S4 Ep17: The Launch of VegTech™ Plant-based Innovation & Climate ETF with Elysabeth Alfano
“You can have animal-based proteins without any animals involved at all and you’re going to get the exact same taste without intensive animal farming.” — Elysabeth Alfano
BREAKING NEWS!
The first plant-based innovation and climate ETF is here!
Plant-Powered Consulting founder Elysabeth Alfano and plant-based investor Sasha Goodman have launched VegTech Invest to serve as a platform for value-driven investors to support companies that innovate plant-based food and ingredients.
VegTech: The Global Vegan Impact and Innovation Index lists and tracks companies that take the lead in removing animal products from the market. Currently, there are 21 companies on the list. As the list goes public, Elysabeth hopes that more and more companies will be inspired to join.
This week, Justine and Elysabeth discuss the motivation behind VegTech and what you can expect from the plant-based industry in 2022 and beyond. Tune in and learn how you can invest in a better world for humans, animals, and the earth.
Connect with Elysabeth:
Elysabeth Alfano is an award-winning media personality, the founder of Plant Powered Consulting, and a keen investor. As one of the foremost plant-based business experts in North America, Elysabeth regularly delivers analysis and commentary about the latest plant-based developments and trends on major media outlets. She hosts the Plantbased Business Hour, the Awesome Vegans Influencer Series, and her weekly syndicated radio show, Plant-based Life and Style with Elysabeth Alfano.
Conneect with EATV: VegTech Plant-Based Innovation and Climate ETF:
Episode Highlights:
02:22 The First Plant-Based Innovation ETF
04:57 What is ETF?
07:10 Be a Plant of the Plant-based Craze
09:05 The Plant-Based Industry 2022 and Beyond
Resources:
Essential Ingredients S3 Episode 7: Is Animal Agriculture on Its Way Out? with Elysabeth Alfano
Inspirational Quotes:
06:16 “Investing is not for everyone. Investing involves risk. Principal loss is possible. The fund's investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses must be considered carefully before investing.” -Elysabeth Alfano
09:09 “It used to be ‘all plant-based one flavor fits all’ and now, it's splintering off for different groups.” -Elysabeth Alfano
09:59 “You can have animal-based proteins without any animals involved at all and you're going to get the exact same taste without intensive animal farming.” -Elysabeth Alfano
Transcriptions:
Justine Reichman: Good afternoon, and welcome to Essential Ingredients. I'm Justine Reichman, your host. Today with me is Elysabeth Alfano, returning guest, plant based industry expert. Welcome back, Elysabeth.
Elysabeth Alfano: Hi, Justine, thanks for having me.
Justine Reichman: Thank you so much for joining us. I'm so glad to have you back to hear what's going on in your world, and to get an update for you.
Elysabeth Alfano: So busy. First of all, it's great to see you. I know that this isn't going to go out until 2023. But Happy New Year to everybody.
Justine Reichman: You're racing the podcast.
Elysabeth Alfano: My word? Well, because they have such big plans for 2022. It's going to go by in a flash. Happy New Year to everybody. Hope everyone is excited about 2022 as much as I am. And I can't wait to hear what you have on the docket, Justine. But I do have to say that my plate is very full. It's been a super busy.
Justine Reichman: Yeah, I think it's busy for everyone. I think everyone's looking forward to 2022. How can we not be?
Elysabeth Alfano: Yes.
Justine Reichman: I think that we're all optimistic about the future, or at least we're hoping that the future has good things in store. So for those that are not familiar with Elysabeth, many of you are, because she is a returning guest. And those of you that are familiar with her, obviously, because she is who she is. I mean, she has her own podcast she makes for herself. She's an expert in her industry. But for those of you that have not heard of her or been with us before, Elysabeth, would you just introduce yourself a little bit so those listening can get a little bit of a background on you.
