly can. But we were researching what are the biggest problems in the world. And it was sort of almost an afterthought to do that because it was drummed into us that climate change is the biggest problem that we'll ever face and will kill us in 12 years. Absolute nonsense. And it frustrates me because I could have spent the last decade of my life working on a solution to the 45th biggest problem in the world, which would have pissed me off. So I'm fortunate that we actually did end up doing this analysis, but we constantly were being pulled away by what was sexy. Nuclear is sexy to us. Hypersonic flight is sexy to us. High speed rail is sexy to us. We kept getting pulled away by the sexy stuff, but fortunately our upbringing kept bringing us back and we got to that moment where we read, you know, 1.1 billion people began the millennium malnourished. Just let that friggin sink in for a sec. It is a heartbreaking number. And those are the people that are chronically malnourished at death's door. We're not talking the other three and a Half billion that are malnourished, that are slowly decreasing their quality of life. These people are at death's door. That is a shocking, shocking number. Humanity is doing a great job at decreasing, has decreased faster than even the UN predicted. So it's not as if I'm painting this picture of how humanity has failed these people. Absolutely not. It's the opposite. Everyone used to be malnourished. Fortunately, now it's about 300 to 800 million, depending on where you count it.

[Podcast Host]

That's still a large number.

[Sam Bertram]

Still a massive, massive number. But we came back to what is the biggest problem, what kills the most people. It came back to micronutrient deficiency. It sounds so benign. Micronutrients, they're micro, they're not macro. But, you know, think about all the things that are needed to operate a house. The ductwork, the piping, the electricals. All of these things are needed to operate the house. Those are the micronutrients. And so when you aren't feeding those parts of your body, you can't build the compounds that fight against the things that degrade your body over time. And so you see all of, especially the United States, because of the crap that we eat and the great stuff we don't. The prevalence of these diseases are just through the roof, and we want to turn it around.

[Podcast Host]

But in terms of turning that around, I mean, are you talking about eradicating disease altogether? Because when you look at. I love what you're doing, right? And then I think about artificial general intelligence and what we're doing, you know, what Demis Hassabis is doing, for example, with solving for protein misfolding? Do you take that into consideration as well? You're just trying to figure out, how can I right now solve for malnourishment?

[Sam Bertram]

Humans need nutrients. I want to grow those nutrients. Humans need medicinal molecules. I want to grow those medicinal molecules. DeepMind will do exceptional work to tell us what those protein folds are and what they do due to their shape. We will manufacture those new molecules. So we, John and I have always been very interested in manufacturing. We think it's the basis of the economy. It's part of the reason why us is struggling a little bit. We want to be the molecular manufacturer of the world, and we want to use plants to do it.

[Podcast Host]

So if I am a. I'm a young kid and you're trying to explain to me what your. What Apollo Farms does, explain it to me very simply.

[Sam Bertram]

It is a box that grows plants to their highest potential, using robots and AI and led Lights and H Vac and irrigation.

[Podcast Host]

Is it safe?

[Sam Bertram]

Extremely.

[Podcast Host]

Why is this better than me just hiring a bunch of farmers?

[Sam Bertram]

The outdoor farm has its place and it's going nowhere when I talk about manufacturing molecules. Again, other than the pharmaceutical nutritical side of things, I'm largely talking about micronutrients, macronutrients. The outdoor farm does exceptionally well. It's not something we'll touch for a decade other than some specific cases. Why micronutrient density? Why do micronutrient production inside? Because we control the plant's experience of life. We can control how the plant expresses itself. So I have plants A through D, I know what their ideal nutrient expression is going to be. I can decrease the amount of red light on day three through five and then give it a UV blast on day 25. And I get a way increased percentage of iron. I can take crop B and I can dehydrate it from days 10 to 15. So it starts to build all of these compounds inside of it. And then I can feed it a super iron rich nutrient mix and then I can completely different outcome. So we start with genetics, exactly the same as humans. You start with genetics, which you can't change in plants. You can, but you can't change. And then you basically train the plant on how to express itself. Can't do that outside.

[Podcast Host]

No. And your goal is to serve me as a consumer or serve Whole Foods, for example.

[Sam Bertram]

We're partnered up with Whole Foods and Shamrock and a few other of these very, very large food retailers and distributors. The premium market, I think is going to be direct because the premium market is going to have a greater value add. The premium market is going to interact with your Apple Watch. It's going to interact with your eight sleep bed, it's going to interact with your toilet. As soon as it starts to give you data, that information comes to us, obviously anonymously. We analyze it and we say, okay, well Every morning at 10am you have this phosphorus dip that gives you an energy lull inside of your smoothie. Put our kale, which has increased phosphorus and it'll solve that problem for you. We want to close the loop on human nutrition. We're not there yet, but that is the path that this is going. And essentially we want these farms to be your farms that you control. So a portion of our farm will be yours. And you say, all right, well just for fun, I'm going to grow roses because it's around Valentine's Day. But I'm also really trying this new diet that does a B and C. So I want this portion of my farm dedicated to this new thing that I'm trying to. Then we'll tell you. Of the 30,000 edible plant species, here's another 300 we've just brought into our repertoire. Do you want to try any of these? This one does that. This one does that. This one does that. So that's where the premium market is going, is going to be closed loop nutrition. But at the end of the day, the goal is at the same time, volume. And there's no one better than the Amazons and the walnuts.

[Podcast Host]

So how many of these farmhouses do you need to have?

[Sam Bertram]

Good question. Walmart has 5,600 stores. Whole Foods has four. 500 stores. Walmart, this is a guess, would have 50 to 100 perishable distribution centers. The reason I'm doing this math is because we don't want to put these in the retail store, we want to put these at the distribution centers. So right next to the already automated distribution center, we build a huge puppy like this and it feeds them all of those different crops. Leafy greens, microgreens, herbs, mushrooms, strawberries, yada, yada, yada. High level Lancer. A thousand.

[Podcast Host]

And how many? Up to one.

[Sam Bertram]

One.

[Podcast Host]

That's good.

[Sam Bertram]

We were in San Jose. We started, we built a farm out there. We spent about 50 million bucks developing everything ourselves.

[Podcast Host]

Yep.

[Sam Bertram]

The robots that you can see up there behind you, not the ones Running lights, H Vac, everything. We shelved it. We deleted 90% of the company. We started again with Auto store. Our partner.

[Podcast Host]

Did you have to IP everything?

[Sam Bertram]

Fortunately, the first thing we did, John and I did at the start of the business, we did our own IP sweep. We wrote the IP ourselves, we got it filed. Robot on top, farm underneath. We own that.

[Podcast Host]

The reason I asked that is because in your bio you've mentioned something about adversity.

[Sam Bertram]

Adversity, yes. How would I know about adversity, though?

[Podcast Host]

Exactly.

[Sam Bertram]

Yeah, it's been. It's been a really rocky road. It's dark. It's dark and lonely. It's pretty dark and lonely.

[Podcast Host]

Startup process.

