Laura Katz Transcript
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Hi everyone, you're listening to The Future Of Food Is You, a production of The Cherry Bombe Podcast Network. I'm your host, Abena Anim-Somuah, and each week I talk to emerging talents in the food world, and they share what they're up to, as well as their dreams and predictions for what's ahead. I love this new generation of chefs, bakers, and creatives making their way in the world of food, drink, media, and tech. Happy 2024, I'm so excited to be back for another year of inspiring chats.
Today's guest is Laura Katz. Laura is the founder and CEO of Helaina, a New York City-based biotech company, advancing nutrition with bioactive ingredients. We talk about how her love of cooking sparked interest in food science, and the podcast episode that planted the seed for building her company.
Thank you to Kerrygold for supporting The Future Of Food Is You. Kerrygold is the iconic Irish brand, famous for its beautiful cheese, made with milk from Irish grass-fed cows. It's winter here in New York, and lots of other places, as you know, and I love to brighten the season with my favorite Kerrygold cheeses. Kerrygold's Cashel Blue Farmhouse Cheese has become a staple in my salads. The creamy delicious texture has that distinct blue cheese bite, and is the star of my kale and walnut salads. Soup season is also in full swing, Kerrygold has some great recipes on their site, and one I have in frequent rotation is roasted broccoli soup with Kerrygold Dubliner with Irish Stout Cheese. The sweet and nutty flavor and caramel notes take it to the next level. And then the sandwich of the season, of course, is grilled cheese. Upgrade yours with a Kerrygold Reserve Cheddar, which is sharp, strong, rich, and smooth. For us snackers out there, a personal cheese plate always hits the spot. Kerrygold Skellig, a rich and tangy sweet cheese, pairs perfectly with tart apple slices, your favorite crackers, or a pickle or two. Look for Kerrygold cheese at your favorite supermarket, specialty grocery store, or cheese shop. Visit KerrygoldUSA.com for recipes, product information, and a store locator.
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Now, let's check in with today's guest. Laura, thank you so much for joining us on The Future Food Is You podcast.
Laura Katz:
Thanks, Abena.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Can you tell us where you grew up and how did food show up in your life?
Laura Katz:
I grew up in Toronto, Canada, and food played a really big role in my life as a child, in a lot of different ways. So, I would say, from the start, I have immigrant grandparents from Turkey, we ate a lot of Turkish food as a kid, and it was always very special because my grandmother cooked everything from scratch. That we got to eat this food that was not the traditional American fare, that was really an impactful part of how I interacted with food. And then, separately, my mom, when I was a child, was diagnosed with type one diabetes. That completely transformed the way that my family ate. And I had a really clear understanding from a young age that food really impacted health, and food can impact your immune system, and the types of food that you eat will change how you feel. And I saw it in real time with my mom.
And so, while every single person in my family, we all love to cook, and we love to eat, and we don't just eat healthy food, we eat everything, we were able to figure out how to balance that with balancing how we changed our diet as a family for my mom's diagnosis, and that was always really at the front of our mind. So, food was everything. And then, probably when I was eight or nine years old, I started cooking. I would make pancakes for my family, I would make mashed potatoes... I think that's a really simple one for a kid to make. I got every cooking magazine as a kid. I was really into Bon Appetit, Gourmet Magazine, which doesn't exist anymore, but I got that subscription. Martha Stewart Living, Saveur... Everything I could get my hands on. Would read them cover to cover every month, watch the Food Network. So, I just really quickly jumped into loving to cook when I was, I don't know, 10 or 11 years old.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Yeah. Ontario has such great produce, great summer produce, great squashes, that sort of thing. So, I'm sure you got to experience a lot of healthy eating too, especially having a parent who's diabetic, and trying to make food hearty and healthy.
Laura Katz:
Exactly. Yeah, good produce, I will say much better than New York City produce.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Well, speaking of New York, you ended up coming to New York after going to Western University, and you come here to get your master's in food science. When you first came to New York, what were some of the classes you were taking, and how do you think it helped shape your perspective on food and its global impact?