Elysabeth Alfano: So I'm a plant-based business consultant. My company, Plant-Powered Consulting, helps brands navigate the plant-based landscape back can be large multinational corporations that are looking for industry trends, looking to understand where the markets going to keep their pulse on where the new trends are going to be consumer habits, how they're changing, what we're going to see in-store, etc. That can also be the smaller company that's just launching and trying to find their way with their branding deck, their communication strategy, their press strategy. And sometimes, it's somewhere in between when people just say, hey, would you accompany me and really introduce me to those that are the thought leaders in the industry because they're trying to make those connections. So in lots of different ways. I help different brands either through my own thought leadership and keeping a finger on the pulse, or just through some tactical PR kind of marketing stuff, which is so fun. And then weekly live on LinkedIn, on my LinkedIn page every Tuesday at 1:00 PM, pacific time. I host The Plantbased Business Hours. So that's a really wonderful way if you happen to be new to the plant-based space to hear the leaders in the industry who are really shaping the plant-based world. And it used to be two or three years ago, being plant-based was enough. And now, you're seeing so much competition in the space that plant-based actually isn't enough.
Are you plant-based on your brand? Meaning, are you plant-based for moms who want to have healthier children? Are you plant-based for millennials who are taking a stand for the environment? Are you plant-based because you're older and interested in your health? Are you plant-based just because you want to be whole food plant-based and have cleaner eating habits? All these things are part of the consumer dynamic that are happening out there. So those two things combined, do keep me very busy. But I must say I have some breaking news. My partner and I, Sasha Goodman and I have launched the VegTech Plant-based Innovation and Climate ETF. We believe it to be the very first pure play in plant-based innovation in the ETF market. So we're very excited to have an opportunity for the average individual who reads the headlines and sees, oh, my gosh, there's so many people investing in this space, and I want to be a part of it. But they can't do venture investing, which is usually a quite high threshold. They have the opportunity should they wish to participate in the public markets with a fund that aligns with their values. So we are very excited and proud, I think to, I can say, to bring what we believe to be the first plant-based innovation ETF in the space.
And what we mean by plant-based innovation is those companies that are innovating with at least one plant ingredient or plant derived ingredient and producing animal-free products that are going to have a better impact on the environment, climate change, obviously animal welfare, even human health and food insecurity. So we're very excited.
Justine Reichman: That's big news, exciting news. I just want to clarify for those listening that are not familiar with what ETF is, can you just break that down for those listeners?
“Investing is not for everyone. Investing involves risk. Principal loss is possible. The fund's investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses must be considered carefully before investing.” -Elysabeth Alfano
Elysabeth Alfano: Sure. Thanks. So ETF means Exchange Traded Fund. And you can go to, maybe people have heard of Fidelity, or Schwab, or Ameritrade, or even Robinhood right on your phone. When people go and they trade in the public markets, some people might want to buy an individual stock, and others might say, gosh, I really want to have a more diversified exposure to the market so I'd rather have something like an Exchange Traded Fund, which at any one point in time could have 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 depending on the fund, different companies in it. And so by buying an exchange traded fund, so buying one entity, they get exposure to many different companies at the same time, and mitigate their risk, and it's a lot easier to execute. So they like it for those reasons. And now, others don't, others prefer to really pick stocks themselves. And so it's a flavor for a certain kind of person, but it does make it easier for those interested in that and they can get it on the public markets. I should say that our ticker is E-A-T, like eat, V for YegTech.
So VegTech Plant-based Innovation and Climate ETF. But now, if I ever mentioned the fund like I have just done, then I also want to read disclosures about investing. Because for sure, it is not for everyone. Investing involves risk. Principle loss is possible. The fund's investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses must be considered carefully before investing the prospectus and the summary prospectus contain this and other important information about VegTech invest and our VegTech Plant-based Innovation and Climate ETF. And it may be obtained by visiting E-A-T-V, eatv.vegtechinvest.com. Read it carefully before investing. I do want everyone to know the risks of investing.
Justine Reichman: Well, I'm so glad that you shared that with us. That is really big news. It is big news, I have to say. I had no idea that that's what you were going to share here today, and I'm so pleased that you did. I'd love to know, I know this is a short update for us and we only have a few minutes, but I just love to know, how long has this been in the works?