[Sam Bertram]

Yeah, not always. It's a lot of fun. A lot of the things you're chasing. You haven't heard of the phrase mis wanting. We want things. Oftentimes we miswant. We're wanting the wrong thing objectively. You know, I want to run a. I want to be a CEO of a startup before I'm 30 with a hundred people. Congrats. You're going to get Forbes 30 under 30. Who cares? It doesn't. That was just another normal day of my life. Birth of my daughter, different story. And the next seven kids. I want. Let's get that. Let's get that on camera.

[Podcast Host]

That was very Aon esque.

[Sam Bertram]

With one woman at a time. No, it's. If you're aiming at the wrong things, when you get there, it's abundantly clear. Fortunately, some of the things we're aiming at were meaningful and so. And plus, my brother is just the most outstanding human being that's ever lived, so that helps.

[Sponsor/Advertiser]

I've been using Jones Road beauty for a while now, and one of the reasons I keep reaching for it is because it completely changed how I think about makeup. For years I thought looking polished meant layering on more products. What I've realized is that the best makeup actually lets your skin look like skin. That's what Jones Road does, and they do it really well. They just released their miracle balm, which I'm absolutely obsessed with and has become one of my go to products. Simply, it's healthy, it's natural, it makes you not feel like you're wearing makeup. And they've also launched a foundation stick, which is exactly what I wanted for the days that I need a little more color coverage. It gives medium to full coverage, but it still feels incredibly lightweight. It never looks heavy or cakey and it's backed with ingredients like ceramides and sodium hyaluronate, so it feels as good as it looks. It takes me less time to get ready. I carry fewer products when I travel and I still get that effortlessly look. So for a limited time, they are giving a free full size mascara with your purchase. When you use Code Louisa at checkout, just go to Jonesroadbeauty.com and use code Louisa after your purchase. They're going to ask you where you heard about them. Please say the Neuro Experience podcast.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, I want to actually now get into a bit of biology. Right. Because I think it's very fascinating. So you, your farm grows food with no soil and no sunlight.

[Sam Bertram]

Yes.

[Podcast Host]

The roots just hang there and get fed directly.

[Sam Bertram]

Yes.

[Podcast Host]

Just walk me through how a plant survives, let alone thrives, with none of the things that it spent millions of years determining what to do with all

[Sam Bertram]

of the things that it's needed over the last couple million years from different sources. Okay, so start with the normal seed. As they plant outdoors, we put that into a grow media. The grow media is actually a coconut husk. It's been out processed. So people get coconut, the flesh and the milk get rid of that and they throw away the rest of the fibre. We take that, we grow in that. We put the seed inside of that grow media and then we hydrate it. That wakes the seed up. The seed then sends out its initial cotyledons. It's trying to find light. Where is the light? Okay, there it is. Those are my cotyledons looking. I send down my first. Excuse me. I send down my first radical root. Now I'm starting to drink. Then I send up my first true leaves. They're looking for a specific kind of light and they are actually productive leaves. The energy that comes in, they photosynthesize and it turns into energy they can use to build tissue. Up until then, all the energy required to grow the plant was already inside of the seed. So then the seed starts to. Excuse me. The young plant starts to propagate out its roots. It's looking for nutrients, it's looking for water, it's looking for oxygen. It wants some combination of those things. If there's too much of any of those things, it runs away. If there's too little, it runs away. It's really got to be an ideal circumstance. And we control that by the composition of the water that we irrigate and the rate at which we irrigate, the frequency at which we irrigate as well. On the leaf side, those plants grow out towards the light. They're gravitropic. So plants are gravitropic and phototropic. Gravity means they want to fight the gravity vector. Fight phototropic means they want to grow towards light. They're mostly phototropic, especially if you're delivering the right wavelengths. So if you can give them all of those basics, which is much harder than I've explained, you know, in that last 45 second bit, they can grow to be an extremely high quality, nutrient dense plant.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. You're using aeroponics and hydroponics.

[Sam Bertram]

Correct? We have, we phased out for now. We phase out aero and we're focused predominantly on hydroponics for a variety of reasons.

[Podcast Host]

And behind us it looks like a Rubik's cube. Is that for a specific purpose?

[Sam Bertram]

Not really. I mean, it turned out to be that way. So the system behind us is really an auto store system. Autostore does warehouse Automation. Autostore has 78,000 robots worldwide, hundreds of millions of bins and over 2,000 locations with the biggest customers in the world. They had solved the problem of scale and reliability already. That's the problem we hadn't solved. So we take their system, the robots the bins, the grid, and we turn that into a farm. So what the robot does, it runs around the facility and moves these bins, stacks them in different stacks according to their life, according to what environmental and irrigation needs they may have. And the robots just constantly optimize where they are for optimal outcomes.

[Podcast Host]

So right now the robots are doing everything, Everything. Everything from the farming, the growing, the harvesting, the checklists. Is there anything that a human is doing right now?

[Sam Bertram]

Yes. So those functions that I mentioned, there are still intermediary functions between those machines. So the automation between those machines is also being worked on so that there doesn't have to be a person standing there, taking out of the port, putting it in the harvest machine and so forth. People are absolutely still necessary. First, from a kinetic point of view and also from an intellectual point of view, we still need people on site to do stuff. As much as you want automation and manufacturing to be straight line, linear, never anything goes wrong, not going to happen. You need people on site, perform routine maintenance, clean things. Then of course, you need intellect on site. A person needs to understand plants because imagery can only get you so much. Now, imagery can go beyond what humans can go. Hyperspectral imagery is insane. I can tell the hydration level of a plant by taking a photo, a certain spectra. We can't do that with our eyes. But nonetheless, the human brain is still incredibly effective at taking these sort of disparate set of variables and putting them together.

[Podcast Host]

Waymo is very safe and effective and is, you know, doing better than what humans could do. However, there was a moment, I believe it was here in Arizona, where it really couldn't detect where to go, what to do because it was raining so hard. So it was a mistake.

[Sam Bertram]

Yes.

[Podcast Host]

In medicine and surgery there are one of the biggest forms of death is medical mistakes.

[Sam Bertram]

I think it's second or third.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. Which is scary, right?

[Sam Bertram]

Human error, hundreds of thousands a year.

[Podcast Host]

Yes. So with that in mind, how are you safeguarding your crops against that?

[Sam Bertram]

Those are edge cases. So there are many edge cases. Some edge cases are likely to be more prevalent than others. So we have an extremely rigorous food safety program, constantly checking all of the surfaces and the waters and the plants for all of those E. Colis and salmonellas and all those kinds of things. We have to do that by regulation. We would do it anyway just because it's unbelievably scary to get a salmonella or E. Coli breaker. So we have all of those already every day, every week in the program. In terms of the extreme edge Cases, there are very few that would be catastrophic. Losing power for five to 10 days would be catastrophic. We have a generator to back that up. Getting a pest infestation would be catastrophic. We would have to communicate with all of our customers and say, hey, for a month, we're out of commission. We're emptying the rooms, we're nuking them. We're cleaning every square centimeter, and they'll be back online. So there are catastrophic edge cases. They're rare, and they usually don't involve the death of a human.