Laura Katz:
When I did my undergraduate degree, it was really technical. Science, chemistry, biology... Focused on food, it was a food science degree. But I realized, I had taken one class in food history in my undergrad, and I realized at that moment that there was more to food than just the science of how it's composed. And so, I came to NYU to understand what that means, and I took several classes that really impacted me. I would say my class with Marion Nestle, who is, really... It was incredible to be able to take a class with her. And to learn about food policy, and how that impacts what we eat, what we don't eat, who gets access to what food. So, that really shaped my perspective. And then, I took some classes around food culture, which I think when you're a scientist you're not always thinking about culture, and that is such an important element to why and how we eat food. So, it expanded my thinking of food, which was really profound because I've been thinking about it every day for basically my whole life.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
After one of your classes, you listened to this podcast, and that inspires the beginning of Helaina. Can you tell us a little bit about that episode and how it began to shape your experience?
Laura Katz:
Absolutely. I was on the subway actually, from NYU, going to my brother who lived in Park Slope at the time.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Quite a trek.
Laura Katz:
Quite a trek. I was listening to a podcast about the black market for breast milk, and how people go on the internet to buy breast milk from strangers. And it's not parents exclusively, you think maybe it's parents who can't breastfeed. It's athletes, it's cancer patients, it's all of these very different people who are looking for this food product that they can't get. And when you think about our food supply that is so plentiful and diverse, the fact that there's this black market was really surprising to me.
And when I was listening to the podcast, and I knew a little bit about milk chemistry from my background, it was very clear to me that the proteins in breast milk, that helped provide some of the most valuable attributes of milk, is what people are looking for for their immune health, for their muscle growth, for their cognition, and I thought, well, we're replicating so many things using science to bring it to food, we have alternative meat, we have alternative milk, why aren't we making this if it could be helping so many people with their health? And that was where the idea for Helaina got started.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Helaina is primarily focused on making human lactoferrin, and it's made from a process known as precision fermentation. So first, can you tell us what is human lactoferrin, and then why is precision fermentation the way to make human lactoferrin?
Laura Katz:
Human lactoferrin is one of the main proteins of breast milk. It's one of the main proteins of colostrum, which is the first milk that the body-
Abena Anim-Somuah:
The yellow stuff.
Laura Katz:
The yellow stuff, that now you can buy cow's colostrum on the market. People take it as a dietary supplement. And it's also in our blood. It's all over our body. It's a really important immune protein. And when we looked at breast milk, we thought where can we start? The research on lactoferrin is really robust in terms of how it impacts our health, and it's one of the key proteins that a lot of people seek out to feed babies, adults, all over, because of its ability to bind iron and transport iron in our body. The ferrin part of lactoferrin is indicating that it helps to bind iron. And that's really important for women, for example, who have low iron status, which is very common, and an iron supplement, as many listeners probably know, you take it, it gives you a stomach ache, your body's absorbing like 20% of the iron, and you add lactoferrin, and you can improve your iron absorption.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Wow.
Laura Katz:
It helps to... Significantly. It's really interesting. It helps to reduce inflammation in the body. So, bodybuilders, athletes, that exercise, and your muscles get inflamed, can take lactoferrin to help to dampen that. And it actually can help to advance cognition as well. So, this protein does a lot of important things, and in babies it helps to build the immune system for the very first time. It's one of the key components of breast milk, that helps our body learn how to fight infections. So, for us, it was a really important place to start with lactoferrin. And this is a human protein, it's a protein that a lot of people want access to. And so, we think about how do we make this? What technologies do we have available?
So, we looked to the pharmaceutical industry. So, if we think about other human proteins that have been made, human insulin is one. That, for decades, insulin was taken out of the pancreas of pigs, then the scientific world was like, well, we can actually make this stuff. And instead of taking it from pigs, we can teach little microbes how to become cell factories. So, we're taking microbes, like bacteria or yeast, and fermenting them. In this process, they start to produce this protein of interest. And this technology has been very successful in the pharmaceutical industry, and in food. So, it seems like a very novel technology, that we're taking yeast, we're training the yeast to make a protein, and then we ferment it so it makes the protein. But we've been doing this for enzymes in food. So, rennet, which is added to cheese to make cheese is made through fermentation.