Elysabeth Alfano: Oh, my word. So about nine months ago, I started getting many inquiries about, how can I invest in the public markets? How can I be a part of the plant based craze? I want in, tell me what to do? And I thought, well, I can't tell you what to do. So I was trying to help people, but I kept seeing this request so I thought, well, I'm gonna start making a list for people. And I put together a list with my partner, Sasha Goodman, nothing formal, nothing like an operational index, nothing, just a list to help people get information. I put the list out as sort of like, oh, here's a loose index. And if it's helpful, I hope you like it. Well, people were calling my home phone, they were finding my cell phone. I don't even know how they were doing this. They were saying, I see this list, tell me which ones I should buy? Or what should I do? And I said, Well, I'm not going to do that. I'm miserable. I don't want to buy them individually. I'm not sure what to do, please make an ETF. Please do this for me. We got so many requests that we finally thought, well, okay, I guess we'll have to make an ETF for these plant-based values-oriented folks who are also interested in investing and they didn't see a product for themselves in the market. So we've been working on it the last nine months. And I do want to say my partner is such a good man. He's a wonderful person, we have worked so hard, there are a lot of regulatory hoops to go through. It's not an easy process. So it has been nine months in the workings.
Justine Reichman: Wow. Well, congratulations on that. I can't wait to read more about that and look into that. That's very exciting news.
Elysabeth Alfano: Yes, it is big news, and we're very excited for what 2022 can bring to us. I think in the plant base space in general, not just my exciting news, but I think you're going to see a lot of exciting developments on the plant-based horizon. So everybody, stay tuned for that as well.
Justine Reichman: And with that, just keeping that in mind, what do you see as the big things that we're going to see in the industry in 2022?
“It used to be ‘all plant-based one flavor fits all’ and now, it's splintering off for different groups.” -Elysabeth Alfano
Elysabeth Alfano: Yeah, so much. I think it's gonna, right now, I think I was saying it used to be all plant-based. It was kind of one flavor fits all. And now, you've got these, it's growing so much that it's splintering off into plant-based for older, for younger, for different groups. So I do think that's going to continue, and that all of these funnels are going to do well, the whole food plant base is going to do well, vegan junk food, and come from food is going to do well. I also think what you're going to see is fermented proteins really take center stage. I think they're going to grab a lot of the press. When I say fermented proteins, what I mean is technology that currently already exists. We use it to create insulin where you take genes from a cell. And for lack of a better expression, just over simplifying here, you map those onto a microbe and the microbe can read the genes and know what to do with them, and it will start to grow the protein that formerly used to grow in an animal, now it can grow outside of an animal so you can have that animal based proteins without ever having factory farming or any animals involved at all. And so you're going to get the exact same taste in milk, you're going to get the exact same taste in cheese because you're going to have all the ingredients for cheese and milk without having to do the intensive farming and animal products and animals. You will have the animal product though. So it's really interesting to wrap your mind around, you will have the exact same animal product with no animal. So that's going to be very interesting. It's going to take all the headlines. It's still going to be a while before it comes to market. But I think by the end of 2022, you're going to be hearing about all these private little tastings, the products are going to start coming to market, and that's going to be big news.
“You can have animal-based proteins without any animals involved at all and you're going to get the exact same taste without intensive animal farming.” -Elysabeth Alfano
Justine Reichman: Well, Elysabeth, thank you so much for this. I'm so grateful that you shared this news with us. And I'm excited to share with our community after January 4, thank you.
Elysabeth Alfano: Yeah. Well, thanks for having me, Justine, it's always great to see you. It's always great to catch up with you. We have good conversations every time we're here, so always happy to be with you.
Justine Reichman: So thanks so much for joining us. I want to thank our guests for tuning in. We'll keep you up to date on what Elysabeth is up to because she's always up to something new and exciting. Elysabeth, if anyone wanted to get in touch with you to learn more about this new venture that you have, or connect with you for your consulting efforts, what's the best way to connect?
Elysabeth Alfano: I always say, just come find me on LinkedIn. It sure is an easy place--
Justine Reichman: Call your home phone?
Elysabeth Alfano: No, please don't do that. I had to like, yeah, no, unless, please don't go on the phone. But you can come find me on LinkedIn, you can always go to vegtechinvest.com. If you want more information about the management company that we have that advises the ETF, you can always go to eatv.vegtechinvest.com. Find me on LinkedIn. And don't forget, you can subscribe to The Plant-based Business hour wherever you get your podcast.
Justine Reichman: Awesome. Thank you so much, Elysabeth, and thank you all for tuning in. We'll be here again next week. And again, you can always download us at iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcast. Thank you so much.