[Podcast Host]

A lot of people, especially me, for example, I live in New York, so I do a lot of my food shopping at Whole Foods. Sometimes I go to the market.

[Sam Bertram]

Yes.

[Podcast Host]

But either which way, I'm spraying my crops with a vegetable spray. And that's because I've done over a thousand interviews with world experts in different disease states. And one of them was an expert in Parkinson's disease, which he believes is a manmade disease. And when I asked him, like, what is creating this disease? There were two molecules involved. One that you can find in dry cleaning products, the other which can be found on the surface of the vegetables that we're eating. So he believes that you should be washing the surfaces of your apple, for example, for at least, by the way, a minute and a half. So in order to cut that down, I have bought this vegetable spray. So is this what I have to do with the crops that you grow?

[Sam Bertram]

No, we recommend you don't wash because it'll probably make it dirtier.

[Podcast Host]

Wow, that's a bold claim.

[Sam Bertram]

Don't wash it.

[Podcast Host]

And later on, we're going to make a salad together.

[Sam Bertram]

Let's go, homie.

[Podcast Host]

Whatever you do, it's interesting that you say that, though, because.

[Sam Bertram]

Okay, so Santa Maria is the epicenter of a variety of different agricultural products. The rate of autoimmune disease there. Through the roof. Go have a look at the rates of cancer where the Mississippi Delta enters the Gulf of America. Through the roof?

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Sam Bertram]

Why? Residues coming off the fields, down into the waterways, and then it ends up inside of humans. Pesticides have saved hundreds of millions of lives. They're an incredible technology. We got to be very careful with them because they often kill the applicators and they kill people downstream. They get too high concentrations. If you're just eating a very, very, very low concentration of this stuff, it may not harm you, obviously. It may or it may not. What I am saying is pesticides are extremely dangerous. But only be concerned about them when they're concentrated is probably the feedback that I now it would benefit me to say pesticides bad run away. But we really have looked into this, and some of these pesticides are extremely neurotoxic, particularly where they're applied and particularly where they're concentrated to the broader community. In terms of a person who is living in Vermont that's never seen a pesticide in their life, it's unlikely that pesticides will have a large negative health impact. But if you're around the farmland, it probably will.

[Podcast Host]

So you mentioned cancer just now. Now, I know that you are growing back there. Beetroot?

[Sam Bertram]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Why?

[Sam Bertram]

Whole Foods came to us and said, every week we have cancer patients that come in and they want to eat beetroot, but they don't want to eat the root part, the starchy part, because they don't want that to contribute to the cancer they're trying to fight. So they said to us, can you grow beet greens just the leaf side of things, because you get all of those micronutrient benefits without starch. And so over a period of, I think it was 12 weeks, we got to know the crop. What does it take to germinate it at a high density? What does it take to grow it to its full capacity when we're getting dead spots? Why are we getting dead spots? Like, there are all of these problems that we have to solve. But after I think it was four months or so, it was completely solved, and now it's in every spring mix in Arizona.

[Podcast Host]

Do you have an R D team?

[Sam Bertram]

No.

[Podcast Host]

That's interesting that you don't have plant biologists or.

[Sam Bertram]

Oh, yeah, we know. We have people. Kyle knows plants. Kyle knows plants. There's another great gap that AI fills. It's the perfect application of AI is the academic side of things.

[Podcast Host]

Unless it hallucinates.

[Sam Bertram]

Unless it hallucinates. But there are ways. That's why Kyle's here, to say, yeah, you know, that concentration is way off. Fix that. So, again, human in the loop. But it's also stage of business. Of course, we will eventually have. We used to have a large R and D team, but that is now gone because it was not core competency. Blind is on. There's your goal. Go, hit it. Everything else is just superfluous.

[Podcast Host]

So talk to me about now, the 15 days. I want to understand that. So crops are ready in about 15 days, half the usual time. And the whole farm drops it into an existing warehouse where. So, you know, we can build a warehouse anywhere, really. Right. So. So the companies that died could not make those numbers work. Why did you, what was it? What was the code that you cracked?

[Sam Bertram]

One is reliability and one is cost of building the facility. So unit economics, many, if not most of these vertical farms were fine on the unit economic side. The problem is it cost them $50 million to build these facilities. And it's a 25 year payback period that is not economically feasible. So the way that we solved that was through our partnership with Autostore. As I said, they've spent 25 years basically becoming as efficient as possible at building these kinds of systems. So that was the, the first major benefit. Number two, the density at which we grow is higher than anyone else in the industry. Again because we use auto stores, about 30% more dense than anyone else, any of our competitors. And the final one was just good placement of the farm. Bowery was In New York, New Jersey, 30 cents per kilowatt hour. Plenty was in Compton, 32 cents per kilowatt hour here, fully loaded. 13. If, for example, we were to feed Whole Foods, the entire west coast of Whole Foods, I wouldn't build in California, I'd build in Nevada, I'd build in Arizona, potentially some in Idaho, and then I'd ship west. So those kinds of tactical decisions make a huge impact. It's not just like our LED is 13.8% more efficient than others. You know what I mean?

[Podcast Host]

So I want to now get under the hood because something that a lot of people argue about is how much of this is actually intelligence, right? So let's talk about biology versus intelligence. When I look at your farm, how much of what makes it work is biology and how much of what makes it work is software and robotics?

[Sam Bertram]

The plant has a predetermined trajectory. We assist it along that predetermined trajectory. With robotics and software, you can do, you can grow a plant outside successfully with zero robotics and software. You require robotics and software to do it successfully in here. So it's just, it's like a car engine. It is a necessary part. It's very hard to say, you know, it's 80% of the process or 20% of the process, but it would be impossible to do what we do, especially from a unit economics perspective, without robotics and software? Impossible. It's been tried, didn't work.

[Podcast Host]

Is there anything that's, that you don't have access to yet when it comes to AI and robotics and software that you wish you had access to, to 10x what you're doing?

[Sam Bertram]

Humanoid robots are probably realistically five years away from being in all of those farms.

[Podcast Host]

In what aspect?

[Sam Bertram]

Wherever Dexterity is required. So that may be okay. I want, at the end of the plant's life, I want to put the clamshells inside of boxes. And it's eight clamshells, not 10, and it's 40 boxes per pallet, not 38. Those kinds of institute decision making processes are going to be done obviously with AI, but it is the combination of AI with real world robotics that is going to be the next 10x. AI has given us a lot of things 10x, not everything obviously, but once we can put that brain inside of a humanoid changes the game.

[Podcast Host]

Well, actually it's interesting you say AI in this aspect because Forbes, your interview, in that interview you said that you're using AI to dominate the market.