You can take it from an animal, but it's also made through fermentation. So, it's not necessarily new, but it seems new to a lot of us who are not necessarily investigating how a lot of things are made, and it's a really great technology for us because using yeast is scalable. We use yeast to make bread and beer, and we know how to work with it. It's natural, it allows us to really tap into nature, to make something natural like human lactoferrin, and it allows us to make this protein at a cost that is really accessible, which for us is very important.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Obviously before any of your products make it onto the shelves, they have to go through a very robust clinical trial process. What is the process of clinical trials and experimentation look like for you right now?
Laura Katz:
So, when we started Helaina, we looked at, okay, what are the most valuable proteins? We looked into the scientific literature to see what's been studied, what is known, and where can we fill in the gaps. And that was how we landed on lactoferrin, and built this platform to replicate lactoferrin. So, it's the same structure, and it has the same benefits and function as what's found in the human body, but we have replicated it. And from there we scale the production and we now manufacture the product. There are no hard and fast rules for how these products need to be tested from a regulatory perspective. But we have applied a very high standard for safety and functionality through the testing that we've done. So, we work across various different types of tests, we test using human cells, so we replicate what would happen in the human body.
We take human cells, we put them in a little Petri dish, we put our protein in, and we look at things like, how does this reduce inflammation? Is this antimicrobial? You can throw E. Coli, or different microbes in, and see, is our protein helping to be antimicrobial and get rid of that microbe? So, that's one type of technique. We also did a clinical study. This is not a regulatory requirement for anything for adult nutrition, it is for infant nutrition. But we started with a clinical study in healthy adults, which we just finished, which we're excited about.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Congratulations.
Laura Katz:
It was a big milestone for us as a company, and a small business, to run a clinical study. But we gave our lactoferrin to adults ages 18 to 45, they ate it every single day, and we actually made a little drink mix, so think about a Crystal Light that you pour into water, we did that with our lactoferrin, and flavors, and things like that.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Oh, very cool.
Laura Katz:
Which was fun. We've got a whole food science lab, where we figure out, how do we take lactoferrin and add it into food. And participants take the lactoferrin drink mix for four weeks, and we're measuring their immune function, we're looking at stool samples, because this can have an impact on the microbiome. So, we're really taking the idea of food and nutrition, food as medicine, I would say is a general theme, and instead of just marketing a product, we really want to know that there's clinical science behind this, because we want to change health, and you can't do that without doing this level of research.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Wow, that's so fun. Congratulations. Yeah, I know clinical trials are really expensive, and it takes a lot of finding the right people. I've just been watching that show that actually Professor Marion Nestle is on, on Netflix, that, You Are What You Eat, which is the twin experiment. And it's so fascinating watching how different people react, you have factors that are beyond your control.
Laura Katz:
We had, very unfortunately, somebody who participated in this study who had to drop out because they were in a car accident, and you can't control for that. And there's ways to design the study so that you have statistically significant data with the right population. So, if something happens and people drop out, it's still going to be credible. But this is people, and this is their diet, and we're feeding them something. And so, there is only so much you can control for, in that environment, but I think that the study is going to be really important for us as we start to bring this protein to market, and we can actually talk to people about how it functions. We know from the literature how it functions, and we want to confirm that ours is doing the same thing.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
So, you mentioned the drink mix obviously being a product. When you think about go-to-market, what are products, based on your love of food, in its healthy whole natural state, how are you hoping to see Helaina show up in different products in food?
Laura Katz:
This protein is kind of similar to how a nutrient like a vitamin C would be added to food. It's a very small quantity, so it's low volume, high impact is how we think about it. So, it can be incorporated into a lot of different types of food products. We're currently establishing partnerships with focus on women's health, on sports nutrition, and healthy aging, and products around those categories, like drink mixes, beverages are a really straightforward application. We've made gummies, we've made bars, we've made all kinds of things in our lab. So, the application of the protein can be wherever you see a probiotic. That's how we see this is, to be able to make this accessible, it needs to be able to get incorporated into all sorts of food products.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Is there a particular brand right now you're excited about, that you could call and be like, hey, have you ever thought of putting some lactoferrin in your product?