[Sam Bertram]

Yeah. Slowly, slowly we can just do things much more efficiently. And when you're trying to build a thriving business, you want your bottom line to be as large as possible while you still have customers that are very happy to pay for the quality of product that you're, you're putting out. So if, if my operating budget can decrease with respect to my revenue, that's a huge win as a business. And we can do that like we have 13 or 14 people in this company total. Most of those are working inside the farm doing a variety of different processes. Me and John are the only engineers. Like we're running this very, very efficiently. And this is, we are mid experiment implementing AI. My brother, on his own with AI, wrote the software to control that thing. That's insane. That used to take. With no mathematical background, he's a complete nerd. He has a mathematical background. He did chemical physics undergrad, he was pre med. And then he went and did electrical engineering in Germany, in Munich. Okay, so he knows, he knows what's up. No, but for anyone to be able to do that is absurd. You would have to grab a team of 10 people for six months to do something of that magnitude.

[Podcast Host]

I recently went to Silicon Valley. I was looking at a lot of the biotech startups, some of which are arguably changing. Epigenetics, for example, Just one of them. Or building neural chips and brain computer interfaces where they're demanding around upwards of $500 million in investing. You're up to 80 million. 80, 80 as of today, give or take. Why not? Why not 500?

[Sam Bertram]

Silicon Valley. We started there, we spent the first five years there. Silicon Valley is infectious in a lot of good ways. You're incentivized to start a business and you're not denigrated if you lose. There are a lot of good Things about Silicon Valley. One of the bad things about Silicon Valley is go out and raise as much as humanly possible. The target is the money raised. I mean, the money is being raised to hit targets, not the money being the target itself. And of course, I'm guilty of this. As with everyone else, you want to raise as much as possible. It's sick. And at the same time, it gives you Runway to do more and more things. So, you know, it's not clear to people what the downsides are of raising $500 million. There are many downsides of raising $500 million. You burn 20 million a month, not two. When you make mistakes that cost you three months, it's $60 million, not six. Your mistakes are a lot more expensive. Turning the ship is extremely difficult. It's not only operationally turning the ship, it's getting all your 250 people on board with turning the ship. I think the people are the most complicated part. If you were to raise $500 million, it is probably the organizational inertia mostly comes, I would say, from employees and their resistance.

[Podcast Host]

The reason why I ask is because it seems as though you're just like a lot of these biotech companies. You're trying to replicate nature. And that takes a lot of. A lot of skill, a lot of software, hardware, and a lot of intelligence. So more money would include better people, better team, more intelligence on that side. Mathematicians, engineers, etc. More warehouses and effectively more of these grids at the back here.

[Sam Bertram]

That's exactly what our competitors did, except they built many farms and a version of the farm that wasn't ready. So I'm not against 500 million bucks. Just give that to me. January.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. When you got everything figured out.

[Sam Bertram]

Yeah. And we do look from a farming perspective, from producing those products. We've been in Whole foods for over 12 months now, increasing month to month sales like we've got that under control. We know what we're doing. Scaling it up. Talk to us January 1st.

[Sponsor/Advertiser]

I've recommended magnesium for years, but I've become much more particular about which magnesium I take. That's why I've been using Qualia magnesium plus. Most magnesium supplements only contain a single form of magnesium. But magnesium actually exists in many different forms, and each one supports your body in a different way. From recovery and muscle function to brain health, energy metabolism and sleep quality. Dalia combines 10 highly bioavailable forms of magnesium, along with more than 70 trace minerals into one formula. For me, it's become less about taking something to sleep better and More about giving my body the nutrition and foundation that it needs to properly recover. So when you're asking your brain and body to perform every day, recovery isn't optional. It's part of the job. If you want to experience the most trusted magnesium for purity, potency and performance, plus it's non GMO, vegan and gluten free, go to qualialife.com neuro to get 50% off qualia life.com neuro to get 50% OFF can we go back to

[Podcast Host]

the biology and the mixture that you're using? So you say you give each plant the perfect mixture of elements. I love that. Right. What are you actually doing to a plant that nature never would?

[Sam Bertram]

On the light side, we're giving it 16 to 18 hours of intensity. Light sun only gives you about 8. Even if the sun is up for 12 hours, it's only giving you about 8 hours of proper light.

[Podcast Host]

And what is that doing to the plant?

[Sam Bertram]

That is just photosynthetic energy. That's fuel in the gas tank. So rather than eight hours of fuel in the gas tank, we're giving them 16 to 18 hours of fuel in the gas tank. It doubles. It basically doubles the rate at which it grows.

[Podcast Host]

Can I interject, please, and talk about light? For example, we use as humans infrared light. All different types of wavelengths, right. A lot of people are using infrared light to help with mitochondria mitochondrial efficiency, which is the ATP energy powerhouse of the cell per se. And I use red light bed, different frequencies, different wavelengths. And I'm doing it primarily for the health benefits of the mitochondrial efficiency. Is that somewhat similar to what you're doing to the plant?

[Sam Bertram]

Yes. So the wavelengths you typically talk about, it's called the visible spectrum, is between 400 and 700. That's mostly what the plant needs. But you can go into infrared, you can go into uv and there's uva, there's uv, B, uvc. There are many types of UV that are functional for the plant. There are many types of IR and there's long IR that are functional for the plant. And they all do different things. But certainly. So right now, what was our goal? Our goal was to build a system that worked, that produced higher quality products than the outdoor farmers producing and proving the market wants it. Our next phase, when we raise that 50 million bucks in Q1 of next year, that's when we start to bring in the UVB treatment for one hour on the day before we harvest it.

[Podcast Host]

What's that going to do?

[Sam Bertram]

There is a disinfectant process so you apply UV to the irrigation lines to get rid of bad biology. So it's a very similar process with the plants as well. It also alters the plant's metabolism to produce a certain number fighting that uv, it produces a certain number of new and different elements that it wouldn't have done otherwise. You can change, change the molecular composition of the plant by providing it the UVB at the end of its life. And then once you start to get into flowering crops like strawberries and bees running around pollinating, it's just a completely different world with light. But light is absolutely fundamental. And if you don't get it right, you won't have a farm.

[Podcast Host]

Well, every plant needs different lights, wavelengths, right?

[Sam Bertram]

Every plant is light, every plant is optimal with a different wavelength recipe. All of the plants that we grow, leafy greens, microgreens, herbs, they're all receiving exactly the same spectra at pretty much exactly the same intensity for similar durations. If I was to do it again at a larger scale, those three crops would be in different rooms and I would have slightly different temperatures and lights for each of those different products. But they all do very well as they stand sharing.

[Podcast Host]

Would you go and expand further?

[Sam Bertram]

We're in the process of like different fruits, vegetables, leafy greens. $40 billion industry in the United States. Microgreens, let's say one and a half billion dollar industry in the United States. Herbs, $4 billion industry. Basil is about 30% of it. Strawberries, $40 billion industry in the United States. Cannabis, another one of these products. Obviously very speculative and we can talk about that, but there are medicinal benefits and that's the part that we're interested in. You know, somewhere. 50, $100 billion market in the United States, above ground, 400 billion internationally. I don't think I mentioned mushrooms. You know, think of, think of how little we know about mushrooms and the medicinal benefits of mushrooms. The, the breadth. As I said before, we on the shelves have about access to about 300 of the 30, 000 edible plant species. That's just nutrition. We're not even starting to talk about medicinal. If you're in the Amazon jungle, you got a year ache. There's a plant for that, you've got a broken leg, there's a plant for that. You've got headaches, you've got a plant for that, you got ptsd.

[Podcast Host]

There's a plan for that.

[Sam Bertram]

Our original motto back in the day was unleash the power of plants on humanity. It is totally leashed. It is, it is in its 1 to 2% infancy. We haven't even. In fact we do know it's just not done at scale. So we want to be ones to bring it at scale. And the final frontier, There are two. The first one is materials manufacturing. That's most useful in space. How do you make plants in space? That when we think we're optimized, of all the systems to be one, the one put in space. Elon, do you hear that? Please text me back. Elon.

[Podcast Host]

Wait, you've got Elon's number.

[Sam Bertram]

Yeah, text me back.

[Podcast Host]

Could I have Elon's number? I have a few things I need

[Sam Bertram]

to talk to him about. You know, how are you going to grow plants in space? How are you going to sequester a lot of these sort of however you want to put it free. Radical elements that accumulate in the air that you need to absorb back into and out of the human living environment. How are you going to grow materials? How are you going to feed people? You know, it has to be done in systems like this. Has to. And then molecules is what we'll get into here in a second.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. You sound so sure about this.

[Sam Bertram]

So I have to be.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, you do. I mean especially if you're going to do a big raise in January. Can you just explain to me, so if we are going to be a multi planetary species one day, how do you plan on getting fresh food or fresh vegetables and microgreens on Mars?

[Sam Bertram]

You have to grow them. For highly perishable products, you have to grow them there. If you're sending, you know, Americans say graham crackers. I think it's graham crackers. Right. We'll take that up with you all later. For anything that's non perishable, up it goes in the rocket. So it'll be fine. As long as it weighs a decent amount. As in small, that's fine. But in terms of perishables, living products, it's got to be done up there. Moon might be a slightly different story. It's a three day trip, but if you're talking every 26 months you get to take a three month trip to Mars. No, you've got to grow it there. You have no option. So this has to be integrated. I know SpaceX has taken a quick swing at stuff like this. It just wasn't important enough for them at the time. But I am 100 sure they're going to be using this technology in space in the next five years. They have to.

[Podcast Host]

So your system already tunes the exact nutrients a plant gets?

[Sam Bertram]

Yeah, correct.

[Podcast Host]

Could you take my blood test and grow food made specifically for my body and my deficiencies.

[Sam Bertram]

That's how we want to close the loop. Caveat. Human biology, plant biology, unbelievably complex. How the human biology interacts with those nutrients, unbelievably complex.

[Podcast Host]

Well, look, you're taking on a different approach here. Now you're talking about medicine.

[Sam Bertram]

Yes, yes, I would want to treat food as medicine. Didn't Hippocrates say that?

[Podcast Host]

I'm not sure, but you're talking to somebody.

[Sam Bertram]

Look, okay, that was me saying Hippocrates said that.

[Podcast Host]

Does that mean you're against Western medicine?

[Sam Bertram]

I'm not against western medicine at all. At all. I mean, as long as it's evidence based. I don't think we've just thrown enough money at it to see if there's actually evidence for A, B and C. I think it was ibogame. Recently they're doing a quick an acceleration. There seems to be incredible data for the use of ibogaine, a root PTSD individuals. So, I mean, I have no issue with the pharmaceutical industry. Western medicine, again, much like agriculture, gets a bad rap for a lot of good reasons. But at the same time, there are many treatments that are extremely effective at lengthening life. Now, are they the solution to the actual core problem? No, don't look at it that way. The solution to the problem is what you're saying. Sleep, eat right, lifestyle interventions.

[Podcast Host]

But you do make a point because if we are, by the way, if we are micronutrient deficient in any area, right. It actually is harder to exercise. Some people don't really realize this, but you actually need to be healthy in order to sleep.

[Sam Bertram]

Yes.

[Podcast Host]

People think just go to sleep. And I think, well, great. But why, why, why, why are CPAP machines, you know, available to some people? Like why do we have sleep aids? Like it. You actually have to be healthy to sleep. So it does make sense when you're trying to fix for a micronutrient deficiency in order to just live out these lifestyle interventions.

[Sam Bertram]

When I started the business, I was playing tennis. My legs stopped working about every about 15 minutes into playing tennis, all large muscle groups in a leg started to cramp. Went to the doctor like, oh, it's probably a nutrient deficiency. Let's see your blood. Wasn't that. Hydration, wasn't that. Let's check your lungs, Wasn't that. Let's check your nerve conductions. Let's do some EMGs and EKGs and all these kinds of very fun interventions.

[Podcast Host]

I do EMGs. Yeah, they're not very Fun for a patient, though.

[Sam Bertram]

Shocking.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Sam Bertram]

It's like 1800 stuff still, like, thank you for doing it. I want to know what's wrong with me. Got to the top of Stanford Health, Kaiser Health and Mayo, and I said, sorry, mate, we don't know what's going on. In fact, the first answer was, we think you have als.

[Podcast Host]

Lots of disseminating.

[Sam Bertram]

Yeah, yeah. So I was. That was me at 23 being told, we think you have ALS because they'd gone through its process of deduction until you get there, which is, we think you have als.

[Podcast Host]

Okay, but what. Can you just, before you move on, describe what you're talking about when you said my legs just stopped moving?

[Sam Bertram]

I would play tennis for 15 minutes and then all the large muscle groups in my legs would start to cramp, become tonic. Okay, you're exactly right. I would have exercise. Severe exercise intolerance. What my point is, I don't have als, by the way. Cha Ching. I did not exercise at all for about eight years. At all. I didn't walk upstairs, I couldn't. I didn't go for runs, I didn't play tennis, I didn't do push ups, I didn't lift weights, I didn't do a bloody thing. You know what I did?

[Podcast Host]

I ate well, actually, you told me you're a vegan.

[Sam Bertram]

Mostly.

[Podcast Host]

Well, maybe I had something to do with it.

[Sam Bertram]

Very, very well.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Sam Bertram]

What happened to my body? Nothing. People talk about the imperative of exercise. It is an imperative. It's very important. Exercise for sure. Resistance training, aerobic, all that stuff. Sleep as well. I was a healthy human being. All of my metrics, through and through, because I ate well. I didn't eat crap.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[Sam Bertram]

That's my argument to this whole sphere of health, is that all of these other things are important. I wouldn't necessarily say just optimizations are important, but if you're not fueling your engine with the right stuff and you're feeding 57 octane into an engine that needs 87, I can tell you what's going to happen to you. You know what I mean? That was my experience, was I maintained a very, very healthy life with a lot of stress. Going through a divorce without exercising, by eating well. And I think it's just, it is often the fundamental role good eating has on your health.

[Podcast Host]

What's the punchline? Why? Why were your legs stopping?

[Sam Bertram]

We still don't know. In fact, six months ago, my legs started working when I got a. When I got a million dollar contract, million dollar revenue, my legs started working. Well, can I read between the lines. Or no.

[Podcast Host]

I mean, if someone gave me a million dollars, I'm sure my legs would work a bit faster too.