Laura Katz:
There's a lot of brands that I think are very interesting. We have several partnerships, I can't announce here yet. Hopefully soon we can talk about them publicly, that we're looking to establish. My personal passion is actually smaller brands that have really strong following, that people are using every single day. That they trust. That hopefully also have scientific backing in terms of the product and what it offers. So, working with brands like that, that are really making a difference in people's lives, and that aren't just marketing to market a product.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Yeah. I read something that 2024 is the year of the brand, we're going to really want to find the brands that we believe in, that we trust in, it's not just a flex, but having a story and a mission behind them. So, yeah.
Laura Katz:
Brands are so powerful. And when I started Helaina, my vision was, well, this is going to be our own brand on a shelf, I could see it. And maybe one day we will, but there's a lot of value in realizing our vision, which is, let's bring bioactive human proteins, lactoferrin is one of them, we have a whole pipeline of what we want to do, let's bring this to every baby and adult in the world. Because we know the health impact, and if we can do that and make people healthier, then we can be doing a lot of good with food. And so, sure, we could go make our own brand, but if we could get this into a lot of products by partnering with several brands, that mission starts to become more of a reality.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
I think sometimes it's interesting the way science and food, they have this very complicated relationship, especially with media, and we've had arcs of products that were once bad actually being good for you because they're rooted in some sort of unfounded hate, so to speak. And I feel like, especially with lab-grown, and people sort of hearing those terms, there tends to be a bit of skepticism, I'm really curious how you and your team, as you're developing and working on products, how are you thinking about ways to educate consumers and producers on the benefits of something like Helaina, or the products that you make at Helaina?
Laura Katz:
Right now, because we make a micronutrient, it's used in very small quantities, the mode of production is not always a big question, because a lot of our vitamins are made through fermentation. So, it's actually a very common technology when we're making micronutrients, because you can't just pull them out of the air. I think as we partner with companies, with brands, the question about the production mechanism is not really something that we get a lot of questions about, but when we start to talk to the consumer, I think that there's going to be more of an educational process around fermentation and why this is the best way to make this protein. And quite frankly, we're still figuring out how to talk to people about it.
It is really important to the consumer right now, and I believe it's really a good thing that people are asking questions about how their foods are being made. And people understand yeast. It's just going to be an education on, well, we're telling the yeast what to do. And we're telling the yeast how to make this protein. And actually, it's really similar to how beer is made. And so, as we can start to tell a little bit of a story, I think that's going to be valuable to the consumer. We're not quite there yet, but as we get there, there will be a lot of learning to do, and a lot of education.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back. The Future Of Food Is You is part of The Cherry Bombe Podcast Network, but Cherry Bombe is way more than podcasts, Cherry Bombe also has a quarterly print magazine, that's all about spotlining women in food. This magazine is thick, printed on lush paper and filled with great photos, recipes, profiles, and features. I have so many memories of flipping through my parents' magazines as a kid, and now, I love building my own collection of beautiful print magazines. Cherry Bombe's is one of my personal favorites. Subscribe at cherrybombe.com and get all four of this year's magazines delivered directly to your door. All subscribers, get free shipping. Visit cherrybombe.com for more, or click the link in our show notes. Happy reading.
I'm really curious to hear, you've raised over $35 million from funds like Spark Capital and Plum Ventures, when you thought about raising capital, what was your process, and what was it like explaining Helaina to investors, especially ones who didn't have a strong science background like yours?
Laura Katz:
I started fundraising not knowing anything about fundraising. I had come from working in the food industry, and I had worked at startups before, but I was never involved in that part of the startup. I was in the test kitchen, I was in the lab, I was the person working on the food. So, I read a few books, and I just started cold emailing people. Now, looking back, it seems a little bit crazy that anybody would've responded to me. Because I sent emails like, hey, this is my vision, can you talk to me? And I went on Crunchbase, which is a database online that has information about investors, and I looked up the top angel investors. And angel investors are individuals who invest, they're not necessarily venture funds, but they're typically high net worth individuals that have money to give to companies.
And most people did not respond to me. A couple of people did respond, and the first person to write a check was somebody, he's a New York based investor, named Scott Belsky, and he wrote me a $50,000 check. And I will never forget that moment. After that call I had with him, I was so surprised, I went over to a bakery in the Lower East Side, I was living there at the moment, and I bought myself a massive chocolate chip cookie, and I was like, this is-
Abena Anim-Somuah:
The best reward.
Laura Katz:
... this is a celebration. And from there, we raised a small pre-seed round of $600,000 from, I found another angel investor who ended up becoming a very close mentor of mine. I think I realized that I don't have any background in business, I don't know what I'm doing, I have this idea, I need to see this happen, I don't know who else is going to change people's lives in this way. This is going to be an incredibly difficult and expensive business, but I was very committed, and learned from there how to fundraise, how to talk to investors. A lot of mistakes made, and a lot of rejection, but over time I realized and learned how to tell the story of Helaina, what people cared about, what people didn't care about, and how to take a very complex scientific narrative and turn that into something relatable to people.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
What was a common theme that all your investors had when they were signing checks your way?
Laura Katz:
I think that they knew that I wasn't a founder that was trying to get into this business, do something quickly, exit, and move on. That this is something that I've dedicated my life to and I'm going to figure out how to get this done, and how to do it effectively. So, I think early days, good investors invest in the founder, and trust that the founder's going to make the right decisions, knowing that the company's going to pivot in a million directions. That's so common in startups. If you don't pivot, you're probably doing something wrong.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
So true.
Laura Katz:
And that you can be somebody who has strong opinions loosely held, and you can learn about the world and make the best decision to move your business in the right direction. Hopefully that's what the investors saw in me, and hopefully they continue to see that in me, and the growth that I've had as a founder. So, I think the idea behind Helaina was important to a lot of the investors. We had early days, our parents, so they understand the pain point, not necessarily the science, but that was the piece that they trusted me with, and that they just knew that I was not going to sleep until I figured out how to make this happen.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Yeah. I have a few friends who started healthcare companies, more of the software side, but there's been a really awesome intersection between healthcare and tech. I think considering how complicated the healthcare system is, and how a lot of it is rooted in services outside of the traditional model of going to the doctor or going to a specialist, so it's really cool to see that there are investors who are interested to hear this, or understand the future of healthcare and healthcare tech, but this is in a much more tangible way.
Laura Katz:
Well, and this is what we eat. And you mentioned that documentary about the twins, and food, I believe, is the most powerful tool you can have to manage your health. A lot of us aren't doing that effectively. And what's interesting about Helaina is we're a business at the intersection of food, which is my passion, and feeding people, which is really what I feel like my purpose is. But health, and technology, and people, and products. So, we combine a lot of really interesting areas of the world of tech and biology, for example. So, the model that we have for the business, even if you're not a scientist, I think is really clear to a lot of investors, and we've improved that and refined it over time, significantly. So, there's interest, for sure.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Yeah, that's really cool. And congratulations, I'm sure you'll probably raise more rounds of funding.
Laura Katz:
Yes.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Is there a particular investor or fund that you would love to have on the cap table?
Laura Katz:
Yes, and they know this, because I tell them this all the time. But, I would name her, because I just met with her in San Francisco a couple of days ago. There's an investor at a fund called Norwest, named Priti, who has been somebody I've built a relationship with since our seed round. So, three, almost four years ago. And I really enjoy spending time with investors that can understand our vision for the business, and help to ask the right questions and guide me there, while having a really firm POV. And she's been a really good guidance for myself, even not as an investor, just somebody who I really enjoy talking to. And so, I think that should she invest in the company, and become really intimately involved, that she could help us realize what we want to do and be a good sounding board. So, hopefully, one day in the future.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
I want to talk a little bit about your life before Helaina. You helped develop products for one famous candy company here in New York, Dylan's Candy Bar, and for Nuggs, which makes plant-based meat-alternative products. How did you get those jobs, developing food products, as a scientist?
Laura Katz:
I actually have done a lot more products than that, that's just what's on my LinkedIn
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Just to name a few.