[Sam Bertram]

Million revenue, though, bro. Let's go.

[Podcast Host]

I'll just take the million dollar check. All right. I want to talk about medicines.

[Sam Bertram]

Do it.

[Podcast Host]

This is gonna be the funnest part.

[Sam Bertram]

Do it.

[Podcast Host]

Right. So you're describing plants that are also medicines. Food designed down to a person's blood work. If this works, a handful of companies could control how the world is fed and dosed to. Who regulates this?

[Sam Bertram]

Not the government, because the government is the enemy.

[Podcast Host]

Who?

[Sam Bertram]

No, the government is meant to be the referee. Let the referee do its job in the most minimal case. I think the biggest issue we have today, like we touched on before, is lack of education. The whole point of the United States was freedom to choose. I want the freedom to choose poorly or choose well. I think it is up to the individual to have the freedom to choose poorly or choose well. The government should protect us against vindictive maliciousness, certainly to some degree, but I think ultimately it's up to us. There are free market failures, and that's where I would want the government to play in as minimal a role as possible. We won't know in many cases what goes wrong for a long time because as a human body, it has to be longitudinal, all these kinds of things. But in the case of closing the loop of food that you eat based upon what your body tells us you need, it's unlikely that there's toxicity or any kind of acuteness that causes short term issues. And long term, if you're eating your daily recommended intake of kale and strawberries, again, I don't think it's going to have some massive negative impact. So that's, that's relatively safe. Closing the loop on human nutrition, I think is safe to vary. Safe. Where do you push back? Where's the regulation scare on the food side? Is the food side your regulation scare or is the pharmaceutical side you regulate? Regulation scare.

[Podcast Host]

I want to know who's actually regulating what you put in these plants.

[Sam Bertram]

Fda, usda.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[Sam Bertram]

Organic certification. I mean, it took us six months to get into Whole Foods. They looked at all of our SOP logs. What are you putting into these plants? Where are you buying it from? Does it have a certification? How much can we trust what goes in, what comes out? What do the plants look like when they come out? Do they have salmonella? We test for that every week. Every Monday we're testing for all of these things.

[Podcast Host]

And who's checking on that.

[Sam Bertram]

Whole foods checks on it periodically. Our organic certifier checks on it periodically. Safe quality food sqf checks on it periodically. Then we have annual audits that are obviously much more in depth. There are lots of people looking at what we're doing to make sure we're not cutting corners or, you know, putting out crap food or food that could harm people.

[Sponsor/Advertiser]

So I've become more intentional about hydration over the last few years because I realized that drinking more water isn't the same thing as actually being hydrated. This is why I've started using cure hydration. It's electrolytes. And electrolytes help your body absorb and use the water that you're already drinking. And cure is built on the same science used in IV hydration, but without all the added sugar that you'll find in a lot of sports drinks. I usually have a packet first thing in the morning or after training. And it's become one of those habits that I don't really think about anymore because it's so easy. It's plant based, it tastes great. My favorite flavor is watermelon and I literally take it everywhere. It's especially good on long haul flights. I'm on a plane every two to three weeks. So this has become part of my routine. Staying hydrated isn't just about drinking water. It's about your body actually using it. So if you want to use this one Specifically, go to cure hydration.com and use code neuro and you will get 20% off. Or you can just find it on Amazon.

[Podcast Host]

Can we pick a disease state that you're interested in solving?

[Sam Bertram]

Heart disease?

[Podcast Host]

Okay, great. Let's, let's talk about it.

[Sam Bertram]

600,000 people a year.

[Podcast Host]

Yep.

[Sam Bertram]

Eat what your body is recommended to eat. Don't eat processed foods. Don't eat sugars.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[Sam Bertram]

Just because it's simple doesn't mean it's easy. And I'm not trying to like speak down to anyone. I think the answer. I generally believe this and I hope you chop down my tree with your sharpest axe. The answer is so simple. This issue didn't exist 150 years ago. This issue doesn't exist in many locations where the western diet is not a standard. This is a problem of diet. Yes, it's a problem of being sedentary. Yes. It's a problem of blah, blah, blah. It is mainly a problem of food.

[Podcast Host]

I have to push back because I don't think you're saying anything miraculous here.

[Sam Bertram]

I'm not trying to say anything miraculous. Miraculous.

[Podcast Host]

So but we're speaking about you making

[Sam Bertram]

medicinal how is the question.

[Podcast Host]

Well, yeah, I'm asking like, how is your farm going to make medicinal medications?

[Sam Bertram]

Understood, Understood.

[Podcast Host]

Plant medications.

[Sam Bertram]

Are you saying pharmaceuticals or no?

[Podcast Host]

Yes. Because that's what your hope is.

[Sam Bertram]

Okay.

[Podcast Host]

To eventually eradicate disease. You started off by saying that you want to fix the problem in the world when it comes to malnutrition.

[Sam Bertram]

Yes.

[Podcast Host]

And world hunger, if you will. But now you've moved into an aspect where you're saying, and then we want to move on to plant medicine.

[Sam Bertram]

We use a plant, the internal mechanics of the plant, and we can train those internal mechanics of the plant to produce more or less any molecule that we want. Those molecules can be extremely powerful. They are pharmaceutical grade molecules, monoclonal antibodies, virus like particles, blah, blah, blah, enzymes. The breadth, the sheer number of molecules that we can produce inside of these plants is immense. Some of them have been in the market for 50 years. Some of them have been in the market for 20. Some have just come to market. A vast majority of them are being researched about their efficacy. So what I am, I'm on the manufacturing side. I'm looking at the pharmaceutical industry to understand what the effect of these molecules are. I can go back to drug A that's been going for 40 years and say safe and effective. I will manufacture that at such a low cost that anyone in the world who needs it can get it because we do it far cheaper this way. The way it's currently done is, is inside of mammalian cells, animal cells, not plant cells. There are reasons why it became that, that case. But using plants, using these kinds of systems, you can manufacture today's safe and effective, effective drugs and spread them worldwide at costs that make sense.

[Podcast Host]

So let's talk. You said monoclonal antibodies. Right. An example of this is lecanemab, which is the intravenous drug that you would administer to a patient who has Alzheimer's disease. You'd administer it over probably over a year, maybe four to five times. This is an extremely expensive drug and it can have life threatening effects.

[Sam Bertram]

Absolutely.

[Podcast Host]

This drug has been shown to. Yes, it can clear around 4 grams. Right. Of, of amyloid beta from the brain. But taking with it, within that 4 to 5 grams is also brain tissue and increase in microhemorrhages and sometimes death.

[Sam Bertram]

Yep.