Laura Katz:
That's what I actually did, starting in college, my undergrad, was look for small businesses where I could sit there and watch them make their own products, because I always knew that I wanted to develop food products. So, there was one summer where I found an internship with a chocolate company that made raw chocolate. And I didn't do much, I went there and, I don't know, helped out a little bit, but I was just learning about the product development process. And I did that with a granola company. It was a woman who started making granola out of her house, and everybody loved it, and she figured out how to package it and sell it. So, I did that, I also interned for Joy Bauer from the Today Show, when I was a student at NYU, and she had her own line of products that I really... I would not really say I helped that much with.
I gave a little bit of assistance on the nutritional profile and some of the ingredients in the formulation, but started to dip my toes with all of these different types of products. And I think with these little pockets of experience, or experience by proxy, me just looking in and listening, I could talk to that, and apply to jobs. And in the interview process have something to say that sounded meaningful. I was definitely walking into those roles, learning a lot, and at the same time, I would do a lot of freelancing on the side. So, made an oat milk, which was really fun.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Very cool.
Laura Katz:
Made a flavored water, like carbonated beverage, which was really fun. Worked on a candy product outside of Dylan's Candy Bar. So, for me it was whatever I could get my hands on. Because the one thing I knew about making food products is that every category is different. So, if you know how to make a beverage, that's great, but that doesn't mean you know how to make a deep-fried and frozen alternative meat product. So, the more that I could do, the better, and you have to fake it until you make it, sell yourself a little bit. Even though I didn't have experience with frozen and fried products, with Nuggs, I was a food scientist, and passionate, and I myself don't eat meat, so I think that was appealing to the company.
And from the first day I started to, I was at that company for a short period, because I wanted to get started with Helaina. I developed the product, sourced the ingredients, found a manufacturing plant that did fried and frozen, which is not easy to find, went to the plant, did an audit of it, made the product there, packaged it... And this was in three months.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Wow.
Laura Katz:
So, it was very, very fast.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Wow. That's very startup culture.
Laura Katz:
Yeah. It was very startup culture. And these types of experiences have informed my approach to Helaina.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Yeah, if you understand the way things are formed in certain states, you can just apply those rules and then it just comes down to flavor combinations and profiles.
Laura Katz:
And making a lot of mistakes. You learn very quickly when you develop a product, great, I can have this amazing idea, and I have my grandmother's sauce recipe, and I'm going to bottle it and sell it. And then, you come up with this recipe and you realize, oh wait, but at a manufacturing facility, they can't sizzle this garlic on the stove for 30 seconds, they don't have the capacity to do that. So now, I know I have to design the product with a manufacturer in mind. And so, you learn these general rules. And I actually, from all these little bits and pieces of experience, I've had, started to write a book about how to develop a food product.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Wow.
Laura Katz:
Because I think that there's so many people out there, whether it's your grandmother's sauce recipe that you want to jar, to, I have diabetes and I can't have sugar, so I want to make beverages for people like myself. I come into contact with people all the time who want to make a food product and don't know where to start. And there are some general rules that I've designed that I think are really effective across products, that I thought midway through last year, I need to put this into a book. And then, anybody who wants to make a food product can pick it up, read it, understand, great, this is where I start, this is the expert I need, actually, I could probably figure that out on my own, and realize their dreams. Because I feel like everyone wants to figure out how to get something in market.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Yeah, I think that's really awesome, and it's really nice too because I feel like you've had this innate passion for food, but you've also understood the science. And most people who are creating these brands aren't really scientists, which is not a knock at all, but it's nice to be able to understand the scientific combination or composition with a story, if anything.
Laura Katz:
And when it comes to making the food product, it's easy to make a mistake that then makes you feel like you can't go and realize that dream. And there's, I think, just a couple pretty straightforward rules, that if you know how to follow them, you can make your product successful. And I'd love to see a world where there's more small business products on the market and available than just mass market product. And if we can enable that in some capacity, that's part of my future goal for myself that I hope I can do and help a lot of people with.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Yeah, I think it'll be a great book. And even if people don't want to make a product, I think it's still cool to be able to understand the science and the art of cooking.
Laura Katz:
Yeah.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Obviously, you hold many hats in the food world. You're not only a scientist, you're a founder, but you're also an adjunct professor at NYU, and I'm really curious to hear what courses you're teaching right now, and how are you feeling about the future of food when you're talking to your students or other people who are in that academic community?
Laura Katz:
So, right now, I'm not teaching a course because I've had a baby about a year and a half ago, so I-
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Congratulations.
Laura Katz:
Thank you. He's now a toddler, so he's not... We call him a baby, but he's not a baby.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Yeah. He'll always be a baby to you.
Laura Katz:
He'll always be a baby. And so, I had to taper that off at that moment with baby, and Helaina, and everything. But I taught a couple different classes at NYU, the main class that I was teaching though was food science and technology. It was a very basic and straightforward food science class for students, typically in the nutrition program, and I would say something that was really interesting that I saw year over year that I was teaching that class was just the rise in alternative diets that people ate. And this is so interesting to me, as somebody who, I stopped eating meat a long time ago, and from when I started teaching at NYU to when I finished teaching this class, there were such a range of diets that people were following.
And I think it speaks to just the way that the food industry is moving as a whole. And these are also highly educated students, who are in the world of nutrition, so it's something that they're thinking about often. But that was something I thought was really interesting. And we often had students who were really excited about making their own food products, and they would ask me about it, which was really nice to see. I've mentored a couple students for the products that they want to get to market, so that was a really fulfilling part of my role.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Do you have advice for anyone who's thinking about wanting to take a route in academia when it comes to food?
Laura Katz:
I would say that the world of food lives outside the classroom. There's an important role academia plays in food, in research, and education, but if you can explore that route while keeping your feet in the ground of the food industry in some capacity, and it doesn't need to be big, but having your ear to the ground for what's going on, I think that's the most valuable. What was valuable about me being able to teach at NYU was my experience in the industry, and bringing that to the classroom. I could talk about what's going on with the FDA because I was talking to the FDA. I could talk about new technologies in our food because not only are we building one, but I'm at conferences all the time, I'm talking to food companies, I get to connect with founders who are at the forefront of innovation in food.
And that is such an important thing to bring to class, because I always say to my students, you have to go get a job after this. You can continue in academia, but most of you are going to have to go get a job. And if you can know what that means from your professor who's living that every single day, then that's so important to impact how you think about the world. So, explore academia, it's an incredible environment, you get to meet and interact with really smart people, but don't leave the industry behind if you can try to stay connected.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
You have such great energy, and I feel like you seem very bubbly and you love the community aspect of building a company, how have you found community with other female founders and other female scientists as you've been building up Helaina?
Laura Katz:
It's hard. I'm a solo founder, so it's just me. It's actually funny, I was in an Uber yesterday in San Francisco, and only in San Francisco would my Uber driver ask me all the details about my business. And he was like, you're a solo founder, that's very rare. And so, I know that with that, I have to make more of an effort to connect with people. And that's not always easy when you have back-to-back meetings, 8:00 AM to 7:00 PM every day, and there's a baby at home, and you have to have a life. Walk outside, try to exercise-
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Hobbies, yeah.
Laura Katz:
Hobbies. For me, it's cook, I need to be able to have time to cook on the weekends. And so, there's different ways that I've been able to connect with female founders in food. There's a group, a women in food tech group that I'm a part of, where we have regular meetings. I've been able to just build individual relationships with people, so when folks are in New York, I can meet up with them. We can meet up at conferences, we can have dinners. I'd say I'd really like to do more of that, because I'm somebody who, when I'm really focused, I can easily shut out the outside world. So, I don't prioritize things that aren't going to advance my business-
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Advance your professional career.
Laura Katz:
... advance my career, and do something for my family. And so, that's not necessarily a healthy way to think, and I know that in order to be able to relate better, having more female founders around me would be interesting. And I think to me, something that I'd love to figure out how to do, and I don't know where to start, would be to connect to people, not just in the food tech world, but around food. Because there's so many, especially New York, incredible women in food, that feel so distant because maybe they're in culinary, or maybe they're in editorial, or they're in different parts of the food industry, but we all need to be coming together, and I probably seem foreign to them. So, I'd love to figure out how to make that happen because there's so many women I admire here in New York City that I would just fangirl if I got to talk to them.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Yeah. And I would love to ask, food scientists, I feel like we don't get to see much of, but we obviously experience their products in and out. What do you think the future is for food scientists, especially for women in that particular niche of the industry?