[Podcast Host]

So you're saying that a monoclonal antibody like this drug that people are paying 30 to $40,000 per visit, you can

[Sam Bertram]

actually replicate through plants, specifically that drug? Yes. A monoclonal antibody, Rituximab, a Non Hodgkin's lymphoba drug. We've grown that in partnership with UC Davis, inside of plants, inside of our system to a very high efficacy that could then have been distilled down into a drug that could be administered to a patient. So the process is well known. What I'm not claiming is knowing all the monoclonal antibodies and their outcomes, like I said before, I think there is, let's say 30 to 40 years of good data on a lot of monoclonal antibodies. Some of them precipitated out because they weren't safe. Over a 20, 30, 40 year period, many of them proved safe and effective. They're out of patent. The pharmaceutical industry doesn't want to produce them anymore because they can't make much money out of them. They're off patent, they can't protect it. Someone else down the road can go and replicate the process and produce that molecule. They're onto the next set of molecules which cost huge money to develop, not having a stab at them there and the nih, and they're trying to figure out what's the next wave of pharmaceutical products, monoclonal antibodies, virus like particles that we can research, bring to market. Phase 1, 2, 3 trials. Is it safe and effective? Let's take it to market. And then there's a 20 year period where either they continue that on and do continuation patents, or they just drop it and move on to the next one as well. And then here I am at the tail saying, all right, I got proof now and I don't need a 80% profit margin. I'm happy with 30. I can produce all these monoclonal antibodies, the ones that are safe and effective, and distribute them to the people that need them around the world.

[Podcast Host]

But who is going to approve that for you?

[Sam Bertram]

It doesn't need to be approved because I can produce it without infringing on the intellectual property. I am still under the purview of the FDA as a manufacturer of molecules. I'm still under the purview of many governing bodies. They come through and they make sure. Are you doing to the t, are you doing all of these processes to make sure that the product coming out of this facility is safe and effective? So it's not, it's not as if I am unregulated, far from it. I would face exactly the same regulations of safety in the manufacturing process than the mammalian cell biopharmaceutical process would fake. And it's not as if I'm saying no one should regulate the process of producing these plants, it's extremely complicated, cause huge damage. Someone needs to set the standards and enforce them. I'm not against that whatsoever. Does it need to be the government? I don't think so. Someone must do it. I don't think it needs to be the government. What I was thinking was, going forward, when these drugs have been proven safe and effective and I'm producing them out of a, out of a manufacturing line, I don't need 55 different middlemen to be able to sell this product. It is safe and effective. I need a doctor to prescribe it and then it can come from me.

[Podcast Host]

And how far away do you think we are?

[Sam Bertram]

I think it's going to happen in the Middle east first because the US is too slow. I hope that RFKJ and the Maha movement pick up on this. There are two things I think that they should do to accelerate positive health outcomes. It's the manufacturing of molecules in plants, and that's a manufacturing of plants that people eat. If you want to increase your health, improve your health outcomes, do those two things very, very fast. Because I take that exact system. I grow different plants and have a few different pre and post processes, and I'm growing a molecule that's $20,000 a gram as opposed to $7 a pound.

[Podcast Host]

I wonder how the geneticists would feel about this, because you're talking about epigenetic change right now. You're not really talking about genes that are involved in various disease states. So you can't really say that to an extent that just eat well, eat your micronutrients and diseases just don't come.

[Sam Bertram]

You will always have that 5 to 10% aberration. I'm talking about the 80 to 90% of people that have genetics that are, however you want to put it, stable. 80% of people, if they sleep well, if they eat well and sleep and exercise, the body knows how to handle all of these different ailments. I forget what the fact was, but everyone gets cancer five times a day. Cancer is constantly popping up inside of your system. Your body knows how to take care of it. Now, if you don't feed your body and those mechanisms of taking care, it start to break down over time, then it starts to metastasize for sure. I agree. And as you get older, your ability to fight that is mitigated limits. But for the majority of the healthy population, it is. It is so abundantly clear that if you stopped eating shit food and you started eating real food, your weight would drop. All of these other factors in your Life, Your biomarkers would improve significantly for the majority of the population. Yes. There's outliers and aberrations. I'm focused on the 270 million Americans that are overweight and obese when they don't have to be.

[Podcast Host]

Do you think that most of the food that most people are consuming is just dead?

[Sam Bertram]

Dead would mean that it was living in the first place. It was never living.

[Podcast Host]

So what am I eating when I go to my local food store? Let's not talk about Whole Foods, then. Let's talk about another food chat. I don't know. Trader Joe's. What else is there available? It's less.

[Sam Bertram]

It's less about the chain. It's more about you shopping around the perimeter where you have actual live food.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, but it was just. I get. I get my. I get my lettuce head. Yeah, right. Am I eating the nutrients within the lettuce? Is it still there?

[Sam Bertram]

You are eating nutrients in the lettuce. They have degraded and for many crops over time, over the last 50 years, the way that we grow them has degraded the nutrient profile. For some, the nutrient profile has improved, but again, that's. That is not specifically that. If you eat two days unprocessed meat, vegetables, fruits, clean them, fine. If you eat those products, nuts, you're not going to have the majority of these metabolic issues.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Sam Bertram]

It just seems that straightforward. The question is, how the hell do you actually solve it? And I think the way that you solve it is by making plants taste way better. You're going to taste it in a minute.

[Podcast Host]

I'm excited.

[Sam Bertram]

Everyone hates kale until they eat it out of our clamshell. I swear to you, I'm not a foodie. They tell me strawberries the same. Like, put a straw for really high quality strawberry next to a chocolate bar for a kid. At least my daughter picks up the strawberry. It's a better product. We can beat them at their own game. That's what I want to do. I want to beat them at their own game. I want to beat them at the taste game so that rather than going to friggin, I don't know, Doritos or some crap, you're going to eat something fresh in your fridge that is a similar price. We can talk about prices in a minute. Good Lord.

[Podcast Host]

But. Well, you can talk to me about prices because then I have one closing question for you.

[Sam Bertram]

After that, it's more of a why are the prices so high?

[Podcast Host]

Well, why are they so high? I feel like I go to Whole Foods to be completely Honest, I spend about $400 and I come home with just a few items.

[Sam Bertram]

Government is the enemy. Love the United States to death. I love this country. The United States government is a real problem. The supply of money going around the economy, the M2 money supply has gone from 4 trillion to 24 trillion in the last 20 years. The value of your dollar over the last 50 years has gone down 75 to 80%. Think about that. Even over the money printing over the last couple of years, the way that it has destroyed the purchasing power of the middle class I think is probably the number one most damaging thing over the last five to ten years has been money printing, destroying the middle class and destroying the value of the United States dollar. So now if you're trying to go and buy good food, you're paying 17 bucks for a sandwich. Who the hell can afford a $17 sandwich?

[Podcast Host]

I bought a smoothie the other day for $20 in LA.

[Sam Bertram]

In what world? Yeah, you know what I mean. 60% of America is going to fall on a $600 emergency expenses. Why is that the case? We don't need to go down the path. Let's have the. It's not even political. Who cares? Red, blue, purple, I couldn't give a shit. Yeah, the problem is money printing.

[Podcast Host]

Closing question, Sam. Is there a world where people are no longer hungry and food is medicine and we give a billion acres back to nature and if so, how far away are we really?

[Sam Bertram]

Those will happen at different rates. They're all achievable. You know, think about would we live in a world where everyone can talk to anyone at any time? 70% of people have cell phones today. Incredible. What was that took 30, 40 years. Incredible. Same thing will happen with food. I see food as infrastructure, I see farms as infrastructure and investing in cities, this kind of infrastructure in cities to ensure that everyone has access at all times. I think it's absolutely possible. It's why, it's why we exist. Right. I think we're going to affect the west much differently than we're going to affect the developing nations. I think we're going to have a much greater impact on micronutrient shelf stable powders and the molecules that I mentioned before, the off patent molecules that would still help them but no one's manufacturing because they can't make money in the West. It is going to be making sure that every human walking around the street has the opportunity to live an optimal nutritional life. You will be given that opportunity. I think that's probably 10, 10 years away.

[Podcast Host]

Let's Go make that salad.

[Sam Bertram]

Amen.

[Podcast Host]

What am I about to eat?

[Sam Bertram]

Where do you want to begin? Do you want to begin with the avocado toast? Absolute aficionado.

[Podcast Host]

This looks absolutely beautiful, actually. This is organic intensity mix.

[Sam Bertram]

Microgreens, carrot, dill, amaranth, broccoli, radish, kale, and then probably two that I forgot.

[Sponsor/Advertiser]

Oh, my God.

[Podcast Host]

This is insane. I just want to point out he hasn't given me a fork. I don't eat with my fingers, but I will for today.

[Sam Bertram]

Thank you. Thank you for doing that for me.

[Podcast Host]

You're gonna have some, too. So I'm not just putting these in my mouth.

[Sam Bertram]

I think you should do it on your own. And then none of us will tell you when you have green on your teeth. You're gonna say it tastes like crap now, don't you?

[Podcast Host]

No, it tastes beautiful.

[Sam Bertram]

It's unbelievable.

[Podcast Host]

I'm not. I'm not just saying that. I'm not just saying that.

[Sam Bertram]

I hope not.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, my God. There's so much flavor in that.

[Sam Bertram]

So every crop. Every crop has a distinct flavor. Whenever you go and buy stuff off the store, that's my biggest gripe is that it just tastes like cold water. So this is a baby bok choy. There's the label. USDA organic certified. That was a headache. But we got there in the end. We can talk about organic. You are.

[Podcast Host]

If I picked this up at Whole Foods, how much would this cost me?

[Sam Bertram]

$4.49.

[Podcast Host]

You're joking.

[Sam Bertram]

I'm not joking.

[Podcast Host]

I think my micro greens, which I get, like, probably just a few hundred. Yeah, I think I'm paying about like $8 or something.

[Sam Bertram]

There you go.

[Sponsor/Advertiser]

Home girl.

[Podcast Host]

Okay, what am I eating now? Bok choy.

[Sam Bertram]

Baby bok choy. You have to sing it. And gents, you're getting it all later. Don't worry. Don't worry. This feels like banger.

[Podcast Host]

Yes. Yeah.

[Sam Bertram]

Watery, crispy. We love it. Spring crispy.

[Sponsor/Advertiser]

It is watery.

[Sam Bertram]

You can wait, honey. Oh, here we go. This is Mizuna. This is the protein rich one. I forget how many grams per hour.

[Podcast Host]

Can you see the label?

[Sam Bertram]

Yes, ma'. Am.

[Podcast Host]

It looks like rocket Mizuna. What is baby Mizuna?

[Sam Bertram]

It's basically like. It's very similar to an arugula. But we had the choice to go between the super spicy one and the non spicy one. And I think America likes non spicy right now.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, no. I like spicy, peppery one.

[Sam Bertram]

Oh, no.

[Podcast Host]

But that's okay.

[Sam Bertram]

But this is local. This is the protein rich one. This is the. It's basically. We would recommend it as a lettuce replacement. Lettuce is relatively.

[Podcast Host]

It looks exactly like arugula.

[Sam Bertram]

It does.

[Podcast Host]

These are being washed.

[Sam Bertram]

No, they're not. They've just been cold.

[Podcast Host]

You don't need to wash them. No, ma'.

[Sam Bertram]

Am. You wouldn't want them. The peace.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. That with balsamic glaze, Greek olive oil, salt, pepper is perfect. And some tomatoes is perfect.

[Sam Bertram]

I don't hear a single thing that you said, but is perfect is where I wanted you to end.

[Podcast Host]

Exactly.

[Sam Bertram]

All right. Baby kale.

[Podcast Host]

Okay, this is.

[Sam Bertram]

Drumroll, please.

[Podcast Host]

This is the thing.

[Sam Bertram]

Everyone hates kale.

[Podcast Host]

No, I actually taste kale.

[Sam Bertram]

This tastes like.

[Podcast Host]

I don't usually eat baby kale, though.

[Sam Bertram]

Yeah, just you wait. I mean, just you wait. We had a billionaire sitting in that seat. He said, I've hated kale for every second of my 62 year old.

[Podcast Host]

It doesn't taste like kale.

[Sam Bertram]

Tastes like kale.

[Podcast Host]

It does not taste like kale.

[Sam Bertram]

It almost has a sweet aftertaste. We do zero marketing. This is the first time we've ever done, like, product marketing.

[Podcast Host]

This is insane. Okay.

[Sam Bertram]

Doesn't it feel natural?

[Podcast Host]

No, actually. Well, it is. Even a can of tuna on top.

[Sam Bertram]

This is a mixture of all of them. You see the beet green Taste the beet green.

[Podcast Host]

The red one, I want that because it's anti cancer, right?

[Sam Bertram]

Anti cancer.

[Podcast Host]

I mean, how much do I have to eat of this to actually get the micronutrients?

[Sam Bertram]

Just two leaves. You'll live to 250. I'm good at this. It tastes earthy. And it was like, where the heck does the earth come from?

[Podcast Host]

You know what? None of it tastes like crap. No. None of it tastes like dirt.

[Sam Bertram]

Right?

[Podcast Host]

No, that's. So that's such an interesting distinction because if you do eat a lot of these, you know, herbs that you buy.

[Sam Bertram]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

You have to wash it so many times to get that dirt taste off.

[Sam Bertram]

You do. You do not. Here. Clean as a whistle. Now that frilly one on the end is the spicy one. That's a mustard green.

[Podcast Host]

This is my favorite. Then. Yeah, I'm specifically not eating with this hand because that means taking everyone's hand with this hand.

[Sam Bertram]

That's your mix.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, yes.

[Sponsor/Advertiser]

Spice.

[Podcast Host]

Yes.

[Sam Bertram]

So these are these. All these four are at Whole Foods in Arizona. We're about to expand that. We're about to expand the crop list. We're about to expand the geography. Then these guys go through Shamrock Foods to all the best restaurants in Arizona. Also about to expand that too.

[Podcast Host]

Sam, this was beautiful.

[Sam Bertram]

I didn't do it. This was Carl. This was Carl on the team. I just handed it to you.

[Podcast Host]

Where are the strawberries?

[Sam Bertram]

Talk some trash. They're in a deep, deep, dark room. You'll be long a global ambassador before you see those.

[Podcast Host]

This was beautiful.