Laura Katz:
I think there are going to be more food scientist celeb women coming out, as opposed to just chefs. Or at least I would hope so. I think we glamorize really successful female chefs, as we should, and there's so many successful women. We think about food as the experience we have in a restaurant, but that person who put the product in your fridge or on your shelf is also probably brilliant, and thinking about so many important things in relation to your food. And so, I'm hoping that we can shine a light as an industry on those people more, and understand what they're thinking when it comes to food.
I would say, for the industry, I'm really hoping that food, technology, and science starts to focus on nutrition and bioactive nutrition. When I say bioactive, things that impact our biology, that are going to make us healthier. Because as much as we can celebrate food, it's right now the cause of so much pain for people, of so much unhealth, and if we can refocus what that means for our population, I hope that using science, it can be a tool to make our food healthier.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
I do hope we have more female food scientists, well, just female everything in general.
Laura Katz:
Yeah.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
And just to wrap it all up, how do you hope that your work with Helaina, and just your existence as a professor, as a scientist, as a founder, inspires people who want to continue to make impact in food?
Laura Katz:
I hope that my story can show people that you don't need to have any business experience to build the business that you want in food, that you don't need to have a network, you don't need to have money, you don't need to have any of these things. I had none of those things.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Just a little money.
Laura Katz:
I worked in the food industry... When I started in Helaina, I wasn't making a big salary. And so, I had to figure out how do I save enough money, in New York City, to quit my day job, and then have a little bit to live until I can raise money for Helaina. And I had $15,000 that I'd saved.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Wow.
Laura Katz:
And I made that last seven months, which is pretty insane in New York, but that was what I had to do. And I didn't have a network, but I just started trying to talk to people. And I didn't know anything about business, but I read books, I asked people question, I would say, hey, can I take you for coffee and just ask you about your business? And was able to build Helaina, and we still have a lot to do and a long way to go, but I hope by sharing this, people know that it doesn't need to be a technical science company, it doesn't need to be the most complicated business model. It could be that you really want to start selling cupcakes out of your home. And you don't need to be an expert to do that, if it's something you're passionate about, and you can do a lot of Googling... I'd say you have to become an expert Googler, you can figure it out.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Laura, thank you so much for joining us. If we want to continue to support you, where are the best places to find you?
Laura Katz:
You can follow me on Instagram @LauraHelaina. Helaina is actually my middle name.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Oh, very cool.
Laura Katz:
Yeah. And on LinkedIn. Then, you can follow our journey on our website, Helaina.com, we'll have something on the website where you can put your information in so you can get regular updates. Follow us there, and just know that there's going to be a few exciting things coming out about Helaina this year in 2024.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Yes. Well, we can't wait to try them all. Awesome. Thanks so much.
Laura Katz:
Thank you.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
Before we go, our guest is going to leave a voicemail just talking to themselves 10 years from now. You have reached The Future Of Food Is You mailbox, please leave your message after the beep.
Laura Katz:
Hey, future Laura, I hope that right now you've realized your vision to bring bioactive human proteins to every baby and adult in the world, and that these proteins are really materially changing health for babies, for women during pregnancy, through the aging population, and that everything that you've hoped to be able to change nutrition has come to fruition at this time. I also hope that you've started the process, or maybe you're already there, with creating your specialty food store, that you've become Ina Garten in some capacity, and that you've been able to bring your passion of feeding people at a more community level to the every day of your life. And I would say the last thing I hope for is that you have that pool in the background, and that you get to have pool parties like you did as a kid, and hopefully next to the pool you have a pizza oven, and you're consistently making pizza, breads, bagels, all of those things for the people in your life.
Abena Anim-Somuah:
That's it for today's show. I would love for you to leave a rating and review on Apple Podcast, or Spotify, or wherever you listen to our show. Thank you to Kerrygold for supporting our show. The Future Of Food Is You as a production of The Cherry Bombe Podcast Network. Thanks to the team at CityVox Studios, Executive Producers Kerry Diamond and Catherine Baker, Associate Producer Jenna Sadhu, and Editorial Assistant Londyn Crenshaw. Catch you on the future flip.